From the deck, no filter, just purely gorgeous November colors! I DO love a sunset, don’t you?
Spectacular Sunset Photo
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Category Archives: Beaches, Mostly Carlsbad
Paprika, My Manatee
Out of the blue, the Original Angel Boy gave me an extremely thoughtful gift; a bracelet from Fahlo that donates to and and tracks wildlife. I love a gift that gives back!
These beautiful beads track my very own manatee, Paprika. Manatees are so adorable, aren’t they?
Right now you can see that Paprika is somewhere in Florida.
(Of course I want another one that tracks a Red Wolf.)
There are so many cool animals to collect and track: elephants, whales, sea turtles, sloths, giraffes, and more. Check out their website: Fahlo.com
“We partner with nonprofits to foster curiosity for wildlife and excitement for their conservation. Our mission began in 2018, and we have since donated over $3 million to protect our planet’s most at-risk animals and their habitats.”
About The Manatee:
–The scientific name for manatees is Sirenia, derived from the Greek Sirens, the dangerous sea nymphs who lured sailors with song, drawing them and their vessels into the rocky shores.
–Manatees live in shallow, calm rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas. The Florida manatee frequents most areas of Florida. During the summer months a few travel as far north as Virginia and the Carolinas.
–Manatees are mammals like walruses and seals, which they most closely resemble in shape, but they are not related. In fact, the manatees closest living relative is the elephant!
–Manatees have a mouthful of teeth but they don’t bite. They use their teeth to munch on seagrass and other plant life. They are big eaters, the ocean’s largest herbivore, they can measure almost 14 feet long and weigh as much as 3,000 pounds.
–Manatees are gentle creatures and have no natural predators. In fact, even alligators give them the right-of-way. Humans are the biggest threat to manatees, via boating collisions and propeller injuries, as well as threats to their habitat and water quality.
(This is a personal review oI something I think is an adorable gift; I did not receive compensation or free product.)
Vibrant Pacific Northwest
Here’s a tour of the dramatic, colorful state of Washington:
Check out the Northern Lights (My son took these pics of the Aurora Borealis, not me)
A spectacular sunset, no filters needed:
Leaves in full color; red…
…and yellow:
So very green, the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest:
Morning blues:
Evening; a kaleidoscope of colors during sundown on the Salish Sea:
Surfing and Cartwheeling
Do you remember your firsts?
I do. I remember my first ballet class, my first pair of pointe shoes, my first ski trip along with my best ride down Stump Alley at Mammoth, and even my first bra, lolz
Not having grown up on the west coast, I didn’t have a connection to the ocean until high school.
I recall my first time on a surfboard…it did NOT go well, and I almost broke my nose. This was not the sport for me. Decades later, I gave it another try. Once again, it didn’t go well. I ended up rolling and rolling under some giant NOT BEGINNER waves, and the next day I was covered in the ugliest bruises. That was IT for me.
Angel Girl takes gymnastics and was obsessed with cartwheels. Tenacious girl that she is, she tried and practiced and kept at it until the mechanics of a cartwheel finally clicked and she perfected it. “Watch me, Grandma!” “See, I can do it now!”
What an amazing sense of accomplishment and mastery of a difficult skill. “Great job, girl!”
Even though we live so close to the ocean, the original Angel Boy didn’t really like to surf, mainly because without his glasses, he can’t see a thing, and it was a scary endeavor unless he had a buddy with him. He’d boogie board a lot, but never really got into surfing until he started wearing contacts.
Now he has a quiver of boards here and at his house, too.
To encourage AB 2.0, he’s been taken along for (gentle) rides on a surfboard since he was about a year old.
This past weekend, it finally clicked for him, too. He stood up and surfed his first legit wave!
This is a bad photo because I took it from the video, but I can feel T’s sense of pride. It didn’t matter that it was a small wave: HE DID IT, and OMG, he’s a carbon copy of his dad.
Predictably, you couldn’t get him out of the water after that. He’s completely hooked, and now Dad has a lifelong surfing buddy. As an aside, is there anything cuter than a little grom in a wetsuit?
I hope they never forget these significant firsts, and since we have video of all of it, I can imagine they’ll show their own children these amazing accomplishments.
Grandma pride RULES!
Hearts and Sons
My son is the classic dictionary definition of an absent minded professor (which he is). His beautiful brain has multiple trains of thought all speeding along at the same time, so sometimes, day-to-day mundane tasks fall by the wayside.
It was early morning and he had returned from a dawn patrol surf sesh. We were having a lively “discussion” about where to put his surfboard…”Mom, Mom, I’m going to leave it right here, don’t worry. I’m going to surf later, too.”
Whenever he says “don’t worry”, there’s an eighty to one hundred percent chance that it’s something I SHOULD worry about. I learned that after forty-three years of being his mom.
