A Work In Progress

Hello :)

Sorry that it's taken me almost two weeks to get back here. I appreciate everyone who visits me here. I've been doing a bit of repositioning over these last couple of weeks. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm working on switching over a bit from my obsessive job search to a more balanced way of being. It's easier said than done, but I'm stepping along the way slowly but surely.

It's been like waking up from a very detailed dream and you have to gather yourself a bit to remember how you were before. I've had my lists out...I love making lists :) I've been thinking and asking myself....

"What did I used to do?"

"How do I get back there, but with some balance?"

I still need to look for a job, but I need the other part of my life too. I refuse to go on spinning and chasing my tail and letting it make me crazy. The job will come and I'll keep looking for it, but I have to be ready when it does come. So this past two weeks I've been working on finding my footing again and thankfully finding my writing again. Yay! :)

One important part of writing is getting back to this blog that I love, but haven't been giving enough time to. This place...this Yellow House...is a part of that balance too. After all, my Yellow House...this Yellow House...is a state of mind...a place of light (at least that's where I'm aiming). So here I am and I hope that you'll keep visiting me. I have photos and thoughts and my book progress and just things that I want to share. The world is so chaotic sometimes, so I want to share some (I hope) good things. Please join me if you can :)

Have a wonderful day!

Graduation Post Coming

Hi :) I just wanted to check in to let you know that I'll be posting about the London trip and my graduation this past weekend in the next couple of days. I'm a bit behind with things...aren't I always? Lol.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I'll be sharing my experience here complete with distinguished people, broken heels, and cocktails ;-) My life is like a sitcom sometimes. Lol.

I'll be back....  ;-)

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!

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 :-)

My Writerly Ways

In my last post, I revealed a few things about myself and it was fun :-) So today I thought that I would reveal some more about what I get up to when I’m not here at my blog. Well, I’m usually writing something or the other, whether for school, my fiction aspirations, or for the website /e-zine that I contribute to currently.

I’m nearing the end of my projects for school, so I’m glad about that :-) Ecstatic is more like it….LOL. It has been very interesting and enjoyable though. I’ve been learning a lot, but I know that as always, there is more to learn. Life is about learning as you go, so I really enjoy that journey.

My fiction aspirations and writing have taken many forms. I have dabbled in poetry in the past, but I REALLY know that’s not my strength. LOL. I have written my share of short stories over the years and a few years ago, I had a couple of them to receive honorable mentions in the Writers Digest Competition. Those were my high points with that genre though :-) Lately I’ve been thinking that I should get back into writing short stories again to get my creative juices flowing. I think I’ll do that. It might be fun! ;-)

As for my current writing, I’ve been contributing to Tango Echo, which is an arts and culture e-zine. I’m really enjoying writing for them. Here are the links to my articles and a bit about what I’ve written for them so far.

The first one was about my love of architecture and I wrote about the various churches that I’ve visited around England. I really enjoyed this assignment because it also involved my love of photography. I’m always given the opportunity to include my own photos and coincidentally, the photo at the very beginning of the article is the one that I had included in the Schmap travel guide. This by the way is how Schmap found my photo. It’s a small world :-) Anyway, here’s the link to my article, “Cathedrals of England”.

The next article is about my love of antiquing at flea markets. I’ve written here at my blog before about my love of going to Devizes. Well this article is about one of my trips down there. Here’s the link to “Antiquing: A History Lesson” .

I hope you enjoy taking a peek at what I get up to when I’m not blogging here or busying myself around the Yellow House or dancing around with Brit Boy ;-)
Have a great day and I’ll talk to you later!

Fountain Friends

I’ve written before about my love of pens and fountain pens in particular. Well, I’ve been using my Parker pen exclusively for a while now, since I love how it feels in my hand. However, the other day I was cleaning around the Yellow House and came upon my other favorite fountain pen, my Levenger. I haven’t been using it for a long while. The Levenger is at the top of the photo and the Parker is the one below.

Here’s the story of my reunion with an old friend. When I put my Levenger aside a good while back, it needed cleaning, therefore it got put aside for what I thought would be a day. Well, life intervened and that day got lost in the shuffle as I prepared to change gears and countries at that point. My Levenger got packed away in its case…got carried across the Atlantic Ocean with me…and it’s been living in its case since I moved here to England over three and a half years ago :-) It’s had a long nap. It got lost in the shuffle with my transatlantic move. It’s a strange life sometimes…I feel like I’m still unpacking sometimes :-)

So I let out a squeal when I laid my eyes upon its simple little case. I know this may sound corny, but it was like seeing an old friend after this long time. It’s funny how the little things from home can just make your day when you live a life like mine :-) I love the adventure of living here, but as I’m only human, I get homesick sometimes too. Finding my pen was like a tiny snapshot of who I was before I came here. I’m still me…the same sense of humor, etc., and that'll never change, but a lot has happened to me since I closed that pen case those years ago. And like any other person, my experiences have shaped me and it's revealing to take stock sometimes. So it was cool to have a think backwards. It’s intriguing how certain objects or certain songs can take you back so much. Life's an interesting trip :-)

