Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Last Days of the Year and A Legend

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…

Friday, December 24, 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS

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! :-)

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas Around the Yellow House

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...

Friday, December 10, 2010

Christmas Fun & Books About Princes

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…

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Hanging With Big Foot

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…

Thursday, November 25, 2010

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

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


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...

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Hello!!!!

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....

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

London Surprise

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….

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Going On A Mystery Trip

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... ;-)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Two Forests

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… :-)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Rainbows & New Beginnings

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! :-)

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

A Quick Hello and a Deal

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! :-)

Friday, September 24, 2010

An Escape From Plumbing Hell

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!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Taking a Break For a Bit

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… :-)

Monday, September 13, 2010

The Road Not Taken and an Award

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!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Remembering...

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.


Wednesday, September 08, 2010

An Award & Ten Things

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 :-)

Friday, September 03, 2010

The Moon and Happy Feet

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!!!!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Dickens and London On A Saturday

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! :-)