Five in February…

Linking up with Amy for Five on Friday and with Susanne for Friday’s Fave Five!

2016-02-11 February plants and food

1.This is the time of year that we I prune the apple tree. See all those branches growing straight up. They all need to be cut. It took me a few weeks to complete this task as I do a little on dryer days because it is hard on my neck and shoulders. I’m happy to say that I finished this week and I’m patting myself on the back. It was hard to get a good photo but in the photo on the right you can see that all the branches that were growing straight up are gone now. I’m thankful to have the strength to still do some yard work.

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2. This week my Lenten Rose is making a great showing. I love this humble plant and the fact that it blooms during the season of Lent.

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I’m thankful for my Lenten Rose and that it reminds me of my savior who humbled himself for all of us and died in our place.

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3. The Primroses are blooming. So nice to see them appear and our littlest and youngest rhoddy looks like it will have more blooms this year than last. I’m always surprised and thankful when they pop up all on their own again and again.

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4. and 5. On Wednesday I went to See’s, Macy’s, Costco and Hobby Lobby to do a little shopping for myself and others. At See’s I bought 3 small boxes of candy handpicked from lists of our families favorites. Our oldest son’s office is across the street from the mall so I delivered his and our dil’s box early. I went to Macy’s because I was ready to replace my purse. My everyday purse has to be light to start with, not beautiful heavy leather. I like pockets on the sides that my sun glass case and phone will fit in. Two main compartments to keep my wallet separated from other stuff. I had this exact purse in black and this time I went with this lighter color combination. By the time the sales person gave me some extra percentages off it ended up being half price. I also bought some items for Dear that he requested. At Costco I was happy to see they have my favorite jeans so I bought 2 pairs. They were $14.99 each! The sweater was $12.00. Then at Hobby Lobby I found three puzzles for my dear old pop. At almost 93 he enjoys his puzzles. They help his days fly by instead of drag on. I was on the hunt for bright and light pictures because the darker backgrounds are hard on his eyes. I’m thankful for such a productive outing and that I have the shekulkie (money) in my pocket to make these purchases.

Dear and I are having an early Valentine meal together on Friday. Rain is forecast for many days in a row now so we aren’t going far from home but far enough to get to a good steak house for our midday meal. Hope you all had a good week. On this Valentine weekend may you feel the unconditional love of God and pass it along to those around you…

A Tea Break…

We chose Attic Secrets in Marysville for our tea on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since we planned to shop at the Navy Exchange Complex afterwards.

 

My sister Lana, Sister-in-law Letty, Me, DIL Laura and daughter Katie.

 

 

We each chose our teacups and brought them to our table and selected our tea.

 

We were so pleased to see a gluten free tea choice for Letty on the menu, too.

After our lovely leisurely tea we headed to the Navy Exchange to do a little tax free shopping. We made a couple more stops to Cost Plus, Hobby Lobby, and a grocery store before heading back to Josh and Laura’s to see what the guys accomplished. Besides their construction project Josh managed to make a great pot of chili and a pan of gluten free cornbread for us all to enjoy. Here are the construction project collages!

 

A useless door in Josh and Laura’s family room that was a drafty nuisance! Out with the door.

 

In with new framing, plywood, and insulation.

 

New tar paper on the exterior and matching siding.

 

New drywall and mud on the inside waiting for a few more coats and then sanding before a paint job and added baseboard. These workers are done with their job for the day!

We enjoyed the great chili and cornbread and pomegranate margaritas. Some of us headed home while another group stayed and played some rip roaring table games.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site. All my photos that I stored and uploaded from that site are now big ugly black and grey boxes with a message to pay big bucks to get them restored to my blog. It will take me a long time to restore thousands of posts.

Some Painless Therapy…

Dear and I have decided to “cut our losses” and give up on the bathroom renovation being made right by the company we hired. It is better for our peace of mind to give it up and let Dear fix things that need to be done better. After several tries to get them to do things right we’ve decided no more. When you see the photos of the bathroom you will wonder what we are complaining about because you will see the beautiful cosmetic fixes. Unfortunately we had to live with the process and it will take some time for me to bond with the beauty of it all. When Dear finishes the painting and the rest of the window parts come in I promise to show you the before and after. Until then here is a sneaky photo of some wall art that is going to go up that I bought at Hobby Lobby today.

