Joyous Spring! Flowers and Balboa Island

Happy spring! How I love it! You can almost feel the energy of new life vibrating and expanding, plants starting to burst with new life and birds happily singing and enjoying the skies. My orchids have been blooming like crazy, freesias bloomed weeks ago and are almost done, a random sweet pea popped up, geraniums are blooming (I love their beautiful red!) and the roses are leafing out and have buds. The time change always triggers a burst of excitement and energy for me as the days (finally) don’t get dark at 5:30 and daylight just seems to linger deliciously. Longer days equal more fun!

A friend and I went to a seminar last week at a local quality garden center. It was fun and interesting! They showed different plant types for 4 types of gardens: formal, drought-tolerant, shade and cottage. They stressed "easy" cottage because cottage gardens require the most work, with all the deadheading and maintenance required when you have a lot of flowers. We had a great time! It was very warm and sunny; I had sweat running down my back even though it was only 10:30 in the morning. I allowed myself to spend less than $10 and bought two sweet pea seedlings that I'll plant later this week. 

         

Pics of my garden right now:
This beautiful sweet pea just decided to pop up this year. (Probably reseeded itself from last year.) It’s so sturdy and so fragrant. Sweet peas have always been my favorite flower.

Another volunteer: a yellow freesia that decided to pop up from the 2nd row of the planter wall. (I didn’t plant freesias this year, either.)

Cymbidium orchid. I do nothing but water this very giving plant and it just blooms and blooms despite my benign neglect.

Kalanchoe (which really needs a bigger pot) with freesias hanging down in them. Next to it is a mix of red and white cyclamen that I planted for Christmas a few years ago. (It could probably use repotting as well.)

     

Can you spot the little green siskin on the side of the garden hook? He came to play and splash in the fountain. My fountain is old and worn, but has a top basin that’s perfect for the birds to bathe in.

Last year, I took my grands to Balboa Island on the first day of Easter vacation. We explored, had lunch, walked around the harbor area and checked out all the cute houses. And, of course, we decided we’d love to live there in cute little cottages, too. Bri decided that we should do a “Balboa Day” every year on the first Monday of Easter. Their family headed to Utah this morning, though, so we had to revise our plans and we went for a short visit last Friday. I picked up both girls after Jas got out of school and we headed down to stroll a bit and get Balboa Bars (delicious ice cream bars, famous on Balboa). We admired the cute cottages and spied an older couple sitting out on their tiny front porch, reading the newspaper in their Adirondack chairs and having a chat with friends who strolled by. Perfect scene of contentment. (Jas had to go for an MRI on her shoulder right after this; persistent problems made worse by water polo and swim team. We hope the issue can be resolved. It’s causing her a lot of pain.)

My beautiful grands!   

                     

Lovely cottage border garden on the island.

If spring hasn’t come to your area yet, it will! I hope it’s a beautiful one for you, too!

Unemployment Benefit: The Fair, home tour and dancing!

What a super-fantabulous fun-filled day yesterday! I spent the day at the fair having fun, then went on a VIP champagne–and–hors d’oeuvres home tour of beautiful model homes and then finished off the night at my friend’s Scottish country dancing class. (I did spend two hours in the morning working on my job search; I was a responsible adult.)

Orange County Fair – My granddaughters, their cousin, my brother and I all went. We started with some food (Wow! Prices have really gone up; had to shop around for something that didn’t require selling a kidney.) and watched a bit of chef Robert Irvine’s demonstration.

Wandered over to the tattoo booth and I got a mehndi (henna) tattoo and the girls got airbrushed tats. Then it was off to the giant ferris wheel, where the attendant looked like Snoop Dogg. What a view from this thing! Loved it. My brother and I wandered the exhibits while the girls went on more rides then we all watched young people dancing and performing at one of the stages. Oh! And we finished up with funnel cake. Always have to have funnel cake at the fair!

   

VIP Home Tour – I received an invitation from a home development around the corner to come view their latest model, complete with champagne and hors d’oeuvres, so my friend Vicki and I went to go hobnob with the upper crust. (Actually, Vic IS upper crust, but she’s the cool kind.)

