Sunshine in a Snowy Winter

I had the pleasure and the privilege of growing up on the water. Even though I am landlocked now here in northern New Jersey, I only need to grab a scrapbook to find myself back on the waves. 

As a little girl, I spent my summers at the town beach, first paddling through the waves and making sandcastles, then taking swimming lessons, all with a lovely view of the electric company across the way. At the time, we did not live on the water, but it was always close by, always nearly visible. We summered in New Hampshire on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee (still do) on a spit of land called Echo Point. When I was twelve, my family moved down the street and around the corner to a house right on the water with a view of Mount Hope Bay. The beach was so rocky that we always wore sneakers when we swam. The water was always hot because of that electrical generating plant that spewed its boiling run-off into the bay. Mercifully, those days are over, but we still occasionally find the globs of tar that used to wash up on the beach. It was yet another reason for us to wear those old Keds.

Now, as I said, I am landlocked.  We only visit the Jersey Shore when the crowds have left. We have not been there since last winter when, I confess, we went to see the destruction Sandy had wrought.

We do not often get to visit my parents with our jobs, our old house, our innumerable activities, and our teenage boys and their active lives. Nevermind the crazy dog. Coming back to this view when we do visit, however, makes time stand still.  It is as if the last 35 years never happened. This view has not changed in all that time.  Both my husband and I stop, grab our cameras and run outside on clear, sharp evenings as the sun begins to descend below the horizon to take photograph after photograph of a view we have seen dozens if not hundreds of times, of a view we hope to see many more times in the future. 

These pictures were taken in November, after the clocks had been changed to shorten the days and the trees had shed their leaves. For some reason, the sunsets here in the summer are not nearly as startlingly beautiful as they are in the winter.  It must be the crisp air or the cold water.  Either way, long after we are all gone, this sunset will remain just as it was on this Thanksgiving evening.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Layout Information

Supplies: patterned paper - Fancy Pants (blue), unknown (blue/orange); cardstock - Tim Holtz/Coredinations; acrylic circles - Fire Mountain Bead and Gem; paint - Ranger Dimensional Paint, Viva Paint Pens, Plaid, Ranger Distress Stain; wooden shape - Michael's; marker - Micron, Y and C Gel Extreme; sticker letters - Simple Stories.

I painted the bottom of the translucent circles to maintain their color integrity. After gluing items like this onto the paper, the color usually changes because of the color of the paper underneath. Painting them white or the same color as the chip prevents that.  The dots were made with a Viva Paint Pen.  Flicking the bottom of the paper after adding the paint, flattens out the dots and makes them more uniform.  It also eliminates the points that tend to form on paint dots. The white frames around the photos was made by sanding the edges with a cardboard nail file.