Fertilizer Friday

It's fertilizer Friday and my friend Tootsie is our hostess! Tootsie is our resident garden guru, and she has brown thumbed folks like me hitting the commercial greenhouses buying up plants because of her passion for plants and mind boggling talent for growing them from seed, so after viewing what I am feeding on this Fertilizer Friday, hop on over to Tootsie;s blog and see what everyone else is feeding!

I love petunias, so recently I went over to the garden shop/greenhouse and purchased a few, when I got there they were watering the plants with an overhead mister and it looked so pretty I just had to take a pic

Petunias just wating to be taken home and loved

I bought about eight petunia plants and a few lantanas, I have to take the planting slowly and build my confidence being new to planting and all, I took my plants home and waited a day before transplanting I wanted them to become acclimatised to their new home.

Lantanas

While at work I had an ambitious idea, why not make two giant planters like Tootsie does with the petunias? I thought why not? I got really exited at the idea, I already had the pots and I remembered Tootsie gave step by step instructions about making her planters and as luck would have it there was some syrotex hanging around the office that day because of a new printer that was purchased, I pounced on them before the cleaners did! The syrotex is needed for stuffing the plant pots so that less pro mix is used.

All bagged and ready to go home

And now without further ado, my plantings, remember they are recent transplants and have some growing to do, since planting this pot I have added four impatiens to the pot for a fuller look.

Begonias hoping for the best here

Then, my ambition got into warp speed and I decided to plant some seeds!! They actually sprouted, and no, Tootsie I am not fertilizing them, lol!!

If these pots work out I'll probably do some in ground planting!!!

My wonderful Cruise............ to nowhere in particular

I boarded the ship on Thursday night and went straight to bed,

Friday morning at breakfast, the morning of the summit, hence the work attire, my first breakfast on board.

Friday evening we were invited to view the opening ceremony of the Summit at the ships auditorium, followed by cocktails, to I dressed in work-but kind of partyish attire, you know what I mean!

Gotta get that diva shot!!

This is the auditorium, you no longer feel as if you are on a ship here.............

Cocktail time!! Poolside, party party!!

The wait-staff, so friendly, this guy knew the drink I liked and kept it coming!!

It is 1am, cocktail party is over, but we are not ready to sleep, head off to a restaurant and have a bite, I kept it light, and then on to the ship's disco!! we partied till 4am!

Saturday morning at 10am, got up, happy to put on casual clothes and explore the ship, but first breakfast!!

This is my after breakfast dessert, we decided to put all our desserts in one plate and each take a pic pretending it was all ours, I was cracking up so much at our silliness!!

Time to explore, the pool area again, with a giant screen for viewing movies.

After relaxing by the pool a bit we decided to have some ice cream from the 24hr ice cream self service bar at the pool, then I said I will run to my room to pick up my phone, to call my kids and ease my guilty conscience for having soooo much fun without them, after getting to my room, the air conditioning was on, the bed made and I just could not resist, I went in for a short nap, and woke up 6 hours later!! I was beat!!

I caught up with my co-workers again, explained my absence, they said they all got naps too, and we went poolside to enjoy a movie.

Of course we munched on burgers and fries and pizza, served 24/7 at the poolside BTW.

Then it was back to the disco, party hearty again and off to bed at 230am.

Sunday morning after my usual hearty breakfast, we really wanted to explore, we found this! It's a lounge area in pretty much the middle of the ship, beautiful!! There is a piano playing dude, and there is pastries!

Relaxing in the lounge.............................................

This nice guy wanted to serve me some pastries. I thought, I just had some for breakfast!! resist!! resist!!

Another view of the pastries at the lounge

Me trying to convince myself I have no room in my stomach for the delicious pastries,,,,,,,,it worked!!

My cool co-workers at the lounge,

Apart from pastries, you can have pretty much a meal here!!

The fab ceiling of the lounge area

Then we went here, it's called 'The Santurary' no kids allowed here, really, there's a sign! lol!!

Isnt it dreamy!!

Check out the views,

Relaxing...................... my office bldg in the background.............

All that relaxing made us hungry..................

Lunchtime again!