I had to do a thorough cleaning on my Levenger, and now it’s back in action. Long live both of my fountain pens! Now I’ve got to go and see what else I can find! :-)

Fifty Things

I got this meme from Heidi at Health Nut Wannabee Mom. I did it on Facebook a couple of days ago, but I'm posting it here with more info and a couple of updates I just made to it. Life is ever changing :) I thought this was a great opportunity to let you all know more about me. I don't know how interesting I am, but I hope you enjoy reading my list :) Please take this meme if you like...it's fun.

And hey, have a great weekend! :-)

1. What time did you get up this morning?
At 8:30 am... although I usually get up at 6:30am with Brit Boy, but he's on vacation this week, so I've been sleeping a bit longer.

2. How do you like your steak?
medium well done

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
The Taking of Pelham 123, starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta

4. What is your favorite TV show?
Currently - Private Practice; all time favorite - original series Bionic Woman

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
New York City

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Cup of herbal tea and cheese toast(have to get my cheese in for the day :))

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
Italian food

8. What foods do you dislike?
Green peas, soft-boiled or hard-boiled eggs, jello, liver

9. Favorite Place to Eat?
Somewhere with a great view

10. Favorite dressing?
Ranch dressing

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive?
Rover 45

12. What are your favorite clothes?
jeans, t-shirts, dangling earrings, sandals, shoes that I can just slip on easily and go, my swanky black trenchcoat/raincoat(very good in England ;-), dresses sometimes too

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
Italy, France(been there, but would love to go again), Monte Carlo, Lapland, Switzerland, Japan, South Africa ...the list goes on and on :-)

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full
I shoot for half full, but it just depends on the day

15. Where would you want to retire?
Somewhere living next to the beach

16. Favorite time of day?
In the daytime it's 11am and at night 11pm....there must be some pattern here ;-)

17. Where were you born?
Georgia, USA

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
Tennis

19. Who do you think will not try this meme?
Don't know, but it's cool either way :)

20. Person you expect will try this meme first?
Don't know again :)

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
Everybody

22. Are you a bird watcher?
Yes sometimes

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?
I said more of a night person before, but then I had more of a think on it. I'm a bit of both I guess, but then this goes back to the 11 o'clock thing. I get really energetic around 11am and I'm good for quite a while. Then I get really energetic around 11pm for a couple of hours. LOL.It's like clockwork and it never fails. There must be some numerology going on here. So from eleven til twelve I'm wide awake...so call on me then and you'll get 100% of my attention. LOL.

24. Do you have any pets?
Only a mechanical dog for now; we'll add on in the future

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share?
Nothing comes to mind, but you never know what's coming :)

26. What did you want to be when you were little?
Everything...the Bionic Woman, an actress, a musician, anything where I could have fun

27. What is your best childhood memory?
Helping my dad plant the vegetable garden in the spring

28. Are you a cat or dog person?
Not sure ????? We had cats and dogs when I was growing up, so I guess I like both.

29. Are you married?
Yep...to Brit Boy :)

30. Always wear your seat belt?
Every time!

31. Been in a car accident?
Yes and I got hurt...a van hit the passenger side and I got bumped into hard and had trouble walking for a while. I'm fine now.

32. Any pet peeves?
People talking loudly in public on cell phones, people making out in line/queues and they're really going at it (get a room) :)

33. Favorite pizza topping?
mushrooms

34. Favorite Flower?
Any blue flower or a calla lily

35. Favorite ice cream?
chocolate

36. Favorite fast food restaurant?
KFC or Pizza Hut

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
Zero

38. From whom did you get your last email?
Colette

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Harrod's...that store truly has everything :)

40. Do anything spontaneous lately?
Said hello to a grumpy neighbor...they didn't answer back...oh well.... ;-)

41. Like your job?
It's a work in progress...trying to reinvent myself with a new career

42. Do you like broccoli?
Yeah, I like it okay...especially when I can put a bit of cheese on it ;-)

43. What was your favorite vacation?
Paris, France for our first wedding anniversary a couple of years ago

44. Last person you went out to dinner with?
My husband

45. What are you listening to right now?
The theme song to the tv show Monk...I love that show

46. What is your favorite color?
blue

47. How many tattoos do you have?
0

48. How many are you tagging for this meme?
I'm leaving it open for anyone who wants to try it

49. What time did you finish this meme?
11:44 am

50. Are you a coffee drinker?
On occassion, but not often...the caffeine makes me too hyper. I'll run around like a cartoon if I have too much coffee, but it sure tastes good...LOL