Category Archives: flowers

Tulip Festival

As promised, here are the tulips – and lots of them!  On Mother’s Day, John and I biked to bagels and met my parents there for breakfast.

Hi mom!

While breakfasting, I had mentioned about wanting to go to the Albany Tulip Festival, but not sure I wanted to drive and hour and spend the gas.  Turns out mom wanted to go as well, so a plan was formed!  We biked home and made ourselves presentable, then drove down to Albany.  I really had no idea how big a deal the Tulip Festival was.  We were going to try to park near the festival, but since there was free shuttle from the free parking garage, we chose to take that instead.  Best.decision.ever.

John and I all cleaned up riding the shuttle.

The shuttle dropped us off to a throng of crowds!

😯   Bigger festival than I was expecting!  There was a huge craft show, entertainment stages, lots of food on a stick:

I was there to see the tulips, though! Moses proclaims “Let there be tulips!”

They are pretty much in peak bloom.

I fell in love with these crown imperials (fritillaria).  They aren’t tulips, but they are bulbs.  I have only seen pictures of them and they are fairly expensive, so I never got any.  I think I will be purchasing some now that I have seen them up close and personal.

They kind of look like pineapples.

Grape hyacinths (muscari)

I love the color combos.

Some Morris dancers performing.

Accompanied by a concertina:

My poor mom and John.  I took soooo many tulip pictures :mrgreen: Although my mom did as well:

The colors just almost didn’t look real.

I took pictures of the names of the tulips so I could remember them. Orange Princess double late:

Chiquita bordeaux double late:

The coolest tulip EVER!

Obviously a mutation, but so cool.  It was hidden with all these yellow ones.

Fancy frills fringe tulips:

Red Georgette multiflora:

Posing:

Maybe next month’s challenge to myself might be working on posture??

As most of you know, I did a 7 day vegetarian challenge.  I was a little worried at first about finding something at the fest to eat without resorting to cheese fries or something like that to stay veggie.  Well, there were a ton of choices!  I ended up at the Turkish booth:

There were some feta cheese filled samosa-type things.  Then the sarma (the green things), which were vine leaves stuffed with rice, parsley, onions and spices (actually really good), and then sekerpore. Those are a sweet almond cake soaked in a simple syrup.  A good plate.  I shared the sekerpore with mom and John because the lady gave me a couple free ones. Maybe I looked hungry?

More flowers.  Monte Carlo double early.  I think the doubles are also called peony tulips.

Rajke Triumph:

Pink cloud mixed (love these).

Estella parrot:

Another crown imperial

And just some pretty color combos here:

I guess I had better stop!  I wasn’t kidding when I said I took a lot of pictures 😀

Flowers make me so happy :mrgreen:

What’s blooming and bagels!

Friday! I have trouble keeping track of the days when the schedule gets a little out of order, don’t you? I had a protein drink and went to the gym at the usual time.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Straight leg deadlifts 3 sets of 10 at 65# Lower body
Close grip lat pulldown 3 set of 12 at 50# Back
Cable squat to row 3 sets of 15 at 50# Full body
Dumbbell chest press 3 sets of 15 with 20# DBs (40# total) Chest
Reverse Crunches 3 sets of 12 Core
YTWL 3 sets of 4 (each letter) with 8# DBs (16# total) Shoulders

John arrived at the gym, so we headed on out for breakfast! It was pretty warm already, I have to say. Today is more humid than the last couple of days.

Sunflower bagel and coffee!! I how I missed the bagel.   This was an awesome bagel today. I was pretty hungry.

It was nice to relax and eat, since I don’t have a set work time for my 1/2 day today.  13 mile ride this morning.  Trying to figure out if we will be able to bike tomorrow or if Earl will send too much wind our way. Supposed to be windy with rain possible tomorrow….

The garden had a couple surprised in it for me today.  It still is looking quite good for this time of year.  A little tired in spots, but still weeks of color left!  As requested, here is an outside shot of the house.

Victorian style.  Note the front yard?  This is the only yard we have.   Not kidding.  There is no back yard (it is totally covered by our shop) and no real side yards (just strips).  Makes for easy mowing, though 😀

Impatiens with a weed sticking in there.

Butterfly bush is going like crazy:

This bloom was at nose level:

My multi-blue clematis has a bloom on it.  I saw this while watering today and was so pleased!  I thought it was done.