shop therapy 011Yes, a little shopping therapy was in order for today so I made stops at Hobby Lobby, Goodwill, and Trader Joe’s. Hobby Lobby had a 50% off sale going for all their wall art so I bought that metal piece to mount on one of the walls of the bathroom. A tree branch with birds.

shop therapy 009Their fall decor was on sale for 40% off so I bought these Place Cards that I’ll enjoy using at Thanksgiving.

shop therapy 008These Le Creuset ramekins were in the collector section of Goodwill marked at $14.95 for all 6. Because Wednesday is Senior discount day I got 20% off and paid $12.50 for all 6. I saw them at Williams Sonoma for $13.00 each. Now I’ll need to come up with a fun recipe to use them for. If you click on these smaller photos you can see them in their larger format. Speaking of Senior Discount day the employee at Goodwill who came on the sound system to remind us what discounts were available on Wednesday said “If you are 62 or Better you get 20% off” I love that and when I went to the register I told them I was better!!

We had a very nice evening on Tuesday celebrating Dear at a restaurant in Bellevue called Lot #3. They had the most interesting names for their drinks. I had a Left Turn at Albuquerque.

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After dinner we took a couple family shots outside the restaurant.

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Our son Dan is off hunting in the wilderness so he couldn’t join us.

Tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of 9/11, I’m praying that God protects us against evil…but that prayer is nothing new at this old house!

 

Fortnum & Mason

I enjoy walking through this department store in London. It’s been on Piccadilly since 1707! The Queen and Duchesses made a special visit here.

2013-09-22 London Sunday4On 1 March 2012, with enormous joy and excitement, the refurbished St James’s restaurant was opened by HM the Queen accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge, and renamed The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon.

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There are 6 floors of merchandise in the store.

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I suffer a lot from sticker shock in London so needless to say I wasn’t filling any shopping baskets!

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London Sunday 064Before I got my hand slapped by a sales lady in the hat section of the store, I managed to get a photo of Laura in one of the hats! The sales lady said no photos but we could try on any hat we wished to…

2013-09-22 London Sunday7When we were done at Fortnum and Mason we walked over to Selfridge & Co. to meet Josh who had gone to an Arsenal Soccer game at Emirates Stadium. It was interesting to see the store after watching some of Mr. Selfridge but…this store was not my cup of tea. And to quote my dear daughter in law…”oh the humanity!”

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We walked through one other shop that the younger duchess is said to enjoy and then headed to the underground dragging our tired feet. We picked up a take away pizza for dinner and enjoyed eating with our feet up in our flat. The next day we would spend our last few hours in London and we had a special destination for breakfast that will be my last post about our trip to England. Here are some views on our way back to the underground…

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I’m happy to report that our Christmas tree is decorated to the point that it is going to be decorated. Translation: I didn’t put all the ornaments on the tree cuz I just wasn’t up to it and it is what it is…

Thursday night is our Small Group Christmas dinner and White Elephant Exchange here at this old house so I’ll be busy doing a little clean up before our company arrives.

How are things progressing at your house?

The Sisters At it Again!

It’s been a very long while since my sister Lana G.! and I have ventured out together to a Goodwill sale. Last week when she mentioned it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Monday (which means a day off for some workers and a big sale at Goodwill) and we should go to Goodwill together I agreed.

We put on our serious shopping colors or should I say non-color and headed to the Bellevue Goodwill bright and early. We weren’t the only ones with this idea and shopping carts were at a minimum. I wish I would have taken a photo of the cart we shared. It was overflowing!

Here’s just some of my stash. I also bought several dress shirts for Dear to try on. He kept about 10 of them. Another great find were a nice pair of Naturalizer shoes that didn’t look like they’d ever been worn for $7.00. I’m enjoying wearing them. Those very high heeled Steve Madden shoes are for our daughter Katie to try when she comes to visit. They are fancy dancy and were just $4.00 after the 40% discount that was offered on this day. When I brought home those 6 lavender goblets I found 4 more in my cupboard so I now have 10.

I’m thinking I would be asking for disaster if I tried to wear these…

It is our tradition that the person who spends the most on these shopping sprees has to buy the other person lunch. This was the very first time that I was the winner and I had to buy lunch. The photo at the top of the post is of Lana and me from her I-Pad. We were just about to enjoy our lunch at Essential Baking Company inside the University Bookstore in Bellevue. We had a very good time laughing at ourselves!

Hope your last week of January is starting out well.

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.

