Better Basket Blog Hop

The Easter Bunny has paid me an early visit :-) I received this pretty little virtual Easter Basket from my blogging buddy Krystal from Krystal Grant’s Guide To Life. I was so pleased that she passed this along to me because it’s so cute and it brings back my own Easter basket memories from my childhood. But the very best part of it is that in writing a post about the basket, we are helping Hershey’s to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network with their Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop. For each blog post, Hershey’s has pledged to donate up to $5,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network. So I’m going to pass this Hershey’s Better Basket to a few of my blogger friends today.

I'd like to pass this Easter basket along to these ladies with lots of love and to anyone else who would like to participate:

Regina at Regina’s Family Seasons
Heidi at Health Nut Wannabee Mom
Katherine at Katherine’s Corner
Vchelle at Operation You

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES

* Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

* Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

* Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket.

* Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.

* Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section. You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

* Hershey’s is donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written by April 4th, 2010).

* Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the donation.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Foods That I Eat Here #1

Usually on this blog I share photos and descriptions of the many places that Brit Boy and I go to or I will tell you what I’ve been doing around the Yellow House. But I don’t very often tell you about some of the foods that I’ve taken to eating since I moved to England. By the way, on Friday, I will have been living here four years!!! I know it’s cliché to say this, but time really does fly. The fact that it’s four years is really wild to me.

Anyway, back to my story. Okay so…different foods in England. Well, usually I just eat things that I ate back home in the United States since I can get an equivalent here sometimes. And I’ve become very good at adapting recipes from home now, so I still can have some of my favorite dishes from back home. Then there are some things that I just have to enjoy when I'm back home in Georgia. I guess that's the beauty of adapting :-) The rest of the time I'm just enjoying the different tastes here.

From time to time I’m going to share some of my favorite foods that I’ve taken to eating here. I guess I'll call the series...ah, "Foods That I Eat Here" ;-) I hope this will give you all more of a picture of my life here…on the food side of things.

I’m not much of a bread lover and I’ve never really been one. But I must admit that I have developed an interest in bread, especially when it’s topped with one of my favorite foods…cheese!!



This is a cheese bap and from time to time I will buy some of these when we’re at the supermarket. It’s not something I could eat every day, but every now and then, I’ll buy a few.

Some of you from back home or elsewhere may be wondering about the name ‘bap’ when it looks like a roll. Well here they call this type of roll a bap. The name ‘bap’ is often used to describe a soft roll and it can come in different shapes and flavors depending on the region. They also sell plain baps without cheese here. Apparently, the word ‘bap’ dates from the 16th century. I wasn't able to find out the word's origin though.

This one I have in the picture is from this morning and it’s my last one for a while. Boo hoo! LOL. Oh well, it was good and I’m sure that if I had them all the time I’d get truly sick of them and I wouldn’t be able to get my hips down the stairs ;-)

A little piece of wonderful….one of my new favorites and it incorporates cheese…I was a happy woman this morning ;-) I’ll share more new favorites in the future!

P.S. – Please check out my other blog. I have a post there about a company that’s selling t-shirts and the proceeds go to help those in Haiti.

Memories of Spring

(above)Spring blossoms from back home in Georgia, March 2006

Happy Spring everyone! :-) I know that it may still be cold in many places, but hey, the calendar says that spring has arrived so I’m onboard ;-) Even though it has been rainy here today in Wiltshire and it looks more like winter, I’m gonna be optimistic. After all, spring is a frame of mind as well as the true changing of the season. It’s renewal :-)

This day, in the past, has been a conflicted one for me in a way, because I love all of the optimism of a new spring and yet it’s the day also that my father passed away, many springs ago when I was a girl. I’d say in the last ten years though, I’ve made peace in my mind and made space for both thoughts of this day to exist in my head. I think of him every day as I do my mother. And on March 20th every year, he is very present in my thoughts. These days it’s easier than it used to be. Now I honor my memories of him and rejoice that it’s spring too. I feel as if the best way to honor his memory and my mother’s is to celebrate the life that they gave me and to be here to witness the renewal of life that spring brings :-)

My mother loved gardening and her flowers were her pride and joy. Her green thumb was legendary and I hope to be like her in that way one day. Every time I see a pretty garden here, I think…”Wow, Mama would love seeing this.” So spring makes me think of her getting excited and guiding me around the yard to see what she had “coming up”, as the young plants poked their heads out of the soil :-)

My father was a gardener too, but his area of expertise was growing vegetables. When I was really little, one of my FONDEST memories is of following along behind him as he dug holes in the soil and let me drop the seeds in. Even though the vegetables really did their thing in the summer, it was spring when the preparation for vegetable gardening would begin. I loved it!

So spring for me is about renewal, possibilities, and a whole lot of memories of the two people that gave me room to grow :-)

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I also wanted to share a few springy photos. Some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I shared a photo of our crocuses announcing spring a bit early. Well, I wanted to show you all what the flower pot looked like this past week. Things have definitely filled in and the daffodils are getting ready to bloom. I’ll share the daffodils when they open.

