Lazy Sunday

Today we have had a quiet lazy Sunday in and around the house. I have caught up on laundry, read a little and listened to music. While, Mr. Michie has done a little reading himself, worked on writing a paper and a new blog post. What could be better than a quiet day to just be?

We made tomato salad for lunch on grilled bread:

We played in the garden and made sure everything was happy:

We made ice-cream sundaes and watched the afternoon thunderstorm from our couch:

Happy Sunday!

Cramped for Space

Our little cottage is getting very cramped at the moment, we seem to be running out of space! We worked so hard cleaning and organizing while we were on 1/2 term, last week and the house looked so clean and cozy. You have to stay on top of things in this little house, or it will attack you!

But, this first week back at school has left it in a sorry state. There are piles of papers to grade, more things I have fished out to bring to the Art Cupboard, just waiting to be taken, projects I am working on...

It looks like my weekend is planned. Saturday morning, I am tying my hair up and getting to work, this little cottage needs to be put back in order!

(Image: Vintage Alice in Wonderland Illustration by A.A. Nash, found on Flickr)

Love Hearts

Yesterday admist all my dusting, mopping, pantry tearing apart and vacuuming (with my new hoover), there was a knock on my racing green door and a Valentine's package was placed into my arms.

It was filled with all kinds of wonderful surprises and too many of them! Including the love hearts above. When one is presented with such a gorgeous Valentine's surprise, you know it is time to take a cleaning break, tear into that package and just enjoy all that delicious candy before you. A girl's gotta keep her cleaning strength up, you know!

And, most importantly as you munch away on candy while going through all your surprises, you can't forgot the "Love Heart Eating Rules", you have to read what your heart says before eating it, Mr. Michie forgot that part yesterday, but I reminded him!

Thanks Mom, Dad & Maisy, you as always, are too generous! ♥

Vacuum Woes

Well, I now know why the men who were doing some work in the cottage before Christmas, decided to take our vacuum bag out of the vacuum cleaner with them when they went: they had BROKEN it!

We came home from work the day they finished and began to start putting the house back in order, only to realize the vacuum wouldn't work; we then discovered, that they had removed the bag and taken it with them. We have tried to find replacement bags, with no luck and we borrowed a vacuum off and on from a neighbour to get us by. But, my friends, I am embarrassed to tell you this, my house hasn't seen a vacuum go over its floors in over a month.

I keep a clean house, so this has been driving me nuts! This past weekend we went shopping and after hitting one of the local markets, I finally found my vacuum bags.  I woke up yesterday morning, put on my best June Cleaver apron and pearls and decided to get to work! Mr. Michie put the bag in for me and plugged me in, so I could go, go, go.

As soon as we turned it on, there was a poof, a lot of smoke, a lot of dust and a high pitched squealing noise; we couldn't even see each other through the haze in the kitchen.  So, we turned it off and ran to open the front door to get some fresh air in, looked at each other and then just had to laugh, because it was either that or cry! So, that is why they took the bag with them when they finished, they realized that they had broken it and there was no way for us to know until we were able to find replacement bags.

So, I shook out my apron, dusted off my pearls and turned to the internet. Thank goodness for Amazon! A new BAGLESS vacuum cleaner is now on its way to my little cottage and I will have a sparkling home once more!

A Secret Nook

Tonight as the rain softly falls and the wind whips around the house, I crave to just be still, to sit in silence and just be in a secret nook where I can hide away and get lost in a deliciously good book. There is nothing better than getting lost in a book, what a guilty pleasure that is! Especially if it is enjoyed with a hot cup of cocoa with lots and lots of marshmallows.

Alas, I still have a lot of work to get done this evening and a Christmas gift that I am beginning to work on early for someone special. I want to take some time to read the directions for it and then work on blowing up the pattern, I can't say any more at the moment because it is a secret, shhhh!

But, as I work away I will dream of hiding out in a secret nook like the one above surrounded by walls and walls of gorgeous books.

(Image from "The Holiday" found on Hooked on Houses)

I Dream of Storage Space

We live in a very tiny cottage behind a racing green door and as I have an important visitor coming this weekend, I am dreaming of more storage space to put everything up in as I tidy. Who is this important visitor? He is my Dad! I have not seen my parents since Christmas and for me that is a long time.

These are the moments where I truly feel like a pioneer woman, leaving all she knew behind to journey for months on end to reach her destination and her dreams.

But, through that journey she either never had the opportunity to see her family again or the visits were so few and far between, it could have been years before they laid eyes on each other. Thank goodness this pioneer woman has Skype. I can see their beautiful faces everyday and that is better than nothing, I am lucky.

My Dad has been in Europe on business this last week and is stopping on his way home to stay with us, as this is the first time he shall see our Lilliputian cottage, I want everything in tip-top shape! If only I could wiggle my nose as Bewitched's Samantha and everything I don't need at the moment could magically disappear!

Alas, that is not to be, so as I lay my head down on my pillow tonight, I shall continue to dream of miles and miles of storage space to contain my treasures...

(Image:Anne Taintor)

The Holiday

I have the couch to myself, our Easter package has arrived from my wonderful parents and I am sitting curled up with a blanket and some jelly beans (I love the pink colored ones) and as the key holder of the remote control I am blissfully watching the wonderfully delightful movie "The Holiday"! What could be better than a Christmas movie on TV?

