Bird Watching at Bomb Island

Saturday night we were finally able to do an evening raft up to see the birds with our cruising fleet.  I have mentioned before our attempts to do this event that were thwarted by evening thunderstorms.  Last Saturday the rains held off and the birds had not yet flown the coop.  It was a successful adventure all around for everyone.

Here we are upon our arrival outside the islands all rafted up together.  This is our friend Tom on his boat!  He also had two additional passengers.  We rafted our boat up next to his on the end.

Looking further in there were 5 boats total that rafted together.

Here is a great shot of the sun as it was going down.

To recap, every year we have thousands of Purple Martins that come for the summer to an island on our lake called Bomb Island. They scour the surrounding areas by day, but at night they all come back to roost for the evening on one island. It is centrally located in the lake and has since been named a bird sanctuary due to this spectacular event. It is quite a sight attracting many boaters to park around the island in the evenings to watch the birds come in for the night.

Looking off our stern you can see several boaters parking for the show.

A nearby boater decides to do a little fishing while waiting for the birds.  In the background you will see one of larger tourist boats on Lake Murray.

This boat is called the Southern Patriot.

It is one of two boats that offer cruises to the public for a fee. 

The Southern Patriot is open to

 large and small parties for evening tours and rentals.  There is another boat on our lake that offers dinner cruises as well.

This is the first boat to offer tours and is always quite exciting to see when it comes by.  It's a good sign to see it here for the evening too!   It encourages us that perhaps we are going to see the birds.

  We had been worried we would not get the chance again since they leave our state this time of year rather abruptly.   They are only here for a few months.  Luckily that was not the case and we were able to watch them and enjoy great company with each other as well.

This is a photo from our bow looking towards the

 island!

Another photo of a point off the island..we were still waiting to see if the birds were going to come.

This is one of our members who rode with us.  Both he and his wife were with us, they are photographers that met in a photography club.  I had hoped to get their photos to share with you but they have not forwarded them to me yet.  Stay tuned for that as I am sure they will be wonderful!

Here are the birds as they begin to arrive over the island!

I apologize I could not get any close up shots but hopefully you will still get the impact.

Slowly they start to fill up the sky above.

It's getting late and my photography skills are so bad.  I was too busy socializing and only kept remembering to pick up the camera every so often.

But as you can see all those specks are flocks of birds.  It is truly a sight to behold.

As the evening sets in and the majority of the birds have landed, it is time to go home.  It's a long trip back for a sailboat.  We decided to motor back for the evening.

We pass the Southern Patriot again later in the night, all lit up it's a beautiful sight as well!

We had a wonderful evening with a great group of people.  If you ever get to come to Lake Murray in the summer, be sure and plan an evening of bird watching off of Bomb Island.  You will not be disappointed, even better if you get to share it with a few friends.

I am linking up with http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/

for Outdoor Wednesday.

Be sure and visit the link above for more wonderful outdoor adventures.

Thanks for coming by today,I hope you enjoyed the show!

Mary

Official Fall Decorating Day

Yay! Yippee!  Hoo-Rah!  For me, it is officially time to put out the fall decorating!  I also have all of you to thank for that! I have finally come up with an official time for allowing myself to set out the fall decor!  I am declaring August 31st my official (it's Okay) to put it all out day!


Part of my fall decorating dilemma has always been in the way I have approached decorating for the fall season.  Well, thanks to my blogging friends and just looking at all of your beautiful fall inspirations, I have had a revelation as to what has been causing the problem of when to begin.  The following photos should give you an insight into my dilemma, let's take a look.

I have pulled out my fall decorating boxes here.  Do you notice anything about this?

I have my box full of Halloween goodies and...

My box full of Thanksgiving Decor!

Therein lies my problem ladies. I have no FALL box!  All my fall decor is mixed between these two boxes.  I am changing that this year, and creating a fall decor box too.  This will be the things that come out early and pack up only when Christmas rolls around.  DUH!!!

Okay, so now on to look at a few changes I have already made this morning!  I'm starting with the breakfast table.  I only made a very few simple changes.  I love easy changes, don't you?

Some things stayed the same and some things changed.

I changed out the glass candle holder that I was using to this one I already had.  It already had the raffia bow on it.  Then  I added these glass stones from my stash of pebbles, but kept my green candle because I just love the color.

 

I confess, I also changed out the glass container because I broke this one while trying to wash it.  Oh well, at least it was only a $1.00 purchase from a yard sale this summer.  Honestly, it really was a very thin glass to begin with and was bound to happen sooner or later.  The one I'm using now is nice and thick.  Lesson learned to those of yall who pay full retail, don't buy thin glass!  LOL!

