Arts & Crafts

Long time no write! How ya'll doing?

Yes, I've been stitching but more about that in a bit. Along with stitching I've been haunting thrift stores for supplies for future projects. On one of those outings I saw this sweet frame. Admittedly I'm not really about the "sweet" or the "precious". I was more about the shape and how it resembled a tombstone. Don't you see the goth potential here?

So I bought it, for like a $1, brought it home and stitched up CHS Phoebe Brown. The frame was way too large for little Phoebe so I ran across a frame at T. J. Maxx and it's just the right size, that would be the needlework piece to your left in the picture below:

The needlework on the right is CHS Hannah Skinner. I can't decide if it can be fit to the frame or if I need to go in search of another frame. There's a close up below:

Yes, I chipped it while trying to make Hannah fit, so it's already in need of a touch up.

Although after seeing what Kim did with her copper paint and antique patina, I'm wondering if this frame might be worthy of a do-over. I think the black paint stain made it more tombstoney, but that verdigris would look all mossy and more graveyard like don't ya think?

Here's a close up of Phoebe. I'm debating aging this frame. $4 at T. J. Maxx can't beat that price.

Felt Scrabble tiles? No, I've been playing around with an idea for a banner. Maybe I'll have a finished picture of that later this week. Right now I'm debating to pink or not to pink? With the pinking shears that is.

I have a crazy long list of projects I want to work on and complete and every day my list gets a little longer. I really need some time management skilz because right now I'm making lists more than doing anything productive.


Here's the high schooler:

He was so thrilled to be starting school, can you tell? The spousal unit and I are excited that he didn't burst into flames when the sun touched his skin. He spent his vacation in the Land of XBOX but now that he's gone back to school I worry that the world will be overrun with zombies. I'm 100% sure that his dedication to the Land of XBOX kept us all safe these last eight weeks or so.

Hot Hot Hot!

Even though I was born and raised in the south this summer has just about done me in. A house built of ice in the Artic Circle is looking mighty good these days. I didn't know the air could get so thick!

I thought I would have a finish to show you all, I even tweeted that I had a finish, only to have to be a takerbacker when I realized I missed the whole bottom band of the sampler and forgot to do the background fill in work on two bands. YIKES! I reckon I was ready to be done with that project!

There really isn't much going around these parts at the moment. I'm doing lots of stitching because it's too hot to do anything else. I should be cleaning but we need to paint and I want to rearrange furniture and pictures on the walls and I've been looking at various albums where people show their stitching and home decor and I really want to know why one person can hang a picture on a wall and stick some knick knacks around it and it looks awesome and I swear I could hang the exact same picture, have similiar knick knacks and it look like a pile of junk? I have been searching for my inner style and I have concluded that it just doesn't exist.

I mean people can have old peeling paint furniture in their homes and it looks awesome, I have the same furniture in my house and it just makes me look, oh, how do I put this, poor. It has no style, makes no statement other than "this person can't afford new furniture or a bucket of paint". The same piece in someone else's home is charming. How do they do that?

Speaking of decorating I saw these:

desire to inspire - desiretoinspire.net - Flickr finds - embroidery hoops

Then became obsessed with this particular picture:

fabric hoop bulletin board Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Went in search of a tutorial and found one here:


DIY: Embroidery Hoop Corkboard or here:

sweet jessie: Put a Cork in it

I thought these were just the coolest thing. Perfect bulletin board for someone who loves needle, thread, hoop. So I put these on my list for making in the not too distant future. I want a couple for the kitchen and a couple to go over my workspace in my bedroom. Yes, I'm aware that people have been using fabric prints in hoops as wall decor for a while now but it didn't really make sense to me(back to the old they can do it and it look cool, I do it and it looks dumb) but the bulletin board twist sucked me in. It all made sense. Something useful and pretty.

