I've been a bad blogger...

I know ... random much? Ha! I do so love this picture tho. Me sainted gran-da would be tellin' me "Now that's how you drink The Guinness me love" 

So where have i been?   Training non stop at the new job working all kinds of funky hours. Then there was Christmas, and the loss of some wonderful people who all passed away too soon.

Travels home for the holidays and visits from friends and family here. Sometimes when I get home at night my brain is so fried it's all I can do to talk to the dogs. BUT i noticed the change in my moods, the need to express being stymied. I bought journals and never wrote in them. I took pictures I never shared. I spent way too much time on facebook or watching Investigation discovery channel or NCIS and found myself numbing out instead of focusing on what was good and important.

Broke , as usual, I found myself wondering how I could be so poor when I was working 40 hours a week and when I was on unemployment I could make ends meet. It's a sad state of affairs and one that can be changed... but only I have the power to do that. After 2 years of not working a secure steady job I have now found one, but the joy of living at the beach means that the pay is 50% less. 


I haven't been writing when i should because my free time, my muse if you will,has been replaced by reality. But if you're lucky enough to live at the beach, you're lucky enough... and I seemed to forget that for a few weeks.


So I'm back and I have an overflowing brain of things to write. The book is still simmering and is on my goal list. Life is still a beautiful, wild, lovely state of affairs and I've finally kicked my own ass enough to be able to realize that again...every day. 


And so I write. 

getting back to normal...

So finally I have gotten everything I need in order to work (and identify myself as a US citizen). My PA license repl & my social security card are in my happy little hands. I also got a call from a well known dept store and they offered me a job. Not exactly sure what the title is but I will be working at the customer service desk, over seeing the cashiers and working layaway as well. It will keep me busy and I can't wait. One problem is the amount of pay - it pays 7.75 per hour...which I find very surprising and it's part time. But it is a job and that is something to be thankful for...and I am! It's seasonal but if I do a good job thru the next 2 months then I could be offered a permanent position.

I knew when I moved down here to the beach that I would not be making the money I made in West Chester. I also knew that I could live comfortably on half of the salary I was getting in PA. In order to do that I need to make at least 13.00 an hour for a 40 hour work week. So now I will wait and see what my actual schedule is and then try to find another part time job with 20-25 hours a week. Hostessing or office work - something I can work around the dept store job. 


I feel blessed every day when I wake up in my own house at the beach. I know that I am living a dream of mine that I truly didn't know would ever come true.Part of living that dream is knowing that money is not what is needed to be truly happy. I also think about how much my life has changed in the 3 months since I have been living down here permanently. All great things! 


So I will work where I can and as much as I can knowing that at the end of each day I am 3 miles from the beach and the ocean I love so much.

Truly blessed!

Dancing with myself...

Sooo I am heading halfway thru my 2nd full week here on my own. Of course this past weekend, my friend Don was here w/ his best friend Joe. So I met up with them on Friday and Sunday. SOooo much fun! 

Then my dad was here from Thursday thru Saturday so I got to cook dinner for him one night and then he took me to dinner the next.
BUT this week, I am a bit homesick.
 “Homesickness is. . . absolutely nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time. You don't really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don't have, or haven't been able to find.”~Anon


I've been stressed about money and jobs and in between all that I've started really missing, as the quote above says, my family and friends. Not my apartment or West Chester but something I haven't found down here... people to hang out with. Actually more than that , I miss my people to hang out with... I am a little bit lonely.

Amiee and Nicole

Tami

Jenn and Doug

Dre

Kelly and Colleen

Bob and Barb

Vern and Jeffie

Alex

Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.
~Henry Van Dyke

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness…   we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

~ Carson McCullers

Then I found this in a post I wrote in December of last year-

And so as this January roles around, and I put Christmas behind me again, I find an excitement for what's to come. Not a sadness at a another year gone by, but pride at what I have been able to accomplish. I've learned that change is good and freeing and healthy! I have an undeniable sense that the best is yet to come and it's just waiting for me to find it. And find it I will. 

So bring on 2011... it's gonna be fantastic!

I will admit that I am proud of myself and what i have accomplished. I proved to myself that 

anything is possible if you want it badly enough. I think that once I get a job (and believe me

I am applying non stop) and meet some people I will feel a bit better. i still know that I made 
the right decision by moving. I still feel that I am exactly where i belong. I have come 
"home" and i own my own place and it is coming together beautifully.

But at 47 years old... I still miss my mom. LOL I guess that all means that I am a blessed
person. i have enough people in my life that i love, and that love me, that I am missing them.

Mom and Dad

And then I go to the beach and it's quiet and beautiful and I float in the warm water of the inlet and I am at peace. I sit on my chair in the sand and watch a school of dolphin playing out in the water and I realize this is what people dream of. This is what people say they want and never get. Somehow I have been lucky enough and determined enough and blessed enough 
to not only find my bliss but to live it.

And that's when i realize, when I know deep in my beach loving soul, that all will work out and it will be wonderful.

Note to self: Just Breathe

Working my butt off trying to get everything done and it hits me...You own this place! What you don't get done today, this week, next week, you will have all the time in the world to finish.  Pretty awesome feeling if I do say so myself!


