Spring Forward

Yesterday we turned our clocks forward one hour, spring forward as it is called even though spring doesn't really "start" for another two weeks. But having it stay light out last night for an extra hour was fantastic. So for those of you across the pond, the time difference is now only 7 hours, at least for another 3 weeks that is.

To get a jump start on spring Jamie planted two dwarf citrus trees; a eureka lemon and a clementine mandarin (Jamie's favorite). He also hung a hummingbird feeder on the backyard patio (Karen this is for you too, it should be fun to watch them this summer). I started a new herb garden under our bedroom window with hopes that someday we will be able to use it to marinate and flavor our cooking. What started out as a simple weeding project so that I could plant my herbs, turned into an all out search and destroy mission as one of the plants that was previously planted there had roots far more hardy that we had imagined. It was starting to grow back and had roots that reached out across the width of the planter. All day long I dug and pulled roots while trying not to harm the roly-polies (*Note to Brits: A roly-poly is a woodlouse) or worms but coming head to head with a very big, black spider living under one of the larger rocks. It was huge and was defending a nest so I quickly reached for...my husband to spray it with poison and dispose of it for me. Hey, this playing in the dirt stuff is pretty new to me, so I'm taking baby steps. We both worked really hard outside yesterday and by the end of the day were struggling to stay up to 10pm, keep in mind the time changed so this should have not been a problem. Needless to say, we both had a great night's sleep and didn't have much trouble getting up this morning an "hour early". Now if my muscles didn't ache from squatting and pulling...where's the advil!

*Unfortunately, our camera is not wanting to turn on, even with fully charged batteries so I don't have any pictures to post. Hopefully, it will miraculously decide to turn on and work again...we will just have to wait and see.

California Citrus

Although it is just barely March, we had some beautiful weather this weekend. I was able to wear shorts and a tank top, which made my day. Have I mentioned that I love the sun! We decided to take advantage of the weather and drove out to Riverside (about an hours drive inland) to visit the California Citrus State Historic Park. They have preserved some of the orange groves that used to be all over Southern California and were having citrus tastings in the afternoon. It had some great information and a very nostalgic feel to it. The Citrus industry sure knew how to advertise, as the crate label to the left shows.

This was the main building and museum.

This is a newly built fountain that is based on an advertisement. The advertisement shows a very healthy, warm little girl giving an orange to a very cold and weak boy from Iowa.

Here I am enjoying the sun!

The citrus tasting was pretty impressive, Jamie loved tasting the different kinds at the same time. We tried 4 different types of grapefruit (Jamie even liked one type), 2 types of blood oranges (surprisingly very tasty although not the nicest to look at in my opinion), 3 types of mandarins (my favorite being the gold nugget mandarin), a very sour type of orange, 2 types of navel oranges (reminded me of half time during a soccer game, memories...), and a tangelo. They had so many different types of citrus from all over the world and all the volunteers were eager to share their knowledge with us.

Happy Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday....

Well, today is the day before Lent. We refer to it here as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras but in England it's known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day. Shrove is the past tense of shrive which means 'to obtain absolution for one's sins by way of confession and doing penance'. Shrove Tuesday is the last day of "shrovetide", the English equivalent to Carnival that developed separately in Latin Europe (and brought to South America) or Mardi Gras here. The festival is widely associated with eating foods such as pancakes, which is why it's also called Pancake Day, because pancakes used up ingredients such as fat and eggs, which was frowned upon during Lent, a time of fasting.

So tomorrow is the first day of Lent or Ash Wednesday. When Jamie was fresh off the island, back when he was in New York doing his internship, he had a very embarrassing encounter on Ash Wednesday. He was in the elevator with someone and noticed that they had something on their forehead. So being the gentleman that he is, as well as being a Protestant Englishman, he kindly let the man know that he had something on his forehead. The guy responded by saying it was Ash Wednesday and that was there on purpose.

My experience was much different. As I went to a Catholic School, we would always go to Mass on Ash Wednesday and always tease the kids whose ashes were not that dark saying they were not as holy as the others! What can I say, we were kids.

