WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just accomplished something I've always wanted to do in my life. I witnessed the Space Shuttle take off!!! Granted I was 6 hours north of the Kennedy Space Center but never the less, I saw this incredible shuttle head off into space.

I'd always heard you could see the space shuttle take off from the south end of Tybee but until this week never quite took the time to follow the schedule to watch this. This was actually the 4th attempt this week- earlier in the week I'd ridden my bike down to the south end to watch this only to find out with 10 minutes to go, the launch was stopped. My new favorite reality TV is www.nasa.gov and the you go to the NASA TV section. You can spend hours watching the shuttle's every little detail. So I've been following this and figured out exactly how long it would take me to ride my bike to the south end and position myself on the beach to watch this. As of 25 minutes to launch- everything was a go, so I headed down.

There were lots of people on the beach and walk over waiting, the air was cool- no humidity, the moon was bright and the stars out in full force. Then exactly 1 minute before midnight I heard several excited squeals and there she was!!! A huge red trail of fire heading up the coast towards Africa. We could watch the shuttle for a full 5 minutes until she became so small we couldn't see her any more. We all applauded with excitement!!

I silently wished the astronauts Godspeed and then I thought about Senator Ted Kennedy. I had spent the evening earlier watching the Irish Wake of Senator Kennedy and couldn't help but smile when I saw the red fire trail head off into space. This was a man who believed that our country was truly the greatest on earth and believed anything was possible . After seeing the shuttle tonight, this just re affirms that when we Americans put our minds to something, anything is truly possible. This was a wonderful way to cap off the day of honoring him.

I will be sure that I am on the south beach watching every single launch I can until the day comes when I can actually be at the Kennedy Space Center watching right there!

The Final Two Coffee Choices

We're down to the final two choices for the coffee. These are the two names and the wonderful label designed by one of our guests- Melissa from South Carolina who is a digital scrapebooker. We've posted these on Facebook on our Mermaid Cottage page and are asking everyone to make a comment with your choice for the winning name. Don't you love the label? Brillant as our friends in the UK would say!

We're also starting the tasting process to select our coffee- Mary Lou and Judy are our offical Mermaid coffee tasters and they have promised to select a coffee sure to please everyone.

Add you comment for your choice and we'll annouce the winner next week! Thanks everyone for being part of this whole project. We've loved everyone jumping on board.

The Tybee Island Baptist Church burning- finally the big scene!

We here on Tybee are always looking for a reason to have a gathering! Last Saturday night was no exception and we organized a "burn down the church" party on the front yard of Fish Camp Cottage which sits directly across the street from the church. A few of the neighbors gathered along with Mer people: Mary Lou, David & Judy and Seaside Sister Susan. We first all sat right outside the picket fence with a perfect view of all the action. And boy was there action! We looked like we belonged as part of the cast and crew- so much that the movie catering company started to include us in the hourly food service provided for everyone! Silver tray service- fresh fruit and mini Krispy Kreme donuts is pictured here. We are sorry Margo and her family weren't here for the final night, but we know they had fun all week watching the other scenes being shot at the church.

The director did ask us to move back inside the fence because it turned out that we were right in the view of the camera . The church burning was incredible, take after take of the same burning. The church wasn't damaged at all, but it sure will look like a major fire overtook the church when it makes it to the film. The fire started at dark and they didn't finish up until well after midnight. Vickie Lynn - another of our mermaids- who is also a Tybee Volunteer Fire person, was an extra for the movie as well and she didn't finish up till well after 3AM.

The movie is all finished now, everyone has left and gone back to LA and everything seems so quiet. We can't wait till January 8th when The Last Song comes out!

Introducing Berkeley Springs our newest Guide Dog Puppy

Mermaid Cottages sponsors a Guide Dog Puppy each year. This year we're actually sponsoring two puppies and the newest puppy- Berkeley Springs ( or Berkeley as we're going to call him) is coming by for a quick visit so we can meet him before he heads to Florida with Sandy his puppy walker who'll have him for the next 18 months to socialize and start the basic training. Lots more to come on Berkeley. He's been named to honor my step dad Bob who died earlier this year- Berkeley Springs was his beloved hometown and I couldn't think of another name that would be better to remember Bob!

Help us clean up our Gateway to Tybee

For those of you on the island on Saturday- tomorrow August 15th, meet us at the Tybee Turtle and Welcome to Tybee sign to help us clean up the Gateway to Tybee. One of our favorite groups of people on Tybee- Tybee Beautification will be hosting their quarterly pick up the trash Saturday. We'll meet at 8AM and will pick up trash all morning ( or as long as you can stick around). We hope to see lots of you there.

Katie comes home!

