Hipstamatic

I had forgotten about the Hipstamatic app on my iPad. What fun I had yesterday taking photos with this app that converts them to different effects. 

Don and I spent most of the day in the garage. It needed a good cleaning and organizing. My husband has always been a great handyman and can fix almost anything.  But that means there are all kinds of supplies and tools around.....plumbing, wire, screws, etc.  he sat while I handed him the items one by one and he had to decide to let it go or keep it. Letting go was hard for him. He was raised to hold on to everything just in case you might need it someday. But we managed to do one side of the garage. Today we will tackle it again. 

Are you ready for flowers?

I am so ready for flowers. Today I worked filling pots with the flowers that I bought over the weekend. 

I will set them around on the breezeway. I also planted some herbs in my poteger.  

And weeded the picket fence area,,,,

If it doesn’t rain I hope to mulch tomorrow. 

Watercolor at the Depot

Joy, joy! My watercolor classes in Mayville have started again at the Depot. I love Susan as a teacher and learn something new every single time I go. She gives us a small art history lesson or shows us contemporary artists. Today she critiqued a few paintings that students had brought in and offered to do the same for us if we wanted to bring something in. 

Vases of lilacs were placed on our tables and after some direction from Susan we went at painting on our own. 

The class was full today and it is always interesting to see how different techniques are used by the artists. 

My friend Cece used a very light hand in her painting. 

This is my finished lilac painting in watercolor. 

Memorial Day Party

This is one of the flower arrangements that Wendy’s mother Linda and I made by gathering flowers from all around Chris’ house.  The landscaping here is amazing with many varieties that bloom in all seasons. 

The party was a great success with twenty seven guests and loads of food and fun. 

There were tons of things to do..swimming, motorcycle riding, horseshoes, bocce ball, table tennis and cornhole.  

There was also music as Wendy and her friend Ana played the guitar and mandolin and sang while Chris’ friend Eric also played the guitar. We joined in by keeping rhythm with small percussion instruments.  

Tables were set up in the sunroom and on the porch as well as under the pergola outside. 

I even got a ride in Chris’ red convertible. 

How fast the days pass

Today I  at the salon. I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged Thursday. I’ve been busy getting the summer things out. Blogging just isn’t a priority right now. There are so many things I want to do.  And any spare time I have I’ve been watching Wonderland on Amazon Prime. If you liked Thirty Something you will love this story about Australian friends all living in the same apartment building called Wonderland. 

The anthill

I’ve always said that Bradford in the Spring is like the ants coming out of the anthill. All around the first nice day you see people mowing their lawns, fixing their houses, doing chores that had to be neglected all winter and preparing for the summer season to come. And we were the ants today. Don and I worked all afternoon outdoors. First we power washed the breezeway. We had painted the cement brown a few years ago and the paint was beginning to come up in spots. I thought that just hitting it with the power washer would do the trick but after spending almost an hour and just removing paint from one section I realized that we’d better try something else.  So I went to the hardware store for paint remover. We finished cleaning off the breezeway and tomorrow we will spend with the remover. While we had the power washer out we cleaned off the stamped concrete courtyard. It’s amazing how much grime you can get off. We are still not done but reached our limit and came in. More to come tomorrow. 

Spring Blues

Isn’t the picket fence area just beautiful this Spring? Those lovely blue flowers are all volunteers. I’m not sure what they are but they have spread all around that area. I am planning on doing something else with this space in the summer but right now I wouldn’t touch it. 

Lancaster PA

I spent a great day with my sister Linda, Wendy and Scott in Lancaster yesterday. The girls were there for an evening performance by Jeanne Robertson a humorist that we have been watching on Youtube for a while. Scott lives and works there and met us for lunch. 

We walked the downtown area for a while and had lunch at Issac’s. Then we went to small where I found a beautiful dress for Chris’ wedding.  We traveled around the Amish country area even seeing a lot of buggies.  

That’s Jeanne standing in the background. She comes out before and after the performances to talk to people.  We had a great time at her show. It was rainy when we got out so I was very grateful that .wendy drove all day. She used to work in Lancaster and was familiar with the area.  It was a wonderful day. 

