Becca Jane St Clair

So we’re off soon for our annual camping trip — this time, it’s two weeks in Wales. I’m working on Tim to see if we can book in a day trip to Dublin, too. Maybe. I found that as foot passengers on Stena, it would only be £58 for the two of us, but it involves a really late ferry back to Holyhead and then an even later time getting back to the campsite which would potentially shatter us for the following day and we might lose a day, so it’s still in the air. If the ferry back were earlier, it’d be no problem. So we’ll see.

We really wanted to go back to Austria or Germany, but with my visa in December due, we felt it was more affordable to stay in the UK. A bit disappointing, but we’ll still have fun. Hopefully next Summer we can plan for camping in Austria or Germany, when we don’t have visa fees dangling over my head (only citizenship fees, but I can apply for citizenship anytime after three years of residency, so if I can’t do it right away in January 2013 it doesn’t affect anything as my permanent residency is valid forever…technically, I don’t need citizenship if I don’t want. (but I do want!)).

Not a thing is packed. I feel like this holiday has completely creeped up on us unaware, even though that isn’t the case. It’s been on the calendar since January and we have had our plans in place since about March….we’ve just both been really busy lately and so now it’s all of a sudden “we leave soon!”. eek.

Fortunately, I still have plenty of time, but I hate when I’m not prepared!

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I’ve been neglecting my blog over here this month as various things have kept me from making updates…and I’m about to go away for 2 weeks, so there goes updating for most of August, too.

One of these days I’m going to actually get back into the swing of blogging, I promise….that is, if anyone still reads! 😀

Okay Harry Potter fans….we need your help!

My friend’s daughter purchased the item below to be installed at the head of her swimming pool. She was told that it is a prop from one of the Harry Potter films, but the seller didn’t know which one.

So, we need your help! If you can identify this item, please let me know in the comments. Please share this link around to as many HP fans as possible. If you have a screenshot of the movie scene, that would be even better. If I have to, I will sit down and re-watch all 7 of the DVDs to identify it (such a hardship, I know).

On to the photos:

Sorry for the bad photo, but it’s crammed into my friend’s garage and this was the best front on photo I could get. I had to hold the camera over my shoulder behind me to even get this much of it!

I was wondering if it was from the Prefect’s bathroom perhaps?

Any ideas please comment and let me know! You can easily share this post with your friends by clicking on the share button.

Thanks!!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I just wanted to thank all of my friends who have assisted Miss M so far. Miss M has now raised over $1300 in her Hysterectomy Fund!

Thank you to ALL of you who have donated money, crafted items for us to sell in PhoenixFunds, or purchased items from her shop. It means a lot to Miss M, and to me as well to know that there are caring people out there!

But…we still have a goal to meet. M is halfway to her downpayment amount, and of course, this does not include any of the actual costs associated with the surgery itself, the hospital fees, or any other fees. So, we need to continue to fundraise.

EDIT TO ADD: And, Miss M just found out that she is getting NO ASSISTANCE on the ER hospital bill, a total of over $8,000.

Please pass on links to my site, to her site, to the shops, anything you can do to help continue to spread the word.

Here are all the links to help M:

Her Website: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog

Blow-by-blow: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog/hysterectomy/

Donated items Storefront: http://PhoenixFunds.etsy.com
[FYI, we are currently having technical difficulties with our shop, please check back as we hope to have it up and running again soon!]

Her Storefront: http://PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com

Her Website: http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com

Direction Donations via Paypal: http://tiny.cc/hysterectomy

Direct Donations via Fund Me: http://www.gofundme.com/hysterectomy

Address for mailing things:
Miss M. Turner
PO BOX 1484
Elfers, FL 34680
USA

If you’re a crafter and sell on Etsy, consider joining our Team and giving us an item to sell for M’s behalf. If you don’t sell on Etsy, but would still like to contribute an item for sale, drop us a comment. Alternately, Miss M is also fundraising through sales of non-arts and craft items on eBay, so if you have anything hanging around that might be profitable, I’m sure she’d be glad to take it off your hands!

