Mystery Solved!

My mystery tree is a Chinese Flame Tree. Thank you Nikkipolani for helping me identify my tree.

 

Here’s her comment that she left on my previous post…

nikkipolani

Oh yeah, I’ve got one of those. It’s a Chinese Flame Tree. Beautiful little yellow flowers, turns into papery bougainvillea type pods, drops them everywhere, seedlings a few months later in all the places the pods have dropped.

 

I decided to go back out and take some close-ups of the pods and leaves. Bloggy friends are such a great source of information!! The photo below shows the tree before all the blossoms rained down on my lawn and patio slab.

 

Have a great Sunday everyone…

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.

My Mystery Tree…

I’m on a quest to figure out what kind of tree this is in my yard in Washington.

 

Here’s a view of the top of the tree from my bedroom window. The yellow blossoms are a real treat to bees. I can see them enjoying the nectar all over the tree top.

 

Right now these yellow blossoms are raining down steadily onto the lawn and back patio slab.

 

It’s hard to see them but all those little black dots on the yellow are bees…

I’m going to have to find me a tree specialist…an arborist?

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.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Beat the Heat Style…

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five where we look back over the last week and remember our favorite things. Please visit the lovely Susanne in Canada at Living to Tell the Story to join in the fun!

 

Even though it’s hard to think about anything but the heat here in the Pacific Northwest I’m pushing myself to change the subject a little. So onward and upward to my favorites from this past week.

1. On Saturday after reuniting with my walking buddies on our 6 mile walk Jody and Dave picked me up for a West Coast Reception for a friend of ours who got married on the East Coast in June. It was so much fun to see former church friends that we hadn’t seen for a while and to catch up a little. It felt like a 10 year reunion.

2. On Sunday I met my kids at their church and went out for brunch afterwards with them and Grandma Wilma to the Maltby Cafe, home of the ginormous cinnamon rolls. Josh and Laura spent the rest of the afternoon at our house and it is always so much fun to listen to the fun and laughter the 4 of our kids have over a board game. This time they pulled out Risk.

3. The heat came in and my absolute favorite thing has been our fans!! I know it’s hard for people from hotter regions to understand our whining about the heat but because of our more typical mild climate very few homes in Washington have air conditioning. The other cooling favorites have been Popsicles! Today I bought an inflatable mattress to put in the basement so I can sleep more comfortably down where it is generally 10 -15 degrees cooler. Of course I looked just like this model on the bed last night…LOL!

 

4. I have also enjoyed planning a whirlwind trip for my husband, daughter and me to Vancouver Island next Tuesday. I like planning and investigating the details for a trip.

5. Tonight Dear arrives from Southern California. We will enjoy the next 2 weeks in the Northwest together and then we will drive back to Southern California together on August 15th. I’m looking forward to our time together here.

6. My extra favorite is all the fun hours I’ve had leisurely shopping at Goodwills here who have very good air conditioning. I’m going to blame my purchases this week on the unbearable heat!!

Good news! I woke up this morning cold in the basement and went upstairs to my bedroom at 5:00 am and crawled into bed and even covered up with the blanket to get warm!! There’s a cool breeze blowing this morning and the house is all cooled down, yippee!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Victoria, B.C.

 

This is for you Cori G! You mentioned the Blethering Place and I hunted down an old postcard from the 90’s that I’ve had since eating there on a trip to Victoria. The back of the postcard reads…You can find this charming “Touch of Britain” nestled in the heart of beautiful Oak Bay, only minutes from downtown Victoria.

“Blethering,” according to Oxford, is Scottish for voluble, senseless talking.

I’ve made reservations on the Anacortes Ferry to travel to Vancouver Island on Tuesday and reservations on the Black Ball Ferry to travel back to the U.S. on Tuesday evening. Again we are packing it all into one day! Dear, Katie and I are setting out on this adventure.  We plan to stop at Butchart Gardens on our way to Victoria. It will be interesting to see what we can take in and if we make it to the Kitsap Ferry Terminal for the last sailing to Edmonds at 11:10 PM.

