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Anyone unwrap on Christmas Eve?
Friday, December 02nd, 2011 / Island Chick

tgif wheeeeee

Thank God it’s Friday…someone working in the 9-5 5 days a week sector must have coined that phrase.  I do love Fridays though.  Saturdays I can actually get up and do whatever I want – the only day of the week I can and it’s often that I do a little bit of everything combining work and play.  No relaxation for me unless I take a trip, lol..it’s sad!

It’s beautiful on the island today.  Took the dogs out for their morning walk but cut it a bit short so I could get going on the computer.  I have 2 days left to have everything done being as the girls and I will be goin’ wild on our yearly shopping trip on Sunday and Monday.  I want to say it’s cold today but if you’re wrapped up and that sun is shining it’s beautiful – NO WIND.  Absolutely no wind which is very very unusual.

Today I’d like to talk about how you celebrate your Christmas Eve.  Every year, I always manage to forget something and have to go out and a few times I’ve even battled the mall (which was fun really) but this year I was thinking about doing something a little different than in the past.  My daughter wants to spend time with her Dad on Christmas so we thought wouldn’t it be cool to open presents on Christmas Eve with holiday stuff on TV and finger foods?  Then, the next day which would be Christmas, everyone can do what they want to do while I’m cooking the Christmas feast.  Wait.  Something’s wrong with that picture.

Maybe I can not be as elaborate as I was at Thanksgiving.  I do have a turkey and the daughter is also getting a ham from work so we’ll have those and of course you have to have macaroni and cheese and dumplin’s and turnip greens so we’ll have those but how can I change up a bit?  Susan’s Seafood has these fantastic crab balls she’s selling for 50 cents a pop, never tried them but the man who was getting them the last time I was in there getting fish said they were delicious and he was back ordering more.  So I might do that.  I’ll have to figure out what else to fix.

So I have a question.  Have you ever done the unwrapping on Christmas Eve because you wanted to save Christmas for something else and how was it?

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Getting Ready for the Holidays
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 / Island Chick

lovely wednesday

Howdy!  We survived Thanksgiving and again I vowed I would not be the only one cooking this humungous meal.  It was delicious but for two days I was exhausted.  Today I’d like to write about getting ready for the next holiday – Christmas!

Yeah, yeah, it’s my favorite holiday of all…only, I’m not quite in the spirit yet.  Normally I would have had the tree up weeks ago and do you know it’s still not up.  I need to get my son over here and help me put it up.  Not that I can’t do it myself because I probably could but it’s a tradition and I’m waiting until I settle down from these tours first.  December is crazy!  We have 65 authors on tour – yep, a big record-breaking number.  I’m still working on them but I’m making progress.  The stops are all done, just have to load the calendar and the tour pages with these stops – I don’t even want to count how many I have to do, I just keep on going.

So today’s topic at Island Chick Travels is “getting ready for the holidays” and what a great time to announce I’m heading on another road trip!  Actually it’s the yearly thing a few girlfriends and I do – this year we’re not going very far.  We’re heading to Rehoboth, Delaware, shop til we drop, spending the night, then getting up the next morning and shop til we drop again.

I love these girls and so look forward to this.  We’ve rented a van just to have more room for everything and it’s going to be a blast. Last year, we stayed in Ocean City, Maryland, and went to Rehoboth the next day.  This year, we’re doing the opposite.  I’ll be exhausted.

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Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Thursday, November 24th, 2011 / Island Chick

have a happy thanksgiving

Although today is officially Thanksgiving, we celebrated yesterday because my daughter had to work today.  It wasn’t quite the same.  I remember one year we changed up and opened presents Christmas night instead of Christmas Day and we swore we’d never do that again.

It’s something about tradition that keeps you balanced.  When you cast off tradition for whatever reason, you end up regretting it in one way or another.  When we were kids, Thanksgiving and Christmas was full of traditions.  You did the same thing every year and although at the time you may hate the monotony of it, years down the road, these are the traditions you will long for.

Christmas was more of a big deal than Thanksgiving was at our house growing up but when I got older and had a family of my own, I absolutely loved Thanksgiving because I absolutely loved to cook festive meals.  I never really loved to cook but holiday cooking was the bomb.  I would have Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV while I cooked everything so methodically.  Turkey goes in at a certain time, comes out a certain time and while I was doing all this, it was just the neatest feeling.

I don’t think I have any real Thanksgiving Day traditions except I realized I like celebrating Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day and not the day before.  But just think, today I can play. ;o)

Do you have any Thanksgiving Day traditions?  How do you spend your day?

Dorothy Sig

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Homeless: a hard pill to swallow
Saturday, November 19th, 2011 / Island Chick

homelesssign

Hi everyone,

I haven’t blogged for awhile because I knew the next time I logged on, I’d want to talk about something that really hurt my heart and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Today I want to write on a different topic but feel I must at least say something about my beloved furry companion, Cassie.  I can’t talk too much about it because it still hurts.  She was a full bred Cocker Spaniel who lived to be 15 years.  The first time she had cancer, we were able to remove it.  She lasted almost another year before this last time which killed her.  But the pain is in more of what I took into my own hands to do.  Put her to sleep.  I am never going to be able to get over it I know.  It still pains me to this day I tool the power out of God’s hands and put it into my own but she was on her last breath.  She wouldn’t have lived maybe a week more.  She was in pain.  And they told me (everyone) I needed to do it.  So it’s done.  Cassie’s ashes are sitting in a box beside my bed but I can’t bring myself to touch it.  I guess it’s nice having her ashes with me but I just can’t touch it.  So that’s why I haven’t blogged here in a long while.  I haven’t been traveling much either.  I want to but trying to find someone to go with me is harder to do being as my favorite person to go with me, my daughter, is going through classes to get her into the RN program and these aren’t easy classes either.  So it’s short trips for now and in the Spring, I’ll start blogging about my travels.

So for now, and being as winter is starting to creep in, I’ll be talking about things that are happening in my life if that’s okay and I promise there will be travel talk along the way.

I’d like to now talk about a situation that’s going on where I work.  Actually, it’s an establishment I have been working for the last sixteen years and although I do very well with my online business, I still stick it out there one day a week.  I have long term friends there who some of them have been there longer than me and I do believe that’s the reason why I don’t jump ship.  But we have a young guy – just turned 24 yesterday in fact – who used to work there and now has come back.  He was living with his girlfriend but she threw him out.  I didn’t find out why until yesterday – he was doing drugs and stole $200 from her.  Okay, great reasons for throwing his ass out but…this is what drugs will do to you.

I’ll call him Ben.  Now it seems Ben is living in the wooden thing surrounding the dumpster at work.  One of my co-workers popped in on him before he woke up.  She said he’s sleeping on a styrofoam something and has blankets piled over him.  A bike with a flat tire is beside him. Ben is really a good looking guy.  Straighten him up and he’d have girls coming out of the woodwork to be with him.

We’ve all discussed Ben, how bad we feel for him and that he needs someone to help him but the thing is, we’re all afraid he’s going to steal from us.  He’s stealing from work and I know he’d steal from us, too.  So what do you do?  I mean, if anyone had a heart, I know I do, and it hurts me to know how cold it is outside and he’s sleeping outside.  I mean, how long can he do this?  He’s going to get sick and could even die.  There is no family.  No outreach program, no ministry thingee, nothing. No friends to take him in.  Nothing.

So yesterday was his 24th birthday.  A few days ago, the manager who knows what’s going on offered him to come to his house because it was going to get cold that night.  Ben looked at him and said, “Are you asking me so we can hang out or are you asking me because you feel sorry for me?”  The manager said, “I don’t want to hang out but I don’t want you to stay outside in the cold either.”  Ben turned to him and said, “Well I’m sorry, I don’t want anyone to feel bad for me.  Thank you anyway.”