I've also been thinking a lot about my mermaid stitching. I've stitched quite a few with more to go, I have several Heaven and Earth Designs mermaids from various artists along with more primitive mermaids and the Mirabila mermaids to all mix in together. I started wondering, if I lived in a log cabin in Idaho would I still hang my mermaids, would they be relevant to that life style? I decided that yes they would.

I stitch what I love, what inspires me, what makes me dream while stitching, kind of like a good book. Part of the reason I enjoy reproduction samplers is thinking about what the original stitcher was thinking when she mapped out her sampler or chose the colors. I'm getting ready to start Emma Lerch from the Scarlet Letter and I've been thinking a lot about her funky pink house and what made her stitch her house that color. I mean a pink house in today's Florida isn't unheard of but Emma was in Pennsylvania in 1830 and it's possible that the peachy rose color was as close to stone or brick that she could find but I like thinking that she reached for that color for no other reason than it made her happy. Maybe she was from a somber household where her world was mostly gray and dark and choosing the pink for the house was her way of rebelling.

Yes, once I again I show you, the reader, that I have no life.

In other news we watched Kick Ass last night. I love that movie. We saw it at the movie house and I couldn't wait to get it when it came out on DVD. Fun, fun, fun.

I'm listening to the Tale of Halcyon Crane(Wendy Webb) at the moment and reading The Girl Who Chased the Moon(Sarah Addison Allen). On my nook I'm reading Patriot Witch by CC Finlay.

If you're looking for a very different way to prepare summer squash last night for supper I made:

Summer squash enchiladas Homesick Texan

I used Ancho Chiles because that's what I could find at Publix without having to make a trip to the Tienda. Very spicy and very good. I think adding some sweet corn to the filling would be a nice addition. If you can't find the dried peppers I had considered making it with canned enchilada sauce as the base and working from there. I wasn't sure it would work but that was my option if I couldn't find the ancho chiles. This was a very filling vegetarian meal.

Yesterday I was channel surfing and came across the Duggars at Pinnacle Mountian State Park in Little Rock. I almost cried. We spent a lot of time at that park when we lived in Arkansas. Sure the mountian is only 1,100 feet but we climbed it often, spent a lot of time there with the boys and I climbed it when I was eight months pregnant with my now 14 year old.

I started thinking about the girl I used to be. I am an outdoorsy girl not be confused with athletic. I love being outside. I'd rather sit under a tree and read a book or stitch than just about anything. I love hiking and walking through the woods(in Florida that can be dangerous as we have scary poisionous snakes-not a lot of woodsy hiking for me at the moment). I think that's why gyms just don't do it for me. If I'm going to walk I want to experience the outside, the woods, the sights, the activity outdoors. It's been too hot to be outside much this summer. I miss it and I miss the girl I used to be. The girl who went hiking on weekends. The girl who kept a backpack ready to go with water and energy bars(usually bite size Snickers--we're talking 16 years ago). I miss my crunchy granola inner hippie. Somewhere along the line I became one of those people that just, I don't know, exists. I've been reflecting a lot on where I was 20 years ago and where I am now, physically more than anything but I plan to get back to walking because I want to feel good. I'll never be skinny and that's not really my goal. I just want to be healthy. I want to reclaim my inner outdoorsy chick and I hate that I'm such a wimp that sitting outside reading a book is just the worst thing I could think of doing these days much walking in the heat. It's been bad this summer.

I also have been reading more and more about growing my own food and learning more about canning and living off the grid. You know, so I can stick it to "the man".

A few things I'm going to focus on over the next few months:

Walking more, period, getting over myself and the heat and just doing it.

Getting back to more whole foods eating.

Learning how to make biscuits, why didn't I let my Mamaw teach me? Because back then I was going to grow up and have a chef. (This would be in my Harlequin Romance phase, I so bought into that dream!)

Simplify things around the house. We toss out stuff every so often but we still have a lot crap that serves no purpose. Then again there are boxes in the garage that might just hold some treasures I've forgotten about. Never know until I start digging through them.

