Friday Flashback: Go! Fight! Win!

(I'm the one on the left... I look like I'm about 12, but I was really 17
And is it just me, or is my head too big for my body? I've never noticed that before)

We're Saratoga High you see

To victory we hold the key
We're gonna fight, Falcons fight
Celebrate victory tonight! (fight, fight!)
We're scarlet, navy blue, and grey
We're the Falcons all the waaaaaaay
So give a cheer for your Falcon team
We're gonna win the Gaaaaaaame!
Whooo!

I think its a little embarrassing that I still know my high school fight song (with arm motions!) ten years later, but I guess when you do it a billion times - every single time the football team/basketball team scored a goal/basket - it sorta becomes part of your DNA. But still... its a little embarrassing.

And the Alma Mater... I remember that too. We had to sing it after every game. If the team won, we'd sing it in our happiest voice and the guys would be all pumped... but if they lost, we'd have to sing in our saddest voice, and they guys would be the biggest (bleeeeeep - sorry, this post has been edited for a G-rating) and would sometimes walk off the field while we were in the middle of singing to them. Hello, we HAD to sing the stupid song - it wasn't like we were out to get you, Falcon football team.

Boy that pissed me off. I remember getting in a little bit of trouble for being mouthy to some of the football players that walked off the field. Haha, something along the lines of me shouting out that if they had tried a little harder and actually won the game, perhaps we'd be singing the cheerful version. I may have thrown in a few nasty words... Well, they were being rude, after all!

I don't generally share the information that I was a high school cheerleader. While it was fine back when I was actually in high school, now whenever people come across a picture of me in my little outfit, I get raised eyebrows and an "aaaahhh, so that's why you're so perky!" response.

But truthfully, I loved being a cheerleader. Most of my favorite people from my high school days were on my squad, and we had a lot of fun together.

Gracie loves looking at my cheerleading pictures... she wants to be a cheerleader too, when she is bigger, she says. There is a lot of pom-pom shaking and Barbie cheerleader costume wearing on a daily basis (by her, not me). And yesterday, while picking out a birthday present for a friend, she wouldn't leave the store without a set of shiny red pom-poms as her gift-of-choice (April, if you're reading this, I certainly hope Autumn likes cheerleading too, cuz she's getting pom-poms!)

So before I go, let me leave you with another little Saratoga High ditty to perk up your day:

R-R-R-E-D
We got P-R-I-D-E
We got red pride
Who rules? Falcons rule!
Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh!

(That one was especially fun to sing when we were playing a team in East San Jose... how we didn't get shot for gang-related activity, I have no idea!)

Have a Friday Flashback of your own? Hop on by Tia's blog at www.ChristopherandTia.blogspot.com.

Happy Friday!

xoxo,

Illustration Friday: Unbalanced

Why yes, I have got my priorities straight, thankyouverymuch!

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Just a quick little watercolor and ink illo for Illustration Friday (which I mean to do every week but only end up doing every other month). This one is a self portrait... with cupcakes. Seriously, who needs an apple when you have a stack of cupcakes?

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Raking Leaves

As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about being a kid in the fall, is great big piles of crispy brown leaves, just begging to be jumped in.

Our pecan tree is officially leafless, and our front lawn is officially covered in piles and piles of leaves just waiting to be shoved in our compost bin. But in the meantime, welcome to the funnest place to play in all the land (or so my kids believe)



(don't mind my voice. Yes, I'm shrill, yes, I cackle like the Wicked Witch of the West, and yes, I'm overenthusiastic and have way too much fun watching my kids play in leaves... but that's just me)

What's your favorite part of the season?

xoxo,

Giving Thanks to my Customers!

As I get closer and closer to hitting my 400th sale (only 11 sales away! Woot!) I can't help but come up with an awesome thank you for my supporters and fans!

So, from now until Thanksgiving (Nov. 26th, this year, folks!) I'll be giving a generous handful of my new Mad for Plaid cards and tags with each order.

Canadian, European and Australian fans, don't be alarmed. Though you wont be eating turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie on the 26th, you will still be able to enjoy my thank you gifts with your order!

Come on by Elegant Snobbery and get your holiday shopping done before its too late!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: A Personal Tour Through Wales

Me and Will - Feb 2004
Our first date!

For last week's Friday Flashback post, I shared a non-fiction short story I wrote while I was studying abroad in England back in college. This week, I'm going to share another piece from my England writing collection, a travel writing piece about my first trip to Wales... which was my very first date with my husband.

So, here it is - my first date, with photos!

I totally got an A.

A Personal Tour Through Wales

By Marisa Myers

"So, where in England do Welsh people come from?" Ha. That question kills me, but it has definitely been asked before. It has even been followed up with the answer, "Some town just outside of London, I think." Now that really kills me. Wales is a country, everybody. A real one. With its own flag, its own national anthem, and its own language (although hardly anyone speaks Welsh as a first language anymore).

Until recently, I had never been to Wales. However, I had heard of it, had known it was a country, and wanted to see it for myself. When given an invitation for a weekend in the said country by a friend named Will Hopkins (that is a very Welsh surname), I immediately said: "Yes, of course! I would love to see Wales!" Will picked me up promptly at 9:30 am a few days later and we drove from my temporary home in Bath, through Bristol, and across the river Severn.

As we crossed the Severn Bridge, from England into South Wales, I expected there to be some sort of change in the landscape. I did not really get it. Granted, Wales is attached to England and the climate and land should naturally be similar, but I was expecting more. Something along the lines of a woman in a traditional Welsh costume waving at the cars driving by with a welcoming smile on her face, or a field of daffodils and leeks shaped into the word Cymru. Maybe even a fire-works display, in glittering green and white with a red dragon breathing fire.

I certainly did not expect to see what I really saw, which was just a motorway, fields of sheep, and some kind of industrial smoke stack billowing black smoke into the fresh Welsh air. I was crossing the border into a different country. A different country. One which should have looked more different than it did. But I wasn't too alarmed. I was in Wales for the first time with my friend Will acting tour guide and, as Will delivers the goods always, I knew that my weekend in Wales would be an awesome one.

Having a personal tour guide as dedicated as Will was, I definitely had a thorough experience. Will had recently lived in South Wales for three years and had grown up visiting the area and seeing the sights, so he knew just where to take me in order to show me a good time. As we drove along the motorway, he even read all of the Welsh words off the road signs for me, in order to familiarize me to the sound of the Welsh language.

Our first stop was the Rhondda coal mine where we went on the "Shift in Time: Underground Tour" and enjoyed our journey through time as we travelled back into the 1950's and experienced what it was like in the Lewis Merthyr Colliery, digging up Black Gold. Once upon a time, the coal industry dominated everything in South Wales. Until the 1980’s, when Margaret Thatcher’s government took their toll on the coal industry, a quarter of a million men worked in the mines. The tour was quite interesting. We were led through different buildings, each with a film show and period dressed manikins set up to look like they were talking to each other. The tour guide was a voice recording of a man named Bryn Rees, who told about his life working in the Colliery in the 1950’s and his grandfather’s life, working in the Colliery in the 1850’s. As I am an American who had never heard a Welshman speak before, half of the tour was lost on me. I had a great time anyway; especially when a live tour guide came out and took us on a tour of what we thought was the actual mine. Decked out in hard hats, we went on a simulated ride, which made us believe we were going into the earth and walking through the mine passageways. The tour ended with another simulation and with this, the guide winked at me and said, "You'll like this one, California Girl. It's like a ride at Disneyland." It wasn’t, really.

Taff Merthyr Colliery
Treharris, Taff Bargoed Valley, S. Wales

Our next stop was the ruins of Ogmore Castle. William de Londres built the castle on this site in 1116, as a Norman fortress. While the ruin does not look at all now, as it did over 800 years ago, it is still impressive. Only one wall stands to its original three stories tall, although it has crumbled in many places. The staircase leading from the great hall to the lord and lady’s apartment is still intact as well; however, there is no way to reach the staircase, since the floor below it is completely gone.

Ogmore Castle, Brigend, Wales

There are sandstone cliffs in Bridgend, off the coast of Dunraven Bay, which are the most spectacular cliffs in all of Wales. Will and I made our way over there, trekking through the ruins and the overgrown gardens of Dunraven castle which were destroyed when “some Yankee Doodle Dandy bought all of the land so that he could take the stones and build himself a castle in America” (according to Will). The cliffs and the beach were very impressive. Will said that the beach had once stretched out for about a half a mile, but the sand had been removed over the years, in order to fill little children’s sand boxes. Now the beach is only a few hundred yards long. A shame really, how people can destroy such beautiful pieces of nature.

