From a Yellow House in England

This Blogger Needs Rest

2012-01-31T15:50:00.005Z

Hello there :) Well I'm back with a quick post again. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that my promised post is coming, but I'm a bit out of it right now. I've been so sick with a cold/sinus infection over the past several days, so I'm not able to get here to blog like I want to. I'm starting to feel a little bit better today, but I'm not all the way back to health. Since I've been sick it's tough to be on the computer for any length of time, because it makes my eyes hurt. I know that it's my body telling me to take it easy for once. So I'm doing my best to obey ;-)

The photo above is a view of where I've been and where I'm heading back to in a moment. I hope that you'll come back to check out my baking post that I promised.

Have a great day and enjoy whatever you're doing!

Quickie Posts and Blue Food

2012-01-23T14:50:00.003Z

Hello there! This will be a mini post, but I just wanted to check in and say hi!!! :) I'll be back with a baking post, later this week. I'll give you a hint...it's very blue (my favorite color).

Right now I'm in the thick of an assignment for school, so my little typing hands are needed elsewhere right now ;-) Wish me luck!

Have a great day and I'll be back to talk about blue food on Thursday!

My Memories Suite Giveaway Winner

2012-01-14T17:04:00.003Z

Hello! I hope that everyone is having a great weekend.

Today is the day to find out the winner of the My Memories Suite Giveaway!

And the winner is.....Brooke!

She blogs at {Cupcakes & Cucumbers} and you can also find this talented photographer at Brooke Photo Studio. Please go by and check out both of her great sites!

Congratulations Brooke! :-)

I will be emailing you in order to get your prize to you. Thanks for entering the giveaway!

Have a great weekend everyone!

My Memories Suite Giveaway

2012-01-06T18:24:00.007Z

Hello all! I hope that everyone’s 2012 is getting off to an amazing start! :-) I have some good news to share and it’s a bit of a thank you to you all for visiting me here at my blog.

I was contacted by the good people at My Memories, the makers of this great digital scrapbook software and I was thrilled. They asked if I’d like to hold a giveaway of their My Memories Suite software package worth $40! And of course I said yes!

I love scrapbooking and anything creative, so this software is right up my alley. I’ve been scrapbooking off and on over the years in the traditional way and it has been great, but digital scrapbooking is my new favourite hobby ;-)

Digital scrapbooking with My Memories is a breeze and it’s so easy to arrange the photos on your page and add all of the embellishments you want. You simply drop your photos into the boxes on the pre-designed templates, or you can create your own layouts. In the My Memories Suite, you are provided a wide array of embellishments, fonts, background papers, shapes, multimedia options, etc. And I will say it again; the software is very easy to use. I love it!

Here is a quick tongue in cheek album that I put together about my love of cake baking. I did this in a short time and it was so fun to give it a go.

Want to win this cool prize?

There are a variety of ways that you can enter...pick one or two or all of them and get in on this great giveaway!

#1: Follow my blog and then leave a comment on this post to let me know and you receive one entry.

#2: Tweet about this giveaway and use my Twitter name @AYellowHouse and link to this post and you can receive one entry.

#3: Go to mymemories.com, and then leave me a comment here to let me know your favorite digital paper package or layout and receive one entry.

#4: Follow the My Memories blog and then come back here and leave me a comment to let me know and receive one entry.

*Multiple entries are permitted.

The giveaway will close on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 11:59pm (GMT – UK Time). I will select the winner using random.org and the winner will be announced on Saturday, January 14th, 2012!

The giveaway is open to readers in the US and internationally.

Good Luck!!!

But hey, that’s not all! Even though I can only have one winner of the free software, here’s a gift for everyone! Get a $10 discount on the software, by using this promo code:

STMMMS16438

I just think that this scrapbook software is a great way to capture memories of 2011 and years past. It’s also a fun way to document 2012 and beyond!

Happy New Year!!!!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

FROM THE YELLOW HOUSE

HAVE A GREAT 2012!

Christmas 2011 Baking

2011-12-29T07:00:00.000Z

As I mentioned in a previous post, I did a bit of baking over the days leading up to Christmas and things turned out pretty good. I made Magic Cookie Bars, a chocolate cheesecake, and a red velvet cake.

Everything did taste good, however the Magic Cookie Bars got a bit toasty around the edges ;-) Surprisingly though, the toasty bits were kind of the best part. Who knew???? Here's a picture of my result:

Next, I baked the chocolate cheesecake. It turned out pretty good. It's very rich, and I would definitely make it again. Here's my attempt:

And my last bit of baking for Christmas 2011 was a red velvet cake. I usually make red velvet cupcakes, but this year I decided to bake a full size cake. And in order to add a bit of festive fun, I planted a Christmas tree and let Santa and the Snowman hang out in my cream cheese flavored snow ;-) It got all winter wonderland around the Yellow House.

And our old friend Trevor just had to horn into this last washed out photo. Lol. He loves making his way into the spotlight during the holidays!

It was fun to do a bit of holiday baking. I wonder what I'll bake next year???? Who knows...but watch this space. And as always, I'll be baking and cooking throughout the year, so please stop by again to see how it all turns out :-)

Until next time...

iPad 2 Giveaway

2011-12-28T15:35:00.003Z

Hello all! This is just a quick post to let you know about a great opportunity to win an iPad 2. Catalog Spree is giving one away! So if you're like me, and wish that Santa had left one under your tree, just follow the link below to be in with a chance to win!

They’re giving away an iPad 2 through their Facebook page – it's easy to enter to win. Just follow this link - Catalog Spree Facebook iPad 2 Giveaway

Tell 5 friends and receive an extra entry! You can enter until New Year's Day!

Also, Catalog Spree has posted some fun iPad tips on their blog. Check out their “5 Tips for a New iPad Owner”

This all sounds like a win win opportunity to me! So why not give it a go!

Disclosure: I was not given any compensation for this post by Catalog Spree or anyone. I just thought I'd pass along this info :-)

I hope that you all are having a happy holiday season!

Christmas at Salisbury Cathedral

2011-12-24T18:28:00.005Z

Hello everyone! :) I just wanted to share some pics from Thursday night. Brit Boy and I went down to Salisbury to attend the Carol Service at Salisbury Cathedral. We have gone before, but we missed the last time due to bad weather. However, this year we were able to be there and it was just as beautiful as I remember. I'll tell you, hearing those young voices echoing around the cathedral is something to experience at least once in your life :) Sitting there and taking in all of the beauty of the singing and the cathedral is just an extraordinary experience! I hope that you enjoy looking at a few of the pics that I took. I wanted to share some of what I saw with anyone who takes the time to come and visit me at my blog. I truly appreciate it! So these pictures are for you...my wonderful readers!

Below: These first two pictures are of the Old George Mall, all decked out for Christmas

Below: The next three are street scenes in Salisbury

Below: This is the Guildhall in Salisbury

Below: Another street scene in Salisbury

Below: The High Street Gate leading to Salisbury Cathedral

Below: The next two pictures are of the inside of Salisbury Cathedral right before the service

Below: The next three are pictures of the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral

Below: And finally, this is a picture that I snapped of the cathedral from afar.

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!

Baking at the Yellow House

2011-12-20T13:09:00.004Z

I'm getting ready to do some baking around the Yellow House. Christmas is coming along quickly, so I've got to get it going in the kitchen. I love to bake, but I just loathe washing dishes afterward ;-) Anyway here is a fuzzy picture of some of my ingredients.

I'm starting off my baking with making some Magic Cookie Bars. I haven't had any of these in years. I had a taste for them, so I decided to take the plunge this year! I'm also going to be making a chocolate cheesecake and a red velvet cake later in the week. I've made red velvet cake many times before, but this will be my first time baking this chocolate cheesecake. Wish me luck! ;-) And you know me, even if it turns out a disaster, I will plaster a picture of it on here...I love full disclosure in my cooking :-) So please come back in a day or two to see how it turned out if you have a minute.

Have a great day and I'll be back with more food pics very soon!

Moody Sky

2011-12-16T14:34:00.004Z

I took this picture earlier this week. It was taken right before it started to rain. There was the weirdest sky with this bright burst of sun and then the rolling in of the clouds. The picture came out kind of spooky. I like taking pictures of the sky because you never know what you're gonna get! :-)

Keel's Simple Diary - Volume Two Review

2011-12-12T15:12:00.006Z

A few days ago I was given the opportunity to review a wonderful product called Keel’s Simple Diary - Volume Two. Let me tell you, I ADORE it! I’ve written in a journal for many years off and on and I always will. I don’t write in it every day and I think that that is how I keep it going after all of these years. There is no pressure to show up to journal every day, so I can just relax and let the words flow whenever they want. Some days I'll just write one sentence or draw a doodle. I've even written on a page several times, 'I don't have anything to say today'. Lol. And although I’m a proponent of journals and diaries, I know that many people are not. I’ve heard some people say that they don’t write a journal/diary because they don’t know what to write every day or they don’t have anything to say. Well, I can understand that. It can be a daunting task if you’ve never really taken to the practice.

So when I received a copy of the Keel’s Simple Diary to review, I was really intrigued to find out that it takes care of a lot of that fear that some may have about keeping track of their days in book form. See, this cool little diary is first of all a perfect size to carry along with you if you like. It’s very handy. But if you prefer to just keep it at home that’s great too. I just love that since it’s so different, it makes you feel like you can just throw every rule about keeping a diary/journal out the window! :-) It is a very liberating diary to have.

Here’s why it’s so great! First of all you can get them in a variety of colors (photo below). I have the light blue one.

But what I really love about the diary is what makes it so unique. Each day instead of having to stare at a blank page, you are greeted by intriguing text that entertains you as you pause to take note of your day. You are given gentle prompts to help fuel your thoughts about your day and I love that the whole vibe of the diary is quite philosophical. There is a blank line at the top of each page for you to record the date and to me this means that you still have the option of skipping a day or two if you want. No rules ;-) As the name of the diary so eloquently says, it is a ‘simple diary’, and it is simply great.

Here’s an example of one of the prompts in my simple diary.

“Your day was (only choose one): calm – overcast – an empty toolbox”

Then underneath it asks why, and you’re not flooded with a big space to fill. So it’s a gentle little exercise for your brain. On each page there is also a short saying that makes you go ‘hmmm’. And at the bottom of each page there are one or two more prompts. As I’m reading from the same page as the prompt above, I see that at the end of this page it asks: “Where will you be in ten years from now? (make a sketch, a drawing or a collage – or disregard)”.

I love the open ended nature of this and hey, when was the last time you made a collage? ;-) I think that I might choose the collage when I get to that day! I’m going to wait until the new year to start actively using it. It will be a neat little project to start a new diary in the new year and then be able to read back over it in the year after that. It will be intriguing to see how my thoughts have or haven’t changed. I’m excited to get started!

So if you have been a bit shy about keeping a diary or if you love writing down your thoughts, I think that you will love this diary. I think that it’s more than a diary actually, it’s a tool that can help us gain more insight into who we are and how we think. I think that this could be a fabulous Christmas gift or a gift for any day...for yourself or someone you care about!

Get your own diary here!

Disclosure: I was sent this diary compliments of the publishers, however all views on this product are my own as always :-)

Christmas Card Traditions

2011-12-11T09:11:00.005Z

I've been up for a while today...way too early for a Sunday morning, but I guess that I'm awake early for a reason. Perhaps just so I could get this post in ;-) Anyway, it's been a pretty good weekend so far. Yesterday we went into town for a few things and to mail off some Christmas cards.

In the photo above: These are the airmail decals that I have to place on the letters along with the regular stamp. I didn't send this many cards...lol. I just have a bulk of these that I got for free at the post office a long time ago. Enough to last a lifetime probably ;-)

I love sending Christmas cards to people, especially in this age of e-cards and other techie ways to keep in touch. Don't get me wrong. I send e-cards and do all of the social networking things to keep in touch too, but I think that it's cool to at least try it the traditional way once a year. International postage isn't cheap, but I try to plan ahead to have the money available. And it isn't an amount that will break the bank anyway :-) I look at the postage as another Christmas gift on my list and it is chopped up and spread to several people instead of just one. This is the only time of the year when I get to send cards to my friends and family back home, so I truly relish it. It's a win win in my book!

My mom used to love to send Christmas cards and she did right up until her last Christmas. I would usually be drafted in to write quite a few of them out for her and I got hand cramps, but I knew it was important to her. It was a tradition. She didn't send a tremendous amount of them out, but she had a nice little list of core people that she had known for decades and she made sure to send a card every year. Interestingly, when I was helping her to write out her Christmas cards leading up to her last Christmas, I thought to myself that the list was dwindling so much in the last few years. I thought about how I had known some of those people for most of my life and how quickly life goes, so indeed we must relish every day. And I remember thinking how it wasn’t all sad because we were so lucky to have known those good people. Life is a joy despite everything, because of the people that we have the pleasure to know on this journey :-)

I know that I probably remember that Christmas very vividly because it was indeed my last Christmas with my mom. Otherwise those thoughts that I had while writing those cards probably would have evaporated from my memory. It is six years ago now and I’ll never forget that December and I’ll never forget the lesson about connection that my mom taught me by example.

I know that sending Christmas cards isn't everyone's thing and I'm not trying to convert anybody ;-) I just thought that I'd share a little piece of my memories and if nothing else, you get to see my airmail decal stash. Lol.

So even though I’m 4,000 miles away, I value the connections that I have and I know that making the effort is all worth it because I wouldn’t miss knowing these good people for anything in the world! :-)

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Prezzybox Review

2011-12-05T16:21:00.006Z

I can’t believe that Christmas is so close now...three weeks from yesterday! Where has the time gone? Have any of you done your Christmas shopping? Well, surprisingly, Brit Boy and I completed ours this year way ahead of time. Woo Hoo! :-) Still, I love browsing and checking out what’s still on offer out there. So I was excited to be offered an opportunity to review a couple of products from a great site called Prezzybox.

Prezzybox.com is a fabulous site where you can find a variety of unique and interesting gifts for those that are on your Christmas gift list. They have some great Christmas stocking fillers, but they also boast a great selection of gifts for other occasions. They currently only deliver to the UK, but are looking to expand to continental Europe and the United States soon. So please go by and check them out!

I was sent two items as I mentioned. I received this cute character below called a Tude Beam (£9.95). They are fun little characters that change colors to the beat of your favorite music. They have a colorful glow and give off a chilled out vibe with moody light when no music is playing. There are five light settings, including a strobe light setting. There are four characters named: Cross, Flex, Loaf, and Feisty. Flex was the one that Prezzybox sent to me. What a cool little character and a great gift!

I was also sent an item, shown below, called the 6-in-1 Utili-Key (£9.95), which is made by Swiss Tech. The Utili-Key is lightweight, about half an ounce in weight, and is the size of a regular door key, but there is nothing lightweight about all that this amazing tool can do. There are six tools included, they are: a serrated knife blade, straight knife blade, Phillips screwdriver, flat screwdriver, micro eyeglass screwdriver, and a bottle opener. There’s a tool for nearly every situation.

I love that it’s so handy and you can have what you need at your fingertips, all in one place. I tried the tool out over the weekend and I really like it. It’s sturdy despite its size and gets the job done. I used the micro eyeglass screwdriver on my computer glasses and it worked like a charm. One side of my frames is always coming unscrewed, so it was so convenient to have the proper tool right there when I needed it and I didn’t have to search all over for something that might or might not do the job. I also tried the other two screwdrivers around the house and they worked great. I liked the size of the tool very much because due to its size you can get into some rather tight spots with it. All of the components seemed to work very well, and I’d definitely consider giving one as a gift. The Utili-Key is a new favorite of mine and it will have a nice home here at the Yellow House.

I really like the Prezzybox site and it's a fun place to shop for a variety of cool things!

*Disclosure: I was sent these products to review from Prezzybox, via Fuel My Blog.

Holiday Baking

2011-11-29T16:44:00.004Z

Well the Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone and it was a good one around the Yellow House. I had the chance to go on Skype on Thanksgiving with my niece and sisters as I mentioned in a previous post. And it was a whole lot of fun! It was just like I was sitting in the room with them. Then on Friday, Brit Boy and I had our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a great day together!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to make a different version of sweet potato pie this year and you know what...they turned out great. I made mini sweet potato pies. I got the original recipe off of the Food Network website and had to make a substitution for the crust. Here’s a link to the recipe from their site. I’m not very good at making crusts yet and I ran out of time, so I found a substitute. I found this product called brandy snap baskets that were pre-made and used them for my shell. You can see them in the photo below. They are kind of crispy and a bit chewy, but they were the perfect accompaniment to the pies. My version tastes better than it looks in the photo...trust me ;-)

So the filling of the brandy snap baskets is a sweet potato soufflé that I made separately and then placed it into the baskets. Then I made the whipped topping with cream cheese, cinnamon, and confectioners sugar/powdered sugar. I didn’t have a pastry bag so I just kind of dropped a bit of the cream on each one. It turned out fine and it was still good :-)

I was intrigued when I saw them made on the cooking show that I watched. So when I tasted them, I was not disappointed at all. I’ll definitely be making them again.

