WHAT TO POST??

I ended up walking around the yard yesterday to see if I could get some photos to share. There was not a Tuesday 4 or a Wednesday Hodgepodge this week. 

Joyce has the pleasure of being with her two grandson's in person and I am so thrilled for her. With the pandemic she hasn't seen them in a very long time since they lived in Asia but will now be back in the states. 

Our tomato plant....

Red onions....

Some of the lemons on our lemon tree....

Our Lantanas are going crazy this year....

Ferns are doing well too since the bunnies are not living in them anymore.

Speaking of the bunnies, can you see this one. This is my buddy. He doesn't run away and he gets a few baby carrot each night. That's him chillin' after he ate his carrots. 

Love our yellow Hibiscus...

A bee on the bird of paradise which for some reason are blooming again. 

A cute pink plant. Not sure what it is but we have 4 of them. 

See that Ficus. That came with us from our house when we moved almost 15 years ago. It was an indoor plant at the time. 

I know it's hard to see in the shadow but that's a Jade plant hiding an air conditioner. It was a cutting from my aunt and uncle's house. 

Our Bougainvillea out in front....

And the one over the front door....

Our strawberries are doing well. I get about 6 to 10 strawberries each day. We seems to have a new zucchini each day too! Our weather has been very hot. 

We are going to see James Friday night. I can't wait. Also on Friday I have a hair appointment in the afternoon. I can't wait....I've been waiting six weeks for this appointment! 

Then I plan to run into Trader Joe's and hopefully over to Cheesecake Factory to pick up 2 slices of their new coconut cheesecake to bring over to Adam & Gabby.  It's going to be a busy day for me! 

 

THE GARDEN

Garden planted April 30th

The vegetable garden today! 

It's been fun, it has taken me outside more than ever before. We have some cherry tomatoes coming in and a red pepper has started to grow along with one tiny cucumber. 

 I just love the romaine and carrots!

However in the meantime I got a delivery from Sprouts.

Feeling better after the spider bite, took the last of my medication yesterday and winding down on the steroids. Then I had a blood vessel pop in my eye a few nights ago. 

All is well, nothing to be concerned about. Had one about 2 years ago. I remember they eye doctor telling me that if anything is ever going to happen to your eye this is the best thing, it will go away in two weeks. Of course now I look cross eyed. 

I'm staying strong and trying not to get down. I hate what is happening in our country right now. I'm having a hard time staying on Facebook. Twenty Twenty is definitely going down in history. 

We didn't get to go to a social distancing party last week. I was torn between the spider bite and Covid-19 and didn't want to take any chances. So tonight we will see James. Hooray!!! 

SOMETHING ON SATURDAY

I have nothing new to post about but I do have some pictures to share!

Our wall of canvas has four new pictures added to it. 

(They range in size from 8x10, 11x14, 16x20 & 18x24.)

 I spent several hours this week cleaning. I know I have 

shown Mark's office before but since I just dusted it I 

thought I would share it again! 

 One night a week ago the sky looked like it was on fire.

We have been having major storm clouds and 

humidity like Florida!

Had a rainbow one day, I always love them.....

The Bougainvillea above our front door. 

If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen 

a few of these. 

We are having a family dinner tonight with steak, 

mashed potatoes, grilled onion, colored peppers 

& mushrooms, and some fresh raspberries.

I will also be making some brownie bites with 

PB M&M's inside and a Pumpkin Fluff 

dessert with fresh whipped cream. 

Of course I'll only be having the steak, 

grilled veggies and fruit! 

Hope your having a nice weekend :)

LAST SUNDAY'S TRIP TO CARLSBAD, CA

If you saw my post it notes on Tuesday I mentioned that we went to Carlsbad, CA on Sunday to see the flowers - Not! Now we have seen these fields before in the past but I wasn't a blogger then and I never took any pictures! The information that we had said that the fields are in bloom from March 1st to May 8th. Well we were told that due to the cold Winter things are behind by a few weeks. My guess is that it will be another couple of weeks before they are in bloom. Of course while writing this post on Thursday it was 94 degrees outside so maybe they will be blooming soon. So the first three pictures is what we should have been seeing when we were there.

