A 4 mile hike

Would you like to take a hike with me? It starts off with a colorful bang!
Flowers are not the only nice view. These birdwatchers were equally delighted by the sights.


Here it gets a bit trickier...

The trail then came to ..... THE hill. This is my new archnemesis. (if that's spelled correctly. If not, I have a new word for vomit that goes up into the air first.) I have yet to make it all the way up that bad boy in 1 attempt. My personal best was just 1 stop to get my heart back in my chest and my lungs to quit screaming. My worst? 3 takes. Then I came to the second set of hills! UGH!!! If you note, it is so steep you can't even see where it goes down!!!

And then I had to go back up this bugga!

I was not alone on my walk. I met this kind fellow at the top of the first hill.

If you click on him, you can see his blue-belly. Very kind of him to stand up so straight for me.

Some of the flowers were taller than I was! I could imagine how fun it would be as a smaller child to run with abandon through these and build forts in the fragrance.

...that is until I saw all of these!!! Fun for faries, but snails are better left to rest undisturbed. I could just imagine coming out of the fields covered in slime. Yick!!!

In a few days time, these thistles should be magnificent! (Grandma S...these reminded me of you and Scotland!)

Now, this next one had a fragrance that rivaled stock. I kept stopping to inhale the sweet scents, and resisted the temptation to cut off a few pieces to bring home with me.

These petals were like freshly crumpled linen. So like a poppy! They were bigger than my palm though.

Ah, but what are birds when there are lizards and flowers to see?

My Vegetable Garden

Sometime around the middle of the month, on a whim I decided I needed a vegetable garden. It must have been a night after a class about something perfectly dreadful, like the endocrine system. So I bought myself some seeds, a planter, a bit of dirt, and a strawberry plant since I didn't want to look at just dirt. I planted the seeds, watered them, and I was suprised a few days later when I came out to see these little buggers!

I left my faithful Mermaid to tend to my garden. On the 20th, this is what I had: So I will give you the vegetable garden tour. There are peas to the one side, which are growing the fastest.

In the middle, there are cucumber plants, and somewhere tucked in there are 2 garlic bulbs.

I'm hoping my stawberry plant actually continues on to produce strawberries.

This was today: Between the strawberry plant and the peas there is lettuce, and carrots. Unfortunately, I cannot remember which side is which. Ah well. Time will tell.

So I'm not exactly a farmer, but at least some things are growing! I will keep updated, now that the semester is calming down!

Gardening

My hanging basket is quite happy, don't you think? I thought I would give you a tour of my *sprawling gardens* during the springtime. Feel free to put on your walking shoes, grab a sunhat, a cool glass of water or iced tea, and tiptoe to the....ranuculas, which were planted from bulb and quite happy be be free of the bag and placed in some viable dirt.

The paperwhites, too, were eager to stretch their limbs.

I had forgotten that I had gladiolus bulbs still in the soil, and their leaves were reminders of their excitement of the springtime arrival. I hope they will bloom for me!

A late amaryllis is trying to make an appearance, I am hoping it will be red. I have this bad habit of planting things and forgetting what they were.

These guys, though, are California golden poppys. I think. Hmmm. I hope so!

I put a dash of these seeds, and a dash of those seeds, and am pleasantly suprised when other plants, like the purple one, don't die. It's the little things in life, right?

Here you can see the tomato plants I have started. The 2 middle brown pots, for the life of me, I cannot remember what seeds went in there. Ah well. Another suprise.

Well, there you have it!

My sprawling garden. I hope you enjoyed the tour!

a bit of the month

I had to stop and take a picture of this magnificant display of spring. you would never guess where these were... The above pictures were taken just outside of my hospital. On the same day, I was able to take this picture...

Snow! In Southern California! The nerve of it. I guess the freeway ride made up for the snow with these:

Lupen! In bloom at the side of the freeway! Yes, I took this picture as I was driving. I was on my way to see these 2 very special people:

They are worth the drive, anytime! In this case, it was "jokester on the left"s birthday. She enjoyed dinner, and got sang to as well!

I will save her from posting a video. (which I didn't take anyways)

It's good to be me during the springtime! Ok. Back to studying....

Luvs

Look what was delivered to my doorstep for Valentines Day.... ...they were sent from my #1 fan....

....my Mom!

She did good!

My Momma Luvs me!!!

Another 1st!

Ok, so I forgot to rotate the picture, but you get the gist. Kirsiella is now 1 year old! Her Mommy threw her a birthday party to be shared with her daddy's going away party. I can't imagine having to leave a 1 year old, but duty calls.

Turning 1 with all these people watching can sure be daunting! Kirsiella liked her little tu-tu skirt. I had bought her a "ruffle-butt" pair of pants, not pictured.

Her Daddy sure is proud of his little girl!

Cake time!!!

Ah, the cake!

Love is in the air messing with people's allergies.

Love? Never heard of it!!!!
Funny story; I decided to try to make cookies for Valentines Day. Sugar cookies! I got out a recipe, and even went to the store to buy all the ingredients. Then I looked at the ingredient list again to be sure I had it all. I looked at what temperature to preheat the oven. 375.
Check!
Mix it up, add sugar and all that, then......
put in refriderator for at least an hour. UGH!!!!
When am I going to learn to read the. entire. recipe. ?
Long story short, I didn't make sugar cookies that night. I made dough.

So the next night, Yay!, cookies are "chilled." Step 2. Roll out dough with rolling pin. Check. Wait. NOT check. I.dont.own.a.rolling.pin.
(apparently this is one of those things you get when you get married. Oops.)
UGH!!! again.
Step 3: CALL GRANDMA!!!!!
So Grandma and I had an inpromptu cookie making session after work, as an excuse to get that cute picture of them together, and use her rolling pin.

I was planning on passing them out to friends, but after giving some to grandparents (as a thank you!), and eating a few, and then giving a few to the other nurse who came to help me out, and eating a few more, and giving some to the parking attendant, and eating a few, and giving some to the program representative, and eating a few, well, they didn't make it past a day and a half!!!

But, man, they were yummy!!!

Another couple still in love, or suffering from love allergies. 60+years later.... well, what do you think?

Happy Valentines Day to everyone in love! And to everyone else (like me) Happy Love Sucks Day!!!!

(nah, I love lots of people! Some of them being the ones in this posting. Everyone else, you know who you are! You never stop loving someone! :)