Find of the day

The slope of the beach is changing now that fall's been tip toeing in. It's a little steeper and the water is getting cooler.

Yesterday I picked this Knobbed Whelk out of the swash zone. I almost got knocked down but I didn't want the waves to wash it away from me so I had to get a little deeper to get to it. I don't like to go in the water here unless I'm dying from the heat because there are no lifeguards to come after me if I get pulled in from a riptide. Even in knee-deep water this is possible so I keep my distance.

I like that it's not shiny and store-bought looking. It actually looks like it spent some time in the sea and is now old and worn.

Put your ear close, can you hear the ocean? :O) This will make a good subject for some drawings I have in mind.

I also found this tiny purple urchin. It's broken on top but I like the patterns. I have 3 more at home that I'm thinking about making a Christmas ornament with.

That shark tooth is from a Lemon shark I think. The one on top, I'm not sure about.

Football

I hate drunk people. I hate watching sports. I hate drunk people watching sports. Why did I go watch a football game full of loud, obnoxious, sweaty people Saturday? Because I love my husband.

Actually it wasn't so bad. I don't really watch college football that much. Even though I say I hate it(because I kinda do), it's just kind of a habit. I went to a high school where football and basketball were a religion. So I watched many of my class mates who I had cheered for, raised money for, sold candy to for years go on to big name universities and play on tv. Only one made it to the NFL for about 5 minutes but still, it was a big deal. Plus it's something my husband and I can do together, me usually doing my nails or reading a book for at least 3 quarters of the game. Yeah, it's only fun when you're a cheerleader and you get to wear a cute little outfit.

Speaking of cheerleading, I have to admit something. Mind you, I was not nor did I pretend to be an airhead in school. I graduated 17th in my class of almost 500 seniors. With honors. And all my classes were advance, a couple of them college level that I got college credit for ok? BUT, for the most part, when it came to football, I really did not know what the hell was going on. I just did the cheers I was told and waved my little pompoms and that was it. I really didn't figure out football until my last year and even then I still didn't understand all those rules. Touchdown, touch backs, quarterbacks, running backs- I didn't know and didn't really care. Those were my classmates and that's all I cared.

Useless Random Musing

The Pillsbury Dough Boy is probably my favorite commercial character. Who doesn't love a little laughing blue eyed blob of dough? There has to be something seriously wrong with a person who hates him. I would really like to be the one who gets to poke him in the belly. In fact I would prefer to pinch him. On the bum. Not in the dirty way ok before anyone starts to get shocked! Just a little pinch. He'll still go,"Hoohoo!" Although I'm against bum pinching as a feminist I would rather be pinched on the bum than poked in the belly. Why? Because a pinch on the bum means you're a cutie, a poke on the belly means you're a blob of dough. Just because I love the Dough Boy, doesn't mean I want to be one.

I did not like the Snuggle bear. He's too 'sugary'. He's cute and all but he's like some one's annoying little kid that everyone gushes over because he's so cute, but babysit him alone and he turns into the meanest little brat you ever saw. So now and then you're forced to ooh and ah over him because his parents spoil him and push the poor kid in everyone's face. " Isn't he darling, isn't he wonderful???" No because you guys ruined him and now he's a little delinquent.....(Everyone knows at least one kid like that-Can you tell I have personal experience with a kid like that?) When I was little, I was always afraid one of my dolls or bears would come a live and scare the bejeezuz out of me. And Snuggle bear particularly looks like one I had and was scared to death of but wasn't allowed to throw away or give away because my mom didn't believe in wasting.

Barack Obama!

And that's all I need to say.

(click on the photos to enlarge ya'll)

This weekend MrPea, I, and 20,000 people went to see Barack Obama(!) About 8,000 could not get in and stayed to listen to his speech from the street.

Since I am 4' frikin 11" this was pretty much my view. But I did get to see-of course I had to stand on tip-toes for the whole speech. And in spite of how these lousy, no zoom 6m pix photos look, we actually had a great view.

(I took a mini video clip just in case any one I knew disbelieved me.)

In case anyone is wondering why I would volunteer and support Barack Obama- I shouldn't have to explain, it should be a no brainer. , I can tell you that it has nothing to do with "lipstick." I'm an actual thinking woman who doesn't give a crap whether my president wears boxers or panties so long as my president has brains enough to get us the hell out of this mess we're in. But if you read here and I read your blog, you probably already knew my choice. For one- I can't watch my husband's job get outsourced while the same companies get tax incentives to do so. And I can't watch someone who was FOR deregulation before and now tries to act like he's the champion of regulation get into the White House . I won't watch my husband get laid off one more damn time. Can't do it ya'll.

Anyway, I have never used my blog to rant about politics in the past(except when I was complaining about healthcare) and I don't plan to start preachin' now. I just wanted to brag about my weekend.

