miniature seashells in the sand

 

Good things in life aren’t always obvious. Arriving to dreary, overcast skies on the beach of a year-long planned vacation destination might be disappointing for some folks. Then after coming up empty handed after an hour of searching for those large gorgeous TULIPS, CONES and WHELKS you’ve read all about… the disappointment could get even bigger.

seashells at lighthouse beach

When I’m on the beach and I hear “This is my vacation and the shelling has been so disappointing”, I stop… look at the beach…. look at the water… and I look at every lovely thing surrounding me on the beach as I stand there in a tee shirt, shorts and flip flops. I don’t know, but my eyes must just see more blue peeking out of the clouds in a beautiful landscape.  I also see a beach filled with shells as far as my eyes can see. I see this…

shells on the beach during cool dreary day

Then everything else in the world disappears when I look at this beach combing playground. Wait! Did someone just say to me “There are no shells”? wracks of shells on the beach

There may be crushed shells and sea weed but I never look at that as a bad thing. To me, that’s what makes shelling so much fun! Maybe because I looooove to play games and I love to learn and respect the rules of games to make it more challenging. The way I see it… Mother Nature is playing the Shell Game with me. Each hour of each day, Mother Nature has hidden little shells and treasures in different places on the beaches and I have to find them.

not so obvious shells not the beach

Aha! Hidden in a line of beached SEA GRASSES, I found you little LETTERED OLIVE, APPLE MUREX and sweet tiny TULIP!

collecting shells on the beach

Weehoo! Thank you, Mother Nature, for slowing me down to pick up that OLIVE and MUREX so I could refocus my eyes to see those BUBBLE SHELLS, SPARSE DOVE SHELL and that awesome WENTLETRAP that were only inches away.

finding seashells on the beach

Then inches from that WENTLETRAP I saw a beautiful little honey hole of minis. Well… everything is relative, isn’t it? This is what I call “beautiful” so maybe you will too in the next CYBERSHELLING photo. Click on this next image to see if this might make you happy even on an overcast, dreary day. I do believe it will!!

Sanibel cyber shelling miniature shells

It’s not so dreary after all, right? Those little things in life are things we need to focus on some times.

seashells and seaweed

They will lead us to the more obvious beautiful things.

beach art mermaid with starfish