Milkweeds.

This is a volunteer.  Actually, I cut it down earlier in the summer and 4 came up in its place.  Kind of like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.    I am leaving these up for a bit and checking for monarch eggs, since that one has been hanging around.

Red geranium.

Lunch time!  I did find the heel of the bread left, so I made a PBJ sammie.  Yum.

After a little more work, I decided to go out and have a little fun.  Am I the only one that enjoys shopping here?

I practically lived here when I did my flip houses.  Checking out curtains and paint swatches.  I have the  renovation itch again (as does John).  Too bad I don’t have money LOL!

Since it is so close, I had to stop for a snack.  I really looked hard at the pumpkin scones.  Really hard, but I just couldn’t justify getting one.  So I got a pumpkin muffin instead.

I don’t know if that was really a wiser choice LOL.  It was pretty tasty and seemed fatty.  I just love pumpkin anything.

Speaking up pumpkins – now it seems like fall!

I cannot believe that I bought another rose bush!  They were on sale for $6 each, so I could not pass one up.  It met all my criteria for roses:  Easy care, hardy, reblooming, fragrant, and not a tea rose.    I just need to find somewhere to put it.  Side of the house is going to get a makeover, I think!

Dinner time included a baked crab cake and some baked fries (OreIda)!

Hot sauce was sprinkled liberally. :mrgreen:

Need to do a little more work tonight and some chillaxin’ – like this:

Any fun plans on tap?

What’s blooming today!

It’s Friday and you know what that means! What’s blooming! But first, the daily stuff. I proteined up and biked to the gym. I know a lot of you are in a heat wave, but it was in the upper 50s biking there this morning 😯

Warmed up with 1 mile on the treadmill and then set to lifting.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell dead lifts 3 sets of 10 with 65# bar Lower body
Barbell Incline Chest Press 3 set of 10 with 45# bar Chest
Wide grip pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 50# Back
Reverse Crunches 3 sets of 15 Core
Good Mornings 3 sets of 12 with 35# bar Lower back and hammies
Stationary Lunge 3 sets of 10 holding a 25# plate Lower body
Upright row 3 sets of 10 with 30# bar Shoulders
Bench Dips 3 sets of 10 Triceps

Then I hopped onto the treadmill for another mile.  I was super sweaty today as the AC wasn’t on at the gym because it was chilly out and they had the doors open.  It felt good to bike home in the cool air.

I came home to a cute scene:

Pixie is a heat-seeking lap missile now that it is cooler in the mornings.

In honor of Banana Lovers Day, I had banana custard cream of wheat topped with peanut butter and fluff and joined John at the table (rare):

Deliciousness!   Since today is pretty much just a half work day for me, I was able to relax some in the morning.  I don’t have a set start time with job 2, so no rush to log in.  I wrote that book review (click here for review and giveaway) and then worked.

Lunch break.  Egg sammie.

I am not afraid to eat eggs.  I do like runny yolks, but most times I cook thoroughly.  Plus we buy locally produced eggs, so I worry less.

Nice stuff in the garden right now.

More asters:

A grasshopper!

Buddha being all peaceful with the clematis:


Purple Liriope:

This is the white Liriope in it’s neat little mounds:

Twin gaillardia:

And a little dahlia:

Came back in and did more work.  John made me a latte 😀

And I pulled out a mighty awesome looking loaf of bread out of the oven!

I said I wanted to just pick it up and take a huge bite out of it.  John suggested I could slice it instead, but where’s the fun in that??

Finished up work and I almost don’t know what to do with myself.   Since John cooked up a bunch of chicken, you know I had to have a salad for dinner!

Funny how there was no real urge to snack or anything today.  It seems like yesterday just filled whatever needs my body had.  I think sometimes we concentrate on staying in a specific calorie range and the body just pushes back against that at times because it actually has different needs than an assumed calorie count each day.

You know the evening snack includes some of that bread.

Best loaf to date, I think.  It’s a wheat challah bread.  I just didn’t braid it (lazy).

Tomorrow is a long ride.  Going to shoot for 50 miles.  A very nice day on tap, so hopefully it will happen.  Likely frozen yogurt tomorrow!

Question:  Are you eating eggs right now?

C’est la vie.