Work more on my sewing skilz. I really want to work on sewing clothes. Why didn't I let my aunt teach me to sew back in the day? (Because I was going to live in France and wear couture) I didn't see the creativity in sewing clothes, it seemed so practical, so functional. Now as I read sewing blogs and see what people do with patterns or how they make their own patterns and how they use fabric with the pattern. I so get it.

Work on my quilting/piecing skilz. I'm dying to make a quilt like this:

Wild Geese Quilt-Along « Bloomin’ Workshop

My Paintbox squares Oh, Fransson!: How to Make Paintbox Blocks got put on hold when I went to my mom's and I decided I'm going to make a few more blocks and then turn them into a table runner.

This has turned in to quite the long rambling post so I'll end here. Keep your fingers crossed I get those final stitches in A Haunting Mermaid soon. I want to move her out of the WIP pile into the finished pile.

Stay cool!

A Finish and Some Works in Progress

A new blog post, shocking, huh? Always the unexpected around here. The Monkey Sampler

Midsummer Night Designs

28ct Sandcastle Lugana

DMC

According to my records I finished Midsummer Night's Monkey Sampler on July 21st.

This has been my take along project for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time. It was pretty much the only project I worked on while I was at my momma's since it's stitched on 28ct and I could see the holes in the fabric even in the poor lighting. That green yard just about did me in but I perservered and now it's finished! It always feels so good to put those last stitches in a project. Then again, it takes me forever to finish a project so a lot of life happens while all that stitching is being done. This project has been to Tennessee twice, once when I went home for my dad's memorial service and the second time most recently when I went to stay a week with my mother when she was released from the rehab center. She has COPD and had to learn how to breathe again, and also to learn how to live with her new best friend, her oxygen tank. This particular project has also seen a lot of time at Panera while I wait on kids to do whatever it is kids find to do at the mall for hours on end.

Liberty Sampler

Hester's Needle

32ct Natural (or maybe Raw) linen

DMC

My new take along project can be seen above, Hester's Needle's Liberty Sampler. I really thought I was farther along on this than I am. Let's keep our fingers crossed that there's a lot more quality Panera time in my future.

When I started this piece a few years ago I wasn't quite ready for the satin stitched band so I just did good old cross stitches. I debated frogging this band and stitching it as charted and then my sanity surfaced and I decided I liked the little Xs just fine thank you very much.



Rachael Holmes
Heartstring Samplery
32ct dyed by me linen(more aged actually)
A Potpourri of fiber from the stash

Heartstring Samplery's Rachael Holmes is seeing a lot of stitching time at the moment. This is a fun sampler and I got over myself and just pulled threads from the stash to see what would work with Beth's color palette. It's kind of liberating to pull out the handy dandy DMC color card, a fiber conversion lists and dig through the stash and find what works.

Black'd Skie
The Primitive Needle
40ct Vintage Pear
Pure Palette Silks

This is my progress on Black'd Skie. It's been a bit slow for me but it's due more to having the wrong magnification of readers, I was using 2.00 and that's just way too strong. I had misplaced my 1.50 and those 2.00's gave me a headache every single time I tried to stitch. So I found my 1.50 and now I'm back to happy headache free stitching.

I love the Pure Palette Silks. I am not an expert on silks, I rarely use them, but I really love stitching with these.

Halloween Queen
Notforgotten Farm
28 or 32ct fabric from the stash(it was unlabeled)

DMC


A few weeks ago I started a project that's been on my to do list for a year or two. Notforgotten Farm's Halloween Queen. I found a piece of linen in the stash and gave in to the urge and made a good start on the Halloween Queen.

In the Garden
La D Da
36 or 40ct Lambswool(that's a guess)
DMC


And another project seeing a lot of needle time, La D Da's In the Garden. This is another project I've had the chart for for ages and decided to see if I had a piece of fabric that would work and dug around in the old fabric drawer until I came upon this piece that I'm pretty sure is 40ct lambswool but it's possible it's 36ct. I did a floss toss and decided this could work. I had thought about using GAST but didn't have all five colors so decided to go with DMC.