Happy Mother’s Day

Me and my mom on top of Stone Mountain in Georgia. I was born in Elberton, Georgia and my mother was such a southern lady. We were raised right with manners and values and family meant everything to her. She had a family of 12 brothers and sisters and even picked cotton when she was a kid. When she married a Yankee he promised her that he would take her back to see her family every year and he always kept that promise. We would travel down South every July for two weeks and enjoy visiting all the family members. It was a wonderful childhood and I appreciate it all the time. Happy Mother’s Day mom. 

I celebrated Mother’s Day at Chris’ house where he cooked us a wonderful lunch. Wendy was there as well as her mother and aunt and we had such a great time. We will be happy to have Wendy in our family as she and Chris became engaged a few weeks ago. 

Bradford in the Spring

I’m blue

Blue is one of my favorite colors for flowers. My picket fence area is full of grape hyacinths and other blue flowers which are volunteers. 

I love the color by the walkway. I plan on redoing this area but I want to find a way to keep all those perennials. 

This is also blooming. I planted it last year but I’m not sure what exactly it is. 

Today I took advantage of the 73 degrees to work outside on the bank cutting back old stems and picking up pine needles. We also got out our swing and some of the summer metal decorations. The sun must have energized me since I walked on the treadmill at the Y this morning and went on a long walk on Pitt Trail before supper. 

  

Now on to Spring

Two glorious days in the seventies really made me feel that the bad weather is over and now Spring is here. The daffodils are blooming as well as the grape hyacinths. I put the small table and two chairs out onto the breezeway to take advantage of sitting outside for a minute. I am ready now to put out the swing and table and start gardening or at least cleaning up the beds. 

This weekend Chris and Wendy are coming up and maybe he can help with some of the heavy lifting. 

The beach at Waikiki is so beautiful but more crowded than the one at the HaleKoa. This couple had just been married there.  That is Diamondhead in the distance. . 

Honolulu Museum of Art

  One day we took an open trolley city tour to discover the history of Honolulu. 

We 

We rode all around the city as the tour guide told us important facts about Honolulu. We went to a cemetery at the top of a hill and had a good view overlooking the city. 

We stopped and spent a few hours at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Not only did we enjoy the paintings and statuary but we also had a nice lunch there. 

The weather was consistently 83 degrees while we were there. One thing that was much different from home was that everything was open to the outside. There were no walls between the restaurants and the outdoors and birds would fly in to hunt for crumbs. 

Hanauma Bay

We couldn’t go to the ocean without trying snorkeling so Linda and I set off on a drive to Hanauma Bay. This bay was recommended to us for great snorkeling and our first stop was a gear shop to get all the equipment we would need. Being novices we were glad for a kind and understanding sales girl who set us up with masks, snorkels, fins, lifejackets, and an umbrella. 

That was a lot of equipment to carry so we were grateful to take a ride down to the bay on a tram pulled by a truck. And we were extremely grateful that they went both ways because we were too tired to carry all this up the hill after being in the water. 

When we first arrived we had to go into a building to see a safety video but the day we were there the projector was broken so we were just told a few things.

The beach was crowded and we at first tried to screw our umbrella tube down into the ground. We were obviously having trouble and some kind fellow took pity on us and helped us. But even he had a hard time getting it completely down and later we found out that it wasn’t anchored so well when the wind practically took it away and turned it inside out. 

Linda and I are not beach people and I’m sure the lifeguards were amused when they saw us trying to manage putting on our flippers in the water with the waves knocking us over all the time. We did manage to somewhat learn to float with the lifejackets and breathe properly and I did see some fish. It was not exactly like in Finding Nemo but it was a good experience. We stayed in for a while, rested and then went back in. The second time the tide was high and the winds blowing the waves in with such force that we didn’t have much luck. But all in all we tried. Not bad for a seventy four year old!

After we returned our equipment we stopped at the Malasada truck for a doughnut. There was always a line and worth waiting for. I got the custard one which tasted exactly like fried dough with a custard filling.