...Slow Down Gotta Slow it Down!!!

   My son Josh and I always agree to disagree over the poetic contribution of a lot of the RAP he listens to...I decided I would write him some 50 something rap!   After hearing it he told me it was poetry but he would not listen to it if it was a song!....So chime in boomers what do you think about my
Boomer Rap...Slow Down Gotta Slow it Down ...would you listen?


Exponential, sequential, hyper up to my potential
credentials, essential, feeling so inconsequential
XP, 3G, amp it up, God help me!
4D, don't wanna be, take me back to Born Free!

Micro Macro soft n hard...Apple, Droid I'm gettin scarred
Text me, skype me, twitter me , facebook status glitter me!
Stay in Constant Contact,  Linking in for the full impact
Weave my Dreams on Web pages, barely deal with gas gauges

Animated overstated feeling very antiquated
OMG, never say never, be my BFF 4eva
Blogging for the world to see, used a false identity
Google, Bing, and web bots too,  raised on Captain Kangaroo!


Slow down... gotta slow it down... slow down...  wanna throw it down!
Can't keep going round and round gotta put our feet back on the ground
Slow down...gotta slow it down

Exponential, sequential, hyper up to my potential
credentials, essential, feeling so inconsequential
XP, 3G, amp it up God help me !
4D, don't wanna be, take me back to Born Free!

Alternate our energy, solar, windmills set us free!
Generate, accelerate, pretty soon obliterate
build McMansions, want Expansion, loose our kids to all the tension
TV... easy.... queasy... Swiss  cheese brains are breezy....!


Hybrid cars, going to mars, catching fireflys in jars
DNA genetic codes, unlocks the door to motherlodes!
Exercising on the wii, kids aren't allowed to climb a tree
heads are growing, thumbs are blowin', Darwin tell us where we're goin'

Slow down... gotta slow it down... slow down...  wanna throw it down!
Can't keep going round and round gotta put our feet back on the ground
Slow down...gotta slow it down

Exponential, sequential, hyper up to my potential
credentials essential, feeling so inconsequential
XP, 3G, amp it up, God help me !
4D don't wanna be... take me back to Born Free!

Wall-street, no balance sheets?...makes its own rules... so sweet
CEO'S all make a billion, want a zillion, all reptilian
Common man he needs a plan, got an ADD attention span!
stress?... forgot to  mention.... anybody gotta pension??

Anxiety, society, gave up all  sobriety
Pills, thrills, feeling ill, when did we all lose free will?
kids are selling... all misspelling... like a car wreck, so compelling
under attack, looking back, remember when there was no Crack!

Slow down... gotta slow it down... slow down...  wanna throw it down!
Can't keep going round and round gotta put our feet back on the ground
Slow down...gotta slow it down...slow down...gotta  s l o w  i t d o w n...

Exponential, sequential, hyper up  to my potential
credentials, essential, feeling so inconsequential
XP, 3G, amp it up ,God help me !
4D, don't wanna be, take me back to Born Free!

Hurricanes, climate change, Watch it all on the stock exchange
Liposuction, fat reduction,  all part of  the false seduction
Botoxed skin, everyone's in, but try n tell what they're  thinkin'??!
Growing old, feeling sold, golden days are not foretold

Legislation, taxation, take away our vacations
Thinking back never had control, listening to our rock and roll
Take a deep breath, settle down, no longer want to move uptown...
Love me a creek, gotta get some sleep, take off my shoes and dangle my feet...


Slow down... gotta slow it down... slow down...  wanna throw it down
Can't keep going round and round gotta put our feet back on the ground
Slow down...gotta slow it down...slow down...gotta  s l o w   i t   d o w n....s  l  o  w
d  o  w  n.... g   o   t   t   a       s   l   o   w        i   t         a   l    l        d    o    w    n...


(C) June 26 2011 Lynn McPherson



Thanks for reading
Lynn
www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com

Deltaville and Yorktown double the FUN!! Next National Harbor!

