HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Y'ALL!!

Eat some turkey and dressing for me!! Gobble til ya Wobble!!

The British Museum...

A couple of days before Hannah's 10th birthday we took a trip to London to visit the British Museum. This place is PHENOMENAL!! Not only is it HUGE and GORGEOUS inside, but I've never seen a PERMANENT collection like this one in my life! This place had far more on display from its collection than any exhibition display I've come across! The Egyptian collection was just one of the many fascinating collections they had! They have an entire room (more like a HALL) devoted to nothing but MUMMIES!! They even have several REAL ones on display in various states of unwrap! I took these pics w/ my iPhone so the quality is not the best but pretty good for a phone. (Don't forget you can click to enlarge the pics!)




^^Front and back of Ramses the Great statue.^^



^^One of the MANY stairwells in the labyrinth that is the British Museum!^^ It is very easy to get lost in this place!



^^Sarcophagi.^^



^^Inside one of the outer containers of a sarcophagus.I think it's made of granite.^^



^^Mummy still wrapped and complete w/ its head mask and amulets.^^



^^Inside of another outer container of a sarcophagus. This one's made of wood.^^



^^Mummy unwrapped! Just the feet, though. I have the rest of it somewhere.^^



^^I think this is a mummified bird or something.^^




^^Inside wooden outer container of a sarcophagus.^^

Equally as impressive a collection were the Grecian urns and artifacts! Having studied art history I feel makes me appreciate so much more the sheer genius behind some of these pieces, especially the way they were made!! Just look at the details of these blue glass pieces...







^^BIIIIIIIIIGG horse statue!^^

And OF COURSE the British Museum has the FAMED Elgin Marbles!! They are so beautiful in person! The detail is astonishing and the gallery they are homed in was seemingly built for them. The lighting does them justice!





K, on to the next blog entry...

Hair Cut... NO! NOT MINE, silly!

So, as you may have noticed I have not been very good w/ my blog as of late. I've had a VERY BUSY coupla months!!! SO . . . I will begin as far back as I can!

I gave Roy a haircut (sometime around July 21st)!! I think it turned out pretty well! I downloaded "How to Cut Your Boyfriend's Hair" from WikiHow and got to cuttin'!

BEFORE:


"CUT MY MOP!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

And 2 HOURS LATER:





^^You can tell I started w/ this side b/c of the sharp edge on the side! I finally figured out what I was doing before I started the other side.


^^THIS side looks FABOO as does the back!! (IMHO anyway!)



Thorid, whaddya think? (Thorid's my resident Hair Guru!) I think I did a pretty good job overall (except for the 2-hour part)!!

K, on to the next blog entry!

FINALLY!!!

YEA!! I can finally hang up my clothes after 7 months of living outta boxes!! Our wardrobe (closet, ours is a walk-in) was installed a couple weeks ago. It went well. Here are some BEFORE pics to give you an idea of what it looked like w/ our boxes everywhere (don't forget you can click on the image to enlarge it):





As you can see, it was a mess and a pain to deal w/. We worked with an interior designer named Lee who I just LOVED!! He was so cool and very personable. He and I could hang out and have a good ol' time! He's your typical interior designer, waif thin, GREAT taste, opinionated (although not annoyingly so; just enough to get your attention and for you to say, "Hey, maybe it's NOT such a good idea to put orange shag carpet in a Victorian house!"), wears make-up (foundation anyway) and has a boyfriend bigger than he is!! LOVE HIM!!! (I need to call him and see how he's doing.)

