Summertime Music In December

Baby, it's cold outside isn't it?

 

Weather predictions of flurries, dropping temperatures and possible black ice bring with it winter's outer armor of boots, scarves, gloves and woolen hats.  Meanwhile, kids around the nation are praying for snowstorms to arrive for Santa Claus and Christmas and extra days off from school.

 

And in the midst of all this Winterness, a friend tweeted this rockin' new video (see below) titled "Keep This In" by Phillip Noss that transports me to one of my favorite places: THE BEACH!!!!

 

Santa Delivers To The Beach Doesn't He?

 I love the warm, breezy feel to this song and I think it's the perfect antidote to the current all play all day Christmas carols that seem to be piped in to every stereo system that I come into contact with.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not being a Scrooge this year at all.  It's just that sometimes I get burnt out about the commercial aspects of Christmas very quickly, especially since it seems to start earlier and earlier each year.

 

Please notice that no one in this video has a coat on or anything resembling winter gear.  From the first seconds of Phillip Noss' good ole rock and roll song, I am immediately transported to a Coney Island boardwalk wonderland of arcade games and even bumper cars and I can practically smell the caramel popcorn and taste the greasy fries that are part of the beach's mandatory menu.  Just so you know, pizza is also on this mandatory beach menu!

 

It's Summertime in December by watching the below link to Phillip Noss' new song and video, Keep This In, the first single off his upcoming album, Lover On The Run:
 

Turn Around Solitary Man

I felt very lucky and very blessed to be sitting in my worn and comfortable beach chair early yesterday morning, breathing in the soft air of Bethany Beach and watching the tide come in as the waves pounded the sand.

 

For me, sun, sand and ocean are the essential elements for getting rid of worrisome and stressful thoughts and filling my inner reserves with hope and gratitude.  It's a winning combination every time I need it.  The beach has never let me down.  Ever.

 

 

 

I was in Bethany Beach this past weekend to help a very good friend sell her beautiful handmade jewelry at an arts festival held annually on the town's boardwalk.   Even though it was after Labor Day, the beach was packed and booming as though it were summer.

 

But early Sunday morning, only a few people were scattered about the beach.

 

We beach people are a different breed.  At a moment's notice, I could go to the beach any time of the year and at any time of the day just to hear the cycle of the ocean's tides and feel the sand between my toes.

 

I watched yesterday roll out as the young families came first to set up their area for the day, carrying chairs, umbrellas, beach toys and coolers.  A horseshoe crab had washed up on the beach, stranded on it back, and some of the parents and children went down to investigate how to push it back to the surf.  Next a few older couples came walking by, some holding hands, some just enjoying a quiet conversation.

 

Then a solitary man came to my part of the beach wearing an orange t-shirt and black shorts.  He looked to be in his twenties and was wearing large earphones over his ears and in each hand he held metal poles with circles on the end that he waved back and forth over the sand.  I've seen these metal detectors before but I never seen someone waving two at the same time and never in the morning.  Usually the metal detector people have only one detector each and walk the beach in the evenings hoping that during the day someone lost a ring or a lot of coins.

 

As I watched Solitary Man, with his head down looking at the sand in search for buried treasure, searching for something expensive lost by another person, I wanted to suggest that he take his headphones off and enjoy the beauty of what surrounded him.

 

I wanted to tell him that instead of looking down at the sand, waving his dueling metal detectors, he could turn around and look out at the glorious Atlantic Ocean and watch the morning sun dance on the rolling waves and listen as the cold salt water swished the sand around his feet.

 

I wanted to say that the time spent looking for stuff in the sand that he thinks is going to make him happy, could instead be spent absorbing the wonders of Mother Nature, the same wonders that draw people to the beach to rejuvenate and refresh their spirits and souls.  After all, it is a known scientific fact that the sound of ocean waves actually alters the wave patterns in the human brain, soothing us into a deeply calm and relaxed state.

 

Happiness is right here Solitary Man, right here at the beach. 

 

And you don't need a metal detector to find it.

 

 

 

Carl Hiaason

If you are looking for a book that will take you to a wickedly funny place and make you laugh out loud, then I highly recommend Carl Hiaasen's new book, Bad Monkey, to you.

I just finished reading it while on vacation at the beach last week and I loved it!  I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my beach chair with my book while my friends were talking and catching up with each other.  There I was, face stuck in the book, reading Bad Monkey and literally bursting out laughing at the smart, flip and hysterical dialogue.  Truly great stuff! 

