countdown to america…(and a list)

in 5 weeks tiiiiiime (sung to the tune of 5 years time by noah and the whale) i will be visitng this dude

big abe! yes, i am returning to my second home of vienna, va in america. you probably haven’t heard of vienna, right? well it’s a town about 15 minutes outside of washington dc and i lived there for a while back in 2004.  i’ve been back twice since but haven’t been since 2006 i think.  anyway, i’m super excited because i get to visit all my old haunts and show the mister my american hometown.  i haven’t done a list post for a while so here are some things i’m looking forward to doing when i’m there….

1.  meet my friend, april’s, new baby boy, max.
2. going to jammin’ java to see some live music
3. spending thanksgiving day with my buddy, mike
4. enjoying some georgetown cupcakes
5. driving to pennsylvania to see the amish people and the hometown of the margeras.
6. driving to florida (hopefully) to go to the wizarding world of harry potter.
7. getting a burrito from chipotle.
8. strolling through georgetown, dc
9. recreating the forrest gump moment at the reflection pool
10. visiting some smithsonian museums
11. getting a pumpkin spiced chai tea latte from starbucks
12. sephora!
13. shopping in urban outfitters and it’s not expensive.
14. hanging out at tyson’s corner mall.
15. breakfast burrito at silver diner.
16. fish tacos at clare and don’s surf shack.
17. having like a million more flavours of ben & jerry’s to choose from.
18. pink lemonade with tons of ice from the fountain.
19. taco bell.
20. hanging out at fell’s point and inner harbor in baltimore.
21. black friday sales.
22. finding great vintage stores.
23. maybe roadtripping to the town where dawson’s creek was filmed.

yeah…so that’s why i’m excited!!!!

i heart fall tv shows

i am obsessed with so many great tv shows right now that i’ve been watching online.

first up is new girl starring the lovely zooey deschanel.  you know we love her in this house.  it’s such a cute show. she plays this nerd called jess who likes to sing in uncomfortable situations and has 3 pretty dorky guy flatmates.  she also comes out with classic lines like “i’m gonna have fun ’cause there’s nothin’ wrong with me. if you don’t like that, then TOUGH TATER TOTS, TOOTER!”

2 broke girls is a funny little show about a struggling feisty chick played by the awesome kat dennings who ends up working and living with a heiress princess who has fallen out of favour with her family as they try to earn money to start a cupcake business. it’s witty, funny and a little bit different. liking it a lot so far.

i love this show. i always dreamed of being a stewardess when i was little after seeing a show on tv, not sure what it was, but there was the most glamourous 60s stewardess on it and i wanted to be her. anyway, pan am is a pretty great show. the styling is great and donna from neighbours is in it.

hart of dixie is one that i have just started watching today.  i’m not a huge fan of rachel bilson as an actress, but i have always liked her style.  i watched half of the pilot episode and i like it so far.  it’s sort of a tv version of the movie, swet home alabama.  good so far.

believe it or not, two and a half men is a new show for me.  my husband loves this show but i have never been able to watch an entire episode because i really do not like charlie sheen.  anyway, now that ashton is in it, i gave it a whirl and i love it! i have missed ashton being on tv since his days as kelso in that 70s show, my favourite sitcom of all time.  he basically plays a grown up version on kelso in this, pretty but dumb and i think he fits right into the show.

well i should really stop watching so much tv or my eyes will go square or i may even end up shurnk and in my tv like mike teevee in charlie and the chocolate factory!

