You may be able to tell from my writing that I live in central Florida very near the East coast beaches and waterways.

I moved to Florida from Massachusetts in 1979 with one young son in tow. Shortly after that I got married and eventually had three more kids. Florida was a very different place back then and we were happy.

The beaches were awesome, and often my friends, who also had kids, would plan to all meet at New Smyrna Beach or Bethune and make a day of it. We loved the fact that we could go to Disney for the day any time we wanted. It didn’t cost hundreds of dollars back then! We could watch the Space Shuttle head into space from our driveway and even went to watch a launch up close once.

In the 1980’s we traveled to Sanibel Island on the West coast where we found the most awesome seashells and swam in a very calm ocean. The sunsets were so gorgeous and the kids loved having the ocean in their front yard. We visited Destin in the panhandle, and have driven down to Key West. Florida is a very big state and we’ve seen a lot of it.

Florida began to grow in population pretty fast during the 1980’s which meant widening roads, clearing land, and putting up buildings everywhere. Crime increased and the schools had over-crowded classrooms. We began to not like Florida quite so much anymore and moved to New Hampshire.

I began my Zazzle business when I lived in New Hampshire, but creating seashell and beach designs meant I had to use shells collected from my time in Florida. That is when I began this blog. It was to help promote my new business, but it turned into lessons on seashells. Readers wanted to know more and so did I!

Now that I am back in Florida, I can share real life experiences of visiting beaches and photographing mollusks in their habitats. I sell photos and artwork with a beachy theme from my Seashells by Millhill store.

Writing this blog has been a learning experience for me. My writing has become better and my knowledge of sea life and Florida nature is ever improving. Having a cell phone camera has greatly improved my photo sharing abilities as well. Whenever I am outdoors I’m always looking for something to photograph for my blogs.

Thank you for reading, and I am especially grateful to readers who contribute their knowledge and leave comments. Because some links are affiliates, please read my disclaimer page as well.

Happy shell collecting!