Oregon Christmas

I drove to Florence Oregon for Christmas (530 miles and 9 hrs one way) by myself to be with my family. My brother drove from Santa Monica CA. The weather was sunny but windy and coldish. Not as cold as Spokane though!

On Christmas Eve afternoon my brother and I went to the local casino and I won enough money within 10 minutes to pay my half of dinner we had planned at a nice posh restaurant that evening. Below is my Dad and brother trying to take my winnings LOL

Here's wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

New blooms

These are the flowers close up.

This is the second Christmas cactus in bloom. If you look back on my blogs the first one that bloomed was around Nov 24th. I still have one more plant but it's not doing anything at the moment. Will see if it even blooms this year or maybe we will have to wait till early next year. This plant here is a different species. These flowers are huge and flourescent pink whereas the other one was red and spider type blooms. I don't put them in closets like the directions say you are suppose to do. They decide on their own when they are ready to be pretty.

Still no snow on the ground yet. Hooray!!! I am hoping to drive to Florence OR for Christmas to be with my family. It's an 8 hr drive and I will be by myself. So wish me luck with the weather.

"Walk in the Woods" by Stephen Lyman

I fell in love with this piece of art about 13 years ago. I saw it in an art gallery in Sandpoint Idaho.

My brother sent me some money for my birthday (Sun Dec 6th) and I went to the Northtown Mall. A friend of mine said I had to go to this certain art store called "Affordable Art" because they had lots of moose pictures. He knows I am crazy about moose. I walked around the store and saw lots of beautiful moose pictures but just didn't like any of them enough to spend a fortune on. I finally asked the sales lady if she had any moose pictures by Stephen Lyman. She took me around a corner and said she only had this one. (below) I almost cried. It was the one I had wanted forever. I bought it and it's now hanging in the living room. I never thought I would ever have that particular painting. I LOVE IT! Thank you brother Dave!!

This picture of it doesn't really do it justice. It came framed this way too which is awsome!

Snow and flowers

Above is my Jasmine plant that is growing wild up the wall. I am trying to train it to go across the ceiling but there is a skylight in the kitchen so it's trying to decide which direction to grow towards. Windows on one side or skylight on the other.

We have about three Christmas Cactus (holiday cactus as they call them these days as not to offend anyone) and this is the first to bloom. It's two days before Thanksgiving and it's in glorious bloom. We have two others and one is just budding and the other isn't doing anything yet. So hopefully we will get blooms all through the holiday season.

Thank goodness we have pretty flowers and plants inside because they would never survive outside in the snow. This is our second snowfall this year and it's not melting this time. We had around 3 inches fall last Sunday.

Our cats went to the vet yesterday to get their annual shots. They are brother and sister and we have had them since they were 8 weeks old. I was in shock when I found out that Smokey weighs 13lbs 12oz and Ashley weighs 10lbs 2oz. Buuuuutt it is winter and they are outside cats so they have to build themselves up to keep warm and survive the winter weather. That's the excuse they both gave me anyway. They are only 2 years old so we will see what they have for an excuse in the spring time when they start to shed their winter coats. Hmmmmm, maybe time to let them know the meaning of DIET. LOL

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Bad language

Yep, what you see on the ground there is a four letter BAD word. I can't believe it's here so soon this year. October 29th!!!!!

This is like seeing Christmas decorations in the stores before Halloween. I wish everything would hold off until at least after Thanksgiving.

The weather forecasters have said that this will be a mild winter. I certainly hope so after the last two. Let's all keep our fingers and toes crossed that we just have a little of the white stuff this year! Cross your fingers and toes for Rosemary's neck of the woods too. She gets it a lot worse in N. Idaho than I do here in Spokane. (100 miles apart).

Sick of looking at the squash on my blog.

I am so tired of looking at those squash on my last blog I had to update.


Here are two views of the new porch add on. Looks messy right now but once it's cleaned up I will get better pics.
The construction crew were friends that drove over from Seattle just to do this job. Oh, and also play disc golf (very important). Took three days with lots of disc golf included to finish the porch. They will be back in the spring to erect a carport for our cars. Poor guys worked in below freezing weather with lots of wind. Oh, and all my plants are dead from that freeze. I am glad in a way because I don't want to see another squash till next year. LOL

Our weather now is in the 40's at night and up to the low 60's during the day. Rainy. Got that roof on just in time.

Pictures

Looks funny not to have at least one picture on each of my blogs. I took this over the weekend to show just how many veggies we get. This is just a few of each by the way.

