new things in the garden

The side yard is no longer just a pile of weeds... believe it or not those plants were always there just hiding behind all the weeds - it looks so nice now, I don't even like to walk on the path in fear of messing it up.

There's somewhere to sit in the garden now! I just need to get some fun outdoor pillows and there will be many days of lazy reading.

Okay you can't see the sticks with the bird tape I mentioned in another post to keep away the birds but this was my attempt to show you them, oh well - you can just see my beautiful FIG tree instead.

HAPPY SUMMER GARDEN DAYS!

next best thing to the beach!

Yup you guessed it summers by the kiddo pool!

The main thing I have had trouble adjusting to living in Portland is that the beach isn't less than an hour away, it's like 2 hours away at least (with no traffic) and thankfully we don't have much of a summer so there are only a few days where I am dying to go to the beach and well I am trying to have this kiddo pool work for those days and to be honest it doesn't!

I am looking forward to the end of Sept. when we will be camping at the beach, hopefully we won't freeze like the last time we went camping in summer in Oregon.

making the birds mad

So for months I have been doing a great deal of research on a safe way to keep the birds from eating my fruit off my fruit trees (I have fig, pear and plum trees) everyone kept saying to use a net but I was worried with reports about birds or other animals get stuck in them as well as the effect they can have on the tree in preventing growth for future years. I discovered Mylar bird tape which you tie onto poles and put through out the trees. The wind blows the tape (like ribbon) and it keeps the birds away.

It seemed to be working very well... my backyard is SO PEACEFUL now... I had gotten so used to a yard full of birds that in a way it's kind of sad I don't get to watch the blue jays every morning outside my bathroom window while I get ready, but I will have fruit this year.

The other night it was so hot that I was trying to cool off by laying in the kiddie pool... the birds were all in the redwood tree (if you don't know about my hate hate relationship with the redwood tree, be thankful, very thankful!) and they were making lots of noise... I imagine they were complaining to each other about how they are going to starve this fall without my fruit trees to eat from, at one point I yelled at them that if they want to pay the water bills and spend the time pruning and thinning the fruit by all means they can share in the harvest but as they don't do anything to help they get nothing.

I do wonder if at some point the birds will out smart the tape and discover that it won't hurt them and start eating the fruit.



On another note - I got strawberries this year! I had planted them last year, but they didn't produce any fruit and I was worried... but this year I have gotten 3 little bitty strawberries, which are no where near enough berries for all my summer plans. This weekend alone I am making two desserts for parties both needing strawberries.
I did try to take a picture of the three little berries, but my camera is acting up and I think it's time for a new one.

new new new

I just posted a bunch of new stuff from my travels around the world... you might want to start at the first one about Budapest and work your way back up, but it's up to you.

ENJOY!

Seattle

The day after I got back from Budapest and got the wonderful pleasure of getting in my car and driving three hours to Seattle for four days to help with a training! Believe it or not I survived! There were moments during those four days that I really thought I was going to DIE! The first two nights I was there I had dinner meetings to attend to and it took everything in me not to fall asleep in my plate of food. Most people were pretty sympathetic and understanding with me, some were even impressed with my ability to function. I was pretty blessed to have a POSH hotel room (Ali think Westlake Inn, it was pretty close to that). It was a wonderful opportunity for me to network with some people and it is proven to be very good for business.

My adventure home!