Last week I made my first trip to Needle Delights, my LNS, in ages. It felt like coming home. I dropped off three pieces for framing, my Cape Cod Girls(changed to Gulf Coast Girls), Salem Remembered and my 13th Colony Bay. I ended up bringing my 13th Colony Bay home with me for a bath. I had no idea it was so dirty until Tonia put it under the light on the framing table. OMG! I wanted to throw up it was so dirty. I was extra, extra glad I stitched 13th Colony Bay with DMC because washing it was no problem and I was mortified at how dirty it was. I thought I had been careful, kept it tucked away in a baggie in a drawer but I did stitch on it forever and I stitch outside when it's nice. I enjoy stitching outside but this piece was definitely a wake up call that only DMC projects will be worked on while sitting on the porch or in the backyard from now on.

That's all the news from here at the moment. Hope everyone is managing to stay cool this summer because the air down here along the Gulf is a force to be reckoned with.

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!

Heat Index 104 And

...it's not even July yet. I wonder if all the oil in the Gulf has anything to do with the heat, you know increasing the speed of global climate change?

I made a beach run this morning to check out the condition of the Gulf in my town since Okaloosa Island in Ft. Walton Beach was covered in tar balls yesterday. The pictures on the local news were just awful.

Photo Galleries : Northwest Florida Daily News

For more local news on the oil and just in case that link doesn't take you to the photos here's my local newspaper links and the local news channel:

Northwest Florida Daily News

pnj.com Pensacola News Journal Pensacola news, community, entertainment, y


WEAR ABC 3


But as you can see below in my fuzzy picture, not sure what happened, the ancient Coolpix just didn't want to focus this morning, but it could be haze from the heat too, anyway, the water is clear for the time being. There was a huge skimmer ship on the horizon and I tried several times to get a shot of it and they were all big time BLURRY. I gave up. And I'm posting the two pictures below this one all for the benefit of the Florida Department of Tourism:

The water is so clear at Gulf Islands National Seashore between Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach that you can see the shells. See them shells? Do you see them? The water is clean for the moment.

Look there's some toes in desperate need of a pedicure. But there is nary a tar ball floating around my feet.

I have learned a few things over the last couple of weeks. For most of my life I have been a huge supporter of Jackson Browne and his causes. What I never knew was how exhausting being an activist can be. It can take a toll on your life, your mental state and friendships. A week or so ago the spousal unit and I saw tar balls, many, many tar balls in the water and on the beach at Gulf Islands National Seashore. At the time I didn't have the oil on the shore or oil in the water numbers in my phone, at the time I didn't know we would be the only two people in the area to witness this. We took our crappy camera to CNN at Pensacola Beach and showed them but no one checked it out. We got busy with our real lives and I forgot to notify the local news, I thought I had taken care of it on a national level, I mean seriously.

I finally got around to posting a picture on my local news channel's Facebook page and one of the comments was "why didn't I show landmarks for exactly where I was". Excuse me, these beaches aren't named, they don't have bathrooms, much less a trash can. There are no landmarks, 20 miles of white sand and the occaisional parking lot here and there. I learned to be more specific about where I'm taking the picture.

Anyway, that particular weekend every time I mentioned oil or tar balls, friends would say, "Our beach is clear, quit whining, enjoy it while you can". While I appreciate clean beaches, I can't let go of what is happening and what can happen. Last week as tar balls and oil flooded Orange Beach, AL (or was it Gulf Shores?) Anyway, I heard a national news correspondent comment that people on Pensacola Beach were breathing a sigh of relief. A SIGH OF RELIEF? People this is not over, it hasn't even really gotten started good as far as coming ashore. We can't breathe sighs of relief, we need to yell, scream, holler and yes, pull our hair out because nothing is being done. After reading about the Mexican oil rig in the 70s I'm beginning to wonder if anything can be done beyond letting the well empty itself out.