I also am looking for other charities we might not have contacted yet, so if you are in the Tampa area and have any leads, please pass them on! I also have been contacting local media outlets in Tampa, so again, if you have a contact to share, please leave us a comment.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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Do you use Google? Now you can add my blog by going to the google friend connect box and clicking “join” or “add”…right now I can’t remember what it says. LOL

Question: Does England have a Fourth of July?
Answer: Of course it does, between the third and fifth!

Today is Independence Day in the US, the day which Americans celebrate their independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the second continental congress approved the Declaration of Independence, having officially declared separation from Great Britain two days prior.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It just turns out that my pursuit of happiness has taken me back to the UK!

Did you know they don’t call that war the Revolutionary War in the UK? It’s actually called the American War of Independence.

I am spending my day, sadly, alone, as Tim has gone back to his training. I DID order in some burgers from Tesco, so I’ll at least have a burger for dinner tonight. I have a sing-out with my chorus tonight, too, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get them to sing any of the “American” anthem songs. I don’t even have any fireworks! I originally wanted to get some back at Bonfire Night when they were selling them and hang onto them until July, but I forgot. I will have to make a note in my diary (US: organizer/date book) this year so I don’t forget.

But it did remind me of one of my all-time American campfire classics, the S’more.

S’mores are a barbecue and campfire classic in America. The melted chocolate and gooey marshmallow make for a tasty sweet treat after all that meat! In the UK, I understand that one thing people like to do here is take a banana and shove chocolate buttons in it and put that on the grill for a sticky, gooey treat. But I’m partial to S’mores.

Authentic S’mores are made with marshmallow, a graham cracker, and a bit of Hershey. All three are a bit elusive in this country, but we DO have marshmallows. Not as big as the Jet Puff ones, but they are marshmallows. Fortunately, my mom sent me a bag of American Marshmallows and I had been holding on to them for an occasion. The occasion turned out to be the first barbecue of the year at my friend N and P’s house back in April, but I was saving on posting about it until today.

For the cracker AND chocolate part, I cheated a little. I bought Chocolate Digestive biscuits so I wouldn’t have to worry about melting the chocolate. It worked well!

You will need, for each person:

1 skewer or stick
1 large marshmallow
2 chocolate digestive biscuits

And it’s quite easy. While the flames are dying on the barbecue, stick a marshmallow on a stick and hold it to the coals. Don’t get too close or the marshmallow will catch on fire! When the edges are crispy, it’s time to take it off. Now CAREFULLY pull the marshmallow off the skewer and place it on top of a biscuit, chocolate side up. Top with another biscuit and there you have it, an improvised S’more!

Edit to add: Ironically, I wrote this and scheduled it for publication today, and as I was going through Google Reader this morning, a post by Michelle at The American Resident caught my attention, as she’s also blogged about S’mores! How funny! So go read her blog if you want another way of making a S’more. Hers even includes indoor instructions!

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If you live under a rock, you might not know that my favourite band of all-time is Canadian rock group, Barenaked Ladies. BNL and I have been through a lot since I first listened to Gordon in my (then) boyfriend’s car in 1996. I have gone on road trips, cruises, slept in my car, camped out, squeezed 8 people into a hotel room, driven all night, held tailgates, snuck into meet and greets, threw panties, bras, and monkeys, held up signs, wore strange antennae on my head, and wore cat ears for this band. Yes, we’ve been through a lot together.

fortunately, they DO tour in the UK on occasion, so I wasn’t going to be BNL-less when I moved. My other favourite band, Carbon Leaf, has yet to show up here. BNL was performing at Glastonbury and Hard Rock Calling and added two other shows to their short trip – one in Glasgow and one in London.

Of course, I don’t live anywhere near either of those places. When they toured in September 2010, Tim and I took the train up to Glasgow and stayed in an inexpensive hotel and hung out with the BNL UK crowd. I had decided NOT to see BNL on this trip, as I wasn’t feeling Glasto, I didn’t want to spend £125 for Hard Rock, and I didn’t want to get a hotel room on my own in Glasgow, since Tim would be at his training down near London.

Wait, did you say London?

Tim’s training was in Watford, which is actually on the Overground and Underground. On a fast train, it takes less than 15 minutes to get to London Euston. BNL’s London gig was at Koko, off the Northern Line of the Underground which even goes directly to Euston. And there were trains as late as 1:30 in the morning, too.

