A Lovely Weekend…

This was our first true summer weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. The sun has been shining brightly since the 4th of July. We finally just puttered about the yard and stayed home.

After I finished my puttering inside I sat out in the shade to keep an eye on Dear while he was up on those high ladders.

He worked on the trim on the garage. Thankfully he was shaded most of the time.

I think pansies and violas are the sweetest little flowers. They make me smile.

I still have a few more pots that need some fresh flowers in them. On Sunday there was one more project I needed to get done.

Rosella reminded me that it was time to add our next layer of fruit to our topfs! Rosella’s is Rumtopf and mine is Smirntopf! We both added cherries. I know I have a cherry pitter somewhere that Dear’s mother owned but it’s probably tucked away in the attic so I improvised and used a fondue fork to pit my cherries. You were right Rosella…it’s not easy to pit cherries and it’s good to wash a load of dishes when you are done so you can get the cherry juice stain off your hands and fingernails! My blueberries aren’t quite ready to pick yet so they will wait till the next layer…

This is the beginning of a very busy week for me with travel to Canada for 3 days included. I don’t know how often I’ll be checking in. Still praying for those of you suffering in the hotter than normal temps and for the areas that are desperate for some rain. May God shade you and refresh you with his rain…

Summertime…

Happy Summer to You!

We have sunshine, woohoo!

This is from the 50’s at Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains, Southern California. The three families represented here are all Russian immigrants who arrived in the U.S.A. in the late 40’s. I’m the one with the buster brown haircut sitting on the table. At this point I was the youngest in our family. Our next 4 siblings were born in 1958, 1959 and twins in 1963.

To celebrate the first day of summer I’ll be out in the yard mowing and pulling weeds…not camping.

What are you doing?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with blurred out versions 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.

Ode to Summer ~

Summer, oh summer

You skipped in quite late

and left us in haste

and now we are left to ponder

Will you reappear

when winter is near

and cause us once more to wonder….

Summer, oh summer.

Hint: Read this ode as if you are a Beatnik giving a reading at the local coffee house…or as Mike Meyers in So I Married An Axe Murderer…

I’ll see you all in the Fall!

Finally…

…we pulled out the patio furniture.

Just in time because you know what these early morning shadows mean…summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest!

This is the latest we’ve ever waited to pull out the furniture.

It was just right today and the next few days are predicted to be hot, hot, hot!

We’ve heard about the scorching temps in the Northeast and hope you get some relief soon.

I’m hoping for a nice stretch of 75 degree weather after this little heat wave rolls through.

My hydrangeas are deciding it’s time to show their color. I’ll be pulling out the hose to water the rest of the week. That’s the first time I’ve had to do that this summer, too.

How’s your weather?

I’m adding this post to Susan’s Outdoor Wednesday!

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.

Summer?

Oh where oh where is our summer?

I hope it’s arrival comes soon.

The flowers are bright.

But the weather’s not right.

Hope the sun will arrive by noon!

So how’s summer starting where you are? We are cloudy and a bit drippy with some wind. Instead of barbecuing yesterday for Father’s day we celebrated inside with breakfast for lunch since we had steady rain for much of the day. The kids honored Dear and we had a nice relaxing time together. What are your plans for summer? We don’t have any trips planned this year. We do have visitors coming in July and August and we’ll plan some summer activities with them. Thanks for stopping by for a visit. Hope your week is a good one!

She’s Not Cooking ~ She Got Cooked!!

Monday was a travel day for me. I flew from L.A. back to Seattle. My sweet lily white daughter picked me up at the airport and I was shocked by the pink glare coming from her skin. Yes it’s been sunny and hot in Seattle and my daughter went on a bike ride and in all the excitement of getting the bike in her car and getting to the meeting point she forgot the sunblock. She rode for 25 miles. I think it’s safe to say she won’t forget next time. It’s been an AloeVera ointment ~ vinegar bath kind of day for her.

I hope to return all the sweet comments on my Monday posts on Tuesday while avoiding looking at my daughter. OUCH!

These photos of Katie were taken earlier in July before her overexposure to the sun.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

No Internet Today!