  We divided and conquered two farmers markets this past weekend and they were both lovely. First of all the weather was superb...warm with little humidity... a nice breeze but no wind...perfect for selling santas and seashells by the seashore!
    Deltaville farmers market was as usual like a mini vacation. It is such a great location... creek frontage, gorgeous gardens, large wonderful shade trees, an intriguing maritime museum, great food at Bill's Bistro, and a great variety of artists and food vendors! If you have never been it is a must do in my book! Even if we did not make a penny there (but we always do!) it is worth the trip just to soak up the natural beauty and energy of the place! Like I said its like a mini vacation rather than work doing Deltaville.
   Yorktown is another must do farmers market. This location is also vacation material...as a matter of fact it is a major vacation destination for many and with good reason. Great River views, wonderful beach, historical Yorktown and the River Walk shops and restaurants right there! The assortment of food and produce vendors is amazing...Yum....!! They have it all! The artists are very high end and they keep it that way so that treasures are always there to be found. The best part of all is the  wonderful York River and its magical spell. You can imagine all of the historical events that have happened right there on the banks of this river. It is a powerful picture as it meets the Chesapeake Bay right where we sit selling our Santas and ornaments. It is such a rejuvenating experience being there...especially when the weather is perfect like it was last weekend.
    We both had good times at our respective locations and maybe we will switch next month if we decide to do another two for one special. I hope you will come out and join us if you have not already.
   This next weekend we will be at the National Harbor up in the  DC area right across the Woodrow Wilson bridge into MD. We are anxious to try this new location. We have heard great things about The National Harbor and the great Shopping ,Restaurants, Accommodations and Entertainment. It is  supposed to be top notch get away weekend material. We are excited to be a part of their market on the great Potomac River! Once again if you come by and see us and mention our blog or facebook page we will have a free  glittered starfish ornament for you! Come by and say hi....can't wait to meet you!
Thanks for reading!
Lynn McPherson

www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com
Bringing a bit of the Chesapeake into you Home and Holidays!

Pray for Adam an everyday hero

  Today I am going to talk about my friend Adam. Adam is the foster son of my best friend and partner Shawnette. Adam has been with Shawnette and her family since he was four years old. Today he is 20. Adam has a fairly severe case of Cerebral Palsy and is very compromised in his use of his arms, legs, hands, and mouth. He can speak but very slowly and with very poor pronunciation.Very few people can understand him. Adam's mind is amazing he is above average in intelligence but socially he is young. Adam needs constant care because he needs help dressing, taking care of his personal hygiene, and eating. He cannot write, he can never drive, he has a lot of spasticity in his movements. Social Services and his friends and family and the group home he is  now in have been unable to find him employment because of his limitations.
   Adam is still under the umbrella of social services. Adam  had to be removed from Shawnette's home in his late teens due to behavioral issues that to this day have not been diagnosed or understood. Adam has been medicated and treated extensively  with behavioral therapy. During this time social services tried to end Shawnette's permanent foster relationship with Adam against her will and  Adam's will. After a very hard fought costly and complicated legal battle social services backed down and apologized to Shawnette and her family... but that was it.  Social Services did not have to follow the same laws as we do and they were not held responsible for their actions when they acted irresponsibly and illegally.  Adam came very close to death and had to have multiple surgeries because of injuries incurred during a bad placement by Social Services during this time period. Adam was blessed to finally end up in a group home that stabilized his anxiety and gave him a place he could be comfortable away from his home. Adam is hoping to get placement in the Virginia Home sometime in the near future but he is on a waiting list that is unknown in its length. Adam's best friend Otto has  already been placed there.
    It is Adam's desire to overcome his affliction along with his placement in a caring group home that accommodates him and his disability with grace and dignity, that are both the catalysts that have brought him to a stable, happy place. But now new foster care laws are threatening to make Adam be moved for at least the 5th placement until he can be placed in the Virginia Home. Change is not an easy thing for Adam and often it brings him back to self destructive behaviors. If he displays any of these behaviors then he will be disqualified from getting into the Virginia Home...so why??? Why! move him?....the answer is probably money. What the powers that be do not take into account is that if he is moved suddenly and without being prepared they will probably have to ultimately deal with another hospitalization or medical placement (Way more expensive!) caused by not paying attention to his history. Read the file folks...or you will be spending more money than ever when he falls from his stable place that we have all paid for dearly in time, love and constant reassurance that all things will work out for the best in the end. Please let it be so that we have told Adam the truth... that all things will work out for the best. Adam cannot fight his own battles and Shawnette has been disregarded one to many times by an agency that has incredible turn over and little follow thru. When a new social worker takes over Adam's case, Adam seems to be nothing more than a file folder...It should be a file folder that fills several drawers and has continuity, but it seems each new worker only has limited history to go by thereby each new social worker seems to start over at square one...I am not sure where all of the documentation goes?
    I am asking for everyone who reads this to give Adam and Shawnette a spot in your prayers. He has nearly finished the race, scored a touchdown, and hit the jackpot with a pending placement in the Virginia Home. Pray for social services to truly keep his best interest at heart...Pray for wisdom and calm and consistency in Adam's life. Pray for his protection....
     thanks so much for reading...Shawnette has no idea I am writing this and I take full responsibility for all that I write. Let  truth stand and shine the light!.
Thanks for reading