This was my latest cooking adventure and it was fun...now on to the next thing.

P.S. – Brit Boy recently completed his first review. Please go by his blog if you have a moment and check it out! Thanks...

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T10:46:00.002Z

All the best and...

On the Eve of Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T15:24:00.005Z

Today is a good day at the Yellow House. As many of you know, tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the USA and even though I’ve been living here for five and a half years, the tradition is still very much celebrated in this little house. Brit Boy loves the holiday too, and has always been a very willing participant in the celebration. So it is nice to share this holiday with him and embrace the gratitude and connection of the day together.

We’re actually going to celebrate on Friday because Brit Boy won’t have the day off on the actual Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, since the day isn’t celebrated here of course. He is having the day off on Friday so we can have a long weekend together though. So that will be nice. It’s going to be great no matter what day!

My thoughts are all over the place today, but in a good way. I’m having a hybrid of memory and new traditions going through my mind. Today I’m remembering the last Thanksgiving that my siblings and I had with my mom six years ago. And in the spirit of gratitude, I’m so grateful that we were able to be together like that, with her sitting at the head of the table at my sister’s house and giving us that beautiful smile of hers. I remember a lot of Thanksgivings fondly, but that one stands out to me more than any of them and it will stay with me forever. She was happy and that is the way I remember her. She loved the holiday season, so Thanksgiving and Christmas were her times. Right after Thanksgiving she would pull out her Christmas music and sing her way around the kitchen all the way up until Christmas. It’s interesting when you look back at a person in all of their glory and you really ‘see’ them. I realize now that besides all that she taught me in being my mother, she also taught me a lot about being a human being. My mother didn’t have the easiest life by any stretch of the imagination, but she had the greatest joy for life and she lived in the moment. I loved that about her...

Later this evening, Brit Boy and I are heading to the supermarket to pick up some ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. I’m making some of the standard traditional dishes that I grew up with, but I’m going to attempt to make a new dessert. I know that lots of people make pumpkin pies, but in our house it was always sweet potato pies. That's what I love though...there are traditional foods that we all share in common on that day and then there are regional variations. Variety and tradition living side by side is a beautiful thing. I’m still going to make regular sweet potato pie, but I’m going to try this recipe that I found for these mini pies with a cream cheese type topping. They looked good when I saw them on the Food Network last year, so I’m gonna give it a whirl. Wish me luck! ;-) If I go ahead with trying it, I’ll share how they turned out...for better or worse. Also, it’s usually a customary challenge to find substitutions for some ingredients here. But after these past few years, it’s become a standard part of my life, so it’s kind of like a game now. Lol. It should be fun! I embrace the challenge!

Tomorrow I will get my dessert making done so that I won’t have that to on Friday. And hopefully if I get it all planned out right, I’ll be able to check in by Skype with my niece and have some laughs. We did this last year and it was fun to have virtual back home Thanksgiving. I got the chance to check out their food and it was a good time. My niece is twenty-one, but you would think that we grew up together because we laugh at the same stuff and have a good time on Skype. So I’m looking forward to that with my sisters in the background :-)

It’s getting very thankful around here and I’m looking forward to it all! I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there who celebrates the holiday and a great Thursday tomorrow to one and all!

Child's Play and Ringing Food

2011-11-14T15:04:00.004Z

So I mentioned in my last post that I would share two other things that I bought on Saturday when we were having our Saturday shopping trip. As I mentioned then, I felt like a kid again when I was playing with the games and things on display in some of the stores. Well, I had to bring a little piece of that gaming fun home with me and it's very old school and I love it! Here is thing #1 :

They are jacks and I haven't played jacks since I was a kid and I haven't seen any in a store in forever! So I had to have them. As you can see from the photo, they are suitable for eight years old and up, so I think I qualify ;-) I have been a jacks playing fool every since I got home Saturday. LOL. I tried to play with them on our table, but after I got a splinter twice I moved to the kitchen counter. I think that I'm going soft though. I told Brit Boy that when I was a kid we used to play anywhere so if you got a splinter or scraped your knuckles while trying to pick the jacks up, it was like...'Oh Well' and you kept on playing. Gotta get that edge back ;-) So these jacks will be mini therapy for me and it's still fun to play! These are good for the kid at heart that I still am sometimes.

The second thing is above and it's something that Brit Boy and I will share. We needed a kitchen timer and hey, who doesn't need a ringing hamburger. This will definitely come in handy as I plan out my Thanksgiving cooking schedule and also, a regular timer just wouldn't do. Lol. I wasn't looking for it, but when I saw it I told Brit Boy that we'd met our timer and he agreed. Gotta love a man who doesn't mind a ringing burger ;-)

So as I said in my previous post, it was just fun to have a day out together on Saturday and along the way we picked up a few little things. Simple pleasures are the best...and I'm glad that I could share mine here! Have a great Monday!

Saturday Treats

2011-11-13T11:57:00.005Z

Brit Boy and I had a good time yesterday. It was like our Saturdays of old when we went into town more often. We've been affected by the recession and its aftermath just like everyone else, so those trips into town have been strictly for the bare essentials. We're not big shoppers anyway, but it was fun to do something different :-) So yesterday we went into town to do some Christmas shopping and managed to get all of our gifts. We figured that it would be good to spread our shopping out so we bought a few things last week and then this week we finished. We didn't have to get too many gifts. It will be a frugal Christmas, but that's not a bad thing at all. It's the thought that counts, isn't it? :-)

The fun of yesterday though was just the chance to hang out together. We had the most fun when we went into this store that had lots of little gifty things and I turned ten years old. LOL. I had the best time playing with the little games and things they had on display.

We came home with a couple of trinkets for ourselves and mine were fun stuff that made me remember being a kid. I'll share the other two things tomorrow, but for today, I want to share this...traditional slab toffee. I love that it came with its very own little hammer to break it up. It reminds me of the little rock hammer that the main character used to escape out of prison in the movie Shawshank Redemption. I love it.

This is so wrong but so right, but everything in moderation is cool. LOL. I was salivating when I saw it and I will force myself to eat it over a while and not in two days. So far I've done pretty good and only had a little bit. It's really rich so that's the only way for me to survive and not pass out in a sugar coma ;-) It's called toffee over here, but for my readers from back home in the USA it is very reminiscent of caramel candy to me actually if you're wondering what it tastes like. It reminds me of a Sugar Daddy and I don't mean that other kind of sugar daddy ;-) But anyway, the toffee is so good!!! And it has brazil nuts in it so I'm extra excited. They had the plain kind, but I like my crunchiness!

But I know some of you may be saying...hey don't rush Christmas on us and you're right. We've got to have Thanksgiving first and my mind is certainly on Thanksgiving today. I was sitting here thinking about my menu. I was on Skype with my niece the other day and we were discussing Thanksgiving and I started salivating. I salivate a lot I guess. LOL. The food is fun to think about and eat, but my favorite part is the love and gratefulness behind the day. I'm planning on getting on Skype again with my niece and whoever is around that day. It will be fun to have virtual Thanksgiving. Brit Boy won't be off on that day, but we will still celebrate as we always have together. He has the day off on the next day, so we'll just roll all that fun into an extra day :-) Yay us!

Therefore, I'm in menu planning mode. I'll have my recipes in one hand and a tiny piece of toffee in the other ;-) Just kidding. For real though, I'm planning out my menu and you know me...I love to photograph food, so I'll show the good, the bad, and the ugly. So watch this space.

Tomorrow I'm gonna share my other two little things that I picked up yesterday. Simple pleasures....Have a great Sunday and I'll be back tomorrow with my other two favorite things!

A Special Day

2011-11-11T12:22:00.003Z

Now that I've completed my latest assignments for school and I'm FREE for a couple of days, I'm so glad to come back here to my blog. As I mentioned in my last post, I had planned on sharing some photos that I've taken recently, but I've decided to leave them for another day.

Today I'd just like to highlight this special day of 11-11-11. Today means so much to so many and I wanted to use my little corner of the internet to share what I am thinking about today in particular.

First, I'd like to add my voice to honoring those who have served our various countries. I remember them all and their sacrifices on this Veterans Day and Remembrance Day. I grew up knowing it as Veterans Day growing up in the United States and over here in the United Kingdom it is called Remembrance Day. But to me it doesn't matter what you call it...the respect comes from the same place.

And also, this day this year has an interesting significance. It is of course 11-11-11 and even though I've read some things here and there where people think it's just another day, I don't think that myself. I'm totally respectful to how other people feel...that's cool by me. But I just think that this day is cool. I mean, I won't ever live again to see a day, month, and year where it's all ones. And it may seem much ado about nothing to some, but for me, it is one of those times when I pause and realize how amazing life is and how much we are all a part of everything. I'm grateful to be alive everyday, but today I'm vibing off of being alive on this day when all the ones line up ;-) Sometimes things are just cool to think about and that's what I'm thinking about today!

Have a great Friday! :-)

Study and Writing Week

2011-11-07T14:56:00.003Z

I hope that everyone's weekend was good. Mine was good. I took a trip into town with Brit Boy on Saturday and it was fun to get out and window shop. Other than that, we hung out around home and caught up on some television and in between I finished up some reading for school.

The photo above shows my continuously growing pile of books, notebooks, folders, etc that I use for my schoolwork. I figured that I'd just post a photo that illustrates what my week will be all about ;-) I'm looking forward to a bit of freedom on Friday and being able to do a proper post here. I have some photos that I want to share when I can put the time in on Friday. So I hope that you'll stop back by to visit me! I just wanted to drop by to say hello and thank you for still coming by here even when I can't do a full post sometimes because of my studies.

In other news, we're headed into the holiday season, so I will definitely be sharing some cooking triumphs and mess-ups on here. I love photographing food...LOL. Maybe I'm just hungry ;-)

Anyway, I'm headed back to the books and I'll see you Friday. Until next time...

Hello November

2011-11-01T13:37:00.003Z

I can't believe that it's November already. I know that everyone says this, but I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by. This is my favorite time of the year though. I love Halloween and now we're heading towards Thanksgiving, so I'm a happy woman :) And then of course there's Christmas.

I'm hoping that I get the chance to Skype with my family on Thankgiving and/or Christmas this year. Last year I Skyped in for both and had some good laughs. I even joined in for a board game with the relatives on Christmas. That was hilarious because I was yelling out my answers across the miles and it just got really surreal at times. LOL. The best part was that I got my first look at my newest nephew via Skype that day. Technology is really cool sometimes :) So I hope that I can check in and see what the folks back home are doing this year too.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself. First I want to say hello to November and right at this moment it's sunny outside. Woo Hoo! I don't know how long that will last so I'm soaking it in while I can. As some of you may know, November is also the month for NaNoWriMo. Check them out here. Now, I've attempted this in the past, but it all kind of fell apart for me after like day six. But I don't give up easily, so I guess that I'll try again this year, although with my school work, it will definitely be a battle for time. But I'm up for it and I like the flurry of things. And besides, I've been playing around with a novel for a while now, so I want to give it a chance and scratch this itch. For at least the first third of the month my time is promised to about 3,000 words in the name of academics. However, after that, I'm gonna give NaNoWriMo more attention and I'm looking forward to it. I figure that I need something to get my mind working in that way again. I don't expect any miracles or anything, but I think it's good to just see what develops. So we shall see how it goes :) And by the way, if anyone is concerned that I'm gonna overextend myself, don't worry...I know when to throw in the towel and give it a rest, but I also know me and I thrive off this kind of stuff :)

I'm really pleased to report that Brit Boy is giving NaNoWriMo a go this year for the first time, so please go by his blog and wish him good luck if you have a moment! I'm very proud of him getting into the writing hot tub ;-)

So it will probably be a wordy month around the Yellow House, along with daydreams of Thanksgiving dinner thrown in here and there.

I'm sending out wishes to everyone for a healthy, happy November and if you're doing NaNoWriMo...I wish you the best of luck! Happy November!!!!

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T01:00:00.001Z

Sunrise in Wiltshire

2011-10-24T11:51:00.006+01:00

Hello all! I hope that everyone had a good weekend. Mine was good. Brit Boy and I mostly stayed around home, but we did venture out to do a bit of grocery shopping. We also caught up on some tv recordings that we had stored up during the week. I didn't have a baking weekend like last weekend, but I'll be back at it soon enough :) My cold has gotten a lot better, and I'm hoping that I'll see the back of it by the end of the week. Yay!

No photos today of my quirky bread attempts, but I did take some quick photos of the beautiful colors in the sky this morning. It was extraordinary. There is just something magical about sunrises and sunsets! These photos were taken from inside, through the windows since I wasn't dressed to go outside when I took them. But I hope that they convey what I saw when I looked outside. Enjoy...and have a good day!

Messed Up Bread

2011-10-17T17:01:00.005+01:00

I had a pretty good weekend. I’ve been wrestling with a cold, but today I feel somewhat better. And I’m relieved. I hope that things continue to improve...
Anyway, I decided to forget about my cold and make some chaos in the kitchen this weekend. And that’s what I’d call it, especially when I saw the finished product. LOL. Brace yourselves for this....here it is!

I know you may be wondering...what the heck is that!!?? Well it is supposed to be bread. It’s called 21st Century bread and it’s supposed to be sort of unformed and rustic looking. But it turned out looking really tore up! LOL. However, I tasted a chunk today and it doesn’t taste that bad after sitting overnight. I’m gonna have to tweak my technique though, so that next time my bread is more edible like the one on the cooking show ;-) I saw the recipe on a television show here, but when I went to the website to get the recipe, they didn’t have it listed. So I googled it and found it listed on a blog. I’m going to have to check the measurements again because something went wrong.

It’s bread that has cheese and chives in it. In the original recipe, the cook had ham in it too, but I didn’t have any ham. I think that if I get the recipe to work out right, it will be very tasty. It looked delicious when it was presented on the show.

The reason that I’m posting my not so successful attempt is to be truthful and to out my own cooking... the mess ups make me laugh! As I’ve mentioned here before, I want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of my cooking on this blog. So here it is...ain’t it pretty?!! LOL. Better luck next time.

Foods That I Eat Here #2

2011-10-13T16:09:00.006+01:00

I’m finally here to blog. It’s been a busy week and I didn’t get back here as quickly as I wanted, but the good thing is that I’m here now :) And I’m glad.

So last time I said that I was going to pick up my prematurely abandoned series called ‘Foods That I Eat Here’. It was a series that previously only amounted to one post. LOL. But now with some change in perspective I’m ready to revisit it. When I say that I’ve had a change in perspective it is because of a realization that I’ve had lately. See, I’ve been here five and a half years now and I’ve been visiting over here for about eight years. And I forget sometimes just how familiar things have become to me. However, if people don’t live here or have never visited, some things no matter how regular they are to me may seem mysterious to others. So I’ve started to look at things with fresh eyes so that I can share them here with you, my readers. One of my original intentions for writing this blog was to share my experiences of cultural differences with everyone out there in blog land.

Over the years I’ve experienced new customs, foods, places, and a whole lot of other things here in England. A while back I felt as if I had run out of things to talk about on this blog, but then I realized that just sharing what I’ve learned in this new place could be of value in a small way. Truthfully, it is a great experience, but some days I realize just how similar life is in different places when you get down to the simple everyday stuff. But hey this is just my take...maybe I’m missing some action somewhere ;-) So I am going to revive my series on ‘Foods That I Eat Here’ and try to share from time to time what a regular chica like myself munches on. And I’m also going to share more about other things that I do here or see here so that you all can see the fantastic stuff and the regular stuff side by side...and enjoy a peek at a life in another country. Thinking of my blog this way has invigorated my interest again. So I hope that you’ll keep visiting as I become a better tour guide :)

Now that I’ve rebooted a bit, here’s my long time coming second entry in my series of ‘Foods That I Eat Here’. So, I decided to start off with a snack that I like...nothing gourmet or anything that I made. And hey, who doesn't like a snack????

In the photo above, these are Walkers crisps, or as I say, potato chips. Hee hee. And no, I’m not getting any money to talk about these. I wish :) This is a totally organic situation of me telling you about something that I like. Now, I don’t eat these everyday because if I did I would never stop! But when I do eat them I enjoy them a lot. To me they taste very much like potato chips back home and the packaging is similar.

A few days ago, Brit Boy and I were at the grocery store and we saw this big multipack (in the above photo) and we got a really good deal because they were on sale. What I like about this big multipack is that you get a variety of flavours in it. And there’s a chance to try some of the flavors that I haven’t tried before.

