3 Cool Things to Kickoff the New Year

For those who don't know me personally, 2010 & 2011 were pretty rough years for me in a lot of ways. Fortunately, I'm happy to report, 2012 has started off with lots of good news!

1) I won a book giveaway recently of Lori Deschene's new book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions (see below)

Lori runs a terrific "little" blog over at Tiny Buddha that is jam packed with all kinds of great posts from people from all walks of life who share what they have learned about life's challenges with the Tiny Buddha community. No, I am not being paid to endorse her website or her book, lol.

2)  I found out that my rent is NOT going to go up when the lease expires! W00t!

and last, but not least...

3) My own little "angels on earth" have given me the opportunity to travel to another state to meet up with several friends who are flying in from all over the country and abroad to attend a certain event next month. I can't say more than that right now, but I'll pass along some deets (details) afterwards, and maybe some pictures if you promise to behave yourselves. ;-)

Hope your New Year is also off to a great start! Till later...

Ciao, babies!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Just a quick note to wish everyone a very happy holiday season, whatever you may be celebrating, or not, as the case may be. Stay safe, warm and take care of each other. I'll leave you today with a couple of photos of my dog, and my lighthouse all prettied up and/or decked out for the season!

Okay, I didn't go all out this year, but it's something, lol.

Catch you on the flip side!

 

Ninja

Introducing the newest pet addition to our family: Ninja!



Ninja was a stray kitten that my mom found living wild in her neighborhood not long ago. She was a teeny, tiny thing at the time, and was initially terrified of everyone who came near her. It took several weeks before my mom could get close enough to catch her (of course it helped that my mom left food for her every day.) ;-)

Ninja is actually the second name that she's had since she came to live with my mom. Originally she was being called Nebula, but after observing her behavior for a couple of weeks, and noticing her penchant for leaping out and pouncing on people who never saw it coming, my brother changed her name to Ninja. 

Ninja is the youngest of my mom's three pets. She shares the abode and my mom's love with Fancy, an Abyssinian cat, and Trixie, a Boston Terrier dog.

Fancy

Trixie

Fancy is about 12 years old and spends much of her time sleeping these days, so Ninja doesn't have much of a playmate in her, unfortunately.

Trixie, however, is about 5 or 6 and is still very playful. Full of attitude, too. That dog will sass anybody who does anything she doesn't like. I got an earful this past weekend for sitting in my mom's recliner and choosing not to recline so she could jump up and sit next to me. I've got some nerve, don't I?

I do have a pet of my own, called Coxie. She is a Cockapoo, and very, very sweet. She is about 12 or 13 now, and like Fancy, also spends a great deal of time sleeping these days. She can play hard for about 2 or 3 minutes, but then she needs to sleep it off, lol. Below is one of my favorite pictures of her, taken in 2006.

The lovely and beloved Coxie.

There and Back Again....A Lighthouse Tale (with apologies to Tolkien)

Greetings All!

Last Saturday I put on my Adventure Girl Pants and drove up to Ponce Inlet to see and climb the tallest lighthouse in Florida, aptly named the Ponce Inlet Light Station (sometimes simplicity really is best in naming things.)

Ponce Inlet was completed in 1887, and sports a 203-step climb to the top in a tight spiral staircase, which is most decidedly built for one-way traffic. Happily there are landings between “floors” where people can stand aside and let traffic pass before proceeding.

The view of the staircase from ground level looking up. Dizzy time, baby!

I DID make it to the top, in case you are wondering, and paid the price for a few days with super sore leg muscles, although I am happy to report my muscles have fully recovered! :-)

My fellow climbers were of all ages, including an 81-year old grandmother, and a young mom with babe in arms. I don’t know how she managed the last flight of steps with the baby, as those were extremely steep! She was extremely brave, or perhaps crazy.

At the top, I was treated to a glorious view! The weather was perfect and I could see for miles! The ocean was a magnificent shade of blue and I loved looking at the colorful homes and businesses around the beach. You can see some of the pictures below:

Doesn't that water look amazing?