Right now, I can't think of anything better than this, this is happiness! I love this film, I would move in to that cottage tomorrow. It is a shame that it doesn't really exist, because I am in love with it - her kitchen, with its duck egg blue cabinets and giant fireplace,  her glorious bookshelves and inviting looking furniture.

I can relate to living in something so cramped and cozy, unfortunately though, I don't have a fireplace in my bedroom like Kate Winslet does, that would be a dream. But, that is probably a good thing, because between that and my very comfy fluffy bed, I might never leave my room...


Hope there is a little drop of rainbow happiness in your day!








(Images from the Hooked on Houses Blog)

Baby Boom Dream House

I love my little cottage, it is the perfect size for the two of us! But, there are times, especially when I am in crafting mode, that I wish our house was bigger, to accommodate the two of us each doing our own projects.

I would quite happily move into the "Baby Boom" house. I have always loved this yellow house with its blue shutters. I love the quaint country kitchen with the fabric lined cabinets and the fireplace, which I would have cheerfully lit and burning bright in the winter, while I was putting up my applesauce, of course!A house that looks perfect any time of year, and has such Christmas potential. I know when we do buy a house it will have to have Christmas potential, we can fix up anything, but I have to know it will look magical with wreaths hanging from every window and candles lit and a tree by the front door... It will be so hard to find the right house for us, we love so many different architectural styles, but, the right one is out there!

As much as I crave space at times, we are truly blessed with what we have and how much do you really need? So, there are days when I wish I wasn't the dishwasher and I had more room to spread out my projects, but as evening comes sooner now and I close the curtains and light the candles, I can't think of a cozier place to be than right where I am; cooking dinner, enjoying life and snuggling up on the couch with my adorable husband after a long day. Because, it doesn't matter where you are, it is who you are with!
All Images used were taken from HookedonHouses.

Playing in the Garden

Yesterday was breezy and sunny and the perfect day for me to change out some of the flowers in my garden. Our "yard" is only a small space in front of the cottage, so I do all my gardening in pots. I like to experiment a lot and mix things together, everything is very higgledy-piggledy. I buy what I like and plant it, that simple.

Because my ivy has taken over in some of my pots my solution was to plant the plastic containers that flowers come in, into my flower pots. Thus, making switching over plants easier and providing me with a little more insulation than normal. Last year I had a geranium that lived through the winter in my garden and I am convinced it was because of his cozy double insulation. It was an idea that came to me while visiting Versailles a few years ago at Christmas. In Marie Antoinette's garden they had planted clay pots into the soil, leaving the rim just visible and had a mixture of primroses and ivy and other plants blooming away in the freezing weather.

To my delight I discovered the first olive on our potted tree. We have had him for 3 years now and every year we hope... but in planting pansies yesterday I peered through the branches and saw a little green olive no bigger than a pea beginning to form. Happiness.

The little grocery store in town always has a sweet collection of flowers in the store and yesterday I stocked up on pansies and miniature capsicum ( a fancy way for saying peppers) plants. The purple against the red looks very rich. They are the perfect plants and colors to move us from Fall into Winter. I find gardening therapeutic, making everything pretty, cleaning up the old to freshen up with the new. Gandhi said, "To forget how to dig in the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

Little, as it may be, I gain so much from my "garden", I would dearly miss not being able to play in the dirt on Saturday mornings and the smile that coming home brings to my face when I see such cheery colors canvased against our cottage.
(Image above by Mary Engelbreit)

Chilly Willy!

Brrrr! Today the weather has changed. It is blustery, cloudy and very cold. We were out running errands and upon coming back in the cottage, we knew it was chilly, because the radiators had come on by themselves and were humming away making the house toasty!

Today it feels like we might be skipping Autumn and going right into Winter! It is definitely pumpkin weather now. The perfect weather to get a hot chocolate on-the-go and take a nice crispy walk through the woods. I will have to get out my wellies soon. I will finally have a chance to use my gorgeous Cath Kidston polka dot green wellies I got for my Birthday. I can't wait for my first puddle of the season to go stomping through!

This is lit candles, wrapping up in cozy quilts and drinking hot chocolate weather.

(Image from Good Housekeeping, Jessie Wilcox Smith)

Home is Where the Heart Is

Embrace where you are right now is a concept I try to live up to everyday. I am an American living in the London suburbs and married to an adorable redheaded Brit. I am surprised by how many Americans I know living here who only associate with other Americans. You are somewhere out of your comfort zone and that is the best time to search out a new experience. I live in a very sweet cottage behind a "racing green" colored door. The only yard I have is what I can grow in my flower pots in front of the house, as we live on a side street. But it is just right for us.

Living here I feel like a pioneer woman, the "Laura Ingalls Wilder" of London and her family in their first little sod home on the prairie. Not everything is as convenient as it is at home and so you learn to adapt. You adapt in many ways, your way of life, how you cook something. It is easy to make certain recipes at home with the ease in which you can gather your ingredients, usually half-way done on their journey to finish your dish, yet here, I find that I will have to often start from scratch and even though the process takes longer the finished product is something I have pride in, my hands have touched every step along the way.

I love to travel, especially to Paris, we don’t get to go to France as often as I would like but as the French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar said, “To stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tantamount to constant travel: one is travelling with the earth,” and that is what I am being, a gypsy in my newfound hometown.