Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.” – Clare Ansberry
Thanks Cee for hosting this flower challenge! Love sharing pics of my flowers with other bloggers and readers.
Categories: flower of the day
singlikewildflowers
Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!
sing like wildflowers 
What beautiful colors in your flowers for today 😀
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Thank you! 🙂
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The roses are just gorgeous and hopefully will stick around a while longer for you Esther as our rose petals will soon be bitten by Jack Frost and that’s it for 2020. The flowers don’t look any the worse from the smoke-filled air from the wildfires.
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These roses are from the rose garden in San Jose, and it was our second visit last month. The smoke didn’t affect these pretty blooms! Soon enough, it’ll be bare trees and flowers.
Do you know there’s another wildfire that began in Napa, CA?! It’s burnt down several wineries, restaurants, and homes. They dealt with wildfires too last year.
The air quality is bad again. Smoke is blowing over to the bay area. The wildfires have become more frequent; very frightening!
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Well a “like” for the roses not showing the effects of the smoke, but your California calamities are just beyond horrible. I did hear about the Napa Valley wildfires – my boss likes wine and orders all his wine from a store in Napa Valley and has been on a few winery tours. But not only your wildfires, but your earthquakes – yikes. The stress must just be killing you Esther.
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The Napa fire happened last Sunday morning! My goodness, people in that town must be exhausted, stressed, and upset. This happened last year, and again a year later. It’s a serene, sunny place with old and beautiful wineries. It’s unreal. Source of fire is still unknown.
This year we’re having an early start to wildfires. Whew…the air quality is red here. This means we stay home all the time. The same four walls gets to you and even outside fresh air is smoke air. Not a healthy alternative.
It’s interesting how my stress level is normal. When the fires were close by, that sky rocketed my anxiety. There is worry but nothing I can do about it. CA. gets frequent shakes that are not too frightening. When it happens, we look at each other and ask “did you feel that?” If it goes on longer than a few seconds, then we’re in trouble!!
I wonder if your boss’s favorite winery was affected. Some famous restaurants and wineries have been burned down.
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It sounded horrible from what I heard. Every day a new disaster, people losing homes and lives … the earthquakes would rattle me (pardon the pun), because you don’t know if you need to get outside or not. I hope all these events settle down to normal soon for you Esther. I saw he had a few messages in his inbox from various wineries on the status of their vineyards and premises. He was on a limo tour of wineries a few times – in fact in March right after the pandemic began, but does have a few favorites.
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What is even normal now?! Everything has been turned upside down this year. It’s an awakening to enjoy each day and not to get so worked up over future plans. I have enough on my plate for each day. I try to adopt the mindset that think “less is more,” which I have to remind myself over and over again.
Limo tours sound nice for Napa!! What’s not to love. You can drink safely and be chaufferred to different winery estates.
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A fellow blogger and her husband got married in a vineyard. She was a beautiful bride. If you go to this link and scroll to the end you can see shots around the vineyard. They have moved from California to Texas. She was an emergency room nurse and has decided to become a physician’s assistant and is about two years into her studies. He was in a P.R. position for the San Diego Padres (I think that’s the team). He is in grad school. They are go-getters at about 25 years old … makes me feel old reading her posts. She posts a lot of foodie stuff. Yes, my boss is into the limo tours and wine tasting and the wine buying – blows my mind how much the wine is.
https://mackmarie.com/2016/08/08/our-fairytale-told-in-pictures/
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OMG, those wedding pictures in Napa are beautiful, as well as the couple. The nature background makes the couple and their bridal party shine. And you’re right, for being only 25 years old, they are go-getters!
We’re not wine connoisseurs…our wallets thank us. lol
Wine is expensive, especially the good ones.
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Yes, they are beautiful shots and I know when I first followed her they had some other ones walking around the vineyards together, just the two of them. It looked like a nice setting for the ceremony and the actual winery for the reception. I’m not a wine connoisseur either and when I still worked on sit, my boss had clients in and they’d have cabernet sauvignon – he’d give me a small glass because two or three sips and I’d be woozy. I found it too strong for me and it went to my head – I prefer white instead but it’s been years since I had a drink of wine.
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Natural sunlight and nature are wonderful backdrops! They will cherish those wedding photos and the look is timeless.
White wine is very good, especially when it’s chilled. Did some wine tasting in Napa and had some good wines with Chris on celebration dinners, but I don’t remember any times. But my all time favorite is Makguli – a Korean rice wine beverage…oh my, it’s like a sweet rice drink. It doesn’t have a high alcohol content but it can make me woozy quickly since I don’t drink often. Sometimes I just need it. lol. no worries…it’s not abused, just enjoyed moderately.
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That does sound good … something different and yes, sometimes it takes the edge off. I just don’t have it around as I’m by myself and don’t really have any celebrations and so that’s that. And some people smoke to take the edge off – I don’t do that either. I have no issues with drinking or smoking, but my mom smoked for years, gave it up cold turkey when my father ran off taking all the money out of the bank. I would have bought the cigarettes for it but she announced she was going to quit. I was proud of her – she quit the next day and never went back. But seeing her need a cigarette and she was often in pain from ortho injuries, so I knew it helped calm her down, but I never wanted that need, so never smoked. Yes, white wine does not go to my head – that cabernet does and has a strong smell. The whole office smelled like a distillery.
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You have interesting stories to share about your growing up too. I can’t imagine what that must’ve felt like to feel betrayed by someone you love and trust. That’s the worst kind of betrayal. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to; did he come back after that?
It would’ve been so easy for your mom to smoke more after that, but she had serous girl power to quit smoking cold turkey after that day! Probably her maternal instinct to take care of you and herself after what happened.
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No, he never did come back Esther – he took all the money from the bank, their annuity accounts and fled the country, returning to Germany where he was born and lived until he moved to Canada in 1950. My mother was only 58, so not old enough to get Medicare or Social Security and had to pay healthcare until she turned 65. Luckily we were close and I was living at home already and the house was paid for thankfully. I was proud of her quitting cold turkey like that – she said “this is my last cigarette; no more smoking on May 5, 1985 and she never looked back.
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