LIFE: Photo An Hour - January 2016

Saturday rolled around with no particular plans in mind. January is always a slow and cold month for estate sales, so we're rather hit and miss about them. But still, I'd be looking forward to joining in with the first Photo an Hour link up of 2016 with a plan of just seeing what fell into place.

With no aforementioned plans, the morning started with a cup of coffee and finishing of a page in my Vive Le Color Japan coloring book - a particular favorite recent purchase of mine. An hour later by the time 10 am rolled around, I was adding in some more of the black background to my stitched bookmark I've been working on.

With some not every water tight plans in the making, we decided once 11 am rolled around to have lunch early (a cheese toastie for me, a toasted sarnie for him) and a pile of tomatoes on the side. Noon actually saw us picking up Joe's first ever pair of glasses and an hour later we were back on the road traveling to Ikea, that magical place. 

It's probably a good thing we don't live on the same side of the metro region that Ikea reside, because I'd probably be in there every other week. We planned to pick up some odds and ends and get an idea about some new cabinets for Joe's Transformer collection. Ended up buying a load of shelving for my office come craft room. 4pm marked a stop on the way back home to my favorite fish n chip - Scotty Simpson's in Brightmoor. This place happens to be the best fish n chip shop I've come across since moving to 'merica (see previous review here) nothing beats their fish n chips, even if the chips are on the skinny side. They also make the most delicious pies. Most people will probably avoid the place because of the area, but I love it there.

5pm and back home saw me working on the jigsaw puzzle that is was putting together two lamps from Ikea, like seriously, is there nothing that can be just put together in two steps from that place?! All that yummy food though and being lazed out for the day left me on the sofa catching up with the internets happenings and watching Invader Zim, as you do.

Trying out the Darth Vader comic book series while catching up on some episodes of Ghost in the Shell before popping into a very relaxing bath by 8pm with some whiskey on the rocks and a rather fizzy bath bomb. The rest of the evening was back on the sofa, curled up in pjs catching up on the Abominable Bride episode of Sherlock Holmes, with even more whiskey.

How was your weekend?!

Rachael

LIFE: Autumnal Days

Autumn makes me homely, it makes me want to draw the curtains tight, crawl under a blanket, pour a huge hot chocolate and watch TV, read a little more. More so now we own a house, a house that's ours, there's space to decorate, to celebrate the seasons, a bird feeder in front of the living room window that entertains me as much as the cats. I've been working away with vinyl records playing again, feeling a little braver about sharing our collection on instagram.

Suffering from stress, anxiety, buying a house and the process of buying one, for me was awful. I lost sleep, so much sleep, it wore me down, it drained me. But in the end it was worth eating up all of our savings, the last couple of months have been hard money wise, my stress levels dip and flow but i'm looking forward to the last couple of months 2014 has in store, as we finally return to our normal routine. 

November marks the third year of calling the US home, yet another year has passed by in a heartbeat. America has given me opportunities, experiences, a way of life I never thought I would experience for myself. With Halloween us passing by and Thanksgiving on the horizon, these holidays that Americans embrace, take to heart remind me why I love this country. It sure likes to celebrate.

Happiness has been:

Reading comics (Ms Marvel, Hellblazer, Cpt Marvel) // joe spoiling me with dutch girl donuts and roses // american candy - the tootsie rolls, almond joy and reeses <3 // kitty snuggles // instagram for helping me capture those little moments // sweet potato curry // autumn colours // watching constantine // vintage penguin mugs // reeses puffs cereals

VINTAGE: Sgt. Nick Fury

We often come across vintage comic books at estate sales, but their prices can be a little out of our price range and I can imagine if we started buying everyone when we saw them, we'd end up with more collections of stuff then we could ever handle or find room for. Yet we gave in a little this weekend and purchased a copy of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (issue 11 from 1964). If you follow Marvel either through comics or the films, you'll probably all picture Nick Fury as how Samuel J Jackson portrayals him, but he does have a comic series of his own, and another universe well before being the head of Shield. 

Nick Fury first appears as Sgt. Fury in 1963 as a fictional WW2 army Sergeant in charge of a unit nicknamed the Howling Commandos. This particular issue features Fury's challenge at training another unit for two weeks, and on his return their mission with Captain Flint to destroy a German V-2 convoy in France. 

What is of particular interest in this comic is the section Tell it to Fury whereby one of the letters from a reader to Stan Lee notes;

Just for fun, I decided to to play the game of movie casting. I tried not to cast major stars because I felt that if a movie based on Sgt. Fury were made, major stars would not be used. I think my casing of well known character actors is logical and ideal. Sgt. Nick Fury - Peter Falk ...

 Roselind, 26

Apparently Peter Falk was the actor who played the detective Colombo and the old man who narrates the tale in the Princess Bride. Granted this is in another Marvel Universe to the one we know and now see upon the big screen (Cinematic Universe which led to the Ultimate version of Nick Fury) but it's interesting to see a readers interpretation of how they imagine Fury to be depicted.