Dreaming of Beach Days

So last week was full of gorgeous sunny days, warm temperatures, blue skies and beach days... until Friday, when it turned grey and gloomy. It hasn't let up much since! "Reading a book on the beach" was LITERALLY on my list of things to do this weekend, and I wasn't able to do it once! Hey Mother Nature - WHAT GIVES, GIRL? It's July, you know. Not February. Let's get that sun back out here, pronto.

To hold me over till the next showing of sun, here are some beachy pictures from last week. Just imagine me snapping these photos while lying leisurely on a blanket on the hot sand beside the water. That's what I'll be doing.

 

.  david in the water  .

.  that speck in the sky is a seaplane  .

Wishing you beach days this week as well!!

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Amateur Photography Is My Happy Place

These days I find myself going outside with the distinct purpose of taking photos of things. It appears that "photography" - rudimentary though mine is - has officially become one of my hobbies. I'm cool with that, but won't be referring to myself as a "photographer" any time soon.

That said, I hope you'll indulge me in my efforts to improve my photo game by checking out what ya girl has been snappin' lately. I take my camera with me almost everywhere - from my own home to the beach to restaurants to walks. Behold:

Spiders love my porch. LOVE it. I knock down spider webs almost everyday (it's necessary, or else I literally could never go out onto my porch in the warm months), but they rebuild every single time. Resilient little mofos. 

I spotted these three amigos walking together on the lawn at Kits Beach, 

looking like they were off to an afternoon friendship gigglefest:

 Look what I found reflecting in my iPod:

Ivy creeping up a tree: 

My friends and family back east have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that it's palm-tree climate here in Vancouver. They think "Canada" and they think "Arctic snow."

The rain makes all the green things so green...

Pretty things can still have spikes:

People keep such beautiful gardens around here.   No wonder I like walking around and taking pictures so much! I spotted this colorful pot of flowers from about 100 yards away, and made a bee-line for it:

Look at this little guy, nestled into a wall of greenery:

I know this looks like lavender, but I'm not positive that it is lavender. What do you guys think?

Telephone poll in the city = urban bulletin board.

Stoppin' to smell zee roses:

Seeing bundles of pretty colors all juxtaposed makes me feel happy... 

fuchsia, purple, lavender, violet, mint, green, sage, lime:

These roses look like they are ready to be painted red, don't they?

Flowers and green leaves against a tin shed:

Hopefully you aren't all getting sick of seeing pictures of flowers on my blog. There are just so many gorgeous ones around here that you don't see back east. I want to appreciate them all while I still can!

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It's Almost Summer Around Here!

The beautiful spring-turning-summer stuff that's happening around Vancouver lately is making me slightly bummed to be leaving the area for Massachusetts later this week. I mean, obviously I'm ultra psyched to be seeing my family and friends - but the weather in Vancouver has just been spoiling me rotten. The temperatures around here are almost always comfortable - even in the wintertime, generally. I've experienced less than a handful of thunderstorms since moving to the Pacific Northwest in January 2012. Massachusetts summers, on the other hand, are hot, humid, and peppered with thunder and lightning storms. Mostly I'm worried about the humidity... it can really make me a cranky (and sweaty) biatch.

All that to say that I've been soaking up the outdoors around Vancouver lately and really appreciating the beautiful area that I live in - perhaps more so because I know that it will be in my rearview in a week.

Last Sunday, in lieu of taking a hike (as I'd mentioned we might) Dave and I went for a nice long walk through Pacific Spirit Regional Park near his UBC campus. The park is a nature reserve on the west side of town, with miles and miles of trails and woods, but somehow it was my first time checking it out.

It was a grey day, but our 5-mile walking through the park's winding trails was full of lush, green trees.

The moss on many of the trees in the park had a distinctly mint-and-kelly green ombre effect, 

which I loved... 

There were some tallllllllllll trees in that park...

And we even ran into a few big-ass slugs along the way...

Another recent walk around my neighborhood revealed that the Kitsilano Public Pool is open and starting to see some action:

And elsewhere, I continue to randomly enjoy all of the plant-life surrounding me...

Yesterday was GORGEOUS outside - not a single complaint to be had. Spectacular blue sky and a light breeze that kept you from getting too hot in the sun. Dave and I spent an hour just lying out on a blanket on the Kits Beach lawn, soaking it in. Such a relaxing way to spend an hour.

Any signs of summer sprouting up around your hood?
What does summer weather feel like for you in your area?
Hope you're all breaking out your sunscreens!!!

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A Homemade Fruit Fly Trap that Actually Works

Seriously - who else is struggling with fruit flies this season? I swear they're getting more and more ballsy everyday over here. They've started perching along the handle of my refrigerator door, thinking I'm not going to notice them there and that I'm going to just let them right into my food supply. We've tried several different homemade fruit fly traps, but none of them were working to both trap and kill the bugs.

I finally found the solution!!

Here's what you need:

Tape (I used packaging tape)

A 1- or 2-liter plastic bottle

Apple juice

Dish soap

Scissors or a serrated knife

5 fingers to pat yourself on the back afterwards, because this shit is going to work.

Step 1:  Use your knife or scissors to cut the top portion off of the bottle:

Step 2: Pour about 1" of apple juice into the bottom of the bottle. Add a squirt of dish soap and stir:

Step 3: Take the top part of the bottle that you'd removed and flip it upside down. Insert the upside-down top of the bottle into the bottom of the bottle so that the two pieces fit together snugly. Use your tape to secure the two bottle pieces together at the top edge:

Now all you have to do is place this bottle somewhere that fruit flies like to gather in your home. You can make additional traps and place them in different rooms if need be.

So why does this fruit fly trap work?

WELL let me tell you.

The flies are attracted by the smell of the sweet apple juice, so they fly down into the bottle. The dish soap in the liquid breaks the surface tension of the apple juice, preventing the flies from being able to stand on top of the liquid like Jesus. Thus, they sink into the liquid and drown. Another reason this bottle thing works is because I've read that fruit flies aren't great at flying straight up, so once they get into the vertical chamber of the plastic bottle, they're kind of screwed.

Some other techniques I tried that did not work:

- Covered half an empty watermelon with plastic wrap and poked holes into it. This seriously attracted the fruit flies and they did fly into the holes in the plastic. However, there was nothing in the watermelon that would kill the flies, so rather than drowning they just flew around and around inside the watermelon long enough that most of them were eventually able to escape. Fail.

- Mashed up some blueberries in a glass jar, added some water and a bit of dish soap, covered the jar in plastic wrap and poked holes into it. No idea why, but the flies never even went near this one. I don't get it - who doesn't love soapy blueberries?? Fail.

My only hope is that someone finds this helpful. I've definitely heard some other "fruit fly" rumblings and grumblings around Facebook and Twitter lately, so I'm sure I'm not the only one with the problem. The several dead fruit flies at the bottom of my plastic bottle are the best proof that this trap works better than any others I've tried.  Now go forth and kill those little sons of bitches.

Also, I'm a featured guest blogger over on Much Ado About Somethin' today. Head over to check out all of the nail care and nail polish basics I'm sharing with her readers!

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{Linking up for Miscellany Monday, Tell Us Tuesday and What I Learned Wednesday}