Becca Jane St Clair

I’ve had Con Crud, and Cruise Crud, and the Canadian Death Cold…so I dub this, British Crud.

It started out with Tim having what I thought was a mild cold. He seemed to still be doing everything he needed to do, and went off to work each morning armed with packets of Lemsip (like Theraflu). He’s over it now, but he managed to pass it on to me….and boy, did he pass it on to me.

I’ve spent three of the past four nights sleeping down on the sofa because my sleeping patterns are so crazy. I’ll sleep for two hours, then be up for three, so I’ve been watching a lot of partial DVDs. I can barely breathe most of the time, so I’ve been wearing a breathe right strip on my nose whenever I’m indoors and using lots of Sudafed nasal spray (the only thing that clears my nose!). I coughed on and off, and I keep suffering from having an extremely dry mouth. Downing pint size glasses of Ribena every hour just to try to keep things from getting dry.

Everytime I think I might be “getting better”…something else hits. Today appears to be another day of needing to blow my nose every 15 minutes. Such joy.

In other news, Tim and I got out of the house yesterday and went to see Avatar. We both really liked it and I now see why it’s been winning awards. What I didn’t like was the snow/sleet that greeted us when we left the theatre. Yuck. Not what my cold needed. But I don’t think it made me any worse. By the time we got home, Tim just had enough time to eat dinner (soup in the crock pot) before heading out for his overnight shift.

And in some really good news – my visa debit card arrived for the bank account, so I don’t need to ask Tim for money if I need to go shopping. I also received the application (and sent it back) for my NI Number. Still no sign of the NHS card, but I need to wait until I kick this cold to go see the GP anyway.

So my life’s been a little boring lately, but I figured I’d post. I still also have previous trips that are begging to be written about, so hopefully I’ll find time to work on some of those as I’m feeling better.

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I landed at LHR (London Heathrow) in the wee hours of the morning on the 22nd. We were the first plane down for the day (at around 5:30AM) and I managed to get through immigration and customs before Tim even left the hotel room! Sitting in Business Class (thanks Friend! [you know who you are]) rocked. They passed out these “fast passes” for immigration which goes to a special line only for First & Business class, so not a long wait there at all. I held my passport open to my spousal visa when I walked up to the counter and was asked one question “Where is your husband?” I replied that he should be waiting for me on the other side of Customs, and the I/O stamped my visa and said “Welcome Home, Mrs. L”.

Fortunately, luggage carts are free at LHR, and I piled it high with my bags and managed to get myself through Customs (nothing to declare) and out into the arrivals hall….to no Tim. Granted, it was 6AM, and my plane was supposed to land at 5:55, so I wasn’t upset. Instead I called Mom to tell her I had arrived and then called Tim. Turned out he was just leaving the hotel (since we live about 3 hours away from London by car, we figured a hotel was the best idea).

We were soon reunited and loaded the car…and we almost took the bags of someone parked next to us (who was even on my flight!) who had a purple bag, because Tim is programmed that all things purple must belong to me. heh. We had breakfast at the hotel, then went to our room and crashed for a few hours.

I woke up around 11, and after a shower we decided to head into the nearest town (though not into London proper) to find some Lunch and pick up a few things at Boots (Pharmacy), and tehn it was mostly hanging around in our hotel room until our pre-paid dinner at the hotel restaurant. Unfortunately, my stomach hadn’t figured out the time change yet, so I spent most of my afternoon being sick, but I felt well-enough to go down to dinner and nibbled a bit. Again, we didn’t do much after dinner (partially due to me not feeling well).

The following morning we decided to stop at IKEA in Essex on our “way home”. It wasn’t entirely on the way, but closer than any of the IKEAs in our area, and we wanted to go window shopping for new bedroom furniture.

We wound up spending 5 hours in IKEA! But it was worth it. We now know what we want and have a plan for renovating our bedroom.

We returned to Lincoln….and then the errands started. Oh, the errands.

Monday we went over to the GP (Doctor) so I could register. The receptionist had a little trouble with registering me, as she thought I needed to call the NHS to get a NHS number, but after calling the helpline from the lobby we got it straightened out and I should have my NHS card in a few days. We also headed into town, thinking that we’d be able to add me to Tim’s bank account. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out and we had to make an appointment for Tuesday. We also stopped at the Library though, and I got a library card and then to the Co-Op to sign up for a membership there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get my NI number (It’s similar to an SSN), but I have the number to call to get that, too.

Tuesday we had our bank appointment and after a two-hour meeting overviewing our finances, I was added to the account, we paid off the credit card mostly (we used it for my visa & moving fees), and we have a plan for a new savings account once I have my NI number. I should have my bank card in a few days!

We’ve also been doing a lot just to get the house in order. We plan on celebrating our Christmas on Sunday, complete with putting presents under the tree. At IKEA we purchased a new laundry hamper that ought to handle a week’s worth of two people’s clothing (and it even has a divider), and a cute side table for under the living room window. We’ve also been opening the wedding presents and started to use them – yesterday I made bread in the bread machine and it turned out really good.

Sadly, last night the washing machine decided that this was teh PERFECT time for it to crap out. So today we went off to Comet’s and picked out an inexpensive washer dryer combo. We figured since we knew we needed a new dryer eventually, we might as well spend the money now to get the combo, because buying them separate would have been twice as much. Plus, this gets rid of one of the units in the kitchen, so more space for other things.

Hopefully we’ll have a quiet weekend (other than Christmas on Sunday) and start to get things in order. My shipment got to Felixtowe on the 25th, so hopefully it won’t sit in customs for too long….but hopefully long enough for us to make room for the boxes.

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I’ve landed. A longer post is on it’s way, and I had plans of writing it today. Sadly, our washing machine decided that last night was the perfect time for it to die, so this afternoon we’ll be shopping for a new one.

Just wanted to let anyone know who didn’t know that I arrived and am now safely at home!

I’ve recently applied for and recieved my UK spousal visa. Here is a detailed account of what I did. I hope this can help someone in the future!

On 5 November 2009, Tim and I got married in a small and private ceremony in PA, followed by a reception for friends/family in th US. I filled out the paperwork to get the certified copy of our marriage license before the wedding and had the envelope and cheque all ready to be sent post-wedding. Tim and I departed on our honeymoon on the morning of the 7th, and my mom mailed off the request for the certified copy on Monday. We returned from our honeymoon on the 15th, Tim went back to the UK on the 16th, and the marriage certificate arrived on the 17th.

Before sending off the marriage certificate, I went ahead and changed my name with my bank (though I did that immediately after the wedding and added Tim to the account) and with PennDOT. Then, it was off to the post office to send in a renewal/name change on my passport. This is an optional step, however I really wanted everything to be in my married name. I did NOT expedite my passport, but I had it back after only 4 weeks. During this time, Tim was able to collect the required documents we needed on his end, and he FedExed me his paperwork on 23 December. Due to the holiday, I did not receive the package until the 28th.

Tim and I had gone through the paper version of the application together to make sure I knew the answers to some of the questions (like Tim’s NI number) in case he wasn’t around when I filled out the online form. Fortunately, Tim was around and we filled out the application together. It took about an hour, but that partially had to do with my slow computer. It got to the schedule biometrics page and I was given a date at the beginning of January.

I organized all the paperwork before I did anything else. I purchased Avery dividers with document pockets and color-coded each section. I had 6 sections to my documents – General Information, Identification, Finances, Employment, Housing, and Misc. I will attach at the end my table of contents for more details. Anything that was more than a page long got paperclipped together, and each section was then clipped together with a small binder clip. The entire application was 60 pages, 12 photos, and 3 passports, so I then took 3 very large binder clips and clipped it ALL together on three sides.

After hearing a few success stories of getting biometrics done early, I decided to take my chances and we drove over to York (where my local facility was). It worked out since it was only about a 20 minute drive away, and we wanted to go out to Lunch at a restaurant in York anyway. Fortunately, there was only 3 people waiting for their testing (this also is INS, the place where US immigrants go for their biometrics and green cards!). Since they weren’t busy, they agreed to take me after the three people waiting.

Biometrics was pretty painless. Instead of using ink and paper, they have a special scanner that scans in your fingerprints. Mine were hard to read, and the woman doing it told me it’s because I use my hands a lot – like to type on a computer, send text messages, even crafting. Doing those things creates lines on your fingertips and it makes it harder to read your prints. Fortunately after about 15 minutes, she finally got something that the computer was satisfied with.