(images via google)

sick day

i’m sick.  i had to come home from work today because i felt all hot and shivery and clammy and sick and just plain crappy.  i’ve never been one of those people who can be ill and go to their bed and sleep and i never lose my appetite unless i have the full on flu so i like soup and movies when i’m sick.  as a kid i had a lot of issues with my sinuses and tonsils and i was off school…a lot.  luckily my dad worked from 5pm until midnight and was around to take care of me.  he always made the best sick day food…grilled cheese sandwiches and heinz tomato soup.

  sometimes he would give me hula hoop crisps to dunk in my soup like croutons.  he would make me milky tea or hot ribena and i’d get all settled on the couch with my snoopy and woodstock blanket and watch movies.  i think ya’ll know i love my movies and between me and my husband we have a pretty ridiculous collection but whenever i’m sick i want to watch the movies that i used to watch when i was sick as a kid.  there’s something comforting about it.  same as i still like a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup (sometimes with hula hoops).  so i thought i would do a little top 5 of my favourite sick day movies. 

willy wonka and the chocolate factory (still my favourite for sick days)

edward scissorhands (i watched this so much i went through 2 videos that got chewed up from overuse)

the little mermaid. loved it since i saw it in the cinema. still joint favourite disney movie of all time with peter pan

the neverending story. isn’t this a favourite sick day movie of most 80’s kids?

my girl. i was a HUGE macaulay culkin fan. i still can’t cope when thomas j dies and i want all of shelly’s wardrobe and her camper!

so there you have it. i’m still a big kid at heart and there isn’t a time when you revert back to being a kid quite as much as when you’re sick. hope you don’t catch this bug.

xoxo

(images via weheartit)

vegan update

so…again…I’ve tried and failed on my vegan journey. I tried it and yes it did make me feel good and yes I lost a little weight and yes I felt better about not contributing to animal cruelty but it’s just not for me. Full time anyway. I have decided not to label myself as I think labels put too much pressure on people. So what I will say is that I will continue to eat vegan food as much as I can, but if I want cheese or egg or even a bit of fish or chicken then I am not going to beat myself up about it or let others judge my choices.

i heart fall

 fall, autumn whatever you want to call it, it is upon us.  i have always thought of myself as a summer girl but actually as i’ve gotten older, i’ve realised that i am definitely an autumn girl at heart.  i like when the nights get darker earlier and the weather starts to be a little cooler, ok a lot cooler in scotland. i love when all the leaves turn golden, orange and red and fall off the trees in huge piles.  i like to wear hoodies and cardigans and tights and boots and to snuggle on the couch on a dark, cold night with a blanket (and a mister!) and watching the harry potter movies.  i love that in autumn, food gets a little more comforting, a little spicier and a bit more rustic.  it is the time of year for soups made with autumn vegetables like squash, carrot and parsnips and eaten with hunks of crusty bread.  it is the time of year for warming curries and chilli with cornbread and comfort foods like bangers & mash and mac ‘n’ cheese (vegan options for me, obviously!). it is the time of year for chai tea lattes at starbucks and cinnamon rolls and well, cinnamon on everything. and maple syrup on everything. and huge mugs of tea.  but above all else….it is the time for pumpkin.  i love pumpkin, so much that my mister’s (not so) secret pet name for me is, pumpkin.  at this time of year i stock up on pumpkin and i get out my jar of pumpkin spice mix and make pumpkin cupcakes and pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie and if i lived in america it would be the time of year to be adding a little pumpkin spice syrup to my starbucks latte.  i am all about the pumpkin. so, blog readers, here are some autumn images to get you in the mood for a great fall season…

 

HAVE A HAPPY FALL YA’LL! xoxo

(images 1-5 via weheartit)

i’m baaaaaaaack! (the one where she talks about her vegan thing)

howdy folks….long time no see yet again.  i’m afraid i have been lazy and neglected my poor blog for like 2 months now.  oops! well i’m back now and i will do my best to keep blogging.  nothing too exciting has been happening recently and the more exciting stuff happened too long ago to really be of any interest to you, apart from one thing.  i’ve become vegan….again.  i know last time i blogged about it the day it happened and it didn’t last but it’s been 41 days now and i’m still going strong.  i’ve been making a lot of effort to try new things this time around and have been baking vegan cupcakes to make things a bit more interesting.  the story of why i am vegan is a pretty cool one…