Come on.  Admit it.  You can't always read heavy, informational, historical books that you know will keep you up to date about what is happening in this crazy world of ours.  Sometimes you just have to read something for the pure unadulterated fun of it because laughing helps you de-stress and triggers positive emotions.  Laughing is definitely an energy and mood booster!  I usually experience my best laughs when I am relaxed.  Things just aren't that funny when you are tense, twisted and closed up.

 

 

Carl Hiaasen's gift to us as readers is that he always manages to create fabulous characters in all of his books and they always end up in a lot of wacky situations.  Given that Hiaasen writes a column for The Miami Herald, I have a feeling that he probably knows some of these people he writes about or has taken bits and pieces of different people's personalities he comes in contact with as a reporter and thankfully creates new people in his fabulous fiction.

 

I don't want to reveal the places in the book where I couldn't stop laughing because you really need to know the plot and the characters of Bad Monkey and allow them to cook together for a number of chapters before it truly becomes funny.  However, just to give you a flavor of Hiaasen's satire, here's a short excerpt involving the main character, Andrew Yancy, and Yancy's love interest, Rosa:

 

"Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy's front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.

While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, "Know what?  We'd make a great crime-solving duo."

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Have mercy, woman.  I ran out of Advil."

"Well, I don't sleep with drunken guys.  Period."

Yancy sighed.  "So many rules."

She took notice of the shotgun propped in a corner, and Yancy told her restaurant inspections could be dangerous.  She informed him that for dinner she was doing blackened grouper with mashed sweet potatoes and a grilled Caesar, and that he was going to finish every bite or never see her again.

"I also stopped in Key Largo and got some homemade carrot cake," she said.

"From where?"

"What's the difference?"

"Rosa, you don't understand.  I see all the health reports.  I know the dirt on every kitchen."

She ordered him to be quiet while she sewed up his gnawed butt cheek.  To take his mind off the intimate unpleasantries, Yancy told the story of how he was conceived during side of one of Abbey Road.

"You mean side two," Rosa said.  "The medley."

"No, side one.  According to my mom, the big moment happened during Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

"It's all starting to make sense," said Rosa.

 

Besides Hiaasen's dry and snappy dialogue, Bad Monkey takes us on some unpredictable trips through Florida, where Hiaasen was born and raised, and also to the Bahamas where "everyting is jahmmin'."

 

Bad Monkey is a everything I wanted it to be: a great read and a fun, wonderful escape!

Carl Hiaasen never disappoints.

 

What Day Is It?

Vacation.

Isn’t it a great word?

Although it’s a verb, the word vacation doesn’t evoke action to me.  When I hear the word vacation I think about the air being let out of a balloon.  Or exhaling slowly.

I am in vacation right now and I feel blessed to be having one.  I am off-schedule, under the radar and very much unplugged, living in an alternate universe of sleeping in, eating and reading books whenever I want and not knowing what time it is.

Or even what day it is.  I haven't turned on the television in days.  What a surprise it was to log on to the internet and discover today is the first day of August!  

I work hard and enjoy working hard but at a certain point everyone needs to take a break from their daily routine and enjoy themselves.

As one of my friends said as we set up everything on the beach, “I didn’t think I needed a vacation until I got here.  Now I realize how much I needed one!”

Even writing this post is a stretch for me because my brain is resisting complete thoughts.

I hope everyone has the opportunity this summer to rest, relax and refresh!!

You deserve it!

A Peaceful Soul

Thought For The Day. . .

Photo Courtesy of The Secrets of the Sea

For it was not into my ear you whispered,

 

but into my heart.

 

It was not my lips you kissed,

 

but my soul.

 

                       ~ Judy Garland

 

A Summer Itch

I talked to one of my great friends today on the telephone.  I thought she was at home or running errands but then she said she had to get off the phone because she was getting ready to cross the Bay Bridge. 

As in the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Ding! Ding! Ding! She's. Going. To. The. Beach!

Right away, I began to feel the symptoms of an incurable condition called "Beach Fever."

My friend's news dovetailed perfectly with the recent warming of the sun in Washington, DC (predicted 82 degrees today!) and turning the calendar to the mojo month of May.  My thoughts of being at the beach have now been kicked into high gear and I know I am off and running and will be like this for the rest of the summer. 

  

Don't You love This Picture?
  Makes You Feel As If You Are There!

 

The past week has found me going on the internet at all times of the day and watching the Bethany Beach live cam so I can gaze at the sand dunes and a bit of the incredible ocean for myself.  I'm pathetic.  I just sit there and stare at the screen for God knows how long as my eyes travel around the screen going from the sand to the water and from the water back to the sand.