One of the true delights of life is when the daughter that you raised comes back home for a visit as a young adult. She cooks, she chats, she likes to do everything I like and more, she tells me about her adventures and best of all she's my blood and my legacy and what I'll leave behind when I'm gone. Her summer job in Brevard, NC where she works during the school year is managing the camp's organic garden. She brought home bounty from the garden! Is there anything better then fresh heirloom tomatoes, okra, fresh basil and peaches? We made breakfast, lunch and dinner at home every day because there couldn't possibly be anything better at any of the local restaurants. Adding to the fresh fruits and veggies were shrimp from the shrimp boats of Lazeretto Creek that were swimming in the marsh and ocean a day earlier.

We rode our beach bikes daily, especially at dusk which is our favorite time of the day. The beach bikes have seen better days but they get us around and no one would ever consider stealing them. We went to the beach to sit in the tidal pools of the south end of the island and spent one magical afternoon off Suzanne's dock floating on big inner tubes tied to the docks and watching the tide float out of the tidal creek. Each evening we'd see what reality tv shows were on and were so delighted when Sex and the City- The movie was on HBO! Katie has left to go back to her real life and work and I already miss her!

Lights, Camera , Action- Our Church is ready for her close up!

The big day is here! Our church has been rebuilt again and is beautiful and ready for her days of being a movie star. She is freshly painted, plants and flowers planted everywhere, the church pews are in place and the cameras all set up. The 125 extras will be showing up, the movie stars are back in town and the day is beautiful. Sunny and clear. Pictures to follow !

The Teen Choice Awards & our favorite Tybee Teen!

The Teen Choice Awards is being shown right now on FOX. The people that bring us American Idol have this awards show which teens and tweens support in huge numbers. Don't think this is a frivolous awards show. This is the first step in kids lives to show them the power of their vote and they can make a difference in the world. It may start with voting for the Jonas Brothers as their favorite group, but also puts them squarely on the path of voting when they turn 18 and can really change the world!



And speaking of teens- our favorite teenager and summer time local girl next door is the main attraction of the show! She's all over the show singing, performing and just adding her star power! Here's the bio they have on the awards website. This will just exhaust most people, but not our Miley! Read carefully and you'll see that as soon as she finishes shooting here on Tybee Island, she'll be off on her new tour which includes not only the USA but London.



"Miley Cyrus is a multi-platinum recording artist and the youngest recording artist ever to have four No. 1 albums in less than three years. She stars in the hit cable series "Hannah Montana," currently in its third season, and recently appeared in "Hannah Montana: The Movie," which topped the box office its opening weekend. She is the author of "Miles to Go," the best-selling story of her record-setting successes in TV, music and film and her rise to global fame from her small-town Tennessee roots. In addition, Cyrus and designer Max Azria of apparel house BCBGMAXAZRIAGROUP, Inc. have teamed up to create Miley Cyrus & Max Azria, a new apparel line launching this August that will be sold exclusively in Walmart stores. Cyrus is currently filming "The Last Song," written by Nicholas Sparks, and is set to embark on a 45-city North American tour this September."



http://www.teenchoiceawards.com/

Daughter Katie is here visiting for a few days and she made an incredible dinner- Shrimp Cakes on a bed of Organic Greens, a great bottle of Chardonnay and our home made Peach Cobbler in the oven for dessert.... I'll be sharing some more of her great food she's been spoiling me with all week. Now back to watch those teens!

Julie and Julia- The movie, the book and the blog

I went to see this charming and very endearing movie over the weekend. http://www.julieandjulia.com/ and the blog http://www.juliepowell.blogspot.com/

I loved the movie for many reasons, but one of the reasons why was Meryl Streep playing Julia Child. She is happy perfection. Every single time she walked on the screen you just smiled because you loved her. I also loved the movie because the unlikely love story between Julia and Paul Child was told. He just adored her. He was 10 years older then she was and they worked together for a long time. During one scene of the movie, a guest at the dinner party asked how they met. He explained how they'd been working together for years and finally during a dinner, he realized that she was the one and always had been "the one". You could hear every middle aged mermaid in the audience sigh out loud. .. Middle age love is a truly joy to watch!

I also loved the movie because it was about a blogger who discovered the wonders of blogging and sharing parts of her life's adventures and the people that follow her. I still am not quite sure why I love blogging so much, I've never considered myself a writer or any ambitions to write a book, magazine article or column, but there is something about being able to sit down at my laptop and share our island and goings on that is just a great time for me. There was one part of the movie when Julie receives her very first comment on her blog. I knew just how she felt! Thrilled that someone was reading what she was writing every day!!!

I recommend the movie, I recommend reading both books the movie was based on , I recommend following Julie Powel's Blog and most of all I recommend you purchase Julia Child's Masterpiece Cook book. I have an idea floating around in my mind about which cook book I'd like to prepare every single recipe in the book.... Julia's book is too much, but there's another Southern Writer who's brand new book comes out next week who's also written a cook book. Other then Mary Kay Andrews- he's my favorite Southern writer and I've often thought I'd like to prepare every recipe in the book... this movie may be my inspiration. I'll let everyone know if I decide to proceed- best of all, there's far fewer recipe's then Julia's 500 plus !