I had a small summer floral on here before that I changed out to this small fall urn recently purchased from Michaels.  Love it!  Easy peasy swap!

Then I changed out my napkins from the black and white check to these that have fruit in more fallish colors.  I also added the wooden napkin holders for a more earthy look.

Here's the two main changes side by side.  So simple and just the right change.  I love these pebbles!  They are slightly red, yellow and almost a bit of brown  irredescent.  Because of the color they can be used for so many different seasons.  I have used them for Christmas decor too!  So versatile!

Now one more peek at another area I will be working on today.  Actually I'm going to be working on the whole house today but I'm sure it will continue to evolve weekly.  Please be sure and visit Marty @ http://astrollthrulife.blogspot.com/ for Tabletop Tuesday and for more beautiful vignettes.

  How about you?  Have you totally started fall decorating yet?  Do you have an official time in your head about when to begin?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this too!

Happy Tabletop Tuesday!

Mary

Goodwill Gathering!

I can't believe my good fortune today!  I was out running Monday errands on the other side of town and decided to stop in at the Goodwill store over there.  I learned where it was from some of the regulars at the Goodwill nearest me last time I was there.  They had said it's not as large as ours and doesn't really have much good stuff.  Well, I guess it's really all in the eye of the beholder because I certainly found waaayyy too much good stuff!


Before I show you all the other stuff let me show one thing I found there that I actually was thinking I needed this weekend after fixing up my craft room.  When I came up on it I was like OMG!  This was what I was envisioning I wanted and the exact size I wanted too!

This wooden stand is what I wanted!  I cannot believe it!  I needed something to hang paper off of and maybe even ribbon.  I just need to figure out how to do that since the round dowels are so much large then my ribbon spool holes.  But as you can imagine I was thrilled to find this for only $3.00.  I will show you how I used it last so keep reading!

And here's the rest of the loot!  I guess I just lucked up!

This location also seemed to be priced much cheaper then the one I go to.  There were several boxes of dishes too that were marked 2.00 or 3.00 for the box.  Most all the dish boxes did not have complete sets but enough pieces to make decent sets especially mixing and matching.  However, I was being a very good girl and passed them all by.  I really need to find a hutch before I get more dishes anyway.  But that's another story isn't it? 

Okay, now be prepared to drop your jaws!

These two chargers (trays?) were sold together as a set for $1.00.  They are in brand new condition just a little too light for my taste but I have some stain that will darken them up perfectly!

Gorgeous fall pie plate, .90 cents!  Reminds me of a pecan pie.  I have a larger deep dish gold colored one like this too I use for quiche.  This is perfect pie size.

I moved this to the other counter so you could see it better.  This was only .40 cents.  It can fit into a candle holder or wine bottle to make it a taper candle holder!  Very cool!

The lamp is one of those heavy iron type lamps and was only $3.00.  If you look closely you can see it used to have crystals hanging from it someone obviously took off.  I will have fun adding what I want to since it already has holes.  I love the color as is, just needs a great shade and maybe some more bling!

 

I even found some taper candles to go in my new candle holder.  Except they really are too small because they are tiny tapers, but a little sticky putty will hold them nicely.  They are from Williams Sonoma and have a total of 8 in two different colors.  I paid .50cent for the box.

This was the first thing I picked up and my heart did a pitter patter.  It was only $1.00 and is pewter through and through.  It is heavy and thick, the real mccoy y'all, that you see in all the gift shops!  Woohoo!

I was especially excited to get this little canape dish holder for only .50 cents.  I have been wanting one of these but haven't found any with cute plates I liked.  Now, I just need to find some cute square 5" plates.  It will also hold 5" round plates too.  I plan to paint this a bronzy color.

Now for a fun mystery find.  These were priced separately but I am 100% sure they go together.

I paid $1.00 for this candle holder base.  It can hold several different sizes of candles.  It even has an area you could even put a small taper candle in on the top too, which would look really stupid because this base is really big!

Then this piece which was .80 cents.  I have great ideas of how I am going to use this.  It has several grooves on both the top and underside where something round could fit snug.  I first thought it was something that had come apart but I am now thinking it was meant to be a removable piece so you can use it with different options.  I am wondering did a piece of glass break from the middle.  What do you think?  If anyone has seen this before and knows exactly how it was used I would love to know.  I do know how I am going to use it but would love more info on it too!