Sleeping on my queen size bed like a baby - even alone in the house. I haven't had the PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) bullshit pop up at all which, if you have read me for a while or you know me, is a huge huge thing. 

With my disorder , change can be an issue - especially a change that includes moving 2 hours away from everyone you know and love to live in a house you bought when you aren't even employed.

Part of me wonders why I am not huddled in a ball on the living room floor but then I realize, this is different. i am starting over and I am fantastic!


Finally got m cable hooked up so tonight I sat my butt down and watched a little C-Wench Anthony stuff, NCIS and My Phillies. YES! Worth every bit of pain in the butt stuff I went thru the past 2 days to get it.


Soon - i will have my car down here as well as my furniture. Then I will feel 100% like a beach person. Oh and maybe a trip to the beach would help too... LOL Yep - haven't seen the water yet but never fear, I will be there in the next few days. 


After all, I've got all the time in the world to get stuff done. 


Yep Life is Good!

Beach House Proud - the transformation....

Happy Tuesday! Hoping your Independence Day was full of fun and fireworks. Mine was filled with family and good food. Oh and I own a house at the beach!!! 

Settlement went off without a hitch and I've been working on the house since Friday. Had some friends down with me over the weekend and with some blood(got my hand hit by the ceiling fan) sweat and tears(mine... i was exhausted lol) we began transforming my house into a beach cottage.


Here are some before and after shots...

before - furniture is still here but going to Kelly in West chester

After... I say it's green - everyone else thinks it's blue - either way it looks AWESOME!

that is a drop cloth on the floor - I am a messy painter!

couldn't wait to paint these cabinets in bleached linen

I handpainted simple white knobs for all the kitchen cabinets. Different colors-either flowers or dots.

Friends may miss you when you leave, but true friends help you move and paint your house!! Kent and Tami - God Bless 'em! Alos the before pic of the lovely wallpaper in my kitchen soon to become...

Renoir bisque..aka TAN or i like to say, Sand. It is at the beach after all!

before...

and after. Kitchen is beached linen and renoir bisque. behr ultra paint with primer. Fantastic stuff!

The "Diva Den Tiki Bar"

soon to be open

I will write more later tonight, for now - I have some more painting to do!

little bit of this and that...

A little bit of this and a little bit of that....

So bloggers been screwed up since Wednesday... which figures since I was ready to blog LOL But it worked out well since I wrote my blogs in Word and only had to cut and paste and add pics. 

Citizens Bank Park

CBP - Isn't it Beautiful?

I am so excited that a formal announcement has been made about the flyers hosting the 2012 winter classic. On January 2^nd the CBP will become an ice rink and the world will watch the flyers play the rangers. It’s a huge honor and a real chance for us to get to know all about Philly and the flyers behind the scenes. HBO will be filming documentary style from the moment the first hammer falls on the building of the rink all the way thru the after game celebrations.

Ashton Kutcher has inked a deal to replace Charlie sheen on 2 and ½ men. I don’t watch the show but I think it’s great that everyone else who works on it will not lose their jobs because of one crack addicted megalomaniac. Now we can only hope that Ashton brings rating that go thru the roof as a huge FU to Charlie sheen.

I am all about the flowers this year for some reason, but as I am a certified commitment phobe, I will be planting them in a big ol container I can place in my yard. God forbid I should commit and place them in the actual ground.

maybe not quite this many LOL

 I will make sure to take pictures. Should be sometime after Wednesday since I will have a little bit of money then to make something beautiful. If I had my way it would be a huge English garden with no rhyme or reason just a ton of beautiful bloom. But at least this way I don’t have to deal with bugs and creepy crawlys.

Working some things thru that will make my ability to move to beach come to fruition around September, October if not sooner. Not going to really go into too many details since my blog is open. But I have someone who will be willing to take over my apt lease and my landlord won’t even have to lift a paint brush. And they will move in with four months’ rent taken care of! Fingers crossed all works out.

Is it sad or inspiring that if I could move tomorrow I would? I am not leaving any one or running away, just ready to start the next chapter of my life living in Lewes Delaware. I will miss my family and friends but know in my soul I am making the right decision. Plus – who doesn’t want a friend with a beach house? I have a feeling I will be seeing all my buddies more when I move then I do now lol. I think it may be a logistical nightmare though – trying to figure out how to get a place to live without a job and a job without a place to live… BUT all will work out, of this I am certain. And all of this right around my birthday and the book publication date too. WOW hello new life!

Happy Margarita day or why can't I find a guy like Jimmy Buffett

"If it doesn't work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain."~Jimmy Buffett

Ahhhh a little Buffett always makes it better. So today is Margarita Day. As far as fake holidays go (yeah I'm looking at you Valentines day, and you too groundhog day) I can get on board with this one. I do love me a margarita - on the rocks please, with salt on the rim and a fresh lime on the glass.

Serious refreshment

I am a bit of a puritan about it - no frozen ones for me - they give me brain freeze. Good tequila please, save that bottom shelf rot for a newbie. No flavors either - no strawberry margarita and definitely no peach one. I am not a fan of anything peach in my drink actually.