So he’s proud.  But the thing is…he’s doing drugs which could or could not be interfering with his thought process.  He’s asked me if I had a room and I told him no.  I have taken in people without homes before but this one you just can’t risk because you know he steals.

I’m not sure about his past.  We do know he has a father who is a state trooper and a mother who lives in Ohio, not sure about the story on that, and not sure why he doesn’t swallow his pride, save up some money for a bus ticket and high tail it out of town before the really bad weather starts.  There’s no calling his girlfriend for forgiveness because she has another boyfriend.  He has no one.  The few friends he has are drug dealers and us.

So what do you do you?  I feel guilty in knowing I can’t do a damn thing for him.  Money wouldn’t help him; he’d just spend it on more drugs.  He asked me for a twenty the other day when I worked . I turned him down because frankly I didn’t bring any money with me but do you think I’d ever see it?  He ended up getting the twenty from someone else and then you didn’t see him for awhile, then he came back and you know what he spent the money on.

So everyone where I work know about him and know they can’t take him in.  And when it’s cold outside, I just feel so bad for him because one day he may not live to see the next day and as a human being, that’s hard to watch and hard not to help.  I don’t know what’s going to happen with him.

I went looking for pictures to add to my blog post and this is what I found:

http://www.caninest.com/homeless-dogs

It just breaks your heart that America has gotten to this point.  It makes you want to cry.

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Battening down the hatches for Hurricane Irene
Thursday, August 25th, 2011 / Island Chick

Still no damn D batteries anywhere.  When am I going to learn to stock this stuff up before an emergency???

The guy in the condo beside us has come for the weekend.  I think he’s from Maryland or somewhere further north.  I don’t know too much about him but we’re all friendly.  He acts like it’s not going to be a big deal but he’s tying down his picnic table and throwing sandbags in front of the condo where it always floods during a storm whether it’s a small one or a large one.  He rents out his condo over the summers to tourists but this was his weekend there.  Some weekend.  There’s two other families who live in these condos, the rest are for tourists.  The one older guy on one side might be still in the hospital but his girlfriend is there at the house.  I see her every now and then, don’t know whether she’s weathering out the storm or not.  Then there’s this real cool guy on the other side.  He is 82 and more fit than I am believe that or not.  I love him to death.  I don’t know whether he’s going to weather it out or not but my hunch is that he is knowing him.  The tourists are still here in a few condos and my hunch on that is that they paid over a thousand bucks to rent these things, they’re staying.  Now this is of course if we don’t have a mandatory evacuation.

If we do, we really have no plan.  Get off the island with as much personal possessions as we can.  They’ll close the causeway at some point.  They have the local police call everyone listed in their directory in case of an emergency and I must call them to put my cell number on that list.

The daughter went out and bought more supplies – she found D batteries!  We’re good there and she bought another flashlight which now we’ve got 3.  Four if I can find the other one.  Candles.  I have a few, but the daughter is allergic to scented candles so we’ll just have to make do with what we have.  I have tea lights if worse gets to worse.

Food.  Well I feel I need more.  I have a few canned products, water, drinks but if electricity goes out, we’re screwed because there’s a lot of food in the refrigerator and freezer.  We’re busy cleaning out the bottom room that acts like a storage room outside and we grabbed a couple of coolers in case we have to stock up on ice.

Dogs.  Problem problem.  Cassie is dying.  She has cancer and we were going to put her down but the daughter said no, let’s do it after the storm that she couldn’t take on anymore stress.  I sent BF out to get some more pain pills for her and explained to the vet that we were going to put her down this week but it’s going to have to be next week.  I just wanted some pills to keep her in not so much pain.  We only got 1/2 bottle this time.

As of right now, it’s noon on Thursday and a little blustery at this point.  There’s supposed to be a cold front that may push Irene further west but we don’t know it’s going to do that.  It’s always windy here so I can’t really tell if this is normal, from the cold front, or from Irene.

