Hongying was amused by this article
“However, Scots men have acquired a few social graces over the past hundred years – they don’t belch in the faces of women they are married to, and some of them (so I’m told) even take their socks off before having sex. Nowadays, alibis for bad behaviour based on a deprived Scottish childhood are so commonplace that they’re ignored unless you can prove that you were breastfed by your father.”
We had a BBQ a couple of weeks ago. Back then the wisteria vine hugging the pergola was barely budding. Earlier this week, the vine is in full bloom…
oh, our wedding / house warming gift, a yellow delicious apple tree, is also beginning to flower. I love spring, and should really learn how to garden properly to keep the yard pretty
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Thank you to Lisa for organizing the party. Having a potluck and making truffles is a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. I came home with 6 delicious truffles and 10 pieces of fruits and cookies dipped in dark rich chocolate. |  |
We got our PADI certification cards earlier this week, so exciting :-). Went to Jamaica a few weeks ago for a very elaborate wedding. We decided to stay in a resort for the whole week. After one day of laying by the pool, sun bathing, we decided to have some fun and be more productive. The dive shop and the instructor were on the resort, it seems like a great idea at the time.
We were suppose to do 3 dives in the confined water, aka a swimming pool; 2 real dives and completing the quizzes to get Scuba certification, the lowest level certification. We spent about 2 hours in the pool that barely reached my neck for our 3 confined water dives. The same afternoon we went into the water for a real dive. Needless to say I felt very unprepared, and it didn’t help that a lady on the boat kept on asking me if I were scared, and joking that she’d call for help if anything happens to us while we were under the water. I was too polite to tell her to shut up 🙂 I struggled a bit when I got into the water, a wave of panic washed over me when I stepped into the water, it took some convincing from the instructor for me to proceed with the dive.
The underwater world is so different and fascinating, I was in awe despite the fact that I’ve watched “Finding Nemo” half a dozen times. I would try to describe the world 40ft below the sea, but I don’t think I could do it justice…
In any case, we’d like to go for a couple more dives this year so we could upgrade our certification to deep-water diving. I’m definitely looking forward to do more dives. There is a strange calmness and sensation from being under water, where everything seems to be moving in slow motion.
We were invited to a rather unusual event this past weekend, house concert + potluck, a fun and low-key experience. We saw our friends, had really good food and drinks, heard beautiful music and dined with the musicians afterwards; just a neat package all around.
A quick plug for the band, Four Shillings Short. The dynamic musicians, Aodh Óg and Christy, flawlessly and artifully combine instruments from different continents and across different times in history, to produce refreshing and soul-moving sounds. To attend a Four Shillings Short concert is to attend a musical instruments’ trade show (you gotta to see the number of instruments they travel with, I think they played with more than a dozen instruments during the night), a poetry reading, a music history lecture and a concert all at once. I was truly humbled by their talent and their passion for creating and re-inventing music.
Our host, Wendy, was all gigally to have a live band playing in their living room. We just appreciated the fact that we were invited; and I thought it was pretty cool when the musicians told us that we could freely make copies of the CD’s we bought from them and share with friends. With their blessing, I’d be happy to upload their songs to a file share if anyone is interested in giving them a try.
We had a couple things in mind when we bought the house. It had to be bigger than Hongying’s old appartment, it would be nice if it had a basement, a 2 car garage and was close to a bike trail. It also needed to have good public transport links to get Hongying to her work in DC.
Now that we are living here I am loving the fact that we have a real kitchen where I have the space to cook. I have all the computers in a room away from the cat litter box. I can bike to work on the W&OD trail which is about 1/2 a mile from the house. One thing we didn’t realize was that we would only be a couple miles from a swimming pool which is also seconds away from the W&OD trail.
Oh and the cats like the extra space to run or sleep in.
We finished watching season 3 of Doctor Who last night. We stayed up past midnight just so we could watch the last episode. We were on the edge of seats after watching the previous 2 episodes and just couldn’t wait any longer. I need to order the first season of Torchwood which is due to come out on DVD in the US on Jan 22nd.
We also watched the last episode of Freaks and Geeks. If you haven’t seen it I recommend it. They only made on season. I guess another show that failed be dumbed down enough for US audiences.
US TV sucks right now, due to the writers strike, everything is a repeat.
Thank you to all the people that turned up for our house warming party. As a thank you I have posted up some of the recipes so far I have added the Dahl Soup and the Vegetarian Lasagna. I will post the recipes for the pizza dough I used when I get home