Day out!

Today I finally drove up to Lowell to check out the American Textile History Museum. It was outstanding! I do believe it's just what I needed to get me on the way to figuring out where I fit in around here. There were so many things to do and see in England that I'm feeling a bit thirsty but this museum was so fabulous. I'm even going to become a member! Here are some photos:

And did you know that Lowell has a minor league baseball team? Well they are the Lowell Spinners! How much better can life get?

Epiphany

I just realized this morning why I miss England so much. I lived in England for TWO whole years. Not only that, but two whole years in the same house! I haven't lived anywhere that long since I was in high school.


Problem resolved but not forgotten. Yikes.

I think I just need to start taking some photos. SOON!!

I do love Coldplay

Victor was looking through some old photos and found a few from a Coldplay concert we went to in London. It was an amazing show and I even have a few videos from the concert. They really are not very good and I wouldn't want to post crap on the blog. So enjoy this little video of Strawberry Swing.

I love you Coldplay.

I can hardly wait****EDIT

Today, at a farm down the street, is Woolapalooza. Yes, you heard me. I am going to partake in a day of wool at a farm no more than 10 min away from my house. If my bike was assembled (and it wasn't freezing outside) I cold ride my bike.

I promise to bring my camera. Let's see if these Americans know how to do it right.

This photo is from a similar event in England at Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

*** Well, it's noon and I don't think I'm going to head over to this farm for two reasons 1) It's bloody 32degrees outside (wind chill is 20) 2) It's rather expensive ($10) for something I've already seen AND after research it doesn't look like it's going to be anything more than a bunch of sheep...lame...

Or, it could be that I'm getting to be a big sissy!

Wordless Wednesday

Lent 3

I would say these little videos are getting better. Not as dramatic as before but still better. I'm getting ready to make one for the website and it's going to be stellar!!

looking back

I'm up early this morning to take Vic down the street for a 6:15am air port shuttle and rather than stay in bed, I decided to stay awake!

Looking back through photos on the computer, I realized that I took a crap load of photos in England. Now, on the other hand, I hardly take any. And it's weird photos too: my house, spiders in my garden, a snow day, close up of a brick building, clouds...the weird list goes on. What is it about my life now that I've decided it's not photo worthy? This could be the answer to why I've been feeling rather blah about life in these United States. Now that I'm back to the same old, same old everything is the same. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

However, I just might have to organize the past few years of photos before I think about adding too many more to the collection! Yeah, it's a bit overwhelming.


And in honor of St Patrick's day, I'll post a photo of our Dublin trip two years ago. I'm glad we didn't get locked into the crypt of that cathedral...true story.

Happy Birthday, Italy!

150 years ago today, Italy was unified! This is my favorite unification photo from our trip to Venice.

Wordless Wednesday...even though I already posted today

Back in the saddle again

Recently I feel like I'm getting back to the things I used to do before I moved. And basically that means churchy stuff. Recently my pastor got the brilliant idea to do a two minute bible study each week on the texts in the lectionary. Since he got the idea at his laptop, he decided to use the camera on the screen and record it himself. Well, it looked a little weird. If you've ever skyped with someone on a laptop, they usually look a little strange: big close up, looking down on you. Yeah, I couldn't take it so I volunteered to record and edit his weekly rants...I mean...weekly insights:) I'll link to our church's YouTube site and if you are so inclined, check out the video I made as well as one of the older ones and tell me what you think?

Lost but not for long!

My sister likes to get me interesting things for Christmas and I love them. One year it was a chocolate fountain. This year it was a cotton candy machine that uses hard candy to make the fluffy goodness that I love. We busted it open when the family was together at Christmas and it was the hit of the season! Everyone was amazed at how you can make cotton candy out of a Jolly Rancher. After the chaos was over and we packed up to leave, the cotton candy machine made it's way back to Boston.

A few months later I'm invited to my good friend Spencer's 4th birthday party and I decided to bring the amazing cotton candy machine. However, when I got it out of the box, the most important part was missing: the extractor! Well, you can have cotton candy with out the extractor so I found that a replacement was $15 and today I ordered a replacement and all will be right with the world again.

It's the little things, you know.

More than I am

This morning in church, out pastor was announcing the services we are going to have on Wednesday evenings and surprised me a bit by adding that I had written a new liturgy. Does that sound like I actually wrote all the music and stuff? Yeah, well, I didn't! Ha ha!! I did, however, pick out music and form a service from already existing liturgies I found just lying around but I didn't really write it. And after the service one guy congratulated me on my accomplishment! Oh, I'm still laughing a bit. Well, I did correct him but I'm only wondering what people will be expecting come Wednesday night:)

It should be fun.

I'm off this evening to Marshfield Mass to visit my friend Mark. He started a new congregation called Sanctuary and I think it's been going really well for him. This will be the first time I've been for a worship service and I hope I don't fall asleep. Losing an hour last night really kicked me in the behind. I'm glad that I use my phone as an alarm clock because I TOTALLY forgot to set the time back before I went to bed. That would have been fun; an hour late to church! I did go early once in the fall, thinking, "why is everyone still in church when it's time for Sunday School?" Yeah, I still think it's better to be early than late.

Two a day? I must be missing facebook!

I did get on facebook tonight to check if anyone posted a 'yes' to my sunday school event tomorrow. No. But that doesn't mean no one will be there, it just means no one is telling me in advance.

I think the real reason I'm back on the blog is to explain why I've been away for so long. Now that I'm back in the USA, I must subconsciously think my life is boring. I haven't really taken any photos, visiting many sights or really found people who knit. I know that all of these things are out there, I just need to be motivated. It's just that the last place I lived was so freaking fantastic that I can't get over leaving. And I've ALWAYS been good at leaving!! Why now? Why this move? What was so special about England that I'm fighting with myself to really put myself out there?

The funny thing is that I've been so involved in things since being back. I'm going overboard at church, I run a group with the spouse's club, work out with friends once a week, joined a soccer team...the list goes on. But it's like my heart isn't in it all the way.

I think I need to grieve. I didn't have time to grieve. This might be the moment I start to cry.

Lent: really?

So I gave up facebook for lent. Yeah, it sounds really trivial, I know. But it's only day four and I'm already going through withdraw. The first clue is that I've decided to update my blog. After living life through the medium of social networking for at least three years, I'm taking a self imposed break. I've done this before but usually when I'm on vacation and can't get internet access. Now I'm just sitting around the house and meaningfully ignoring that facebook tab in my bookmark bar! I also deleted the app from my phone.

It's strange to not update my status on the weird things I do every day. When I'm doing stuff I actually think that I should post it on my profile. For example, yesterday I had Kraft Mac and Cheese for lunch...wanted to post it...spinning alpaca, watching Downton Abbey, and missing England...wanted to post it...lost our last soccer game...wanted to post it

However, I haven't left facebook totally. I still run the group for the youth at my church so I've decided that I can only log on if I'm going to check in on the group, create and event or communicate to any of the members. And if I log on, I can only be on for 30min once a day. So far, I've logged on once to create and event! I didn't make any comments, likes or updates on my page but I will have to say that I did check out my news feed, just to see what people are up to.

I wasn't sure that this would really be a sacrifice worthy of lent but it's panning out to be better than chocolate, soda and sex. Or should I say rather than better; worse.