Here are the crocuses…..happy spring!!! :-)

Hair Bands That Go Pop

We had a good weekend around the Yellow House. We went into town on Saturday and picked up a few things and the rest of the time we just hung out around home. We got a connection upgrade for our television upstairs, so we were enamored with our new equipment. Brit Boy is the techie in our house, so he will blog about it later with photos. I’m so glad that now I can watch my Rosemary & Thyme upstairs while he watches his football/soccer downstairs. Yippee!! :-) I love this show. It's no longer being made, but I really enjoy the repeats.

In other news, over the weekend one of my favorite hair bands snapped. I have two but this one was my favorite. I know it sounds silly, but when you’re like me and love to just sweep your hair back and up so you don’t have to deal with it, a hair band is your best friend. LOL. I was fully into my sweeping back and banding when it all went **POP***… It really did make that sound ;-)

Here’s a photo of the other hair band on my head. I don’t know why I took a photo of it in the past, but I guess it was true love when I first bought them. LOL. Anyway, here’s the one that still survives.




And here’s the one that bit the dust ;-)



Anyway, no biggie, I guess it’s time to go get another one as a backup. Should be fun :-)

A Great Honor

This is Brit Boy’s toy, but for now I'm borrowing it and it’s my stand-in cup of honor ;-)

I have some fun news to share. I got a lovely honor a couple of days ago. I was named as one of Alive Magazine's 2010 Women of the Year . The magazine is an online magazine whose aim is to empower women and help them identify and achieve their purpose in life. They concentrate on three words to convey the message of the magazine, which are ‘empower’, ‘inspire’, and ‘connect’. It is a very inspirational magazine and I’m truly humbled to be included in their list :-) I was truly shocked when I found out, but now I’m embracing it and I’m so grateful.

This experience has reminded me for sure that you just never know what life has in store. I was told a couple of weeks ago and at that time I had to send in some information about myself. But I was asked to keep it quiet until the other day when they released the issue. Now however, I can share it with you all :)

By the way, please check out my latest post at my new blog Yellow House Views if you have a moment. It's all about a sale that I've found out about for this weekend.

Have a great weekend! :-)

My First Giveaway Winner

Hello all !!! :-) I just wanted to share some news from my other blog with you. As some of you know, I started a new blog called Yellow House Views, and I hosted my very first giveaway over there.

Well, today I had Brit Boy to assist me in doing the drawing for the winner of the Stillness Sessions "Imagine" CD. We recorded a video of the actual drawing, so if you have a minute, please go over and check it out :-) You can see Brit Boy's cute hands ;-)

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and I just wanted to give a shout out to all of my fellow ladies out there! :-) International Women's Day is a global day of celebrating the achievements of women in the past and present...those who made the history books and those who didn't.



Also I'd like to congratulate Kathryn Bigelow on her win at the Oscars last night. She has become the first woman ever to win the accolade of Best Director at the ceremony. Well done to her. And congratulations to Monique for winning the Best Supporting Actress award and also to Sandra Bullock for her win as Best Actress in a Leading Role. All of these ladies make me proud, not because of the celebrity part of the movie business, but because these ladies have hung in there in their chosen fields and did their best. The award is just icing on the cake. They all remind me that you should do what you love and soar in whatever you choose to do!

My Second Blogoversary

Today is my two year blogoversary!!!! :-) I can’t believe how quickly time passes sometimes. I really enjoy blogging and it has brought such good to my life that I truly cherish. I've made friends with some great people. What a journey! Thank you to all of you for continuing to come visit me here at my blog :-)

In thanks for your visits I’d love to direct you to my new blog, Yellow House Views, where I’m hosting a giveaway to celebrate my second blogoversary here. So please click over and check out my very first giveaway!

Have a great day everyone!

A New Room In the Yellow House

Hey everybody! I wanted to share some news. Today I started an additional blog called Yellow House Views that I'd love for you to visit and check out if you have a moment.

This original blog here is my great love and I really enjoy telling you the story of my home life with Brit Boy, along with stories about my expat experience. I will still be posting all of that good stuff here along with my photos. So please continue to visit me here if you can :-)

My newest blog is going to be for other things. I will post there about things that I come across that I find interesting and want to share. Sometimes I will do reviews and sometimes I will just write about other things that don't fit in with my current expat blog here. So I hope you'll come by and take a look.

I just wrote my first post over there and it's about a great site called Fashion Playtes, where girls can design their own outfits. It's really cool and I just wish that it had been around when I was a girl :-) Please take a look if you have a moment.

In other news, tomorrow is my two year blogoversary here at From A Yellow House In England, so I hope you'll stop by to help me celebrate. There's a prize for the celebration!

I'll be back tomorrow with my party hat on. Have a great rest of the day! :-)

A Preview of Spring

Hello all :-) I had a good weekend. It was pretty calm. Brit Boy and I just hung out around home. I finally finished my project that I was doing for my school work, so I was glad to complete that.

Today has turned out to be a lovely day here. It was kinda frosty this morning, but now it looks rather spring-like outside. It has been an extremely icy winter here and everywhere it seems, so I wanted to share a sneak peek of spring that I found today.

Blue skies are always good :-)



And our crocuses out back are breaking through. It’s so nice to have some color outside again.



Here's to spring coming soon. I know that we will still have more of that biting wind of winter to come, but I know that it will go away one day soon. In the meantime, I'm gonna enjoy the tail end of winter while I rejoice in the coming of spring. Stay warm everybody :-)