Anyway, we have bamboo floors in the top two rooms of the house and we wanted the wood we chose for the wardrobe to be similar in color so we chose Cherry (as they didn't have Bamboo). Lee didn't like that and suggested we go w/ white b/c of the color of our walls which at the time were this nasty close-to-white puke-green/grey color. We didn't really notice how nasty a color it was until we put the white wood sample next to it. We thought that'd be too cold so we decided to paint the walls a different color and go with Birch. It looks very warm and inviting and is nowhere near as dark as the cherry would've been. It looks really good. Here are some AFTER pics:







Yeah, our ceilings on the first floor (2nd floor in US English) have this shape to them to accommodate the room upstairs (Hannah's). The 1st floor ceilings had to be dropped for there to be enough room to walk on the 2nd floor:



So, as you can imagine, all that space was filled post haste and now I have almost no excuses to start getting rid of things. I've already gotten rid of a bunch of T-shirts!! I KNOW, I KNOW!!! None of you thought I'd EVER part w/ a single solitary t-shirt of mine but it has happened!! I suggest y'all start making peace w/ your peeps and telling everyone ya love 'em cuz the end of the world is NIGH!!!! Jodi's gettin' rid of some T-shirts!!! I didn't realize how many freakin' T-shirts I had! Once I folded them all and put them in drawers I had filled 5 drawers, each at least 6 x 3 t-shirts. that's too many. Now I only have ONE drawer and it's stuffed! It's something like 7 shirts deep! (Plus I have another 3 or 4 shirts I couldn't fit in that drawer in another drawer.) OH!! That's NOT counting the 10 or 12 I have hanging up in the closet! I'm a t-shirt whore, I s'pose! BUT, some of the ones I kept are the wHOLY ones I've had for years and years and years and years and... HA!! I bet you thought I got rid of those! No such luck, mon frère! I CANNOT part w/ my beloved Animaniacs or my UNT RAC shirts or any of the ones I've designed over the years. NO WAY!

So, as you can see, I'm quite happy w/ my new little space for my clothes to call home! I'll be writing more very soon as I have a lot of catchin'-y'all-up to do.

Love to you all!!

Down...

That's how I'm feeling today. I've just had my 3rd driving lesson and, although Lee, my instructor, says I'm doing very well, I feel like I didn't do as well as I thought I would today. I KNOW how to drive! I do, but when I get in the car and have twenty-bazillion things to think about in terms of what gear I should be in at what speed, what pedal to press when and such I feel like I know nothing! Breaking is totally alien to me now! I can't just break, I have to clutch-down just before the car stops to keep from stalling and that is such a pain!! Like I said, driving is hard enough w/o having to add all this gear and clutch crap to it! I don't like manuals.

Talk about Defenestration!

I was riding home on the upper deck of the bus a coupla days ago and the driver was blowin' and goin' down the road. No biggie. These buses are so tall that occasionally they hit tree branches and there's a racket as the branches scrape along the glass and the sides of the bus. Well, I was sitting in the very front up top on the left-hand side (passenger / kerb side) when the driver must've been too far over to the left and hit a tree branch that was so big it broke the glass right above my head. I had tiny pieces of glass all over me! I got up, moved back a few rows and took this picture.




The crack is in the red square and goes the entire distance across the pane of glass. This is only the left half of the windshield.

I told Roy about this and he told me a story about a similar incident involving another bus recently. The driver hit a tree branch that was so heavy and low that it started to tear off the top of the bus! The people inside were not badly hurt at all, minor cuts and scrapes. BUT a lady waiting for the bus was KILLED by the falling branch! I guess I'll be a tad more picky when it comes to where I sit!

New things...

So, on Father's Day (last Sunday) our neighbors India and Hannah rang our doorbell to invite us over to another neighbor's, Atlanta's, for a BBQ. We had a coupla things to do before we could go over but we eventually made it around 3:30 or so. We got there and everyone was out back sitting around the patio table in the garden out back. There were a few people we didn't know but got to as the day progressed. Mick and Marie were there w/ their daughter Hannah. Atlanta, of course, with her daughter Leela and some new faces were there to greet us. Daz, Zav and Monica were 3 people we'd never seen before and the new neighbors Paul and his wife, whose name escapes me at the moment were there as well. Paul and his wife moved in next door to India.

