Travel With Me Tuesday: Nurnberg Part 2

After the heavier history of this German city, we had a nice afternoon seeing current life. A taste of a market that had the feel of Christmas coming.

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 20

Another variation on Project Life. When I do this every week I like to have enough variety that I still enjoy it. This is year #5. Many changes in that time. Have you done this for a while?

Tweaking the background by flipping the paper is one way to add some visual interest. Hopefully subtle and not jarring.

Wordless Wednesday: May 25, 2016

on the banks of the Big Thompson

Travel With Me Tuesday: Nurnberg

An overcast day filled with the connotation of all that this city meant.

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 19

Yes, it's May finally! but low and behold it was still raining. These templates were a stretch for me as my go-to-style is clean and simple. However, this year I decided to experiment with new ways and new styles of scrapping. Some I'll probably stay with and others will just be a learning experience. It's all good.

Five on Friday: May 20, 2016

1.Truthfully, the River Cruise album is on its last pages but this is one I wanted to share now. Why? because my husband reminded me that it was 15 years ago on May 15th that he actually asked me to marry him. We were buying a wedding ring so it was a given but I realized he had never asked. So this photo of us on the cruise in 2012 says, yes, I'd do it again too!

2. Everyone loves free things, right? Well Creative Market sells some very tempting fonts at good prices as well as illustrations that will make you feel as if you ARE an artist when you play with them.  Anyhow, every Monday there are a couple of free goodies so check them out. This week's items are still available!

3. I like food and I like to laugh.  Thank you Shutterbean!  Laugh away...

4. This blog is one I subscribe too and enjoy the many photos and stories that the 'gentle author' tells. In addition to the photos of Vanishing London he shows in the post, this quote was touchingly poignant.  " Yet even this lamentable catalogue of loss exists in blithe innocence of the London Blitz that was to come."

5.And in case you missed it, because I neglected to share it....,  here is last Friday's post. I do want you to see that wretched bamboo!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here on Monday!

TBT: Leaving Bangkok 1978

It was a late night flight from Bangkok to Rome, on our way back to the United States.  One of us was not very happy about it and was not even wearing his jasmine lei. I had forgotten that mine and my husband's included the colors of the Thai flag. I wonder if this is still a custom in Thailand.

As with many images taken back in the years of film, it didn't occur to us to take more. It also didn't occur to us to take a photo of our maid Somchit who was taking this photo or possibly it was her husband Payot. They were both so very good to us during our 3 years in Thailand but the photos we have are few. Constantly carrying a 35mm camera was not easy or normal either. What a convenience an iPhone is now!

One other tidbit about this flight was that we stopped in Tehran on our way and I recall saying I hoped I never had to live in this hot dusty country. Little did I know I'd be living there a couple of months later.

Wordless Wednesday: May 18, 2016

Sunny Spain

Travel with Me Tuesday: Bamberg

Next on our trip was the city of Bamberg Germany. A  sunny day.

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 18

Somehow April seemed to go on for a long time and I feared I would never get this week done. In reality, it is not terribly far behind and in reality I usually don't do the week on the Sunday after the week in question. I try and do it quickly as the brain cells forget a lot but I was so ready for May.  Sadly, May has not lived up to the expectations. Rain rain rain. I am grateful it's not been flooding rain just a lot like the English weather I remember.

I did manage to watch Season 4 of House of Cards in an extended binge session. Oh the evil! but so delicious to watch.

Five on Friday: May 13, 2016

So I'm back after neglecting these Friday posts for a while.I didn't think the weather bothered me but in hindsight I see it has. Maybe I need a sun lamp.

1. Yes, it is Friday the 13th. Not much one can do about that but there isn't a full moon at least with it!

2. How many days has it been raining? well all of May and a good bit of April. One thing that is 'benefiting' from the rain is the bamboo. Ugh. I have been stepping on new shoots every day and then by afternoon there are more. As my husband says, you can just about watch them grow.

3. While he's been away, I have done virtually no cooking but I did get myself some meals from Trader Joe's.  Two Indian paneer dishes and one bowl of mixed stir fry veggies. I had half of those veggies last night with quinoa and peanut sauce. The sauce was an old one that was from Target and it needs a lot of oomph. It was one of those things that I thought might be good but meh.

4. My long ongoing album of our 2012 River Cruise is truly truly in the final stretch. I only have Budapest to do and I think that will be four pages. I did get all, well almost all, the earlier pages printed and in an album. I don't know how I manage to miss uploading some but it happens more than I'd like. I think later this year I'll upload the lot to a couple places and print an 8" book somewhere. In any case having the majority done and ready to look at will be a nice surprise for him.

5. As depressing as the constant grey and drizzle has been, he said that this Monday they had 9 tornadoes in OK incl an F3 and an F4 just 50 miles away. All in all I saw no reason to go with him on this trip and I think I made the right decision!

Have a great weekend people and I'll see you back on Monday.

TBT: Working the Radio in Africa

When I first arrived in Malawi, I had a job with the Director of the United States Information Agency and the Voice of America, Lillard Hill.  We had a small office with just three of us and it was good to have a job in a country with very little to do.

My boss was an old newspaper man and a cigarette holder smoking sweetie. He had a daunting job in a country ruled by a dictator and no freedom of the press. Censorship was severe with criticism of the government leading to a disappearance. Moral censorship was also rampant and magazines or books always had images or words blacked out by an airport censor. I suspect that was an interesting job!

As for me I did a variety of things including monitoring a short wave radio. Mr. Hill was patient, explained my duties carefully and then let me get on with it. It was my first, but not last government job.

Betty Hill was also a Texas sweetheart and we traveled together by Land Rover to Zambia when the chance came up, in attempt to see the Big 5 of Africa, the African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and White/Black rhinoceros. The Hills were a couple to remember!

Wordless Wednesday: And It Was Closed...

Travel With Me Tuesday: Rothenburg

After a day's break on board we were set to be tourists again.

Plus two inserts of things we saw and did.

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 17

Almost ending April with a week that was FULL of cherry blossoms and ...asparagus. Pure spring.

TBT: Almost Heaven, West Virginia 1973

Years and years ago, my parents bought a piece of land in West Virginia. My mother had great dreams of building a house there, up on a hill with a nice view of...more land. She put up a gardening shed to keep a lawn mower and some other garden tools. She even considered sleeping in that shed! My mother truly loved gardening. My father? he couldn't care less about the whole idea.



That little one? That is my 2nd son, just turning one that January of 1973. My grandmother had just died in December 1972 and I came back to the US from England with the lad. By December of that year, my father would be dead also.



He wasn't very happy in the cold even being pulled around in the wagon. But he did have his own Aran sweater knit by my mother. It just wasn't enough!



In later years, that piece of property would end up lost in a tax sale as the updates to our many address changes never seemed to get the the tax office. I wonder what became of the property and is there a house there yet? That little boy now lives in sunny, warm Southern California. No need to cry from the cold.

Wordless Wednesday: Cat Hearing a Child

SHUTTERBEAN

Travel With Me Tuesday: Farewell Heidelberg Hello Rothenburg

Plugging along with this project, which now brings back some good memories - day 6 and 7 of the trip.



Day 7 we decided to stay on board and just relax. Of course we ate!

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 16

I've been happily using a lot of peachy colors for the weeks of April as we have had a real spring. Cool cool temperatures that allowed the spring flowers to come into their own. That's not a given round here in springtime. More often than not we have hotter temperatures by now. I'll take this coolness!