I'm beyond frustrated with the governor of Mississippi. He's like the mayor of Amity in the first Jaws movie. He will not believe the oil is a problem until a big black tidal wave washes ashore in Gulf Port. I understand he wants people to come to their beaches, I understand that their beaches are clear, run some tourism commercials then but quit acting like the rest of us are making up the possibility of something catastrophic being out there just on our horizon. It is very real.

I heard this morning that there might be a 40 mile dead zone in the Gulf. Do you know how much sea life resides in 40 miles of water? I don't have exact numbers but let's go with A LOT.

We have lived here 13 years this July 4th. We do not see dolphins every time we go to the beach. It is so infrequent that when we see a dolphin we squeal like tourists, it's that rare for us. Every single time we have been to the beach in the last few weeks we have seen dolphins. And not just a random loner dolphin, we've seen pods of them. I hope Mother Nature is keeping them safe from the oil, keeping them ahead of the deluge. I've seen so many dolphins lately that I no longer think it's exciting, I'm starting to think it's creepy. That's how rarely we saw them before now. I see them so much that it's creepy.

Last night we were at the pier and a guy caught a shark. It didn't hold the normal excitement for me. It was bittersweet. There was one part of me that thought, "wow he caught a shark, cool" another part that said, "well at least he saved it from death by oil" and then my final thought was, "what if this little guy is one of the last of his kind". Shouldn't the healthy fish be left alone for now? Shouldn't they be given a chance to get to safe waters and mate and breed and survive?

I've never been a person that thought animals, especially fish, shouldn't be eaten but now as more and more sea life is endangered due to oil and tar balls and dispersants, maybe we should let them be. I know right now while everyone says Gulf seafood is safe, I think for the time being when I get my fish and shrimp cravings I'll take my chances with good old Captain D's or Red Lobster. I hate to not support my local fish markets but I'm erring on the side of caution.

60 Blocks of Summer Challenge

I joined The 60 Blocks of Summer challenge on Flickr. My first two blocks can be seen below:

I made these blocks using the tutorial found here:

Oh, Fransson!: How to Make Paintbox Blocks

I thought this challenge would be a good way for me to become besties with my rotary cutter, ruler and sewing machine. I don't have a specific project in mind and honestly my fabric stash is pretty random so I'm just going to work on different squares and see what happens. I may get a sample quilt out of the challenge or lots of smaller projects. Either way my sewing skilz should improve immensely.

I forgot to take an updated picture of my A Haunting Mermaid from Carriage House Samplings so I'll do that another day. I have made a tiny bit of progress, I mentioned how time consuming being an activist is didn't I?

Gulf Islands National Seashore

Yesterday we took a drive along Gulf Islands National Seashore. We found this bit of debris in the water and fished it out: It's coated in dispersed oil. It's thick and gunky and a nasty piece of business.

Here is a picture of the this piece of whatever coated in this mess.

Here are tar balls

Do you see how much of this crap there is? No matter what anyone says this will not be easy to clean up. This is one section of beach and no news people were here. We told CNN about it and I have yet to see it reported. Even our local news isn't reporting it. They are all hanging out at Casino Beach in Pensacola instead of driving a few miles up the coast to see the real story.

This gunk you see on the beach was floating in the water. You couldn't step anywhere without coming into contact with it.

Of course we saw hazmat guys up the road behind the million dollar homes where uh, no tar balls were reported. We saw no one on this stretch of beach and we came back a few hours later and it was worse.

Plastic buckets and shovels will not clean up this mess. It's huge, it's ridiculous, and I'm beyond furious. We can't begin to imagine how this will be cleaned up. It's just too much.

I have emailed our local news and CNN and am telling everyone I can about what we've seen. The story is not getting out. There was a sea turtle nest marked just a few feet from this and this stuff was scattered so far along this beach. I can't begin to capture it with my crappy camera.

I am not doomsdaying, I am not saying the sky is falling but I am saying that we are being misled about how easy this is going to be to clean up.