WOW! Such amazing creativity!

You all are just incredible! Besides all the posts here with names for the coffee blend, my mermaid cottages Facebook page has over 50 suggestions for names! I love all the GREAT suggestions! I'm going to spend some time this weekend going thru all the suggestions, narrow it down to the top 10 ( or maybe 25 because so many are that wonderful) post them on my blog and mermaid cottages Facebook page and try and come up with the winning name. Regarding the label- I love my mermaid logo so much, she's who I want to use for the label.

Here's the story about how I found her. When I first began , I knew I wanted to use the words mermaids and cottages because both sounded so happy and beachy to me. The challenge was to find a mermaid that was too "cutesy" but still was very clearly a mermaid. When you Google the word "mermaid" thousands and thousands of choices come up. Literally. I started to scroll thru the choices each day for a couple of hours hoping the right one would be there. I came across a poster created in the 1955 with a version of a mermaid and I knew this was the one. Not only was this my birth year but the mermaid was big and bold. My amazing graphic designer, Louise Coleman and website designer, Beth Thrasher www.thrasherdesign.com came up with just the right color , fonts and re do of the mermaid to make her an original. This is the long story about why I'm going to use my mermaid logo for the coffee container .

Thanks everyone for the wonderful suggestions! I'll be back with the choices soon!

Help us name our coffee blend

We need help and your creativity. We've been offering a coffee service in all our homes- coffee, assorted teas, cream, sugar- sometimes even hot chocolate in the winter. The coffee has been a blend that we mix together and have had many of our guests ask about who makes the coffee! We do and it has been a secret of which coffees we blend together.

We want to name our coffee as well as describe the ingredients. Here's what we've come up with: "Mermaid Cottages Blend. Our special coffee blend mixed with a pinch of sunshine, a dash of sea air and a whole lot of fun on Tybee Island."

So.....help us with a name for the coffee. The winning name will receive a Mermaid Cottages baseball cap , recognition on the blog and a jar of the coffee!

Looking forward to hearing from all our creative friends!

Sara Tetley is back in the "house"

One of our favorite island artists- Sara Tetley has sent us some new pictures of more scenes from Tybee's cottages. We now have both prints and original pictures framed and ready to lively happily in your beach cottage or off island home. The art is back at Sea Side Sisters Coastal Cottage shop! We also have a framed print of "The Shrimp Cottage" which is not shown here. We love Sara and are delighted to have more of her art with us again Thank you Sara!!!

Suzanne and Puddy- another Tybee Scene

Suzanne is my kayaking friend. She walks her beautiful standard poodle "Puddy" up and down Venetian Drive in front of her home. What a great place to take your daily walk! She is also a master gardener- look at these glorious orange trumpet flowers she's trained to grow all over her cottage. Just another example of the daily fabric of Tybee...

Watching The Last Song night time shooting

These are scences from our little neighborhood group by the Fish Camp watching the evening shoot at the church for The Last Song during the last night time shoot. Wine, good people and watching Hollywood work.... Lots of fun! There are two more big scenes being shot at the church in the next few weeks, so we'll keep you all in the loop!

Happy 95th Birthday Virgina!

Virgina's daughter- Judy is one of the owners of Sea Largo. She was just here last week to celebrate her 95th birthday at the cottage! She did everything that everyone does on Tybee. She went to the beach, she shopped at SeaSide Sisters, she ate out at lots of restaurants, she even went to Little Tybee by boat to see the dolphins and walk the beach looking for shells.

We celebrated her birthday with a cake bake off. My entry was my Fig Cake ( more details on a futher blog about Tybee figs...) Happy, Happy Birthday Virginia! We're so glad ou're part of our Mermaid family and we'll look forward to celebrating 96 next summer!

One of my two favorite fragrances- Jo Malone's Grapefruit!

I first discovered Jo Malone when traveling to London. She is a London based skin care and creates fragrances which are so fresh and clean smelling. Lime- Basil, Grapefruit, Orange Blossom- they all smell heavenly! There are a couple of stand alone stores in the US or they are sold in a few department stores. The packaging is also part of their branding!.. A cream and black box cradles the bottle and then is inside the same style and color box with tissue paper and a black gross grain ribbon. I took pictures because I love the thought and detail that went into the entire presentation. I wish you could smell the grapefruit!

You can also visit their website and maybe there is a scratch and sniff on the computer screen!

www.jomalone.com

Fiddler on the Creek's Fiddler Crabs

I don't know how clearly you can see these- but these are hundreds of Fiddler Crabs who live in the marsh mud in our tidal creeks. They are a little army that comes out of the mud in the summer when it's 80 degrees or hotter. They wave their big claw and look very fierce ( and actually are if they pinch you!) They live in these little mud holes and come out when the tide is down. Fiddler on the Creek has them everywhere and they are such fun to watch!