Thursday, September 28, 2017

I Like #8

Here is my list for September.
1. I love living 10 minutes' drive from this incredible beach and marina:

Seacliff Beach, Leamington, looking east towards the marina
How/why have I not visited this properly, spent time walking all around here, in the past 5 years?  It has been totally redone because it was devastated in the 2011 tornado that ripped through our area. What an incredible place it is!

Allow me to indulge...
I photographed Radiance here a few weeks ago, early one morning. A couple of friends had said it is a good spot for beach glass, possibly due to the currents. I was blown away by the beach, the new amphitheatre, new splash pad, the thoughtful plantings, the expansive beach. Here is a collage of my beach glass find that first morning in the crystal vase, a piece of coral (looked it up and yep, this used to be a tropical seabed! so there are plentiful fossils), today's haul of beach glass (not all fit within the collage parameters) with a dime and a ring to give you scale, and a glimpse of the pebbles in one spot, chunks of beach glass amongst them.

Last weekend MacGyver decided it was too hot one of the days to do his 20-30 mile (not km) ride, so I convinced him to go with me for a walk. We also visited the marina, which is where we read about the renovation project. Wow. We've been here for Art by the Marina, but the tents set up blocked much of the view and surroundings.
They've done it up right.
Okay pinch me. Am I in the Bahamas? This is what it reminded me of. 

Breath-taking! I want a pinks and super-light pink, not white, and orange yellow quilt. Wish I was Samantha in 'Bewitched'...
A little further on...

The hanging baskets were out of this world
I
Can't
Even

You can sit at a table, bring your own lunch if you will, and chill.  Watch the birds...or turtles. We spied one little guy swimming in the bay here who was super shy, so didn't manage to get his photo.

I'm an Aries, a fire sign, but I love love love water.

2. Think I've said it many a time, but I love my friends. This past week we had a wonderful supper and evening twice with three different couples.😋
A sunset to rival those I've witnessed in Key West and other Florida Gulf places
Both houses where we had supper and a great visit are on the water, this one on Lake Erie, the other on the Detroit River.

3. I like surprises. This one was Happy Mail from Lisa of Sunlight in Winter Quilts. I won a set of charms from her in the Design Challenge she and I ran at the start of 2017. We've both had a rough past few months, and so it was extra-special to received these beauties from her this past month, Alison Glass sun prints!



4.  I love love love my grandson, Brady. I love September when they come for their annual visit.
Who knew such happiness and special times would come (well we hoped, and it did) from a $10 garage sale bike?!

5. The day after they got home was his doctor visit, a new one for him. I just adore texting with him! He's hilarious, got such a great sense of humour. He comes out with the most jaw-dropping comments:
6.  I love this planet and everything about Mother Nature.
This was that same sunset shown earlier in this post. Spot the moon? I love it when the sun and moon are visible at the same time, whether it's broad daylight or beginning twilight. And clouds lit from beneath? Perfection. I also spotted another turtle just off the shore but again, didn't get a photo! Mary Jane saw it too, just so y'know.

Along the Greenway I spotted this huge fungus on a very large tree. Kilometres away at a different leg of the trail we like to walk were tons and tons of gorgeous blue-ish-purple berries which my trusty nature-knowledgeable friend Julie of Pink Doxies informed me are wild grapes. Cool! Of course! They grow on massive vines we see everywhere.  Masses of birds were zinging in and out of the bush, feasting, no doubt, on Nature's bounty.

7. I love the bounty of Essex County: fruits and vegetable galore. We got some beautiful local peaches, and I combined them with some overripe strawberries (from the grocery store) from Brianne and Brady's visit to make a delicious peach cobbler.
Before topping
They are having good success at growing strawberries in the greenhouses around here year round apparently. We are known for great outside berries here too. And cultivated grapes...for wine!

8. Like all of us quilters, I love free fabric...
This is my original design I made for Benartex's Meadow Dance by Amanda Murphy blog hop at Sew in Love With Fabric, last week. That is the link to the tutorial, but I'll also be posting it on my blog here next week.

9. I love free fabric and getting published again 😁 in Modern By the Yard's latest e-zine issue (link also on sidebar). That quilt travelled to northern Michigan, well not quite the UP (Upper Peninsula) I don't think, but still.  Cool! Isn't that model a cutie-pie?

10.  I really enjoy the show on CBC, "Still Standing".  Jonny Harris visits small towns all across Canada who have been hit hard by various circumstances, often economic.  Along with unique and innovative ways to keep their towns alive, the townspeople are always full of humour and Jonny brings it out in his hilarious Newfoundland way. There hasn't been one episode where I haven't experienced what psychologists call "moral elevation". (see #11)

11. (nearly forgot this little like!) I actually love it when I spy a pattern of mine (can't believe I can write that phrase) rendered in someone else's fabrics.
This beauty was made by Janice of Color Creating and Quilting
Janice has chosen houses and buildings blocks for her month when she is Queen Bee. She's using my pattern, free here on Craftsy, (affiliate link) as one of the options her hive mates have. When I saw this on Instagram, I was so pleased!