Here are all of the flavors ( I forgot to get the roast chicken in the shot, but you get the idea):

I do have my favorites out of this bunch. I like the smoky bacon and the cheese and onion. I also like the sour cream and chives flavor, but there were none in this particular pack. Brit Boy likes the ones that I like and he is also a big fan of the salt and vinegar flavor. We ate the other flavors for the experience and they weren’t bad, although I couldn’t bring myself to eat the prawn cocktail crisps. I will say, the Worcester sauce flavor was the most unique tasting of them all and I grew to like them well enough...at least to finish the multipack ;-) And here’s a quirk that I have...and I have my share of them. I do like to have the smoky bacon flavor if we are watching the soap opera EastEnders on occasion. My logic is weird, but they often have scenes in that show when they are eating bacon or having their 'fry-ups' and I get the taste for bacon immediately. LOL.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my second entry in my series and now you know something about some of the potato chips or crisps here in England. And I promise this series is here to stay because I love writing about food.....Until next time!

Othello and Different Foods

2011-10-06T16:25:00.002+01:00

Hi there :) I just wanted to drop in with a very short post and to let you know that I'm still here. I will be doing a proper post in a couple of days. This week I started my new year of courses, so I'm knee deep in Othello right now. I will definitely be needing the release of blogging by the weekend, so I'm looking forward to posting. I'm going to be doing a food post next time, as I love to write about eating ;-) This will not be about something I've cooked, but about something I eat here. It will pick up on my series that never really got going a long while back now. It was called 'Foods that I Eat Here'. Check out my one and only post here . Never really got off the ground...LOL. So I thought that I'd resurrect it since I like the idea of sharing food differences.

So watch this space...I'll be back with a food to share next time :)

Sunny Days

2011-09-28T13:38:00.004+01:00

Hello all...so, I was just in the kitchen a few minutes ago, washing some dishes and I was overjoyed with I saw outside....a blue sky!!! :)

We haven't had the greatest weather this past summer, so this little September surprise of warm weather that we're having here in southwest England is truly wonderful! We're supposed to have some splendid weather for the rest of this week so I'm extremely happy about that.

I think that I'll head out to enjoy the nice weather for a few minutes before I get back to studying. Days like this are meant to be relished!

Until next time...

My Friend

2011-09-24T14:21:00.003+01:00

I heard some sad news yesterday and it's been on my mind a lot over the last 24 hours. I heard that a former co-worker and friend of mine had passed away. His name was Jerry. He was a really great guy and when I heard the news, I was truly startled because he was one of those people that was truly ALIVE!

He passed away while he was on a vacation with his brother. Jerry loved to travel and often did so with his brother :) He loved going out to the western US states with his brother to hang out and do 'guy stuff'. And when I worked with him, he would always come back from his vacation with a smile on his face and he always had an adventurous story to tell. He was a man of a certain age, an adventurer by nature and loved the heck out of life. I used to call him 'The Senator' because I told him he looked like a statesman of some sort. He laughed when I called him that and would sometimes come into the office doing a politician-like wave. When he would come into the office after his vacations, he would bring back photos sometimes to let me see what beautiful or interesting place he had been. A few years ago, right after I moved here to England, he sent me a photo CD with pics from his latest trip with his brother. I was so touched because we were still in touch and he was thoughtful enough to continue his tradition of sharing his photos with me even though I was thousands of miles away. That's the kind of genuine person that he was :)

We have kept in touch by email from time to time and he had recently signed onto Facebook, so we had connected there. I was so thrilled that he was on there so that I could see what he was up to day to day. I saw recently that he was headed off on his vacation...

I was truly shocked when I heard about him passing away and even though I've been here in England for five and a half years now and I hadn't seen him physically in all that time, I miss him as if I just left our office yesterday. He was one of the good guys in this world. I will always miss my friend and I'm glad that I have the memories of those days that seem so long ago now.

Life is so precious and we can be gone in the blink of an eye. We are all so blessed to know those that we love and care about in our lives. I'm proud to have known Jerry and to have called him my friend.

Grits and Memory

2011-09-20T16:15:00.003+01:00

In my last post, I said that I would be doing a food post. Well this is a post about a craving and not about something I've cooked. Oh I wish that I could right now. I don't have any on hand, but I know that I will have them again ;-)

For the last few days, I've been thinking quite a bit about one of my favorite foods and it's something that I can't readily get here...grits! :) I never in my life thought that I would miss any food so much. And here's the thing, I'm not a person who just has to have certain foods on a regular basis. I'm not usually a craver, but I am truly craving grits these days. And just to clarify it all...I'm not pregnant so it's not those kind of cravings. LOL.

I get the worse cravings on weekend mornings because that is when I would have them mostly. I guess that they are a fully entrenched food memory. Grits make me think of home and my mother cooking them for our breakfast for decades. I know that there are people who hate grits and can't understand the fuss and that's cool...I respect that everyone's likes are theirs and this like is truly mine :) I was thinking about it the other day and yeah, my craving can be reduced down to simply having a taste for grits. But also I think that they were such a part of my experience as a southern girl and that connection with my culture is so strong that an ocean can't even keep me from it.

I am happy most days with my different life here in England. But sometimes I miss the simple things about back home so much. The list changes depending upon my mood that day. And it's not one of those grass is always greener situations. I'll tell you, I've learned one thing about having lived in two different countries now...there are bad, good, annoying, and uplifting things about both places. Neither one is better than the other...they each have things going for them for sure. I'm not trying to sell grits to anybody or even attempting to validate my love for grits. I don't need to :) I just thought that I would make my perspective clear. Love is love and I've got it bad and grits are it baby! LOL.

Food memories are great. I guess that's the good thing about food memories or regular memories...you always have them to call upon whenever you want to remember a person, time, or a place. I know that we can't go back in time and it's not good to always be looking back, but sometimes it doesn't hurt a thing...especially when you're trying to remember the taste of grits! :)

Two Trips To the Water

2011-09-14T14:46:00.005+01:00

I'm happy to report that our shower was finally fixed this past Friday and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't break down again. We can only hope ;-) Anyhoo, here are the photos that I promised. They are from our trip to Bournemouth and a local lake a few weeks ago. Both places were relaxing and it was great to get out into nature. I was in a black and white photography mood on some of these. I didn't take a lot of photos because I forgot about it most of the time and just had fun ;-) I'll write a few words about each photo, so I hope you enjoy them!

Above: This is a picture of an interesting historical display on the pier in Bournemouth. I thought it was intriguing to read some background on the region.

Above: This is the view from the pier on the other side. I liked looking off into the distance. You can see a bit of the shoreline in this shot, but I just loved being near the water.

Above: This is the view over the side of the pier along a perch of some sort. This is a really random shot, but I thought I'd throw it in ;-)

Above: This is a shot of the village of Avebury, when we were on our way back home. Avebury's main claim to fame is its stones, which are similar to the ones at Stonehenge. The building in this shot is a pub.

Above: This is a view over the side of the bridge along a stream at the lake. It was really quiet out there that day.

Above: Here's a a view of the lake with a few ducks swimming by.

Above: And lastly, here's a view of the bridge on our return from our walk.

As I said before, both places were great. The lake was just peaceful and very quiet since it was in the middle of the week. It was really good to get back out in nature like that. And the trip to Bournemouth was extra special because getting to the beach is always a treat and we don't get to go often. It had been about three years since we had driven down there last. We had a really good lunch and then went walking along the shore as I ate my cotton candy. I tell you, every time I eat cotton candy, it instantly takes me back in time to being at the county fair back home. That's one of my big memory triggers...cotton candy! :-)

Well that's all for today. Next time I'll be doing a food post. I've been making up or improvising recipes a lot lately. So I'd love to share what I've been cooking. Until next time...

Remembering

2011-09-11T10:03:00.003+01:00

Remembering those who lost their lives on 9-11-01, in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania...

Photos and More Photos

2011-09-02T21:16:00.007+01:00

So here I go with my photo post that I promised in a previous post. I had mentioned that it’s been a long time since I did a kind of photo snapshot post with a few words about each. I figure that this will be a good way to get me back on my blogging game a bit more since I’ve been away for chunks of time lately due to school and life in general :-)

When I looked back over the photos that I’ve taken these past few weeks, it was like experiencing those moments all over again. Most of the photos here are of nice things, but there’s one that I’m adding that isn’t. I feel the need to include it because life is a balance and everything isn’t all fabulous all the time, you know. Plus, a mini photo vent is good ;-) Nothing else sums up the frustration of my week more than this photo.

Here is my annoying photo:

This is our stupid electric shower...GRRRR! It has broken down again for the umpteenth time and we have truly lost count now. We have been struggling back and forth with our landlord and his middleman to get our shower fixed. For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you know that Brit Boy and I have had this problem before. Here’s the thing, it’s already bad enough that it’s malfunctioning again, but the real reason that we’re ticked off is that the landlord doesn’t want to pay to fix it. It’s not our fault...it’s simply a cheap shower. To call him cheap would be a gross understatement. It has been total Crazyville around here. So I’ve spent the week calling back and forth to the management office. Finally things got going today, so hopefully this photo and the situation will fade into the past and stay there ;-)

Anyway, that’s my annoying photo just to shake things up a bit. The rest are calm and nice...a gentle respite from the chaos :-) So on with the calming section of our show!

Below are my beautiful flowers that Brit Boy brought home to me one day. Aren’t they pretty? It was on the Friday right before he had his vacation time a couple of weeks ago. He surprised me and these put a big smile on my face.

This next photo is truly the last of the pink roses out back. I posted some color pictures of this bush before here, and I thought that that was the last of them but alas, these are. I took this picture after a rain shower and I thought that the black and white represented how it looked outside very well. I LOVE black and white photos!

These next pictures were taken when we were further out in the countryside. Whenever we are further out like that, the rural beauty of it all reminds me of back home. The beauty of the family land where I grew up is echoed in my heart when I see the natural beauty here. I am definitely a nature girl. Maybe it’s God’s way of connecting me with home when those thoughts come into my head. Natural beauty...there’s nothing like it...

All of these were taken from the passenger seat as Wiltshire passed by our window, so some are blurry but you can get the idea of how it looked that day I think.

Above: Wiltshire scenes

Above: This one is kinda trippy...Everything blurred as we swept along...

Above: I like that the traffic signal is set off by the flowers...

Above: The clouds marching along the field...

Above: A shady and bright spot...

Above: A blurry shot of sunlight raining down on Stonehenge...

Well, this post is very long, so I will post some more photos in my next post. These will be of our trip to the beach one day and I'll throw in a few lake shots too. And don't worry, these upcoming ones were taken while I was standing on my feet so no blurry trippy stuff ;-) Until next time...

One More Thing...

2011-09-01T14:03:00.002+01:00

I am collecting my photos and will be posting them tomorrow as I promised in a previous post. It has been fun to go back in time over the past few weeks and relive those moments :) So watch this space for my photos!

Having the Vacation Rental Experience

2011-09-01T13:32:00.005+01:00

A few years ago, when Brit Boy and I were first together, we rented a cute cottage down in Cornwall. Cornwall is a beautiful part of England near the seaside. We wanted to go down there to visit and have a chance to relax. When we were planning our trip, we thought of booking our time in one of the hotels, which would have been fine. But then we thought that maybe it would be fun to rent a house for the two weeks that we were going to be down there. So we did just that! And let me tell you, it was very comparable in price to the same time in a hotel.

We ended up renting a small cottage from a semi-retired movie crewman and his artist wife. The cottage that we rented was across from their house. It was a regular little vacation complex with three houses. There was the couple’s house, a restored barn that they had turned into a rental space, and the granary cottage where we stayed. The granary cottage that we rented was charming. It had been restored beautifully and extended to make a four room house. Staying in our own little house and being able to cook our own food made our experience in Cornwall extra special. It was like living there! And the bonus of renting the house was that we got the chance to live amongst local people like the couple that we rented from. As a side note, I also loved their cat Fergus, who would visit our patio window every morning :-)

So I highly recommend this experience of renting a place during a vacation. I’m often asked by people what it’s like to live abroad; well this is a way to get a little taste of a different life even if it’s for just a while. There are many options out there when you search for England vacation rentals. You might want to visit Cornwall next summer, or perhaps take a trip to London and everywhere in between. There’s so much to experience.

Since the couple were locals around Cornwall, they were able to direct us to spots that we should see. Our hosts showed us a path that led along some lovely woodland and eventually came out to overlook the coast. It was fantastic!

Brit Boy and I set out on our walk and it felt like we were already locals being let in on some secret. The path was quiet and all that I could hear around us was nature at its finest. When we made it out of the woods, we came out at a point where we were overlooking the seafront town. It was so beautiful!

Vacation time is a precious thing and when it’s as memorable as our time at the granary cottage it stays in the heart forever. We haven’t been back down there for quite a while now, but I hope to have that experience again in the future. Whether it’s a rental in Cornwall or somewhere else, I know that it will be great because there’s something special about having a home away from home!

Disclosure: This is a compensated post for Vacation Home Rentals. The opinions expressed here are my own and so are the memories :-)

A Quick Sunday Note

2011-08-28T22:33:00.003+01:00

Hello :-) I can't believe that my catching up post was nearly three weeks ago. Eek! Time does fly. I'm still in the thick of studying, but this current course is coming to a close. I've received my new textbooks for my second year so it's good to see progress. And I'm happy about that!

I mentioned in my last post that I'd be sharing some pics again and I will in this new week we have ahead of us :-) I'm going to share a kind of hodgepodge of pics over the last three weeks I think. I remember that I used to do this sometimes in my early days of blogging and perhaps it will be a breath of fresh air. I feel the need for a bit of a new direction, or in this case a revisiting of an old direction that can be new again. Besides, I'm always snapping photos, so I could be sharing just about anything...within reason and decorum ;-) Yes, I think that's what I will do...share some random photos to invigorate things around my blog here and stop these darned tumbleweeds in their tracks!

So I hope that you will come back and visit me early this week and see what's been happening around The Yellow House! Until then...have a great rest of the weekend...

Catching Up

2011-08-09T12:32:00.003+01:00

Hello...I just wanted to drop in for a quick minute to let you all know that I haven't deserted my blog :) I'll be back in a couple of days to post some more pics and after that I'll write more again. I've been swamped with work for school. It's coming down to the wire right now...yay!!! However, I start right back up again within days on another level ;-) It's challenging work, but I'm truly enjoying it, so I have no complaints.

I've been storing up things to write about so hopefully the blogging well won't go dry for a while. I still have food posts that I want to share and they've really piled up, so be forewarned...lol.

I hope everyone has a good day!

Roses

2011-07-25T14:59:00.003+01:00

These are some of the last roses blooming in our backyard. I wanted to capture them before they go and share a couple of pics. This year the roses were more plentiful than I've ever seen them. I hope that everyone has a great week! :-)

The End of an Era

2011-07-21T12:40:00.003+01:00

Today is a bittersweet day. The Space Shuttle Atlantis came home for the last time. Bravo to everyone at NASA.

Welcome Home Space Shuttle Atlantis!!!

Photo credit(above):Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Photo credit(above): Terry Renna/Associated Press

Choi Time Tea Review

2011-07-19T18:49:00.006+01:00

Through blogging, I’ve had the pleasure to try different things and then share my thoughts with you here. I was very pleased when the Choi Time tea company sent me some of their superior Chinese teas to try. These teas have been called “the Dom Perignon of the tea world” by the Sunday Times Style Magazine. They definitely are elegant teas and are unlike any that I’ve ever tasted before.

The Choi Time tea company is a family run business and they pride themselves on producing quality teas. Their tea is ethically sourced from the rich tea growing provinces of Hangzhou and Fujian in China. They have won several accolades at the Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Food.

When the package arrived I was excited to try something totally new to me. I love tea...mostly regular herbal and green teas. And hey, I’m from the southern United States, so you know I love iced tea for sure ;-) But if I’m drinking hot teas, the herbals are my favorite. However, I’m always open to trying new things and especially new exotic tastes from other places in the world.

I was sent four varieties to try: Thousand Year Red, Damask Rose, Exotic Mixed Flowers, and Jasmine Pearls. The Thousand Year Red is hand-rolled and is said to aid digestion. Red is considered the luckiest color in China so I made sure that I drank every drop ;-) The Damask Rose is a loose herbal tea that comes in the form of miniature rose buds. It is very light and fragrant and it may help in the relief of anxiety according to their literature. The Exotic Mixed Flowers tea is made of white needle green tea that has been scented with jasmine blossoms and then woven with an exotic flower. And finally, the Jasmine Pearls tea is a very cleansing tea that has anti-oxidant properties. It is said to aid digestion and strengthen the immune system according to the Choi Time tea company. I can’t vouch for the health claims, but it’s interesting to have this background information. The Jasmine Pearls variety has won three gold stars at the Great Taste Awards in both 2007 and 2008.

