Visitors to my front yard!

There must be something awfully delicious in all our yards these days as these "ladies" have been quite populous in recent weeks! They are White Ibis.  I call them "the ladies", but of course we have a mix of males, females and juveniles which are a mixed gray color. Fun to watch.

A little folksy art

I found this free clip art online this morning and decided to draw it out freehandedly, then I zen'd it up a bit, colored with crayons and colored pencils, went over the lines with black Sharpie pen, and it looks kinda cute, eh? I think I will have it matted and framed tomorrow and hang on a small wall space.

Some roasted chick peas, a trip to the science museum, and SHOW YOUR PLATE RACK FRIDAY!

These are a few pictures of the roasted chick peas I made a few days ago.  They tasted pretty darn good with good crunch for about an hour maybe after coming out of the oven.  You gotta munch them up fast!  It was a fun experiment to try, and I recommend it if you are a lover of such things!!!
Here are the seasonings I used.  I just put a bit of olive oil in a bowl, sprinkled in some salt and Herbs de Province (my fav seasoning of all time)!  I used 1 can of chick peas, rinsed and paper towel dried off.

Here they are all oiled and seasoned ready to go into a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes I wanted them to be a bit darker and smaller (more of the water baked out of them for crunch)...so I cranked the oven to 400 for 15 more minutes.

This  is right out of the oven.  They look shiny when first out, but after a few minutes out, they are dry.  My only suggestion is to eat them as soon as you get them out of the oven and they are cooled enough to handle.

Here are a couple of pics of the kids inside a circular fish tank at the science museum today...they climb under and into the middle and they look like they are in there with the fish!  Pretty cool.

Is this some kind of pretty anemone?????

This fish was quite social and seemed to want his picture taken!  He posed and just stayed next to me the whole time!  So cute!!!

We went to a planetarium show with Big Bird and Elmo as hosts, and learned all about the night skies.  Neat movie and the kids LOVED it.

I thought it would be fun to show you my plate rack for some ungodly reason!!!  I looked at it yesterday and thought it would be fun for everyone to do this so we can all see what we display up there!  Mine is NEVER just plates!

The plate on the upper left was sent to me by my DIL, when she and my son were stationed in Budingen, Germany, the one on top left is a bunny plate from my friend, Karen.  The bottom left is also some Germany plateware she sent me at Christmastime, and the bottom right is a paper plate done by Emily at Vacation Bible School this week!  Aas you can see, Doozey rules the roost here, and Emily has her bunny made at Easter as well.  Down below, (seen in top pic), we have a monkey made of Perler Beads, and Mickey himself.  Oh...and that picture of two babies is my cousin (on left) and I in around 1958.  I had it colorized years ago for each of us!  Yes, I was born in 1956. So if you have the nerve to show your plate rack (or any display area in your home), please do so, and leave me a message so I can come by and see!!! It will be fun!

xoxo- Julie

Meatless Tuesday (in my case)

One of my fellow bloggers,Dawn, of Dawn's Garden Life, (who I think has the neatest blog, about her homegrown vegies, and meatless recipes), had a recipe I just had to try! She posted it on Monday, and I made it tonight,with one variation. She called it Garbanzos and Rappini Medley. Hers called for Rappini or Broccoli Rabe, but I used spinach. It was so delicious I just had to tell everyone about it. The ingredients are Broccoli Rabe (or spinach as in my case), fresh mushrooms, canned chick peas (or garbanzo beans), and a tub of crumbled gorganzola or blue cheese (or whatever kind of cheese you like). All done in a skillet. My kind of meal!!!The neat part is how she kinda of browned the chick peas first in a little oil. It gave them a much nicer taste, I thought.It only takes a minute and then you just add the other ingredients (except cheese, which you wait till last to add). I made some couscous to go with it, just like Dawn did. I gave this meal a 12 on a 0-10 scale! My family really LOVED it. Oh, I did add some salt and Herbs de Province to it too. You can add any seasonings you like. Thanks Dawn!!!Please check out her recipe and photos of her meal HERE

The white stuff was the cheese when I added it. I just covered the skillet and let it melt!YUM!

Please take no notice of the condition of my cast iton skillet. I need to throw it in the fire again to get it cleaned up! Heeheehee.

Sewing powers ignited!!!!

Emily (my almost 5 year old granddaughter) will not wear shirts!!! She will wear dresses with little skorts underneath. She also hates shorts! She got the Chipettes, (of Alvin and the Chipmunks) tee shirt, and as much as she ADORES them, she would not wear this tee shirt! I told her I could turn it into a dress for her, and she did not want it above the knee, but floor length with about a 10 foot train!!! Lolol. I sewed it to a maxi length, and may devise some way of adding on a longer length of fabric to be her train that will be detachable, for safety sake if for no other reason!!!!! I used a piece of scrap material I had and it was just big enough to barely add any ease!!! I may need to cut a slit in the back to give enough room for her to walk. Or both sides.  I'm waiting for her to come home and try it on before that and hemming! I hope she loves it!

Happy Fathers Day Sunday!

Some photos from the garden today!

South Florida skies!!

This pic taken in front of my house last night looking west as sun setting!

This one taken my DIL tonight! WOWZERS!!!!!  The skies are prettier in person too, if you can imagine

My new solar color changing butterfly!

Around 11 bucks at K-Mart.  Such fun!!!!!

Saturday garden shots!

Good sunshine Saturday to you all!!!  Here is the only sunshine at the moment around these parts!!!  My little front porch!  Look at how yellow some of the leaves got on the pothos.  It was situated farther back in more shade prior to yesterday.  All plants got taken out for some nice juicy rain water last two days and light sun whenever it appeared.  Now I have it closer to the outside light.  Hopefully I can keep it alive.

New color changing solar lit butterfly from K-Mart (11 bucks or so)....a bad day to try to get any solar cells charged up!!! RAINY.  As you see the Black Knight is resurfacing from last year both here in front garden area, and also in a full tire later down in post.  I just love this dark purple!!!  Pretty cool!

A bit of bright cheery for you!

Some new kind of flowers have sprung up in front garden!

These lovely sort of lilac colored mums have really hung in there...a perennial for me now!!!  Goodness!!!  What a nice treat!

All this lovliness has popped back up from last year!  Isn't it just amazingly good!!!

Kalanchoe beauty!!!

Another Kalanchoe popping up between the tires!

One succulent tire with lots of Elephants Foot!

My Bunny Ear cactus is a gonner this morning!  Too much rain has killed it.  I believe I've had it about 5-6 years!  It used to be so pretty!  Sad.  You can see a few green pads, but the bulk of it is black and mushy.  I could save some and re-root in the screenroom.  Maybe I will, but on the other hand I am tired of dealing with cactus spines!!!!  (Dirty little secret of mine).

Yellow rose of Texas!  LOL.

The tiny little striped roses (2 plants in here) are blooming their fool heads off right now.  I am waiting for them to get somewhat larger before I gift one to my best friend.  There are lavender, and a white rose in this tire also right now, as they are all small. You can see them to the left of tire.

Happy little gnome is protected from the rain under a canopy of periwinkles!!!

Have a great weekend!

xoxo- Julie

My new baby, Henry Hoya!

Daughter and I were out shopping at K-Mart and I saw this beautiful variegated Hoya. It was love at first sight! Even though I have tried growing one before and experienced miserable failure, I just felt I had to give Henry a go! (Daughter and I named him while walking to the car).....kinda snappy, don't you think???

Wish me luck!!!  Sorry....the sun was setting as I took the pics!  I took a picture from each direction with his shelf mates!

My air plants are blooming!

They turned pink all over, and can you see the purple and yellow blooms??? They are just too showy right now!  Actually some of the blooms are already fading out, but none-the-less, thought it was a fun thing to see!!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday! Mine was busy, and with added heavy rain this evening, but that was nice, as it actually cooled things down a bit! Thanks for stopping by to see what might be here! Not much, but a cute little something!!! xoxo- Julie