 

Well that's it!  Pretty good deals huh?  Be sure and visit

http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/ for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.  There always plenty of amazing bargains shared here.

Almost forgot, I promised you a peek at where I was planning to use the rack, didn't I?

Here it is!  I really wanted something like this to sit in this dormer to hold my papers.  I get these papers all the time when I purchase things that the stores wrap up my merchandise in.  They make great papers to do your painting on top of as well as to reuse for package stuffing if you need too.  I also plan to add my more decorative tissue papers and maybe some ribbons on here too! 

Pretty Nifty huh?

Hope you enjoyed these great finds.  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Craft/Sewing Room Makeover

I am so excited to give you my first progress report in the craft/sewing room makeover.  While I still have quite a way to go to get it finished I am ready to reveal where I am in this makeover so far.  If you remember I took over the smallest of three bedroom upstairs to convert it into my own space. 

This was the before picture after moving out all the furniture.

Then I opened up one of my cans of Ooops paint and and did a test on the wall.  The color was one that I really liked but very close to the same color I have all over the rest of the house, a yellowy gold.  I really wanted something with a green tint in this room though, so I opened up another can I had of a dark green from a previous paint job and added some green to the gold for a test.

This is the original color shown next to the first test color I mixed.  I knew I was headed in the right direction after seeing this.  I also knew since I only had a smaller amount of green to go into my full gallon of gold that it was going to be lighter then my first mix.

This was fine with me since I didn't want to go to dark in this room.  So first, I dumped my gold gallon in a bucket and then the rest of the green I had into the same bucket and this third color is what I ended up with!   I was thrilled!  It still could be considered a gold color with a slight greenish tint. 

Of course after completing my room I had to break out my Sherwin Williams swatches to see what color I actually ended up with!

Holding up all my swatches to the wall the color that is almost identical to the mix I made is called Wheat Grass.

Isn't that a wonderful name?  It's so funny because this is one color I have looked at many times before and thought of buying from Sherwin Williams but never have.  I have a feeling I may be using this color from Sherwin Williams in the future.  I love it!

After I finished painting the room and the trim I decided to work on this shelf I was taking from my youngest sons room.  He didn't want it and took another shelf that used to belong to the older son.  It's nothing special but would give me lots of shelving space to store more craft items. 

 

So I painted it an off white color.  This color, Satin Weave, was from another can of Ooops paint that I picked up last week.  I planned to use this on several other pieces also.  I jumped right into this project only to be very disappointed.  Why?  Because in my haste to snap up this can of paint, I neglected to see it was and oil based paint. 

I only realized it was oil based after I already started putting lots of paint on these shelves.  I am not a fan of oil based paint at all!  It takes so long to dry, is sticky and a complete mess IMOP!  Not to mention once you use oil based paint you can only paint over it with more oil based paint.  I know it is more durable but I would rather use latex any day of the week!  Ughhh!  So, I guess this means I will be looking for this color in a latex very soon for the rest of the pieces I wanted to paint.

And ta daaa!!!  Here it is after I finished the paint job and started to move some things in.

I'm starting to get things more in order now.

I wanted my desk here along this wall with this old shelf unit next to it...

...so that I'd have room for another smaller dresser desk I have to put in between these two chairs.  It is in the basement now awaiting a paint job.  My oldest son had it and brought it back a couple of weeks ago because he didn't want it anymore!  He bought something new which was fine by me.  I've used it before as a sewing table and it really works much better for that then the green desk ever did.  The problem with the green desk is that it is so deep that the presser foot is too far back under the desk making it difficult to sew.  I also will be repainting these old chairs too.  Do you think they will look okay painted ?

 

Finally the shelves dried and I was able to pull together this area a little more.  Those glass containers are not mine.  I have been holding on to them for one of our club members since our Jimmy Buffet Party this spring.  They have been on the floor in my dining room all summer long.  That was the only room I knew they would be safe in.

 I was thrilled to move them here out of the way on the shelves until she picks them up.  This gives me time to see what I will need to use the shelf space for and how to organize it best.

The little dormer window got a new window covering as promised.  Only it's not new to me though.  This was one of the valences I had in the den before I went to drapes.  I really like it in here now!  Just look how green the walls look in this photo!  Trust me they really are not this green, it's just the lighting.  But as you can see they definitely have a greenish tint in that gold.  I just love this room so much now!  I can't wait to get creative in here! 

Please visit http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ for Metamorphosis Monday

and http://debbie-debbiedoos.blogspot.com/ For Before and After Party

Thanks for stopping by, please leave me a note if you do.  It's always nice to hear from you!

Mary