As for my take on these teas, I’d say that they were all interesting to try. I do actually prefer the Damask Rose and the Thousand Year Red the most. Both of these varieties were light and very clean tasting without any bad aftertaste. The other two were fine, and didn’t have bad aftertastes either, but I guess that they just didn’t suit my palate. I didn't find them to be as light as the other two. But that’s the beauty of having several varieties...there’s usually something for everyone.

One cool thing about these teas is that they are hand-woven into little bulbs and then slowly unfurl and blossom right in your teacup. They put on quite the elegant show! One other great thing about these teas is that the bulbs are good for quite a few additional servings. So they last a while.

Choi Time teas can be purchased in a variety of ways, including: premium glass canisters, traditional Chinese tea caddies, packet bags, and single serve pouches.

Choi Time has graciously offered a 10% discount to all of you so that you can give the tea a try. All that you have to do is enter the code yellowhouse to use this offer. I hope you enjoy giving it a try! :-)

*Note: I received this tea free of charge and was given no financial reward for writing this review. The opinion given here is my own.

French Summer Fun

2011-07-19T14:51:00.001+01:00

I’ve just found out about a fun, new service called Francophonik. It’s a place to discover new French music, download music, and win tickets for gigs and festivals. On their Facebook page you can share new French music discoveries with others.

Since I’ve been living here in England, I’ve been trying to learn a bit more about continental Europe, so discovering Francophonik has been a fun way to get my feet wet. This is a great place to learn about all of the fun, trendy, and quirky things going on in France. I love it!

Currently, they’re holding a competition in conjunction with travel company Eurolines, which offers the chance for tickets to the Rock en Seine Festival. The festival is held about 10 kilometers (approximately 6 miles) from Paris and runs from Friday, August 26^th to Sunday, August 28^th. They’re going to be featuring some great acts at the festival, such as: the Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, Tinie Tempah, and many, many more. This sounds like a fun line-up and I’d love to be there. I’m a fan of most music in general, so I’d like to experience as many groups as I can. Seeing the Foo Fighters would be fun though since I’ve been a fan of some of their music in the past.

If you’re in the UK, all you have to do to enter is visit the Francophonik Facebook page, like it, and then apply for tickets by ticking a box there. It’s quick and easy! After ticking the box for the festival, click on the ‘enter selected competitions’ button to be in with a chance to win some tickets. I think that this is a great way to experience the festival and soak up a bit of French culture.

The Rock en Seine Festival started in 2003 and has grown in stature over the years. It has increasingly attracted many top acts and it is a well-loved part of the summer music festival scene.

I hope that you all will go by the Francophonik Facebook page and check everything out!

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A Final to Remember

2011-07-18T14:29:00.003+01:00

I just wanted to offer up a big congratulations to Japan for their win in the Women's World Cup yesterday! It was truly an amazing, nail-biting game and I just applaud everyone's athleticism on both the Japan and USA teams!

I watched the whole thing whilst checking Twitter every so often and it was so fun to feel that collective experience with everybody. I was cheering my loudest for the USA team of course :) I'll tell you one thing I loved though...seeing tweets from a wide variety of people across gender and everything else who were cheering for our team. It was great to see women being great at something and having the respect of so many. I've talked about that collective experience thing before and I think that every once in a while it is fun to be together like that...even if it's through technology ;-) I guess that it resonated with me a bit extra because I'm so far away from home and through Facebook and Twitter it's like I was at home in a way...watching with my niece. I'll just say...it was cool to experience and Brit Boy had fun too!

The USA team didn't win, but I wasn't sad at the end because both teams had accomplished something important together...raising the profile of women in sports. Also, both teams showed that they were all amazing athletes. In the end, gender had nothing to do with it and I love that!

And I also wasn't sad because of one other thing, and I saw this over and over in other peoples' tweets. I'm so glad for Japan because this win is something that they can hold onto after all of the tragedy that they have had recently. I applaud the team because they never gave up in their quest to win. So my hat is off to them. Congratulations to Japan! :)

I thank both teams for giving us all a thriller of a final!

Get to Know Senit

2011-07-15T19:48:00.001+01:00

I love great music and a great new pop song can always give me a lift. I’m very fond of singing along to music, even though my own singing is not a pretty sound to hear. However, I’ve just found out about someone who can sing beautifully.

Her name is Senit and she is a great singer of Eritrean origin, who was born in Bologna, Italy. She performed in the Eurovision Song Contest this year, where she represented San Marino. Now this busy artist is moving on to her next project. Senit has just released her new single “Through the Rain”, which is from her fourth album which is due to be released by the end of this year.

“Through the Rain” is a fun, upbeat song which showcases the true talent of this beautiful lady. Here’s a sample of the song for your listening and viewing pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2GSY6i9mCA

As you can see and hear, she is an exciting performer who knows how to give the crowd a great show. Her stage presence was surely honed through her impressive list of musical theatre credits. Senit has performed in shows such as The Lion King, Fame, Hair, and Rent. Her dynamic performing style is evident in her role nowadays as an international pop star.

Senit has made a seamless transition from singing in Italian to singing in English. She has recently collaborated with some American record producers who have worked with the likes of Pink, Beyonce, and Christina Aguilera in the past. Senit is definitely an artist to get to know as her audience grows around the world.

So why not give yourself a treat and check out Senit ! “Through the Rain” is available for download at iTunes. You can also find out more about her here: http://www.believedigital.it/artists/104974,senit.html or at her official website. You can also follow her on Facebook. And hey, why not stop back by here and let me know how you liked “Through the Rain” if you do purchase it. All of us new Senit fans can have a chat!

Senit

music

iTunes

Through the rain

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Hyde Park Walk

2011-07-08T11:04:00.000+01:00

Here are a few photos that I wanted to share. I took these during our trip to London recently, as we walked through Hyde Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day!

Honda Campaign Revs Up

2011-07-07T21:21:00.001+01:00

Living in Wiltshire and being a Swindon Town fan, I was intrigued when an email concerning a new campaign by Honda dropped into my inbox. Honda is one of the major employers in Swindon where they have a giant car production plant, and a previous advertising campaign even drew on their links with the town. As a result of these links, a large proportion of the cars seen around the Swindon area are Hondas of one type or another.

This new campaign draws on Honda’s existing sponsorship of Channel 4 documentaries. Apparently, this sponsorship will not only continue throughout 2011 but will also be enhanced with an online hub and a series of mini-documentaries. These documentaries, and the associated idents for the Channel 4 shows, will feature actual Honda owners and will tell the stories of how they use their vehicles in unique ways. For example, the first of these four documentaries will feature an alpaca breeder from neighbouring Oxfordshire who uses her Honda ATV to help tend the animals.

Together with their mini-documentary, each owner will feature in a range of idents which will carry a unique URL leading viewers to extra content. The online hub at www.honda.co.uk/stories will feature each documentary in full, as well as other films, articles and interesting stories. There’s also a “Take Part” section where other Honda owners can upload their own photographs and stories of how they use their own vehicles in unusual ways. The favourite story that is uploaded will be chosen to be turned into its own documentary and series of idents for TV. Visit http://bit.ly/lsTX1A (designboom) to find out more about the competition.

<center><div class="ebuzzing_box"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://ebuzzing.co.uk/player_blog/player.php?parametre=410311"></script><a href="http://ebuzzing.co.uk" class="wikio-widget-ebmini" >Viral video by ebuzzing</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://ebuzzing.co.uk/player_blog/js/mini_share.php" charset="utf-8"></script></div></center>

Honda

W+K

Channel 4

documentaries

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Wimbledon Pics

2011-07-06T15:59:00.007+01:00

Here are some of the pictures that I took when we went to Wimbledon as I promised. It was hard to decide what to post, but I hope that these give you all an idea of what it's like inside the grounds. It's a beautiful place and I highly recommend it if you get the chance to go sometime. This is one of those cases where the truth definitely lives up to the hype :)

I wrote a long piece about it when we went three years ago, so I won't repeat myself in this post. I figure that I'll just write this short bit and then just let you enjoy the pictures without a lot of words getting in the way :)

I will say that Brit Boy and I had an awesome time and it was REALLY hot that day, but I loved it! We have to relish those warm days here when we can get them ;-) The tennis itself was top notch and I just admire the athleticism of all of the players. We saw Serena Williams vs Marion Bartoli in the first match. I really enjoyed watching these two ladies play. Both women are excellent players. I was especially pleased on a personal level to see Serena play even though she didn't win. I saw her sister Venus play three years ago, so now I feel complete that I've seen both of them play. I just think that it is beyond incredible that there are two champion players like that in their family, not just one. What an incredible and inspirational story! Serena has had quite a health scare this past year, so good on her for competing the way she did! She will always be a winner to me! And congrats to Bartoli on the win.

In the second match we saw this year's mens' winner Novak Djokovic play against Michael Llodra. I didn't get any pics of this match because that was when we took a break, so we were in and out. The third match was between Roger Federer and Mikhail Youzhny. Federer won and it was a great match too. All three matches were fun to watch and I'll say it again...everyone showed how much of an incredible athlete they were. Watching everyone play just reminded me what dedication to something can really do. I applaud them all!

Well, I guess I wrote more than I intended, but oh well ;-) I got to share how much I loved it! Anyway, enjoy the pics! They're presented in a kind of collage style and kinda random, but I hope you enjoy them. Just click them to see a bigger one. Thanks as always for stopping by! :-)

Happy 4th!!!

2011-07-04T11:39:00.005+01:00

Hello all! I wanted to take time to send out Happy 4th of July greetings to all of my family and friends back home and to all my fellow Americans! Brit Boy and I had our BBQ celebration and fun yesterday, since he had to go to work today and it isn't a holiday here for obvious reasons :)

So today it's just Trevor and me around the Yellow House and Trevor wanted his picture taken so here he is showing his patriotic spirit ;-) For those of you who are new here and don't know who Trevor is, check out these previous posts here and here.

Also, I've been a bit under the weather lately so I haven't had a chance to do a post with my Wimbledon pictures, but it's coming in the next couple of days. In the meantime, check out Brit Boy's post about it on his sports blog, The Sports Ground!

Have a wonderful day!

Fiat by Gucci

2011-06-30T12:34:00.005+01:00

I’ve been offered the opportunity to present a new collaboration to you, my wonderful readers. Two iconic brands have come together to produce a great new car...the Fiat 500byGucci !

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy and Gucci’s 90th anniversary, the Fiat 500 has been re-imagined as the 500byGucci. This special edition of the iconic Fiat 500 has been customized by Gucci in partnership with Fiat’s Centro Stile and brings together two of Italy’s truly respected brands.

This collaboration is a great achievement of true Italian style. It is the perfect marriage between style and craftsmanship. It is a sleek, contemporary car which comes in either a black or a white glossy finish, which is accented by the signature red-green stripe along the exterior. The red-green striping continues to the interior where it gives a stylish flair to the seats and seatbelts. Very cool!

Please visit fiat.co.uk/500bygucci and register to be kept in the know about this fabulous car! The Fiat 500byGucci will be available in the UK this summer. So if you’re in the UK, go by the website and check it out.

Now that I’ve told you a bit about it, I’ll give you my thoughts. I love that this is a case of style meeting superior craftsmanship and that it comes together to create a car that I’d love to drive. Gucci is a well-known iconic brand and I love that they are bringing a fashionable aesthetic to this adorable car. If I could drive this car anywhere, I’d want to drive it along the Pacific Coast Highway in California. I’d truly enjoy seeing that amazing coastline. It would be a pleasure to experience it in this nifty car. I think that this collaboration gives customers the best of both worlds...style married to the excellence of a great automobile.

Fiat

Fiat 500 by Gucci

Italian car

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Headed to Wimbledon Again

2011-06-25T15:30:00.004+01:00

Hello there! I just wanted to drop in with a quick post today, as I take a break from packing. Brit Boy and I are headed into London tomorrow for a few days. We're going to Wimbledon on Monday. Here's my post from three years ago, when we went for the first time. We were surprised that we got tickets this year. They do a drawing for tickets so we never know if we'll get tickets or not. So we're really pleased to be attending again :-)

The weather has been a bit dodgy lately, so I'm hoping that the weather will be kind to us. No matter what...it will be fun to go again. I'll definitely blog about it all when I get back and also I have a couple of foodie posts to share too. So watch this space! Have a great weekend! :-)

Yellow Roses at the Yellow House

2011-06-14T14:36:00.005+01:00

Hello everybody! I'm a bit behind with my blogging again, but things have been crazy around here lately. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll just mention one thing of many...maintenance issues...LOL. There's a history of this issue around the Yellow House and our landlord is slow about fixing things...but anyway onward and upward :) All is well for now...

So I've gotten behind on posting here and I have some things that I've wanted to blog about from cooking to upcoming trips. Therefore, I'll do my best to get caught up over the next several days with a good old-fashioned blogging/purging exercise! Some of what I post may be garbage and some may be more interesting, but I just love to share no matter what...so here goes ;-)

In my last post I shared some pics that I took of our backyard and I really liked how those turned out. Well...just as I will do with my cooking posts in the future sometimes, I will share the good and not so good. lol. In a future post I'm going to share my kitchen shenanigans with melting chocolate and it coming out smelling a bit smoky...LOL. I saved it in the end though and made a tasty chocolate cake. Anyway, back to my current post of my mishaps. lol. This mishap isn't of the cooking variety, it's a photo mishap that isn't terrible, but isn't fantastic either. However I'm really embracing the whole releasing perfection a lot these days, so this is good for me. I don't know...I have this thing about admiring my bad photos. As I've said before, I'm easily amused and honoring imperfection is so fun :-)

So here are a couple of photos that I took a few days ago of the yellow roses in our front yard...yellow roses at the Yellow House ;-) I love yellow roses and I love taking photos through the frame of this window. It has a cottage feeling to the view, so I like to fool around with capturing the world framed through that window. I'm rambling. LOL. One day I may share several of my photos through that window in color and black and white. Okay, anyway, this one is a bit fuzzy, but I like that it's kinda dark. I'm no pro, but I love fooling around with my camera.

This other one is less fuzzy and you can see the roses better.

Well, that's my share for today...it's sort of like the show and tell that we used to do when I was in elementary school many moons ago :-) I hope you've enjoyed a peek at my photos and now that things are quieting down a bit I'll be posting more. We have another trip to London coming up in a couple of weeks and I'll give you a hint...people will be wearing white and carrying tennis rackets. It won't be me though...because I'd pass out from exhaustion. LOL.

Until next time...have a great day!

Our Backyard at the Yellow House

2011-06-03T16:35:00.005+01:00

It's a beautiful Friday here. The sun is shining and the sky is so blue. We haven't had days like this a lot lately, so I relish them when they come.

Today in honor of beauty, I just wanted to share some photos that I took a couple of days ago. We have some pretty flowers in our backyard and I took out my camera and snapped a few pics. I hope you enjoy checking out a bit of the backyard at the Yellow House. And I hope that everyone has a fabulous weekend! :-)

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T13:04:00.004+01:00

Today is Memorial Day back home in the USA, so I wanted to pause for a moment and give thanks to my father and all of those who have served our country through the generations. I will never forget your sacrifices for all of us.

Nougat London Hand Cream Review

2011-05-24T14:00:00.005+01:00

Recently I was sent a wonderful tuberose and jasmine hand cream by Nougat London. Let me tell you, I really love this hand cream. It goes on so smoothly and it doesn’t leave a greasy residue AT ALL! :) I love that because I’m not a fan of creams or lotions that feel icky long after you’ve applied them. This one is a winner for sure! Another great thing about it is that it has a clean, light fragrance that is just so refreshing.

The jar that I was sent looks like this...

And here’s a peek at this fabulous product inside and up close!

I had never heard of this collection of products, so I was pleased to learn about them and to get the chance to try out the hand cream. I always love to know more about the products I use, so I was intrigued to know more about this line. Now, I’d like to share with you all what I've found out :) Here’s the skinny on Nougat London!

Nougat London Limited started life as a fashion collection in London’s West End in 1990. The first Nougat collection was inspired by the glamour and intrigue of film noir, focusing on the refined elegance of the screen sirens of yesteryear.

Their philosophy is to remain consistent through all the new products that they launch. Only the finest ingredients, none of which has ever been tested on animals, are used to create beautiful products ideal for gifts or the ultimate in self indulgence.

The signature Tuberose and Jasmine fragrance has a delicate scent which incorporates the sweet notes of warm milk, white peach, sandalwood, cedar wood, vanilla and musk.

This hand cream is rich and contains the smoothing properties of cocoa butter as well as almond and macadamia oils renowned for their ability to hydrate the skin. All products are manufactured to meet all European & North American requirements. It’s available in a 200ml glass jar, 40ml & 75ml tube or a 50ml glass jar.

I’m so glad that I was offered the chance to try out this wonderful hand cream. What a treat it has been!