so you may recognise this dude in my photo?  it’s steve-o from jackass.  for those who dont know much about him, he had a full-on drug and alcohol addiction and started to go a little crazy from it until johnny knoxville and some other guys from the jackass production team did an intervention on him.  he did the rehab thing and is conquering his addicitions :) the mister and i are huge jackass fans and we love all the guys, especially steve-o and pontius.  when i found out that steve-o was coming to the edinburgh festival to do a stand up show i immediately got tickets.  i follow him on twitter and i knew he had become vegan a couple of years ago so i tweeted him to recommend a good veggie restaurant in edinburgh (david bann’s for anybody interested) and he relpied to me and asked if i wanted to come to a dinner with him there (he often holds dinners in vegan restaurants with fans).  i couldn’t go the night he asked but suggested he do it on the day i would be in edinburgh for his show.  i told him i was interested in the whole vegan thing and that if he didn’t mind, i had some questions i wanted to ask him about it.  as it turned out, he couldnt do a dinner that day but he tweeted me to say he had a dvd for me about veganism that should help me and that gary and i should go backstage after the show and pick it up.  soo we saw the show which was hilarious.  he is just a naturally funny dude.  i can’t listen to that song, “let’s hear it for the boy” without picturing him dancing to it! after that show he invited anybody who wanted to meet him for a photo to get in line and come out back.  we waited a while and met him and he gave me the dvd which is called forks over knives.  at the time it hadnt even been released in the states so i felt very privileged that he would give me a copy of it.  i watched it the next morning and it explained the health benefits of a plant based vegan diet.  mostly when you think of somebody who is vegan you picture a hippie, tree-hugging activist but there are more and more people becoming vegan to reverse heart problems and diabetes.  it was really interesting and i have been vegan since.  i’m not gonna preach about it to meat eaters but i do recommend that you educate yourself about what you are putting into your body and how it may affect you down the line.  i feel great, have lost a few lbs and am enjoying eating a healthy diet.  i really love steve-o for taking the time and being so generous in giving me the dvd.  it has changed my life and i will be forever grateful.  luckily i am getting to see steve-o again in november so hopefully we can do a dinner this time and i can thank him in person. ♥

 

top 5…french edition

i love everything french. to celebrate bastille day, here is a top 5 of my favourite french things…

top 5 french women (ok, 9 because i love them all)
1. coco chanel
2. juliette binoche
3. brigitte bardot
4. audrey tautou
5. vanessa paradis
6. clémence poésy
7. charlotte gainsbourg
8. lou doillon
9. marion cotillard

top 5 french bands/singers
1. phoenix
2. air
3. daft punk
4. vanessa paradis
5. carla bruni

top 5 french food (alright 7, couldn’t narrow it down!)
1. macarons
2. madeleines
3. crêpes
4. le roule fromage
5. pâte
6. tarte au citron
7. potatoes dauphinoise

top 5 french films (yep failing at sticking to 5’s)
1. amelie
2. micmacs
3. coco before chanel
4. breathless
5. la vie en rose
6. heartbreaker (cheesy but good!)

these are just a few of the french things that i love.   j’espére que vous avez une merveilleuse journée! (hope that translates correctly)

xo

remember me?

yet again, i must extend my apologies for being a crappy blogger.  i really dont have many excuses for my lack of contribution so i’m sorry ya’ll!  i have done a few exciting things over the last couple weeks but they were so long agoo now that i thought i would do one post to cover it all!

first up i finished college…i am now qualified to look after children! yippee! although i’m 99% sure that this is not the career i want!  straight after college was done we headed over to dublin to visit some good friends of ours.  the mister and i met in melbourne, australia and we were staying in a hostel there called oasis.  during our stay we met a great bunch of friends – michelle, sig, gab, matt, haude and michael.  currently michelle, gab, sig and matt all live in dublin so it was great to see them again after 3 years!!!  we had a great time and it was like no time had passed at all.  i wish we could hang out more often.  as these guys have jobs, the mister and i spent our time just walking around dublin (it was sunny!), eating good food and just generally taking in the city. 