I decided to buy a ticket at the last minute and I headed down in the morning after letting a few of my friends know that I would be there. The doors weren’t opening until 7PM, but any good fan knows that if you want to be front row, you have to queue. Some of my friends were already at the venue when I arrived at noon, but I still managed to be eighth in “line”. We passed a pleasant afternoon in the sweltering heat, chatting, drinking, and having fun until it was time to be let in. And then, I had a problem.

Because I had ordered my ticket online the night before, I had a will-call ticket. Despite the fact that Koko’s box office window had been opened all day, I was not permitted to pick up my will-call ticket until the doors opened! My friends promised they would hold a front row spot for me while I sorted out my ticket, but they didn’t have any luck and I wound up in the second row, behind one of our tallest friends. Okay, second row might not be a big deal to you, but it was when I had queued from noon! When we were at Glasgow, Tim and I were about 15th and 16th to arrive for queueing and I wound up standing sideways so I could squeeze into the front row. The London crowd was not budging to let anyone in. I got upset and annoyed. I texted my friends I had been waiting with (because they couldn’t even see me!) to tell them I was stuck in the second row, and my friends Lou, Kirsty, and Liam were AMAZING and somehow managed to find me a spot in the front row….and it also happened to be center stage right at Ed’s mic!

The show was fantastic. Spot on. Everything I love about this band and then some. Everytime I go to a show, it feels like they personally picked songs for me, and this night was no different. Summertime, Blame it on Me, What a Good Boy…the list goes on. I was sad they didn’t play Jane (my blog’s namesake*!), but it was still a fantastic show.

What a Good Boy, as shared by Kirsty on YouTube:

Link: http://youtu.be/Fjx2rbIcbHU

Blame it On me:

Link: http://youtu.be/mmJJFWQ7hK8

Photos:
[apologies for the fuzzyness. The smoke machine made it difficult to take photos, and then I discovered I had a smudge on my camera. Photos taken with my Olympus Mμ 3000]

After the show, we hung around and I managed to get a photo with Ed, but I had to head off to join Tim at Watford….I wound up on the slow train, so I didn’t get to the hotel until nearly 2AM. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible leg cramps, so Tim had me stay an extra day with him.

*The girl works at the store sweet Jane St Clair. My first name is Rebecca, and my middle is Jane, hence, BeccaJaneStClair :D.

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I placed another order with Boots recently. They had the rechargeable batteries at 3 for 2 again, but the shop didn’t have any, so online ordering to the rescue. I also ordered a few other toiletries I needed that also happened to be on sale, including an aerosol can of deodorant. My order was delivered on Monday, but I was out of town. I suppose it was my fault for being away for the delivery, but I wasn’t expecting the delivery until Tuesday.

I also was expecting a few Amazon packages – a birthday present for my mom, a book Tim ordered for me, and some DVDs. I assumed any packages delivered while away would either get put in the shed (they usually are) or left to be picked up at the depot.

Imagine my surprise when I got to my front door after being dropped off by my mother-in-law to discover my Boots.com order SITTING IN FRONT OF MY FRONT DOOR? For those of you NOT in the UK, Monday was the hottest day of the year here and temperatures topped 36C (89ishF) with a feels like of even hotter. Not a good day to leave a package containing batteries and an aerosol can outside in! Not to mention, we had rain as well, so the box was pretty much falling apart by the time I got home.

Ironically, the packages from Amazon were in my shed, and a note from Yodel put through the letter slot telling me they put packages in the shed…so…one driver put the items in the shed, and the other by the door?

I rang Boots. I had to. This is the third time I’ve had a delivery where something went wrong — I know it’s not Boots’ fault, as they aren’t delivering it themselves, but they need to know the issues with Yodel.

As soon as the woman I spoke with on the phone looked up my order and saw that I had ordered batteries and an aerosol can, she was pretty upset that it had been left outside. The can of deodorant could have exploded! The batteries could have burst! Fortunately, neither happened and the only damage appeared to be a melted tube of concealer (which I told her about) and the lid of the deodorant can had come off. The woman I spoke with decided not only to send me replacement batteries, deodorant, and concealer, but also has refunded me the cost of the batteries. How amazing is that? Go Boots customer service (this is the third time I’ve spoken with them about a problem, and all three times they have been WONDERFUL)!