**Sponsored Post for Nougat London via Fuel My Blog

My Love For Eurovision

2011-05-16T15:28:00.005+01:00

This past Saturday night, Brit Boy and I watched an annual favorite around the Yellow House...the Eurovision Song Contest! :-) It’s always great fun to watch and see what everyone has to offer. It is always intriguing to me to see people from so many places. And here’s a quirk I have, while I’m watching I’m wondering what everybody’s life is like on Monday morning after all of this. I’m just intrigued to know how others day to day lives in other countries are. One question that goes through my mind is...what does everyone have for breakfast? That would be so interesting to know! I love knowing about people!

Okay, I’ll now escort all of you good people out of my head and get back to the contest. LOL. I want to start this off by saying that I hope that all of the videos are viewable. Fingers crossed ;-)

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed watching the contest each year since I’ve been living here in England. My favorite performer still is this guy from a couple of years back who won the contest. He was so excited and this song still sticks in my head. It was all beautifully surreal. Check Alexander out in my post from two years ago.

This year was as entertaining as always. I give everybody credit for trying and it’s great fun to sit back and watch it all. One of my favorite acts this year was from Moldova. They were beautifully eccentric (my kind of folks) and I just love that they were rocking the hats! The girl on the unicycle is just epic. They just really went for it! Check them out below.

My absolute favorites were the ladies from Serbia. They were working it Motown style and I love all of that. Go ladies! ;-) I couldn’t understand the words, but it didn’t matter. That’s the great thing about music...it translates no matter what! Have a listen to them below...

The winners were from Azerbaijan and they had an okay song. They were very laid back. Congrats to them.

As I said before, it’s always an entertaining night of television so I thought I’d share it with you all. Have a great week!

Storm In A Teacup

2011-05-13T19:28:00.004+01:00

Recently, I was sent a sample of tea to review and let me tell you, I love it!!! I only have a few left in the box and I’m really rationing them at this point ;-) The tea that I was sent is called Storm Tea and it has to be some of the best tea that I’ve had in a long time.

Let me set the stage for you...okay, they sent me a box of their Organic Lemongrass & Vanilla Tea, along with one single serving of the Organic English Breakfast Tea. The packaging is really nifty. The box is transparent, so you can see what you’re getting and I like that. The box contains fifteen of their silk pyramids.

The various teas are organic and whole leaf teas, which deliver a delicious, clean taste. The pyramid design of the bags allows space for the tea to swoosh around, so you get all of the flavor and have ‘the perfect storm’ in your teacup. Check out the photo below to see how it all works to give you an excellent cup of tea!

I found both the Organic English Breakfast Tea and the Organic Lemongrass & Vanilla Tea very tasty, and as I mentioned before there is a wonderfully smooth, clean taste to these teas. Between the two, my personal favorite was the Lemongrass & Vanilla Tea. This variety contains: lemongrass, apple bits, hibiscus blossoms, orange peels, vervain, and vanilla pods. This flavor sells for £3.99 per fifteen count box and the price varies with the other flavors.

I had never heard of Storm Tea before, so I’m glad that I’ve been introduced to it. I’m very partial to fruit teas and herbal teas, so I look forward to trying their other varieties. Check them out on Twitter. I would definitely recommend this tea to all the tea lovers out there and to those who enjoy a truly refreshing drink. Enjoy!

*Sponsored Post for Storm Tea via Fuel My Blog

Our Trip to The Royal Wedding

2011-05-02T17:11:00.015+01:00

We had a wonderful wedding anniversary and our trip to London was historic and lots of fun. The royal wedding had London all abuzz when we got there. Let me back up a bit though. And I have a variety of photos, so I'll just scatter them within this post independently with captions :)

We headed to London on Thursday morning, the 28th, by bus and train. When we arrived in London we made our way to our hotel to drop off our bags. Then we headed out to see the last minute preparations and see what kind of action was going on. We headed to Westminster Abbey and there were loads of people walking around. There were loads of media around and we saw recognizable reporters amongst the crowds getting interviews with people in the crowds. There were quite a few people camped out too and there was a definite buzz in the air.

Leading up to the side of Westminster Abbey

Front of Westminster Abbey the day before royal wedding

Some of the media across from Westminster Abbey

Then we headed to Buckingham Palace to check things out. Lots of people were camped out along The Mall and there were loads of media and people walking about here too, but the crowds weren’t as big. Since this was a bit of a strategic trip out, we decided that standing along The Mall would be the best place for us to catch a glimpse of things the next day. We really enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere as there was lots of happy anticipation in the air.

Top: Some media across from Buckingham Palace;Middle: Views along The Mall; Bottom: On the way to The Mall (all taken the day before the wedding)

I noticed something when we were watching the various media outlets in their makeshift studios. Whenever they wanted to have cheering in the background, they would have someone on their staff out to the side waving their arms in order to get people to whoop and holler :) And nearly every one of the news studios from different countries did it. A great unifying practice ;-) They also motioned people over who had signs so that they could get them in the background of their live shots whilst their anchors interviewed people. It was surreal and very orchestrated. Who knew? ;-) It was fun to watch. Brit Boy and I hung out for a while longer and played “spot the news anchor”, and then we headed off for a bite to eat. Then we went back to the hotel to chill in preparation for our early start the next day.

On the day of the royal wedding, also our wedding anniversary, we got up and out a bit before 6am. Some people were already out besides those who camped overnight, but not that many. We took a place along The Mall and stood behind some ladies who had camped out and a couple who got there a few minutes before us. Later loads of people filled in behind us. We got a very good spot considering the fact that we didn’t camp out for a spot. The couple in front of us were very nice and we chatted a lot. It was a great way to pass the time together as we all waited. The couple were from the United States like myself and have been living in London for a short time due to the husband’s short-term job assignment here. The ladies who camped out were from South Africa and England, whilst behind us there was a lady from Argentina. It was a very eclectic group in our little section. My own main personal intention for going to see the royal wedding was to experience this global event and that’s exactly what it was. I heard many accents from all around the UK, the USA, continental Europe, Africa, Asia, and everywhere around the world. It was truly a sea of humanity! And I loved that Brit Boy and I got the chance to be a part of this crowd and a part of history.

We were very lucky to get such a good place to watch. Crowds quickly swarmed in right after we got there. It was quite a crunch to be standing there and not be able to move our feet, but it was worth it in the end. Speaking of feet, our hands and feet were freezing. It was a chilly day and there was a cold wind blowing.

Top: The guards & tv cameras; Middle: The Fabulous Band; Bottom: Excited happy people :)

We tried to get some photos, but it was a tough assignment :) Some are rather blurred so I won’t bore you with them. When the royals were heading to the church, the cars sped by very quickly and the crowd went into a frenzy...so I got some pretty random shots. We could hear the ceremony on loudspeakers and they had these programs for sale for £2.

When they all headed back to Buckingham Palace, they came back at a slower pace but it was still tough to get a good shot. But I’ll tell you, seeing it all was something that I’ll never forget :)

Top four: Prince William & Kate; Middle: Prince Charles, Duchess of Cornwall, & Kate's parents; Bottom two: Queen Elizabeth & the Duke of Edinburgh

After they all passed by we made our way down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace. We had been standing for about seven hours so we were a bit stiff. The crowd bottlenecked at one point, so we took a shortcut through St. James Park and somehow got closer to the palace than we expected considering how enormous the crowd was. It was quite a crush so my photos turned out kinda random, but I got a few. We saw the balcony appearance and both of the kisses.

All of the above: the balcony appearance :)

And then it was over. We didn’t see Prince William and Kate drive out in the car, because like many others we had dispersed. However, the memories of those days will stay with us forever!

Here are a few inexpensive things we picked up as souvenirs. The free things were being passed out at or around train stations.

Top: flag £1; Middle: tea - free; Bottom: card - free:)

Brit Boy and I made our way out of the crowd slowly...it was quite a crunch, and then we headed to Covent Garden to have our anniversary lunch/dinner. It was so delicious and we were so hungry by that point. It was truly a wonderful day...and it was one that we’ll never forget. We were so happy to be there to witness it all!

The Mall heading to Buckingham Palace the day after the royal wedding:)

The day after, we had a bit of time to kill before we caught our train, so we went back to see how things were the day after. A lot of the scaffolding was being dismantled along The Mall and at the temporary television studios. And the sky was a beautiful blue...a perfect way to end a great trip!

P.S. ~ Check out Brit Boy's post about it at his blog: Getting Busy Living

Trip to London & Matrimony

2011-04-27T19:12:00.003+01:00

I just wanted to drop in with a short post and say hello :) Brit Boy and I are headed out tomorrow morning on another London adventure. As I mentioned in this post, we are going for a visit to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. We had planned our trip and then coincidentally, the royal wedding was announced. So I guess that we'll be right there to see what we can see. I'll take some pics if I can get any. Wish me luck! ;-) Even if I don't get any royal-esque pics, I'll hopefully get something to share here. So watch this space!

Have a great rest of the week and I'll be back to share in a few days.

P.S. ~ Also, I have a couple of items that I've been sent to review and I'll be sharing those in future posts. One tastes really great and one is very smooth...

Until next time...

A Glorious Day

2011-04-22T16:44:00.005+01:00

(Photo courtesy of NASA)

I wanted to wish a HAPPY EARTH DAY to everyone! My heart sings with love for this beautiful planet that we call home :-)

And I can certainly not forget Good Friday and all that it conjures up for me. This Easter season immediately reminds me of my days growing up back in Georgia. Easter was always one of my very favorite times of the year and it always brings feelings of renewal to my mind. When I was a child, we would prepare an Easter program at church and it was a glorious tradition. All of us kids would participate by singing and/or reciting what we called Easter speeches. The Easter speeches were poetic pieces that we learned by heart and recited to the congregation and our proud parents. I look back now and realize how lucky we all were to be able to have that sense of community. Those times live now only in my memories, but I'm glad that they're mine forever :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Anniversaries and Royal Weddings

2011-04-12T15:57:00.004+01:00

I wanted to give you a bit of a preview of what’s coming up in regards to our ongoing adventures here at the Yellow House. Well, we’re headed to London in about sixteen days and it promises to be very interesting! ;-) As many of you know, Prince William will be marrying Kate Middleton on April 29th, so London will be alive with activity for sure. But here’s the deal...they are getting married on me and Brit Boy’s 5th wedding anniversary! So it’ll be a double celebration in our eyes.

We had already planned and booked our trip to London for our anniversary and then we found out that the royal couple would be getting hitched on the 29th. So we figure that as long as we’re going to be in London anyway to celebrate our big day, we may as well see what we can see with the royal wedding. It should be fun and eventful to say the least! :-)

Brit Boy and I have seen several of the royals before. Check out my post here to go down the Yellow House memory lane. So to be honest, we’re not going just to catch a glimpse of a royal or two; we’re going to check things out to be part of the collective experience. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see them all and I’m not saying we’ve become jaded about seeing them or anything...far from it. Seeing them will be great. It’s just that to us it will be about sharing a collective experience with thousands of others and that should be cool. And it’s a part of history, so it will definitely be something to write in my memoirs one day ;-) Shared experiences like this are so rare these days due to so many things going on all the time at the same time. So it will be cool to share this moment with others.

And also, Brit Boy and I will just be enjoying hanging out together away from the crowds at some point and just enjoying our anniversary. Five years...who knew it would go so quickly?! :-)

Brit Boy and I will be sharing photos and such on both of our blogs. We hope we get some kind of photos of something and not so many of the backs of peoples’ heads. LOL. We shall see....anyway, watch this space and Brit Boy’s blog here to read all about our adventures!

The countdown to our adventure begins...

A Beautiful Walk

2011-04-09T18:03:00.006+01:00

I hope that everybody is having a great weekend! I just wanted to share some photos that I took yesterday. I went for a walk since it was such a gorgeous day. Walking on the nature trail here made me think about the nature trail back home in Georgia. The longer that I live here, the more I see the similarities all the time :) And that's a beautiful thing!

Burgers and Anniversaries

2011-03-28T15:31:00.004+01:00

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I’d finally do my foodie post. Well this isn’t that post yet, but this one is a sort of random weekend post that has a bit of food involved so I’m halfway there ;-) I haven’t done one of these weekend roundup random posts in a long while and it’s fun to do it again to give you an idea of what my weekend was like. How was yours? :-)

So here goes...well on Saturday night we had cheeseburgers for dinner and they were really tasty. I hadn’t had a homemade burger in a while so this was a treat and I went a little crazy with loading things onto it. LOL.

Here’s exhibit A...

Brit Boy and I sort of did our own things with toppings. We both had cheese, tomatoes, onion and lettuce and that’s where the similarities ended. I don’t remember what else he put on his because I was mesmerized by mine. So as I said before, I got carried away, but I tell you, that’s my kind of carried away. LOL. I piled on a bit of mayonnaise, a bit of ketchup, and some sweet chili sauce. It was so messy, but SO doggone good! What a triumph and I was a happy woman after this ;-)

Sunday was a big day. It marked the day five years ago when I arrived here in England to live and I still can’t believe that it’s been that long. It’s truly like they say...time flies. It was very interesting that it fell on this day because yesterday was the day when we were supposed to fill out our Census form. It is supposed to be filled out on a certain day and it just happened to fall on my anniversary day. They do the Census count here on the years numbered ‘1’, such as 2001, 2011, 2021, etc. So I thought it was quite cool that the day coincided with my anniversary day and one more thing...we switched over to British Summer Time here on the same day! Whew, that’s a lot :-) Here in England, British Summer Time is when we move our clocks forward. So it was an interesting moment in time for me yesterday.

Now it’s onward into this new week...and I’ll be sharing more of my food triumphs and my not so triumphant food experiences. Also, I’ll share the countdown to our next adventure in London that’s coming up next month!

Until next time...

Spring

2011-03-17T16:11:00.005Z

I’ve gotten behind on my posting lately. I can’t believe it’s been nearly three weeks, but I’m back here again and I’m glad to be here. Just like many of you, life gets busy and some things slip...and my blog slipped way down the list ;-) Anyway, I’ve returned so thank you for visiting me again!

I was going to post about my food adventure in this post, just like I promised in my last post, but I just wanted to ease back in with one of those take a breath posts. I’ll do my food post next time.

Spring will be arriving in a few days and it brings to mind the feeling of renewal. Both of my parents have been on my mind quite a bit lately, so when I snapped the photo below of the daffodils blooming in our backyard, I thought of how I love and miss both of them. These daffodils remind me of being back home when I was growing up...when my parents were both alive. I love spring because it makes me remember the longer days and my daddy being out in the garden. I remember the smell of the freshly plowed earth and all of the planting going on. It's amazing how those little things stay in your mind forever.

So I welcome the arrival of spring and I pray for good things ahead for all of us everywhere, all around the world.

Love of the Bird Variety

2011-02-25T16:41:00.004Z

This is one of those random posts, but I like to write these now and then. Last time I said that I’d share with you one of my favorite things. So here goes. It’s one of those simple pleasures things and I just love it. Okay, here it is…

I LOVE my bird cup!!! You know how sometimes you have a favorite cup or mug and you drink out of it as much as you can? Well this is mine! :-) My bird cup is a fairly new addition to my life around the Yellow House.

Here’s the back story on my fave cup. So, Brit Boy and I were out Christmas shopping a few months back. And as we were searching for gifts, I spotted this cup. Actually Brit Boy spotted a cup he liked first, but it isn’t a bird cup. Anyway, when he got his, I saw mine and I was sold! It's kind of weird looking and that's why I liked it and I'm easily amused ;-)

I’ll tell you, I don’t know if it’s purely psychological, but EVERYTHING tastes better in this cup. LOL. I drink green tea, white tea, chai latte, coffee, hot chocolate…everything under the sun in this cup. It gets a varied workout. But here’s what I love…it’s a good size to have soup in too. One note though, this photo makes it look huge...it's not. LOL. This is just an extreme close-up. Anyway, it’s my standard go-to favorite these days. I may be a bit obsessed with this cup, but who cares. Gotta have some pleasures in this life, right? ;-)

My next post will be a foodie post. I’ve been in the kitchen again. As I mentioned before, I’m not a great cook, but I love giving it a try from time to time and I promised to share the hills and valleys in my culinary adventures. Well, yesterday I had a bit of a high point, so I’m gonna share that. But don’t worry, I’ll still share my kitchen wrecks too….LOL. That’s really funny stuff sometimes.

Have a great weekend!

Presidential Medal of Freedom

2011-02-16T16:33:00.005Z

I had planned to blog today about one of my new favorite things as I mentioned in my previous post. However, that has now been bumped to my next post. Something happened yesterday that I want to highlight because it warms my heart every time. I guess in a roundabout way you could say this is a post about a favorite thing after all :-)

Yesterday, President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to fifteen honorees at the White House. This is the highest civilian honor given in the United States. I always love when this ceremony comes around because I love getting the chance to see who is honored and also to really “see” these people. When I watch this ceremony I always look at each and every face and it’s like you can almost feel the honor along with them. Their life’s work is laid out in front of them at that moment for the world to see, but most importantly, for them to see the great expanse of their own lives. In those moments, I see their humanity and I feel my own.

