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Catching up

Breaking Radio Silence

I could tell you all that I have been up to since August, but truth be told, this is my busiest time of year with my Photography Business and silly me, added another business to the round up, so double that and you will know where I am. Spinning out of control.  I promised myself I would blog on my birthday, but I had to work, for the first time ever on my birthday so instead I am blogging tonight, almost a week later. I haven’t forgotten about my blog as some of you may think, I have been told that people have given up on me. That is Ok because if you know me well you know where to find me: Photography Blog, Twitter, Instagram, email and we would still be in touch. I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, I have just been working hard.

Since August, I have had Apple start school full time, started my Arbonne Business, Ballet, been to Delaware three more times (and another trip coming up), Birthday parties for J and Apple and Fall Family Sessions along with Photographing conferences, Photo walks and actually meeting people in person instead of online. Phew.

All this talk of Hurricane made me remember that I never shared the after photos of the Beach House. The very Beach House that had us praying for its safety.  You see, our little dream is located on a flood plane on Rehoboth Bay in Delaware. We are mere steps from The Bay, which empties out into the ocean. When we stand on the crabbing pier we look out to the Indian Inlet Bridge that was closed Sunday due to flooding. So you can imagine what we did for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We trolled the internet for any signs that our Beach House was not floating away into Rehoboth Bay. As Rehoboth Beach (which includes us) was evacuated on Saturday we knew we lost any hope of contact with our neighbours, some of which live there year round. Our handyman Rich and his wife, not only have a home in Rehoboth but also in Chincoteague Island, Virginia. We prayed for their safety and are happy that at least their home in Rehoboth was spared, not so sure about Chincoteague but we will find out soon.

Our Beach House was indeed spared. With talks of flooding in The Bay, and the main road into our community we thought for sure the water would be up to the doorway or worse. We had no illusions of grandure, we expected to find out that we had to start from scratch. We were prepared for the worst. When Hubby called the office today after we heard the driving ban was lifted, he was surprised to talk to the ladies in the office, laughing and telling him that it was a miracle that there was no flooding to our houses. The water did come up our street a little but nothing more than a regular summer storm would bring.  Miracles to happen and although I am saddened by the news for others in other States like New York and New Jersey, I can’t help but be thankful that we were spared.  We will make the trek this weekend to check that the roof didn’t leak and that there isn’t anything to be taken care of that can’t wait for Thanksgiving. Yes, we will return later in the month for Thanksgiving (unless there is lots of snow up here) as we have so much to be Thankful for this year.

Here is a little peek into our Beach House, post renos. And honestly all we did this year was replace the floor (which included patching holes), wash the walls and bring in new beds and a couch. Next year we are going to update the bathrooms (which are 1969 old), paint and possibly add an outside shower. After spending three weeks here in June and July it was amazing what you can live without. We had very little with us, a few toys, an xbox (for games and movies) and our computers. We spent mornings on the beach and afternoons by the pool. We alternated nights with staying home and going to the boardwalk.  My cousin even lent me her 1989 Jeep Wagoneer so I could stay longer with J and Apple and she hadn’t even driven it yet!

Our Living Room (with lunch to head home already packed on the table) and the hallway leading from the backdoor to the living room.

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Front Bedroom, with powder room attached (otherwise known as J’s room or the guest room)

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Kitchen, with retro cabinets that will see an update sometime in the future and Apple’s mini room that just fits a bunkbed. Great place for J to sleep when we have guests (which we have had a few times now)

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And the Master Bedroom, complete with ensuite/full bathroom.  We chose to go with Queen beds in the main bedroom and front bedroom so that we could sleep comfortably, it means that there isn’t a lot of room to walk around the beds, but they do move easily on the floor and it makes for a much more comfy sleep in the heat… trust me on that one.

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And that is a little tour of the Beach House. Hubby and I will head down to check it out later this week, while the kids stay home and go to school.

We were thrilled to be at the Beach House for Canadian Thanksgiving, where we cooked a turkey and had our family over for supper, we were tight, but we managed with eight of us watching a football game and enjoying Canadian turkey. We also had two amazing days on the beach before the weather turned cold. A little last fling of summer for sure.

Here is a little Summer Recap from Instagram:

Thanksiving… Labour Day

For this I am giving Thanks #beautifulday Just me and my little man #beachtime

August with my Sister…. Watching the view

Last day at the pool... For this week #beachtime Our view today #beachtime

Borrowing my Cousin’s car in July… at Cape Henlopen with MamaLang (we met through this blog and I cannot express how grateful I am to have met her and her family)

This is me borrowing @annabananagirl 's BeachMobile it's going to be a great week! Together with @mamalang at Cape Henlopen, DE

Now that I am missing Summer terribly, I will try hard not to wait as long between posts. I may even post from the beach again this weekend, we shall see.  Until the next time.

5 comments
Categories: Blissdom Canada, Catching up, Summer, Thanksgiving, The Beach

Perspective

I know I have been a terrible blogger lately, and truthfully, I am just uninspired to write.  This is a first for me in the six years of blogging. I don’t expect it to last forever, but I also didn’t want to bore you with tales of work, work, work and not much play.  Add to that the bad weather we had this Spring, I really was just not up to it.

And then, as life goes on, something happens to put it all in perspective for you once again.

I will start this by saying no one was hurt.