When we got back to the house, I had an email from my courier instructing me to send my application via overnight FedEx that afternoon, so off we went to the FEdEx facility across town. It cost me $53, but it was worth it!

I used All Star Visa & Passport Services and I can’t recommend them enough. They were very professional, didn’t offer me any unsolicited advice like some of the others, and kept in communication with me every step of the way. The received my application at 10AM on the 30th, after their submission time to the consulate, but that gave Myra time to go through my application and make sure I had sent everything I said I was (a step I appreciated). She wasn’t going through it to review it like some places, just checked for my documents. She also told me that I was pretty organized, which pleased me. Their services are a little more than some of the other LA couriers – $150 plus an additional $24 for shipping, but in my opinion it was well worth it to have such professional service. I had heard a lot of complaints about at least 2 of the other LA Consulate couriers, but nothing but good things about All Star.

Ken submitted my application in the morning on 31 December. The consulate was closing early for the holiday, so it was iffy if it would get looked at. When I didn’t hear from the courier by 3PM PST, I assumed it was going to have to wait. Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call around 7PM EST telling me I was approved and my visa was on it’s way to me! Way to go All Star!

My visa process took exactly 8 weeks from wedding to visa issued, but you can cut some time off if you don’t need to/want to change your name on your passport (or if you expedite your passport). Tim had most of his documents all ready and we were only waiting for a copy of the land registry, but I’ve been told we could have used the internet print out instead, which also would have cut off a week.

I’ll be leaving the US on 21 January to join my husband so we can start our life together!

My table of contents is a pdf for you to look at and use as a guide. It can be found here: spousalvisatableofcontents.pdf. Please note that this is not a comprehensive list, and you might require additional documents depending on your situation.

For a guide of required documents and an example of what your sponsor’s letter should look like, please visit Transpondia.

You can find support from fellow Americans who have gone through or are going through the same process by visiting the forums at BritanniAmerica.

Meg from UK-Y has put together a sample budget, and you can download the template here. Again, please remember this is only a guide, and you might need to add or delete lines as necessary based on your own financial situation.

There might still be an update for today, but for now I wanted to share a YouTube video Tim sent me. For those who don’t know, Walt Disney was a HUGE train fanatic, and even had a narrow gauge ride-on model railway in his back yard (which inspired the railways at Disneyland/Disney World, but more about that in a later post). Tim said this cartoon is proof that Walt truly was “one of us”:

Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7vb71oy_M

Ladies and Gentlemen….this is about to become my life 😉

[This is a re-post to my blog of a post appearing in my personal LJ, the wedding plans community, and on my facebook page. Apologies if you’ve already seen it!]

The fifth dawned bright and sunny. Tim and I got up around 8 and decided to go pick up bagels for breakfast before starting to get ready. Tim showered, and headed to the train station to pick up my MOH, Erin and I got in the shower and put on my something blue (Bra & panties set with suspenders/garters) and then put on pajama pants and a tank top while I did my hair and make-up. Our Best Woman and photographer, Laura, arrived, and I even managed to get down a 6-inch sub from Subway before getting zipped into my purple dress and heading out the door!

We got over to the judge’s office with plenty of time to find out it wasn’t really a courthouse at all. Almost felt like it was made up of temporary trailers, but whatever. We were mostly amused that the courtroom was set up for an actual trial and have some funny pics of us behind the tables (on Tim’s mum’s cam, so I haven’t seen them yet). The judge came in, Laura set up our video camera, and our entire ceremony took 2 and a half minutes. After the ceremony, the judge told us we could stay as long as we wanted taking pictures, so we took a few before heading over to Willow Valley – where we intended to take pictures outside before having dinner together.

It started to rain and got chilly. 🙁 Most of the outdoor pics have people still with their coats on, or look like they’re shivering, so after about a half hour, we high-tailed it inside and stayed in the lobby of the restaurant/hotel. My Mother-in-Law and Erin somehow managed to get someone to bring us a pot of coffee and some cups (we never saw it on the bill, either!) and we all just sat around and chatted and took more photos until it was time for dinner.

Dinner was lots of fun. Laura urged Tim to try crab cakes, so we ordered enough for the whole table. He liked them so much, he had them for Lunch on Saturday, too! We “snuck in” our champagne and had a small toast (the rule was we could bring it in as long as the other guests didn’t see it), and then had a small cake mom ordered from the hotel’s bakery. They sat us in a back corner near the big picture windows, so we had relative privacy until around 6PM, when the big dinner/smorgasboard crowd came in.

Tim and I said good-bye to everyone, checked into the hotel and enjoyed the whirlpool tub! 😀

Friday was such a busy day. We started it by heading into downtown Lancaster to see my friend Ramy and to drop off the marriage certificate at my bank (they changed my name on my account earlier in the week when I added Tim, provided we dropped off a copy of the certificate on Friday). Then, we headed over to my mom’s to load up the cars with our reception stuff…boy were we glad we had been upgraded to a mini suv from the rental company! We spent all day Friday at the reception site prepping the food and setting up the tables. Tim took his dad out to Lunch at the Lancaster Brewing Company since there wasn’t a whole lot of “man tasks” to do, but we later set Tim’s dad to work slicing bread! Our cake arrived around 4, and I swear it was all purple. For some reason, all photos make it look blue. We briefly returned to the hotel to change back into our wedding clothes, and that was the first time Tim and I had been alone since we woke up that morning!

Our reception went off without a hitch. Well, maybe a few minor hitches, but I didn’t notice any other than my cake looking blue in photos when it was purple in real life! Dana and Jilly made a beautiful cake, and the teenage waitstaff did a great job circulating the appetizers and doing all things waitress-ey. My small cousin was there and there was a brief problem with her and my “nieces” (my friend Ramy’s daughters call me Aunt). I had one of my nieces on one arm claiming “mine!” and my cousin on the other! Fortunately, by the end of the evening the two older girls were playing friendly and the youngest was tagging along with them! We also missed a few people…some people had either emailed or texted to explain they wouldn’t be there, but in the end, we only had about 30 out of the original 50. I wasn’t upset, but I was annoyed at all the food we had bought! Fortunately, my mom was able to take a lot of the food over to her office to feed the employees while we were away on our honeymoon.

I put three of my closest friends on the spot and asked them to do the toast. Ramy nicely reminded me she thought I was obnoxious when we met (I was 12!) and Sarah (my practically roommate from college) almost brought me to tears with her kind words. Then Tim decided to get in on the speech making and gave a thank you to everyone who helped us.

By this point, I was hungry. I had everyone urging me to make a plate – and I did, I swear I did! But I only managed a few bites in between running around and talking to people. The only bite of cake I had was the one Tim fed me! We did remedy this by putting together a plate of meat, cheese, and rolls for Tim and I to take back to the hotel that night while we were cleaning up.

I barely did any cleaning up. By 9PM, my feet were killing me. Not because my shoes weren’t comfortable, but because my shoes didn’t agree with the flooring of the venue and I kept sliding around which really hurt my ankles and spread down to my feet. A few of my guests stuck around to help with cleaning up too, which was really appreciated! We had to put all the tables and chairs away and clean the kitchen before we could leave, and of course had to load the cars back up.

We opted to put all the perishable stuff in my mom’s car and anything non-perishable in the rental so Tim and I wouldn’t have to drive back to Mom’s house that night. Fortunately, the rental had dark tinted windows so things like the stereo system were hidden.

Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed back to my mom’s briefly to unload our car, pack ourselves some reception leftovers for the road, and packed up our suitcases for the honeymoon – a road trip down to Orlando to visit my relatives with several days at Walt Disney World and a visit to Miss M.

Unfortunately, the Monday after we returned from the honeymoon I had to put Tim on a plane back to the UK. Currently, I’m waiting for my new passport to arrive, and then we’ll be putting together the application for my spousal visa. We estimate we’ll be together permanently by mid-January. I’ve been spending my time trying to pack up my stuff we’re moving and donating or trashing everything else. Wow, 30 years of life = lots of stuff.

….And we get to do this all over again in the UK this Spring for our UK reception, too!

For those of you who are just in it for the pics….

My cat, Will, with my bouquet designed by Jilly

Tim and his Mum, Jen.

Happy at the Judge’s office, right after the ceremony

Me with my girls – Maid of Honour Erin and Best Woman Laura

What this picture really says: “OMG I’M FREEZING!”

The Mrs Ls – me with Tim’s Mum

After retreating inside. Our whole group from Thursday – Tim’s parents are on either side of us and on the top my mom is on the right and my aunt is between our attendants.

