December Bloomin'

Last night after letting the dogs back in, I saw that our first camelia had bloomed! If you remember last year (of course you do, I know everyone memorizes every blog post I write!!) the camelia is supposed to bloom for a couple of months starting in December. And like I said last year - it's like clockwork!

And in keeping with their own internal clocks, our lily of the valley has also started blooming. I've loved this flower since I was little, it was one of the very first flowers of the spring and my Nana had them in her garden.

The lavendar in this pot blooms year round. I don't know the different varities of lavendar - we have some planted in the ground in the front yard and it is more fragrant and attracts more bees. I think this one is really pretty in color though!

And finally I threw in this photo of a ficus. It lived in our house until we had just about killed it. It had about 3 leaves left on it and was basically a stick tree. :( Mario wanted to throw it away but I convinced him to give it a chance and he planted the poor thing on our side yard (no doubt so that no one would see the Charlie Brown ficus!) Well look at it now! It LOVES the side yard! We just put another sad, almost gone ficus on the other side of the house and I'm watching it carefully for signs that it, too, will rally. :)

In Christmas news, I finally mailed my Christmas cards out and did a very small amount of shopping. Some of it was on line and I have no idea if anything will make it for Christmas. I am finding myself very ambivalent about the shopping aspect this year. I love shopping for other people!!! But I really don't like the malls, the commercialism, the consumerism - it starts to make me feel inadequate and bummed out for some reason. I prefer the specialty shops and shopping on line, absolutely!

I am working the next few days, gave us 4 days at Christmas time off... the weather has been a little weird - we had a major cold snap, then it warmed up unexpectedly. Yesterday was in the upper 70s. Today is windy and a little cooler, probably will get to around 70 in Ventura. It's going to cool off again and around Christmas will be sunny and lower 60s. Perfect!

One last mention... we got the dogs new beds and I can't make them wait to enjoy them. Dylan especially loves his!

This is Bailey and her most favorite toy, the squeaky sea turtle. It's bigger than her head and she runs through the house with it completely obstructing her view. ":-)