This is the actual light currently in use at Ponce Inlet. We weren't allowed into the lantern room because the lighthouse is still an active aid to navigation, according to the sign below:

The Light Keeper's Evening Duty Routine, from January 1, 1870

After several minutes savoring the view, it was time to leave the high perch (alas) and descend back to ground level. It’s much quicker going down because you have gravity on your side. ;-) Upon exiting the lighthouse there was a smattering of applause from various people who were waiting on their loved ones to descend and were happy to see them arrive safely on foot, and not all of a sudden, if you get my meaning.

At this time I went on to explore the grounds. There were the homes of the first watch keeper, and the second watch keeper, made into museums with historical artifacts from back in the day, as well as a building dedicated to the lenses used in the lighthouse from the past and present, and a couple of other structures whose names elude me at the moment.

I took over 500 pictures, though, (it’s a sickness, I think), so it’s well-documented. Below is a Kedge anchor from circa 1830-1860.

On my way out, I took a mini stroll through the natural wooded area near the grounds. Some of the trees I saw would make for great a Halloween movie set. Very spooky!

Spooky trees. Oooo!

Coming out of the woods I saw the cat cemetery that contains the remains of five of the previous lighthouse cats through the years. The current lighthouse cat is named Nelly, and you can see her lovely portrait below. They adore Nelly there, and she even has her own line of merchandise in the gift shop! I purchased an “I ♥ Lighthouses” bumper sticker, and a lovely mermaid wall sculpture (shown below).

The lovely reigning lighthouse cat, Queen Nelly (well, I call her Queen), and, really, would any cat have it any other way?

Queen Nelly's predecessors



In all, I spent about three hours touring the lighthouse and grounds. It's one of those really neat day trips outside of Orlando that most tourists, unless they are lighthouse enthusiasts, don't know about. Admission is only $5, and you get a snazzy lighthouse bracelet as a souvenir (wink, wink), and an interesting history lesson of what life was like for the light keepers. I know they had to be physically fit. The lamp oil weighed about 40 pounds, and someone had to climb all 203 steps up every night with it. Impressed? Yeah, me, too!

My snazzy lighthouse bracelet souvenir, lol. I know you're jealous. ;-)



I'm afraid that wraps up my mini tour of the Ponce Inlet Light Station. There was a lot I didn't get into because I figured you might want to get on with your life right about now. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading, and if you get the chance, be sure to make the trip to see this lighthouse in person. It's worth the price of admission, and more! (No, I am not being paid to write this, lol.)



Birthday Shinies

Celebrated my birthday today! Not telling which one, though, lol.

I was blessed to receive many, many heartfelt greetings from friends and family members this year and thought I'd share a few of the birthday shinies from my big day. Here are some of the wonderful and funny cards I received...

Below are the lovely gifts I received from my mom. The first one is a Wedgwood breast cancer heart. My mom is a 12 year survivor, so this is near and dear to her own heart.



Up next is a lovely breast cancer bracelet.

...and the cute little keychain and flower pin that came on the package...

..and last, but not least from mom, a Paperwhite flower kit for the holidays

My very talented artist/photographer friend, Marsha, blessed me with some wonderful and thoughtful items, as well.

She knows I love lighthouses, so she sent me a picture of a lighthouse from her hometown in Kennewick, WA, and a lovely sunset, and a keychain. So beautiful! I'm afraid my picture of the pictures don't do them justice, but I think you'll get the idea.

Marsha & I both are huge David Garrett fans, so she put her mega sketching skills to work and created this oh-so-cool 2012 calendar for me and several other of our mutual friends who are also fans of his. I love, love, LOVE this calendar! Thank you, Marsha!

*Mwah!*

My super sweet friend, Heather, sent me a movie snack pack consisting of the following:

I, and my sweet tooth thank you profusely, m'dear!

