8 Blocks

I finally made it to my new home along the Oregon coast! And I am a mere 8 blocks to the beach. I have been there almost every day with my dogs! I have already picked up almost 75 sand dollars! And, I have taken photos of magnificent sunsets.

I feel so revived & re-energized now. It was the change I certainly needed in my life to move forward, clear my mind & start working towards new things! Although, now my mind is beginning to get filled with other ideas & inspiration!

I have been working on my glass fishing float business in between walks, unpacking & exploring. I have already made lots of great connections & I believe I'm going in the right direction!

With that being said, I'd like to share some photos of the area that I've taken the past 2 weeks. I will do a post about glass floats soon!

Enjoy.............

Ecola State Park

Cannon Beach

Del Rey Beach

The beach at Seaside

I'm FINALLY moving to the BEACH!!!!

Many of you don't know this, but I have been trying to sell my house & move for just over a year. Well, I finally sold it & I'm gettin' out of here!!! So long to the cold, dark, loooooong winters & hello to the Oregon coast!!! I'm leaving on November 13th & driving 800 miles to Haines, AK, catching the ferry on the 15th, arriving in Bellingham, WA on the 19th & driving another 300 miles to the Oregon coast! And, being the independent woman I am, I am doing this all alone. Well, I will have the dogs & the cat with me, but no human is accompanying me! I am SO thrilled, but not so thrilled with packing. And, if you can only imagine......I have hundreds of glass fishing floats to drag with me! I just finished wrapping & boxing up about 300 floats that are in my personal collection. Let me tell you........although I adore my floats, they are a total pain in the hiney to pack!!

I packed all of these & many more.............





So, with that said, my time is limited for the next few weeks. However, I will have lots more time after I'm gone, as I am having someone manage my business in Alaska & I will be able to focus more on my blog, my Etsy shop, my website & all things associated with glass fishing floats. And, as you know, that is my passion & it makes me SO happy to know that I will be able to do that!!

I leave you with a quick lesson on different colors of swirls in glass fishing floats & photos from those I have in my collection.

Swirls are simply caused by different colors of glass getting mixed in during the glass blowing process. Often a different color of glass is on the rod the glass blower is using & as the float is getting blown, the other color forms swirls around the circumference of the glass.

Here are some examples.





And finally, I just want to ramble on about something I think is quite important. It's true what they say...."If life hands you lemons, make lemonade". I have had a not-so fabulous past few years. Life has tossed me some curve balls & believe me, I had my share of pity parties, cried plenty of tears & been really ticked off at the world. Through all of that, many lessons have been learned. I am a much stronger person. I regained the spirit I thought I had lost, gained the self-confidence I thought I would never get back & I am more determined than ever to fulfill the dreams & goals I currently have & even some of those I forgot about for a while. If you are reading this & something about what I am saying sounds familiar, I encourage you to put on your BIG GIRL PANTIES (or boxers - just say NO to tighty whities) & fight for your life!!! Life really is short & it seems as if we get caught up trying to please everyone else that we forget to please ourselves. Anyway, that's really all I have to say. It was just on my mind.

I leave you with this.......

Lucky Ducks....

As some of you may know, finding a glass fishing float on the beach is typically a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have many people write me & tell me about their experiences & how they have scoured the beaches for years in search of the elusive glass fishing float. For many on the West coast, this spring, the ocean has washed many floats onto shore compliments of the strong west winds & stormy weather. Several people have said they braved the wind & weather just to be the first on the beach at high tide to see what might have washed ashore. Here is a photo from a fellow beachcomber. He found this float along the Washington coast in his "top secret" location! They found 3 that day.


Here is another photo of a float as they found it on the beach on a different day. This float was at the high tide line, along with lots of driftwood, garbage & even a shoe! These 2 photos were taken by R. Hannigen.


Another lucky beachcomber sent me the following photo. She & her daughter found these between March 27th & April 1st of this year. The large green float, known as a "garbage ball", was found out to sea just off the coast near Newport, OR. The 2 on the bottom left were found on the beach near the Peter Iredale shipwreck near Warrenton, OR. Photo by E. McMaster.


Well, I feel very fortunate that out of all the times I have gone in search of glass floats, I have always found many. The most I have ever brought home at once was just over 1,000 & we picked those up in 2 days! The sea still has millions of glass floats riding the ocean currents. And, there are still millions in Japan that sit abandoned in old gear sheds & piled up in garbage dumps.

Here are a couple of photos from a beachcombing trip near Cold Bay in May 2008. It was quite successful & most fabulous!! The photo below was actually taken in a dune behind the beach. Often the surf tosses the floats many yards off the beach. Near Cold Bay, we found a lot of floats off of the beach in various locations. I know there were many more buried in the sand, but it would take far too long to search for them all!


Mr. Brown Bear nearly stepped on this beauty! If you go beachcombing in the spring, you have to take a big gun! There are all kinds of critters running around!


I will post information soon about how to determine an authentic float from a "fake" or reproduction float. Feel free to contact me with any questions! I am always happy to share my knowledge whenever I can.