getting hot in here...

It's starting to be that time of the year when the weather gets hot, very hot.

Feels so hot that yesterday when I tried to get some Ice Cream from the Ice Cream Truck, I failed, LOL!

But it's also that time of the year when the Ponciana Trees are blooming and the colors are fantastic. I love seeing them around the island and I specially love that one of the two trees on our back yard is blooming for the first time.

Ponciana Tree close to our house- Not ours!

Closer look

Aren't those trees absolutely beautiful and to vibrant color, I love to see them all around the island.

Those photos were taken with my new Nikon 1 camera (of course) and so are the following ones as well...

My husband is making a new driveway for the house

"Little One" giving me the "stink-eye" cause I am disturbing her while drinking water!

Goldie day dreaming!

Cool morning sky

See why we named him "Long Tail a.k.a LT"?

I heart Al!

Hope everybody has a nice weekend. Anybody looking forward to the Olympics? Well, I am not so much, but those that are into it, hope they enjoy the opening ceremony and all...

Have a good one!

Powerless Wednesday

This day started pretty crazy...

Wake up and went for a 1/2 hour walk with my hubby, but before we left he asked me if left the coffee brewing, I said no but that I will make it as soon as we got back (of course not realizing I jinxed it)... By the time we got back to the house the power was off.

No worries, we have a gas grill so we were able to make some coffee as well as breakfast.

Got a nice cold shower, left to work but as always I pick up a fellow coworker who's husband works at the power company, well as soon as she got in the car, she informed that the power was off on the ENTIRE island!!! Crazy, uh?

Well, to make the long story very short, power didn't return until almost 1 o'clock, but finally now we are back to business!

In unrelated news... In case you ever wonder how I keep the garlic in my kitchen?

Perhaps you've imagine that I have a special little handmade basket to keep them? Well, I am glad you mention it because as of yesterday, I do!

For a while I just kept the garlic in a little star bowl that I have but lately I feel a little basket would be fab, so yesterday I found an easy, fast pattern and in less than 2 hours, I made my own little basket.

Here is my master piece.

Pretty nice, eh? I just love it when I can just find a nice, easy and fast pattern that I can start and finish in one sitting.

Have a great day!!!

"back" into it...

It's been about 4 weeks since I went to the gym last, this because of physical reasons more than a personal choice.

It all started right after I gave my bathroom that very well deserved "makeover" (which you can read about, here) it needed. The overall paint job was good, what wasn't was the big effort I made plus the fact that the stool I use wasn't tall enough for me to reach the corners so I ended up stretching myself too much, putting a big strain in my lower back triggering the bulge disc I've had for a few years, ouch!

Now, I've been going to the Chiropractor since this all happened but of course no gym for me, I have to very conscious and careful because if I don't take care of myself, the bulge disk can become a herniated one and that would require surgery.My problem is in between L5 and S1 which is right at the lowest part of the lower back, possibly affecting my legs as well.

As of last week the "Chiro" gave me the OK to walk in the mornings, so yesterday was my first day doing a brisk 1/2 hour walk, afterwards I even managed to convince my hubby to come along with me from now on.

Well, today I fail on my attempt to get up and do it. The thing is that being that I haven't been able to exercise for a while my energy level is quite low, specially in the mornings when the alarm goes of at 6am.

So my question is; How do I find the energy to walk up and go for a walk? I guess do in it will eventually get me the energy needed, right?

If I managed to get my hubby really into it, perhaps he can also push me to be more dedicated and have discipline... But if he doesn't come along with me I would love to take our dogs, unfortunately our neighborhood has plenty dogs around which makes makes me nervous taking them along in case they get on a fight...

So, yeah I have to work on getting my exercise "mojo" back, specially because according to the Chiro he might be giving me the green flag to go back to the gym next week... looking forward to that!

What is your exercise routine? How do you find the drive and discipline to workout? Pleeease share....

Have a great Tuesday!

new hat and more...

Monday is here and it seems like the weekend was just not long enough...

Saturday was a fun day as we went to a Big Brothers & Big Sisters activity at the Ritz Carlton. They had food, games and activities like face paint.

My husband came along and I think we both had a great time, I did see Yanique very briefly but didn't get to talk to her much.

"Littles" playing

face paint time, for kids

faint paint time, for adults (my first time!)

my hubby playing the froggy fun game

I took a lot more pictures at the event but it's been really difficult to upload them as blogger keeps rotating my photos, dunno why it does that sometimes but it's very annoying. Does this happens to you as well?

In unrelated news, while I was doing my 30 day photo challenge I completed a couple of crochet projects, one was "Dr. Who" the owl that I made for my Mom and that she loves, the other project was a hat a made for myself...

The thing with the hat project is that when I first started (in the wine color yarn) I thought I had two big balls of the same color, but once I realized the first yarn was almost over, I went nuts looking for the second ball and never did find, so at the last minute had to improvise and add an extra color to be able to finish it...

I think I came out quite good, what do you think?

Front View

Side View

Back View

Of course this is not meant to be a hat for the cold weather, but more like an accessory one. It was a very easy pattern and I am already considering making another, perhaps next giveaway? I have to think about it a bit more...

Yesterday was a very lazy day, I did get to start a new Amigurumi project from a book that I've had for a long time but I've never make anything out of it, I am start to work on a Monkey for Julian my Godson... So far I have only half a arm done...

