On the Eve of Thanksgiving

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!

My New Bag

I wanted to share something new with you all. I’ve written before about our recycling and efforts to do more to do our part. So I wanted to show you my new favorite thing in this vein. Brit Boy and I have quite a few reusable bags that we carry with us to the stores. They are mostly utilitarian and not that cute. (smile) So when I saw this bag a few weeks ago, I just had to have it. Hey, a girls’ gotta have a bit of style with her consciousness too. (wink) Here it is. It is stored in this little pouch, about the size of a sunglasses case, with a snap at one end and a loop at the other.



The loop is very handy so you can attach it to your purse or shopping cart. Or you can just store the bag in your purse.











The snapped end opens and this is where you pull the bag out. Once you unsnap it, you tug on the cord and the bag comes out.



When you pull it out, it’s inside out. Then you just turn it over to the correct side and then bam, you’re ready to go!





It has a nice looped handle and it makes this bag a breeze to carry. The bag expands very wide, so you can get lots of stuff in there. And since it’s sort of teardrop-shaped it has a nice hang to it. The fabric moulds to the shape of whatever you have in the bag.

This is not a paid post. I just really wanted to share the news about this great bag. (smile) I did a bit of research and found that you can get this bag on Amazon at this link here if you’re interested.

Now I’ve got to go and put my cute little bag back in the car. (smile) Happy shopping!

Sick Days Again

I just wanted to check in here after a few days away. I've been sick as a dog lately and so has Brit Boy so we're being sick together. Awww how romantic...LOL. Seriously though we have been having flu-like symptoms, but it isn't the flu. We just feel really yucky though. We don't know who had it first, we just both started to feel lousy on Sunday and it has lasted a few days. Anyway, we're hunkering down and just taking our meds, drinking our green tea and watching daytime television together. So it's all good :-)

Also, to go along with us not feeling good, we have had two power cuts in the last two days. The electricity went out Tuesday morning and they got it fixed pretty quickly. And then yesterday afternoon the lights went out again. We called in again, but it was kind of a race against the clock for them to get it fixed. You see, we had our grocery delivery coming, so we weren’t wanting to have a bunch of thawed out frozen stuff on our hands or non-refrigerated refrigerated food. We didn’t panic or anything, but we joked about hearing a tick tock in our heads, as we wondered which would happen first…would we get electricity before our delivery got here or hours after our delivery :-) Since we were doing the sick thing, we just went upstairs and took a lie down on the bed. We opened the curtains and just watched the blue sky, which was the only thing we could see lying down like that. It was tranquil and lovely. We watched the birds flying by and a few jets and just chilled out. All was well. No worries.

In the end, the delivery came a bit before the electricity, so Brit Boy took our frozen stuff to his mother’s. He just came back from going to pick it up. So I guess that it’s back to getting better together :-)

I’m very grateful to all of you who come here to read my blog, so I just wanted you to know that I haven’t run off or anything. Not a chance…although I wish that I felt good enough to run or walk at a quick pace anywhere at this point without wanting to instantly lie down :-) I will be back and going strong again soon and to my fellow Entrecarders , I’ll be back to dropping soon too.

Take care and enjoy your day. Now it’s back to the couch or bed for me….wherever Brit Boy is is where I’ll be parked.

Christmas Countdown Continues

Our countdown to Christmas continues… We ended up not going to Salisbury Cathedral for the carol service this year. We had planned on going, but in the past few days we have been having plumbing problems and we were waiting around for the plumber to let us know when he was coming. It was kind of up in the air. Also, Brit Boy was finishing up his studying, and that was most important for him to finish, so it was a nice weekend around home.

Our shower has been working and then not working. We get scalded one moment and then we freeze the next and it is just all messed up. Sometimes it decides to be merely a trickle, so it's time they finally authorized a repair. We have had a leak also. It’s been really fun ;-) Thankfully the plumber is going to pay us a visit today. Woo Hoo!!!!! That’s our Christmas present for sure :-)

Since we couldn’t venture too far away, we ended up just chilling out around home. Periodically, Brit Boy took breaks from his studying and we watched Christmas movies or watched music videos on television while we danced around. We enjoyed those study breaks! We love to do our freestyle dancing and then we dance together all elegant…it’s funny. Then I do my Beyonce dance :-)