Now I have to admit, they do give me a bit of agita (yes I am irish and that is an italian slang... deal with it LOL) after a few. Lately, I have become a huge fan of Bethenny Frankel's Skinny Girl Margarita. It's light and real. Excellent tequila, a touch of lime, a drop of triple sec. Pour it over ice, straight from the bottle and enjoy! I Love it! Sometimes I may add a little club soda, cause I like my drinks bubbly, but other then that just a lot of ice and some salt are all I need. And I can drink it and be agita free.

Even the bottle is awesome!

And tequila may not make me take my clothes off, but it sure as hell makes me tell you whatever you want to hear - as long as it's the truth. I have a tendency to lose the little white lie gene when I  drink with my friends "Cuervo & Patron". So if you really want to know if those jeans make your butt look big, or if your boyfriend is right for you then feed me tequila and ask away. My own little "party trick", if you will.

So what does this have to do with Jimmy Buffett you ask? Well I can't drink a margarita without thinking of Jimmy. And then thinking of Jimmy makes me think of his music which then relaxes me and makes me think of ...ahh the beach. And then in my head I am sitting on a beach somewhere, fresh off my shift at that little cantina I own with my latin lover Raoul.  See how I did that? Easy stretch.

So I guess I don't want to find someone like Jimmy as much as I want his soundtrack running thru my life as I run the cantina with Raoul. And it will always be 5 o'clock. 

The Infamous Oscar Beach Weekends...

17 days and counting until I go away for another Oscar's Beach Weekend. Here's just a taste of what the weekend is about.


 It's been a tradition of mine (ours, including my friends) for many years, maybe 13 or 14??. Probably since my parents bought their first beach house in Rehoboth. I'm not sure how it started but it's been something I look forward to every year. 

It has evolved and changed over the years, with a different cast of characters and usually a virgin or two. But the basics have always remained the same. In the middle of winter, a group of my friends and I go to the beach for a 4 day weekend over the Oscars weekend. We drink, we eat, we relax, we catch up, we laugh ...oh my do we laugh! We watch the Oscars and the red carpet arrivals and we rejuvenate our minds and souls enough to get thru the rest of the winter with a smile.

It used to be a chinese feast during the show and lots of drinks. Now we pick a signature drink for the day. Last year it was cotton candy martini's

They were awesome by the way. The year before that we made Skittles vodka - Taste the rainbow bitches...

The "rainbow" was not enjoyable...LOL Well Vernie loved it but the rest of us... meh - not so much.

 We also make a feast, we've done dinners and appetizers  and lately , we just stick to the apps. Everyone makes their specialty or favorite - tex mex dip, cheesy hot crab dip, buffalo chicken dip,mozzerella melts.veggies and fruit - you name it we have it. All delicious and decadent and so much fun to make and eat. All of  us cooking in the kitchen, pre-gaming for the show.

I usually drive down Friday morning with my Boo, Bob, With Cher on the cd player as we hit the outskirts of Lewes, DE. 

me and my Boo - (don't be mad I posted your picture bob xoxo)

and sometimes a 3rd person... my cousin Barb sometimes joins us or meets us down there, this year my girl Tami is along for the ride. But Aimee's also been down there too. Both first timers aka Virgins! Vern and Jeff come down late night friday or

early satuday morning. 

Jeff and Aimee - Oscars weekend, 2009 i believe.

We hit the liquor store first. Now if you live in PA you know what it's like to have to go all over for beer and liquor. But in Delaware it's all under one fabulous roof.

I swear the angels sing when we walk in the doors...

Whoever is there heads to Crabby dicks for happy hour friday evening - 3-7. 1/2 price apps and drinks fill the table

Jeff and Vern - Crabby Dicks

 and we finsh the evening in front of the fire then hit up the gift shop.

Bliss at the beach - Crabby Dicks fire

Fun in the gift shop

Then it's back to the house for a night of catching up and drinking. Saturday we all do our own thing. Some shop at the outlets, some head to the beach for boardwalk fries and grotto's pizza. Some sit on thier asses and read books and drink mimosa's (ummm me and bob LOL) This year I am surprising everyone with a pimp cup project. Let's see how many of my Oscar's friends read my blog...(prolly none LOL) If they do they will know that this year I am buying us each a dollar store wine glass and champagne glass, some glass paint and glue on jewels, so that we can each make our own fancy pimp cup drinking glasses to use for the show and then take home as a momento.

Saturday night we take it easy and then Sunday - the big day - we head to the dollar store to buy presents for everyone. We used to play oscar bingo but now just pull winner names from a hat and if your chosen one wins an oscar, then you get a present from everyone.

Barb with some of her prizes - 2010 Oscars weekend

Then we get in our comfiest clothes (aka jammie and sweats) and settle in for the show. Monday we recover and come home. Full of memories and good food and love for each other. 

Then we all detox for a week to get over the food and alcohol we consumed LOL

So that's our Oscar's beach weekend in a nutshell. SO MUCH FUN!!! 

17 days and counting...