(Oh BTW I'll be doing some phone banks in the next few weeks, so if I call you,and you so don't wanna hear it, be nice to me ok?)

Yesterday's find-Quality not Quantity! :o)

I didn't get as many as Monday.

But I got a few bigger ones. I'm not sure what that big piece on the top is but it's definitely something. Someone told me it was fossil horse bone but I'll have to look it up. I'm particularly happy about the crooked-looking ones. They are from tiger sharks and I have only ever found a few. I don't know if they are rare for these parts but they are rare enough for me to get really excited about finding. I've always liked looking for shark teeth but it's that gigantic one I found last year that sort of started it all.

I was watching the sky all day for storm clouds. (I don't mind rain but I'm scared of lightning.)

I waited 4 hours for the storm to come so I would have an excuse to go home otherwise I have to force myself. Nothing came but these pretty clouds. I decided to give my skin and my eyes a break today and stay indoors.

I'm probably ruining my eyes.

Since I haven't posted about shark teeth in a long time

It's safe to assume I had a really good day at the beach today. Mother Nature was so generous to me with her shark teeth.

Oh does that look like a big handful?

Well actually I got a bigger handful, my peeps. Not including the ones that kept slipping onto the towel.

I just took this to show how diverse the shapes are. That spiky stick thing in the middle is actually a stingray barb and that thing that's shaped like an upside down cup cake on the upper right is actually a puffer fish mouth bone.

I wanted to show off how I can even find the teeny itsy bitsy baby teeth.




Someone asked me how. It truly is like finding a needle in a haystack. Just look at this picture. This is what I'm looking at when I find them.

But once you get used to putting your mind in neutral, your eyes just sort of work on their own.

Before you know it it's been 4 hours and you didn't even notice the time.


*I didn't put that tooth there, honestly. I was actually getting ready to leave when I saw that one and thought I would snap a photo so I could show you guys how hard it is and why I'm so obsessed with "the find". Weather permitting, I will be there all week. YES!

Losing it at the hospital is apparently my thing warning-to-easily-grossed-out-by-girly-things-men, this post contains the words 'tampon' and 'period'

-I almost slapped someone at the hospital where MrPea had his surgery the other day. Mind you, if you had been told to arrive at 7:30AM only to wait 7 hours before your husband's procedure started, forced to sit in the Cardio-Vascular waiting room full of right wing crazy people peeing in their pants watching Faux News crying out "sexist" every five minutes for another 7 hours, been the last person in the waiting room with no one giving any information as to where your husband is and if he's even still alive at this point, gone on a damn Odyssey just to get coffee because the right wing crazy family HOGGED ALL THE DAMN COFFEE(!), only to go on another damn Odessy looking for tampons when you're finally reunited with your LaLaLand drugged up(but doing ok) husband you might just feel like slapping someone too. Oh but that's not the whole story regarding the tampons. Yes my friends, I had to go look for tampons. Not before hand feeding my poor husband who wasn't suppossed to get out of bed or sit up the rest of the night some hospital food chicken and Mac and cheese, going up and down to the first floor(we were originally on the 2nd, then they moved him to the 4th to recover)to give my brother the keys to our place so that he could take care of Peanut. It had been over 9 hours since he'd been out and it didn't look like MrPea was going to be able to go home. Oh but that's not just it. This hospital is a friggin Labrynth ok. On my Tampon trip, I got on the elevator and pushed 1, to go down to the main lobby where I saw a gift shop and pharmacy on my search for coffee. Did this elevator go to the first floor? NO. It went to 5th floor. I wasn't paying attention since at this point I was half zombied with the stress of the day. I got off and started wandering around. I wandered for about ten minutes in this hospital from hell before a nurse told me I was on the wrong floor. Fine. I get to the first damn floor. Guess what. Everything is closed. I went up to the information desk and asked if there were any vending machines that sold toiletries. The two women working there gave me a blank stare. Forget it. I went to a receiving area and asked the same question. The two women there were apparently in the middle of an inside joke. Giggling, they could not even get an answer out. Finally after about half a minute one of them said no. I said is there anywhere I can go to get a few things for my husband and also feminine things. Laughing again. One of them spit out in a really smartassed voice,"You can go to Walgreens....."bursting out in another round of laughter. OK Time stopped for just a second and I envisioned myself jumping over the counter panther style and slapping this women and her little hyena laughing friend. Of course they both outweighed me by at least 30 pounds and being taller than me, would definitely have a longer reach so it's a good thing I did not. I'm pretty sure they assumed the evil look on my face was attributed to my being on my period and not how irritated I was being laughed at and how early a damn hospital pharmacy closed.