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.

Meet My New BFF’s!!

These are my new Best Friends Forever!

 

All because of this…

 

History making and record breaking temperatures in Western Washington. And yes that dial is above the 100 degree mark.

I’m headed out today to hopefully buy an inflatable bed so that I can sleep in the basement tonight where it is at least 15 degrees cooler then the rest of the house. My bedroom is on the 2nd level (3rd level if you count the basement). It gets quite toasty up there.

Here’s something from this week that I find pretty funny…

 

Verizon is putting Fios in our neighborhood. Our yard is the lucky yard where these boxes have lived and the new fios one gets to live. After putting in the new equiptment the nice worker bees replaced my dead grass with fresh new green grass. This morning the water truck pulled up and they watered that new grass. Just made me chuckle…

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.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Pink Quilt

Tablescape Thursday is upon us. Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to see lots of tables set for your pleasure.

 

This table is from my condo in Southern California. I used a Shabby Chic quilt for the tablecloth originally from Target that I purchased at Goodwill.

 

Everything on this table again is from Goodwill except for the wired cloche and the flowered napkins.

 

 

I’m so glad I had this post in my archives because it has been waaayyyy to Hot Hot Hot here in the great Northwest to get creative with a tablescape or exert the energy to set the table. I just looked at my outdoor thermometer and it registers at 100! It’s official now Western Washington has set history at having the hottest temps ever on record. The latest weather for my area is 103.6! Hope you are cooler where you are.

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.

Outdoor Wednesday ~ Juanita Bay Park

It’s time to visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer to join in the fun of Outdoor Wednesday. I’m avoiding the outdoors today and the next couple days as we are threatened with record breaking heat. We’ve broken some records today and they think tomorrow will reach triple digit temps here in Western Washington. That’s big news for our region which is used to having weather in the 70’s this time of year…

My walk at Juanita Bay Park late last week was in cooler temps and these photos are reminding me it will cool down again soon, I hope!

 

 

 

 

 

Did you spot the Blue Heron in this photo. He was way out of my camera range but I zoomed as far as I could to capture this shot of him…

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.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

 

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head…

 

At 6:00 am it was already in the 70’s according to my outdoor thermometer. Boy is it ugly…I’m going to have to keep my eye out at Goodwill and see if I can pick up a thermometer that’s a little more trendy and not a throwback from the 70’s!! But back to my other woes. Besides the heat, Verizon is putting Fios in our neighborhood, so all this heavy noisy equipment is right on or next to my yard. The guys start before 8:00 am and the equipment is so loud they converse by yelling. Because of the heat every window in my house is open so there is no getting away from the noise.

I have no other choice friends besides sitting in a cool bathtub with ear plugs in, so I’m going shopping and eating at the air-conditioned mall. I figure I can pace myself and I’ve come up with an old song with new lyrics…

“Shop a little, eat a little, shop a little, eat a little, shop shop shop eat a lot eat a little, little” Can anyone recognize that song?

I’ll give you a big hint “Pick a little, talk a little” (from The Music Man)…

I know my friends in Clovis, Sacramento, Arizona, Southern California, and Texas put up with this kind of heat a lot but it’s just out of place in Western Washington and a LOT of us do not have air conditioning…

Hope you stay cool wherever you are today!



One Bird ~ Three or More Poses…

This little guy is a Barn Swallow.

Click on Logo above to join in the Three or More Tuesday Fun.

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Ruby Tuesday ~ Espresso Anyone?

Here in the Seattle area we have espresso stands on almost every corner or it seems that we do. Here is a unique stand I saw on Sunday while we were in Maltby, Washington. It has been really hot for a few days here in the Seattle area so the only Espresso I’d be getting these days is iced!

This old sign was in the same area and I thought of Ruby Tuesday…

To see more Ruby Tuesday Posts visit the Mary the Professor at Work of the Poet.

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.