Seems the zuchinni has slowed down just about when the crookneck decided to take off. The basket is full of tomatoes and cucumbers, and we have started to get a few edible ears of corn which are just DELICIOUS! White corn at that! In the middle you will see a Basil plant. I have to admit I bought that at the store because I was making zuchinni soup and it called for fresh basil. Hey I am sounding like I can actually cook. Ha ha! I dabble here and there on fun things but don't expect me to cook day after day. NOT me. I would rather clean dishes any day!

I found a project in my latest Birds and Blooms magazine that I am going to make next spring along with planting lots of veggies again. It is a bird bath and it is two terra cotta pots butted together with a saucer on top that you decorate with mozaic pieces. Looks fun and pretty. We love to attract birds here in the garden. After our sunflowers die we take the heads and hang them in trees and over posts so the birds can feast during the harsh winter months.

Vegetables

A friend of mine said I didn't need to add pictures for every blog. So thank you Rosemary.

This summer growing season has been fantastic. We have grown more this year than last and hope to venture into growing new things next year. So far we have had an over abundance of Zuchinni and Crookneck squash. I have made 8 loaves of zuchinni bread and lots of zuchinni soup and froze so far. Have given away so so many of both zuchinni and crooknecks and still have lots left. They are also still growing.

The tomatoes have done really well too. I have blanched, peeled and frozen quite a few, eaten lots and they taste so much better than store bought. Of course everything tastes better when it's homegrown.

We planted white corn for the first time and I tasted my first ear today. OMG! it was absolutely delicious! That is a definite do again next year. We also grew cucumbers this year and they are delicious too. Last year we grew the pickling kind and they weren't as good. We had a friend come over and take most of them for pickling. A couple of days ago I had a cucumber, zuchinni sandwich. Wow! it was yummy.

I planted some wildflower seeds and had all kinds of pretty flowers come up. Somehow I also got a tomato plant and of all things a cantelope plant. The cantelope has three small melons on it right now. I don't know if they will get big enough to eat of not but what a nice surprise.

After looking at Rosemary's potatoes she grew I want to try to grow some next year. They looked really tasty.

Even though the season is coming to an end I have to admit I had so much fun playing in the garden this year and reaping the benefits.

Goodbye summer. Hello Fall.

Good news/Bad news

Here is a pic of our huge sunflowers growing above the house. We didn't plant these! They are self starters from last years flowers. They shade the living room really well and it's like looking out into a jungle from inside. The bees and birds love them too.

Isn't this a nice looking BBQ? It's only been used a few times about three years ago while I lived in Sandpoint ID. Once I moved to Spokane it has been stored away. I decided to drag it out this last weekend and BBQ some chicken breasts. I marinated the breasts for two days and was so excited on Sunday to BBQ them. Jerry cleaned up the grill part and I got the chicken on it. It started to smell really good after about 5 minutes so I put the lid down, turned the heat down and came in the house for a few minutes. When I went out to check on it I got a big surprise.

The connection between the propane tank and the BBQ was on fire. I was so afraid the tank was going to blow up but I couldn't just let it burn. I had a squirt bottle handy that I was going to use on the chicken but now had to put the fire out with it. As you can see from the pic below, the plastic connector has melted onto the tank and also melted the connections together. The BBQ is toast. It is going to the dump. I was so disappointed that I had to put the chicken in the oven to finish cooking. I think I will go back to the old fashioned charcoal briquet style of BBQ.

Long Beach Harbor California

I forgot to post my mother's 82nd birthday lunch pic on my last post. We had a beautiful time at the Kings Estates Winery. My family seems to think I look like Sarah Palin? Funny no one came up to me or stared as if I was. Hmmmm

This is Lacey (Doreens cat) and she is keeping my chair warm for me till I see her again.
We became very good buddies while I was visiting. She is such a sweetie!

Doreen and I had just eaten at Bubba Gumps

I need to go on a diet after eating there.

Here I am on the Aqualink feeling the spray of the ocean. What a wonderful feeling. We were both pretty sun burnt later that day.

On the left is the shoreline of Long Beach

Below is the Hyatt Hotel

Left is my best friend Doreen.

Below is taken from the Aqualink looking back at where the Spruce Goose used to be and also the Queen Mary that's still there.

I had a wonderful time visiting Doreen and time went by too quickly. We went to the movies and saw Phelam 123. Also rented Australia which I had seen but wanted to watch it again since it is so good. Ate out a lot. Slept in till 8:00 everyday. Stayed up late. Got to see Doreen's daughter new place. Just had a great time all in all. I need to go back more often. I used to live there about 14 years ago but everything has changed so much I don't recognize much anymore.

Oregon vacation

Had a great time on vacation. Got to see my parents and brother in Oregon.

These are pictures of Cape Perpetua which is north of Florence near Yachats.

