Month: September 2013 (page 2 of 2)
It’s Friday the 13th today and it is cold and rainy outside, so it fits the mood. Tonight I think we will have to watch a scary movie and eat some popcorn. Well only semi-scary, I don’t really watch horror movies, I am the boring one there, so, it might just be The Goonies!
Have a wonderful Friday!
This has been such a busy week this week. I have so many things to share, but I have too much to do tonight to share a lot. One of which is baking a batch of snickerdoodles for a colleagues birthday tomorrow, because snickerdoodles are just plain happiness!
But, in the meantime while I am waiting to share some things with you, I thought I would share this, my parents are always hip to the scene and told me last night that I needed to watch the video because I would love it and I did!
So, even though I have been radio silent for a few days here and there this month, we are safe and sound!
Oh how we love pumpkin season. You did know this gourd-ish squash has its own season, right? Winter, Spring, Summer, Pumpkin…. We anxiously anticipate it every year. ~Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer, October 2010
This weekend brought with it cooler temperatures and the feeling that the cottage should be filled with pumpkins! I am ready to buy mums for my flower pots and dot pumpkins around the house. Soon, enough I suppose, I just have to be patient a little longer!
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To celebrate our first official week back at school, Mr Michie and I planned a Friday night date in London. He came to pick me up at my new school and after getting to meet and chat with my new colleagues at the staff barbeque we headed back into central London for cheeseburgers at Five Guys.
By the time we left the party at school and got back over to Covent Garden it was about 8:30 and there was still a huge line of people waiting outside Five Guys to get in. We only had to wait about 10 minutes, it didn’t matter it was worth the wait!!
When we made it to the front of the line, the manager in charge for the evening (or, the gentleman who we think was the manager, unfortunately we were not able to get his name) told us he would bring us downstairs to order, the only hitch was they we had to come back up to collect our food. No problem!
So, off we went and proceeded to order, this is when things started to go a little hairy. Their credit card machine had gone down earlier in the day and unbeknownst to them had not come back online downstairs. Our server was very apologetic, extremely smiley and was working very hard to try and rectify the problem. One of his colleagues came over to try and help and at this time the gentleman we believe to be the manager came to help as well.
Now, we continued to smile, because 1) we are pretty easy going and 2) we were going to eat Five Guys cheeseburgers, so it would all come out in the wash! Well we waited for a good five minutes while they attempted to fix the machine, we apologized for not having any cash on us and smiled at the people waiting in line behind us for holding up the works. We continued to wait a little longer and it was at this point that the gentleman we believe to be the manager printed out our receipt and told us that dinner was on the house!
We immediately protested and said, “No, way!”, that is not how we work, but he insisted and very graciously took care of us. I stayed downstairs as that is where we like to sit and Mr. Michie headed back up to get our food and they must have rushed us through because by the time he was at the counter our dinner was ready. He thanked the gentleman again who was helping us and we were lucky enough to catch him again on the way out to give our thanks for his fantastic business service, but again, since they are such a busy place we didn’t get the guys name! We wanted it, so we could tell Five Guys what a great job he did.
Now, my husband is British, so I feel I can say this, but you rarely get that kind of service in England. There is no way that if this situation happened elsewhere would they be smiling at us, apologize for any inconvenience and then comp our meal, if anything in another restaurant if this happened they would have said, “Sorry!”, closed the till and told us to go back upstairs to order. It is that great level of service along with the delicious food that Five Guys offers that makes us want to eat there.
So, thank you Five Guys for your wonderful business etiquette something that rarely exists inside of chain corporation these days (you have not forgotten your humble beginnings) and thank you for your delicious cheeseburgers, which made our back to school date night a lot of FUN!
Although, I had been in last week, learning the ropes, this was the first official week back for everyone at my new school. This afternoon we will celebrate with a staff barbeque and then Mr. Michie is coming to meet me and sweep me off to dinner somewhere nice to celebrate the first official school week for both of us.
I still can’t believe that I am working in such a marvelous place, what a lucky girl I am!
Here’s to the weekend!
{Image: It’s Better Than Bad}
Today was hot. It was in the mid 80’s. That might not seem so hot, but being in an office with no air circulating, makes it feel more oppressive then it possibly was. The sweat seemed to trickle down my neck in small rivulets as I worked filing some paperwork away.
Tonight the temperature will drop into the low 60’s and we should be staying around that for the next few days. We have entered into the season of Indian Summer; hot days and cool nights.
I love this time of year, the magic of one season slipping into the next. You don’t want to blink or you might miss it.
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Mr. Michie took me to see a movie this weekend that I have been waiting to see for awhile now: The Way, Way Back.
It gave more than I even expected it too. Not, that I felt at any point either before seeing it or during, that I would walk away and not enjoy it, these coming-of-age tales are close to my heart. I already knew I would love it, the writers (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, two extremely funny and talented guys), the cast, composed of many actors who I truly admire, the soundtrack, the location. I felt as if I was on Duncan’s (the protagonist’s) journey with him.
I never thought that I would think of Steve Carell as an asshole, a part he played well. Maybe it was more real because I could never imagine him having any of those traits outside of this role, so possibly, you could envisage him enjoying playing someone more sinister, he was into the role and you as the voyeur completely believed it. You hung in this disbelief watching this man emotionally torture a 15 year-old kid, when he himself was the one with all the issues.
Steve Carell’s character drives them to his beach house in an old restored station wagon. We used to have a station wagon for a little while when I was growing up and I have to tell you, the way, way back, was my favourite place to sit. You watched the world from a whole different vantage point back there. You also existed in your own world back there, as if there was some kind of magical barrier between you and everyone else in the car.
I felt for Duncan, there was no way that you could watch this movie and not cheer him on, through everything that was thrown at him. You might not have had this particular struggle but everyone has had their own teenage crap they went through, everyone has walked that road into adulthood, some are still on it. We all bring different things to the table.
In the end, I left with a smile on my face. As Owen tells Duncan, “You’ve got to go your own way”. You have to blaze your own trail, that is the only way that you will truly find out who it is that you are meant to be and that is a path that I don’t think stops after your teenage years, you have to keep blazing that trail because our decisions and the way we choose to handle a situation continues to evolve the path that we are on.
If you can, go see The Way, Way Back, it will be worth it, I promise you!
Today, ushers in the First day of September. The weekend has brought with it, our first taste of Autumn. The days have been sunny and cool, while the nights have held a chill. Last night, we smelled our first fire of the year as one of our neighbours had a cozy fire smouldering away in their grate, inaugurating the beginning of the Autumnal season.
This week will bring with it warmer weather again, but now that I have had this small tang of Autumn on my tongue, I want more. I am ready for pumpkins and crunchy leaves and crisp apples and the shadows to change.
One of my most favorite movies, with an absolute stellar cast is, On Golden Pond. The main theme holds the essence of Fall for me. I can see the loons on the lake, the sunset hues of leaves dotted around and the sound of the water lapping against the shore. The perfect place to canoe to a small island on the lake, have a lazy afternoon picnic and row home for a cozy night in.