Flowers & a ‘shark’

Good Thursday early evening. Supper is heating up, I’m sipping on a glass of wine & I am feeling thankful for so much.

I hope you all had nice times with family & friends. From what I’ve seen on blogs, you certainly did.  I had a very nice time with friends, love, laughter & good food. Prime rib, something I’ve never had before. I came home with some and found a couple of recipes for using it and am looking forward to that.

Before I left Plum Cottage Christmas morning, I went out to see what was blooming and below are the photos. Enjoy!

Azaleas

Blue Lips

Bougainvillea

Cape Honeysuckle

Native, coral honeysuckle

Firecracker ~ have this in yellow too.

Dwarf Poinciana ~ I also have this in yellow.

Tropical hydrangea

An unknown

Another unknown that spreads by seeds shooting out from the spent flowers

I think this is wild petunia and it spreads like crazy.

Hibiscus in front of storage building. Looking at the faded paint makes me want to paint at least the front and the side that you can see.

Blue butterfly blooms.

Kathleen roses, one of my very first roses, the other is Louis Philippe. I love Kathleen’s delicate beauty and scent.

I think this is a knock-out rose.

Another knock-out.

I loved the way the sunlight was hitting this dragonfly.

When I went out to get in my van to leave, I saw this in the grass, brought from somewhere either by a cat or a racoon.

This is a present I bought with a $ gift from friends. I had been doing research and finally chose this model. Bought it from Bed Bath & Beyond and had a 20% discount coupon. Yay! This model had GREAT reviews as did the professional model, but there was a $40 difference in price. I looked at the list of differences and there wasn’t much, so I went for the cheaper model. I had to laugh because it is a light purple in color. It even has a little glitter in it. What a hoot. I didn’t choose this model because of the color,  it was the only color it came in.

Putting it together was relatively easy after reading and looking at the instruction a couple of three times.

I could NOT believe how much debris this vac sucked up, it was all hiding. I can hardly wait to get into some serious vacuuming and then keep on top of it all, this was just a test run. Miss Tork sheds her hair and I shed mine, plus there are ‘dust bunnies’ and this takes care of it all. Oh yea, my throw rugs are so much fluffier and colorful after vacuuming.  I really am thrilled with this purchase and thankful to N & J for their $ gift.

I have an old hoover cannister model that I’ve had for years and years. It is not sealed like this one is and stuff was always shooting out and around. One of my friends said it was about time I got into the next century. We both laughed.

Another bonuse about this vacuum is that it is so much quieter than my old hoover. It is also light in weight, and I like that you can lift away the cannister part to carry it and vacuum areas. Cannister is very easy to empty also.

After I unboxed the parts, I saw that the pet power brush was missing. It did say it was supposed to be one of the included tools. I called up Shark and told them, and they are sending me the part and it should be here next week. The young man was very courteous and helpful.

Ok, that’s it from Plum Cottage. We are having a very light rain, it is warm, a.c. is on. I’m starting to feel like getting horizontal to read. I didn’t get to sleep last night until 1, I just couldn’t fall asleep, unusual for me. I was up a little after 6 this morning, & did take a nap but will be ready for sleep soon.

Enjoy these last few days of 2017 and have a wonderful 2018.

Let us all be thankful to God for the blessimgs we received this year, and for lessons learned.

FlowerLady