Cutting our (first) cake

— Reception —

Our cake & Topper

Tim and I at our own little table….see? I DO have food in front of me!

Sharing cake! Tim was put under orders NOT to smash it in my face or ruin my dress

Tim, mid-speech.

I’m too lazy to go back and rotate this. The little girl in the front is one of my “nieces” and the little one in the back is my cousin

A picture expertly tinted by Laura, who doubled as our photographer for the ceremony day.

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You might be wondering why this blog has been so dead lately, even after I promised more entries. Well, as I posted before, Tim proposed to me while we were visiting him in September….and we decided to get married in November! Of this year. Yep. I got married on 5 November 2009. Also known as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Day, so there will always be fireworks and Tim can never forget our anniversary 😀

This also means I’ll be making the permanent move over to the UK within the next month or so. This blog will NOT go away. It will probably become more of a “life in the UK” type blog with traveling mixed in there…and I still have a list of things I really ought to catch up on, like my mom and my trip back in September! I missed out on NaBloPoMo or whatever it was called since I was planning a wedding, getting married, and then honeymooning for half of it, but I think I’m going to challenge myself to blog daily until the end of December….or until I catch things up, whichever comes first!

Our wedding was beautiful, and everything we wanted it to be. I will copy/paste over the post I made to the Wedding Plan community shortly for everyone to read who missed it. We honeymooned in Florida, so expect some posts about that eventually, too!

For more photos, you can check out the Picasa page of our photographer (and Best Woman) at: http://picasaweb.google.com/falnfenix/RebeccaAndTim?feat=directlink#

Or, you can check out the photos taken by my mom, me, Tim, and Erin (our Maid of Honour) at: http://picasaweb.google.com/rebeccajlockley/OurWedding5November2009#

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I have been away on a trip to Ireland and the UK from 14 September to 29 September. Normally, I would have blogged something while away, even if it was just photos and videos, but we ran into incredible bad luck with wifi at our hotels. Once we reached Tim’s house, we were just too busy for me to do anything more than get photos up on facebook. But I’ve been back for afew days, and I feel ready to blog about things!

Oh, and I have some good news too – while we were visiting Tim, he proposed! We’re engaged!

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Posting this for my mom to load at work:

I wasn’t going to write a public entry about my issue with Walgreens. I posted something on my private Livejournal to my friends about it to let off steam, but then a friend of mine replied telling a horrible encounter she had, and another friend said “I’m boycotting Walgreens just because of that, and I’ve never shopped there”, so I thought I’d tell the tale.

Walgreens has been doing a 7 days of 7 deals thing with their photolab. Nearly all the offers have been free items or really cheap items (25 photos for .25, free 8x10s, free 4x6s, etc.). The freebies are posted all over the web, at blogs such as Deal Seeking Mom, Moms Need To Know, and at least a dozen other mom or frugal related blogs. So, the coupon codes went pretty viral.

I went in to pickup my free pictures in one large lot and was informed by someone claiming to be the “assistant manager” that he was going to charge me for my pictures. I did try to argue with him that since the website says to charge me $0, he should, but no luck. So we walked out. A few hours later, I received a notice that my order was canceled. I forwarded it to Walgreens Customer Service department along with a note explaining what had happened and this is the reply:

Thank you for contacting Walgreens.com customer service.
This is in response to your email regarding Walgreens.com photo
order xxxxx.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. You
have contacted customer service for Walgreens.com website.
Although I can not address your concerns directly, your
satisfaction is very important to us. According to our records,
your photo order was submitted at your local store. For
assistance, please contact the photo manager at that location
at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

If you have any further questions or need additional information
regarding our website, please reply to this e-mail, or contact
us at the toll-free number below.

We at Walgreens.com look forward to serving all
of your prescription, photo and drugstore needs.

So, their solution is to call the store that you already have an issue with. Nice. Well, I’m not about to do that, but I certainly won’t be taking anymore orders into Walgreens.

To cinch the deal for me and a few of my friends, let me tell you what happened to my friend, J.

J’s brother passed away and her family wanted some pictures of him to display at the funeral. J happened to have some digital photos from her wedding that included her brother, so she took the disc into Walgreens to get some prints made.

The person she spoke to at the Walgreens photo counter accused her of trying to re-print copyrighted photos and then when J explained the situation about her brother dying, she got accused of lying about the deathl in order to get the store to print her photos. Obviously, she walked out without getting anything printed.

I hope between my story and my friend’s story, you might consider not taking your photo orders into Walgreens, no matter how good the deal looks.

I’d like to Apologize to all my readers who may have been wondering where the updates about Tim’s visit are. I promise, they’re coming. Tim left to go home 8 days ago. Around this time on the 8th, he and I were on our way to the R1 airport line at 30th street that was going to take us down to the airport, where I would have to part ways with him for a few weeks.

As you can imagine, this has been really hard on me. That’s not to say that I wasn’t sad when I left the UK in April…but there’s something so much worse about taking the return train ride back alone, going to bed alone, preparing breakfast the next day alone, and seeing all the things that remind you of the person who left. So I’ve been taking a break from everything, sort of. Paired with a few days of feeling really crappy (thanks to my stomach, and then getting a brief cold/flu bug), it’s just not been a good week for writing updates.

But I assure you, they are coming. Hopefully before I leave for my trip to Ireland and the UK on September 14th ;).

As some of you may know, I will be moving to the United Kingdom at some point, and I do not want to take all my books along. The following is just a SMALL Selection (believe it or not!)

All books unless otherwise marked are $1. Shipping is $2 for the first book, $1 each additional book within the United States ONLY (unless otherwise noted as for large books).

Prices will be higher for international, only because these things are heavy!

If you’re local and can pick up books, no shipping charges.

I will take offers on large lots, so please look over the list and make an offer.

First come, first serve. Cross-posted in several places.

The Dream Encyclopedia – Lewis $3/$4 shipping
10,000 Dreams Interpreted – Capella $3 shipping
Dreams – barns & Noble
Celtic Myth & Magick – McCoy
The Runes – Horisk Svensson (comes with a burlap bag of runes) ($4 shipping – cannot be shipped via media mail)
Runelore – Ihorsson (comes with a velvet pouch of runes) ($4 shipping – cannot be shipped via media mail)
Hello Midnight – Deborah Bishop & David Levy
The Mystical Art of Palmestry – Lauren David Peden
Whole Body Meditations – Lorin Roche
Dragons – Dr. Karl Shucker $3/$4 shipping
Candelmas – Amber K & Azrael Arynn K
How to Read Palms – Gibson
The Witch Book – Buckland $3/$4 shipping
The Book of Druidry – Ross Nichols
The 21 Lessons of Merlyn – Monroe
The Earth Path – Starhawk
The Spiral Dance 20th Anniversary Edition – Starhawk
Irish Fairy & Folk Tales – Yeates $3/$4 shipping
Living Buddha, Living Christ – Thich Nhat Hanh
Tea Cup Reading – Fenton
The Path to Tranquility – His Holynes the Dalai Lama
Eragon – Christopher Paolini

Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
On the Banks of Plum Creek – ”
Lord of the Rings Trilogy + The Hobbit $3/$4 shipping
The Hardy Boys 1-4, 6, 8, 52, 57, 58, 77, 79 $1 EACH
Mother Speak – Christopher Kubasik
Star Wars Trilogy
Star Wars Radio Drama Script
Elizabeth & Mary – Cousins, Rivals, Queens – Jane Dunn $3/$4 shipping
Sleeping Arrangements – Laura Shaine Cunningham
Confessions of a SHopaholic – Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic Takes Manhattan – ”
The Birth of Venus – Sarah Dunat
Portrait of an Artist The Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories – Tim Burton
The Queen’s Fool – Philippa Gregory $2/$3 Shipping
Earthy Joys – ” $2/$3 Shipping
The Boleyn Inheritance – ” $2/$3 Shipping
The Other Boleyn Girl – ” $2/$3 Shipping
The Virgin’s Lover – ” $2/$3 Shipping
The Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon $3/$5 shipping (BIG book)
Carpe Jugulum – Terry Pratchett
Soul Music – ”
Witches Abroad = ”
Small Gods – ”
Reaper Man – ”
Wyrd Sisters – ”
Lords and Ladies – ”
Mort – ”
Hogfather – ”
Star Wars: Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Coyote Blue – Christopher Moore
Ghost of a Chance – Yasmine Galenorn
Let’s Meet on Platform 8 – Carole Matthews
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
Emma – Jane Austen
The Shining – Stephen King
Secrets in the Attic – VC Andrews
Sweet Valley Saga – The Patman’s of Sweet Valley
Sweet Valley High – The Return of the Evil Twin
Babysitter’s Club Special – Graduation Day
Written on Silk – Linda Lee Chaikin
Why Marriages Succeed or Fail – John Gottman, PhD (used textbook)
Love Poems by Women
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles – Margaret George – $3/$5 shipping (BIG book)
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn – Robin Maxwell
The Last Boleyn – Karen Harper
Please Don’t Go – Elizabeth Benning
Anne of Green Gables – (hardback Barnes & Noble’s Edition) $2/$3 shipping
Rilla of Ingleside – LM Montgomery
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (UK Children’s Paperback)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (US Paperback) $2/$3 shipping
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (US Paperback) $2/$3 shipping
Mary Called Magdalene – Margaret George $3/$5 shipping (BIG book)
A Guide to the Star Wars Universe (second Edition)