We ate, had good conversation (well, Roy did. I'm too much of an introvert now. Sux.) and maybe met a few new friends. Zav, Roy and I had a good conversation about Photoshop and photography. Zav is a wedding photo'r and is looking for someone to teach him how to get good at Photoshop. Roy of course gushed about my MAAAAD SKILLLLZ!!!!

BUT THEN . . . Mick invited us over to his place (which is just next door) for a game of POKER!!! TEXAS HOLD 'EM, no less!! I've NEVER played poker of any type in my life and Roy hasn't played in 20 years. It was 2 GBP (Great British Pounds) to play. Neither of us had ANY cash at all on us or across the street in our house so Daz was kind enough to lend us the funds.

The players were as follows: Kev (who came later to the BBQ and is a good friend of Mick's and Atlanta's and poker freak), Zav, who's never played before either, Mick, Monica, Daz, Hannah P., Mick's 11-year-old daughter and the 3 of us, Roy, Hannah and me. We were a team since we were newcomers. The game started off well. We won a few hands and learned some of the terminology. Zav was hilarious b/c once he showed the table his cards b/c he thought the hand was over and it wasn't! Funnily enough he was one of the final few at the table!!

Well, we're chuggin' along and we find that we have very little "money" (chips) left BUT we're one of the last TWO remaining!!!! YEA, US!! We have something like 3 GBP left and Mick's got something like 65 GBP!!! So, to keep the game from going on for hours and hours, we just go ALL IN and turn our cards over and let the dealer deal. Low and behold we won that hand!! It was like that until the end!! WE WON THE GAME AND THE POT!!! We got 8 GBP in winnings!! There was a prize for 2nd place and 3rd place got their money back. WOW!!!

So, this is how the gambling addiction begins! :)

Unfortunately, I took no pics cuz I just wasn't thinking! I'm so mad at myself for that! I had my phone w/ me, too! OH, WELL!!

More later. By the way, today is June 18th and it is FREEZING COLD outside!!!!

Driving on the "wrong side" of the road...

...and car.

WHEW!!! I just finished my FIRST-EVER UK driving lesson!!! My instructor's name is Lee and he said the lesson was a pleasure!! He said I'm doing very well and moving along quite fast! So fast that he took me out onto main roads today! i have another lesson w/ him tomorrow for 2 hours. (I did 2 hours today as well.)

I was really quite nervous about it considering that I've never driven a manual transmission before. It's funny, but I felt like I was learning how to drive all over again. There's so much stuff to think about and remember when driving a manual , , , not to mention the whole "other side of the road and car" thing! One would think that one would have no difficulty judging distances b/w the car one is driving and the curb (kerb in UK English) or another car from the other side of the cockpit but, lemme tell ya, IT'S FREAKIN' DIFFICULT!! I hit the curb a few times and Lee had to tell me to pull more towards the center of the road more than once. PLUS the roads here are SO NARROW!!! It's amazing to think that double decker buses go down them and sometimes 2 abreast!! SHEESH!!

Anyway, I did fine. I take my theory test on the 26th of this month so wish me luck! That's really the easy part. It's mostly just common sense stuff w/ the odd "How many different types of pedestrian crossings are there and how do they differ" type question. (Incidentally, there are a few: Zebra, Pelican, Puffin, Toucan and Pegasus. Zebra is not light controlled and has zebra striped poles and ground markings. Pelican is Pedstrian Light Controlled -- ped pushes button and waits to cross. Puffin is Pedestrian User Friendly Intelligent which automatically senses pedestrians and controls lights for them. Toucan is Two Can Cross meaning both pedestrians and bicyclists. Pegasus is for pedestrians and horse-mounted riders and is just like Pelican only w/ one button at human height and one at mounted rider height. MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW, I'm sure!!)

Anyway, I'll keep y'all posted as to how things are going. And NO, I'm not working yet. I'm not looking for a job yet either. I've still got stuff to do around the house and preparation-wise before I do any of that.