Lynn
www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com
Bringing a bit of the Chesapeake into your Home and Holidays!
   

Double Trouble

   This weekend Shawnette and I are splitting up to attend two farmers markets at the same time. Two times the fun...two times the work ...and hopefully two times the profit! Shawnette will be in Yorktown on the waterfront Riverwalk area from 8:00 to 12:00 with the usual set up of Coastal Chesapeake Santas( on sale for summer! Look for the Blue Coat Special!), ornaments, garland and our infamous college crabs and Sand Dollars! So for a wonderful scenic, historic,and fabulous farmers market go by and see her! Mention that you saw us on Facebook or thru this Blog and she will give you a free ornament!
     I will be going to the Deltaville Farmers Market this Saturday. This is another lovely venue at the Deltaville Maritime Museum right on the creek side waterfront. This Saturday they will be offering free boat rides  and many many local artisans to see and appreciate! This market is from 9am to 1 pm and is always a treat. They offer lovely breakfast and lunch selections at their onsite cafe...coffee too! We always love going to Deltaville!
     I will have a little bit of a different set up than usual. I will be bringing our Chesapeake Santas but in addition I will be featuring our new line...Santas Faithful Friends! this is another one of our collectible Santas that features Santa with one or two of his favorite friends...his dogs! We offer up to 50 breeds of dogs that we can put on this Santa and personalize him with your dogs name and breed! This Santa will be on special Saturday at Deltaville for $65.00! His normal retail price is $84.95 so that is a 25% discount for the summer! If we do not have the breed you are looking for onsite we will make your santa and ship him to you for a minimal $5.00 shipping charge! So come out all you dog lovers...we have the perfect gift for you and your dog loving friends and family! Christmas shop early or just splurge for a summer Santa! I will not have our ornament line with me this week ( you have to go see Shawnette in Yorktown if you are looking for our ornaments!) If you tell me you saw us on facebook or thru this blog I will give you an extra $5.00 off on a purchase of a Santa ( already reduced for summer!)
   We will both be looking forward to this Saturday in our respective locations. I will miss Shawnette's company of course...she always takes care of bringing goodies so I will miss out on the munchies so I guess I will just have to make up for it by visiting one of the many food booths or the cafe at Deltaville! I promise to drink my water Shawnette...you better too it is going to be hot!

See you all on Saturday!
Thanks for reading,
Lynn
www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com
Bringing a bit of the Chesapeake into your Home and Holidays!

Rivah Fest ... HOT!!!