…this is all of us

coming home from dublin was a bit of a downer as we knew it meant job hunting and no more holidays until the end of august.  we have found a few things to keep us entertained of the summer and the first was going to the edinburgh film festival to see a couple of premieres.  the first was a new ewan mcgregor movie called ‘perfect sense’.  the movie is essentially a love story set in scotland in a time where a mass virus is affecting everybody and the result of the virus is that people start to lose all their senses.  it’s kinda weird, funny in parts and a great idea for a story.  it’s worth a watch!  anyway, we got really close to ewan mcgregor and ewen bremner (spud from trainspotting also in the movie), about half a foot away so it was really nice to see them.  i do have photos but they are on the mister’s camera so maybe i’ll get around to them soon.

the following week we headed back to the edinburgh film festival to see ‘talihina sky’ which is a documentary about the kings of leon.  it’s a really great film and it was nice to see the humble beginnings that these guys had.  we attended what was the international premiere of the documentary as the band were there to do a q&a session after the movie that was to be shown in 127 movie theatres around the world.  pretty cool.  again, we were about a foot away from the guys and we had a good time.  the only problem was that 2 days before my husband had broken his ankle playing football so we had to get him a wheelchair in the theatre and a wheelchair spot so we couldn’t sit together.  it was still good though!

 …the kings of leon

that was 2 weeks ago.  i have spent that time pretty much running after my husband who is on crutches.  this week we are attending a harry potter movie marathon.  we are seeing all the movies over a week and then the final movie next friday on its release.  i’ll probably do a seperate post about that though.

hope ya’ll have a great weekend

xo 

 

 

beautiful people ~ ryan dunn

ryan dunn.  not somebody you would expect to make a beautiful people blog post.  since i first saw him on jackass all those years ago, he has been my favourite.  i have a type of guy that i like.  bearded, scruffy, tattooed, a little wild, he ticked all of those boxes.  i loved his aviator sunglasses.  best of all he, along with the rest of the jackass boys, made me laugh like crazy.  sure, he may have been crazy, rude, foul-mouthed, risky with his life but he was still a beautiful person to me.  i was so happy when i was at a music festival in baltimore, md and ryan, bam, steve-o and uncle don vito from jackass were there and  i was shocked and saddened to hear that he passed away early this morning in a car accident, aged 34.  jackass will never be the same.  rip ryan ♥ 

 

these boots are made for walking

sadly, my friend’s younger sister, aislinn, passed away earlier this year after battling cystic fibrosis for most of her life.  she was 23 years old.  i had heard of cf in the past and was aware that sufferers have a build up of mucus and require “thumps” to help clear that mucus.  that was the extent of my knowledge.  i have since found out that cf is one of the uk’s most common inherited diseases, each week 5 babies are born with cf, each week 2 lives are lost due to cf and only half of cf sufferers are like to live past their 30’s!  pretty shocking figures.  aislinn lived in ireland where the statistcis are even worse.  her family and friends are raising money for CF ireland so that a cure may be found for this disease.  i wanted to help.  i looked online and found there was a 12 mile sponsored walk happening yesterday in edinburgh so i signed up.   i got sponsor money and i set off.  holy shizzle, it was hard-going.  i am notorious for quitting on things the minute they get too hard and let me tell you, there were a few times when my hips hurt and my toes were aching and i felt lightheaded and i just wanted to phone my dad and get him to come pick me up.  just at those moments i would think of who i was doing it for – aislinn and all the other cf sufferers out there.  some of them won’t even get to live to the age i am now and what they go through with their treatment in their lifetimes is much worse than a 12 mile walk.  so i stuck with it and i got through it and i’m happy i have been able to help in some small way.  i am in a lot of pain today – my hips hurt like crazy and i pretty much reek of tiger balm, but i am determined to do whatever i can to help this cause.  here are some photos of my day  (there are no photos of me immediately after the walk, i pretty much collapsed on the grass!)

…another cf supporter who lost her sister, aged 22, in february this year

…..sugary snacks for energy

…my first ever medal

…looks pretty gross but let me tell you that ‘well hung and tender’ cheeseburger was close to a michelin star meal at that point!

…miracle worker

 

if you would like to know more about cf and the work they do, you can click here

thanks to all those who sponsored me, it is much appreciated. xo