Thursday, May 14, 2009

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!!!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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!!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

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!