12.  I love a good book. I just finished Option B by Sheryl Sandberg. Sheryl, the COO of Facebook, lost her husband very suddenly in 2015. She's written very openly about several elephants in the room that appear with a sudden tragic death and how to handle them. She's written from her own personal experience, with her good friend, a psychology professor, co-writing. Being grateful for what she does have is one of the first things she works on. Writing these gratitude posts once a month helps me be a better person because I am more aware of things I like, things I appreciate, and being aware means I become that much more aware of both my surroundings and my feelings of gratitude and thus, I am a happier person. She writes of doing this exercise too, even when going through profound grief.  She describes a phenomenon I've felt many many a time, when she was reading a post from a young husband who lost his wife, the mother of his 17-month-old son, in the 2015 Paris terrorist attack:

"When I started reading Antoine's post, I felt tremendous sorrow. But when I finished it, I was overcome by a tingling sensation in my chest and a lump in my throat. Adam told me there was a term for this (psychologists have a term of reverything). 'Moral elevation' describes the feeling of being uplifted by an act of uncommon goodness. Elevation brings out what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature.' Even in the face of atrocity, elevation leads us to look at our similarities instead of our differences. We see the potential for good in others and gain hope that we can survive and rebuild. We become inspired to express compassion and battle injustice. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.'"

I think those of us who write about our gratitude, whether privately or publicly, can relate to what she describes.

Just a reminder that the DrEAMi! linky party will be this Saturday. Click the link on the sidebar if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Namaste 🙏
(Sanskrit for, "The light and all that is good within me, honours the light and all that is good within you.")

Linking up with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Colour

17 comments:

  1. oh Sandra. Lovely pics and lovely words. Great post. Thank you for putting all this together in one place for us to feel the tingle of uplifting spirits. LeeAnna

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  2. Another wonderful post. Thank you.

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  3. Oh my goodness. I love this post. Beautiful prose and really cool photos. Your grandson is adorable. I live in the desert so I really appreciate your marina and beach photos. Your quilt is sweet. Have a wonderful day! mary P.S. Thank you for the definition of namaste. I didn't know- I just knew it was for good.

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  4. Love this post, Sandra, and my word - yes! that ocean spot you have is just gorgeous!!! (how will those flowers fare in the winter?) I had to look at a map after your post about Brady being in Detroit and you in Canada. I am embarrassed to admit that I never knew there were US spots north of Canada - it actually hurt my brain a little to even think about, until I looked at the map. That is so cool (I also don't really understand how boundary lines (state or country) are determined. Why are they so crookedy?)
    Congratulations on being published again :-)
    Tracy

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  5. Beautiful post Sandra. Thanks for posting. What lake is in the pictures?

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  6. Oh Sandra you make me want to go take a walk along my part of Lake Erie, I wonder if I'll see any beach glass. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your lovely post!

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  7. " Namaste" I remember our own Sir Ed Hillary often saying this as he met others in the Mt Everest and Himalaya areas. A wonderful word with all that hidden meaning. Gratitude, even in the toughest days, there must be something, or more than one, to be so thankful for. Glass, free fabric, family, grandson with his bike, and much more, I hope the happiness is sharing time with you these days.

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  8. Gorgeous pictures. Thanks for your review of Option B. A friend sent it to me to read, my husband was killed about 7 months ago in a car accident. I do know that afterwards you appreciate things ever so much more. I think I can wave to you from across the Detroit River/Lake Erie.

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  9. Beautiful photos and a great post. It's always good advice to take a deep breath and count your blessings.

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  10. I'm grateful to read your "I Like" posts. You're a wise soul. Sandra, to recognize the beauty, love and grace that surrounds you.

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  11. Great post Sandra, it makes me want to escape, I mean visit Canada. You sure do live in a wonderful part of the world.

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  12. So many likes to like in your post today, Sandra! What a beautiful place you live in! I am envious of your sea glass - I have found a handful in all the years I've been looking. :). I didn't realize there would be so much on the Great Lakes beaches. Your recent quilt finishes are beautiful! I love star quilts - there are infinite number I would love to make. Have a lovely rest of the week!

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  13. So many things today! Option B has been recommended quite a few times, adding it to the list. Just finishing up my FreeFall quilt for our guild show - should be done end of next week...binding, label, and hanging sleeves for this lovely quilt.

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  14. Beautiful pics Sandra, you paint a wonderful picture with your lovely descriptions, I can almost taste the peaches and strawberries. I used to live only a couple of miles from the beach too, but on the northeast coast of England it got a lot of cold breezes, I miss it though.

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  15. So many lovely things and the beautiful photos! Wishing you many more walks in that beautiful area.

    -Soma

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  16. Great post Sandra . But Samantha can't help you , she's twitching her nose and doing my housework . Some beautiful photos here and a great little happy boy on his back . And free fabric ? The best kind !

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