May 2011

Mermaid Sighting: Florida Mermaid!

Leave a Comment / Mermaid Sightings / Melissa

Our sighting this week comes from Mermaid Cottages’ very own Mermaid Jan! She’s on the road and spotted not one, but two lovely mermaids! Here’s what Jan had to say:

“While visiting Florida sighted this Mermaid at restaurant – the thing was 5 ft tall – the artist was a local – this is totally RECYCLED ART – He starts with plastic grocery store bags, shapes with tape then covers in building compound paints – amazingly lightweight – and would have sold it to me for $50.00 – I got his business card – hmmm where did I put that? Really cool The Conch Republic Restaurant in Reddington Beach was pretty cool in itself!”

WOW Jan – not just a mermaid, but an awesome eco-friendly one! The sign is pretty cool, too! Thank you so much for sharing these with us!

Have you seen a mermaid? Well, we’d love to hear about it! Please send you sightings to diane@mermaidcottages.com and allow us to share your sighting with our readers. We can’t wait to see your mermaid discoveries!

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Mermaid Tales: Tybee Tour of Homes 2011

Leave a Comment / Mermaid Tales / Melissa

The Tybee Tour of Homes is this Saturday, June 4th, here on Tybee Island and we couldn’t be more excited! One of Mermaid Cottages’ own, Southern Cross Cottage, is the poster child of the tour! You definitely don’t want to miss seeing this fabulous cottage…just look at the beautiful interiors!

southerncrossporchcollage — Experience Southern Cross Cottage!

This year, the tour will feature both large and small homes, new and old, and each will showcase their very own unique character! Lunch is even included in the ticket price of your ticket, so plan to enjoy that for sure! The meal will be served between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at St. Michael’s School Gym. Tickets are $3o in advanced, or $35 the day of the tour. You can charge them in advance by calling 912-786-7979 or pick them up at any of these fine locations:

Gayle Bolton’s Gallery By The Sea 1016 Hwy 80 East Tybee Island, GA 31328 (912) 786-7979
Atlantic Beacon Gallery 1604 Butler AvenueTybee Island, GA 31328 (912) 786-9386
Shaver’s Bookstore 326 Bull St Savannah, GA 31401 (912) 234-7257
Irene Sullivan Gallery 18 Tybrisa StreetTybee Island,GA 31328 (912) 786-6786

If you have any further questions, please call Viviane Dubuc at (912) 786-7704 or email tybeislandtour@comcast.net.

The Tybee Tour of Homes benefits the campaign to restore the Historic Tybee Post Theater, so you will be having a great time (and great food!) for a great cause! Don’t wait, join Mermaid Cottages at the Tybee Tour of Homes this Saturday…get your tickets today!

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MTLC + CPR = Happy Tails

Leave a Comment / Mermaids Make a Difference / David Barwick

Mermaid Cottages’ famous MTLC or Mermaids Tender Loving Care gets extended to our guests and our community and to everyone we meet. Coastal Pet Rescue or CPR saves pet lives and enriches ours every single day. Today is the day you can help, too. Here’s Lisa Scarbrough, the angel behind Coastal Pet Rescue and the Online Community Editor for Paula Deen, to tell you how!

If you know Paula, you know that she is a big animal lover. It was one of just the many things that made me so happy to come and work for her. Paula is a woman after my own heart, with her menagerie of birds, chickens, and dogs. If that isn’t enough, she even provided us with an office cat, Norma Jean, who sits in on some of our meetings and makes sure everyone stays in line.

For the last nine months, I have been mom to a beautiful baby boy. But for the 31 years before that, I was foster mom to hundreds of stray pets. About ten years ago, I started rescuing pets on my own, which led to me founding Coastal Pet Rescue here in Savannah on my 23rd birthday in 2003. I was ecstatic when Paula decided to adopt an orange tabby from me shortly after I joined her team.

If you can imagine, running an all-volunteer non-profit can be rather taxing, and certainly not cheap. On top of veterinary expenses and providing for food, there’s a lot of travel involved, which means money for the gas and more miles on our main “puppymobile.” That’s why we look to grants and contests to help us with funding, and right now, we have a very big opportunity.

The CPR “puppymobile” has various uses, such as rescuing a mom and her seven puppies from an animal control shelter where they would have otherwise been euthanized, collecting 127 pounds of pet fur to be stuffed in oil booms along the Gulf Coast (May 2010), and delivering supplies to an animal shelter in Rome, GA to feed animals displaced by tornadoes (April 2011).

On Sunday, May 29th, you can log on to the Toyota USA Facebook page and help Coastal Pet Rescue win a brand new Toyota SUV to help transport pets. Our current vehicle is over 11 years old and has over 187,000 miles on it. How wonderful would it be to be for us to save money on repairs and be assured that our transports will be safe for the pets and volunteers? Best of all, it doesn’t cost anymore than a couple minutes of your time.

