Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to all USA readers of the blog! The spousal unit and I took an early morning drive east and found ourselves in the picturesque little hamlet of Seaside, Florida. It's a pretty little seaside town, aptly named. This is their post office and it made my heart sing when I saw it all decked out in it's Fourth of July finery. I don't have a lot of red, white and blue in my home but I do love 1776 and all that jazz. BUT this morning seeing this sweet little post office and all the people representing in their red, white and blue, I almost cried because what I saw in Seaside was what the American experience used to be. They must have had a parade at 8 a.m. We didn't know anything about it and just drove in that direction. It was small town America at it's absolute best. People were smiling, laughing, the bookstore and all the local businesses were open, this was like 8:30 on a Sunday, in the South, and it was pretty cool.

Below you can see a shot of the beach at Seaside. Their shoreline is a bit different than ours. They have the white sands but have left their dunes untouched even with the building of homes and businesses. They have worked hard to leave as much of the natural world untouched as possible and still build a thriving little tourist town around it. While I am not a huge supporter of planned communites because I do believe to each his own Seaside does it quite well, mixing in the planned neighborhood along with funky eateries and art shops. If we ever win the lottery we are moving here. That's about the only way we will ever get there but we love the 30A lifestyle.
A couple of weeks of ago my friend Pam and I went to an estate sale. She scored a stack of art books and on the cover of one titled Artist's Journal there was a painting I loved. The original artwork was by JoSonja in 1997. Since the art magazine was all about learning to copy the art inside the magazine I hope JoSonja doesn't mind that I begged the Spousal Unit to please paint me that painting. Since it's Uncle Sam and Mermaids it seemed quite appropriate. Also he painted it for me, not to sell or anything and the only copyright notice I found was not to mechanically copy or reprint the artwork so I hope his painting doesn't violate any copyrights.

This was the best picture I could get this morning. I think he did a pretty great job!

Last week I went to my momma's to check on her. She had been in a rehab facility learning how to cope with her COPD and when she came home she was a bit overwhelmed so I went home for a week. I had intended to rent a car for the trip because we have kind of old vehicles and it's a long drive. Unfortunately the line at Enterprise Rent-a-car was really long, so we went to lunch. Somehow over club sandwiches and fries we went from renting a car to buying a new one. We pulled into the Kia lot thinking to buy a Sorrento, we love that sock monkey, and then we saw Enik! Six hours later he was coming home with us and then two days later I drove him to Tennessee. I hate how much I love this car.

For your viewing pleasure:

YouTube - Ghetto Hamster Deluxe - very funny ad

I tried to add the video to my blog but couldn't make it work so a link it is.

Have a happy and safe 4th!