Well we hit a snag with our internet service and were down for most of the day. The kind Comcast man came and fixed our problem and we’re up and running again. It was a good day to be off-line…

I went outside early (to beat the heat we’re experiencing) and worked on my patio containers. Dear and our son Dan had already put the cover on our gazebo and brought out all the patio furniture. My new oven was also delivered today and Dear installed it. He is such a handy guy. I’ll try to get some good photos of my new oven but right now with all the sunshine streaming in the windows there’s a lot of glare :0) I plan to break in the oven by baking some cookies tomorrow. Here’s hoping the temperature is calibrated a whole lot better then the old one…

Welcome Summer ~ The Hummingbird

Winged Jewel
(The Huming, Bird)
Feathered fire of emerald .
Aflashing through the air,
Its throat a glowing jewel,
A ruby solitaire.

Intrepid wings are whirring
In airy, fairy flight,
Careening through the sunshine,
A scintillating sprite.

Then pendant o’er flower
It dips its dainty hill
And gathers honeyed nectar
From flowery cup and frill.

Now darting, swiftly turning,
It seeks the trumpet vine,
A little tropic jewel
Aflame with nectared wine.
-CORA L. CONE

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SUMMER TO EVERYONE WHO PASSES THIS WAY!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Amgen Summerfest 2008

The company my husband works for always puts on a nice summer party for their employees and families. This year they combined it with the company chili-cook-off competition and gave it a Hawaiin theme.

The decorations were lots of fun. Even the founders statues got decorated.

We picked up our wrist bands and we were ready to eat, drink, and be entertained.

The chili competition booths were all very creative and the chili was cooked by employees and hosted by them as well. We spotted several celebrities serving their chili. Elvis with the cool vanilla bean chili, Gilligan, Lovee and Thurston Howell the third. We also spotted Indiana Jones.

There were several stations with many choices of food and drink. The entertainment was great with Polynesian Dancers, Chinese Acrobats of Hebei, Fire Dance, and Denver and the Mile-High Orchestra. Thankfully the weather was nice and not too hot. We’ll never forget the summer fest of 2006 when it was well over 100 degrees.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Weekend Wanderings…

The L. A. Farmers Market

Farmers Market (no apostrophe!) was created in July 1934.

In July 1934 a contingent of farmers pulled their trucks onto an expanse of empty land at the property known as Gilmore Island at the corner of Third and Fairfax in Los Angeles. They displayed their produce on the tailgates of their vehicles, to their delight, customers quickly arrived and parked their cars on a hastily created dirt parking lot in spaces designated with chalk. They strolled among the trucks purchasing fruit, vegetables and flowers.

The atmosphere was casual, the open air commerce enticing, the goods fresh, and the result remarkable. Farmers Market became an instant institution.

We met our friends from Seattle at the Original Los Angeles Farmers Market for dinner and a stroll. Luke, (one of our former pastors in Seattle), Terri and their two daughters Sophie and Greta are in L.A. for some sight seeing that will include the ultimate first time visit to Disneyland for the girls on Monday and Tuesday!

A very upscale outdoor shopping center, The Grove, has been built right next to the Old Farmers Market. We ended our visit with an elevator ride to the 8th floor of the parking garage at “The Grove” to get an aerial view of this Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles and Hollywood. We were hoping to see the famous Hollywood sign but sad but true it was too “L.A. smoggy hazy” to see it clearly! We were able to see the Griffith Park Observatory.

On our way home after our visit we were driving through a couple multi-million dollar neighborhoods and were shocked to see this eyesore on one of the street corners. We were amazed and decided to turn back to take some digital shots of this monstrocity. My photos will not give this gaudy display of bad taste justice.

There were over 14 of these statues…

Yikes! This is a beautiful neighborhood of amazingly landscaped and manicured lawns. House after house displays beautiful architecture and upkeep. I can only imagine what the immediate neighbors think. We found out later that there was a lot of TV coverage over this property and a lawsuit that the neighbors brought to try to get these statues removed. They lost their suit. The bright white wrought iron fence was added after some of the statues were defaced.

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My weekend ended with a 250 mile round-trip out to Nuevo, California for dinner and a church service that my nephews Levi and Caleb were leading worship for (Levi in the red, Caleb in the orange). A nice ending to a busy weekend. Blessings on your week ahead…

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos from their site that I used on my blog since 2007 and I’m working to update my thousands of posts.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Summer