Am I scared?  Yes.

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Hurricane Irene on its way?
Thursday, August 25th, 2011 / Island Chick

I’m sorry I haven’t updated lately, been so bogged down with work, but I want to let everyone know what’s going on with Hurricane Irene as far as Chincoteague Island is concerned.  Well, I’m now worried.  My daughter has been telling me it’s coming, be prepared and I didn’t want to think about it.  Talk about depressing.  Well now it’s to the point where I’m a little worried.  No, make that a lot worried.

It hasn’t hit the Outer Banks yet, but that’s supposed to be Friday or Saturday morning, or at least that’s when the worse will happen.  We’re not really that far from the Outer Banks – about 3 or 4 hours.  What has happened in the past is that it hits North Carolina and that usually slows the thing down so that we don’t get hurricane force winds.  We don’t know at this point whether it’s going to hit the Outer Banks square on or it’s going to brush it, but it doesn’t matter – the thing is so big, it’s going to do damage.

We slipped out to Walmart earlier to get some water, etc.  No D batteries so I’ll try to hit Family Dollar tomorrow to see if they have any left.  The flashlights work at this point but I don’t know how much life they have in them and better to be safe than sorry.  We bought 2 jugs of drinking water and a big pack of smaller bottles and hope that’s going to do it.

The way this thing is looking – it’s not good.  It’s mean and wide.  And frankly I’m scared.

We have dogs.  If we have a mandatory evacuation, what are we going to do with them?  I don’t know what we’re going to do.

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I almost saw a dog drown
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 / Island Chick

August 5 - Pony Penning 073

Even though it’s not technically summer, you can tell it’s arrived anyway.  Memorial Day saw crowds of people descending upon the island like  ants on a birthday cake at a 4th of July picnic.  With crowds comes families who rent the condos down from us.  Mostly they’re from up north.  We had one family beside us from West Virginia last year which was unusual as most of them are from New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

They mostly leave you alone, but the one thing that gets me is that they have the mindset of a snail.  What is it about vacation makes the brain stop working?

I was on my daughter’s upstairs deck when I saw her point and say will you look at that?

Three or four teenagers were watching their dog swim in the channel by the docks until we see one of them running to the other dock.  The current was taking the dog further out and did we see either of them jump in to save her?  They ran to the other end and tried to coax her to the shoreline but you could see the dog was definitely in distress.  The dog’s instincts would automatically have her dog-paddling it to the shoreline but this dog was going the opposite direction and the water was getting deeper and deeper.  Call someone fools!

But what killed my daughter (who was already throwing a few cuss words their way) and I was that they acted as if it were nothing.  If it were my dog, my ass would have been in the water from the get go.  And I can’t swim!

Eventually the dog came ashore and I heard the little boy yell to the guy down the street, “She’s okay!  She got tired and came in!”

Does he know nothing about currents?  Do any of them know anything about currents?  The dog probably finally was able to swim with the current until he came to the shoreline.  No one in their right mind would have been able to do that.  What makes them think a dog would be able to?

Pfft.  And then they made the dog walk back without resting.

If you take your pets on vacation, at least have the sense to make sure they are safe.  What probably happened was they thought it was cute to see the dog swimming.  Maybe it was something the dog couldn’t do at home.  Thank god the creator gave dogs the dog paddle instincts, that’s all I have to say.

It reminded me of last fall when Skylar fell in.  She’s clumsy anyway and I guess one foot didn’t follow the other and the next thing I knew she had fallen in.  The water wasn’t cold yet, so at least that was good, but I felt I had to save her.  She was still on the leash so I pulled her down the boardwalk until we got to the end where I could climb down the steps and get her back up, but she slipped out of the collar and started dog paddling like hell.

I climbed down the steps, jumped in the water and grabbed her from the shoreline where she sat until I could get her.