BP Left More Than Their Footprints

Well this morning tar balls started washing ashore at Gulf Islands National Seashore. This is the most gorgeous stretch of beach you will ever see. So what are tar balls? Tar balls look like dog doodoo or dukey or poo or whatever you call it. They are brown and shiney and warm. How do I know they are warm? I stuck my toe in one when I thought it was a piece of driftwood. Whoops. I just gave Tony Hayward, BP head another excuse for what these could be.

The green in the picture is June grass, it's a yearly occurence and used to be the bane of my existence. I will never ever complain about the layer of swamp grass in my bathing suit again because next time I swim in the Gulf my bathing suit will be full of tar balls. I'll take June grass any day.

More seaweed and June grass and tar turds, uh, balls.

And more. I wish I could have gotten a picture the length of the beach to show you all just how many of these there are. I wish I could make everyone see what we have to lose if we don't change our dependency on oil. And yeah, I'm embracing my radical ways once again. We as a society have failed the earth, our children, and future generations all in the name of "get me there faster" and convenience. An inconvenient truth, yep sure as hell is.

I left my footprints.

This picture is supposed to be of some surfers getting in their last ride before the Black Tide hits. Maybe if you biggify it(that's Annette's word) you can see them.

Yep that's a tar ball next to my footprint. Maybe we could give the BP execs a tar ball enema? Because that's just about where I want to stick their well.

While walking along the beach I saw the very edge, the curved edge of this perfect sand dollar peaking through the sand. I expected to only pull out a piece of it but amazingly enough it was in one piece. I posed it on a piece of drift wood and was reminded that even when one is having apocolyptic thoughts, end of days kind of crap, some beauty can be found if you only take moment to see it.

In my younger years I was an idealist. I had this vision of the person I wanted to be, I defined myself a certain way and somewhere that girl got lost. She became the person she used to ridicule, the person who quit looking beyond her back yard. The person who accepted the unacceptable just because that was how it was supposed to be.

When I was pregnant with my oldest son we lived in Ohio, there was an oil refinery in town. I didn't know what that meant being a transplanted Tennessean. One day at lunch, I worked at one of the local hospitals, I was talking with a coworker and mentioned all the strange cancers young kids had and the fact that every one my age was on fertility drugs in the lab where we worked. She begin to tell me about the oil refinery and how she blamed it for the infertility and strange cancers. I quit drinking the local water and started buying fresh produce and eggs from the local Amish farmers. I read Diet for a Small Planet and I Shopped for a Better World. I became a vegetarian. I tried so hard to make a difference and then somewhere along the way, I just started accepting, I ate a bacon cheeseburger. Life was what it was, I couldn't change anything, I couldn't make a difference and I was so tired. I surrendered to life and became just like everyone else.

Now 23 years later, I have found that inner activist. I have found my flower child. Over the next few weeks and months, I plan to change. Somehow, someway I'm going to make a difference.

Don Henley wrote in the book Heaven is Under Our Feet, and I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the book, it's in the garage somewhere, that sometimes you have to give people what they need not what they want. Basically, we're back to the inconvenient truth. Living greener is not convenient, it's not even pleasant and honestly I don't know if it's even doable. But I do know this, we can all make changes and I learned years ago when I wanted to boycott another company over their infant formula practices that some companies have their brand everywhere. You think you are boycotting only to discover that you have a house full of their brand only it's cloaked and you've been unknowingly supporting them after all. So I don't think a boycott of BP is realistic. I never buy gas there, the only times that has ever happened was when I was on the road and it was my only option.

The Gulf is my Walden Pond and I've let her down. I've lived a life of convenience and made choices that weren't in her best interest. I hope over the next few months to make some serious changes. Can I do it? I don't know, hell I don't even know exactly what to do. I just know that things have got to change, people have got to change, we as a society have to make those hard choices because they are right and not choose the easier road.

I hope with all my heart that the Gulf will be able to revive herself and flourish again. I have seen some interviews that offer a lot of hope in that direction but I fear that this is going to be just too devastating for her.