I told him I’d prefer it if he took the extra few minutes to put it away in the garage where it belongs.
This discussion took place as we’re standing in the driveway. It could have been today or a couple decades ago; some things never change!
We were at an impasse. Hands on my hips, I stubbornly stuck to my position that the surfboard needed to go back where it belongs or I would end up trying to lift up a longboard that’s twice my size. Something would break; either the board or me.
Finally, I said, “Look how much time you’re wasting. If you had simply put it up instead of trying to convince me to allow you to leave the surfboard in the way, you’d already be in the house eating your breakfast burrito!”
Well, that’s the kind of logic that works with him. He finally put his board away. Like I told him his entire life, he should take his arguing and debating skills and become a lawyer like his grandfather.
As we wrapped up a twenty minute negotiation, I looked down and found this perfectly formed heart leaf. I took a picture, picked it up, brought it in the house, and I’m looking for a suitable frame while my (annoying) child inhales his breakfast.
It’s all about love. It always has been, and always will be. That child IS my heart, whether he’s being annoying or not.
My Wish For You
I hope everybody survived the powerful energies of the 8/8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal! It was intense, wasn’t it? And still is…
I always return to the simple things to realign myself on life’s journey; a little course correction of some vitamin sea at the beach with sand and seashells.
Art by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
Quote by Nicollete Sowder
Text over art by Enchanted Seashells
Seashells in Bloom 🐚
From Casa de Enchanted Seashells….Happy Father’s Day to all the good dads in the world! 🐚
Whether it’s a Chanel or a seashell, they both bring me joy.
Since I’m woefully allergic to most cut flowers like roses and stargazer lilies, I’m rarely able to have vases full of sweet smelling blooms to decorate every room, but I do have hundreds of seashell treasures, collected by me or presented as gifts.
This is the very last freesia of the season; she’s so precious that I had to bring her in so I could marvel over her color and fragrance, but I had to place far away her from me or I’d start sneezing. As you can see, she’s happily resting among a few of my other seashell friends.
I’ve never really figured out why I love seashells as much as I do, but I learned that some people associate seashells with love and fertility. Some also believe they represent the safe journey between the physical and spiritual world, while seashell jewelry is supposed to bring good luck and to protect the spirit of the wearer.
I’m not super creative like everyone on Etsy and Pinterest, but I do like to embellish almost everything with shells and rocks.
Here’s how to make the seashell bouquet:
- Get craft sticks of all sizes; I even used chopsticks.
- If you don’t have a glue gun, get one! I can’t live without mine, that’s for sure. For this project, you don’t have to be perfect, obvs you need to use more glue for the heavier starfish.
- Florist’s foam (the green stuff) makes it really easy to place the sticks exactly where you want them and they’ll be stable.
I’m pleased with the results.
I liked the idea of a seashell bouquet so much that I made another one; more rustic, in a vintage frog vase (Majolica? McCoy?) from an antique store. This time I used sticks from the garden to attach the seashells.
And because I was inspired by the seashell bouquets, I started a more intense project. With my handy glue gun and a lot of glue sticks, this entry mirror took a longer to complete than I thought it would, but I’m happy with the outcome.
From The Beach
What sparks joy? Two beach visits in the same day, one in the morning and one as the sun set.
No whales or dolphins I’m sad to report; but it was still a gorgeous spring morning in SoCal.
Later, the ocean was wild and loud and exhilarating.
A close up pic of the holes in the coastal beach bluff, where I sat during high tide.
Sunset surf sesh. The line of surfers parallel the horizon.
All photo credit to Enchanted Seashells.
Vitamin Sea Therapy
“The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.”
–Langston Hughes
There was a high surf advisory and I really wanted to see the big waves which were supposed to peak on Sunday, breaking 6-9 with 10-12 foot sets.
More rain is on the way, but the ocean was electric with healing energy. The beach was packed with surfers and onlookers. I took a lot of pics and sent them to the original Angel Boy to make him feel bad for missing out on a great surf sesh, ‘cos that’s the kind of mom I am, haha.
“I need the sea because it teaches me.”
–Pablo Neruda
“The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.”
–Vladimir Nabokov
“The sea cures all ailments of man.”
– Plato
“But the sea which no one tends is also a garden.”
–William Carlos Williams
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea,
whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath…”
–Herman Melville
“Protecting the ocean is not just about saving marine life; it’s about safeguarding our own future. Our fate is intimately connected to the health of the ocean.”
–Greta Thunberg
If Thoughts Were Clouds
If thoughts were clouds…what would these say?
As I cleaned up the garden from leaves and branches and other debris, I looked up and snapped a photo of the very last of the clouds from that atmospheric rain event that brought us four+ inches of rain in a short period of time.
It’s warm and the sun is drying out the soggy earth.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 