This is the book I am talking about and the Monkey is the blue and green one on the left, although Julian's is not going to be those colors but more the traditional brown and tan color for the Monkey but the clothing might be colorful... Will continue to share my progress as I go.

Hope everybody has a great week!!!

This is it!

The last day of my 30 days photo challenge is finally here and to celebrate it, here's my "self portrait".

Although today's photo is not really a "self" kind of photo, because with that BIG Margarita in my hand, having a camera on my other hand will require some serious skills... So instead I had my own personal paparazzi (aka my husband) taking it for me!

Yes, in case you are wondering I HAD to drink that Margarita just so I could have a photo for the last day... It was last night at a Mexican restaurant and it was good!!! (-You're welcome, the things I do for my blog, I tell you!)

So thanks to all my readers for sticking up with me during this long 30 days of photos... I will be back on Monday because a girl needs her beauty rest after a whole non-stop 30 days of posting.

I'm off to make some breakfast and enjoy the weekend, have a good one yourself!

Sunshine : )

Day 29- Black & White

I am glad life is not always in black & white, although I do love B&W photos, but lately I haven't taken many.

Here are a few actually "converted" into B&W...

Cookies

Dogs, Cats & Shadows

More than just bones we are....

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Day 28- Flowers

It's day 28 and I am almost done with yet another photo challenge, it's been fun so far and I am glad that today's photo calls for a photo of flowers.

A few days ago one of our Cacti bloomed but this time it was an amazing spectacle because it had 4 flowers all at once..

 

Once I read an article about the most beautiful flowers in the world being Cacti flowers, but because they live in such harsh environments and some are nocturnal, people rarely get to see them.

Well, I haven't seem many myself but the ones I've seen and eaten (as I tried some edible ones once in Israel and were delicious) are very pretty... I believe the little Bee probable agrees with me about the delicious part!

Happy Thursday y'all!!!

Day 27- From a distance

Today is yet another holiday on the island, but this time is because the island is holding elections to change the way their leaders get elected, and since I wasn't born here I really have nothing to do with it... So instead I am home "chill-axing"!

Although I did decided to give our dog Sheba a very well needed bath, so I took this pictures of her once I finished and she was quietly getting dry in a corner of the back deck.

Sheba far, far away.... see her?

Sheba closer

There she is!

Also today in the morning I decided to make some delicious Orange Candied Peel, this is something that I used to eat as a kid as it's pretty popular in Costa Rica and a few months ago I happened to see a recipe on Pinterest that remind me of it although this time I did not follow any recipe and did them myself using my own measurements.

Last week I tried it with Grapefruit and today with just Oranges, both cases were delicious.

So, for my orange version I used

Peel off 4 medium orange skins

I would suggest you cut them in half and used them for juice, then take off all the rind (aka white part) with a big spoon. In my case today I just peel off each orange by cutting them in quarters (just the skin) and then used to spoon to take the rind off... Here are some photo of the process...

cut the skin and peel off slowly

skin off

take off the grind, be gentle and slowly to avoid ripping like mine

When all skins have the grind off... cut them in strips like these...

Now for the rest of the process... According to my calculation, use 1/2 cup of water for each orange and 1/4 cut of sugar for each orange (you do the math!), LOL!

Other recipes I've seen use a lot more water and then they end up with lots of liquid which you'll need to come up with some use for, or just dump it, mine most of the water is absorb so you should end up with pretty much none at the end.

In my case I used this type of sugar, because I am cool like that... In your case you can use any kind or be cool like me! ;)

Put the water with sugar to boil, once it's boiling quite a lot put the orange peel inside and let it boil from 20 to 25 minutes.

VERY IMPORTANT: You need to monitor the last 5 minutes because if it gets too thick the orange skins will start sticking and it gets hard to separate them.

It should go from looking like this...

To sort of this... Make sure to give it a few stirs during the whole time boiling!

Once those are done put regular sugar (I used about 1/2 cup) on wax paper and take the skins off the pot to coat them in regular refine white sugar... Or in the raw if you wanna be cool!

Pull on a cookie rack to dry (in my case about 1/2 hour) and they are good to go, enjoy!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!!

Day 26- Close Up

Here I am today with my dear "Rosie Cheeks" taking a little dip in the "ool", weather is been really hot and sunny...

My husband's is a "Space Duck", his name is Bud Lightyear, he is American and part of the Space Program.

.
Do you have a swim buddy?

Have a wonderful day!!!

Day 25- Something Pink

Meet "Rosie Cheeks", she is my new "ool" buddy and she is a Pink...

Have a duckie day!!!

Day 24- Animals

Although cats and chickens share our yard, they are not really friends. In fact whenever we feed the cats we need to stay and make sure that the chicken don't eat their food, because the cats will let them...

In the picture above, the rooster is keeping it cool, close enough to see the cats are eating but not enough for me to chase him off...

Here are some more photos of our animals, taken with my new camera, YEAH!!!

Lee

Sheba

BTK

Happy Sunday!!!

Day 23- Sunflare

I took the following photo about 2 months ago, on a beautiful Caribbean day when the sun was shinning very bright and it had a huge aura around it, perhaps the brightest and biggest one I've ever seen...

I think the photo came out pretty cool as it shows both the aura and the sun flares.

In other news, today I got myself and upgrade of a camera, a brand new Nikon 1 J1.

The camera is so small, stylish and it's got mirror-less tecnology, plus it's a pretty metallic red. I am really looking forward to take some good photos, hopefully it won't disappoint me!

Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend!