Can I be excused please?

"Dear blogging & local friends,

Please can I have an 'excused' note for another week or so on getting around to all your blogs or calling/emailing/seeing you. I know a few of you have wondered why I have not been around, so here's why.

Well the honest truth is I am as us Brit's put it so succintly - knackered! Obviously I have my mum staying with me and although that's fun, it's always a bit tiring having a guest in your home, even when they're family and she does all your housework. As a result we have also been doing more, going out and visiting with others alot or having them here.

But I have also been going into work at 7am most mornings to pack in the hours I need to get done as the new school year rapidly approaches, and to earn some money! Then I come home and my mum and I will do something for the rest of the day.

The Hubster is similarly worn out, in fact he went to bed at 8:25pm tonight and I am just about to join him. So if you haven't had an email from me this month, or I haven't called you or commented on your blog - I haven't forgotten you and will be in touch soon!

Trust me - I never go to bed this early!"

Mum got here safely

Excuse the quick post but it's 12:30am here and I am knackered as we Brit's like to say! All of mum's (Diana) flights were early and she got into OKC at 8:00pm safely and initially wide awake.

That didn't last long though; after a restorative hot chocolate and McDonalds fries, she slept most of the almost 3 hour drive home. She is now tucked up safely in bed and I'm certain will sleep soundly, it's great to have here here :-)

We also had a long day as we were up by 7am and got back just before midnight. Never made it to the museum, as we ended up just getting all the shopping done that we needed. I will give a more full report tomorrow and thanks for all your messages today.

Oh and thank you Daryl for another blog award that was entirely unexpected, but a lovely surprise when I made it home! I will give it some thought and pass it on next week sometime when things have settled down a little here.

Night all, I am having a lie-in tomorrow, so will post later on :-)

Blogging Award Season is upon us!

So yet again I would like to "thank the Academy" and in particular my good friend and neighbour Rhea of Texas Word Tangle for the very beautiful Arte Y Pico Award.

This Arte y Pico award originated in Uruguay from a wonderful blogger who can test your Spanish comprehension skills if you pay her a visit. Here are the rules that accompany this esteemed award.

1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and also contribute to the blogging community.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.

4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Show these rules.

So, I'm going to pass this along to five very deserving fellow bloggers. It is so hard to choose but the following blogs all jump out at me as meeting the criteria for having creativity, design, interesting material and contributing to the blogging community.

My first recipient is my fellow Okie and friend Pamokc who continually amazes me with her very creative Photoshop skills, I also love her self designed and photographed banner head and tales of life.

My second recipient is the wonderfully named Snippety Gibbet an Elementary Art Teacher who inspires her students to great heights. She also makes the most amazing paper art with scissors, if you have ever tried to cut any pattern out of paper, you WILL be amazed!

Next up is Victoria of Vintage Tea a fellow Brit' who lives in Epping and loves to create beautiful things from all kinds of bits and pieces she finds. She flew to Venice yesterday, so no doubt upon her return in a week she will be full of inspiration to create and tales of her travels.

Sliding in at numero quattro is David McMahon of authorblog a journalist and internationally published photographer. He posts fabulous photo's, interesting articles, a daily guide to the best posts in 'blogland' and my personal fave' - his 'Verse and Worse' feature.

My final recipient is Daryl at out & about in new york city who is a wonderful photographer and storyteller, has her own little comic strip called 'Husbandisms' and makes me seriously consider letting the 'grey hairs' run wild one day!

Congratulations ladies and gentleman, thank you for your blogs, which I now urge you all to go out and populate!

I'd also like to "Thank the Academy"!

I'd like to thank Sandi a retired law enforcer and published columnist, for presenting me with my second blog award, which I am delighted and honoured to accept!

Apparently this award is given for being a 'Special Scribe' and recognises talented writers, so for me this makes it very special as I have always loved to write. When I was 15 and still in school we all had to choose where we would like to spend our 'work experience'. I asked to spend it with a local paper experiencing being a journalist as at the time I was sure that was what I wanted to do. So off I went to the 'Watford Observer' for a week and got to trail the news desk reporter. They actually let me write up a small piece and it was published that week, I was thrilled and the whole experience was very inspiring for a teenager.

However life often steers you down different paths and thus was the case with my future career. I also had the 'gift of the gab' and so I ended up eventually in sales, corporate account management and customer service for many years.

But I have never lost my love of writing and have even worked on various book projects over the years, I may try harder one day in the hope of publication. Only this week I have been considering starting another blog with just my fictional works on it, but I'm still considering whether I am ready for readers and critics!

So thank you very Sandi, this award means alot.

In the spirit of blog awards I would like to pass this on to some 'Special Scribes' I can rely on for high quality, interesting, inspiring and entertaining writing:

Life is a University which I have been reading since February and always find full of life's truths, whether funny, factual or sad. I don't even know this lady bloggers first name, but I view her as a friend and try to visit everyday for her skilled writing.

Willow is a wonderful writer with a passion for beautiful artwork, music, history, geneology and her home. I have learned about many things from her over the months and her blog is a thing of great beauty itself.

Militant Ginger is the blog of a fellow Brit' living in New Jersey. Roland's writing is always current, informative, often contraversial and very to the point. I may not always agree with his opinions, but they are always well written and interesting.

And last but certainly not least is another fellow Brit' recipient Expatmum. Toni has achieved my dream of publication and her experience shows in the quality of her writing. I find her blog addictive with a wry outlook on life here in the USA and am always entertained by her writing.

There's nothing quite like giving away awards and prizes all in one day on your blog! :-)

Technical Question

Since I loaded the new RSS feed blogroll one of my regular commenters has been unable to comment. If you are having the same problem and cannot comment anymore, please email me as she did, to let me know so we can establish whether it's her issue or mine.

Thanks

No pressure fellow bloggers...

But take a look at my 'Cool Online Places I visit' down on the right sidebar. I have joined the many bloggers utilising the new Blogroll tool introduced this week and now if you're on my roll, the whole world can see when you last blogged! Well actually make that about 70 people a day on average ;-) and I have chosen to have it sort by most recently updated.

Anyway I think this is pretty cool as it gives me a chance to promote your latest blog post and will hopefully pull more readers in for y'all. You will also note I have updated it to include more of the blogs I try to get to every few days.

If you also want to use this for your blogroll, then go to your Dashboard now and roll down to news. There is a helpful little video there to show you what to do :-)

Well I am off now folks...

I made it to 365 blog posts for this year, so I figure I'll just take the rest of it off and see you back here Jan 1st 2009!

Ta Ta for now ;-)

Bare with me here...

for the next few days, as obviously I am a new mom and life is a bit chaotic to say the least! LOL

What with looking after little Bonnie Blue, who incidentally passed her vet inspection with flying colours, and giving my other 2 lots of attention - I'm kinda busy!

Plus with my mum heading this way in a month, I am trying to strip the bathroom, re-texturise and then paint it before she gets here. As the Hubster needs that done before he can fit the new sink and tap and we have a multitude of other chores around here to do too.

Bloglife should return to normal service within days :-)

Blog into the future!

I just wanted to ensure my blogging buddies are aware of a great new feature offered by Blogger finally.

You can now write your blog posts anytime and then schedule them to be posted at a later time and date! This is what I have been waiting for eagerly, now I can write anytime I feel like it or am inspired to and spread out when the posts will actually appear. This means you can also plan ahead for holidays or busy periods.

The new feature is currently appearing on our 'Dashboard' page when you log in. But if you now look at the bottom right corner just above the 'Publish Post' button when you are creating a post, you will see 'Post Options'. Click there and you can enter a time and date in the future for your post to appear, complete it and then hit Publish Post - job done :-)

Wonderful time saver thank you Blogger, I already have posts done through until Thursday! LOL

Oh my....

I am so excited and now I have to try and sleep!

Remember when we got to meet some OKC bloggers a few weeks ago and had a wonderful time with them all. Well we planned a summer time visit out here into rural Okieland for them and tonight I heard back from the fabulous Pam and her Brit' 'hooby' John with some suggested dates :-)

They are big Formula 1 fans too and it looks likely we will have them here for the weekend of the British Grand Prix, which also just happens to be the long 4th July weekend :-)

Quite alot goes on in our little town on July 4th, including a spectacular fireworks display over the lake, so I am hoping we get this fixed up as a go-er :-)

Okay - off to bed with a big smile on my face, it's such fun meeting our blogging buddies and getting on just as well face to face :-)

Please God....

Will somebody out there PLEASE press to add me to their Technorati Faves, as I am on 13 and being of a superstitious nature, it's doing my head in and has been for 2 days!

and the Award goes to....

Thanks very much to Expatmum for my very first Blog Award! :-) I am delighted to hear I always keep you amused and informed, at least I haven't bored you to death yet - just give me time!!

I have given some thought as to whose blogs always entertain or inform me on a daily basis without fail. There are a few real contenders, but I have decided to pass on this award to Dylan another expat' living in NYC with a great northern wit and outlook on life. My other recipient is Stacy at Exceedingly Mundane who nearly made me choke on my tea laughing yesterday with a blog title that translates very differently for a Brit'!!

I think I'll break out a mug of Earl Grey to celebrate!

Back to subbing

Well I am home and now back at school subbing 4th grade for the next 2 days.

We had alot of fun in the city and got just about everything we needed whilst we were there. I doubt we could have brought home anymore anyway, not only was the bed of the Pickup full with a new fountain and a safe, but the backseat was full to the roof too!

So I am all shopped out for awhile, back to blog more later :-)

Brit' Gal in OKC

Well we have had an excellent day in OKC, we got plenty of retail therapy in and also had a great time meeting some of my blogging buddies. And so far we are on schedule with the shopping and the diet hasn't been blown out of the water. I was especially happy to get to a British store to stock up and get hold of a tag plate with the British flag on it, now the locals will see me coming!


At noon we met BRAD and KARLA with their lovely girls Sarah and Ashley for lunch at a Mexican Restaurant in Penn Square Mall. It was great to actually sit down and visit with some of my favourite blog writers and chat instead. We covered topics ranging from driving in the USA and the UK, road-rage, bugs, snakes, photography and finally much discussion of the weather. It turns out I share my jumpiness over tornado's with Ashley and it was also interesting hearing about their experience during the May 3rd 1999 OKC day of tornadoes. Ashley advised me I will only know I am truly an Okie when I start saying "Y'all". Us girls then dragged the men along to Sephora and they stoically waited whilst we all tried, tested or shopped in the ultimate girls store :-)

Brad and Karla are planning on bringing the girls to see the sights out our way later in the year and we hope to get together again with them then and have them visit with us.


This evening we met up with PAM and her British husband John, who grew up and lived in the very same area I did in the UK. As they say, sometimes it is a very small world indeed and certainly this turned out to be the case with us. We know many of the same local haunts and even though our families have moved over the years, they are still in similar area's!

We met at Charlestons for a delicious dinner and then pretty much talked non-stop for over 3 hours. We share alot of common interests and experiences, the most obvious one being our international marriages, but also a love of many things including Formula One. It turned out Pam and I also have Hubsters with pretty much the same sense of humour and an immense gratitude for how lucky they are having us as their better halves (tongue firmly in cheek here)!

We hope Pam & John will also make it out to visit us at some point and maybe we can all watch a Formula One race together, that is if we can hear it at all above all out constant talking and comparing notes....LOL!

So we had a great day and meeting these new friends was definitely the highlight for us. We have some more retail therapy to finish off tomorrow and then head back home later.

Countdown over...

We are off to OKC in the morning, we have a 2-page hit list of stores and shopping, so we don't forget anything and some kind of a plan! As long as the Hubster can keep me moving along in Garden Ridge, Victoria's Secret, Macy's and Sephora, we should make it all :-)

The highlight of the weekend though is getting to meet 3 of the friends I have made through this blog. We are meeting up with BRAD and KARLA (married to each other) and their girls for lunch tomorrow, and then PAM and her British husband John in the evening for dinner. I am very excited to meet them all and will take some pictures of our 'cultural exchanges' as Brad calls them!

I was really worried about sticking to my diet, but have just researched the healthiest options for the restaurants and am now relaxed about it. Plus Cracker Barrel (breakfast on Sunday) has a whole healthy menu I wasn't even aware you could get, because usually I would have been too busy shoveling down pancakes and syrup! Not this time :-)

So my next post late tomorrow afternoon will be from OKC and will probably include piccies from the 'Okie bloggers' lunch meetup.

Ok....off to iron, tidy around and pack a few things :-)

Updated....

I have updated my 'Cool Online Places I Visit' down there on the right-hand side. I have added some more of my favourite blogs and also websites I shop from or use frequently.

Enjoy :-)

Lengthy Blonde Moment!

Well DUH!!

I am pretty new to this blogging lark still and I have JUST realised what 'Labels' does!

I thought they were some kind of search function, now I realise they connect posts on the same topic together! So I have gone back through my 119 posts and re-labelled them and now if you hit 'Labels' under the post, like 'britwordoftheday' - you'll get them all!

Wow some of you experienced bloggers must have been thinking 'What is she DOING with her labels!?" ....LOL

Bonkers would be a good Brit' Word to describe ME occasionally!

Blog NEWS!

I have now registered the following domain name for this blog and you can reach it with either the old address or this new easier to remember address:

http://www.britgalusa.com/

If it is not working immediately, give it a day please :-)