Second on the Second - Sunday 2 August 2020 - Totally Happy

Hello lovely ladies,

Today is the 2nd of August and I'd like to share an old blog post with you for the Second time. It's a blogpost from 2014, but the photo was from 1992. The photo was published in a newspaper and when we phoned them up, they kindly sent us the photo. (No selfies in those days. I don't think we had mobile phones then)

Here it is:

Totally Happy 

CSI - Color, Stories and Inspiration had a lovely colour palette this week (Case file 133), so I felt I had to do something with that pink and orange.

Here is my interpretation of case file 133. Once again I used stuff I had lying about like the ribbed wrapper of a roll of biscuits and the pink tissue. Also I stamped onto the back of a clothes tag.

I thought the color palette was gorgeous and I used all the colors.

As evidence I’ve chosen an animal (butterfly), a flower (pink petals make up a rose) and a tree (which is in the photo). There are polka dots and I added clothes pegs as I thought that was what was needed, but I’ve just noticed it’s clothes pins. Oh well.....

The idea came from a prompt from ‘Sunday Scribblings’: “What would you do if you could not fail”. The answer to that was: ”Run a marathon!” Now I don’t run and never have, but I have done a marathon at walking pace.... a strollerthon. 

My testimony is the journaling on a string, even if my string became a twig but I did use the words ‘delight’ and ‘simple’.

The journaling reads:

“To do a marathon for charity at walking pace      is simply a delight: Strollerthon”

The company my husband worked for (Cadbury’s, that made chocolate bars) organized a marathon for charity. For those people not wanting to run, they did a ‘Strollerthon’ through London. It was much publicized and was attended by thousands of people. Just ‘our’ factory sent four coach loads! It was so exiting travelling to London and walking along all those famous places! My husband played his guitar on the way too. I can’t  remember how much we raised for Save-The-Children as it was in 1992, but I do have very ‘Totally Happy’ memories of that time. 

Thanks for stopping to read this and thank you for your comments, which I always find very exciting.

God bless and.... keep scrapping

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 31 July 202 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely girls, how are you all?

Another week has passed, and we have heard that England has quarantine measures for people coming from Spain. Bummer, I can see our trip at the end of August being cancelled. 

But I am here to tell you about my smiles and not my woes, so here goes: My postcard comes from Germany and is all about...bread! 

I love German bread. They eat a lot of rye bread, which I love. I can still remember when women could cut the bread by hand. A loaf under their arm and a large knife carving a thin slice from the bread. Wonderful. Do they still do it that way? Iris? Valerie?

The stamps are from the series of flowers. The flower on the right is Wiesenschaumkraut, or Lady's Smock in English. And the stamp on the left is Kapuzinerkresse, which is a type of nasturtium.

I love the sticker: Keep Calm and Stay at Home.

My week has been good. On Friday, I went walking with my friend and we walked a part of the Via Verde (the green way) which is a disused railway. This stretch included a railway tunnel. That was fun to walk through.

Then in the evening our friends D and P came for a BBQ. We had been looking forward to seeing our friends and having a good conversation. Great.

 No, I did not go to Holland, But my sister, who lives in England (when she's not in Spain) went to visit. Mum has a large apartment with a guest room as well, so we take it in turns to go and see her.

I documented that I had an ice cream. That is unusual, as I don't eat a lot of ice cream. But we had bought those mini magnums, which is just enough for me.

 Sunday is church day. We watch two church services online, then have a Zoom meeting with another couple with whom we form a house group. Then in the evening we do a bit of worship in a farm out in the country.

 Monday another walk with my friend. The abundant produce everywhere in the field lightened our spirit. Look at all these pears hanging over the fence!

After the walk we stopped at a cafe and had some freshly squeezed orange juice. The cigarette vending machine had an unfortunate name...

 On Tuesday I went to the post office to collect my mail, and in the evening hubby and I went to eat pizza in the village (5 minutes walk from our house). More smiles.

On Wednesday a small parcel was delivered. I didn't know what it could be as I hadn't ordered anything. It turns out to be a fake gold ring in a pretty box. Heaven knows what I am going to do with that. It is quite pretty but I don't wear jewelry (apart from a plain wedding band).

In the evening it rained! That is a big smile for us as it seldom rains and goodness knows the soil needs it.

Hubby (plus two other guys) has been working on the irrigation system.

Well, that was my week. Now I'm going to link up with Annie at A Stitch In Time and with Virginia at Rocking your Week Friday. Why don't you join me there?

As per usual, I will put some funnies at the end.

Stay safe everyone!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 28 July 2020 - T for little cup of joy and some history, plus a BBQ

(Translation: 

reflections for the soul: if you wake up badly ... take a little cup of joy. Good morning)

Hello, Good morning lovely ladies!

Have you got your 'little cup of joy' ready? Then we can join Elizabeth and Bluebeard at the T-Party.

My postcard for today comes from the USA:

A  tongue in cheek statement that I don't agree with. But some people might. I do like a good glass of champagne at special occasions though. The back of this (advert) card reads: 

"When does luxury become a necessity? 

When it's Taitinger's Comtes de Champagne. 

One sip, and you'll recognize the elegance and finesse which are the hallmarks 

of Taitinger's style - and yours."

The stamps are interesting. I had fun reading up on these. Feel free to scroll past all this 'history lesson', as I don't want to bore you.

First of all Johns Hopkins was a very interesting man. Wikipedia writes this of him:

Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American entrepreneur, abolitionist and philanthropist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland.

His bequests founded numerous institutions bearing his name, most notably Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Johns Hopkins University (including its academic divisions such as Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies).

