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Showing posts from June, 2015

Night Skies Around Vancouver

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These night sky photos were taken hurriedly as "drive bys" or "walking bys" in various degrees of night sky. The first 3 photos were taken on the Lion's Gate Bridge connecting Stanley Park in Vancouver with North Vancouver and West Vancouver. This next photo was taken from the Salmon House on the Hill restaurant in West Vancouver where a few of us gathered to celebrate my nephew's graduation from university. A photo of the graduate and his girlfriend who also graduated but on an earlier day in the week. Both of them will commence their master's level studies in their respective fields come September and are now on much deserved holiday. Church in the 'hood. Photo taken with cell phone in late evening. Joining with Skywatch Friday . Have a look at the beautiful skies from around the world. Thank you for visiting my sky post. Have a wonderful weekend!

Wild About Colour

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As I've mentioned a few times already the weather in this part of the world has been very unusual. I think that is true the world over these days. In Kericho, Kenya where I do missions work, they have been having so much rain and that is also unusual at this time of year. One of the things I've always loved about Kericho is the temperate climate. It rains virtually every day but outside of rainy season it is just enough to make everything fresh and new and then the sun comes out.  It can get quite hot for a Canadian girl like me but nothing like the dry, arid areas of the north and south. I'm mentioning the weather again because we've had a spell of hot days. It was supposed to rain or cool off for a few days but I don't remember it really doing so.  Too much rain or too much heat is not good for my little garden which is very fragile. I go out to water the garden late at night and try and soak the ground but there are still so many very sandy patches despite al

Saving Money

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It has been awhile since I did a post on how I save funds and s-t-r-e-t-c-h my income. I've been working very hard since last Fall to save funds as I'm planning a trip which I've been looking forward to for awhile and which has been delayed on several occasions already (more about the trip later). The trip has been delayed by factors other than monetary but the careful spending I've been doing really helps me stretch funds and gives me less anxiety over spending on my trip. It bears repeating that frugal living and frugal spending is now a way of life for me. I can give more freely to charitable causes and my work in Africa when I watch my own purse strings at home. One way I save funds is to always shop the sales. Clothing In that vein I've managed to buy a lot of things that I will need on my travels. 2 pair of twill capris at 40% off 2 cotton t-shirts at 40% Not only did I get 40% off of these items but I also received an extra $10 off. This

Bugs & Spiders

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Happy Saturday everyone, I trust you are all doing fine. As I mentioned in my Skywatch Post here, the weather has cooled down a lot since last weekend but it hasn't started to rain yet. In fact today the sky was bright and sunny. At least the temperatures were definitely milder and great for a walk. Unfortunately when I started snapping some new photos for the blog I discovered that my camera card was still in my card reader at home! Here are a bug and a spider I snapped earlier in the week. I'm joining in with our host Eileen at Saturday's Critters .  I hope you will stop by there and see some great pics of critters. Happy weekend to you all.

Night Sky in June

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Early Spring in these parts was mild with lots of sun. Then we had a lot of rain. Then it was very dry and hot. Now it seems we are moving into cooler weather again for at least a few days. (At least that is how I remember it, lol).  I always welcome rain or cooler temperatures after a hot spell. You can see the clouds are gathering to the north. How about you dear reader. Do you like a bit of rain interspersed with hot, sunny days? Or do you like heat and heat alone? I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday so have a look there for more awesome skies from around the globe. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

My World Tuesday & Poppy Love

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Hello dear friends, I hope you are all doing well. I've been fairly busy as usual as I'm helping build a house and picking out paints, looking at bathroom and kitchen cabinet design, water connections, electric connections and building flower boxes to set outside the kitchen window and gaze at flowers. It is a lot of work looking for design ideas and figuring out everything from scratch on a budget. I am also busy trying to keep my little garden growing. It has been very hot for several days. I found this guy in the bird bath on the hottest day so far. I don't know if he was trying to get cool or if he had fallen into the water from the tree above. My garden soil is of mixed health.  There are parts where I need to water a lot because the soil doesn't hold the water for long.  This is the area where the vegetables are planted. There are other areas where I've over watered and see I've drowned a few anenome plants that were not that har

Not My Garden

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(If you missed my sky post which was posted on the same day, you can  see it here.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One of my favourite things to do is to take photos of flowers in someone's garden as I walk around doing my errands.  Mostly I photograph flowers planted by guerrilla gardeners; that is gardeners who plant in public spaces.  Today's flowers were taken with my phone. The flowers in this post were planted by a retired Asian man who simply loves gardening.  I often see him out planting and tending to his many flowers.  He is planting in spaces around his condominium building that do not belong to him. I don't know if he has asked for permission or if he just decided to beautify the space and didn't bother seeking approval. Over the past two years the garden has really mushroomed and is getting quite gorgeous..  His flowers seem to grow like weeds compared to mine.  I've notice the soil in the space is very dark and rich compared to what I have in my