Eagle Beach, Aruba

Eagle Beach, Aruba

May 12, 2012

We stayed at the beautiful Costa Linda Beach Resort on the northwest side of Aruba.  It is on Eagle Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches on Aruba.  It is a safe, sheltered beach with cool white sands, shallow waters and plenty of shade.  The resort provides shade huts, sun loungers, and beach chairs on a first come first serve basis.  However, it is a public beach with no lifeguards so swimming is at your own risk and you should pay attention to the water conditions caution flags.

During our stay, the flags remained yellow meaning that conditions exist so caution should be used.  We enjoyed walking along the beach and we did a bit of swimming in the Caribbean Sea as well.  It was very pleasant sitting on the beach listening to the waves while the sun set.  We were able to enjoy this gorgeous view for seven nights!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Sunset at Our New House

Sunset at Our New House

October 16, 2011

I'm a skywatcher, always have been.  Over the past decade we have enjoyed some of the most beautiful sunsets while boating and living on the water.  While we can still enjoy the gorgeous sunsets on the water while boating, we are no longer living on the water so I was concerned that we would be missing out on sunsets.  Pictured is the sunset I took a picture of through our bedroom window.  It was quite pretty.  I will have to get used to the fact that the windows have screens on both the outside that gives a grid when I have become used to taking pictures through a clear pane of glass.  Surprisingly my digital camera does that quite nicely.

We have a fair amount of open space around our new home giving a minimal of obstructions for skywatching.  I was surprised to be able to get a nice shot of that sunset.  I will be able to get even better pictures from the pool deck and not bad pictures from the main deck.  What is really nice is even though we have a glow from our new urban setting I can still use the telescope for a bit of star gazing!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Wordless Wednesday - Evening Splendor

Evening Splendor

June 16, 2011

Garden Gnome

©2006-2011

Wordless Wednesday - Evening's Promise

Evening's Promise

March 30, 2011

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Wordless Wednesday - Ribbons in the Sky

Ribbons in the Sky

November 11, 2010

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Wordless Wednesday - Evening Delight

Evening Delight

October 26, 2010

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

A Silver Lining

Evening Promise

August 21, 2010

There have been a lot of storms in our area recently.  The hot and very humid weather has created the conditions for pop up thunderstorms, some rather violent.  The resulting clouds have helped to create some incredibly vibrant sunsets.  They are just absolutely amazing!  Pictured is the sunset from a couple of nights ago.  It was stunning to say the least, just gorgeous!  True to the say a red sky at night, sailors delight the following day was rain free.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Wordless Wednesday - Evening Splendor

Evening Splendor

June 19, 2010

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Pondering

Sunset from Kitchen Window
January 3, 2008

I have to be the first to say we are so very, very blessed to live where we do. This is a typical view from my kitchen window many nights. Washing a few larger pots and pans couldn't be more pleasant!

I let things bother me more than I should. I know that and yet it happens especially with genealogy. Last night in the wee hours of the morning worried about medical tests to be faced today I poured over the ships manifests images. It would have been so nice to have my great great grandparents reveal themselves. They didn't. My eyes were getting very tired yet I couldn't sleep then I came upon an entry. This was a family from England - father 41, mother 38 and children 19, 16, 15, 13,11,4, 3 and 3 months. In perfect script beside their names was the notation "to be deported". That meant the family was going back to England but to what? Not only had they travelled 7 days to get to Quebec they would have to travel 7 days back to England with nothing to go to. They had already given up their home, their jobs (if they had them), sold off most of their possessions so they wouldn't have to move them and raise money for the trip, and likely spent the last penny they had to buy tickets for the family to go to Canada. Once there all the hopes and dreams were dashed! I can't help but wonder what happened to them and I couldn't help shedding a tear knowing full well that things likely did not turn out "peachy keen" for this family.

Back to the search...

Wordless Wednesday - Sunset Through the Clouds

Sunset Through the Clouds
November 5, 2007

Wordless Wednesday - Sunset at the Marina

Sunset at the Marina
September 8, 2007

Portals...

Sunset
April 17, 2007

Last night's sunset was gorgeous and I managed to take several good shots along with this fluke zoom shot. It reminded me of portals. As you know I like Harry Potter. The wizards in the books uses various means of moving from one location to another including portals. In the Harry Potter series, portals tend to be normal looking objects with magical powers allowing the wizard to enter. Portals are not new in the literary world though. A rabbit hole was the portal in Alice in Wonderland, a garden gate was the portal in The Secret Garden, the wardrobe is the portal in the Narnia series and the car was a portal in Back to the Future. Then there's the most reported portal from those who have had near death experiences. The portal is a tunnel with a bright light at the end.

It's interesting to ponder on portals especially on a dull grey and rainy day. Do they exist? Is there any proof that they do not? Are dreams a type of portal taking us to another plane of existence? Have you ever woke from a dream that was just too real? Something to ponder...

Bashing CBC

Sunset
March 22, 2007

The skies have been reflecting March's fickleness changing from blazing colour in the morning to dull grey during the day and more colour at night. We are getting more bright blue with white cloud skies trying to make their way into the grey.

A few entries back I made an entry bashing CBC for cancelling Emmerdale. Now it does seem to be our national pass time to bash CBC, some of it in good humour but sometimes in the what were they thinking category. As Canadians, it is one of the few things we complain about but we are usually polite when doing so. One thing we love poking fun at is our national icons and who helps us do it better than CBC?

In fairness to CBC, they do present some of the best Canadian humour and my now one and only favourite soap, Coronation Street. Some of my favourite comedies are This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer's Monday Report, Royal Canadian Air Farce, Arrested Development, The Red Green Show and the new Little Mosque on the Prairie. Of course there are the comedy club specials always well worth watching and don't forget Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry. They have been know to show some very good documentaries with Canada: A People's History being one of the most memorable. If you get a chance to see this series it is more than worth it. The videos can be orders for your personal library. The are a wonderful resource for anyone teaching Canadian History and have been approved for use in the classroom by many Canadian school boards.

Long live CBC. May it continue to tick us off and be a scapegoat while providing us with some very good Canadian programming.

Sunset over the Water

Sunset
February 22, 2007

It has been a rough weekend yet nothing was going on. Friday and Saturday nights I fell to sleep easily enough only to wake around 3 am. By Sunday night I was too tired to sleep, if that makes sense. Still I finally drifted off to awaken at 4:30 am and have been up ever since. Over the weekend I've become increasing irritable and this morning I just can't get warm, all clear signs of being overtired.

A restless mind is often the cause of not being able to sleep. My problem is quite often my mind just doesn't want to sleep. It does have a mind of its own, no pun intended. So here I sit, needing to update my blogs with a mind that just doesn't want to co-operate. Oh sure, it will give me hints that sleep would be nice but as soon as I try to sleep, it's a whole different story!

One of the questions I'm often asked is why blog? Blogging is a type of online diary but it can be so much more. I started my first blog on gardening then followed it through with another on cooking, one on homemaking and this one on a catch-all but mainly genealogy. So mine are fairly categorized. For me, blogging makes sense. First you can write on any topic you want or none at all. Second the blog hosts make it easy to change your layouts and add posts as needed. Readers can interact with you which makes it a little nicer than home pages. I can remember when they were all the rage! So I think overall blogs are an improvement on home pages allowing the author to share with others what he or she chooses to.

Apparently there are now sites that pay you to post to your blog and of course the adware didn't take long catching on to the popularity of blogging. I have definite opinions on both of these tactics. I think using a site like payperpost.com reduces the quality of the author's posts. They become no longer unique and part of themselves. In short they are no longer sharing what it was they had hoped for when the first set up their blog. They've lost part of themselves. I hate the looks of the "I'm being paid by for this post" icons. Honestly, that will turn me off anyone's blog immediately! Second, blogs were meant for sharing information both personal or theme based, not for advertising. To my fellow bloggers, get those ads off your blogs! I visit your blogs to read what you have to say, learn a bit, to view your pictures, enjoy your humour and sympathize with your pain. I don't want to see ads, sorry!

The Sky

Sunset and Clouds

I'm always looking to the sky not only to see what is to be but to reinforce what I am blessed to have. As a gardener I know the sky reveals a lot about the day's weather but as a person the sky reveals more sometimes. Sunrises give hope and faith that that day will be fine. Sunsets give peace and comfort in a day well spent surrounded by those I love and cherish. Then there is the night skies! They are so fascinating that I could easily spend hours outside watching them with the telescope pondering about those who went before us and those who will be. So for me, the sky is God's church where all are welcomed but it is also a connection to my ancestors and my past.\

Sunset

Genealogy research can be frustrating to say the least sometimes. Some days the information just seems to fly at you from all directions then without any warning then information suddenly dries up. So it has been with the latest round of research. I have many new leads to follow and a lot of data entry to do. I'll like spend much of my genealogy time this coming week on data entry until something stands out needing further investigation. My second great grandparents continue to haunt my thoughts. Out of the blue and just by shear luck I found where one of their daughters lived after their death. She was only four when they died. That was a pleasant discovery.

I'm making progress on my book so that's a good thing. Every so often I have to stop to do a bit of research to clarify a point or add more detail. That means I'm bouncing between two computers, a PDA, written notes and documents and online. My desk is so congested that even my husband asked how I could find anything. To the side but in front of my desk are two wooden tv tables. Each one holds a huge binder stuffed full of family group sheets, documents, pictures and family stories. I can easily swivel from computers to binders as needed. And so it goes.