-Oh but that's not the end of it. Giving up, I finally went back to my husband's floor stopping first in the ladies room to see if they had a vending machine. Bingo! They did. But quickly my relief turned into full fledged maniac fury when the machine stole my last two quarters and gave me zero tampons. I cannot confirm or deny beating the machine with my elbow or kicking it Karate style, even though I've never had Karate lessons....

-Back in my husband's hospital room I calmed down, put on a smiling face for him and asked his nurse how to get to my car. I remembered I always keep a few extras in the glove box. (There are 3 parking lots and I was confused about which elevator to use and which walkway) He took about ten minutes and gave me 3 different maze scenarios before seeing the confusion on my face and said,"Or you could just go to the first floor and walk outside to the next building behind the second garage." I said,"Well, it's dark outside right now, we're in (name of scary downtown neighborhood) and I'd like to not get murdered on the way to my car...." (I just wanted to get some freakin tampons ok?! )

-In the end I figured the way out by myself and was able to retrieve the damn tampons. Did I learn any lessons? NO. Know why? BECAUSE MAYBE I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT EXTRA DAMN TAMPONS IF I HADN'T BEEN TOLD TO COME IN AT 7 DAMN 30 IN THE MORNING FOR A 2 HOUR PROCEDURE WITH A HIGH POSSIBILITY OF MY HUSBAND GOING HOME.... That's why. Or you can just blame my bad temper on my period, whatevs.

Be back in a few

MrPea will be having a surgery this week so I'm not quite sure how often I'll be posting in the next few days. I'll be around.....

New members of the I hate you club

Today I felt like I was in a Lifetime channel movie. Here's the scene: me in the waiting room at the OB-GYN for my yearly check surrounded by pregnant women. All of them happily rubbing their round beautiful bellies and disgustingly glowing with happiness. Me, miserable finding myself jealous and cursing the whole world's fertility.

I had to sit there for a half hour listening to them trade stories about how excited they were, someone just bought new toys, someone's inducing next week, someone's craving tacos and can't wait to deliver. I felt so left out. I felt like such a loser and a fraction of a woman because I can't even have a healthy baby right now.(Oh and by the way, my doctor who told me sternly not to even think of trying to have a baby for the next two years is-guess what-PREGNANT...not that it's her fault but still, the kindergarten maturity level version of myself is resentful and frankly jealous. Yeah she's in the I hate you club today too.) I'm pretty sure I did some silent pouting AND the kindergarten maturity level version of myself is also convinced that they were smug and taunting me. I've never met any of these women in my life and it's not their fault I can't be one of them. Still though I decided to dislike them for the rest of my wait. One of them even had a cute 4 year old mini-her resting her head on her pregnant belly to feel a kick. She was kind enough to ask me when I was due. The self pity version of myself thought," never never." The bitch version of me thought," bitch do I look pregnant, why do you have to rub it in?" But I politely told her I wasn't and smiled at her daughter.

I would like nothing more than a fat, bald headed, beady eyed little baby in a pouch around my shoulders at the beach with me while I look for shark teeth. I would like nothing more than pulling a toddler around in a wagon behind me while I walk Peanut. I would like nothing more than getting a five year old dressed for her first day of school. I would like nothing more than helping my genius kid(because he'd have my genes, hello!) with his homework. I know how to clap and wave at little league games. I could cry and pat myself on the back at a graduation or wedding. I'd be just as good at all these things as everyone else dammit.

I realize this is a romanticized version of raising kids. Believe me, I'm no fool, I have 6 nephews. I can tell sometimes there are times when my sister is on the edge of insanity where just one more word, one more noise, one more mess will do her in. Then I'll hear one running to her, crying with a booboo. And I'll think to myself,"I want to be the one to kiss booboos too."

Random Laziness, plain and simple

-MrPea told me recently that I don't post enough. Well, it's summer and I'm feeling as lazy as a grasshopper. That's all. Plus nothing exciting is going on right now. Mind you, that does not mean life is boring. It just means life is blissfully quiet and slow. Last week all I did was look for shark teeth. Monday through Friday. At least 4 hours each day. That's. all. I. did. You guys know about my obsession, it's not like I'm shy about it. But I'm pretty sure ya'll are sick of hearing about it so I've been leaving out my bragging and posting about it. I do need to post more often, I know this. But it's hurricane season and shark teeth are just rolling in by the millions. If I'm not out there, someone else might get them. I can't let that happen.

-Politics. Ouch. I just have one thing to say. If I hear the words "maverick" or "vetted"one more time, I might puke. People please think of some new words for me. I can't watch the news anymore, I feel like I'm stuck in some kind of experimental focus-group think tank.

-Peanut is constipated. I have no real reason telling you guys this, I was just checking to see if ya'll were still paying attention. He is ,though.