Here’s how to vote:

1. On Sunday, May 29th (not before, not after), go to http://www.facebook.com/toyota

2. Like their page.

3. Click the “100 Cars for Good” link on the left.

4. Vote for Coastal Pet Rescue by clicking the box next to “Vote.”

5. Click the checkbox to confirm your vote, then click “confirm” again.

(Only one vote per Facebook account.)

Lisa Scarbrough offers mom-on-a-dime advice for parents like her who still hold out hope that they’ll be able to afford the rising costs of college tuition (yeah, right). Course, Lisa has some time to prepare; her son, Ian, is 8-months old. Lisa lives in Guyton, GA, and when she’s not cleaning sweet potatoes off her son’s face, she serves as the Online Community Manager for Paula Deen.

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1001 Ways To Get Tybee-ized:Socially Responsible Vacations

Leave a Comment / Mermaids Make a Difference / David Barwick

Socially-responsible Vacations

Mermaid Cottages actively supports local and charitable projects and we make it possible for you to get involved more directly, as well! Through our “Mermaids Give Back” program, we help match cottage renters with local volunteer programs (such as with the Sea Turtle Program through the Marine Science Center). Participating in various local projects alongside our Mermaids and Mermen allows our guests to not only experience authentic activities, but also gives them the chance to leave the island a better place.

Our special Honorary Mermaid and Contributor, Lisa Scarbrough, is the Online Community Manager for Paula Deen. Here, Lisa shares how you can make a difference this weekend and your participation will have a lasting impact for many years to come!

Doing Good for the Community with Just a Vote

By Lisa Scarbrough

Here’s how to vote:

1. On Sunday, May 29th (not before, not after), go to http://www.facebook.com/toyota

2. Like their page.

3. Click the “100 Cars for Good” link on the left.

4. Vote for Coastal Pet Rescue by clicking the box next to “Vote.”

5. Click the checkbox to confirm your vote, then click “confirm” again.

(Only one vote per Facebook account.)

Paula was kind enough to appear in our appeal video to help us win a finalist spot for this contest. Now we need your vote to make our dream a reality.

Watch as Lisa and Paula share their pet passion: Coastal Pet Rescue:Toyota 100 Cars For Good.
Read More From Lisa Scarbrough.

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Cottage Cheese: Pretty Is As Pretty Does

Leave a Comment / Posts by Cottage Cheese / David Barwick

“Okay, Momma. Yes, I hear you. Hurry Up! He’ll be here in a minute,” was my sister’s plea. “Pretty is as pretty does,” was a common reply my mother could be heard saying. She said it often. She said it alot. On this particular day my sister was getting ready to go water skiing with her boyfriend and for a time in the 70s my sister insisted her hair be ironed straight. Before every date and before school every morning my mother would dutifully set up the ironing board, my sister’s hair would be laid out and my mother would iron it. Yep, she would iron and she would lecture my sister. It was one of those times my sister would have to listen. My mother had a hot iron in her hand. There was motivation.

Why bother, I always thought. You’re just gonna get it wet. Ah, but I was not a teenage girl in the 70s. I was a teenage boy. By the time I was 13 I was already close to six feet tall. It might not have been so bad if I had had the body to go with it. Even if all my other nerdy friends jumped on the scales with me I might have hit 100 pounds. Nature had chosen me as it’s human bullseye for much of the adolescent misery that we all go through. Some more than others.

My father’s advice was always quick and to the point. “Son, if you let anybody get away with messing with you don’t come home moaning to me about it or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Thanks, Dad. My mother would always tell me to take the high road. ” Turn the other cheek. It takes more strength to be good than to be bad,” she would reason. That’s what she would always say to me, but one time I found out that after a particularly brutal ear flicking encounter I suffered on the school bus, my mother had cut a swath through our community. Lying in her wake had been the school bus driver, the school administrators and the parents of the offending ear flickerer. The lioness had protected her cub. The bullying stopped immediately, but then I was known as the skinny kid whose mom had fought his battles. Molly Ringwald never had an acting gig this good. Pretty In Pink and Sixteen Candles my hind leg.

But, just as the sun sets on each and every day it also rises again the next. Each of us has a journey to take and we owe it to ourselves to see how it all turns out. No matter where you go…there you are. Oh yeah. Growing up is its own best revenge. I’m now 6’4″ and 235 pounds. Flick my ear and I’ll thump a knot up ‘side your head that AJAX won’t take off. Pretty is as pretty does.

Thank goodness I never lost my love for the sea. It renews my soul and reminds me that there’s still lots to learn and experience. Now, I do have my standards. Every visit must include a stay at Mermaid Cottages, fresh seafood from the waters around Tybee Island, time to share long walks with my beloved dogs (some call them demon seeds) and the opportunity to let my Tickle Box get turned over as much as possible. Pretty is as pretty does.

It’s island life. It’s pretty and it does me good. It’s the circle of life. It’s Cottage Cheese!