Dessert, I passed on the pastries, well just one as you can see

After lunch on Sunday we visited the other ship that housed media and other co-workers of ours the 'Carnival Victory"

One word to describe this ship

UGLY!!!!

So glad I did not stay there! wooo-hooo!!

That, in a huge nutshell is my experience on board a cruise ship, did you notice by tummy got bigger as the pics progressed? Food apparently is a big deal on a cruise, and without self control, you can really go to town!

Hope y'all had fun, oh and did I mention I was supposed to be on the ship from the Monday? I knew of it but was too busy with work 13 - 18 hour days preparing for the Summit to pack, oh well, next time I'll be there from the start!!

My First Outdoor Wednesday

Susan is our gracious hostess for Outdoor Wednesday. Participants post pictures of anything that they might find outdoors. If you'd like to join in, click here for instructions.

As some of you may know, my tiny country, Trinidad was the host of the 5th Summit of the Americas, for three days all eyes were on Port of Spain as we hosted 34 Presidents/Prime Ministers or Heads of States from around the world.

All guests were welcomed and distinguished, including Barack Obama, Hugo Chavez, and many others you can click here to see all the heads of state that participated.

For my outdoor Wednesday post I would like to show you some shots of the Captital of my country Port of Spain, (most of the pics are clickable)

This cruise ship, the 'Carnival Princess' was brought in to house members of the media, both local and foreign, so that they could be close to the event. But more importantly it housed some members of staff including me! it was sooo much fun, having never been on a cruise, I definitely plan to take one soon, I'll show pics of my stay on this ship on my next post.

This is a view from the Hyatt Hotel which is on the same compound as my office building.

An arial view of Port of Spain

This is a view from the ocean of the Hyatt Hotel and my office building

Downtown Port of Spain, complete with KFC

This is Fort George, it is beautiful here and the views of Port of Spain are amazing, one of the very few forts, we really havent fought many wars!

Our skyline at night

I hope you enjoyed my first Outdoor Wednesday post! be sure to visit Susan to see more posts!

My job and other ramblings

I've given you guys some views of my workplace, It is really quite nice, however, I know many of you were curious about what it is I do, I was hired by my Government, (best employers) to assist a foreign company, who are here to assist my Government (confused yet?) to arrange an aspect of the Fifth Summit of The Americas, I was interviewed by the foreign company and my salary was negotiated with them as well, but I am paid by my Government. I act as a liaison between the company and local firms and also the other departments of the Summit Secretariat. That's my job in a nutshell, lots of meetings, deadlines, busy and fun! I really missed dressing up everyday, and interacting with co-workers.

This is a view of my office building at night, from the waterfront and fountain


















What I did not miss was the traffic, it has gotten progressively worse in the 13 odd months I have been a SAHM, do I miss being a SAHM? you bet your sweet cookies! I would take it any day, but as i explained in an earlier post, in my now in-accessible blog, there are projects I want to undertake at home that one salary just cannot be stretched to do, and of course extra curricular activities for the kids, vacations, (Tismee 2 Gail) the vacation queen knows what I am speaking of.

My patio that I want to furnish in the very near future.







Speaking of traffic something exiting road-wise is happening today, a major highway, (well major for us anyway) was under construction, an overpass that would take away a huge amount of cars heading south, and ease up the east dwellers like me, is opening today!! YAY!! no more traffic, well, we'll see, it's really big and impressive (again for us anyway) lol! and it's opening today!

This is the artist/designer's interpretation, I can only describe it from the ground, in you know what I mean.


















But of course the highlight of my job, or rather the highlight of the Summit is that U.S. President Obama was taking part!!! And being part of the summit staff, I was bombarded with questions about, 'would I get to see him?' 'would i get to meet him?' 'would I take a pic while sitting on his lap? ' actually just Nikki asked that one, she's such a smartmouth!

So, no I did not get to meet him, I am not the wife of any Head of state, I depended on pics in the media just like the rest of the country, I did get to see his car, you know the big black car, yup it was parked just outside my office, and I looked at it!! woo hoo! ok, not all that exiting really.

Here are some pics that I did not take, of course,






the handshake seen around the world, and it happened here!!

















US President and My Prime Minister





In my next post I will give pics of my actual summit experience, it was soo much fun!