9.30.2013

September Adventures

Saying Goodbye to September!

I have decided to turn my Weekly Adventures to Monthly Adventures. I was having a hard time coming up with something to write about weekly, and realized my life isn't that exiting on a weekly bases. I thought it would be better to just share glimpses of the month, unless something really exciting happens, then I will do a post just on that.

The most exciting thing that happened in September was my Roadtrip with my Sister to New York and Salem, Massachusetts. I wrote separate posts about my trip in 5 parts. I wrote about our time in New York, Night 1 in Salem, Day 1 in Salem, Day 2 in Salem, and Heading Home. We had such a great time.

The rest of the month has been fairly quiet. I just thought I would share some photos I took throughout the month. If you follow me on Instagram most of these photos you have probably seen before. These are just some of the more interesting things from the month.

I feel like I am always taking photos of the Florida Sun. I decided to take this picture of some rain clouds on my way to work one morning.


The middle of the month was one of my cousin's kids birthday. He made these minions to go on top of his cake. He just turned 7, and some of his creativity just amazes me. My nickname for him is Wild Man. I will have to take pictures of some of his drawing to show everybody.


I still go visit my Mom in the nursing facility she is in every other weekend. I had stopped to get something at Walgreens on my way to see her and decided to pick up this cute little bat for her. I get my love of Halloween from her. I remember growing up, setting up our blankets on the floor, Mom would turn out all the lights and we would watch scary movies all night. Some of my favorite moments growing up.


I captured this rainbow on my way home from visiting with her.


September's Harvest Full Moon!


Doodles from work. Sometimes I am waiting on the computer and I doodle a bit. I will try to remember to share these more often. I usually just throw them away.


Lonely Rain Cloud under the Sun one day on my way home from work. Something I forgot to mention I drive just under an hour to and from work everyday. I also go over a couple of bridges so I do get to see some amazing scenery.


In other exciting news, I do not watch a whole lot of television but one of my all time favorite shows is back on, Sons of Anarchy. I just found out they are going to be ending the show after next season.



A couple of other shows I am looking forward to that start next month are of course The Walking Dead, American Horror Story: The Coven, and Witches of East End. I also watch Face Off when I can catch it, I love seeing all the creativity the people have on that show.

I am also looking forward to all the Halloween decorations at the stores. Halloween is by far my favorite holiday.

I think I am going to end it here until next month...

Creatively Tara

9.25.2013

WIP Hummingbirds #2

I got the backgrounds done on both of the hummingbirds. I think I would like to go over the green again next week, just to give it more depth.


9.23.2013

2013 Sister Roadtrip - Heading Home

We took some random pictures from the car on the way back home:


Downtown Boston!



Heading through New York City!



Mountains, not sure where exactly we were when these were taken. We ended up through Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee.









Back in Florida!!! Of Course it's raining!



9.22.2013

2013 Sister Roadtrip - Day 2 in Salem

We got up the next morning and it was sprinkling out. We got dressed, headed out and it was a lot cooler out. We decided to head to the coffee shop again to have breakfast. I didn't take a picture of our breakfast because we basically got the same things, bagels and coffee. After breakfast we stopped at this little fish shop and they do Gyotaku there. Gyotaku is where they take a fish and apply ink to it, then do a print from the actual fish. They are really neat looking. They had one of an angler fish that I really loved. It was to expensive for me to buy the original print, and they didn't have any lower cost prints of it. I did buy some note cards of a tail of a fish, not sure exactly what type of fish it was.

We then headed to the Peabody Essex Museum which is the local art museum. They had some really neat exhibits on American Maritime and different kinds of Chinese art. They also had an exhibit on the Fabergé Eggs, but it cost extra and we decided not to see it. I have it in my head that your not supposed to take picture inside art museums, even though they said we could, so I didn't take really any. My sister got some pictures of some of the art though, I might show some of her pictures at a later date. Here are the pictures I did take.

There was this neat mirror in the main area of the museum and we had a little fun taking pictures of each other in it.






One of the things we definitely wanted to do was get our pictures taken as witches. So we headed to Salem Vintage Photography and got our pictures taken. The lady that took our pictures was super sweet and we had a blast doing it. We had her laughing right along with us.









After the session was over she needed some time to get the order together. I wanted to check out the Salem Witch Museum so we went there while we waited for our order to be complete.



The museum is an old church building, which was gorgeous. We went in and had to wait a bit for the next showing to start, so we went and checked out the gift shop. When the show was ready to start we headed inside what looked like a kind of auditorium with scenes set up around the room with mannequins. It started by telling the story of some of the women and men who were accused of being witches, and how they were persecuted. This is where we learned about the man who was pressed to death. After this was over, we went into a room where there were pictures on the walls and more mannequins. A lady talked to us about what we think of as witches, what a pagan and midwife is, and what witches are today. It was very informative and historical.

We went back to Salem Vintage Photography and picked up our pictures and cd of the entire session. We were then starving and headed to The Witches Brew for some lunch. I did not take a picture of our food, but I got a quesadilla and my sister got a fish sandwich. The food was really good.


This wooden plaque was inside the doorway as you enter. I thought it was beautifully made.


My sister decided to try the Witches Brew drink. If I remember correctly it was coconut rum, pineapple juice, midori, and a splash of milk. He shook it up and when he poured it, it came out all frothy. It was definitely to sweet for me.


The Ye Olde Pepper Companie was right next to The Witches Brew, so we went there and bought the candy we wanted to get. On the way back to the hotel to put our stuff down we stopped at a few more shops and got a few more things.

After we put our stuff down at the hotel, we were both sad that this was our last day. I really wished we would have planned more time there. I definitely want to go back already. We were beat tired from walking around but decided to go explore as much as we could before it got dark.

This was a house we walked by earlier, I do not remember the significance of it, but I love the way it looked.


I just loved the look of this church.


We had saw a sign when we first arrived about the Farmer's Market going on Thursday night. I had completely forgot about it and we kind of just happened upon it. It was so neat seeing all the local produce, meat, bakery items, and handmade things.


Some random photos:



This was the front of the Salem Vintage Photography store.


We started getting really tired of walking around and decided to grab some dinner. The one place I had wanted to eat at was the Lobster Shanty, ever since I saw it on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.




I had it in my head that I wanted to get the Lobster Mac & Cheese, but when we got there I wasn't in the mood for it. I ended up getting this Fried Brie Burger with balsamic reduction and caramelized onions. It was amazing!


We felt a little better after we ate so kind of wandered around town and took some random photos.


The Irish Bar we didn't get a chance to check out.







I snapped a picture of the hotel as we walked by.


I think this is a fire hydrant, its different than the ones we have here in Florida.


We ended up back down by the marina and the Friendship ship. We didn't realize there was a lighthouse down the way from the ship until later, so we decided to walk down to it.








Back at the hotel! Time to get everything together for the trip back home.


I had such a great time with my sister. We need to do things like this more often.

I did enjoy the driving up there and seeing the scenery that I am not used to everyday. Florida is so flat that it was amazing seeing all the mountains. I want to go back to Salem but I think next time I might just fly up there to spend more time in the city. There were quite a bit that we didn't get to do while we were there. I would have liked to do a ghost tour and the Witch Walk. There were some stores we didn't get to go to also.

I have one more post about the trip to come, mostly just random photos of the way back home...