     We did the Rivah Fest in Tappahannock, VA for the first time this past Saturday. It started with a 4:30 am wake up call to pick up Shawnette at 5:30 am and arrive in Tappahannock at 6:30 am. Our usual set up takes us about 2 hours from start to finish, but we like to be one of the first to arrive so we do not have to battle with other vendors for unloading spots and parking. We were so pleasantly surprised to arrive at a very well manned and organized event which provided something very few shows do...volunteers to off load all of our stuff!  We barely carried one thing we just directed the eager volunteers who carefully and quickly had our whole set-up unloaded and stacked neatly behind our tent spot. What a great way to start the day! This gift allowed us to very leisurely set up our booth and even organize inventory that had gotten a little jumbled over the past several weekends. It was a very nice morning and even on the pleasant side with morning temps although we knew we were in for a scorcher later on...
      The shoppers were a little late getting started but things started to roll at about 11:am. We stayed steadily busy until about 2pm and then it came to a screeching halt.  It was pretty much self explanatory...the 95 degree day we had been promised arrived with a vengeance!  The people on the streets were fanning themselves frantically with  fans being distributed by savvy politicians. The candidates had seen their opportunity to put their names on just the right thing...  fans!  What a clever ploy...we even sought out one of those fans and used it shamelessly for all to see...someone named...Tribble... for Commonwealth Attorney???...got us to inadvertently campaign for him at the cost of staying a little cooler!  These community events are perfect venues for all of the local and state politicians to shake hands and speak their platforms and generally annoy at least half of the folks they approach. You have to look out for spontaneous stickerers who will slap one on you without even asking for your support first. Politicians!.. you gotta love em!..especially during the big election years! ( I say this lovingly since I am married to an X-school board member who had to campaign himself for two terms! and myself who handed out many a sticker!)
    Anyway the scorching heat pretty much brought our busy day to a premature end...but we did well, met many new customers and fellow artists, sold some Santas and ornaments and generally enjoyed the day. It was a very comprehensive and  well organized event which this year went especially well for the ice cream, lemonade and smoothie vendors!.. good job Rivah Fest!... we will definitely  plan to do it again next year! Let's hope for a little less heat!
    Tappahannock is a great little historic River town....quaint old courthouse area,  cute shops, the majestic Rappahannock River running thru it...  if you haven't been, you must plan to go. Check out Lowery's for some of the best local seafood ever! Oysters to die for and then dream about later!

Thanks for reading,
Lynn
www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com
Bringing the Chesapeake into your Home and Holidays!

Happy Endings

   At Cape May we were the new kids on the block so we got a lot of attention from the locals and vacationers. We were extremely busy for the first half of the day which is historically when the serious shoppers come out. We handed out a lot of cards to those who wanted to wait a little later in the year to purchase and we met many new customers that promised to check out our website! It turned out to be a beautiful day and weekend and we were very happy that we had added the Jersey Shore to our new destination list. Many customers gave us new leads on other good Jersey/NY shows and shared our enthusiasm for breaking into new territory.
   In addition to the Show itself we had great walks on the beach each evening , combined with great pizza from the Pizzeria next to our hotel....and ice cream too...which we justified with a run  on the beach....excuses, excuses! We walked to the Wildwood  boardwalk and saw all the roller coasters and Ferris Wheels and carnival amusements right on the boardwalk! That boardwalk looked a little more like the MTV Jersey Shore variety! We did not have the energy to investigate after a busy day at Cape May! As usual after our walk we fell into bed early and slept with all the energy we had left!
   There was a circle of life beach experience that we witnessed that I have to mention. On the first evening beach stroll after the show, we were on our way back to the motel when we noticed a large seagull tussling with some kind of sea creature. We thought at first it was a fish...but as the match progressed we saw that it was a large blue crab! The seagull kept grabbing at it but the crab was equally aggressive in protecting himself...both claws up and snapping! Eventually the gull grabbed the crab by one claw and started to lift off and carry him away to feast on him somewhere else...but the Crab would have none of it and quickly grabbed the gulls foot with his other claw!  So now they both had each other in a death grip...a Darwinian stale mate! The gull was expressing his pain more openly and immediately landed to grapple some more...but the crab would not release his death grip. The gull had now given up his grip only concerned with getting  the feisty crustacean off his foot...so the next round he lifted off again and slammed the crab against the wood jetty close by! The crab dropped into the shallows and the gull landed close by to nurse his foot in the surf! We saw that the crab was still visible  and approached him carefully. We were shocked to see that the poor fella had lost his claw in the heat of battle but other than that he seemed to be OK. Gladiator Gull was still hurting as he waded back and forth in the surf tending to his foot.  He was obviously not feeling too happy about his loss of dinner and dignity! We had witnessed  a survival of the fittest struggle that ended in a draw....and that was a happy ending in our book.
    We love you Cape May and Wildwood Crest and  Jersey Shore.... we look forward to another visit! You were everything and more than we had hoped for!  Next stop Tappahannock, VA for the Rivah Fest! Come out Saturday June 18 and see us! Mention this blog and get a free ornament!
Thanks for reading!
Lynn
www.chesapeakebaychristmas.com