Later, PEEPS!!

5 Rhythms

So, WOW!!!! I just experienced my first-ever 5 Rhythms class. This is a movement meditation practice developed by Gabrielle Roth in the 60s. It is so amazing! The class I went to was a 2-hour Wave class in which you flow from one of the 5 Rhythms to the next in a "wave" fashion. You begin with Flowing, then Staccato, then Chaos, then Lyrical and finally Stillness.

We spent the first 30 minutes in a warm-up where we just got ready to enter our bodies as much as possible. There was very little instruction from the teacher as we moved fluidly from warming up into Flowing. Flowing is circular in motion. The teacher allowed us to find our breath in the beat, the movement and our bodies and then she guided our meditation a bit by helping us to focus on a particular part of our bodies. Other body parts would then join the dance through the guided meditation and we spent a great deal of time "flowing" through ourselves.

Staccato is more percussive and linear in its form. Again, the teacher would guide us at first and sometimes ask us to find a flow to a partner. The aim is just to stay with the partner and experience the Wave together, in a rather empathetic way, not so much to follow their movements -- just to "be" together. That was difficult for me to do at first b/c I kept thinking too much about it. I also would stare at the chest of my partner instead of looking at their face and I kept thinking "This is just like when you play basketball and you're man-on-man: you can't look at their eyes b/c they can fake you out w/ them. Always watch their chest to sense where they will move next." Well, that was all fine and good until I partnered w/ a woman who was a little bohemian child. You know the kind: Buckwheat-in-a-headlock-NO-BRA-in-a-tank-top-BOOBS-JIGGLING-all-over-Tarnation kinda hippie chick. So I had to find another place to look. I think she thought I was staring at her boobs on purpose. I didn't even realize it at first, then after the 2nd or third time I did it I realized she kept looking directly at me. (Rather unusual in this type of dance situation.)

Chaos is where the "ART" happens. This is where the dancer just lets go completely and the soul expresses itself in whatever manner it deems necessary at the time. This is also the most aerobic of the 5 Rhythms. I really lost myself in this one. Time is so inconsequential here!!

Lyrical is neat because this is where the dancer really finds their own style of expression and being. I really liked this part of the Wave b/c I felt like I was really getting to the point, coming to a "realization" or a "self-discovery".

Stillness is just whatever is left at the end of the Wave. This for me was very revealing. I felt many emotions during Stillness. This like the "cool down" part of an exercise. For me, it differed in that emotions had taken on a different meaning. My self-view had become MORE, if that makes any sense, almost like I got a new prescription for my inner eyeglasses, if you will.

The 5 Rhythms is such an incredible experience and I thank my new friend Neda for the opportunity to experience it! She's been dancing the 5 Rhythms for 15 years and she says it really is something useful and inspiring. She almost tears up when she talks about it. Now I know why. I can't wait to have that much experience under my belt! And, YES, you dance the whole 2 hours!! It's really not bad at all! Not like you'd think! If you can find a teacher near you, I'd suggest going! It's really inexpensive!

ORGANIC Blended Stable Manure!!! YIPPEEEE!!

OMG!!! This is just a quick note to say that I'm gonna be workin' out in my garden for the next coupla weeks!!! Roy and I finally had someone come out and tell us what we have in our garden and what we need to do w/ it and also what we can do to change our garden from what it is now to an herb garden/veggie patch!

We went this past weekend to a HUGE gardening center called Paradise Park. This place is sooooo cool! It has all your gardening needs, plants as far as the eye can see, cafes, a children's play area, a nature park and a dinosaur valley in it! It is HUGE, GINORMOUS I tell ya! It was really pretty cool.

Well, we went through the dinosaur and nature park part of it. We didn't eat there cuz they only serve at certain times and we were too late. BUT we did come away w/ 160 liters of ORGANIC Blended Stable Manure . . . and some compost, too. YEA, US!! So, now it's off to weed and feed my garden! More later!!

Love y'all!!