Roses are Red.....

 

Hello world!

It's a gorgeous day here in Miami, wow! Mother nature granted us a reprieve from the recent heat and humidity with some lovely cold weather today, so I got to wear one of my many pretty scarves (I know, it's weird that I have "many" and I live in Miami, what can I say, there are always too many good ones at TJMaxx and Marshalls)! What is it about cold weather that makes me feel prettier? I'm not exactly sure, other than my hair staying super glossy and straight as opposed to frizzy and wavy! Hehe.

This past weekend was nice... I didn't get around to my gardening plans (surprise surprise) but I went to a great family brunch on Saturday where I took some spectacular photos of my aunt's plants, particularly the gorgeous red rose above! I also got to play with my little cousins, who I don't see very often, and let me just say - they are oh so sweet and adorable! I had such a good time... Eva painted my nails a great shade of pink glitter, haha, which promptly rubbed off as if it were dry glue, hehe... kid's polish, go figure! And of course, I returned the favor!

What else? I picked flowers, took pictures of chirping parrots and creeping cats, caught a baby frog which then jumped into my hair as the kids stood oohing and ahhing over it in the palm of my hand, EEEEK! Oh well, witnessing the simple joy of being a kid was all worth it. We really don't realize how good we have it as kids until we become adults. At least I got to be a kid again for a little while! Hey, just imagine me (5'7", but probably 5'9" in my boots) being pulled around (by the hand) by a four year old girl saying "Come on, you wanna play with me some more?", and me saying "Absolutely! Nothing would make me happier!" Hahahahahaha.... *sigh* :)

So yes, I really did enjoy myself. On top of that, I got some great photographs of my aunt's garden and the incredible sunset on the way home. Check'em out below! Oh, and I almost forgot to mention my naughty trip to Homegoods on Sunday and all the money I spent. *sigh* I bought 5 planters for my succulents and cacti, a lamp, a suzani pillow, a purse and some yummy smelling ginger and lemon soaps. After a few days of reevaluating my purchases I've concluded that I really don't need the lamp or the purse, the two most expensive items, so I plan to return them. I will do a post later in the week with some photos of what I bought, as well as all the stuff in Homegoods that I went nuts over but didn't buy. :)

Red flowers in the bushes....

Green chirping parrots in the trees... the kids went nuts!

He spotted us! LOL!

Picking flowers in the yard with my little cousin Eva...

This is when I caught the baby frog for Eva and Carlo to see... and this is right before he jumped at me and into my hair!!!!! :P

Pretty kitty.... pretty serious too! Eva wanted me to photograph her :)

Sky pictures, just because I felt like it :) The sky is a work of art....


And of course, the roses! I've never been like most women who LOVE diamonds and roses, but this rose really had me captivated with its perfection and blood red beauty...




This is some Georgia O'Keeffe stuff right here! Hehe :)

PERFECTION!

A cool Jade plant hanging out on the fence in my aunt's yard... I love the way it has stretched towards the sunlight over time!


The other rose in my aunt's garden, this one is more on the pink side and definitely looks like a different type of rose.

And now for my obsessive sunset picture taking.... I just can't help myself when the sky looks so amazing!





(All images in this post are my own personal photographs taken by me. Please ask permission to reuse them and I'd appreciate if you link back to Inspire Bohemia. Thank you.)

Good Day Sunshine!

Hello!  Woohoo, it's Friday!!

Here are some great pictures I took of the sunset, sunrise and Downtown Miami Skyline yesterday and today.  By the way, the building that's lit up purple is called the Freedom Tower.  Hopefully soon I will get a good camera and my pictures will look crisper! 

Have a great weekend!

I thought the sky looked amazing yesterday as I was driving home from work!

This was the sunset yesterday!

The Freedom Tower gorgeously lit up in Downtown Miami
I've never seen them light it up like this!

 

This is the view from our balcony up Biscayne Boulevard..... there's the Freedom Tower (and the American Airlines Arena to the far right)

 

This is today's sun rising in the sky over downtown....

 

(All images in this post are my own personal images)

Good Afternoon World!

*A shot of Sunday's incredible sunset  from my balcony*

Good Afternoon!  How was your weekend?
 

I meant to make this post yesterday, however I got carried away with some exciting news that pretty much distracted me for the rest of the day.  Oh, did I say exciting news?  Unfortunately it's all too premature to spill the beans on here.  Hopefully soon I can let the cat outta the bag, until then I'll tell you about my weekend...

Saturday I went to my sister's Special Olympics bowling competition, it was a lot of fun AND, she won first place!!!  We are very proud... plus now she gets to go on to the finals in Orlando come November!  Road trip!  Congratulations Danielle!   After the competition my family and I went out for pizza at Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza....  delicious!  Mmmmmm mmm!  Suffice it to say, with a full belly and the overbearing Miami heat... I was ready to go home after that.  

BUT, I did hit up two Goodwill's on the way home, finding only a little yellow California pottery dish for fifty cents... I gotta post up a picture of it later.  Oh yes, and how can I forget that I also stopped at my grandmother and aunt's house to share the pizza love and as I was turning the corner by their house I spotted a huge cactus growing in front of the vacant house on the corner!  You can already guess what I did... I grabbed my aunt and we walked over there and got some pieces, including babies that had sprung up around it... it's awesome!  It's one of those massive 7 foot tall cacti full of red bulbs.  Anyway, we made off like bandits!  And since the house may be bulldozed in the future, we are contemplating chopping down the entire cactus and planting it in her yard.... Anybody have tips for success when it comes to that type of endeavor, is it a no-no or a hell-yes?   