I did also treat myself to a couple of things. I purchased David Garrett's new CD/DVD "Legacy" (which was released on what would have been my dad's birthday on Nov. 4), and my awesome friend Marion sent it over to me from Germany. Thank you for feeding my DG habit! ♥

My second gift to myself was this lovely book by Goddess Leonie Dawson, "73 Lessons Every Goddess Must Know." I adore this woman's writing and her free-spirited soul! You can check out her website here. No, I am not an affiliate. Just a fan of her work. :-)

A big thank you to everyone for making my day so special today! I'll leave you with a fabulous birthday video a friend sent to me.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Just a little birthday tribute to my dad! Hope you enjoy my little trip down memory lane.

Here's one of my dad's baby pictures. Grandma was kind enough to let me sort through hundreds of old pictures she had and choose my favorite ones. I didn't have any pictures of my dad when he was younger, so I chose several of those. I'm thinking the outfit he's wearing here is actually red checkered, rather than pink, but he did have lovely pink cheeks!

Here he is as a young boy. He looks sweet and innocent, doesn't he? ;-) Dad used to get into everything, grandma told me. One time he crawled up on the garage roof to play. He fell off and broke his arm in the shape of an "S." He ran into the kitchen and showed grandma, who was washing dishes at the time. "Look ma! S for Superman!" Grandma fainted. Tough little kid, wasn't he? He was lucky to have only broken his arm!

Don't know much about my dad as a teenager, but here are a couple of pictures of him from when he was about 15 years old. Seems to have enjoyed fishing at one time.

Being the eldest of six children, my dad occasionally got babysitting duty. My uncle told me a story about a time when my dad was left to babysit his younger siblings and decided his brothers needed haircuts. So he lined them all up on the porch outside, put cereal bowls on their heads, and proceeded to give them bowl haircuts. He never got the chance to do that again. But then again, knowing my dad, that was probably his plan all along.

When dad was old enough, he and one of his buddies went into town to join the Air Force. As it turned out, the Air Force recruiting office was closed that day, so they went next door and joined the Navy!

A few years after dad joined the Navy, he met my mom while he was out having a drink. He noticed her dancing and wanted to meet her. So after she sat down, he went over and started to chat her up. He told her he's an Arthur Murray dance instructor and she asked him to dance with her. They got out on the dance floor, where he proceeded to trample all over her toes. So much for that line, lol. Mom evidently found him charming enough, though, because they started dating and six weeks later, they were married.

The first place mom and dad lived as a couple was New London, CT. After that, they went to Paris, France, where I was born. Here's a picture of me with my dad when I was a few hours old.

....and another of me and dad when I was a bit older....

One thing I remember about dad was his pipes. He loved to smoke pipes and cigars. We all preferred the pipes, because they smelled so much better, and he used to make pipe cleaner animals for me and my brother (very cool!) Here he is smoking one of his many pipes. Wonder how that birthday cake tasted after that?

In the years that followed we lived in several places due to my dad's military career. Some time after my dad retired from the Navy, my parents separated and my mom, brother and I moved to Florida. We didn't get to see our dad very often after their separation, but he did come to each of our graduations, and also to my grandparent's 50th anniversary (his parents), which turned out to be the last time I ever saw him. He died a few years later due to complications from his long battle with alcoholism.

In spite of his problems, he was a good man at heart. He was a very good listener when I needed to vent about anything, and I inherited his somewhat wicked sense of humor, which is good or bad, depending on who you ask. ;-)

My dad swore he was no fan of pets, but all of our pets adored him, and one of our cats even had her kittens on his lap while he slept in his recliner. You can imagine his surprise! Still I think he really had a big 'ol soft spot in his heart for animals.

Well, that's about it for my trip down memory lane. Thank you for joining me!

Horsey Fever!

Moi, as a wee girl, riding my horsey!