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I started this blog exactly a year ago today! How exciting! My blog was originally started so that my mom (and other family/friends) could keep up with what I was doing while I was spending two months in Manitoba and whatever other trips I took. This expanded into becoming a log about 6 months traveling/visiting the UK, then into including video logs, personal stories, etc.

In 2008, I visited 5 countries (if you count England and Wales separately), and in 2009 so far I’ve visited 2 (and plan on adding France (okay, it’s just for a layover), Wales, and Ireland by the end of 2009). In the year that this blog has spanned so far I’ve spent 2/3 of the year outside of the United States! That’s pretty impressive for me.

So what’s in store for the blog for the next year? I’m not really sure. There’s a week in DC coming up while Tim is visiting, followed by 2 weeks in Ireland and the UK this fall, and then after that….we’ll see where it goes. Current plans are to spend Spring/Summer 2010 in the UK, but I hate having such a long gap between visits!

If I’m not actively traveling, I intend on updating the blog at least once/week with articles about traveling, and maybe some local or personal entries so the updates don’t die.

To all of you who have been reading this: Thank you. I hope you continue to read and please leave me comments! I love hearing what you think.

Don’t forget, you don’t need to come directly to my blog in order to read it. You can subscribe to the RSS feed in your favourite RSS reader, add the LJ RSS feed if you are on LJ, or read the entries on my Facebook. Comments are always welcome, just remember if you are reading it via the LJ RSS to head over to the blog site to leave a comment. The LJ comment feature doesn’t actually send comments to me, it only shows them to other LJers.

I think I’m all caught up on the UK trip that spanned October 2008 – April 2009! And just in time, too, since Tim arrives in ONE WEEK for his three week visit to me! 😀

[This entry refers to an event from March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging events from January – April.]

Tim’s cat, Prudence, likes to be outside when there are people around. She also likes to walk around on the garden rail tracks:

Watch out for the that train!

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Occasionally, I like to post things here that are useful to the masses, as opposed to just blog posts….

Just in case anyone else is having this problem:

Go to Tools -> Options -> Applications then scroll down to mailto and make sure GMail is selected in the drop down. If GMail doesn’t show there, follow the lifehacker instructions on how to add GMail to the options.

Also, if you were using Better Gmail 2, No Squint, or any other add-on that firefox 3.5 tells you is incompatible, search for the websites for each add-on and on the sites there should be updates for 3.5 and instructions on how to install.

It’s also worth noting that Firefox 3.5 doesn’t have a huge memory leak previous versions of Firefox seemed to have been plagued with.

[X-posted to LJ]

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I’m in the process of adding blogs and links to the main page of my blog. If you’d like me to add your site, please leave me a comment and I’ll add you. If you have a link to my site or blog on your site, let me know so I can reciprocate! These links are different than the links on the link page for Flutterby Design. Links on Flutterby Design are affiliate/reciprocal links only.

[Note to LJ users reading this via the LJ feed: Please click on one of the links at the top to go directly to my blog to leave comments, as comments left on the LJ feed will not be seen by me.]