After all that sweaty cactus hunting, by the time I got home all I wanted to do was shower and space out in front of the tube with my man, we watched the premiere of Saturday Night Live's new season and it was okay.  Nothing beats the Obama/Biden/McCain/Palin campaign days... that made for damn good material!  

As for Sunday, I spent the early morning further freaking out about my spreading Mealy Bug problem, which I talked about in last Friday's Tribulations of Gardening post.  Those little pests spread like wildfire, they are all over nearly every single one of my succulents and cacti, along with all other plants....  In a brief moment of exasperation, I cried  when I went out onto my balcony and saw the rapidly deteriorating state of my big basil plant!  

In last week's post I said I bought "Sevin" pest spray and was ready to spray massacre the Mealy Bugs over the weekend...  I must amend that! When I got home on Friday my boyfriend practically bawled me out because (I had forgotten) he had told me to buy "Organocide" which is organic and much safer for my plants, herbs and for humans!  He says Sevin is the devil... and since he used to work at Home Depot and often helped in the garden section, he knows better than me.  I'll admit, I read the booklet taped to the Sevin bottle and did not like the environmental hazard warning OR the warning about calling a doctor if it got on your skin!  It seemed like I would need to take annoying and painstaking precaution if I was going to use Sevin.  So, after calming down my freak-out tears, my man convinced me to get presentable so we could go exchange the Sevin for some Organocide.....

Ummmm beware folks, this stuff smells fishy!  You don't want to spill it in your home by mistake!  I know there must be some fish oil in there, especially because it smells just like fish oil pills and I guess the oil is a nice natural way of drowning those disgusting cotton, err mealy bugs!  Anyway, as you can see in the image above there are several Organocide options to choose from, I chose the bottle of concentrated Organocide because it will go much further than the other already-diluted options.  It cost me around $15.99, but I'd say it's worth it since it only takes 1.5 ounces to make a gallon of spray (diluted in water), and the bottle has 32 total ounces - not bad.  As you can imagine I sprayed the living daylights out of all my plants (well, not really since the directions say not to over-apply), but you catch my drift....  I was like an evil fumigator, cackling as I doused the mealy bugs in fishy Organocide!  HAHAHAHAHA...  I must wait two weeks to see if it eliminates the mealy bug problem, if not I should spray again.  After it takes my pests away I can spray monthly as a preventative method.  I've got my fingers crossed!!  

*UPDATE* It has now been two days since I sprayed the Organocide and my plants look fine, no signs of the the pest problem continuing to spread or getting worse.  YAY!  But I still can't breath a sigh of relief until it has been weeks and there is no more sign of those buggers!

Okay, enough of my excited rambling....  Hopefully I can focus enough to do some more posts today!  Oh, and I couldn't resist photographing the incredible sunset from my balcony on Sunday night....

(All images in this post are my personal photos)

Sunny and Gorgeous Saturday

Good Saturday to you :)

I hope wherever you are the weather is as beautiful as it is here in Miami, Florida... Granted, it's insanely hot, but it's just so sunny and bright that sweating out on my balcony tinkering with my plants usually becomes a long affair! I love my plants so much, my succulents and cacti are doing so well, there's something about watching things grow and thrive that gives me a great feeling of accomplishment!

I have a garden update post coming up after this today, my internet connection is super laggy today so it's taking extra long to upload all my pictures, or perhaps it's Blogger with its "Service Unavailable" error. Who knows, either way I hope you'll stay tuned so you can see what's making me so happy these days.

Check out the beautiful pictures I took of the sunset last night as my boyfriend and I were on our way out to a friend's party... where I sang karaoke for the first time, to the tune of 'Losing My Religion' by R.E.M., on some American Idol PS3 game, hahaha... I did surprisingly well too! And no, no pics or video of that moment folks :)

(All pictures in this post are my own personal pictures)

Decor Indulgence!

I'll admit, this week sure has been a good one for decor finds.... *wicked smile*

Aqua Foo Dog?? YES PLEASE....

A new Heliconia plant in its temporary spot inside a stunning white flower ceramic planter found at Ross....



The turquoise Chinese ceramic stool my mom found for me at Ross for $29.99! *sigh* We're long lost lovers that Chinese stool and I.... it's perfect!


....my wonderful mother also got me one of these....


My boyfriend and I threw on some workout clothes and took a walk over to Ross in downtown Miami the other afternoon, look at what I spotted seconds after walking in......


GASP! TONS OF CERAMIC PLANTERS! Each one was a set of a small medium and large ranging from $3.99 to $8.99! The cheapest I've ever seen them! But these were my absolute favorite...............

Awesome huh? I think so too!

Oh, and I picked up these babies, pretty drawer knobs! Seems I'm having great luck finding cute turquoise stuff lately, wheee....

What else, what else? Oh yeah.... we saw Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem waiting in line at an ATM on our walk home through downtown Miami, ha! If my boyfriend hadn't noticed I would have walked right on by oblivious! The only reason I bothered him (because he looked less than thrilled when I approached him for the picture) was for my brother, who loves The Miami Heat. The girl he was with did not know how to take a picture with an iphone and after much explanation she even managed to move and blur the picture. After walking away I realized, oh well! I really don't think he is that tall next to me, and I'm 5'7"! Oh yeah, and I look like a total chubster in my little workout clothes next to his skeletal figure! Hey, at least we were on our way back to the gym in our building to work out! :P

And then when we got home we went up to the jogging track of our building for some sweaty time, here is the view East from the track out to the Port of Miami....

Here is the view to the West a few minutes later when the sunset started turning crazy shades of pink, yellow and orange..... spectacular!