When I'm at home, I go into the linen closet and open up the brownish plastic bottle of Coppertone sun screen and smell it over and over again.  It's one of my favorite scents!!  I can't even put into words the colorful flood of memories that fill my brain when I smell Coppertone. 

And then I start to think about and of course start to crave beach food -- pizza, steamed crabs, french fries, lobster.

 

 

 

I am really ridiculous about the whole beach thing! 

It's one of the few places on the planet that totally relaxes me and helps me refill my inner reserves of patience, peace and energy.  When I am at the beach, I am all into my healing zone of reading, relaxing and being entirely off schedule.

I am an incurable beach nut and that's all there is to it!
 

Robin Roberts' Message

Robin Roberts is courageously showing us how to be "all in" about life.

 

Over the weekend, I read Parade Magazine's interview with Roberts, ABC's news anchor for Good Morning America.  It is no secret that Roberts was diagnosed five years ago with an aggresive form of breast cancer and for the past year she has been fighting a rare life-threatening disease called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) which affects the blood and bone marrow.

 

 

 

 

Roberts is now back on the job which is miraculous given the physical and emotional toll of her chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant and fragile immune system.  But life changing events can sometimes make us stronger and Roberts' message resonated with me.

 

When you lose someone you love or you fight with all of your resources to overcome a disease, life becomes heightened.  Things that happen in your daily life that you once took for granted are no longer things to overlook and expect to have happen to you over and over.

 

Every day I try to make myself conscious of what the sky looks like, how the flowers smell, how good it feels to be able to walk down the street and breathe deeply and feel healthy.  I have a precious life and I am going to try and be mindful not to waste it.  Because I know that those are things that can be taken away very quickly.  And so does Robin Roberts.

 

Asked by Parade Magazine how her experience has changed her, Roberts says, "I am stronger than I thought I was.  My favorite phrase has been 'This too shall pass.'  I now understand it really well."

 

And here's the really cool part.  Roberts does something I do a lot when I am feeling stressed at work: visualization.

 

When work is piling up, I try to mentally check out for a few minutes before I dig in.  For me, I visualize myself standing on the beach.  I love the beach so much that I visualize myself there at all different times of the day.  I try to hear the waves pounding the shore and bring the smell of the ocean back to my memory.  After I mentally visit the beach, I take a deep breath and put my head down and just do my work until it's done.

 

Roberts told Parade Magazine that to fight her fears, she practices yoga and visualization.  "When I close my eyes, my happy place is Key West, coffee in hand, sunrise over the pier, Roberts said.  "I can visualize that in the studio and it has helped calm me."

 

No matter what today brings you, you will survive it, and if you feel yourself becoming anxious then visualize your own "happy place."

 

You are fortunate.  You are alive and a new day awaits you.

 

What will you do with it?

Staying True

 

Thought For The Day

 

(With Thanks To The Silver Pen)

 

 

Everyone should have a dream or two.  They can help motivate you and keep you moving forward.

 

Sometimes you can have a dream for fun as in "If I ever hit the lottery, this is what I would do."  I always say to myself that if I ever won the lottery or all of sudden inherited a lot of money, I would buy a house at the beach.

 

Then, there are the everyday dreams you can have about your personal life or your work.  Try to be realistic and not "pie in the sky" about what it is you really want.  Breaking down your everyday dreams into manageable goals could be one way of achieving them.  Think about what works for you.

 

But don't give up on your dreams.  They are important for healing your soul and keep you on course.

 

Summertime Sayings

Courtesy of Katie's Pencil Box

Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes,

and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.

A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief

that all's right with the world.

                                                      ~ Ada Louise Huxtable

Life Is Better At The Beach

I listen to the ocean waves as they continuously break on the shore and happily feel the sun's warm rays melt the tangle of stress webs in my brain and body and I know for sure that the beach is a magical place!!! 

The sign pictured below is not a cliche.  It's the absolute salty and sandy truth!

Call Me Maybe -- Girls on 9 Edition

Put your shades on and wear something fun today!! It's Musical Monday and the first full week in the Magical Month of May!

It's also almost Summer and when summer is right around the corner, that means it's almost time to bring on the BEACH!

For me, every summer has signature songs and I know this song below will be playing on a lot of iPods at the beach.  The daughter of one of my very good friends made this video and I thought it would be a great way to start the week because it's so upbeat and it'll get you goin' !!