I’ve been seeing the commercials since I got back from the UK for a new energy drink from Ocean Spray called Cranergy. Cranergy boasts 50% fewer calories and less sugar than “traditional energy drinks” and contains “green tea extract & B-vitamins”. First, I need to correct something. One serving of dragonfruit flavoured Vitamin Water (the bottle is technically 2) also only has 50 calories, and Vitamin Water now makes a new 10 calorie version. If you purchase the 4C brand Vitamin Stix or Energy Rush, those actually have 0 calories. But we’ll forgive Ocean Spray.

I love anything cranberry flavoured, so I really wanted to give this a try, but at over $3 for the large bottle, I wasn’t willing to purchase it in case I didn’t like it. I was going through the coupon offers on coupons.com on Friday, and I discovered a $1.00 off ANY Cranergy item coupon. Then while we were at Weis, I saw the 4-pack on sale for $2.99, making it only $1.99 with my coupon, and each bottle only $0.50.

So we picked a pack up, and I cracked open one of the 12 oz. bottles around 10PM when I was feeling a bit tired and still had a lot of work to do. The first thing I noticed was the overly sweet taste of sucralose. As I said above, I love cranberries, and what I especially love about them is how tart they are. It goes without saying that I was a little disappointed with the sweet taste of Cranergy. It tasted just like the Diet Ocean Spray (a product I dislike for it’s overly sweet taste). I couldn’t taste the green tea or the grape juice the ingredient list claims it contains.

As far as the vitamin content goes, it has 100% Vitamin C, but it also lists 70% for Niacin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B6, and something called Pantothenic Acid, which I’ve never heard of before. A quick search on Google tells me that it’s simply another name for Vitamin B5. The only other vitamins mentioned on a regular bottle of Ocean Spray are 1% Iron and 1% Calcium, both missing from Cranergy. The small print on the side of the nutrition facts also tells me that due to the green tea content, Cranergy has 83mg of caffeine. A strong cup of hot black tea contains between 50-100mg of caffeine to give you a comparison.

Around 11PM last night, I decided to go to bed. I was still tired, and was going to chalk up the Cranergy as just another gimmicky product. But as I was checking e-mail and other things for the last time before bed, I started to feel a bit more awake. I got into bed and started watching Season One of Eureka and stayed awake until past 2AM. I blame this entirely on the Cranergy, as I’ve been in bed lately by 11 or 12!

Today, I foolishly drank 2 bottles – one this morning at breakfast, and one in the early evening. I completely forgot it was an “energy” drink and grabbed it for the cranberry flavour. Whoops.

So I think I would recommend this drink if you can handle the sweet cranberry taste and are willing to wait an hour or so for the energy boost to kick in. I still think the regular price for the bottles is a bit steep (the large bottles are smaller than regular bottles of Ocean Spray, yet cost more), but if they plan on offering $1 coupons more frequently, I’ll continue to pick up the 4-packs. But if you’re looking for a beverage that will provide energy and more vitamins (and still don’t mind the taste of sucralose), I’d go with Vitamin Water or 4C Vitamin Stix, personally. If you’re looking at it purely in terms of cost, Vitamin Water frequently on sale for 10 for $10, making it the same cost as the Cranergy 4-pack at regular price. Vitamin Stix are sold 14 to a box and cost around $4 for the box, making it less than $0.30 per bottle. Of course, with Vitamin Stix, you have to have a bottle of water to mix it into, and if you don’t have a bottle to fill with water, you could wind up spending more than $1 on a bottle of water, which would significantly up the cost.

Wonder how long I’ll be awake for tonight?

If you’d like to chat with me, I can now be reached on AIM as BeccaJaneStClair, and on MSN Messenger as BeccaJaneStClair(at)hotmail.com. Don’t worry, my email is staying the same!

Today, I received this in my inbox:

Dear Ms. S,

I apologize for our vector security guard asking you to check in empty plastic bags at the customer service desk. I talked to the security guards supervisor, and made sure he covers with all of his guards, the necessary policies Weis Markets has, which doesn’t include empty bags.The next time you visit our store ask for me, Carl Zartman. I would like to meet you, and apologize in person. Thank you for your continued patronage.

Carl Zartman
Store Manager Weis #41
Phone [717] 392-6511

Good to know that barring reusable bags is NOT Weis policy and was just the security guard being a moron. I haven’t gone over to that Weis since the incident happened, but I suppose I’ll go over there next time and ask for Carl since he wants to apologize to me.

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