Hello!  If you are new to this space, welcome, and thank you for stopping by my new virtual home, Carpe Diem Creative.  If you have followed me from my previous site, I am grateful you came along! I look forward to sharing thoughts, photos, art, travel experiences and life’s abundant beauty with you, and would love to hear your comments, stories, and experiences, too.

We are in Mauritius (locally called “Isle Maurice”) for vacation, soaking up the elements of air, water, earth, and fire in the form of sky, sea, sand, and tiki torches…with a backdrop of gorgeous scenery. In between swimming and building sand castles with our son, I am finding little windows of time to write in my journal, peruse art and decor magazines, look for shells, take beach walks, speak a bit of French, and replenish the well of creativity and inspiration. Balmy Indian Ocean breezes are getting rid of the mental winter cobwebs, and smiling comes easily.

Photos below:

• Market vendors in Mauritius sell a rainbow of fruit salad-colored baskets, scarves, tunics, vegetables, loose tea, and spices of tamarind, cinnamon, saffron, vanilla, cardamom and ground coconut
• At a beautiful Hindu temple, worshipers gave offerings to the gods
• A home by the sea seems very loved with its unique heart-shaped shutters
• We toured Chamarel’s colored earth; a beautiful pastel wave of  “7 Colored Sands,” produced naturally by a volcano
• A vibrant (and fiesty-tempered) red bird that frequented our patio

Wherever you are today, embrace an island pace of life.

Carpe Diem,

Tracy