bringing a little bit of the Chesapeake into your Home and Holidays!

The Promenade

    In Cape May, New Jersey they have a Promenade rather than a Boardwalk. It is simply an asphalt walkway that meanders along the beach with occasional  food and entertainment businesses that front it on the beach side of the street. All of the Inns, homes, hotels etc are across the street from the beach so there are no real waterfront  accommodations. Promenade seems to conjure a more romantic vision than Boardwalk but they basically both mean walkway. I like the word Promenade because it also alludes to  movement and dance and it just sounds so musical!  As a beachfront walkway it is automatically a wonderful place to be  so when we signed up for the Promenade Art and Craft Show we were sure we were in for a treat...and we were. The Promenade is the front porch for a stunning beachfront town and was a perfect setting for a late spring art show. We had pure architectural nostalgia at our backs, a pristine beach and the powerful Atlantic Ocean in front of us. Unlimited seafood, ice cream, pizza, hoagies,and fudge were tantalizingly close, teasing all of our senses.
   We set up our booth bright and early Saturday morning under the threat of a slight chance of thunder storms. As soon as we had everything up and out for display  there they were  with a vengeance.... Rain!...bucketfuls!...lightning sent by the mythological Gods!... and thunder that had us cowering and laughing at the same time!  It gave us the jolt of adrenaline we needed to replace the coffee that we had quickly downed before dawn. The other artists offered us friendly banter and encouragement and the storms eventually cleared. We had lost a couple of hours and had to scramble to make up for time lost. The vacationers came out of their turn of the century accommodations and the Promenade Art and Craft Show was underway...
To be continued....
Thanks for reading!
Lynn

Chesapeake Bay Christmas Goes to the Jersey Shore!

    Shawnette and I arrived home safely and soundly last night at about 1:30 am from our latest adventure with CBCC. We went to Cape May, NJ the southern tip of the Jersey Shore to participate in a Promenade ( Boardwalk) Art Show! We had decided to push outside  of our normal travel diameter and try some new shows. Many of our customers had told us we needed to push up into Jersey and possibly  some of the other  New England beach communities with our coastal line of Santas and ornaments so.... our first choice was the Jersey Shore!

   With visions of  the beach antics of the Jersey Shore cast playing in our minds...we left our familiar Virginia habitat and drove up the Eastern Shore into Ocean City, Md. We then traveled  on to the beach communities of Fenwick Island, Betheny Beach, Rehoboth and finally Lewes, DE where we boarded the Cape May-Lewes Ferry for a wonderful trip across the Delaware Bay to arrive in Cape May, NJ. What a lovely trip it was! Beautiful weather and picturesque beach community after picturesque beach community landed us in one of the most amazing beach towns I have ever seen.... Cape May, NJ!
   We knew immediately that we were not in the land of the MTV's Jersey Shore ( thank God!) but something more like a genteel  gem that had perhaps the feel of a Charleston, SC mixed with a Beaufort, NC but exceeding both in its grand scale of delicious Victorian architecture that overwhelmed us with its detail and color and visual intricacies. Grand hotels and Inns one after another...sitting perfectly along a wide flat perfect Mid-Atlantic Beach that seemed to have never been touched by storm or catastrophe! The smell of Philly Cheese Steaks and pizza scented the salt air ....
    We were welcomed by friendly folks that could have been mistaken for our fellow southerners with their high level of hospitality and helpfulness. We were so happy to be there in that place at that moment for  a  boardwalk (Promenade) art show with a back drop that was supreme to any we had ever done before!!!
   To be continued!!!