The Cliffs of Dunraven Bay, Brigend, S. Wales

Our next stop was Porthcawl, where Will and I would be staying the night. We drove into Porthcawl and found a house, which had a sign outside claiming that it was indeed a B & B. When we knocked on the door, a man answered and Will asked if there were two rooms available. I assumed that the man said yes (although I did not really understand a word he said), because Will seemed satisfied and went inside to make the booking official. They talked for a while and when I was introduced as an American from California, the man smiled and said to me, "Da da dada yada, I reckon. Yada dada da, like. Da yada da daya, innit?"

Uhhh...yes?

The next morning, Will and I packed up and hopped back in his car, to visit the town of St. Fagins, and the Museum of Welsh Life. As it was St. David’s Day, the day to celebrate the patron saint of Wales, it was perfect timing for us to go to a museum such as that.

The Museum of Welsh Life is an open-air museum, with grounds featuring reconstructed buildings that were found all over and are traditional to Wales. We walked among school children on their field trips (the girls wearing the traditional costume of Wales, as is the custom on St. David’s Day) and people wearing daffodils pinned to their shirts, as we learned about how the people of Wales lived and farmed for hundreds of years.

Our weekend in Wales ended with a drive to Cardiff, where we drove past the Millennium Stadium and over to the pier for lunch. There we found an American diner complete with 50’s music and pictures of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. I had been given a taste of Welsh culture, food and drink, but decided I wanted something American, as I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and some chili-cheese fries. It was wonderful to eat what is familiar to me, while in such an unfamiliar country.

My journey into the country of Wales was definitely an experience worth remembering. While I had known that Wales was a country, I had never known what made Wales different from other countries. Learning about the coal industry, seeing how proud the people were to support their patron saint, walking through the traditional white and black houses and mock villages of the open-air museum, and seeing the spectacular cliffs, ones which are not found anywhere else in the world, gave me a new appreciation for a country that I had only heard about. I only hope that other people get a chance to see Wales like I did; especially, the people who still think Wales is just “some town outside of London.”

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So there it is. Our first date. What I didn't include, is that Will and I went out on the town and got completely sloshed, and I was ridiculously hung-over for the Museum of Welsh Life part of our trip and couldn't even eat my chili-cheese fries because the idea of food made me want to die. Hey, when in Wales, do as the Welsh do, right?

If you have a flashback of your own, that you want to share with the world, head on over to Tia's blog at www.ChristopherandTia.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

xoxo,

Sophie and Somersault

Let me tell you a little something about me: Crazy Cat Lady was supposed to be my destiny. Even my friends in high school believed that I would be a lonely librarian surrounded by a house full of cats. I didn't mind that at all.

BUT the gods had a different plan for me, and I got married and had kids, instead. And my husband... allergic to cats. Can I tell you just how much my heart has been aching for a kitten these last five years?

Luckily, I happen to be married to the most wonderful allergic-to-cats guy in all the world. Knowing how much he loves and adores his dog (who I never really latched onto - I'm a crazy cat lady, after all) he turned to me today and said, "Lets go and look at kittens, and then maybe, just maybe we can get one." So we packed up the girls and off we went to buy ONE kitten from the animal shelter.

Was it easy picking a little tiny kitten? Nope. Especially not when a lady from PetSmart came in, only seconds after us, and started packing all the kittens in her carrier to take to the pet store. We saw two fluffy little babies that she was about to load up and take away, and Will - without even taking a moment to think - called out, "Wait! Don't take those ones!"

The lady looked at him and asked, "Does that mean you are buying them both?"

And he said, "Yes!"

So, without further ado, may I present:



Sophie and Somersault! (haha, I can't help talking in baby kitty voice)

(Gracie named them. We call Somersault 'Somer' for short)

They are the fluffiest, most affectionate powerhouses of purr in the entire world. Only about eight weeks old and these two little girls already think they rule the roost. They don't even meow... they squeak.

The little old lady with twenty-four cats that lives deep inside of my soul, is completely thrilled with our new family members. If you think I blog about my kids a lot... just you wait. I hope you love kittens.

We never in a million years expected for quiet and timid Sophie to latch on the Annelie... but she did. Of all of us in the house, Annelie is who Sophie wants to sit with and follow around!

But what of my allergic-to-cats husband, you may be asking yourselves...

I think he'll live.

xoxo,