Oregon & California here I come!

I leave next Wednesday for Florence, Oregon to see my Mom & Dad for a few days. My brother is meeting me in Eugene (he lives in Santa Monica CA) and we will be driving to Florence together. It's my Moms 82nd birthday next Thursday and the family will celebrate together.

My parents have decided to take their home off the market and stay in Florence. I am glad because they were going to move back to Arizona. They will just be snowbirds instead.

I leave Florence on Sunday the 12th and fly back to Los Angeles with my brother. He will then drive me down to Long Beach to visit my best friend that I have known for almost 40 years. I will stay there until the 16th and fly home to Spokane. Then it's back to clean clean clean. I have picked up a couple of more jobs besides my regular Mon, Wed, and Friday job. I now have a bi-weekly job and a monthly job. This is keeping me busier and out of trouble!

I have some new pics that were taken this morning to post:

This is our first harvest of Zucchinis.

We have been adding Cilantro to our potato salad. Livens it up!

This is the crookneck squash that is in with the two tomato plants. The crooknecks are tiny so far.

Petunias

Daisies

This is the life! Relaxing in the garden.

Happy still loves to play with her disc. We don't throw it for her much anymore because of her arthritis. So she rolls over it instead. She just turned 12 yesterday. Happy Birthday Happy!

Everyone have a happy 4th!

Gardening has its rewards.

I have been in the garden as much as possible in my spare time. How does my garden grow? Here are a few pics to let you see.

Purple Irises right outside the living room window.

I like to sit out on the deck here and admire all my potted flowers. I have yellow, purple and white daisies, red, yellow and purple petunia waves. Cilantro, Rosemary and Chives. Excuse the mop LOL! I could lie and say it was a long stemmed flower but I won't. It is a wet mop I put there to dry and forgot to move it for this pic.

Here is another flower garden with 3 Bee Balms in the middle.

This is the veggie garden with Zuchinni, crookneck squash (you can just barely make out those beautiful yellowish/orangish flowers on them Rosemary! (our little secret). Also there are cucumbers and another tomato plant in there. This is the finished wall and new flower bed I talked about. Beats looking at that big white propane tank.

Remember the last post of my Topsy Turvey? I am so excited that this contraption really works.

Spring beginnings

Gee, it's been so long since I blogged that I almost forgot my password. LOL!

Well here is a pic of my new "Topsy Turvey" tomato planter. I have two tomato and one crookneck squash in it. I will post another pic later on in the season when hopefully it is full of veggies.

This is the progress of the wall to hide the propane tank. I am going to buy a couple of Virginia Creeper plants to cover the wall. Also we are going to make a little flower garden in front of it.

Jerry bought a newer riding lawn mower and is enjoying it. The place always looks so much nicer when the lawn is mowed. I love the smell of a freshly mowed lawn. Ummmmmm!

This is cilantro that I planted. They are big enough to be outside now. I started crookneck, zucchini, cucumbers and the cilantro by starting to grow the seeds indoors last month.

Saw something unique this morning looking out the bedroom slider: There was a male house finch sitting on top of a pine tree. This little bird has a bright red chest. I suddenly noticed a hummingbird bobbing around him as if he was a flower. You had to see it to really appreciate how amazing and funny it looked. I just put the hummingbird feeders out last weekend and already we have quite a few hummers visiting.

Rosemary made me do it!

See what Rosemary has done to me? Every time she mentions a type of delicious candy I have to go out and buy some. LOL

I know it's not Rosemary's fault, it's mine because I am addicted to chocolates. I need help!

Maybe if I blogged more I would have less time to eat the baaaaaddddd treats. They are so divine though!!!

Looks like Happy has had too many treats as well. No not chocolate! I give her those tiny doggie biscuits instead. One choc for me and a doggie treat for her. Really she's taking a nap since it's raining outside. She's 11 going on 12 so she doesn't bounce from room to room like a pup.

Here is a pic of green lawn coming back. What a nice sight to see after all the snow.

Last week we had three days of pure sunshine. I was able to get out and tidy up some of the garden areas. The sun felt sooooo good on my bare skin. I got to wear shorts and a tank top it was so warm.

Took a trip to Seattle a few weeks ago which was fun. Nice weather the whole weekend we were there. Can't leave Seattle without stopping at Trader Joe's for my favorite goodies. I love there Roasted tomato and garlic soup in a carton. I buy those Rosemary and Garlic crackers to crush up into the soup and it's divine. There now, everyone can buy that and become healthier instead of eating all those chocolates. Too bad the closest Trader Joe's is in Seattle for us here in the Inland Northwest.

Happy Easter everyone!!