Growing Pains

Well, it would appear it has been a little more than a week since I last blogged. Do we notice a trend here? Since I last blogged I have, got engaged, moved to the new work building (Commuting time down from an hour each way to a mere 15 minutes – woo!), shabby chiced some more furniture (it’s like an addiction!), mastered the strange steppy machine in the gym – apparently it’s good for your bum (it’s not quite a gym class, but it’s a start, and all the gym classes I want to do seem to be in the daytime! – no of course this is not an excuse.). I have also started work on my website. I am slowly mastering the wonderful world of php with the help of Chris Coyer on Lynda.com.

The sun is out today, which is making me super happy. Pre-Christmas winter is great, and snow makes it 100% better, but post Christmas winter is just depressing! It’s meant to get even warmer this week, and I cannot wait.I will be barbecuing it up in our new garden in no time at all..

I am very excited indeed about owning my very own garden. Unfortunately I have absolutely no gardening knowledge whatsoever! My mum once let me have my own mini little garden in our garden. It was half-moon shaped and I remember it had nasturtiums (exciting because they’re edible), and potatoes (not so exciting, but still edible). There must have been other plants, or it would have been a pretty pitiful attempt at a garden, but they are the ones I remember. My main memory however, is of my mum digging it all over and using it as a compost heap! It obviously scarred me in some way because I have never tried growing anything since. We have bought the odd few basil plants over the years, but the only one which ever seemed to thrive, died when we went on a 2 week holiday a couple of summer’s ago. The rest start slowly dying from the day we get them home, until eventually I am left with a small shriveled plant sitting on the window sill – broadcasting my shameful lack of green fingers for all the world to see.

My brother did once mention that he had read something somewhere suggesting that if you left the apparently dead basil plant to its own devices it would begin to start sprouting new green shoots. I dubiously followed his advice, and lo and behold it did indeed do so. He was a surprised as I was that it had actually worked. I spent a couple of weeks gleefully watering my little miracle, watching the leaves slowly getting bigger, until the inevitable happened, and once again my little basil plant withered and died. These days I mostly just buy it in packets.

When we first moved into the house. Sam’s parents came round in a flurry of plants and gardening equipment, and planted numerous bulbs in various pots and window boxes. These all seem to be coming along nicely, but there’s no feeling of smug satisfaction because I didn’t plant them myself.

I may just try planting some tomatoes..

A positive start..

Woo it’s 2012. The start of a new year. I know a lot of people criticise the idea of new year’s resolutions, but I say why not? Yes, you could decide to change your life or start something new at any time of the year, and good on you if you do, but for me, January always does feel like a fresh start. After the excess and high spirits of December (and oh I love all that excess) January 2nd always feels like a big comedown, all the festivities are over and you are confronted with cold, grey skies and the inevitable return to work and normal life. So, what better time to decide to make a few positive changes in your life? And hey, even if you don’t manage to stick to any of them, the initial excitement and positive attitude will have got you through those first 3 dreary weeks of January, and at worst, life will have returned to normal.

So, I don’t have any resolutions as such. I have decided however, that this is the year to make things happen! We have our own house – very exciting! And now I feel like I’ve finally got somewhere inspiring to work, and no more excuses for not putting my all into trying to get some freelance illustration work.

On that note these are the last 4 illustrations I’ve created since December.

Apart from that I have also decided to try and challenge myself a bit more in life, in general. I want to try out more new things, things I wouldn’t normally do. If I don’t enjoy them so be it, it’s still an experience. And life is all about experiences.

We joined a new gym last week, and first thing on my list is to go to one of the classes there. It’s not a biggie, but it doesn’t have to be. Life’s a rich tapestry and every little thing you do adds to its pattern. Right?

Ps. non-resolution no.3 is to write a blog post a week!

Auctions and old things..

It’s the local auction this Wednesday, and once again I can hardly breathe with excitement! It’s held once a month, and we discovered it about a week after we moved into the house. Going to view the lots before the auction is possibly the most exciting thing, well,  ever.. There are 2 rooms, one filled with furniture, and one filled with ceramics, paintings and many many random things.

The second room could occupy me for hours and hours. There are boxes filled with random assortments of tea sets, plates, lamps, postcards, and just about anything you could imagine sold as job lots. Behind them is a large table full of lots – old cameras, dishes, vases, victorian photo albums, clocks, cutlery holders.. and so very much more. Once you’ve spent your time poring over all of these items, you get to the little pigeon holes. Peer into these recesses, and you can find dolls, silver plated cutlery in velvet lined cases, sets of salt and pepper shakers, sets of stamps…

Luckily as this is our first unfurnished house there is much potential for what I can persuade Sam we need.