Later in the afternoon on Monday, Brit Boy finished his final paper and turned it in. And as a bonus, we got our call from the plumber soon after so the day turned out good in the end. We were free to head out. We went into town to pick up some ingredients for my baking and for our Christmas Eve nibbles. We fully expected the crowd that met us, but it was wild in there!!!! :-) We bought my baking ingredients, and some cheese and dips and veggies for our Christmas Eve hanging out. Then I saw them and I was in love ……







These cute little journals/notebooks are my new favorite thing. Usually I always take a detour to the stationery aisles wherever I am. I love pens and journals and notebooks…gotta do the writing thing :-) But I haven’t hit pay dirt like this in a long time. These lovely little books are made of recycled materials, so that’s very good. I just love that the outside and inside are very organic-looking with a bit of flower power on the outside :-) The lady at the checkout was oohing and ahhing over them too, so I wasn’t alone in my love. The best part is that they were on sale. I got two of these mid-size books for £1.75!!!! So a deal on top of everything . Yay!!!! Okay, enough of this notebook swooning! :)

When we got home, I figured that I should go ahead and do the baking so I wouldn’t be rushed. But mostly though, we were just greedy and ready to eat. LOL. I decided to bake us a batch of red velvet cupcakes like I did back in the spring, but with these I sprinkled them a bit to add a festive flair.





We stuffed our faces with a couple after they cooled off and I iced them :-) And then today, we have had one…they seem to get better, like most things after they get a chance to sit. So we are happy people right now with cake in the house :-)

Oh, an update on our shower problems. The plumbers arrived as I was writing this. They just left and they said that we need a new shower. They patched up the leak, so that’s good. I guess that after Christmas when they get the order in, we will get fixed up. So it’s very dodgy showers for a bit longer :-) It's all good though. No sense in sweating it. Hopefully Santa will bring us a new shower for after Christmas.

Anyway, we plan to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve tomorrow with a few drinks, some finger foods, and cake…what could be better! :-) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Windy Days

Today I walked up to the High Street. I had to mail a letter and I went to pick up a few things at the grocery store. I am trying to get more walking in these days for the exercise, and since the walk is mostly uphill and then uphill again, it is a really good workout. I know because I had a sweaty brow when I got there and it is a rather breezy day. LOL. I didn’t get out of breath though, so I held my own. I enjoyed the walk because this time of the year is my favorite with all of the leaves changing color. I love walking along and some of the leaves come showering down around you or fall like a path for your feet to follow as you make your way along. All of the golds, reds, and yellows are just beautiful.

When I made it to the High Street, I went inside the post office, got my postage and then dropped my letter in the big red mailbox outside. Then I walked around the corner to the grocery store. There is a wedding shop on the way and I always peek into the window to see what new things they have. I’ve been married a bit over two years now, so there is no need for a wedding dress. But it's still fun to look inside.

When I was a little girl I always had this “fantasy self” who loved the idea of traipsing around in a long dress. :-) I was fond of draping myself in my mom’s old dresses or old pieces of cloth strategically placed on me to look fabulous when I was a little girl. (laugh) I guess that some parts of the little girl are always there. I think that that is a good thing and we should always have the part of us that still daydreams no matter what our age. :-)

So I had a thing for long dresses when I was a kid, as I mentioned. And like many kids, I had a vivid imagination and was always dressing up and then I would put on plays for my dolls. Theatrical I was. :-) Anyway, I always loved to be in my dress-up finery when the wind blew. I would go out and stand dramatically on a tree stump or something, with my ponytails flying and my “fabulous gown” flowing in the wind. Once in a strong wind, I lost one piece of my dress and it landed in a bush. It was hilarious. :-)

So now fast forward to my wedding day and I had a full circle moment. We were married here in England. It was spring and the weather was pretty good. But there was a warmish breeze blowing that day and when Brit Boy and I were getting our pictures taken after the ceremony I had a memory of me as a girl. As we stood there on the golf course, with the wind whipping around us, I began to smile. My veil was flying out behind me like a mist and my dress swirled around my legs. And I thought to myself, “Well little girl, you finally got to stand in a dramatic wind with a long dress on and this time hopefully, part of your dress won’t land in that bush over there.” I laughed to myself and it helped me that day. I had just lost my mom a couple of months before and I was missing her and my dad on that day. But this thought brought me back, because I knew if my mom were alive, she would laugh along with me in remembering this. She saw me when I was a kid, doing all of my dress-ups and years later she mentioned it a few times when we would talk. She told me that she used to look out the window and see me and say to herself, “My child…my child…Lord she is creative…I’ll give her that.” :-)