Many have asked for details about my return to the US because I have hinted at it being a horrible ordeal and it was… Do you remember me mentioning in my blog about Budapest and arriving and not really having my passport check? Yeah, well apparently I was NEVER on my flight from Frankfurt to Budapest and therefore Hungary has no record of me entering the country, great! I get pulled aside to speak with the police, three of them in fact. They are asking me all sorts of questions about how I got into Budapest, how long I have been there, where I have been, what I have been doing, etc. etc. etc. I then have to have a (best way to describe it) stripe search… basically it was a groping session. I then got to take everything one by one out of my suit case and show it off to the police, everything! I did have my boarding pass for my flight from Frankfurt to Budapest which I think is the only reason they didn’t detain me for days, weeks or even years. The whole time I was trying to not take it personally – I knew it had nothing to do with me personally; it was simply because I was an American and sadly our country has not been all that great to Hungary… there are still a lot of hard feelings and I totally give them that. If I was Hungarian I would hate us too… let me be more correct it’s not so much your standard American people, but the American Government that gets their feathers flying. They have a right to try and protect themselves and while in my heart I know I come in peace… no one else can ever be too sure. If you don’t understand this point of view you might want to educate yourself before you make a stupid comment. I am just saying… while I value many different options I think as Americans we don’t often think what it might feel like to be on the other side of a boarder… to have gone through what other countries have. I am not interested in getting into a huge political debate here – if you know me, you know where I stand on things of this nature and therefore you can take my ideas or just leave them here, end of discussion.
Once I was cleared from this and allowed to proceed to my gate, it was about 5 minutes before my plane was to board and I hear my name over the speaker, great – what now was all I could think. I went to where they told me to go and there was something wrong with my checked bag, so again the police escorted me off to a little room… and again I got to pull everything out and show it off to the police.
I wasn’t allowed to get a boarding pass for my flight from Frankfurt to Portland because according to the crew in Budapest “Frankfurt would have to decide for themselves if they would let me on any flights”… I arrived in Frankfurt about 5 minutes before my flight was to start boarding and after running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get a boarding pass I got stand by… yes that’s right stand by. At this point I was in tears and had been since my stripe search in Budapest (I just felt beyond violated, gross and dirty) the nice lady in Frankfurt ask what was wrong and I was like “I don’t understand why I have to go stand-by I just want to get home after everything that has happened” I had reached my max of what I could deal with in one day. She asked me what happened and I gave her the cliff notes version of what happened in Budapest and she within 5 minutes had me with a seat for the flight. THANK HEAVENS! I had no time to pee or get anything to eat I had to board right then and there. I even got extra leg room which is GREAT on a 10 plus hour flight. Although I did have a really annoying lady next to me who complained about everything under the sun… I went for shock value at one point and asked her if she had been striped searched during her travels when she said no I asked her kindly to keep her opinions to herself… for the rest of the flight she just mumbled under her breath to what I am sure was horrible things about me and frankly I don’t care – I just wanted the rest of my trip to be peaceful and as harmonious as possible.

Oh Vienna! (as Bridget always refers to it)

I think we were there like maybe 36 hours… hold on let me count. Okay maybe like 33 hours! But, it still amazes me all that we did! We were on our feet walking all around the city for pretty much all of those 33 hours… we did take a little bit of time to sleep in our cute little apartment and the Happy Hostel, a place for happy people and we were happy to be there. I was the lucky one that good the BIG bed (maybe because I had a broken bed back in Budapest). The high light of Vienna for me was the FOOD, big surprise I know. I love food and I love good food even more! We had apple strudel every chance we could we even went to a strudel demo, it was awesome! I have lots of videos of Peter the strudel maker! There is something about old city’s that can take your breath away… nothing in America even comes close. I mean I love the character my 50 plus year old house has, but really how much charterer does it really have compared to places like Budapest and Vienna!?!?!?! One really cool thing we did while we were there was Sunday morning we went to Mass at this amazing Cathedral in GERMAN! I didn’t understand about 99% of what was going on, but it was beautiful and amazing anyways. We really loved the House of Music and the Freud Museum and who couldn’t love the Palace! And the Garden’s… really I could go on all day about how much I loved Vienna… I would love to go back and spend some more time there. But until then I will just have to enjoy my pictures… there’s a lot!

there were sunflower fields all along the way to Vienna

oh look it's me in Vienna!

this cute little wooden toy shop that I wanted to go into but we were there on the weekend and everything was closed, sad day!

cute little coffee house we had out first meal in

my bed at the Happy Hostel!

for my sister... she loves doors!




we had to stop for a little bit of FUN!

where we went to mass on Sunday morning.

not only is it pink so I had to get a picture, but it's like the old and new!

the best meal of my life and our last meal in Vienna - the food was amazing!

I hope you enjoyed them... there are MANY more if you ever want to see them!