On our first trip we bought a dining table, and a clock. This is the clock, which I am absolutely 100% in love with. It has an annoying habit of stopping ticking, but I forgive it that because it is so beautiful!

The table was originally a dark brown wood, but we decided to indulge in a bit of shabby chicing. And this is the result. It is painted with Annie Sloan chalk paint then waxed and sanded/scraped to create the worn effect. This photo doesn’t really do it justice..Last time I successfully bid on a set 0f 7 dining chairs. Once again these started off a dark brown colour, and thanks to Annie Sloan paint they are now a nice shade of olivey/mint kind of green. This is the beforeAnd this, the after. We were planning on reupholstering the seats, but actually, the colours go surprisingly well together..On Wednesday I will mostly be looking out for a chest of drawers and some bedside tables, and probably trying to resist the tempation to bid on boxes of half complete tea sets.. watch this space..

New House, New Post!

So, I completely failed in writing the last few posts while in America. We just had so little time in each place that I couldn’t justify spending it sitting inside and writing my blog. It continued to be totally amazing.

AAaand then we moved house about 2 weeks after we got back, and life has been pretty hectic ever since! I’ve sat down and begun to write a new post on more than one occasion, and then somehow got distracted.. by painting furniture, walls or pictures! As a result of the move my jewellery creation has been temporarily put on hold.

I’m trying to decide whether I want to go on making jewellery, or concentrate on getting somewhere with my illustration. I do love making jewellery, but I feel like I haven’t given illustration a real go yet.

I do plan to keep my blog up to date from now on, as I have been disgracefully inattentive to the poor thing.

First, I will be updating you some on some of the crafty things I have been dabbling in now that I have a new house to fill

Cat Springs to New Orleans

The Ranch and its ‘critters’ paled in comparison to today.
We drove around the outskirts of Houston, with me and Samantha on the lookout for places that sold cowboy boots. Miraculously (and with a little help from MacDonalds’ free wifi) we found somewhere, and after some difficult decisions we both purchased a pair. Yay my first purchase.

Sadly it’s far too hot to even contemplate wearing them. It makes me uncomfortable even thinking about it! Still, the jolly old UK will give me plenty of opportunities.

A few hours driving later we arrived in Breaux Bridge. It’s a lovely looking lil town. Full of quaint little shops and cafes. Unfortunately we were here for one thing, and one thing only. The alligator swamp tour.
We turned up got out of the car, and about a minute later Sam discovered a very large spider sitting in its web. A strange sense of foreboding began to creep over me, as I remembered a canoeing trip in France a couple of years ago. I brushed it aside thinking there was little I could do.

Five minutes later we were seated in a little white motor boat heading out into the swamp. As we chugged along the man explained how the swamp had been formed, and pointed out the two different types of tree that could be found there.

Slowly the trees became more densely packed together (a sign that the water is shallower). My sense of unease returned and I tried not to look around me for the one thing that I feared more than any alligator – Giant spiders! It was no good. Five minutes later we passed under our first web. Stretched between the trees, it hung directly above the boat, and in its centre sat a huge yellow and black spider. It was at least 10cm in circumference, and I couldn’t help but shriek and leap toward Sam in the hope that he might provide some protection. The man was delighted with my patheticness.
We sailed on and I resolved to avoid looking up from now on. The scenery was amazing. There were trees stretching up out of the perfectly still water.

We rounded a corner and stopped in a little clearing. The man pointed to our left, and as we looked into the water we saw an alligator entirely submerged except for its eyes and a small part of its nose. The man then pulled the boat up to the shore, and proceeded to taunt the alligator by poking an oar at it. The alligator began to make an ominous hissing sound, and as the man poked her for the third time, it suddenly lost patience and launched itself at the boat. Here is a link to the video.. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150267897228663 – sadly it’s Mark’s video and I have yet to get it off him!

The alligators were impressive, but my mind was on other things. Horrible eight-legged scuttling things. We resettled ourselves in the boat, and set off back into the heart of the swamp. I tried to ignore the nagging spider fear and enjoy the amazing scenery. It really was amazing. Here are just a couple of the hundreds of photos we took..

Finally it happened. We rounded a corner and the man (I do wish I could remember his name) muttered
“hmm.. looks like nobody’s been through here in a few days”
Ahead of us were 2 giant spiders webs with 2 giant spiders sitting in them, in what I believe was probably an expectant manner. They hung directly above the trees we were heading toward, at more or less face height. We all laughed a little nervously at his teasing as we floated toward them, expecting him to turn back at any second. He didn’t.