So it was a good walk today. I got to do my shopping and I got to be a little girl for a minute. That ain’t half bad. :-)

Ballots and Shortages

Not a whole lot has been happening around here lately. I can’t believe it is October already. I walked up to the High Street here in the village today. It was a cloudy day for a bit and then it was really sunny, so it was a nice walk and it was good exercise, which I needed. :-) I went to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store and then bought a lottery scratch off ticket. I won £6. I felt rich! :-) So it was a profitable walk today.

When I got back, I was hoping the postman would have dropped off something for us, but we didn’t get anything. I am excitedly waiting for my absentee ballot to cast my vote in the election back home. I spoke with the election officials in my county back in Georgia last week and they had just mailed it out, so I hope that it comes this week. This will be my first time casting an absentee ballot. I have been registered to vote since I was eighteen and have always done my best to show up at the polls.

Over the last couple of years of living here, my life has been in a bit of an upheaval, as I have been settling in and getting my official papers in order. But now I am finally getting into a groove. These things take time I guess. So I will be casting my first absentee ballot this time around and it just feels great. :-) I hope that my ballot comes tomorrow.

In other news, I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day who is back in Georgia. She was telling me how bad it is there with trying to get gas. I watch the network news from back home pretty regularly and had heard about this, but it was even more vivid to me in hearing my friend’s account. She said that some places were out of gas and some still had a bit of gas. I come from an area that is a quite a few miles outside of Atlanta, and she said that the other day, she saw people coming off of the interstate out our way in droves, trying to get gas. It is bad. People are having to drive far out of their way to get gas for their cars. I commuted to work in Atlanta for years and this is just awful for a commuter town like Atlanta to be out of gas like that. People need to get to work now more than ever. I feel for them so much. It seems that the hurricanes are partly to blame from what I hear on the news.

It is hard to see so much turmoil going on back home with the gas shortages where I come from and all of the destruction of the hurricanes and all of the economic hardship. With the global economy of today, there are tough times here too. I just sincerely hope and pray for better days ahead for all of us.

Pizza Day

We have had a beautiful weekend. The sun has finally come to shine on us in these last days of September. :-) Yesterday, Brit Boy and I went into town to do some errands. There were a few stalls there that were reminiscent of the continental markets that they have sometimes, but it wasn’t a full blown market. There was a French food stall, a Dutch stall, and one with jewelry and handbags. We didn’t buy anything there, but it all looked great. We did our errands and then headed to the grocery to get a few things so that I could make a pizza later. I have been really wanting to give this a try, so we took a whirl around the grocery store. I already had bell pepper and onions, so I was searching for pepperoni, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, and a pre-made crust (haven’t figured out the crust from scratch yet). We got everything along with what we thought were dough balls to make crust. So we headed home and later we chopped everything up, readying it for the pizza. Then I realized that we didn’t have dough balls for making dough, we had dough balls for toasting and dipping in sauce. Boneheads we were. (laugh) We were rushing a bit in the store and got the wrong thing. But in the end, they turned out good and were a nice addition. No sweat. :-) We were in an adventurous mood and we would not be deterred, so we headed back to the store and picked up some roll-out pastry that made a GREAT crust. On the ride back home, the sunset was so beautiful. So when I got inside, I snapped this photo of the view out our back door. Back in pizza mode, I layered everything on the pastry crust. I started with a thin layer of mozzarella and mature cheddar and then the sauce with some onion granules and a bit of pepper sprinkled over that. Then I finished it off with layers of the other ingredients and voila! Here is a photo after we had already devoured half of it. There’s a pattern here. I always seem to get the photo after we have been eating. (laugh) We usually just can’t wait. It turned out divine. Today is a gloriously sunny day and it feels like we are getting spring and summer a bit late. But I figure, it is just a beautiful bonus. Here’s a photo I snapped today. It sort of says it all, the beautiful sky is there, and the rosebush has shed and is going to sleep for a while. But it will be back before we know it. :-)