Well I am currently in love with a new flower. I was able to buy a bunch when we were there and I don't know why I haven't seen this flower before. They are called Ranunculus and are just so pretty. Look at them, they are so full with so many petals. I have had these for almost a week now and they are holding up really well and more buds are still opening. Their name just makes me laugh, it reminds me of something that Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) says in the movie "I Love You, Man" which is "redonkulous!" So Mark informed me that he sees these all the time at the nursery so we will definitely be putting some in the yard.

As we were heading over to the walkway along the ocean we had passed a few houses along the way and I noticed the flagpole between two of the beach houses. I thought I got a pretty good shot of the flag. I am surprised that I actually got the birds in that first picture. Since they don't put view finders in the newer point and shoot cameras you are kind of shooting blind outside! There is a kite flying and also a sail boat in the distance. (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

This is one of our favorites when we go to Carlsbad. Looking at the meals that people order I know that they serve delicious food there but when I find something I like I seldom change my ways so I always get the pepperoni bread. It is actually an appetizer but I have it for my meal with a salad. I had to take the picture of the leftovers at home since I forgot to take one when we were there. I was to excited to eat!

Here are a few other things we saw that I decided to take pictures of. I have seen them all before but since you haven't I decided to share them with you. Often around the beach areas you will see squirrels perched up on something. Isn't he/she cute? I have passed that gate dozens of times but have never taken a picture of it. I just love it, it's like a woven basket. I thought you would also enjoy looking at some of the flowers/plants.

Now this last one is definitely blurry!!! I understand the dangers in stopping along the road, but I really wanted to, but Mark wouldn't have it. So even though I had my camera on action you just can't get a still picture at 75 miles an hour. I was lucky enough that he actually went into the last lane for me to capture these as we were speeding by. So this is what you see along the highways in Southern California in the Springtime. It's very colorful!

Hope you enjoyed our day!

There is a new post over at Debby's Tree today. I appreciate everyone who visits there, it is one of my greatest pleasures.

P.S. Google, as of Thursday, was still giving me issues. I know I am not alone with this issue. As I worked on this post and was almost done I lost everything I had written. Thankfully the pictures had stayed on. I was ready to cry. So this post has really been a labor of love.

A FEW THINGS TO SHARE

I purchased a Poinsettia this week.

It was something new called "Ice Sparkle" or something like that.

I really think it is pretty.

Went to dinner at a place called Mario's Place in downtown Riverside. It was a Christmas dinner for about 17 people from the office where my DH works. It was a wonderful dinner and evening. Mario's is right across the street from the Historic Mission Inn. Our daughter got married there almost 9 years ago. Well at Christmas the Mission Inn does a Festival of Lights. My pictures didn't turn out great but I wanted to share them anyway. They put over 3.5 million lights on the Mission Inn each year.

Skye was playing with a little green rubber light bulb that belongs to Charlie. She must have thrown in up in the air and it landed in the tree. Maybe she was helping me decorate, who knows! Anyway I thought I would share the picture that I was able to get. You can't see Charlie very well but he has his head buried in the tree, he is very nosey.

Hopefully you will be seeing some decorations from around the house. Cross your fingers on this one because I seem to have molasses in my bones this year. I even took one of those five hour energy thingies and it did nothing for me! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can......

A FEW UPDATES

I don't know if you remember this picture. I posted about it here. We had some really bad rains and the bougainvillea's in our front yard both came down.

Well this is how they look now. They have both been secured in a better way and have flourished but are not blooming too much but we are glad that we didn't lose them. You will also see our new Norfolk Pine Tree. We had a tree that had died so we wanted to replace it and I wanted to have the Norfolk Pine.

Can you guess what this picture is? Well I am going to tell you so you really don't have to guess. The kids had put their stuff in storage when they moved in and we also put some of our things in storage with them. (had to empty the rooms they are living in) So the storage unit was $70. a month and has been bumped up to $140. so we moved everything into our garage. As you can see I still get to have my car in there. So eventually they may sell some of their items. Anyway it is foolish to pay $140. a month for things that you can replace. Rather save the money and buy new!

So this is just my little gumball machine that sits on my counter top. I am only showing it to you because I wanted to tell you how much I miss the big gumball machine I use to have. I had it for years and bought it back in the 70's. It was yellow with a yellow unique metal base, it was awesome. When we moved a few years ago it got damaged and I had to let it go. We were not able to get replacement pieces for it. I am happy that I have this little one.