Pretty Peonies

It's been rainy and cool here the past few days. You know me though. I prefer it that way! But I'm feeling like I need a bright spot. A few weeks ago I bought these pretties.

giant pink blooms

They smelled very good. So summery! They were lovely. I think I've always loved peonies. We had two big bushes of them (or one giant one? Not sure which!) at home growing up, and I always think of those when I see peonies now. Maybe some day when I'm a grown up and have a yard of my very own I'll have some too.

partially open

The just opening ones were so interesting, their different colors. They lasted the whole week too, which was great!

essence of summer

You just can't beat that, can you.

Perfection.

I hope these pictures brightened your day!


xxx

Happy Christmas in July!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

Hello everyone!

It is 154 days until Christmas. woohoo! Normally I don't count them until December, but since it's Christmas in July I thought it'd be nice to know!

I've been watching QVC online today. For the whole weekend they are doing Christmas items. It really puts me in the mood! I want to put my tree up while listening to holiday tunes, and then watch A Christmas Story. It's not too early, is it? I'm just getting a jump start on the season!

Remember a few weeks ago I made the post about the new stash? I figured out what I wanted to make with it. I did a little Christmas in July package for home.

And I finally finished Lisa's gift from last Christmas. Terrible, huh? But it gave me a great excuse to send a Christmas in July package to her! This is what I made for her...

scarf for Lisa

I hope that she likes it. I hope she got it already too. Guess I should say "spoiler alert!" I had made one for my sister and myself too, in different colors though. After I finished this last one, I decided to not make this pattern again. Got a little burnt out on it! But I do like how they turned out. This is the yarn I used for them:

Shimmer™ yarns by Knit Picks®

It's 70% Baby Alpaca, and 30% Silk. Very nice stuff! The purple is called Galaxy, the very light green is Eucalyptus, and the gray is Cumulus. I love the names they assigned to them! Knit Picks has great yarn, if you ask me.

I also did a package for Mom and Pam.

awww....cute, huh?

I did a little mitten garland (remember my mitten post?) and also did some old fashioned light bulbs. Those great big ones, the C7s? They turned out pretty cool! It was a little tricky at first, getting them to look right. I think it took me 4 tries before I liked them. But I really liked how they turned out. I'm going to have to make some for myself too, I think!

These were also included in both packages.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I didn't have time to make all 4 for each of them. They each got one. These are definitely going to be made for myself too! Just love them.

I hope that you all have a great Christmas in July if you celebrated it. I know I did!

Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It's the best time of the year...


xxx

A nation in mourning

Orange Madness turned to Orange Sadness.

We lost our World Cup final game. Darnit. The guys on the team were so sure that they could pull it off too. Oh well. 2nd place in the world is still good. You'll get 'em next time, guys!

The weather finally broke here. I thought it would never get here! But on Wednesday afternoon, this was what the radar looked like.

We're under the smaller bottom red storm cell

Luckily I was already home from work (since I have to walk from the bus stop). The wind was TERRIBLE. Scary terrible. Later we heard on the news about all the trees down everywhere, and somewhere north of us an electrical tower bent in half. YIKES! And downtown, I just saw on my way home tonight, that a tree at a usually very busy bus stop fell over onto the bus stop shelter! I don't think that anyone was hurt (we didn't hear of any injuries from that on the news. At least not yet.), thankfully. And also further north in a camping ground there were a dozen or more campers that got picked up by the wind, and deposited in the lake. With people still in them. Yes, there were injuries (and worse) in that event, unfortunately.

Everywhere else were there branches down, leaves blowing everywhere etc. This is what it looked like at work today.

branches everywhere up and down our street

It was over quickly though, and today the weather is just beautiful. Low 70s, and light wind. A perfect day.

I hope everyone is having a good week. Any fun plans for the weekend? I think mine includes sleeping, since that hasn't been going well lately thanks to the heat here. But this weekend should be more comfortable at night. YAY!

Maybe it'll be cool enough to clean?

I kind of hope not, though.

Enjoy your weekend folks!!


xxx

The heat is on

The heat is on.

yep...it was at 7:25pm

Oh-wo-ho, oh-wo-ho.

The heat is on.



xxx

Finally Friday

This felt like a really long week to me. Maybe because I was not very busy at work (for a switch!). Maybe because we have an appointment next Monday that I'm really excited about. Maybe because I knew it was going to get hot again at the end of the week. Whatever the reason, Friday took forever to get here. I'm very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Too bad it's going to be really hot again, and so it won't be a very comfortable sleep. But sleeping in is always good, no matter what.

Also something else to look forward to this weekend is the World Cup finals on Sunday (20:30 here, but check your local listings!). The Dutch team is in it! I was a little surprised that they won the last one, so if they win THIS one, then I'll be surprised again. I am wondering how much partying there will be if they win, too.  Wishing we had a garage to park the car in... On Wednesday, after the Spain-Germany game someone nearby set of a whole bunch of fireworks. It must have been someone from Spain, since they won! Will you be watching, and rooting for my adopted country's team?

Another thing this weekend is Ludi's sister's birthday. Everyone wish her a happy birthday!!!

Sounds like I'm really busy, doesn't it?

It feels strange to not have a picture in a post, so I'll show this one.

new stash

I ordered some yarn online from a Dutch hobby shop a while ago. It's been kind of too hot to do any hooking though, so I'm not sure when I'll finish this project and get to show you. I'll try to do it soon, though!


Enjoy your weekend, everyone! Stay cool!


xxx

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!

Happy 4th to everyone!

ooooooooohhhh.... aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

Are cookouts planned? With potato salads or macaroni salads? That's what I think of for summer BBQs. Hamburgers and potato or macaroni salad. Yumm!!! We don't have anything special planned here.

I can hardly believe it's July already. Where is the time going? The days are just flying by. Though the last few days kind of took forever. I think I mentioned in a previous post that we were having a hot spell this week. Friday was to be the hottest day.

Friday's heat wave

I don't think that it got to 93, but it got hot enough! Luckily the humidity wasn't very high. I think to a lot of people 91 degrees isn't very hot, really, but for here, that's unreasonably unseasonably warm. We only have a few of these days a year, thankfully. Low to mid-80s is more of a normal temperature. But the weather has been cooling down now. Thank goodness!

I hope everything has been going well for you all. Enjoy your holiday!!!


xxx

Oranje Mania!!!!

The country is deep deep DEEP in OranjeMadness. For their national soccer team playing at the World Cup. Everywhere people are wearing orange on the days the team plays. There are decorations everywhere, special orange foods for sale...it's insane!  Here is a picture of the street next to ours.

the entire block decked out

One house even has a tent set up in their tiny front lawn (just behind the red car down the street)! They put their tv outside to watch the games, and have a party. One thing you can't say about the Dutch is that they don't have any national pride in their sports teams.

Today is another game. In fact, it's starting right now. Netherlands are playing against Brazil. Brazil is favored to win (cuz they're really good), but hopefully the Dutch will pull a miracle out of somewhere and win it.

This is the 2nd round of games, out of...what... 4? I can't remember. Here in our house we have watched every game possible. Well... one of us has. I started out watching them all (or most of them), but after the 12th or 13th game, I got a little tired of them. But this one I think I'll go watch, since it's my adopted country. And the USA is out now anyways, so rooting for The Netherlands is the next best thing!

Hup Holland Hup!!!


xxx


edit: Well, whaddya know. There was indeed a miracle (thanks to a Brazilian player and his hitting it into his own goal!) and the Dutch won, 2-1. More Orange Madness! Yippee!!!