Johns Hopkins grew up on a plantation. The Hopkins family were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers). In 1807, they emancipated their slaves in accordance with their local Society decree, which called for freeing the able-bodied and caring for the others, who would remain at the plantation and provide labor as they could.

Johns Hopkins is described as being an "abolitionist before the word was even invented", having been represented as such both prior to the Civil War period, as well as during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era. There are several accounts that describe the abolitionist influence Hopkins was privy to as a 12-year-old participant in his parents' emancipation of their family's slaves in 1807.

The Alliance of Progress was another thing I had never heard of. So I went to Wikipedia again:

Alliance for Progress  aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America.

The United States government began to strengthen diplomatic relations with Latin America in the late 1950s during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In March 1961, the newly inaugurated President Kennedy proposed a ten-year plan for Latin America:

• an annual increase of 2.5% in per capita income,
• the establishment of democratic governments,
• the elimination of adult illiteracy by 1970
• price stability, to avoid inflation or deflation
• more equitable income distribution, land reform, and
• economic and social planning.

The Alliance for Progress achieved a short-lived public relations success. It also had real but limited economic advances.^[11] But by the early 1970s the program was widely viewed as a failure.^[18]

The program failed for three reasons:

• Latin American nations were unwilling to implement needed reforms, particularly in land reform.
• Presidents after Kennedy were less supportive of the program.
• The amount of money was not enough for the entire region: $20 billion averaged out to only $10 per Latin American.

The Organization of American States disbanded the permanent committee created to implement the alliance in 1973.

So, what have i been up to this week? I go walking with my friend Antonia every Monday. Yesterday we just marveled about the abundance of crops and produce. Everywhere we walked we could see trees laden with almonds, vegetable plots full of produce and this orchard was spilling its fruit over the fence:

 There were pear branches and apple branches, all hanging over the fence.

 Halfway our walk, we came to an industrial estate and we stopped at the bar for a freshly squeezed orange juice and a glass of water.

The cigarette machine in the corner caught my attention as the company was called 'Coronavending'! 

We had a BBQ with our best friends the other day and I had bought lots of meat to cook.

We never even got round to cooking the lamb chops, so the next day I cooked the chops and made a lovely Rogan Josh curry.

 We are still enjoying the kombucha (all raspberry now. It is our favorite flavor). 

That's it from me today. 

Looking back over this blog post, I can see I have plenty of qualifiers for the T-Party.

Happy T-Day all!

Stay safe,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday24 July 2020 - Friday Smiles

Hello lovely people,

It's Friday again and I'm here to share my smiles from this week and of course a postcard. 

This one really did make me smile. It comes from Germany and it represents the municipa library in Bielefeld. 

On the back it says (in German): "New children's books are like friends from all over the world: 1000 books, CDs and DVDs, now in 42 languages. Exciting, funny, colourful. Come to your municipal library!"

I saw that the sun was wearing glasses, and that made me smile too.

What have I been doing and what made me smile this week? Well, almost every Friday morning I go for a long walk with my friend Antonia. We chat and we pray. When I got home I went shopping in the village. Hubby wanted to come with me as he needed some stuff. That was nice so we stopped at a cafe and had a drink once we finished our shopping. 

 Kate Yetter, one of my blog friends, recommended this book: The War Room, a Christian book about an american couple whose marriage is in trouble. They meet this older lady who teaches them about the power of prayer, and they are able to mend their relationship with each other and with God.  Brilliant book.

Saturday was fruitful and we got a lot of things done. Here in rural Spain, it is much easier to have something made, than to drive to the nearest city to shop for something you need. We needed a metal door, so we got a guy out to measure up. As you can see, we have to wear masks everywhere.

 Sunday the weather was dull and 'close'. And in the afternoon there was a thunderstorm and we had rain! Wonderful!

 A while ago, someone had accidentally driven into hubby's scooter. No one was hurt and their insurance pays for the damage. Monday we were given the go-ahead, and we took the scooter into town to be repaired. I drove behind hubby in the car as we needed transport to come back home again. We had a coffee outside a lovely restaurant that we go to sometimes. We sat out on the terrace. Near where we were sitting, there was this large tube, filled with water for visiting dogs. Isn't that nice!

 Quite a few smiles on Tuesday: I went to the post office to collect my mail. Lots of postcards. And I found a large chocolate bar that I had forgotten about: it was liquorice chocolate from Denmark. I don't need to hide it as nobody I know likes liquorice chocolate. But I love it!

Then hubby cooked us a 'mean' English breakfast, which we had for lunch of course. (I couldn't eat so much in the morning).

 During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, we heard an enormous bang in the night. We thought one of my pictures had fallen off the wall, hubby went to investigate, but found nothing. In the morning I noticed that one of my kombucha bottles (a small one luckily)  had exploded. Must have been a faulty bottle as all the other bottles of that same batch were fine. But I did put them all in the fridge (to stop fermentation), and in the meantime I have made another batch.

Then when I went to the bathroom, I heard a noise and I found a small kitten, and it hid behind the washing machine, and wouldn't come out again. Now we happened to have a cat trap. There is a vet near the coast who neuters street cats, so that they don't become large colonies of feral cats. We have helped the cause by trapping cats who cannot be handled and taking them to the vet. It's a cage with a trap door. The cat comes in lured by some food and the door shuts behind him. Well, it worked a treat with the little kitten. We did not take it to the vet though, but just released it outside our house and it ran off.

That was my week. How has your week been? Join us at Annie's at A stitch In Time or/and Virginia at Rocking Your Week Friday.

As per usual, I have put some funnies at the end. 

Have a lovely weekend,

Stay healthy,

Hugs,

Lisca

 Did you know they had  Zoom meetings even in the Middle Ages?.....