My Mother, who has never had an accident other than a little tap on a fender back in the 1960’s when fenders were made of steel, was in a pretty major crash up yesterday.  And the saddest part is that I didn’t know about it until 9:30pm.  Maybe not the saddest, but sad to me because life went on.  At 3pm I was picking up J at school and we were sitting outside in the long awaited sunshine, while my Mother was being crashed into and spun through an intersection.

Just like that, in a blink of an eye, it could have been all over.

Happy Birthday!
I would have missed her almost daily calls, all her love and advice all because someone didn’t take time to realize their light was red.  As my Mother turned on a green arrow through an intersection, a van with four passengers came flying at her, realized they were going to hit and slammed their brake.  They skidded 28 feet into my Mom’s front as she was turning, sending her into a 180. She was left sitting facing the opposite way she was heading wondering what on earth had happened.

Now, I wasn’t there and there is another side to this story, the one where the other light was green and my Mom wasn’t turning on an arrow, but since my Mother is probably the best driver I know. And has never had an infraction and is so all about shoulder checking, obeying the law and doing the right thing, always. I believe her 100% that she was turning on the green arrow and that the other car was also doing that (but in the opposite direction) and changed their mind into the intersection with the red light.  As for the other 10 or so cars in the intersection at the time, you would think one witness would have stopped to a) see if everyone was alright and b) bear witness to the incident. But, nobody did.  An off-duty fireman stopped after the fact to check out my Mom and the other passengers and offer assistance until police and my Dad showed up.

This isn’t a post about who was right and who was wrong, this is a post about putting it all in perspective.

She will be needing a new car, it would seem. And I suppose I should send a shout out to GM for this baby down here.  The Impala, built tough and strong, kept my Mom safe yesterday. I shudder to think of her in our little red car getting hit like she did. I know it doesn’t look so bad in this photo but when you are standing next to it and see the engine on an angle and hanging out the bottom of the car you realize just how hard she was hit.  Something I just had to do today was go and take a look at it, to gain just a little bit more of the perspective around me.

Today could have been a much, much different day for me. I could have been laying my Mom to rest instead of thanking God that she is alive. Give your loved ones a squeeze today, be thankful they are home with you and try to keep it all in perspective.

Perspective

7 comments
Categories: Cars, Catching up, Driving, Family

The best way to start out 2011 is to look back on 2010 and ask if it was a good year.  And I can honestly say it was.

The end of my year as a blogger wasn’t what it usually is, I felt a little like I was ignoring my little bit of my beach, I didn’t have time to visit my happy place and tickle my feet in the sand.  But going forward it is a new year and with this new year a few small changes will be happening at my beach. Nothing major, just a little more focused on who I am now as a ‘Work-at-Home Mom’ rather than a ‘Stay-at-Home’ Mom.

Looking back on 2010 I can only think of one word to describe it all, Blessed.

My year saw me travel to Maryland for a Photography Workshop without my Husband and Children (a first for me) with such great success that I went on to New York City for BlogHer and Toronto for Blissdom Canada.  This was a huge endeavor for me and my family and would not have been possible at all if not for the help of my Mom.  For this I am truly grateful.

Our annual trip to Rehoboth went from a one week affair to a solid two weeks of beachtime.  The last couple of years had us leaving Ottawa in utter exhaustion only to finally get to the point of being relaxed and have to pack up and head home again.  Our first year at two weeks was wonderful, we absolutely loved it and look forward to our two weeks again this year with hopes of adding another week in a couple more years. And got to spend some time with some wonderful people I have met, thanks to this wonderful world of blogging.

In blogging and social media news, I spent the last year becoming better aquainted with Twitter and all the tweet goodness that follows.  I have met so many wonderful people that I can’t even remember what it was like without Twitter.  When I first started blogging five and a half years ago, I didn’t want anyone to know or to know who I was, now I feel like it is amazing to connect with other bloggers or people in my own city that I would have otherwise not known.  And thanks to Twitter, I was able to attend the She’s Connected conference in October where I met many more out of town people that I have been chatting with online for months and months.

I also got to share in some time with some of my oldest (although younger than me) blogging friends Brenda and Bethany. I saw Bethany twice, once at the beach and once for Thanksgiving in her new home.  I look forward to our next meeting and seeing Brenda again soon, as I know she will either be out East again or I will be West one way or another we will see each other in 2011 again, this I know.

Here in Ottawa, I was hit with a Random Act of Cupcakes, thanks to my good friend CupcakeCowgrrl.  She took it one step further over the holidays and spent four or five weekends driving across the city randomly hitting strangers with this kind act of goodness. And then if that wasn’t enough, she even got me involved with helping out at the Mission for Christmas dinner. I see many good things happening in 2011 both for and with CupcakeCowgrrl.

Last year, I joined a bookclub with a bunch of women on Twitter. Some I knew, others I did not. And although we fell a bit behind last Fall, I truly enjoyed meeting with them.  I got to read a bunch of books, I would have otherwise not even looked at and had some great conversation and fabulous friendships.  Thanks to Shannon, Brie, Lara, Chantal, Vicky, Julia and Barbara for bookclub, I look forward to us picking it up again soon.

I could probably continue, but I am sure I have rambled on long enough.  I look forward to 2011 for more time with new friends, family and my business.  I look forward to continuing my journey of being in great shape so I can play with my young children.  I look forward to growing my business and I look forward to learning how to manage it all efficiently so we all have enough time with each other.

Happiest of New Years to all my Blogging and Tweeting friends,

Sincerely,

BeachMama

4 comments
Categories: About Me, Catching up