Category Archives: Flowers

Lavender and Life…

“Ladies fair, I bring to you

lavender with spikes of blue;

sweeter plant was never found

growing on our English ground.”

Caryl Battersby

Appropriate quote as we end the Olympics in London. I wasn’t able to make it to the lavender festival this year but I do have 3 lavender bushes in my yard. I finally went out and cut some to enjoy inside. We never know what a day holds let alone a year. We make plans and then we wait and see what the Lord’s will is.

This photo was taken at the Sequim Lavender Festival in 2010

Our son Josh directed a junior high camp this past week at Lakeside Bible Camp. He came home from camp on Saturday. On Sunday we were able to have dinner with Josh and Laura and it was good to get the first hand report on how the week went. Such a fragile time for youth in this age group. It’s great to hear good reports about these junior highers and the help they got in their struggles.

I’m looking at making plans to fly to Southern California in September to visit my folks and see as many loved ones as I can. I’m learning more and more that we make plans but we can’t hold on to those plans too tightly. I’m getting more flexible in my older years and learning to go with the flow of life. We had a weekend filled with real good news and very sad news. That’s life isn’t it? Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. We have been rejoicing and mourning.

Hope that you are finding joy in the midst of life!

Tulips!

The Skagit Tulip Festival

“The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the destination events for the Pacific Northwest, held each year from April 1-30. Every spring hundreds of thousands of people come to enjoy the celebration of spring as millions of tulips burst into bloom. As with all things governed by Mother Nature, the tulips bloom according to their own schedule sometime during the festival. The tulips allow us to share our corner of the world and help us to showcase Skagit Valley agriculture.

Mary Brown Stewart started growing tulips in 1906 with bulbs from Holland, but tulips were “only a small part of the crop and the whole operation was of modest size” (Barrett). In 1926 her son Sam Stewart started the Tulip Grange Bulb Farm near LaConner. Marinus Lefeber, a friend of Sam Stewart, moved their Whatcom County operation down to a farm along Memorial Highway near Mount Vernon. The farm was in business until 2002. Other bulb growers joined them after 1945. By 1997, 700 acres were used for bulb farming, with a value of $42 million.”

I never get tired of visiting the tulip fields. Besides the fields there are gardens to visit, too.

Saturday Smiles…

This sign is on the stairwell at my hairdressers salon/home. It made me smile and I hope you smile, too.

Before the tulips bloom fully here in Washington the daffodils make us smile.

Sometimes a different color tulip gets in the mix and the daffodils try to share the glory with the tulips…

Hope your weekend is off to a good start. If the weather cooperates I’ll be mowing the lawn and Dear will be doing some painting. What are your plans?

Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley

Tulips

By A.E. Stallings

The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,
~
Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Parading finishes like starts,
~
Something about the way they twist
As if to catch the last applause,
And drink the moment through long straws,
And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.
~
The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
The tulips make me want to see—
The tulips make the other me
(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,
~
The one who can’t tell left from right),
Glance now over the wrong shoulder
To watch them get a little older
And give themselves up to the light.
~
On this past Sunday after Dear picked me up from the airport we headed straight to the Skagit Valley for lunch and a quick trip to some tulip fields. We are really blessed here in Washington to enjoy amazing flower festivals including tulips, lilacs, lavender, daffodils, and of course our state flower the rhododendron. I will be sharing lots of tulip photos but decided to start with a poem and a few shots since this is poetry month, too. Blessings…
~
Here are the photos of our lunch before we headed to the fields. We ate at Nell Thorn in La Conner. A restaurant we highly recommend. Dear had a lamb burger that was amazing and I had a quiche that was more like a souffle. I also had to taste their soup of the day which was a spicy bean garnished with cilantro. Yummy!
~

Saturday Fun…

Nothing deep to share just these beautiful roses we picked up at Trader Joe’s yesterday for $4.99. Why walk away without buying them? And…

…have you ever seen a Brussels sprouts Stalk? It was $2.99 at Trader Joe’s. I just had to buy it. Of course Dear and I enjoy Brussels sprouts more than most people do. It’s another one of those tastes I’ve acquired in my adult years. So I think these are on the menu for today along with some Lamb Shanks and mashed potatoes.