Often I will know several of the recipients, but there are many that I’m usually becoming aware of for the first time. I’m always drawn afterwards to learn more about the contributions of these extraordinary people. That is what I love about this award…you have the well-known and the unsung who are honored. These people have just been themselves and served in their own ways and that is a what life is all about as I see it.

The honorees this year are as follows:

Rep. John Lewis – civil rights icon (He was called early in life to do the right thing)

Maya Angelou – poet, author (I’d love to have her gift for words)

Yo-Yo Ma – amazing cellist (Listening to him play makes me want to play music again, even more. By the way, I played the flute in a former life ;-) )

John H. Adams – Natural Resources Defense Council – Co-founder

Bill Russell – NBA Hall of Famer, basketball legend, and human rights activist

Stan Musial – Baseball legend of the St. Louis Cardinals

Angela Merkel – German Chancellor

Jasper Johns – artist; considered a major influence upon pop, minimalist, and conceptual art

Gerda Weissmann Klein – Holocaust Survivor

Dr. Tom Little – optometrist killed in Afghanistan while on humanitarian mission

Sylvia Mendez – civil rights activist

Jean Kennedy Smith – Former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland

John Sweeney – AFL-CIO President Emeritus

George H.W. Bush – Former U.S. President

Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway CEO, philanthropist

Congrats to all of them and I look forward to seeing the honorees next year!

The Sports Ground Debut!

2011-02-11T19:07:00.004Z

Hello all! Happy Friday!

Well, in my previous post I talked about watching the Super Bowl. It was a great night here at the Yellow House and we ended up staying up for the whole thing, which was well after 3am here. It was fun!

So I thought that I would mention another ‘sporty spice’ kind of thing to continue this trend for one more post. No, I haven’t taken up a sport…yet ;-) However, my Brit Boy, who is the real sporty one around here has opened a new chapter in his blogging life.

Brit Boy has started a new sports blog called, The Sports Ground, and he will cover a wide array of sports, since this is one of his great loves. He will concentrate mostly on football aka soccer, but he will also be blogging about sports that are enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic. One of his recent posts was about his take on the Super Bowl, so the transatlantic life of the Yellow House extends into his new blog, just like it does in mine.

So if you’re a sports fan or if you just want to read the knowledgeable musings of Brit Boy on all things sports…take a trip on over and check him out! :-)

*****

As for me, I’ve been doing fine and will be blogging about one of my new favorite things in my next post. I love a cliffhanger…lol.

Have a great weekend!

Collective Experiences & Super Bowls

2011-02-05T18:35:00.004Z

Hello all :-) I’m so glad that I can finally get a chance to post here. It has seemed like forever since the last time. I’ve been kinda knee deep in studying and various things, so today is a beautiful lull in it all. Today I’ve just been trying to have some down time, although I did cook this afternoon and I even exercised this morning. But both of those things are making things better in the long run, so they sort of work into this whole reconnecting thing that I’m up to lately.

It will probably be a bit of a late night tomorrow night, but that’s customary for me these days anyway. As I’ve mentioned here before, I usually get a burst of energy at around 11pm and then I’m wide awake for a couple of hours at least. So it’ll work out really well for tomorrow night in particular.

As many of you know, tomorrow is Super Bowl XLV. Here in England it will be shown later over into the night, starting a bit before 11pm (my golden hour)…LOL. So the timing is tailor-made for me. Brit Boy plans to check it out too for a while. I doubt if we'll stay up for it all, but you never know. The end will probably get recorded ;-)

Here’s the thing…I’m not really an NFL football fan or really a sports fan at all. LOL. I watch tennis and golf a little bit and dip into baseball sometimes, but I’m not what I’d call a “sporty spice” ;-) Note: I often say this "sporty spice" thing. LOL. It comes from one of the Spice Girls' names and I just kinda adopted that to mean a sports fan or in my case not a sports fan. I'm known to make up names for stuff like that. LOL. I’m quite pedestrian about most sports. Brit Boy is an avid sports fan, with football aka soccer, being his favorite. So anyway, as you see, I’m no sports fan. However, over the years I’ve more often than not tuned in to the Super Bowl at least for part of it. And the halftime show always pulls me in.

I was having a bit of a think about this earlier and I guess that the Super Bowl for me is more about the collective experience of the whole thing. We don’t get many of those nowadays with our attention being pulled in various directions. With so many channels nowadays and the internet, it is rare to share something with so many people. And I think that for me, since I live abroad, it has become a collective experience even more. It makes me feel connected to home in a roundabout way. It’s funny when I think about it. Who knew that a football game would EVER have that kind of pull upon me :-)

So tomorrow night we’ll be watching along with millions of others. We won’t have the special commercials to watch from over here, but there’s still the halftime show and all that exuberance to take a look at ;-) It should be fun!

Then it’s back to business on Monday, but the weekend has so far been just what I’ve needed. Have a great weekend! :-)

Who's My What?!

2011-01-25T13:36:00.003Z

In my day to day life here in England, I often hear unique words or phrases springing forth from the lips of either my husband or someone else.

One such phrase that tickled my funny bone when I first heard it was “...and Bob’s your uncle!”. My first thoughts were (a) ‘what the heck?’ – I had no idea what they were talking about, and (b) ‘how did you know?’ – since I actually did have an Uncle Bob! Well, apparently they weren’t talking about my family tree at all. In Britain, this phrase is used quite commonly and means “and that’s all there is to it”, or “and you’re all set”, usually put at the end of a list of instructions. Who knew?!

British Library

I love the richness and diversity of the English language, and the many different forms of it that you hear all over the world. This is the subject of an exhibition at the British Library – Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices. This free exhibition opened on November 12^th and runs until April 3^rd, and includes many iconic books and manuscripts as well as recordings of famous speeches by Churchill, Gandhi and Mandela. Visitors to the exhibition can even record their own voices, reading the children’s book Mr Tickle, and have the recording added to the British Library audio archive as a part of the collection. There are also examples of early advertising posters, lists of slang, early newspapers, comics, text messages and so much more included in the exhibition. More information on all of this can be found at http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglishand if you are on Twitter, then you can also tweet using the hashtag #evolvingenglish.

I recently played an online quiz related to the exhibition at http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/quiz.html and scored 6/6 on the “easy-peasy” level (the less said the better about how I did on the more advanced levels!). You could always follow the link yourself, take the quiz and share your own score ...and Bob’s your uncle!

Sponsored Post

Memories Through Cornbread

2011-01-19T16:09:00.005Z

It’s been a while since I did a cooking post, so it just seemed like a good idea for today’s post, since I need to get back into the blogging hot tub. I don’t love to cook, but I like it pretty well and hey, we've all gotta eat don’t we? For those times when I don’t want to cook, a frozen dinner is my best friend ;-)

There are times when I like cooking and times when I loathe it. It’s all about balance ;-) In those times of enjoyment, the thing that pulls me in is the chance to be creative, so that aspect is right up my alley.

I truly enjoy watching cooking shows, especially Barefoot Contessa. Her food inspires me to want to cook EVERYTHING and do it well. Her variety of dishes that she cooks always inspires me to try something new and I’ve learned lots of cooking techniques from her, so I love me some Contessa :-) And as a fellow Georgia girl, I love to watch Paula Deen when I’m back home visiting. I can see the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network over here, but they don’t show Paula Deen here. So that’s where the website comes in handy. Anyway, that’s enough of my TV favorites for today. Pardon my detour ;-)

So this past weekend I cooked cornbread muffins…well actually cheese cornbread muffins. I had a taste for some. I’m not a really big fan of cornbread or any bread really, but sometimes I get the taste for it. It usually coincides with me thinking about home or back to the times when my parents were still alive. When I was growing up, my mom made cornbread everyday and I used to love to watch her make it. The memories that I have of watching her make cornbread stick firmly in my mind. I don’t know why. I guess it’s the everyday normal things that you may take for granted at the time, but when you look back, those are the things that are burned into your memory forever. As time goes by I realize that memories are TRULY the beautiful things in life :-) The simplest, beautiful things…

Over the Christmas holidays, I received a package from my sisters and I had mentioned to them when we were Skyping once that I couldn’t get cornmeal very readily where I live. So I’d asked them to send me a small bag if they could. Well, in the Christmas package there was the cornmeal…just like my mom used to use :-) The sight of the bag instantly filled me with nostalgia. Here it is:

Yeah, I took a picture of the bag of cornmeal…it’s an expat thing. LOL. Anyway, I made some cheese cornbread muffins and they turned out pretty good. My mom was strictly old school though…she just made straight cornbread and hers was great, but I love to play around with a recipe from time to time.

I’ve been nibbling on these muffins all week and yesterday I crumbled some up in a bowl of soup…mmmmmm. Now that was good! Next time I may try putting some other flavor in there to see how it turns out. See, it’s that creativity thing again ;-)

I realized the other day how much I used to love posting about my culinary creations in the earlier days of this blog and I realized that I don’t do that much anymore. Well that will definitely be a returning feature here. I’m no chef or even a really great cook, but I just love mixing stuff up and seeing what happens. And also I love photographing things…and that includes food, so I hope you’ll come back and see what I cook next :-)

Until next time…

Bit By Bit

2011-01-12T18:19:00.005Z

Hello all :-) I've been trying to get here to do a proper post for a few days now and haven't been able to do so yet. I am SO BEHIND on EVERYTHING it seems and I know that many of you can relate ;-) I'm having one of those streaks where I seem several steps behind and three lanes over from where I need to be headed...lol.

So I decided that even though I can't write a proper post today, I will at least check in...that's a start. My new motto is "bit by bit". One small step after another leads somewhere just like big steps. I've taken this technique to heart today in other things too and it's working :-) Yay!

I have some things that I'm wanting to write about and bit by bit, I'll be sharing them in the next couple of days. Thanks for sticking with me!

Until next time... :-)

Pushing That Reset Button

2011-01-03T18:40:00.003Z

Hello everyone! So, here we are in a new year...Happy New Year everyone! I hope that everyone had a safe and happy start to 2011. I know that it’s already January 3rd and I’m a little late, but hey, can’t be helped…lol ;-) I was a good blogger and posted a greeting to go up at the stroke of midnight here, so I got it in under the wire :-)

For me, today seems more like the “start” of the new year because it’s a Monday and I was so laid back with the new year coming on a Saturday. I guess that today feels more like “back to business day”, so it’s feeling more official to me in some ways. Don’t get me wrong…I love a weekend holiday, but today for me feels like a reset button has truly been pushed :-) And I imagine it must feel like that for some of you out there too!

I must admit, I’ve been struggling a bit on the personal front lately, but I’m ready to face things with a whole new perspective in my life. And it’s not all about the idea of the new year fully…it was just time, but it certainly never hurts to have a shift like a new year to be a helpful catalyst in these things :-)

My blog over the past several months has become indicative of how my life has been of late…kind of detached and not engaged fully like I want it to be. I know that some of you who have visited my blog in the past and are still visiting it (bless you…thank you) may see a difference, or maybe you don’t (bless you again). However, I feel it and see it. I want my blog to get better as I get back to better feelings in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I wake up every day and am grateful for the blessings in my life, but lately I just have the need to feel more fully here again. I want to feel more awake in my own life again, so I’m opening my eyes today :-)

As some of you may know, I mentioned here before about some health issues I’ve been having, well I’m happy to report that I’m going to be fine. I got a bit of a wakeup call in regards to my health and even though it has been physically painful to go through, this situation has refocused me. So as they say, it’s all good :-)

Therefore, I’m re-dedicating myself to writing this blog. This blog grew out of my need to express myself and to engage with others and that idea got lost somewhere. I’ve loved writing my whole life, but I’ve found it very difficult to write here over the past several months. But I realize now that some of that stemmed from my disconnection in my everyday life. So I’ve taken a good hard look at myself over the past few days and I realize that I want more in my life…creativity, engagement, etc.

Today seems like a good day to begin again in many ways :-) I have always loved being creative and I’ve been yearning for that again lately. One day I sat wondering what could I do to bring more oomph and expression to my life again…and I sat there pondering this. Then I smacked myself on the forehead and said, “Well you do have a blog you know…so express your little heart out!” LOL. It was one of those light bulb moments and so now I’m just going to get out of my own darned way! ;-)

So today I am coming back to my blog with a new perspective. Hopefully I will have something good to share here from time to time and I’ll write more often like I used to do. This will all be step by step, day by day, but it will be fun to peel back those detachment layers that I’ve built up. This will definitely be a good thing as I dust off my fiction writing aspirations. I hope that you will come along with me as I hit the reset button… starting… now! :-)

Until next time…

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

I wish you all the best in 2011 :-)

Last Days of the Year and A Legend

2010-12-29T18:54:00.005Z

Hello all…so Christmas has come and gone once again and I can’t believe that we’re headed for the end of another year. The time really does fly! :-) Christmas turned out good. My favorite part was when Brit Boy and I came back home and I was able to Skype with my family back in Georgia. I ended up playing along with them as they played Taboo and I even gave a couple of correct answers from 4,000 miles away…lol. It was so fun! The best part was finally getting to see my new little nephew. He is adorable, but then I would say that because I’m a proud auntie ;-) But he is a cute little dude. He’s two months old and is actually my great nephew…he’s great indeed, but he’s my nephew’s son. It’s so funny to see my nephew being a husband and a father and I remember him being born. Like I said before…time does fly :-) It’s great to see the circle of life continue! I hope that everybody else had a great Christmas!

In other news, Brit Boy and I have just been trying to keep warm. It has been so cold. But today thankfully it is actually not as cold. It almost felt like a heat wave earlier ;-)

So we’re preparing for our own little New Year’s Eve party around the Yellow House. Just us, but we always enjoy ourselves. I’m planning on getting on Skype again to call my sisters and niece from the future…LOL. It’s one of my things. I hope that everyone has a safe and fun New Year’s Eve.

****

On a completely separate and serious note, with some love and appreciation thrown in, I’d like to remember one of my favorite singers who passed away this past Sunday at the age of 54. She was none other than Teena Marie, also known as Lady T to those who loved her music. People throw around the word legend a lot these days, but she was one indeed and rocked the R&B world. She moved a lot of people with her music and that certainly counts for so much in the scheme of things. People were often surprised at how she looked when they heard her sing, but as she said herself, the soul doesn't have a color :-) I love that!

Listening to her music instantly takes me back to the good old days. And she was still making great music for years. She was a trailblazer and her voice will be truly missed, but she left us great music like this…

“Square Biz”, “Portuguese Love”, and “Lovergirl” and so much more...take a listen if by chance you’re not familiar with her work :-)

Rest in Peace Lady T…

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2010-12-24T17:19:00.005Z

I wanted to wish everyone who celebrates, a Merry Christmas! :-) It's Christmas Eve as I write this and I have to say that I really adore this day. There's a glow that bounces off of everything. You can enjoy the comfort and festive atmosphere of the holiday and still have Christmas Day to look forward to.

I have a few photos to share that I've taken over the last few days. They're of the view out of one of our windows. Here's a little Christmas greeting from us at the Yellow House.

And I just wanted to share this one below because the lights came out looking squiggly and funny and I like weird things...lol ;-)

And finally, here's a view from the other day when we had some snow. I thought that it looked like somebody had put whipped cream on everything with the way that the snow was hanging everywhere.

We got a few treats from home in the mail yesterday, courtesy of my family. Some things I haven't opened, but this was out in the open and we've been enjoying them very much indeed. I LOVE these candies! They're peppermint nougat and having this taste from home is so wonderful! Brit Boy tasted them for the first time and he likes them too. So we're quite pepperminty around here...lol.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and that you're able to enjoy some time with the ones you love. Until next time...all the best! :-)

Christmas Around the Yellow House

2010-12-14T20:17:00.005Z

This is a random post, really random, but I like to share ;-) As I mentioned in my previous post, here are some of our Christmas decorations that we have around the house. I set them up on the table because where I had most of them sitting, the light was not great for photographing them. I hope that you enjoy taking a peek into the Yellow House :-)

(above)The Christmas tree is sitting up straight, but the angel on top is kinda droopy and won't sit up :)

Until next time...

Christmas Fun & Books About Princes

2010-12-10T13:22:00.002Z

Hello all! :-) I just wanted to check in with a quick post. I’m doing fine and trying to stay warm. We’ve had some snowy, icy days this week and today the ice is finally melting off our street. Hurray! ;-) It’s still cold as heck, but I guess that’s to be expected. Anyway, we put our Christmas tree up the other day and it’s all Christmassy around here. I can’t believe that Christmas Eve is only a couple of weeks away.

