Jane Austen's England - My Birthday Surprise

It's Drabble Dienstag, but I've run a bit dry. So I'll just tell you about my most wonderful trip to England. My husband planned a surprise trip for my 25th birthday. We went to Jane Austen's house in Chawton.

This is her writing desk.

That was probably the best part of the best trip we've been on. It was thoroughly relaxing to stay in little bed and breakfasts. One was a farmyard and had the prettiest group of ducks.

He also booked a horseback riding trip just so I could be on a horse again. Of course they were English saddles so he had some balancing issues, and we are both still sore a few days after, but the scenery was stunning. We went to a Bath spa that night to try to relieve the overworked muscles. The warm pool at this spa was on the rooftop and had a lovely view of the city and abbey.

We spent the last day in a little village called Lacock where parts Harry Potter 1 and 2 were filmed as well as some of Pride and Prejudice. The town is owned by The National Trust and kept old-fashioned with no electrical wires or tv satellites. It was very quaint.

The door at the end leads to the mirror of Erised. It was uncanny how much it felt like we had been there before just from watching the movies.

The weekend was absolutely perfect and all the more special because my husband planned it all for me. Now I have to top it for his birthday...what will I do!?!

Three Things Thursday

There's not much going on, hence the tiny amount of blog posts lately. I'm just chilling out waiting for my work permit to be approved so I can start working. We're going to Oktober Fest in Munich this weekend, so I'll show you that. But for now let's do Three Things Thursday!

Three things about...

what you watch.

1.    Only movies. I’d rather live my own life than watch tv. But movies are like heaven. A little escape from the world. I'll watch action, comedy, romance. Pretty much anything except horror (remember I get nightmares) and stupid comedy. I absolutely hate to watch a movie that makes me feel like I wasted two hours of my life. Sorry Mike Myers, your stuff is just dumb.
2.    I watch my favorite movies over and over again. Whether it’s to focus on the deeper meaning or to just veg out. Pixar is amazing. A few of their movies are kind of meh, but none of them are bad. Finding Nemo and Wall-E make it into my top ten list.
3.    I have pages and pages in my scrapbook filled with movie tickets from going to theaters.

(By the way, the dress Keira Knightley is wearing in that picture is the wedding dress I imagine for Liza in my novel Her Daughter. Also the picture belongs to Focus.)

So tell me in your own blog post about what you like to watch or tell me in the comments.

Three Things Thursday

I'm terribly sick this week, but I couldn't miss Thursday! So after learning what you're passionate about (or in my case what I write), I'd like to know what you read. I think what someone reads says a lot about who they are. What you choose to read for hours at a time must be something you truly enjoy. Tell me waht that is so we can get to know each other better. Write your own blog post and add it to the linky or tell me in the comments.

Three things about...

 what you read.

1.    Young adult novels give me a chance to sit back and relax and just breeze through a book. Every once in a while I will come across one, like Looking for Alaska by John Green or Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, that makes me sit up and pay attention.
2.    I truly enjoy literature. Some people find it boring and useless or say that it’s only for students. But I really appreciate someone who can write an entire book on normal, everyday life and make it mean something.
3.    Jane Austen is my hero. I hope to be just like her. Well, except for dying in my forties, and being alone…ok so I want to write like her: cynical, humorous, a true skeptic of society. Only I already probably have broader horizons than she ever reached being a woman way back when.

The Hair is Dead

I got it cut. My hair is gone. Yay! It's so perfect because it's now getting hot here in Germany and it's lovely to let my neck breath. It's crazy, I think I got the best haircut of my life and I couldn't even communicate with the girl. All I could say was, 'Ich moechte eine neue Frisoer.' (I want a new haircut.) I showed her where, put my hair in a ponytail and had her cut above it...and thirty minutes later I was a whole new person.

I kinda figure you don't want to see the ponytail. It's always kind of gross to me. Like a dead fish or something. So here's the package. And coolest part that I didn't notice until after I was walking out of the salon. The place was called Hair Killer! How apt.

Here's another self portrait I took the same day. (My hubby helped with these since I wanted specific framing and the crazy flying hair.)

I have an extreme passion for books. So this is what you would normally see if you looked into my house any given day. Me with a book and a cup of tea on the couch. Always in between writing and house chores of course.

The Writing on the Wall - Home Painting Project

Back in high school my two best friends and I had a painting business. We called it The Writing on the Wall and we even had business cards. We only worked for friends and family, but it was a lot of fun. We designed and painted rooms and typically we wrote a bible verse or some lovely saying in big letters on the focal wall. I've grown to love having words on the wall. And when I saw a rug that was like an old letter, I got my inspiration to paint on the wall again. So in my office I have a big wall that is just over my bookcase. Here is the recipe for painting words on a wall.

Ingredients:

A blank wall.

Paint and a calligraphy brush.

A cup of tea and your favorite quote. Of course my hero is Jane Austen so we're going for some pieces of Pride and Prejudice. It helps to put the quote in a font you like on the computer so you have something to refer to.

Some twine or other way to keep the lines straight and the letters the same size. It's like a big rule book back in kindergarten when you were learning to write.

And voila! You have a lovely, hand-painted letter on your wall. I have Mr. Darcy's proposal, Elizabeth's refusal, her first glimpse of his wonderful house, and the first time they meet after their fight. In this situation I wanted to fill the whole wall so I picked a lot of words. With my friends we usually just did one line at the top of the wall. Although with one room we did one line all the way around the top of four walls. And another we did a long bible verse above someone's bed. Easy weekend project, and simple way to spruce up a boring room.

Flohmarkt Finds

We went to the Stuttgart Flea Market, or Flohmarkt, on Saturday. I'm used to flea markets being kind of shabby. I don't know if it's the small town I grew up in or that Colorado just doesn't have old stuff like New England or Europe does. We hit a nice sidewalk cafe for breakfast first and had coffee and croissants. Then we meandered our way through the many stalls of old toys, beautiful glass and porcelain, furniture, and even old war medals.

I collect elephants, so I was watching out for those. The gentleman who sold us these two said they are from Niederland, Holland porcelain. And there's one scene on the movie Becoming Jane where Jane pulls out an old trunk and flips open the lid. Inside is a huge pile of her writing papers and journals. Ever since then I've wanted some kind of old trunk to store my papers in. I found the perfect one. Of course there were book stalls too, can't pass up the books. I found an old copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in English. It's beautiful.

It was so exciting to see so many possibilities for decorating our house or gifts for people. We're probably going to another this weekend in a small town outside of Stuttgart, Sindelfingen.