Thanks for all your kind words regarding the stolen bikes.  It was just so bizarre.  I was so incredibly happy and having such a wonderful time in the gardens and then we came out to the disbelief of the missing bikes.  Talk about crashing down to earth.  The bikes were not expensive, but my bike and I did a lot of things together.  I lost weight, did a triathlon, duathlon, rode 100 miles.   Not to mention that I have that 62 mile charity ride coming up in just about a month – so I have to replace the bike quickly.  This was not an expense we really can afford right now as we just dropped $6600 on new windows for the house that are coming soon.  We were thinking of upgrading the bikes next year, but guess it has to happen sooner, and not to the degree that we would have upgraded.  I don’t want to wish ill on anyone, but I hope the person that stole these gets herpes or something.

Anyway, the botanical garden itself was absolutely stunning.  Funny how I offered to treat John to the gardens, and we found out it was the one weekend a year where it was free.  I got off lucky on that! Other than losing my bike, of course….

Enjoy the Montreal version of my what’s blooming post:

Stevia plant:


Quinoa – interesting, don’t you think?

And flax.  Look at all these good healthy foods!

Echinacea milkshake – pretty cool:

Biggest hibiscus ever:

Stunning dahlias:

Flowering tobacco – Nicotiana sylvestris, which I hope to grow next year:

I took 150 pictures in the botanical gardens!  I might pull some more to show.  I was just in complete joy here.  I had asked John if it was possible to explode from happiness and his answer was “no” or I already would have. 😀

After we came out and saw the bikes gone, we kind of sat for a while and I had a little cry while we figured out our options.  We ended up using the Bixie rentals to work our way back to the B&B.  We were actually famished at this point, and stopped along the way to try a bagel:

I had a multigrain bagel:


Very different than a NY style bagel as it was more like baguette type bread rather than a chewy bagel like I am used to.  But it was tasty.

We then changed out of bike clothes and just walked around.  We did try to at least enjoy ourselves some, but we both just felt so deflated and I was ready to go home.  However, we had paid for 2 nights, so we decided against that.  Found a good place to eat dinner that wasn’t super crowded.  Indian, of course.  You can always count on finding a seat at an Indian restaurant.  I am looking pretty pathetic here:

I was happier when food came out.  Chana Masala

Must recreate at home.  Plus some of the fluffiest nan bread ever:

The food was really good, but the service was terrible.  John ordered a diet coke twice and never got it, and they never checked back on us.

Gelato makes it all better, though.

We are actually going to start looking at some bikes n Sunday when we get back to the US  (can’t wait for that).  Gotta cram in bike research quickly!

What’s blooming and good eating day.

Woke up to some refreshing coolness today!  The humidity is gone, thank goodness.  I had a protein drink and biked on out to the gym.

To ‘warm up,’ I ran 2 miles on the treadmill at 5.5 mph.  That way I could get all nice and sweaty before hitting the weights. 😳

Not a heavy duty workout today.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Dumbbell pulloever 3 sets of 10 at 25# Back
Stationary Lunges 3 sets of 10 with 25# plate Legs
Dumbbell incline fly 3 sets of 8 with 20# DBs (40# total) Chest
Lying leg press 3 sets of 10 at 100# Legs
Horizontal cable woodchop 3 sets of 10 (each side) at 30# Abs
Face Pull 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Triceps pulldown 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

Then I hopped on the treadmill for another 1.25 miles.  Total of 3.25 miles of running today.  Then I biked home thinking of waffles all the time!

I made that apple topping again.  I also noticed that Foodbuzz has this apple topping recipe on the Healthbuzz home page!  Last week they had my deadlift video on there.  Cool.

Worked job #2 this morning.  I have to say I like this orthopedics account.  It is so interesting!  I am trying to decide whether to just get another part time job and do 2 part times, or try to work this one full time and give up job #1.    It’s hard to know if one company can keep you busy enough.  The nice thing about working from home is that I can pop from one job to another during the day without commuting.  Definite bonus there.

Lunch time!  I had a bigger than normal lunch today.  Love these baked clam strips:

The garden is going well.  A couple things will be blooming soon that aren’t yet.  The Scentimental bush that I talked about last week in the video with the buds is now popping out and I so wish we had smell-o-net so you could get a whiff of this plant.  It is heavenly!