I sincerely hope Boots can claim the cost against Yodel, as it’s entirely their fault!

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Credit for this recipe goes to my amazing friend, Jess P!

[pictured with my homemade strawberry jam!]

I always wanted to make scones. The one and only time I tried was in Summer 2007, and my friend SilverAdept‘s only comment was that they were really dry. And was I sure this was what an English scone was supposed to look/taste like?

I wasn’t sure. The last time I had had a real English scone had been in 1997, and since then I had only had coffee shop versions – that is, probably not authentically English. So I gave up. And then I moved to England in 2010, where scones are a staple of an English Afternoon Tea!

A while back, my friend Jess posted a recipe for very easy scones. I can’t find her direct link, but her recipe came from an Australian recipe website (which makes sense, as Jess is Australian). I was sceptical due to the unusual ingredients it called for, but when I knew I wanted to make scones, I looked up her recipe.

You will need:
1 cup cream
1 cup fizzy lemonade*
3 cups self-rising flour**
salt (just a pinch)

1. Preheat oven to 220C. The Australian recipe measured out in cups, so I used cups. Again, if you don’t have measuring cups, just pull a mug out of your cupboard and use that. Yes, you can measure both liquid and solids in the same cup (however odd you might think that).
2. sift flour and salt together and make a well in the middle.
3. slowly pour in the cream and lemonade. It will fizz when you add the lemonade, so make sure you used a deep bowl
4. mix with a fork until all flour is moistened.
5. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead dough until it is elastic-y. About 5 minutes will do it, and if you want to be lazy, knead it in the bowl like I did.
6. Use scone cutters (or a glass with it’s edge dipped in flour) to cut out your scones, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper/baking paper.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.

*in the UK (and presumably, Australia) we have a fizzy soda drink called lemonade, which tastes like Sprite or 7-Up minus the lime, so it’s just a lemon soda. I do not know if Sprite would work in this or not! Possibly you could use lemon flavoured soda water?
**I didn’t have self-rising flour, but I learned that you can add 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of all-purpose/plain flour to make it self-rising. If you do this, don’t add the pinch of salt.

40 scones, ready for our Open Garden Railway day!

I’ve made them twice off this recipe, and I’ll be making another double batch this weekend for a Garden Party at my friend Sylvia’s house. Both times, the scones lost their round shape, but I blame that on my plastic cutters. I’ve since purchased some metal cutters, so I hope they look better!

We served these up with some cream and homemade strawberry jam and they went down quite well! I sent Tim to work with the leftovers, and his co-worker loved them, too.

I will post other photos from the Garden Party, but they’re all on Tim’s camera!

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Last weekend, in addition to spending 10 hours on the train going places, we apparently drove over 800 miles and spent over 17 hours in the car….and that’s not counting the three times we got stuck on the M25. (below image is slightly off, as I used Lincoln instead of our village)

[© Google]

Ouch.

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After my post last week, we went away for the long weekend down to the South of England to visit Tim’s best mate, to go to Bath, and to spend a day in London. And of course, I came back with a cold. Last time we spent the long weekend with Nick, I came home with a cold. When we went to see BNL in Glasgow, I came home with a cold. When I went to visit J in Southamton, I came home with a cold. I even brought a cold back from our Austria trip. My music director commented on Thursday that I always seem to pick up colds easily and she wondered if I was okay. When I was living in the US (for 30 years of my life!) I think I had a cold maybe once or twice a year.

What changed?

Moving to another continent. No, seriously. Now, I’m not a scientist, so this is in the most basic terms, and probably horribly inaccurate, but — when you are born, you are practically immediately exposed to germs and bacteria. As you grow, you become immune to some of the germs that are local to you. And then you move. 30 years of immunity to NY/NJ/PA germs means NOTHING when it’s up against UK germs. Those UK germs will fight your immune system, and fight it hard. I know some ex-pat friends who told horror stories of spending their first few years constantly getting sick with colds. I thought they were exaggerating. Now I get it.

