The best present from my sister!

This Christmas my sister surpassed herself in the gift-giving department! She sent Sonny a set of wooden puzzles that are keeping him busy and very quiet as he tries to put them back together in the right way and also proving to be quite a challenge!!

For me, she sent this fantastic book/journal/notebook full of walls! It's fantastic and right up my street, she knows me too well!! I though I'd share with you some of the cool pages from the book.

Her funny gift card!

 

I don't think I can write in this one as it's so pretty to look at!!

Thanks again Sis!

A little Music for Thursday!

 

I'm loving Claire Maguire's sound, her music is fab! This is a great song and her album is out at the end of February. I can't wait that long so I'm listening to her on youtube instead!

Enjoy this one - it's a goodie!

Christmas at last!

I meant to post this last week but it got lost in the list of posts! So here it is this week instead!

 

Our 'UK packages' finally arrived (one last Tuesday and the other on Saturday) after weeks in the post between Aberfeldy, Scotland and here. They were posted on the 10th Dec!! 

It's so exciting getting a package full of goodies that you have been waiting forever for but I held out and waited till Sonny got home to open the first package and then on Saturday I saw the postman from the window and he had a big "brown paper package, tied up with string" in his sack, so I was out the door as soon as he left!! 

Only one was really smashed up!

We got some really fun goodies including some mince pies, we are devouring them slowly as we haven't had them for over two years. They were delicious! You can't get them over here and I don't think I have the patience to make them myself, or able to find the mincemeat at a reasonable price!

Happy Birthday Rabbie!

Today is Robert Burns' Birthday and is celebrated by the traditional Burns Night. A few years after his death in 1796, a group of his friends gathered for an evening of recitals and song as a tribute to his memory. Hence, Burns Night was born and has been celebrated for over 200 years throughout the world on January 25, the evening of the anniversary of his birth.

A Burns Supper commences with the Selkirk Grace:

Some hae meat and cannot eat.

Some cannot eat that want it:

But we hae meat and we can eat,

Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Haggis is a central part of the meal. Here’s a recipe from days gone by — mmm, delicious!

“Take the liver, lungs and heart of a sheep and boil them. Mince the meats and mix with chopped onions, toasted oatmeal, salt, pepper, and spices. Take one properly cleaned sheep's stomach. Stuff the cleaned stomach with the prepared contents. Sew up the stomach (leaving enough room for expansion to avoid a large messy explosion) and boil. Serve and eat.”  

- Via worldburnsclub.com

I really wish I could get some Haggis over here in the USA, it's something I miss more than I thought I would and I don't fancy making my own after reading the recipe!!

 

a little music for Tuesday

Getting me through today is this song from Adele, I love this song and the video is fab, enjoy!

 

I have a dream today

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today."

 "Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Today is Martin Luther King Jr here in the US, above are some excerpts from his famous speech "I have a Dream",  you can read the  full speech here

two little birds

 Something fun for the weekend... here are our two little birdies getting along together and grooming each other! They are really funny!

Have a great weekend and I will be back next week with more 10-in-10-for-10!

DAY 2 - Pumpkins

As the weather has been a bit too chilly outside (-16C) I have been taking my "10 in 10 for 10" inside and it's made me look at things in a new way! These are autumn pumpkins that I've had for a while and I thought the patterns and colours were cool!

DAY 1 - Here they are...

... the first of my '10 in 10 for 10'! It was much harder than I thought it would be, although I love to 

take pictures it was hard to find interesting things in only 10 minutes! I promise they will get better! 

I probably won't do this everyday for the next ten days as the weather is  pretty rubbish at the moment but I will get through the 10 day! 

 

 

A fun project to start the year!

This morning I have been reading some of the blogs I follow and getting inspiration from them. 

I came across this post from Nancy, of Fledge.

Today, I thought up a meme (which, in my head, I pronounce "Me-Me", because I can, because it's my head). 10-10-10. Ten photos. Ten minutes. Ten days. It's intended to exercise my mindfulness and stretch my photographic eye. No time to fidget with settings (which I cannot, because I cracked the LCD display on the back of my camera. Perfect.). No time to stage anything. No photo editing.  

Just walk/see/shoot/look/post.

It's such a great idea and I plan to get started today!

I will post the photos as I go to let you see what I have been up to!

 

Happy New Year!

Hello again, I'm back and ready to go for 2011 - can you believe it!! Where did 2010 go? I remember this time last year we were still in the decision process of whether to move over here or what to do with ourselves!

This year we are happy to be here in the Black Hills and are looking forward to whatever 2011 will bring us - hopefully a nice end to this calm winter, maybe I shouldn't speak too soon?!

Sonny and I had a nice Christmas, we made it to Aberdeen before the ice storm here in Rapid, there was at least a quarter of an inch of ice everywhere! It had rained overnight and then froze, there was even a no-drive warning put out for the city until it started to thaw! Thankfully we missed it! We spent Wednesday to Sunday with Sonny's family and it was nice to see everyone again, we ate lots of yummy food and thankfully didn't get too stuck in all the snow there!

Then it was a six hour drive back to Rapid with a car full of stuff and two birds - yes, two birds! Tweetie has come to live with us to! They are getting on fine and will hopefully become friendly enough to share the same cage so we can have more space in the living room! They are funny together and when Sonny is home at night, he is the 'bird-man' with a parrot on each shoulder, I will get some pictures, it's very funny!

We didn't do anything for New Year as it was so cold out (-30C wind chills, brrr!) and we didn't want to have to leave the warm, cosy comforts of the sofa! So we watched the 'ball drop' in New York on the tv instead!

I only have one new year's resolution this year and it is to take more photos of everyday things that I like! I'm sure i can stick to this one!

Sorry for the 'wordy' post but I will be back with some fun pictures in the 

next few days!

Welcome 2011!

Happy New year everyone, I hope it's a great year!

papaya blog