Many moons ago when I was a wee girl, my parents bought me a beautiful bouncing plastic horse that I used to ride and ride and ride until someone pulled me off and made me go do something else (apparently the springs got irritating after an hour—go figure).

A few years later, I got into riding real horses. I blame my mother. ;) Actually, I am so grateful to her for exposing me to this sport. We were living in Rota, Spain at the time. We bought a beautiful gray gelding called Diablo. He was ¾ Arabian and ¼ something else. Diablo did sort of live up to his name, in that he was a bit of a devil to deal with if he decided he didn’t want to do anything. You try moving a 900 lb horse if he doesn’t want to budge—and I was a 10-year-old kid at the time!

Diablo had once been a dressage horse, so his favorite thing to do instead of almost anything else was dressage. I’d be trying to get him to jump over a low jump and he’d start prancing and dancing around. It was beautiful, but just not what I wanted him to do. I had to work hard to get him to canter, too. That horse had the fastest trot known to man and I learned pretty quickly not to ride Diablo on a full stomach. He simply would not canter if he wasn’t in the mood. Not for me, at any rate. Mom was a no-nonsense rider, so she got him to do things I could only dream of.

Diablo and I eventually came to terms with each other, and I was able to progress quite nicely as a rider with English and Western saddles, as well as a bareback pad when I felt especially brave, or suicidal, as the case may be. We even competed in the local rodeos and Gymkhana’s at the stables where he was boarded and did quite well. They were no major grand and glorious competitions, but it still meant the world to me when I brought home ribbons and trophies, and I think he actually enjoyed competing.

Thinking back now, I wish I knew more about his previous life as a dressage horse and whether he competed in that discipline. Possibly his stubbornness to do what we wanted him to do was simply his misinterpreting what signals we thought we were giving him. A gentle kick here, or applying pressure with the knees there may mean something specific to a dressage horse. Ah, the things I still have to learn!

We had other adventures, too. Most of the time when I rode him it was an extremely pleasant and exhilarating experience, but there were those occasional bad days. One day we were out riding around the campo, and evidently we crossed an invisible property line and trespassed on someone’s private property. Next thing I knew someone was shooting a rifle! I didn’t stop to check if they were aiming at us or just firing up into the air, nor did Diablo. I barely had the “g” in giddyup out and he was a dot on the horizon! We carefully avoided that area of the campo after that.

We had less-harrowing and occasionally gross adventures in the jumping ring. In the early days before Diablo understood or took me seriously as a rider, I’d be trying to get him to turn one way to line up for a jump, and he went the other, throwing me to the ground just inches from a pile of manure. I swear that horse could smirk! I preferred his dressage steps to that mess!

Another time we had just finished the Grand Opening for the rodeo and were leaving the ring. Diablo accidentally cut too close to the large steel post as we were running out and I smashed my left knee on it. I screamed and my dad came running out and pulled me off the horse and carried me back to the car. At the hospital I had to have my knee drained of a lot of fluid. By this time Diablo and I had bonded pretty well and I think he actually felt horrible about it. He was very gentle and careful after that.

One of the traditions of the stable where we boarded Diablo was that when a rider had a birthday, a birthday posse would be formed. The posse would seek out the person with the birthday, pick them up and carry them to the water trough. The birthday girl or boy would naturally be fighting like mad to get away, but they never did. The posse would take the person’s boots off, and hat if they were wearing one, and then dunk them in the trough. Then they gave them a hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and left them to squish around in wet clothes for the rest of the day. I know I hated it and I can only imagine how the horses felt about it.

So now, all these years later, I’ve been bitten by the horse bug once again thanks to a lovely dressage horse called Blue Hors Matine. Again, I have to blame my mother. She forwarded this link to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw . If you haven’t seen it, you’re horribly deprived and you must rectify it immediately!

Fortunately for my finances, common sense prevails and I realize I cannot currently afford to own a horse, so will settle for the video, and perhaps volunteering at a local service organization that specializes in helping children with disabilities to ride horses. Where there's a will...