Looking Up

A couple of days ago, as I was walking home from work, I happened to look up and see this beautiful red hot air balloon in the sky. It was an amazing sight to see. There's something of the whimsical involved in imagining floating across the sky like that. I loved that the color was so vibrant and easily identifiable against that clear blue sky. It was a wonderful treat for my eyes that took me away from the routine of a normal weekday. I really needed it that day too.

Thinking back about it now, it's a reminder to try to not to let the day-to-day heaviness weigh me down so much, to the point where I don't remember to look up from time to time. There are sometimes undiscovered treasures there :-)

Until next time...

Saw A Rainbow

I saw a rainbow the other day, so I thought that I'd share it 🌈

International Women's Day 2017

Happy International Women's Day!

On this day especially, I think of my mother, my sisters, my grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and all of the women who have lighted my way and/or paved the way on my journey as a woman. I am grateful for my journey every single day, but I love that women and their contributions are highlighted on this day. As we celebrate the contributions of women, we must also shine a light upon the injustices which women and girls experience daily around the globe. There is so much work still to be done.

I find encouragement on my journey quite often through quotes and this is one of my favorites. 

"I got my start

 by giving myself a start."

~ Madam C.J. Walker

Businesswoman, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist

                               

Things That Light the Way

This past weekend I embraced two things that I love...taking pictures and sketching. If you have visited me here before, you'll know that I love sharing photos from my Wiltshire adventures and from anywhere else that I find myself roaming :) However, I don't usually share sketches or anything I've created. Never really thought to do so. Maybe I should share more of my creative hits and misses since creative expression is a big part of who I am. Hmmm. Watch this space.

Anyway, back to my point :) So, I had my trusty phone camera out on Saturday as hubby and I drove through the countryside as we did our errands. My camera on my phone isn't the best, but it's good enough to give the general idea of what I saw. Lol.

Here's a photo that I took of a tree along the roadside. A friend on Instagram remarked that the tree looks like a deer with his back turned to the road while he reads a book. I cracked up when I read her words because I immediately saw what she meant :) His antlers and head are so clear. I just think it's wild that I snapped this picture at exactly that moment as we drove by and it looks so much like a deer. And I'm in awe of her picture interpretation skills. Who knew that huge reading deer sit along the edges of Wiltshire roads? :)

As for my sketching, well before yesterday morning it had been a LONG time since I've sketched anything. I used to draw all of the time years ago, but that interest seems to have dried up, or maybe the urge to draw got pushed to the side due to everything else taking so much time. Well, this past week's stress shifted something within me and out of the blue I just picked up my sketch pad on Sunday morning and I let my pencil do what it wanted.

Below is the result.

I don't know exactly who this is, maybe it's kind of a self-portrait, maybe it's not. I'm jealous of her hair though. Lol. I have very curly hair, but I can never get it to look like this...perhaps this is a spiritual intention road map to how I want my hair to be in the future :) Or maybe it's not about me at all and this is just a character that sprung out of my mind and came through my pencil and her name is.....ummm, Ruby...yeah let's call her Ruby  ;-)  

Rediscovering my love of sketching was therapeutic and I'll definitely be keeping my pencil close by as I go forward. I'm going to make time for sketching here and there even if it's only for a few minutes. It never hurts to have more than a few things that bring you happiness. I'm grateful that I have photography and sketching to light the way!

Hey, maybe I'll draw some friends for Ruby....hmmm...maybe I will :)

Have a wonderful day!

Keep Getting Up

This has been a good week because my husband and I are alive and well and that's a blessing :) However, I have to say, this week has been trying to drag me down big time, but here's the thing. I KEEP GETTING UP! That's what we all must do right? :) These two quotes above along with prayer have helped me through.

I know that this is just a season and I'm weathering this storm to the best of my ability. I won't go into it all because I don't want to bore anyone. Lol. I'll just say this, it's to do with my seemingly never ending job search. It is what it is (shrug). Things are opening up slowly...very slowly, so in the meantime I'm gonna be over here being ME :)

Today and this weekend I'm giving some love to my writing and especially my poor book. My book has been sitting there patiently waiting for me while I've been going through all of this craziness.

I thought I'd share these two quotes just in case anyone else out there is going through something. Hang in there :)

Happy weekend!

Remembering Shirley Temple Black

 

Like many of you, I woke up this morning to the news that Shirley Temple has passed away at the age of 85. Her name was actually Shirley Temple Black as an adult, but the sweet name from her childhood sticks in my mind so much because I LOVED her movies when I was a child.

 

When I was a little girl I'd get up on weekend mornings and ask my mom if there were any Shirley Temple movies scheduled to be shown. My activities for the day often hinged upon whether or not one of her movies was going to be on that day :-)  That was a sweet and wonderful memory that crossed my mind this morning when I heard the news.

 

I have a lot of wonderful memories of singing and dancing along with Shirley Temple movies throughout my childhood. I didn't know it then, but those fun performances alongside the television shaped a lot of my love for all things creative. They helped me to dream and to express myself and that is why I remember Shirley and her films so fondly now as an adult. They fired my imagination so very much and for that I am grateful.

 

Farewell Shirley Temple and thank you....

Serena's US Open Win

Today I wanted to take a moment to highlight a true champion and her name is Serena Williams! She is extraordinary and I admire the true tenacity, athleticism, hard work, and dedication that Serena and her sister Venus have displayed to the world time and time again! Like everyone else, I've read about the tough road that they've had to travel in order to be two of the best tennis players ever and so every time they win I take a moment to contemplate what got them there. Often we only see people when they get to the finish line, but as we all know, there is so much that goes into succeeding before the world ever knows about it.

 

As I have watched the Williams sisters over the years all that I can think of is how lucky we all are to see not one, but two women from the same genes delight us with their amazing athleticism. We all come to the world with gifts and these ladies are sharing theirs each time they pick up a racket.

 

Sometimes when I'm reading or hearing about someone who was great at what they did throughout history in any field, I sometimes think how cool it would have been to be alive to witness their greatness firsthand. That's why I'm so grateful to have been able to see both Serena and her sister Venus play at Wimbledon in years past. When I saw Venus play, she won her match and she was amazing! Even though Venus has her challenges with her disease nowadays, she still has the heart of a champion. When we saw Serena play a couple of years back, she didn't win the match that we saw, but still, I felt so grateful to be there. In the future when they have both retired, I won't have any regrets because I saw both of them in their prime. To see someone do what they are meant to do and as an extra to see them do it well, is such a treat!

 

With her win in the US Open last night, Serena won her fourth US Open title and her fifteen Grand Slam title. She played against Victoria Azarenka and they both were incredible! Hats off to them both.

 

Over the last ten weeks or so, Serena has won Wimbledon, an Olympic gold medal in singles and doubles with her sister Venus (third Olympic doubles gold), and now she has won this US Open title once more. The statistics for Serena and Venus are astounding. Here are some photos from last night... 

 



 

 

 Above: Victoria Azarenka alongside Serena Williams

 



All photos courtesy of Getty Images

 

So there it is...my little tribute to Serena, her sister Venus, and indeed to Ms. Azarenka. Well done ladies!



Christmas at Salisbury Cathedral

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!

Presidential Medal of Freedom

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!

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….

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… :-)

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!!!!

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! :-)