Barbeques and Adders

My weekend was varied. On Saturday, we slept in a bit, which was a nice change. For lunch, we went up to the “chippy” also known as the fish & chips shop, and picked up some...wait for it...fish & chips. (smile) We brought it back home and it was very tasty. I must say that I have become accustomed to having vinegar on my fish & chips now. Before, when I would have “fish and french fries” back home, I always had either a bit of ketchup or nothing on it. So I guess that it is sort of the old adage, when in Rome and all that. (smile) Of course, a lot of the time I straddle both traditions and have the vinegar along with a bit of ketchup, just to keep a good balance. (smile)

About an hour later, we received our delivery of groceries. Brit Boy and I both hate food shopping with a passion, so we pay a couple of extra pounds to have them delivered to us from a nice van right to our doorstep. And sometimes we pay nothing for the delivery, because they have vouchers in the store that you can pick up. Of course, the grocery fairies were working in our favor this week, because in the Saturday mail, we got vouchers for two free deliveries, so woohoo!!!! (smile)

Later that evening, Brit Boy was downstairs watching the football/soccer. It was the beginning of Euro 2008...the big football tournament that goes on until June 29th. He loves his football and I watch it now and then, but it is always a perfect time for us both to have some “me time” with ourselves. So he can watch his football and I go upstairs and either read or go and hang out with my laptop. I ended up watching a music show online that was really good.

In other news, the Chav-Bucks, who were previously mentioned in a much earlier entry, have sold their house and will soon be moving. We haven’t had any more run-ins with them since the time that I wrote about before. We do our thing and they do theirs and it has worked well that way. (smile) Brit Boy and I just get on with our lives. I just wanted to share that update.

On Sunday, we waited a while and then we got up in order to get our grass cut. We waited until about noon to mow the lawn so that we wouldn’t disturb anyone. We weren’t the only ones with grass cutting on our minds. Our neighbor across the way was out doing the same thing. While Brit Boy pushed the mower, I went to work in clipping back the bushes and pulling weeds. Near the end of our gardening, Brit Boy was on the back side of the fence and I came around inside the fence again to get something and what should I see, but a SNAKE!!!!! (laugh) Now, I am from Georgia, and we have plenty of snakes back there, but I must admit that I had been lulled into a false sense of security here about snakes. See, I had been told that they don’t really have snakes here...only little green garden snakes or sometimes a rare adder. So I had been pretty comfortable being outside doing the gardening. Well the snake that I saw was about ten to twelve inches long and about the girth of my index finger and I guess it was an adder. It didn’t really freak me out to see it, but it made me jump since I had just been weeding right where he was slithering. EEK!!! (laugh) I have a terrible, terrible fear of snakes. My sister back in Georgia is always telling me how envious she is of us that we “don’t have snakes here” even though I told her that they have little ones. So I shall have to tell her that I can now confidently say that there are snakes here. (smile)

In the afternoon, Brit Boy and I went to a barbeque. The weather has been glorious this past weekend and today too, so it was a prime time for a barbeque. It is so wonderful to see since we have had rain on top of rain for so long. It was gorgeous. Anyway, we went to this barbeque and it was my first British barbeque and here’s the thing...it is pretty much just like an American barbeque. (smile) Just kidding about being surprised. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting it to be different or the same or anything. I was just interested in going. And even if it had been extremely different that would have been fine with me. I don't go around expecting things to be just like home. I am here to experience my Brit Boy's culture and when we are back home in Georgia, he experiences mine. So it is all good. I am open to the new experiences that I have here and I just try to take it all in. Anyway, the food was good. We had burgers, hot dogs, sausages and various side dishes. It was a BYOB situation though. You had to bring your own drink, but that was cool. Brit Boy and I went along packing our own soft drink stash. Since he was driving and couldn’t drink, I stayed in solidarity with him and had virgin drinks too. (smile) It was a good time.

On today, Monday, I got up early as I always do. I had to go in to see the dentist today for my 6 months checkup. It was over pretty quickly. Brit Boy and I call this dentist “Speedy” because we have clocked him seeing both of us in under FIVE MINUTES!!! (laugh) I guess that speed is good to keep the flow going, but you have to talk really fast if you have an ache. He did a quick cleaning of my bottom teeth only and I was quickly sent out. I was glad that it was painless and all, but I didn’t get a mouth rinse and so I left his office and was walking down the sidewalk spitting for half a mile. (smile) He is a nice enough guy though, so I guess that I will be spitting down the sidewalk again in six months time. Of course that will be December, so it may hit the ground as ice pellets.