A friend of ours suggested that I start using local honey because he thought it might help me with building up an immunity to the pollen/germs/etc in Lincolnshire. And, I think it worked. The trouble is, I travel to other parts of the UK and then wind up with a cold or worse. Visiting the Southern part of England I even get digestive problems because the water is different than the water here.

So since Tuesday I have been battling this cold. I’ve gone through an entire box of tissues as well as 2 rolls of toilet paper with the constant nose blowing. I finally can breathe a bit, but my upper lip is rubbed raw from blowing my nose, and I still don’t have much of a voice. I’ve had to cancel on visiting Tim’s dad for Father’s Day and Tim’s grandad on his birthday because of this. I hope I get better soon!

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Here’s an update on my friend, Miss M. She’s received the bill from the hospital for her ER stay, and including a 40% non-insurance discount, the total for that bill is over US$8,000. This means Miss M now needs to raise over US$10,000 before she can even schedule her surgery. The goalpost just jumped by over 375% (Tim says about 384%). Again, this doesn’t include ANY of the fees/charges involved with her eventual surgery or interim OB/GYN visits.

[photo above © M. Turner]

I know you’re probably getting sick of seeing me post about this, but M is one of my nearest and dearest. I won’t beg for you to help her, but new items have been added to PhoenixFunds, including some photographs I have submitted. Please take a look at either Miss M’s shop, PhoenixFunds, or her direct website. Again, if you are a crafter or artist and would like to donate an item to be sold for Miss M’s benefit, please contact me in the comments..

Her Website: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog

Blow-by-blow: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog/hysterectomy/

Donation Storefront: http://PhoenixFunds.etsy.com

Her Storefront: http://PhoenixFireDesigns.etsy.com

Her Website: http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com

Please pass these links along, re-tweet them, put them on Facebook, write a blog entry about Miss M, pass along my blog links…anything we can do to “boost the signal” and to help get M the help she needs. Especially if you’ve got any crafty friends because we are in need of crafty items!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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How on earth did I get a grey hair? I’m no where near old enough. Or wise enough!

Tim and I were out in the garden and as the sun was catching the hair that fell out of my hair clip, I noticed it. Shiny, coarse, and bright….I found my first grey hair.

I can do one of three things about it…

1. Grow grey gracefully and embrace the grey

2. Pluck, pluck, pluck

3. Dye it, baby

Tim says he doesn’t want me to dye my hair because he likes my hair the way it is, but I don’t know if I can like it grey! And if I pluck every grey hair I ever get…well, don’t they say that for every grey you pluck, two more grow in it’s place?

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For the BBQ on Friday at N and P’s (that we wound up having inside due to rain!), I wanted to bring along something for pudding (US: dessert), since we were told we didn’t need to bring any food for grilling. Tim suggested a trifle and I immediately started giggling. All I could think about was that episode of Friends where Rachel made a trifle and it had “a layer of lady fingers, then beef sautéed with peas and onions” because two pages of her cookbook stuck together. Here’s a link on YouTube to watch the clip. Unfortunately, the uploader didn’t have an option to embed it and this was the only full clip I could find, short of splicing it together myself: http://youtu.be/Mx5Wpqf4-OM.

The last time I tried to make one was in 2008 when I was visiting. We bought a boxed trifle mix Bird’s makes, and it didn’t turn out well. We only had a plastic bowl to make it in, and the jelly never quite set, and then the custard was runny and it was just awful. I never tried making one again….until Friday. And it turned out this time! 😀

From what I can figure out through googling, there isn’t really a set way to make a trifle. It basically has four layers – sponge cake, jelly (Jell-o in the US), custard (US: pudding), and whipped cream, but it looks like you can add layers of fruit or jam, and even add multiple layers of the jelly, custard, and whipped cream if you’d like. And of course, if you’re obsessed with Friends, you can add beef and peas, but don’t expect anyone to eat it!