I’ve always loved to view model homes; when my daughter was young, we used to visit one of the local developments, pretending we lived in “our” selected model, deciding how we’d arrange our furniture – fun, imaginative play. Vic and I had a great time enjoying the models, although we had to question why one of them used plain old white 4x4 tile in the bathrooms. The food was fabulous: melon with prosciutto, fabulous cheeses (my fave was the cherried cheese), fruits, wraps, assorted crackers. One guy was obviously there for the food and drink as he kept going back for seconds, thirds, fourths.

Scottish Country Dancing – And then we were off to Vic’s dance class. This was my first time seeing her group, although she’s been dancing for years. I think I could do this! I love choreography and it was pretty easy to pick that part up since I have a ton of ballet training; the challenge (as in most dance) would be in the technique. It’s similar to ballet in some respects, though, so maybe I have a shot. I told Vic that it’s different than my usual salsa dancing where there’s a lot of body contact. “It’s British,” she laughed; “they don’t touch.” ha!

My grands are off to Sea Adventure Camp!

 

I’m just so thrilled! My granddaughters, 13 and 10, leave tomorrow morning for Sea Adventure Camp, spending five days aboard a three-masted schooner, American Pride, where they’ll raise sails, snorkel and kayak the waters of Catalina Island, explore and discuss marine life and their adaptations, learn ecology, geology, island history. There’ll be popcorn movie nights, beach parties, skits, sea shanties – my tummy’s tingly with excitement for them!

Here are a couple of links if you’d like to learn more:

http://www.americanpride.org/SUMMER_SEA_CAMP.htm

http://www.americanpride.org/EducationalBrochure2009.pdf

Doesn’t it sound like a wonderful adventure? Like being a pirate at sea but without that pirating part – lol! My grands are very cool little chicas and they love a good adventure! One of their greatest gifts is that they are so adaptable to different situations. They know how to go with the flow and be flexible. Their mom and dad (my daughter and son-in-law) take ‘em on trips to the river and the lake in the summer, and snowboarding in the winter, plus other vacations (Hawaii, Mexico, Washington), and they’re just very comfortable and easy-going about things as a result. They aren’t tied to an outcome, rigid and inflexible; they just roll with whatever happens. Not being tied to an outcome and being adaptable are such great qualities, don’t you think?

When I called my dad the other night, he asked (as he always does), “How are the girls?” Now, Dad’s had a couple of strokes, so his memory isn’t as sharp as it was; he tells me “My clutch is slipping” – lol! On top of that, his hearing is pretty bad, too. Put bad memory and bad hearing together and you have yourself a challenging phone call for both of us. But we do our best. Sometimes I have to repeat something a time or two or remind him of names and relationships. Sometimes it’s too much and he just says some non-committal statement to make me think that he heard/understood me, but I know he didn’t. Doesn’t matter. We move on and it all works out.

When he asked about the girls, I told him about their Sea Adventure Camp and that they’d be on a schooner for five days. Oh, how he perked up! Dad served in the Navy in the Korean War aboard the USS Ernest G. Small. On October 7, 1951, his ship hit a mine off North Korea, killing 9 and wounding 18 of my father's friends. Four days, later her bow broke off in heavy seas. My dad loved being in the Navy. He’s always told me he loved being at sea, away from everyone; he loved the peace of being out on the ocean.

So he is just thrilled about the girls going on this Sea Adventure. I told him they would learn how to tie nautical knots and he told me that although he learned them in training, he never did them after that. He was the Personnel Officer so there was no need. He told me, too, that as Personnel Officer, he would get up at 4am each morning and check the newswires for the latest news. He’d then gather all the pertinent information together, make stencils and create a daily newspaper for the crew. I loved learning that about him. I love any and every opportunity I get to learn more about my dad’s personal story. I want to know his stories so I’ll have them to enjoy for the rest of my life. We all should share our stories more …

I’ll be picking up the girls on Friday when their ship returns. I’m really looking forward to hearing their stories about their adventures at sea!

Rose

PS. My youngest grand has been saying for some time now that she wants to be a Marine Biologist. Isn’t this just perfect?