The baby gaillardas have some tiny blooms on them.

Hopefully these will make it to next year and be bushy.

More snaps.  The nice thing about letting snapdragons reseed themselves is that the offspring is always a different color than the original, so it is a surprise each year.

Those of you on facebook already saw this shot, but this little guy has been hanging around all week.

I actually entered this shot in a contest just for kicks.  My garden is really dedicated to plants that butterflies and hummingbirds love.  Have not seen hummingbirds this year, but definitely more butterflies than last year.  Last year there was a lot of mosquito spraying, which probably killed a lot of butterflies.  Now they are coming back.

Did a little more work while John made me a latte and I had some dark chocolate:

Bottom’s up!  Fashion Friday going on with those earphones, too.

After I finished up for the day, I treated myself to some reading and a Pomtail – seltzer water mixed with a splash of pomegranate juice.

Then it was time for dinner!  I made up one of those quick stir fry dishes with broccoli, a bit of cooked rice, shrimp and stir fry sauce (ginger).  I love how it takes 10 minutes to make this.

Tasty.

The evening is cooling off already.  We are supposed to have a low of 47.  When the heat breaks around here, it doesn’t mess around.   I spent time out doing some weeding.  I really am doing great on project weed control this summer!  John read on the porch while I toiled.

Actually it wasn’t really toiling.  I may be weird, but I enjoy weeding.  It’s kind of cathartic.  You get in close and personal in the plants and the bed gets cleaned out.  I do enjoy it more when it is just maintenance weeding like I am doing and not the  “holy crap – how did all these weeds get here?” type of weeding.

Came in for the evening snack.  I did make up some strawberry jam, so I had to have some on toast.

Good stuff, I tell you.  One of the best things to learn in life is to enjoy the simple things, don’t you think?

Good eating day as well.  Funny how yesterday I was so snacky and today I had no urge at all.

Tomorrow will be a picture perfect day on tap, and you know that means a long bike ride!

What’s blooming and blueberry bonanza!

Fabulous Friday!  I am still working on the IE/ME post.  I was hoping to get that done today, but it is taking me a while to write.

I did not go to the gym this morning because I don’t want to do a strength workout the day before the big bike ride on Saturday.  We are going to shoot for 80 miles…. gulp!  At least it shouldn’t rain 😀

I had a craving for carrot cake, so that’s what I had for breakfast.  In oatmeal version! (recipe here)


After breakfast, I called the blueberry farm and they were open for the first day of the season.  Yay!

Rows and rows of bushes:

These berries didn’t make it into the bucket…..

There were still a lot of immature berries.  This place is going to be exploding in a week or 2.  I still managed to get a nice big bucket full of berries!

6 pounds of blueberries:

You just can’t get blueberries like this in the store!  $2.25 per pound.

I was not all that hungry when I got home because I was snacking on a ton of blueberries, but I knew I needed some protein.  All-bran, greek yogurt and… well…

The garden is still in full bloom.  A couple new flowers popped open this week:

Rudbeckia Cherry Brandy (the ones I got early this spring)

White swan echinacea:

Another clematis bloom that is climbing up the porch post:

The monster yellow clematis (the one that ate Cleveland) leaves the coolest buds behind after the flower fall off – don’t they look like truffula trees?

It was such a gorgeous day today, too.  78 and sunny and low humidity.  It’s just perfect!  I like it when my days off coincide with good weather 😉

Dinner time and we grilled up some fresh corn with cube steak and brussels.  This was really tasty!

I do like red meat.  I stopped at the smokehouse to pick up ground beef for the picnic on Sunday.  We usually bring the meat it seems lately, but that is because we are picky that it be local meat and don’t mind doing it.

I had some peanuts while dinner was cooking, and I am trying to pay attention to whether I am hungry or not tonight to see if I need a snack.  As of now, I don’t feel hunger.  That may change in an hour.

I’m off to peruse some blueberry recipes!

Question:  Have you ever picked your own berries?

Happy Peep Day!

Happy Easter!  We were up pretty early thanks to Pixie playing outside the door.  She kept banging on the door… grrrr…  So, it was off to bagels!