So here’s my version –

You will need:

-Sponge Cake (I used two pieces of leftover sponge from our steam-up)
-Jelly (US: Jell-o, in fact, I used box of jell-o my aunt sent me)
-Custard (US: pudding) (I used instant just-add-boiling-water custard)
-Whipped Cream
-Bananas
-Strawberries
-Chocolate for garnish (I used Buttons)

1. Break up the sponge cake and put it in the bottom of your glass bowl.
2. Cover the cake with your jelly (Jell-o) and set in the refrigerator to set (about 3 hours)
3. Meanwhile, make the custard and cool it off (or it will melt the jelly!) in the fridge.
4. After the jelly is set, spoon custard over jelly. At this point, I decided to add a layer of cut bananas to the trifle to give it more flavour.
5. Whip the cream or make your dream topping and spoon it over the custard
6. Top with strawberries and chocolate

The verdict? Yum.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I love meal planning. And I honestly DO meal plan every week….I just don’t always post it to my blog.

Here’s this week’s meal plan, along with Tim’s work schedule:

Monday, Early Shift – Roast Chicken, Roast Potatoes & Parsnips, Yorkshire Puddings
Tuesday, Early Shift – Toad in the Hole with Lincolnshire Sausages. Probably peas & leftover roast potatoes
Wednesday, Early Shift – Oriental Turkey Burgers (making this up as I go along, will let you know how it goes!)
Thursday, Off, Steam-Up – Chicken Tacos in the Crock Pot. I make this everytime we have a steam-up, because it feeds a crowd and is super easy to make. Frozen chicken + taco seasoning tossed into the crock pot for 6 hours on low. I probably got it from crockpot365 at one point.
Friday, Training in York – I’ll be going with Tim as long as it’s not pissing down rain to wander around York, so we’ll be having chicken sandwiches when we get home or possibly frozen pizza. Something fast and easy, unless we decide to grab dinner in York.
Saturday – Steak and chips, because I promised Tim a steak.
Sunday – Chicken Tetrazinni with Monday’s leftover chicken.

So, there you have it. Things will probably change along the way. They always do.

[Image at top courtesy of I’m an Organized Junkie]
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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I created a list of US items for my snack swap partners and people sending me packages to take a look at. If you want to look at it, it’s here: http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/what-to-send/.

The list is long, but I tried to think of everything from the US I would consider a treat to give my swap partners plenty of items to pick from.

Yesterday, Tim and I went over to visit our friends N and P. They live over the Wolds, about 25 minutes away and we always try to get together with them as often as we can. We like spending time with them, and we love their three daughters, S-l, K-m, and A-r. Matter of fact, A-r loves Tim so much, I tease Tim and tell him he has a little girlfriend ;).

S-l is their oldest child, at 6. She’s allowed to stay up a little bit later than her younger siblings, and yesterday evening she told me she wanted to read to me. The book was about going to the grocery store, and the first thing I noticed was that all the pages rhymed….except for the page with potatoes and tomatoes.

Now, in American English, we would pronounce them alike. Puh-tay-to, tah-may-to. But in British English, it’s different. Potato is still puh-tay-to, but tomato is pronounced tah-mah-to. They don’t rhyme. And makes the children’s book confusing as a result since it’s the one pair of words that don’t rhyme! Even S-l pointed out that it didn’t rhyme!

And then the rest of the adults pointed out how weird it was that in British English, they don’t say poh-tah-to….which of course, made everyone sing a verse of that silly song.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I blogged about my friend, Miss M, last week. She’s had a few updates since then, and in her own words:

You can follow the progress of visits, current health, etc on my blog with my hysterectomy tag but this is just a summary of the situation. The full details can also be found here: http://giveneyestosee.com/blog/hysterectomy/

Memorial Day Weekend [Note to UK readers: US Memorial Day weekend is the same weekend as our bank holiday -R] I went into the ER after two days of non-stop severe pain. Many tests and an overnight stay later, it turns out that my uterus is full of tumors.I have multiple softball and multiple baseball sized fibroid tumors and equally large cysts. The total mass is approximately the size of a basketball.

I was on a fast-track for a hysterectomy when my OB/GYN discovered that it was worse then initially believed and I’m too high risk for surgery. High risk is 250 grams of tumors. I’m at over 1,200 grams. I am now on a shot to induce medical menopause in order to attempt to shrink the tumors prior to surgery. The larger the tumors, the more complicated and lengthy the surgery, the more time I will be under anaesthesia, the more complications and blood transfusions I will need. So we’re trying to get them shrunk at least half.