A Great Escape…

… just 17 miles from home. I’d recommend a leisurely morning or day in Snohomish, Washington.

 

Strolling along 1st street you can see the Snohomish river. There are a good variety of shops to stroll through and eateries to choose from. Antique shops are in abundance but there are some fun country stores and clothing shops, too.

 

We started our morning at the Cabbage Patch Restaurant and had a very nice breakfast.

 

This post is going ruby on me so I’ll have to link up with Ruby Tuesday with Mary at Work of the Poet!

 

After breakfast we strolled through some shops and along 1st street.

 

 

 

 

We didn’t make it out of town without a major purchase. We found a hutch for our kitchen that was delivered on Sunday. I’ll show it later in the week. Hope Spring is showing up wherever you are and I suppose if you are in the other half of the hemisphere you’ll be welcoming Autumn! Enjoy.

Click on over to Work of the Poet to see more Ruby Tuesday!

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.

Out and About ~

Out and about on a cloudy day in the Northwest. The sun was out amongst the clouds and it warmed up nicely today. I got some running around done. Whole bean Costco roasted coffee for here and the South, check. New tennies for walking from the Brooks Outlet in Canyon Park, check. Brooks adrenaline are the shoes that have worked best for me and having an outlet here where I can buy them for less is fabulous. Some new 501 jeans for Dear from Fred Meyer on sale, check.

My kids are here this evening playing Rock Band. It’s fun to see them still playing nicely together. :0)

Blessings and night night!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

California Central Coast Getaway!

After viewing all the photos I took on Dear and my getaway last Sunday and Monday, it’s hard to believe we saw so much in such a short time! This is your only warning…I’m posting a lot of photos here! I will be sharing my photos from the Butterfly Grove next Tuesday.

 

After we spent some time at the Butterfly Grove we zipped over to the sleepy little town of Arroyo Grande which is inland from Pismo Beach. We wanted to do a little antiquing. Since it was Sunday some shops were closed but we got an eye full in two filled to the brim antique stores. There’s a suspension bridge over the river that was fun to cross. Brought out the kid in us!

 

These guys were making quite a racket and decided they needed to peck at our tennies! The red head decided to peck at Dear’s leg, too.

 

Pismo Beach is known for their clams and the clam symbol is used freely all over town. It was one of our goals to have a bowl of clam chowder at Splash Cafe before we left town! When we saw the line at Splash on Sunday we settled for good barbecue at Mo’s instead and hoped to get into Splash on Monday! Mo does not do Clam Chowda!

 The Pismo Clam

The Pismo Clam is one of the largest types of clams found along the California Coast. The clams can grow up to seven inches, if not interfered with by hungry clammers and sea otters. Legal size is 4 1/2 inches in diameter; and the proper place to clam is south of Grand Avenue (south of Pismo Beach).  Clams take approximately five years to reach legal size; growing about 3/4 of an inch each year. As clams approach ten years of age, they seldom grow more than 1/8 of an inch per year. The largest living Pismo Clam on record is 7 3/8 inches, however the clam shell on display in the Pismo Beach Chamber of Commerce is 8 inches in diameter.

 

See the line going out the door and around the corner? No worries…on Monday we headed back to Splash and had a bowl of very good chowder for brunch before the crowds arrived!

 

Our room would not be ready for us till 3:30 so we headed up the coast a bit to Shell beach and boy what a treat it was!

 

Beauty overload at it’s best!

 

 

 

We headed back to Pismo to check in but before we did we took a walk on the pier…

 

These two pelicans made my day while they posed for me and my camera! Actually they were hoping to steal the fish that a fisherman had just caught from the pier. It was funny to watch! We checked in, had a wonderful Swedish massage, (after standing and walking all day it felt so good) and then we had a great meal at the hotel restaurant with views of the beach.

 

On Monday morning after our picnic breakfast that was delivered to our room we headed north to Avila beach for an early morning walk.

 

Besides walking out on the pier, we found this biking/walking trail along the river and golf course that we explored.

 

 

We really enjoyed our getaway and would highly recommend this part of the California coast to anyone. If you are wine lovers there are also several wineries that do tastings in this area.

ht: photo of Pismo Clam R.Perry/UCLA Globe

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Ruby Tuesday ~ Finale for 2008

The Last Ruby Tuesday for 2008!

I took this in Solvang, California in the Fall of 2007.

For more Ruby Tuesday visit our hostess Mary at Work of the Poet!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.