A Week on Instagram

I was quite busy with Instagram last week.

I thought it might be fun to share the photos I posted.

I had an errand to run one day near where my daughter lives.  So, I picked her up and we spent the afternoon together.  We decided to visit Roger's Gardens.  We wanted to see what they had in their Easter section.  Plus, it's always a fun place to spend some time.

Here are some of the photos from our visit...

We loved the colors in this flower arrangement...

This was an interesting idea they had near the entrance.

It's fabric bags that were filled with soil and plants and attached to the wall. 

I love Hydrangeas!  So pretty!

They look like they have a little bead or pearl in each center.

Just a couple blocks away is a shopping area called "Fashion Island".

I'd never been there and thought it would be fun to check out.  They have lots of fun stores to browse through...lots of expensive and pretty clothing.  And, it's outdoors instead of being a mall.

It was a gorgeous day!  We could even see the ocean from one side of the shopping center.

They had lots of really cool water features throughout the shopping center.

We had a lot of fun watching the giant Koi fish.  They were friendly and we could even touch them!

Ewwww!...slimy!  I like how this Instagram photo turned out...looks kind of like a painting.

I enjoyed a lot of tea last week.  I even made some chai tea lattes.  Mmmmm!

I like Yogi brand tea a lot and their tea tags are fun to read.

This was a good one....so true!

I made some refrigerator dill pickles.  I put a little cauliflower in the top part of each jar.
I hope they survived the death of our fridge.

They're in an ice chest right now.  The new fridge arrives tomorrow.  I can't wait!

I'd just gone grocery shopping the day before.  It turned warm really fast...almost like it changed from being a cold making box to a heat making box!  So, we lost quite a bit of food.  Oh well!  That's life!

I made a couple batches of lemonade last week.  I used Meyer lemons from the tree in our back yard.

Mmmmm!  I like mixing it with green tea sometimes too.  More yum!

Sadly, I had to throw out a large pitcher of lemonade when the fridge died.  Just couldn't drink it fast enough and there wasn't room in the ice chest.  We tried to eat a lot of the food that night too.

Can't wait to make some more lemonade when the new fridge arrives.

The recent rains have transformed the landscape around us.  It's changed from brown to green.

It's gorgeous!  We're soaking in the sights as much as we can because it won't last long.

In fact, the weather is in the 80's and 90's this week.

So, I bet the green will go back to brown within a week or so.

It always amazes me how fast it can change one way or the other.

I did an experiment of trying to make my favorite recipe of cheddar/ham chowder but without

any dairy ingredients.  I can't eat dairy anymore.  I used cauliflower to make a creamy base.

It was a success and SO delicious! 

That's my week on Instagram!  I just love posting on there.

The effects are fun too but I don't always use them.

Do you use Instagram?  If so, you can find me there under the user name, "acorntooak".

Happy Halloween

My daughter and I finally visited Roger's Gardens last spring after hearing about it for years.

It was amazing!  HERE's a post about that visit.  Since then, I've "liked" them on Facebook.

In September I noticed that they started posting photos of what they were up to for Halloween.

It looked like they had some fun stuff and we had to go see.  What we found was far 

beyond our expectations!  Here's a little glimpse, via my cell phone camera...

They used a photo of this on their sign/poster of the event.  Pretty cool!

We entered the Halloween area through a hallway that had these really tall chairs.

I think the one on the left must have been at least eight feet tall!

These interesting characters were also in the hallway...

They had a lot of eery photos.  They looked like old portraits from one angle but 

as we moved they became scary and looked three dimensional (like the one on the top right).  

The quality was so good it reminded me of Disneyland.

They had glass beaded spider webs for sale...

And, heads in jars!...

Pretty, blingy pumpkins, owls and other Halloweeny stuff...

I liked the vintage Halloween area...

 I really wanted this wreath with vintage graphics.  

It was cute but much more than I was willing to pay.

I think my daughter's favorite things were the hats...

And, the masks...

Another room had some Dia de los Muertos inspired decorations...

And, fun signs...

And, yet another room, had lots of things to decorate like a mad scientist.

Bones, "potions", bugs, frogs and lots of other creepy things...

There was even a mad scientist lab.  It was dark with glowy lights and lots of white things...like bones!  And, decorations that would make for a great Halloween martini party...

They even used an old pump organ to decorate...

One side of the building had a "Scream" type painting...

Of course, they had LOTS of pumpkins...orange, white, green, bumpy, small, medium and large.

The only pumpkin area I took a photo of was one of the orange ones...

I bought a few decorations while we were there.

I got a couple of blingy spiders.  They're hanging out on some lampshades...

And, this glass, vintage style ornament...

It's hanging from a branch in our living room that I mounted on a mirror.

It's the newest addition to a collection of glass ornaments that I already had...

I already posted these a while back but they're cute enough to post again.  

I found them at Pier One...

We acquired some old cardboard decorations this year...

Here are some fun little Halloween "potion" bottles we've had for a while...

This one is my favorite...

We had so much fun visiting Roger's Gardens Halloween display.

And, it's been fun adding some new decorations to our collection.

Each year our house gets a little more festive.

Happy Halloween!