And some coffee:

No grounds, either!  Woo Hoo!  We had a nice relaxing breakfast and then some grocery shopping.  The guy bagging our groceries had a lot of comments on what we were buying.  He saw my medjool dates and then was mumbling about all the great stuff we were buying like strawberries and brussel sprouts.  I think his comment was “This is where it’s at!”.  I wonder if he would have said anything if the cart was full of junk food….

I had to keep checking in with work today.  Not much to do, but some.  Since clinics are closed, it is only PICU work, since hospitals don’t close for any holiday.  I had a quick protein shake, and then it was off to my sister’s house for Easter dinner!

We had a nice spread:

I made the fruit bowl pretty:

My favorite mints arrived via my Mom.  We called these great grandma’s mints, because she always had them.  I think the real name is french creams:

My plate:

Plus seconds on broccoli and some fruit.  After eating, we took the puppies out for a walk (okay, 1 puppy and 1 older dog)

Honey went into the water for a little fetch:

My BIL is the manager for the tree nursery and part of what the nursery does is to grow the flowers for the DEC owned state campgrounds.  Here are some Norway spruce seedlings:

The greenhouses have seedlings!

Sigh…. I love flowers….

It was time for dessert when we got back!  Lots to choose from:

Jelly bean cake, which actually had jelly beans baked in it,  kind of weird.

My sister’s birthday choice.  This was good!

And a selection of little pastries.

My plate:

Plus another eclair piece.  These were good.

After this – it was bonfire time:

Because there were some of these in the house:

Peep roasting time!  Peep brulee anyone?

Past the point of no return here:

Now we all smell like campfire!  I did not have any roasted peeps, although I kind of wanted one.

Good times.

I need to keep checking in with work tonight for a while longer and eating a little ham snack for dinner.

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Holey Donuts and fall flavors

Phew – I have too much to say and not enough posts, so I am sorting out stuff  (plus I don’t want to bore you all).

Before John’s race today, I had a lovely fall-inspired breakfast with whole grain cream of wheat, pumpkin and dried cranberries, topped with slivered almonds:

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Delicious!  Cream of wheat has 50 less calories per serving than oatmeal and yet, I was so full after eating this!  Yay for whole grains!

It was really weird just watching in this race today.  I have always been a participant, so it was weird waiting around.  I just decided not to do this one with the duathlon coming up, plus a 5K on Halloween.  I don’t need to do it all!  I got in some pretty pictures at this race spot:

Wild asters

Wild asters

Chicory

Chicory

After John ran his fabulous race, he wanted a bagel – and you know I am not going to turn down an opportunity for that!!

More flavors of fall with this cinnamon apple bagel.  Sooooo goooood!!!

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Good thing this place is 15 miles away or I would be there every morning 😀

I was lucky enough to win 3 boxes of Holey Donuts in a drawing on Nutricious is Delicious, and the donuts arrived packed in dry ice.  3 kinds:

Donut Holes

Donut Holes

Low fat donuts

Low fat donuts

Holey Donuts Cinnamon Rolls

Holey Donuts Cinnamon Rolls

Sorry about the photo quality here.  I was pretty excited to try these after seeing them everywhere on the net.  I tried a couple donut holes: Vanilla Raspberry and Boston Cream:

Holey Donut Holes

Holey Donut Holes

Heated up in the microwave.  I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed.  The flavor was good, but they didn’t taste like a really good, hot and fresh donut.  I thought they were a bit dry.  I feel a little bad saying this, because I am thrilled to have a chance to try them and the company was very generous.  John had one of the regular size donuts and said the same thing.  Definitely a nice snack, and it will take a while to get through the boxes (Mom and Dad – guess what??), but I wouldn’t be ordering them for delivery.  If they had a store where they are made fresh (which I hear is in the works), that would be another story.

Went out for a gorgeous bike ride today.  John did his own brick by coming with.  We did 14.5 miles.  I love biking so much.  I run a lot, but I am a biker at heart.  I am getting really excited for next week.  I just hope it isn’t raining.  If it is anything like today, I will have a great race.

Found silly Pixie laying in one of my plants today.  I don’t know why she wanted to lay like this!  It doesn’t look very comfortable and she was there for a couple hours.

Pixie and plumeria

Pixie and plumeria

I will have a new veggie experiment for tomorrow that I actually had for dinner tonight.  Yum!  I need to sign off before this post becomes to epic.

Question:  What weird thing does your pet do?