Happy Feasting!!!

Matters of the Heart

What would you do if you woke up in the middle of the night and were feeling chest pains?

If you're a certain Great Aunt of mine you would:

• Try to go back to sleep
• Fold the clothes you washed earlier
• Decide you are going to have to call an ambulance
• But shower before you do
• Struggle to unlock the door so the paramedics can get in
• Once opening the door, see the paramedics downstairs and yell to them that they are looking for you
• Kindly ask the paramedic why the heart monitor is nearly a straight line
• Sigh when he tells you, you are having a heart attack

Thankfully she survived and is recovering in the hospital and she hasn't lost her sense of humor. Not bad for someone who is in their 80s.

**Note to self: Remember to buy aspirin...

Shanghai to California

We haven't been getting any snow but we have gotten quite a lot of rain this past week. The third Pacific storm in a week just hit this morning. It has been raining since Thursday!

A few announcements for this week. Jamie gave his two weeks notice on Friday and will start a new job on the 23rd of February. He will be getting more vacation/holiday which he is thrilled about and it's a much shorter commute (about 8 miles)!

Anthony also started a new job last week working in IT for a company he worked for while he was going to school. He loves the new job and has moved out of my parents house. My parents are now alone in the house with lots of space!

Our picture was finally ready for us to pick up on Saturday. It's fantastic and it fits the room perfectly.

Jamie bought the picture while he was in Shanghai, China a year and a half ago.

(So we are a little slow to get things framed)
I'm afraid my closeup doesn't really do it justice.

Happy Monday :)

House Pics

So these are a little late but here they are, some pictures of the house (with some American to British conversions):

Here is the full size bed given to us by one of my Mom's friends.

A full size bed (54 x 75 in) is equivalent to a double UK size.
The bed we bought last weekend. A Queen size bed (60 x 80 in) for our other spare room.

A Queen size bed is equivalent to a UK King size bed (60 x 78 in).

On another bed note: a Super King in the UK is 72 x 78 in. A California King is 78 x 84 in.

We've slowly started framing pictures and hanging them on the wall.

These two prints Jamie bought in Hull with some money given to him by his Great Grandma when she passed away. They are by a local artist in Hull.

The picture from China we took in to get framed two weeks ago still isn't ready.

Here is the backyard/garden. We decided to take everything out and just start from scratch. Jamie has been working so hard to get all the bushes out and finally they are gone.

There's just the palm in the far left corner that needs to come out.

Now comes the fun yet difficult decisions of what we will plant???

The Queen Mary

We decided to have some fun this weekend after spending the last two weekends working on the house. So we jumped in the car and drove down to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. We spent half a day in the sun wandering around the art deco masterpiece. There were a considerable number of Brits aboard along with lots of red telephone boxes (no white ones!). Note to all Americans: Kingston-upon-Hull is the only place blessed with the privilege of having white telephone boxes, the rest of the UK has common red ones.

RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (then Cunard White Star Line). Built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, she was designed to be the first of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York, in answer to the mainland European superliners of the late 1920s and early 1930s. After their release from World War II troop transport duties, Queen Mary and her running mate RMS Queen Elizabeth commenced this two-ship service and continued it for two decades until Queen Mary's retirement in 1967. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is permanently berthed in Long Beach, California serving as a museum ship and hotel. The Queen Mary celebrated the 70th anniversary of her launch in both Clydebank and in Long Beach during 2004, and the 70th anniversary of her maiden voyage in 2006 (www.wikipedia.org).

I could not fit the whole ship in one picture !

This is the view of downtown Long Beach from aboard the RMS Queen Mary (Note to Brits: downtown just means the city centre) Note to Americans: Centre is spelt centRE not centER.

The RMS Queen Mary has very big smoke stacks!

A picture of my beautiful wife :-)

This is me squinting in the sun, not an inch of snow in sight! I hope you are having fun in the snow, 4 inches in one night is nothing! Its 73F or 23C here so I doubt it will be snowing this week, Jamie.