I love this time of the year for many reasons, but one of my fun reasons is that we get the chance to pull out our Christmas characters and things. In my next post, I’m going to introduce you to some of our little friends that we have hanging out with us around here. I’ll prepare my line-up and then show them to you all in my next post ;-)

In other news, please stop by my other blog, Yellow House Views, to check out my introductory post about a new book that I've been given the opportunity to review. In light of the latest news about Prince William and Kate Middleton tying the knot next year, it’s an interesting read so far. I haven’t quite finished it though. I’ll be posting my review of it over at Yellow House Views soon. So please drop by if you have a moment and check out my intro :-)

Well, that’s all for today. I’m going to go and do a bit of photographing…Christmas style…and I’ll be back with those photos in a day or two!
Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you later…

Hanging With Big Foot

2010-12-02T19:27:00.005Z

It’s been a week since I posted, so I thought that today would be a good day to get back in the blogging swim of things :-) As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve not been at my best physically, so I’ve been preoccupied with all of that. But I’m optimistic that things are going to turn out fine. In the meantime I’m just not going to worry about it. I’ll keep you posted though. Thanks so much for the get well wishes. As of this very moment though…I’m fine and dandy ;-)

So anyway, two posts ago I shared a picture of a big foot and said that I would let you know where I found such a big foot. Well, here’s the rather impressive big foot…

I would love to have that in our backyard. LOL. I’d probably paint its toenails and plant flowers around it ;-)

This rather impressive foot is actually part of a…FOOTPATH. Clever huh? Yep, it’s part of a footpath at Westonbirt Arboretum. Brit Boy and I have visited many times and it’s one of my favorite places. Check out this link to read about another one of our visits there. I love Westonbirt because it’s beautifully simple…it’s just you and nature and I love that!

Here’s the rest of the footpath. They’ve laid out parts of stumps and scattered them through the woods. Isn’t that a neat idea? :-)

Of course I had to skip across a couple of them. What I really wanted to do was don some fairy wings and skip along the whole path ;-) Just a peek into my fantasy-filled thoughts. Lol. It was a beautiful day out. Brit Boy and I really enjoyed seeing all of the fall colors.

I took some photos of the leaves, but I feel like it might be too late to share them since we’re getting on towards winter now. Because of recent circumstances I got a bit behind. But if you all want to see some of them, please leave me a comment and let me know and I’ll gladly honor your requests :-)

Well, I’ll leave it there for now. I’m going to be posting more frequently again now that I’ve gotten over some hurdles, so I hope that you’ll visit me again. And I’m going to be doing some visiting too.

Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you later…

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2010-11-25T13:53:00.004Z

Hello everybody! :-) I just wanted to check in and wish everyone who celebrates, a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! I love the food of course, but most of all, I love that is a day set aside to be grateful. Gratitude is the key. And yes, I try my best to be grateful everyday, but I just love that on this day, many of us share our gratitude and I think that is so powerful. Because when you break it all down...it's all about love and that can't be a bad thing :-)

So I send a big Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends back home and to those that I've never met :-)

P.S. ~ I know that I was supposed to tell you about the big foot today, but I will definitely do that next time. Sorry I've not posted in several days. I've been having some health issues, but things are going to be okay :-) Take care and have a great day and I'll be back with my big foot story next time!

Big Foot...No, Not That Big Foot, This One

2010-11-11T20:48:00.005Z

Hello all! Take a look at my photo of this huge foot. Intriguing isn't it? I wanted to take it home with me, but where would you store something like that. LOL.

I thought that it would be fun to share this big foot with you and next time I'll tell you about where I saw it and what else I found.... :-)

Ooh....a cliffhanger.... ;-)

Until next time...

Hello!!!!

2010-11-09T23:22:00.003Z

Hi there! :-) I just wanted to drop in to say hello so you won't think that I've dropped off the face of the planet. I haven't posted in several days, but I will be posting tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. I have some stories to tell...mostly random stuff, but that's my favorite kind of post to write...lol.

Brit Boy and I were a bit under the weather, but we're both much better now. I've been busy with a couple of things and have just got so far behind on my blogging and I miss it. I'm a bit late, but happy November to you all out there! :) I love November because I know that Thanksgiving is coming and I just ADORE Thanksgiving...more about that later.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in to let you all know that I'll be back in the blogging seat in the next 48 hours. Lots of love from the Yellow House. Talk to you later....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-10-30T11:17:00.000+01:00

London Surprise

2010-10-27T18:56:00.007+01:00

I mentioned on Sunday that Brit Boy had planned a surprise trip to London for us on Monday and that I had no idea what we were heading there to do. Well, it turned out REALLY great and I was totally surprised! :-)

Back in August, I posted about us intending to go and see the musical, Sister Act, starring Whoopi Goldberg. And we ended up not going because her mother suffered a stroke and she had to head back home to the United States to be with her. I was disappointed at the time, but I totally understood her going home to be with her mother. That was definitely what was more important. In the end, her mother passed away so I was so glad she got to go home to be with her family.

I put it aside and figured that I’d get the chance to see Whoopi perform eventually onstage one day. I’ve admired her work for a long time and I will never forget her role in my favorite movie ever, The Color Purple. Therefore, I was very keen to see her perform live eventually.

So unbeknownst to me, Brit Boy was sent an email from the place where we bought the first tickets and they let him know that Ms. Goldberg was going to return to her role to complete her run. He decided to surprise me. He let me know that we were going somewhere on October 25th, but he wouldn’t tell me where. And I’m usually one who likes to know things, but something within me was saying…’no, let it be a surprise and enjoy how cool that feels’. So I didn’t dig. And I know you might not believe this, but I didn’t hear a thing about her returning for these special performances…not a thing! :-) I am amazed by that, since I’m frequently online and that’s how I found out about her performing originally. There was no coverage that I saw anywhere, so I’ve come around to the belief that it was meant to be that way :-)

I’ve been having some problems with things here lately, so maybe it was a beautiful bit of a bright spot that was sent to me :-) That’s the only way I can explain it. It was meant to be this way. And just to clarify, my problems have nothing to do with me and Brit Boy, we’re great and that was made even stronger by him putting in the beautiful effort to surprise me like this. He knows that I needed something fun like...this....

So we traveled to London and went along our way on the train and then the tube. Finally we exited at street level and we walked up to the London Palladium and Brit Boy looked at me expectantly. I was like…’Yeah, this is where Sister Act is playing.’ And my eyes were just looking around taking in all of the sights…and no I’m not dense…LOL…just not myself these days, I’ll say ;-) And then he points to this sign in the picture below…forgive the blurry photo. I took it on my cell phone and I’m not really used to it.

Then it finally registered that we were gonna finally see Whoopi perform in Sister Act. And a big smile spread across my face. It had never entered my mind that she would come back to perform since I knew she was back doing her day job again. But apparently she decided to come back and finish her run for these special performances and we saw her on her last day!

Let me tell you, I love Brit Boy, but at that moment I realized that I REALLY married my best friend :-) Even when you don’t know that they’re watching, a best friend sees you and what you need and he saw and I thanked him profusely :-) I take care of him and he takes care of me…and that really touched me.

I’ll rewind and say that we had lunch before the show and it was delicious. Now back to me standing there in front of the Palladium ;-) So we went inside and it was the first time that we’d been to the Palladium.

The show was wonderful! The staging was amazing and the stage was continually shifting so the performers really had to be on top of things. Even if Whoopi hadn’t been performing, it would’ve been a great show. So having her there just made it even more thrilling for me. The singing was out of this world and the young lady who does the role of Deloris that Whoopi did in the film, was amazing! Her name is Patina Miller and she didn’t just sing…that girl can SANG as we’d say back home ;-) Hearing all of that uplifting singing did so much for me inside…it’s what I’ve needed.

Whoopi Goldberg’s comedic timing was so fun to witness in person. And at the end when she and Ms. Miller shared a moment onstage together, you could feel the passing of the torch, from one Deloris to another :-) It was a wonderful experience! I was thrilled to be there!

We had a bit of time to kill after the show, so we walked around the corner and walked down Carnaby Street.

I snapped a few photos, but they all turned out rather blurry. As I mentioned before, I took them with my cell phone and not my regular camera and it was getting dark. At one point I almost dropped my cell phone while taking pictures, so I’m no cell phone photographer…LOL. Anyway, I hope you enjoy a blurry look at the area around the theatre ;-)

Then we headed back to Paddington Station. It was really a wonderful day! I can’t recall ever being surprised like that, so it was really fun and I came away inspired. Mondays are usually drab days, but this was the best one I’ve ever had. Those Monday blues just flew away….

Going On A Mystery Trip

2010-10-24T22:21:00.003+01:00

So tomorrow Brit Boy and I are off to London. I always like it when we get to take a trip there, but here's the interesting part...I don't know where we're going :-) Brit Boy is taking me somewhere as a surprise and all that I know is that it will be a performance of some kind. Intriguing stuff...isn't it? ;-) I've know that we're going for about a month, but I haven't tried to figure out where we're going. I usually like to be in the know, but this time, it's kinda cool to not know.

I'm getting excited now because I love a mystery! I'll share the details when I return. So watch this space!

We're off on a magical mystery tour... ;-)

Two Forests

2010-10-21T16:25:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, Brit Boy and I were out and about, and decided to stop off on the way back, to see if we could spot any fall colors in the forest. Well…we didn’t see much color yet, but it was still pleasant to take a walk in the woods. Hopefully a variety of colors will spring forth in the next week or so. So anyway, we enjoyed just being out in nature with the customary green all around us :-) It was lovely.

When I was growing up, I loved walking in the woods back home. We lived in a rather wooded and green area in Georgia, so I’ve always loved the peace of surroundings like that. Recently, they’ve constructed a nature trail back home, so it makes it even easier to enjoy it all. When I went home to visit last summer, I really relished the experience of reconnecting with what I did as a child. When I’m taking a walk like that, surrounded by all of the trees, I always get a sense of peace that I don’t get anywhere else. Walks like that are cool…aren’t they?

So yesterday, when we were in the woods here in Wiltshire, my mind wandered to the woods on the family land back home in Georgia. These places are thousands of miles apart in distance, but come from the same place of serenity. From time to time I find myself having these moments of my life here and my life back home occupying the same space at one moment in my mind. I’ll think, ‘Wow, this spot reminds me so much of home’. It’s like the two places touch across a vast ocean and I’m the bridge between them and it’s cool :-)

More and more as I go forward in my life I’m seeing vividly that yes, these two places that I’ve lived have things that make them different and many things make them similar, and that’s truly great. Variety is amazing and makes us unique. But in the end, the saying is true…we are more alike than we are different and sometimes our surroundings are too. And this chick that lives in this yellow house right now is cool with having a foot in each forest, on either side of the water.

So I hope you enjoy seeing a bit of what I saw today… :-)

Rainbows & New Beginnings

2010-10-18T16:59:00.004+01:00

Well hello there! :-) Dori here…signing back on at the Yellow House! I really enjoyed my blogging hiatus and I’ve come back just wanting to enjoy blogging again. When I went on my break, I must admit, I was a bit burnt out and had run out of stuff to say. In my time away, I reminded myself that blogging should be fun, not a chore. I will say though, that I will inevitably run out of things to write about still sometimes, but I won’t sweat it ;-) I guess what I’m saying is that I’m happy to be back blogging, but now I come back after having taken a humongous chill pill…lol.

On the day that I started my blogging break, I saw something beautiful that always gives me a good vibe when I’m given the chance to see it. I saw this…

Right after I wrote my post about taking my break, I looked outside and saw this beauty. And this time it wasn’t a fragment like I’ve seen in times past, it was a full rainbow and it was so big that I couldn’t get it all in the photo. I took this photo out in the backyard and then I went out front and it was like the rainbow was RIGHT THERE with me. It was SO beautiful!!! It looked like it was pulsating and grew right before my eyes. I felt such peace :-)

So as the rainbow evaporated, I knew that any apprehension that I had felt about stepping away from my little corner of the internet, was melting away too. My blog would be fine without me while I took some time for some renewal and to sort some other things out.

Now I’m ready to write here again. I love words and getting to string them together here in this space is a blessing. Life is the biggest blessing. So onward I go and I hope that you’ll come along with me again… :-)

P.S. ~ As you may have noticed, I did a little bit of freshing up around here with my blog design. It's still a work in progress...kind of like life ;-) But I thought that it was about time to shake things up a bit, so I hope you like it. Have a great day! :-)

A Quick Hello and a Deal

2010-10-05T10:27:00.006+01:00

Hello everyone! Dori here! :) I'm still on my little hiatus, but I wanted to pop in to direct you over to my other blog, Yellow House Views, to check out a deal for UK residents. I've been given an opportunity to share this with you, so I "came out of temporary retirement" ;-) to make my UK readers aware.

So if you're reading this in the UK, please take a look at my post at Yellow House Views, and find out how to save a bit of money whilst feeding your family!

Also, I've really enjoyed my break and I will be returning here within the next couple of weeks. This time away has renewed my interest in blogging, so I look forward to returning to the blogosphere.

Have a great week and I'll talk to you soon! :-)

An Escape From Plumbing Hell

2010-09-24T11:40:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone. Brit Boy here just dropping by to make sure that everything is still tidy around the Yellow House :-) And also to give you all an update on what has been going on in the last few days.

We have spent most of the week, indeed most of the last month, waiting for our shower to be fixed. I mentioned over at my blog a few weeks ago, that the plumbing in the Yellow House leaves a bit to be desired, and yet again we have had issues with our electric shower. This is a shower that is only a few months old too, having been installed when the previous one fell into such disrepair that we were told we would be taking our lives in our hands if we used it!! The new shower worked fine for a while, but then a few weeks back the shower head started to fall apart every time we used it. So we replaced the head ourselves, at our own expense, only for the wall unit to the start gushing water from the bottom with next to no water now emanating from the head.

At this point our hearts sank. We knew that this meant dealing with the property agents, and through them with our landlord. Past experience has taught us that this would be a tortuous process, and indeed this time was no different. To cut a very, very long story short, I am now sat here four weeks later – yes you read that right FOUR weeks later – waiting in for the plumber to finally come and install a new electric shower. The list of excuses has been laughable, but at least something finally appears to be happening. What our phone bill will look like when it comes I dread to think as I have had to call the agents virtually every day to force them into some kind of action. Apathy doesn’t even begin to come close to describing their attitude.

Okay, sorry, rant over now! To take our minds off of our interminable plumbing woes, Dori and I decided to go to the movies this week. We are probably the last two people on the face of the earth to see Toy Story 3, and so that is what we plumped for. We apparently watched it in glorious 3D, but I have to say that I really didn’t see that. I guess the picture looked like it had a little more depth to it, but there wasn’t enough of a difference to me to warrant an extra £1.50 on the ticket price. Anyway, that being said, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the film. We even had a KFC beforehand. Don’t tell me we don’t know how to live the high life!! :-)

Oh, and one last thing before I go. I want to wish Dori a very Happy Anniversary!! It isn’t our wedding anniversary, but the day of another important event – one that changed the course of both of our lives. I will leave it to Dori to tell you what that is, if she so wishes, when she returns.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Taking a Break For a Bit

2010-09-14T16:58:00.004+01:00

Hey there! :-) I just wanted to write a short post to say thank you to all of you who come here to read my blog. I really appreciate your comments and support. When I started blogging two and a half years ago, I had no idea of the path that this would all take. As I’ve written here before, I started this blog to change direction a bit in my life. I started writing here from a tough place in my life. I was nursing the residual physical ache of an injury and the emotional ache of grieving for my mom.

Blogging has been a wonderful creative outlet for me and helped rekindle my love of writing. It helped me to put my mind on other things besides how I was feeling at the time. And it went a long way in helping me not feel so isolated in this new land. I have made some connections with some wonderful people through blogging and I cherish those connections.

I’ve just passed the two and a half year mark in blogging. And I know that there are those out there who have been doing it a heck of a lot longer than I have and my hat’s off to them :-) Lately though, I’ve been fighting a serious case of blogging fatigue, so I’m going to take a little break from blogging for a month or so. I need to get away from it a bit and smell the roses as they say. I find that I struggle with writing here and I’m burnt out. I guess you can maybe tell by some of my posts ;-)

I’m going to take this time to reflect and come back hopefully with something new to say here :-) And I hope that I’ll have renewed passion about writing overall. It has been lacking a bit lately. All of my creativity seems to have run dry.

During my little break, Brit Boy may occasionally drop in to post here, as he is my favorite guest blogger :-) . I didn’t twist his arm or anything. He volunteered to steer the wheel around the Yellow House for a while ;-)

I know you can't hang around here forever, but I hope to see you all again when I return to this keyboard at the Yellow House.

Until next time… :-)

The Road Not Taken and an Award

2010-09-13T16:22:00.004+01:00

Hello there. In another post, I said thank you for an award that I was given and I mentioned that I would post the other one in a future post. Well today is that day :-) I always feel a bit funny when I receive blog awards. Even after two and a half years of blogging, I’m always amazed that people pass these along to me and still read my blog. Lol. And this isn’t false modesty talking here...no...I’m truly surprised and very appreciative every time I get a blog award. It’s nice to get a friendly nod from within the blogging community.