I work a part-time job that does NOT give me insurance. I also do NOT get paid for any time off period. So I’m already out two weeks of pay with many more to come. (When I do have surgery, I’ll be out 4 weeks in unpaid recovery as well.) I have already applied for and been denied financial and medical assistance by the state. I’m asking anyone who can help for your support as a result.

I need a total of $2,600 just to pay my OB/GYN, $1,400 of which must be up front before the surgery. This does NOT include the hospital, anaesthesiologist, radiology, etc. It also does NOT include the fees for the office visits and tests pre-op. (I’ve already spend $463 on those as of June 7th)

How can you help Miss M? Several ways —

First, you can make a direct donation to Miss M via this link: http://tiny.cc/hysterectomy. Link will take you directly to PayPal, the safest way to send money online. If you’d prefer, Miss M can provide her PO Box for a physical cheque.

Alternately, Miss M could use some help with her groceries while they are down to one income, and I’m sure gift cards for Wal-Mart or Target would be well appreciated! Or to Michaels, so Miss M could get more crafting supplies to make more things to sell. Miss M lives in Tampa, FL, so please check before sending other store gift cards to make sure she has one local.

Second, you can take a look at her Etsy shop, PhoenixFireDesigns, or her Website, PhoenixFireDesigns. Miss M makes beautiful jewellery, and like I said in a previous post, I have many items made by her including a Tree of Life necklace, a personalized Bird’s Nest necklace, snowman earrings, and several custom pieces. I always look at Miss M’s site first when I need a gift for someone!

Here is just a small selection of items Miss M has for offer:

Third, you can take a look at the items donated by her friends over on PhoenixFunds. Currently, there are some children’s items, chocolates, and accessories listed, with more being listed as they come in. I plan on donating some 8×10 photographs and a few pieces of jewellery this weekend.

Forth — If you are a crafter and would like to donate an item for sale in PhoenixFunds, please let me know in the comments. We are looking for anything handmade, as well as craft supplies and vintage items (basically, anything that can be sold on Etsy. This also includes patterns for things). You can either send your donated item directly to Miss M for listing, or email detailed photos/description of your item. If you choose to hold onto your item, you will be responsible for shipping the item when it sells. If you sell on Etsy or on an external website, Miss M would be more than happy to link back to your site as a thank you.

Fifth….Promote this. Please re-post this post or a version of this post, post the links to the shops, post a link to my post here or to Miss M’s blog at giveneyestosee. Miss M is also on LiveJournal, and can be found as memoryanddreamover there.

I have been friends with Miss M for years, and we have met in person several times. I have been to her house and met her partner and her kitties, so I can vouch that this is 100% legitimate. Miss M prefers not to use her real name online, however I assure you I do know her real name. Out of respect for Miss M, I will not refer to her as anyone other than Miss M on my blog.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you can help in some way!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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In the US, a new show on TLC has been raising eyebrows everywhere called Extreme Couponing. I’ll link to one of the blurbs for an episode below, but you can very easily search for Extreme Couponing on YouTube and pull up loads more clips, including personal videos by some of the people on the show where they give extensive “tours” of their stockpiles. If I linked to every single YouTube video I’ve watched, it would be a very long list. The show isn’t available in the UK (or if it is, it’s not on the channels I get), so I have to watch the segments on YouTube.

The show has been also raising eyebrows all over the blogosphere, too (yes, those are all separate links). Lots of legitimate couponing sites (again, google for more) have been blasting the show’s policies, including the people on the show using coupons for the wrong items in order to lower their bill.

The idea behind the show is to save as much money as you can on your grocery bill, by ANY means possible, even if it means buying coupons online for $70 or dumpster diving for discarded coupon inserts.

I love saving money as much as anyone else, but there’s a reason the show is called “extreme”!

In the UK, couponing isn’t a big deal. Every once in a while there might be a coupon for something in a magazine or through the post, but there are no Sunday inserts — most of the grocery stores don’t even put out weekly fliers. But every time you walk around one of the shops with your grocery list, you’re bound to find at least half of the items on your list on special offer, and if you are really pressed for funds, you can purchase things off of the ultra-value line, where cans of soup cost 17p. I get a little thrill when our total is shown as £58 and then the cashier scans our clubcard and the total gets reduced to £35.