I think it is safe to say that at that moment, as I sailed directly underneath them (expecting them to drop down onto me at any second), flattened against the seat and the bottom of the boat I have never been so close to having a heart attack/passing out through fear/curling up and sobbing. This is the photographic evidence.

I didn’t realise that people actually did that scared pose in real life!

Luckily, shortly after that we emerged into the middle of the lake and then spent a leisurely half hour sailing along, with the sun getting lower in the sky, and a cooling breeze soothing away the spider fears.

To sum it up, it was an amazing experience that I never wish to repeat!

Cat Springs

We set off a little jaded after a late night.

We stopped off at a supermarket on the way to purchase supplies for dinner and breakfast. We decided, after many days and nights of fatty food that a large salad was the way forward, so many vegetables were purchased.

We got to Cat Springs at around 2. Cat Springs is a working ranch, and our cabin was situated in the middle of it, in a little clearing amongst trees. It was very pretty, white and wooden with a porch fully equipped with two rocking chairs.
We decided to take a walk round the ranch and have a look at some of the animals. There were hundreds of tiny grasshoppers hidden in the grass,and at each step forward we took they would fly up in all directions – as water sprays up under the wheels of a car as it drives through a puddle.
We came across some chickens, emus and a donkey. The donkey was particularly sweet. At this point we got a little lost, as all the gates seemed to say ‘staff only’. We took the only route we could and ended up out on the main road. We made a valiant effort to walk round the outside of the ranch and get back that way, but the sun defeated us. It beat down on us relentlessly, and even the shade provided no relief, so reluctantly we admitted defeat and went back from whence we came.

Later, as it began to get dark we sat in the living room. The welcome pack said that we should avoid going out at night if we could, and if we needed to, make sure we had a flashlight so that we could see what lay in our path. Slightly unnerving. They said that we might encounter ‘critters’ and if we did we should try and embrace them as a wonder of nature.

What they failed to mention is that the air conditioning unit has a habit of sucking bugs in. That night as we went off to bed, I noticed a cockroach crawling along the frame of our bed. Being brave, I knocked it off into the corner of the room in the hope it would take the hint and make itself scarce. It then became clear that there were quite a few little ‘critters’ making themselves comfy on our bed. I brushed them all off, (they were really quite small) and got into bed hoping that was that. A minute later I glanced up into the corner and saw a large black spider. I calmly asked Sam to remove it, and thinking ok, it can’t get much worse, I settled down to read my book. A few minutes later Sam brushed a large cockroach off his hand. I carried on nervously reading, trying to tuck myself up in the sheet as much as possible so that the bugs couldn’t get in. Amazingly I did get some sleep, and although Sam had another encounter with a cockroach on his face I remained bug free, or oblivious.
We found out the next morning that Sam and Mark had had a similarly disturbed night.

San Antonio

Another day’s driving saw us arrive in San Antonio at around 6.

This was the dirtiest hotel we have stayed in. When we got home that night I actually found a cockroach in the bathroom.
Showers were had, and we wandered into town to find another restaraunt recommended by the same lady at the reception in El Paso. It was a Tex Mex place called Rosarios. We ordered shrimp nachos, ‘Griselda’s famous Tacos’ and stuffed peppers.
Post dinner we made our way back to the river walk – a pretty street with a river running through it and restaurants full of twinkling lights on either side. We found an irish bar with a man playing piano and singing. It had a huge barrel of monkey nuts next to the bar, and buckets for you to help yourself. This explained all the prior to this point unidentifiable objects all over the floor.
We bought a beer each. They cost $6 each. We decided that was quite ridiculously expensive so listened to the man and his piano while we drank up, then left. Sam did something QUITE rebellious on our way out.
We then found another Irish bar where drinks were a mere $2 each. This was more like it. There were two men on stage doing an acoustic set which we listened to as we drank.
After an hour or so we decided to check out the club upstairs. The first room was playing rap/r&b, it was a little painful so we left. The other room was playing more acceptable music so we stayed. After about 5 minutes of dancing it came to our attention that we had cleared half the dance floor. There was literally at least a metre gap between us and the rest of the club. We decided it was down to our supercoolness, and them not wanting to be shown up by dancing too close.

El Paso

After our early night we set off at six the next morning. We stopped for breakfast at 8, and decided to go to ‘Jack in a Box’ as it was on our list of yet to try. Well, that was a mistake. It was edible, but not much more. I didn’t think it possible to not enjoy a croissant. Still, it was less than $10 dollars including bottomless coffee so one cannot complain.