Okay so I’m overly protective and dogs do have that great in born ability to dog paddle and thank god for that, but it’s scary.
Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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When the water runs pink…
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 / Island Chick

Chincoteague sunset

I have never seen pink water until tonight.  At the end of our dock, there’s a landing where you can sit and admire the boats going by.  The sun was in just the right position and the water couldn’t have been calmer…almost surreal considering how windy it is here most of the time.

You can tell summer is heading our way.  The Seafood Festival was last Saturday which marks almost the beginning of tourist season.  I don’t mind the people, it’s just that they always like to drive 25 mph when you’re in a hurry.  And the joggers, bike riders, scooter drivers and dog walkers love to scoot right past our front deck which sends the dogs into barking fits.  It’s so nice when there’s no one out there but I also know that’s not the way it is around here.  Sooner or later, there will be people.

I have a morning routine.  Get up, walk the dogs,  get on the computer.  It’s been nice to be able to walk them without some kid screaming “here doggie doggie!” from their balconies.  Why do tourist kids act like they’ve been raised in a barn?

But enough of the whining.  With summer comes Mr. Whippy’s ice-cream, fireworks at the campground down from us that you can see from your front deck, sand between your toes and did I mention mosquitoes?  Well…they’re baaaaaack.

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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Earthquake Disaster in Japan
Saturday, March 12th, 2011 / Island Chick

I feel so shallow.  Yesterday, Japan got hit by not only an earthquake, but a tsunami, too, and I’m upset over missing American Idol.  I heard something about it but I was so wrapped up in my own dish network hating world that I didn’t realize how bad it was over there until I turned on the news, the first time I’ve watched TV since I couldn’t get American Idol anymore (until Dish Network gives us our local stations back).

It was beyond comprehensible…I could see the devastation but my brain wasn’t comprehending.  Those cars and ships look like toys, surely this isn’t real.  Immediately, I remembered my first cousin, Al Maige (we called him Alfie) over there and for the life of me I couldn’t find his mother’s phone number.  So, I did what I do best – searched for him on the Internet, namely Facebook.  And found him here.  And he’s fine.  Here’s what he reported back to me at Facebook: “Yes, we are all fine. I live in an unaffected area; about 25 miles inland. Still can believe it came in 6 miles! Unheard of. Thanks again for the support.” I’m not even sure if he knew who I was being as I’ve not talked to him in years.  The last I heard was that he was in the Navy, found a Japanese girl to marry and decided to make a home in Japan. I think he’s still in the Navy, but not sure.

Back to the disaster,  here’s a blogger living in Japan:

Hey from Japan – Notes on Moving

http://amblerangel.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/were-being-shaken-and-stirred-in-japan/

Here’s a blogger at CNN keeping us in the know hour by hour:

This Just In

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/11/live-blog-japan-earthquake/

Surviving in Japan

http://www.survivingnjapan.com/

As I find more bloggers in Japan, I’ll add them.

Sending prayers to the citizens of Japan!

It makes you realize how vulnerable anyone living near the water can be.  If we ever had a tsunami on the east coast, we’re gone.  I mean the whole Eastern Shore.  Gone.  Living on Chincoteague which is an island off the Virginia coastline makes me very worried.

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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American Idol March 10 Recap
Friday, March 11th, 2011 / Island Chick

This still royally sucks I can’t watch American Idol in its entirely in the comfort of my own living room, on my own couch, with dog perched across chest and instead I’m having to go to AmericanIdol.com where an hour is squashed up into 5 minutes.  Ford commercials?  Gone.  Adam Lambert who was supposed to sing last night?  Gone.  But hey, 5 minutes is better than no minutes but only slightly.

Ashthon Jones didn’t make it and leaves the show tonight.  I wasn’t a real big fan of hers anyway.  She had the looks and her voice was okay, just didn’t stand out.  I’ve just got to come up with a better game plan next week…this royally sucks.

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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