A few weeks back, Tim and I went to Tesco armed with £9.50 in clubcard vouchers and whatever loose change we had in our pockets (well, and our debit cards). We set ourselves a goal of spending as close to £10 as we could.

Here’s a copy of our receipt:

As you can see, we spent £1.49 out of pocket.

I consider this an awesome shopping trip, but was it extreme? No, probably not. For one, we didn’t deliberately buy things just to get them “for free”, and in fact we added the Red Leicester cheese and the Lighter Cheese (on an offer 2/£3) just so we would definitely spend more than our vouchers.

But take a look at some of the other things we purchased:

Wholemeal Bread 47p
Tinned Pineapple 43p
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (Generic Nutella) 86p
2L Sparkling Water 16p

All of the above items came from Tesco’s “value” range. The jar of chocolate hazelnut was larger than the largest jar of Nutella and the Nutella was over £3. Fortunately, we had tried the Tesco brand before, and actually like it. I can’t tell a difference at all between it and Nutella. And it’s less than £1. Sparkling water? Sure, I could have gone for one of the brands, but in my opinion, water is water. I’m going to pour it into a glass and top it off with some fruit squash, so does it really matter? The same with the pineapple – it’s an ingredient in another recipe. The value tin came in syrup instead of juice, but I’ll rinse off the pineapple before I use it. The bread probably wasn’t the greatest. It’s really thin slices of bread, but it doesn’t taste bad.

Granted, on a regular shopping trip, we probably would have picked up Nutella, Buxton brand water, and Kingsmill bread, but we were deliberately trying to see what we could get for approximately £10 and I wanted to try out some of the Tesco value line products.

What I learned? The value products really aren’t bad. And if it means I spend only £20 on weekly groceries, I’ll take it.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I was on the radio today. For about five minutes, but it was a fun five minutes. William Wright and I follow each other on Twitter and each day he usually tweets about what he will be talking about on-air and asks people for responses. He’ll read most of the replies out on-air, and will talk with a few of the people who tweet him. A few weeks back, he was discussing impulse buys, and wanted to have me on-air to talk about an impulse buy I tweeted him about (my mom when she was in her 20s went out to get her hair done and came home with a new car), but we couldn’t coordinate it because I was out in Haxey and mobile reception isn’t the greatest.

This morning, William tweeted about height. Apparently, there is a convention of tall people taking place in Paris right now, so he was curious about people’s height. I wrote back and told him I was 4’10.5″, and it was the half inch that really mattered. I also mentioned that my Brother-in-law was 6’8, so it made family functions fun. William wrote back and asked if I could come on the air and talk about being short, I said no problem and direct messaged him my phone number.

I received a call from Helen at BBC Lincolnshire who needed to take down some personal details and told me to expect a call back between 10 and 11. The phone rang a few minutes past 11 and William asked me to repeat what I had told him via Twitter. He asked me if I ever hated being short, so I mentioned being away at Summer camp and having two older boys use me as an elbow rest, and told him about being the shortest member of the family I married into.

It was fun and enjoyable, and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.

Of course, this isn’t my first time being interviewed with BBC Lincolnshire. You might remember a few months back, I auditioned for Priscilla Biggadyke. They interviewed me pre- and post-audition, as well as recorded my audition. I haven’t seen or heard my audition though. I almost wish I had asked for a copy of it! I also was interviewed by Fox 11 when I went down to London for the Royal Wedding, so what an interesting few months it’s been for me! I’m (almost) famous. Okay, not really. But it was still loads of fun!

Apparently, the show will be available on the iPlayer. It’s Melvyn in the Morning with William Wright sitting in for Melvyn from Today, 3 June. The show airs from 9AM til 12 Noon, so if you want to skip to my segment, forward it for about 2 hours. I don’t know how fast the shows go up, so I’d imagine you can check later in the day. I’ll try to download and record my segment as well, but I’m not very good at that!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users can comment directly on Facebook.]