Therefore, I want to say thank you to Lis at “An American Girl in Bristol” for passing the Cherry on Top Award along to me.

Lis is embarking upon a similar path to mine so I truly wish her well and hope that her move across to England is a wonderful one! :-)

This is an interesting award because it comes with an intriguing question attached to it. Here are the rules:

1) Thank the person who gave you this award.
2) Pick 6 people/blogs and give them this award.
3) Inform the person that you have given them this award.

Then...answer this question:

If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

Well, I thought about this and I know they always say that the path that you take in life leads you to where you are right now, and if you change one thing you change many things. And a lot of the time people will say that they wouldn’t change a thing and some days I would say that too. However, there are some days when I’m honest with myself and I would say, YES I WOULD change this one thing. I guess it's the adventurer in me :-) I think that it’s fun sometimes to wonder about what things would be like if you’d taken that road instead of the one you actually took. I don’t dwell on it, but hey, a daydream is good from time to time :-)

Anyway, so if I could go back and change one thing in my life, I would change where I went to school after I graduated high school. I had been accepted at an art and design school and didn’t go because I was very young and bent to the pressure of some advice. (I hold no grudges about this advice…water under the bridge and all that) I wanted to study interior design in this program which dealt with it in the home and business settings. And my ultimate goal was to study on the west coast and then work my behind off and get into doing set design and work behind the scenes on movies and television. California was calling my name! :-) This interest in working behind the scenes was fueled early by my love of all things creative and my love of classic movies. I know that it would’ve been a tough thing to break into, but it would’ve been wonderfully freeing to have just given it a try, even if it didn’t work out. I’ve learned one thing from that road not taken…there is no harm in trying, because no matter however it turns out, you get satisfaction out of knowing that you got to do what YOU wanted to do.

I ended up going to a “normal” university and it didn’t work out so well. And I guess some would say that I could’ve went along the other path later, but as we all know, life starts to happen and sometimes you never catch up :-) Oh well. I think that that is why nowadays I’m doing my best to seek out more of a creative life for myself several years later. I didn’t take that other path, and I’ve put that to rest, but now I’m going at that creative life from another direction.

Oh and in case you’re wondering where Brit Boy would have fitted within this west coast life path…well I fully believe that we would’ve still connected. I figure if we found each other 4,000 miles apart, then there’s not that much of a leap to find each other in California somehow. The Universe had it all mapped out I believe ;-) Brit Boy believes this too.

I’m gonna bend the rules again and just give this one out to everyone who wants to have this award and contemplate this question or not :-) So please take it and have fun with it…until next time!

Remembering...

2010-09-11T12:48:00.002+01:00

Today I want to remember all of those who were lost on 9/11...at the Twin Towers...the Pentagon...and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

They cross my mind from time to time and remind me to never take life for granted.

An Award & Ten Things

2010-09-08T17:15:00.005+01:00

Over the last few days, I’ve received two blog awards and so today I’d like to say thank you for one of them and share it. And in my next post I will share the other award. The first award is from Tink at Tinkerbell. She has a wonderful and magical blog, so please do stop by when you can and visit her. Thank you Tink for passing this award along to me!

The award is the ‘A Blog With Substance’ award and I’m truly honored to receive it.

The rules are:
1) Thank the blogger that gave you the award.
2) Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation,& experience using ten words.
3) Pass the award on to ten other blogs.

Okay, so now to sum my blog up in ten words…well. I guess my list would go like this:

1) personal – My blog is about my personal journey

2) truthful – I strive to be real here

3) gratitude – I hope that my gratitude for life shows through

4) happiness – Even though no one’s life is happy every day, I hope I share some joy here

5) nature – I love sharing photos of nature, from here in England and back home in Georgia

6) life – I do my best to celebrate life here

7) love – My love for Brit Boy and my family is here and I hope that love is always seeping into the cracks everywhere here :-)

8) journeys – Well Brit Boy and I always share our trips & the life journey is fun too!

9) colorful – I hope that my photos are representative of this

10) beauty – I have used hope a lot in describing my list and it isn’t really from a place of doubt. It’s because I love that word ‘hope’, because it is an optimistic word to me. And I hope that my love for the beauty of people and the world somehow comes through in my blog :-)

I followed the rules a bit and gave my ten words, even though I know I wrote other words. But hey, what can I do…I love words ;-)

I couldn’t decide upon ten blogs because I find so many blogs of substance out there nearly every day. So in order to share this award, I’d like to give this award to all of you out there reading this. Thanks for reading. Feel free to take this award and pass it along to the many blogs that you love :-)

In my next post, I’ll post the other award and it asks for me to reveal if there is one thing in my life that I would change. Hmmm. I’ve got my thinking cap on….until next time :-)

The Moon and Happy Feet

2010-09-03T16:53:00.005+01:00

It’s a beautiful sunny Friday here in Wiltshire. It seems that nowadays we get all of our beautiful weather in September instead of during the summer months. Better late than never I always say :-) Although while I was gone home to Georgia in June, Brit Boy tells me that the weather here was lovely. He blogged about it here. So I'm making up for missing it then. I’m soaking up as much of that vitamin D as I can.

This is gonna be a random post…I forgot to mention that in the opening :-) Okay, so I can’t remember if I’ve written here before about how much I love the moon and can gaze at it forever. I’ve always been intrigued by it and its beauty has the power to just stop me in my tracks when I catch sight of it. I’m sure that many of us have been enticed by a full moon or two or a few hundred in our lives. There is just something about that beautiful orb up there. When I’m gazing at our beautiful moon, I often think of the longevity of it and how my parents, grandparents, and all of the people who have ever lived on this planet have seen that same moon throughout their lifetimes. It makes me instantly feel connected to humanity through the ages. And I don’t just get excited by the full moon…oh no…I love the crescent moon too :-) It’s all amazing to me!

So last night, I was fiddling around with my camera and trying to photograph the moon because it looked like I could reach out and touch it. Well I did miserable at it. LOL. To tell you the truth I wasn’t really trying. It was late and I wasn’t using a high powered camera. I was just fooling around. I’m easily amused as I’ve mentioned before and I’m a night owl, so I just let it flow ;-) The photos turned out blurry and weird, but I like the eerie way it looks. So I want to share one of them anyway, just for a Friday laugh. LOL. And no, I was not drunk. LOL.

In other news, I’ve received a couple of comments here and on Facebook about my shoes that I wore on our trip to London last Saturday. Let me tell you, I LOVE those shoes!!! :-) They are so comfortable! For all you bloggers out there, you know how sometimes you get a meme or something and it asks you to tell something about yourself? Well my choice of footwear is something I’d like to share ;-) As you will notice from the photo, these shoes don’t have laces on them and they are my absolute favorite shoes. You know why? Because I really dislike untying and tying shoe laces. LOL. I'm sure there's some psychological reason behind this, but it doesn't faze me...I guess I would just say that I like ease in life and there are other things to think about besides my shoes ;-)

I learned how to tie my shoes many moons ago like everybody else, but I have developed this thing about not bothering with tying shoe laces. Even when I wear other sneakers, I will wrench them onto my feet somehow so I won’t have to untie them. LOL. I know…I'm a quirky chick. LOL.

So when I found these shoes I was in love!! ;-) Actually, these are the second pair of this style of shoe for me. Here’s the old pair that I still wear even though they’re a bit worn out now.

Interestingly enough, I bought both pairs of these shoes on visits home to Georgia, a few years apart. I bought the beige ones at the end of 2006 and I got the black ones when I went home in June. They are Skechers brand and they make my feet happy. They look nice on the foot and the best part is that they just slip onto my feet. Now isn’t that a beautiful thing ;-)

So this is the end of my random post and I will say here, that I was not paid to say something nice about these shoes or compensated in any way whatsoever. I just felt like sharing some info about these shoes, because you never know…there may be others out there who just don’t like tying their shoes either ;-)

Have a great weekend everyone and to all the folks back home in the States, have a Happy Labor Day weekend!!!!

Dickens and London On A Saturday

2010-08-31T20:20:00.011+01:00

Hello all! So as I mentioned in my last post, Brit Boy and I headed to London on this past Saturday, despite not going ahead to see “Sister Act”. We had a good time and it was good to have a day out.

We took the train into Paddington Station. Since we were arriving a bit before lunch-ish, we headed for the tube so we could make our way to Sophie’s, which is one of our favorite places to eat nowadays :-) We had a wonderful waiter. We got seated and served very quickly since we beat the rush. We got a prime spot up front and when I looked out of the window over Brit Boy’s shoulder, I caught sight of this blue plaque.

All around London there are these blue plaques which mark different locations of interest where certain well known people lived or worked or where something occurred. This one marks the building that housed the offices of Charles Dickens’ magazine “All The Year Round” and his private apartments from 1859 to 1870. The magazine was a weekly publication and featured essays, poetry, serialized fiction, and other writings. I just happened to notice the plaque after I noticed that there was a coffee house there that was using his name. Who knew? :-)

We’ve eaten at Sophie’s before, but we are usually there after dark when we’ve gone in the past and everything is so busy, so it’s easy to miss things. That’s why I really loved getting a chance to sit there in the daylight and take a look around. So as a lover of literature, I was truly excited to be around where Dickens once walked. By the way, the light bulbs that you see in the photo are inside the restaurant, but I thought it would be fun for you to see the plaque the way I first saw it.

And here’s a better view of the plaque from outside and a view of the building from down the street…

After we had lunch, we took a walk around Covent Garden. I love strolling around the market there and doing some people watching. Here are a few photos of the sights…

Check out the tasty looking cupcakes above, all lined up and ready to be sold. I wanted to taste all of them ;-)

Below is the entryway of a lovely shop called, Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop. I thought that this display looked so inviting for a child of any age from 5 to 105. To the right of this display there were stairs that led up to the shop. It seemed all beautifully Willy Wonka-esque to me and I loved it! :-)

We walked along to another section of the market and I told Brit Boy that I wanted to check and see if the palm reader was there that I visited a couple of years ago. The palm reader was very intriguing and it was all in fun, but some things that he said did resonated, so who knows??? :-) Sadly though, he wasn’t there anymore. We did see someone else we remembered from before though. There was an artist that we met before and we bought a print from him. It made me happy to see that he was still there using his creativity and doing great work :-)

After our walk around Covent Garden, we decided to head to a museum. We decided upon the Science Museum. I’m usually one more for the art-filled museums, but this was a very interesting place. It was a good change of pace. There were loads and loads of exhibits. There was a lot about NASA and a bit about everything and I mean everything that has ever been created. I came away with one main thought about the whole experience. Humankind has created so much and it boggles my mind to think of what it must’ve been like to create things that had never existed before. It's something special to have the faith to see it through in bringing new things to the world.

There were day to day items and big things to see, but what also stuck with me was that it made me see our place in the passing of time. One day, some of the things that we use in our homes everyday may be in a display case for others to see. And feeling that connection to the thread of history, even as an everyday person, made me feel a bit in awe. What a glorious feeling that was.

It’s hard to really share representative photos since there was so much, but here are a very few.

Above: Ford Model T - 1916

Above: Panhard & Levassor car - 1895. This is an example of the type of car that won the world's first motor race in France in 1895.

Above: a Royal Mail coach

Above: Apollo 10 Command Module - 1969

As our Saturday in London drew to a close, we strolled back along the edge of Hyde Park and the leafy surroundings. The light was beautiful as the sun was retreating. Take a look…

Below are our feet, you have a Dori foot and a couple of Brit Boy feet ;-) This is a photo I took while we were taking a breather and sitting in Hyde Park.

It was a wonderfully varied day and I enjoyed our trip to London as I always do. We made our way back to Paddington Station and caught our train back to Wiltshire. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us! :-)

Going To London Tomorrow

2010-08-27T22:17:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow Brit Boy and I were supposed to be going into London to see Whoopi Goldberg perform in the West End musical, "Sister Act". I’m sure that many of you will remember her in the movie role of Deloris, the singer who hides out in a convent, in order to not be found by criminals. Well Ms. Goldberg is one of the producers of the musical and had decided to step into the role of the Mother Superior in the last few weeks since the previous actress’ run ended. I was SO EXCITED when I found out that Whoopi was going to be stepping into the role and we promptly got tickets.

I was going to post about it today to share my excitement, but this post has to go another way sadly. Whoopi Goldberg’s mother has suffered a stroke, so she has flown back home to the USA to be with her. My prayers certainly go with her. Parents are so precious, and since neither one of mine are living now, it always hits me when I hear about things going wrong with other peoples’ parents. It hits me in a place that will be tender forever because I miss my parents everyday. So I just pray that all goes well with Whoopi’s mother.

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On a lighter note, after Brit Boy and I found out about this turn of events this afternoon, we were wondering what we should do…go to the show or do something else. Well, since my WHOLE reason for going was to see Whoopi Goldberg on stage in the musical, I was kind of neutral and so was Brit Boy. Therefore, we decided to skip the performance since they were inexpensive seats anyway, and yet we’re still heading to London for a bit of a hang out. So it’s all good! :-)

We haven’t been to London, since we went to see "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", so we’re gonna just enjoy a day of no real plans and just seeing what we get up to. I'm going to try my best to come back with some photos to share. Until then, have a great weekend everybody!

Photographing Rainbows and Inspiration

2010-08-19T19:39:00.007+01:00

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I was working on some writing upstairs and Brit Boy was downstairs watching television and doing his Brit Boy thang ;-) Even though in reality it’s simply our bedroom, I often call this space my ‘garret’. LOL. That name really means an attic of some sort, but I’m cuckoo like that and like to imagine that it’s an attic. When I was growing up, I always wished we had an attic. So I let my fantasy side come raging out and it's an attic. LOL. Anyway…it’s my space :-)

So back to my story…I was up here yesterday alternating between working on some writing and playing games on Facebook ;-) I looked out of the window and noticed these beautiful pink and orange clouds against a turquoise-colored sky. It was breathtaking!

I got up out of my chair and stood at the window and then hung out to see as far as I could down either end of the street. It was just one of those simple pleasures, but it made me feel so good. Sometimes you just have to pause and take a look around, you know :-) After a few minutes I started to wonder what it looked like out back, so I went downstairs and saw that it was even more beautiful in that direction because of the setting sun.

Then I glanced to my left and there it was…a rainbow! What is it about rainbows? :-) They always have the power to inspire awe. All other thoughts just go away as you gaze at them. I also think that some of the magic of rainbows is that they show up when you least expect them. We hadn’t had any rain, so it was a great surprise.

Here are some photos that I took. I was snapping very quickly so they look very similar, but I wanted to capture every bit of this beauty so that I could remember it. And now I want to share them with you. Please forgive the semi-duplicates, but I figure that lots of rainbow action is always a good thing :-) The whole rainbow wasn't visible, but hey, a big chunk was right there to enjoy...so I was thrilled. The light in the sky was amazing and there was just an ethereal atmosphere all around. It was so calming. I hope you enjoy taking a look!

An extra piece of good news…that rainbow showed up on a great day for me. I am currently featured on the People You Need To Know website. It’s a great place that celebrates and highlights women from a variety of fields. I have always admired this website for the way it presents people who are doing so many interesting things and succeeding. So I was VERY honored and surprised to get the invite to be featured. Being in such great company is inspiring to me and will definitely push me to do more and more with my life!

Photos of Wiltshire and Watching Meteors

2010-08-13T20:20:00.008+01:00

So last night I watched the meteor shower and it was fabulous. Did any of you watch it? Usually we miss a lot of what goes on up there, because it never fails that we have a cloudy sky on the night when something is happening :-)

Earlier in the evening, they were kind of giving a 50/50 chance of the sky being clear enough. I figured that I’d just show up and see what happens, so I set up my spot to watch ;-) I was gonna go outside to watch, but then I realized that I could see just as good out of our back window. It’s a big glass window that stretches over most of the back of the house and this side of the house is away from the street light, and it would be a better view. So I turned off all of the lights and lay down right up next to the window and gazed out at that awesome sky! I was in luck and got to see several streaks of light go across the sky. It was a great show and a perfect ending to the day!

To rewind a bit, earlier in the afternoon, Brit Boy and I went for a walk. I took a few photos that I’d like to share. In these photos you can get an idea of just how windswept it can be around here sometimes. The landscape in some areas of Wiltshire is very wide open. I thought that I'd share a bit of what some of the landscape looks like around where we live. The weather was quite breezy and cool yesterday and today too. I guess that autumn is on its way here soon. It certainly felt like it. :-) Anyway here are my pics that I took along our walk out in the fields of Wiltshire.

Above: Here's a cuckoo pic that I took of my reflection in a mud puddle ;-)

Above: And a bit of green along the way...

I hope that you enjoyed seeing a tiny bit of Wiltshire. Have a great weekend!