We arrived in El Paso at about 2.30. Our rooms weren’t quite ready so we sat in the restaurant and ate our complimentary chocolate chip cookie, and drank their cucumber infused water.

We had been deliberating whether to get the special tram that went over the border into mexico. It sounded exciting if not a little dangerous – one reviewer on Trip Advisor said that he had been approached by a shady man demanding $100 to get back into the US, and seen men being hit with bullets in the distance. Others said it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Unfortunately all the reviews seemed to be from 2007 or before, and the website seemed to be down. That made the decision for us.

Instead we decided to get the cablecar that took you up over the mountain so that you could see Mexico on one side and the US on the other. We drove up there only to discover that it had closed early for the day. El Paso fail. Here is a cactus.
All was not lost as we found a funny little thrift store on the way back filled with the weirdest of things. Sadly the only things I would have considered buying were items of furniture, and they would not have fitted in my suitcase.

Then we drove along the ‘scenic route’ up a mountain to get a view over El Paso, and in the distance Mexico.
For dinner we drove to Cincinati Street, and after driving round for about 15 minutes (there was a concert on in the stadium across the road) we finally found a space. I was understandably slightly nervous parking in what seemed like a completely legitimate parking space, after our adventure in LA, but we decided to risk it.

We had dinner in ‘The Magic Pan’ – a salad/sandwich place recommended to us by the girl on reception. It was very nice, and made a refreshing change from greasy food. We returned to the car to find no parking ticket!

The next morning there was an item on the news about 2 people who had been shot on the very same street a couple of hours later – scary.

Phoenix

I don’t have much to say about Phoenix. We left at 8 in the morning as once again we had a days driving ahead of us.

We bought an egg and sausage wrap from the garage to tide us over until lunchtime. It was not your average egg and sausage wrap. It was.. strange. Spicy.

We stopped at the hoover damn to take some photos. The water was incredibly blue, and it was so hot I would have given anything to dive in. To be honest, and I confess complete ignorance on the matter, but I didn’t quite see what the big deal was. I do intend to google it when I get the time to find out, but without prior knowledge it just seemed like a large dam. Maybe that’s what’s impressive about it?

As we changed states we all put our watches forward an hour.
We drove down Route 66, and stopped at the Roadkill Cafe for lunch. We order lemonade which came in huge jars. And I ordered a beef patty and fries.
We arrived in Phoenix at what we believed to be 8.30pm. We had a quick google for places to eat, and were dismayed to find that everywhere seemed to close at 9pm. It was agreed that to make the best of a bad situation and watch some crappy American TV then have an early night so that we could set off early the next morning.

After an hour Mark and Sam phoned to say they thought we had all actually put out watches forward an hour prematurely. They were right. It was now 8.30pm so all the restaurants would be closing in half an hour. We went with our original plan.

So all in all we saw nothing of Phoenix, but I can tell you that if you’re planning to eat out most places close at 9pm.

Las Vegas Day 2

We rewarded ourselves with a bit of a lie in, then me and Sam went and wandered into the centre again. I wanted to see some of the extravagance that Vegas is famed for.

We stopped at a souvenir shop where I resisted the urge to buy a ‘CSI Crime Scene Investigation’ vest top, and all the other mountains of tacky goods on offer.

We went into a shopping mall where we found a fake street of mexican style buildings, complete with an almost convincing blue sky scattered with fluffy clouds overhead. As we made our way down said street the stone lined pool that passed through the centre suddenly began to emit a mist, the lights lowered, and we realised we were about to be treated to a ‘rainstorm’ (only available at weekends – boy did we feel privileged). A rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and slowly as the mist poured out, raindrops began to break the surface of the water. Lightning flashed and the drops grew ever heavier.. and then, just as is started it began to stop. Within a minute everything had returned to normal, and we were left standing in your average fake street again as if nothing had ever happened.

That night we went to see the Pirates show outside Treasure Island Casino. It was tacky to say the least, but I was all willing to give it a chance when all of the actors suddenly disappeared below deck, and an announcement was made that there had been technical difficulties so the show had been cancelled. Disappointment.

We also went to Little Venice to see the Gondolas, and I finally got me an ice cream. It was actually sorbet, One scoop of passion fruit and once scoop of pineapple to be exact. And oh it was good.

The fountains outside the Bellagio were an impressive sight, made more so by the incredible thundering noise as they reached their peak. It was a pleasant surprise as I couldn’t quite understand what the fuss was about prior to seeing it myself.
All in all Vegas was interesting, impressive even, but not somewhere I would want to spend more than a couple of days in. I found it slightly depressing – it’s all so geared around consumerism. Eat too much, drink too much and spend far too much money. And like everyone else there I did just that!