Have You Seen These?

 

It’s a Cupcake Vase that comes in a few different colors.

 

It was fun to fill it with these white and yellow flowers. It’s spill resistant and non-breakable. You squeeze the top to open it up. It feels like those silicone cooking cups.

 

I bought this at Rust and Ruffles on 1st Street in Snohomish, Washington. The packaging says to “Enjoy decorating your 100% fat free Floral Cupcake.

Hope your week is going well. Wednesday is Katie’s final wedding dress fitting so we’ll need to find a spot to store the dress until the wedding day in this old house. Hmmmm…

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

The Wind Blows Cold…

 

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

~Charles Dickens

That really describes Wednesday. It was extreme in contrasts. We will see what Thursday holds for us.

I need to get a smog check on one of our cars and I hope to get some laundry done now that the washer and dryer is in it’s new location and all hooked up and vented. What does your day hold?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Getting Ready…

…for some St. Patrick’s Day Fun.

 

I’ll be joining Kathleen at Cuisine Kathleen for her St. Patrick’s Day Party on March 15th. I’m partying all month anyway since this is my birthday month. Actually, I’m partying all year because I’m turning the epic age of 60 in 2011!

In the meantime…

Psalm 118:24 (ESV)

This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Lord willing this is what I’ll be doing today…

This morning I’ll be moving like a Latin dance queen at Zumba. There are no mirrors so I can humor myself in thinking that I’ve got the moves. What’s important is that my heart is pumping and I’m burning some calories.

Late morning Katie and I are headed to Crate and Barrel for some light shopping.

At 1:00 we have Katie’s 3rd wedding dress fitting for her alterations. Today is going to be fun because Patty Forte Linna is joining us. She’s an artist and we’ve commissioned her to do a wedding painting. This appointment will be animated for sure!

That will be enough excitement for one day!

What are you doing today?


Oh the Sweet Smell…

…of Lavender

Lavender and Clement Robinson
(Handefull of Pleasant Delites, 1584)

Lavender is for lovers true,

Which evermore be faine;

Desiring always for to have

Some pleasure for their paine:

And when that they obtained have

The love that they require,

Then have they all their perfect joie,

And quenched is the fire.

Next weekend is the Lavender Festival in Sequim on the Kitsap Penninsula. I’m thinking about going and checking out the fields early on Friday with hopes of taking our summer visitors there the week after the festival. I’ve never been and would like to know what to expect before I haul a car full of visitors over there. I’d also like to inquire about how long the fields are full before they are cut back.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Sarah Bernhardt Peony~

 

I started with a Sarah Bernhardt and I have been bitten! I want more Peonies in my yard. I’ll be on the lookout when the time is right to plant some more.

On Sunday I bought a hummingbird feeder. My first of those, too. I want to set it somewhere out my computer window because a sweet hummingbird comes to visit everyday.

My neighbor found Mr. and Mrs. Ducks nest. It’s in one of their planters. There are 8 eggs in the nest. Mrs. Duck was sitting on the eggs when the neighbor showed me the spot. So soon we’ll see some little ducklings. I wonder how soon….

My week is thankfully starting slow but will move into hyper-mode soon.

Dear comes home tomorrow from a 6 day business trip to Chicago, yippee!

World Cup begins on Friday! No…really people, do you understand the magnitude of that for this soccer fan?!

Friday night my daughter’s boyfriend arrives for an 8 day visit before he heads off to bootcamp.

On Saturday after we watch the U.S.A./England World Cup game we head to Bowman Bay for a 3 hour kayak tour.

On Sunday my daughter will be walking in her graduation ceremony from the University of Washington!

Life is rich!

So for now I’m just letting this Sarah Bernhardt Peony intoxicate me with it’s fragrance.

James 1:17

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

Thanks for stopping by and blessings on your week.