My family just took a trip to Edinburgh & Inverness Scotland and to London.  I would like to share the trip details of where we stayed, ate, went, etc… to perhaps help you in planning your trip.  Please feel free to comment and ask me questions!

I used Trip Advisor UK for a TON of information while planning the trip.  If I found the info on Trip Advisor, I would also google it and double check any other resources.  Yes, I am a BIG planner!

We had 7 in our party for the time in Edinburgh and Inverness.  I started looking at hotels, but when adding up 4 rooms it became a bit pricey.

I found an apartment on Trip Advisor - Edinburgh New Town Apartment and it was GREAT!  It has 3 bedrooms and a sleeper sofa in the living room.  The 3 bathrooms sold me!  I had looked at a few apartments with 1 to 2 bathrooms and I knew that would never work with 7 … 5 of us women!  The kitchen was nice and big -

The entry way -

The front door and views up and down the street -

There is a park across the street and you are on a corner.

The only negative with being on the corner was the bus stop right outside the main bedroom and living room windows.  A little noisy, but not that bad.

We found the best place to eat right down the street (in the opposite direction from downtown Edinburgh) was an Italian restaurant - Vittoria Restaurant   Liz (the owner) has a binder with restaurant info and this restaurant was listed.  We ate there two nights it was so good.

There is a little bakery across the street on Leith.  I walked over early one morning and bought some donuts.  There were a lot of work people buying meat pies for lunch as well as coffees and breakfast items.

We found the cutest store on the way to Vittoria’s one night.  We didn’t have time to go back again .. darn it!  Cute things in that store!  But … I just found the website … The Cat’s Miaou

The first restaurant we ate in was the The Abbotsford.  I had eaten here in 2005 with my parents.  The bottom of the restaurant is a pub and the top, a nice restaurant.  In 2005, you could order pub food upstairs, but not anymore, it is a higher end menu.  Very good food both up and downstairs.

Photo by Heather

The Abbotsford is about a 20-25 minute walk from the apartment.  It is on Rose Street and there are a lot of restaurants and shops in this area.  Right before The Abbotsford, you will pass a grocery store, which is handy.

I had groceries delivered and it worked out great!  I had my girls go through Sainsbury’s website and choose items they would like.  Sainsbury’s delivered the groceries at the time I specified.  It was great!  If you don’t rent a car this is the way to go!  I had beer, whisky, water (water bottles are a must), bread, bagels, cereal, juice, etc.  AND.. papertowels.  I love a papertowel or napkin with my meal or to clean up with. 

Bring a nice bar of soap and washcloth, or your body wash and a loofa if that’s what you use.  No one provides washcloths.  Small bars of soap were provided, but I really missed my nice big bar of soap.

Liz provides a lovely welcome basket with some starters and milk in the fridge.  There are some food items in the cupboards as well.  She left us bread, cereal, crackers, cookies, tea …

There is a small washer/dryer combo in the kitchen.  We bought some degerent at the market (when eating at The Abbotsford) and left some under the sink :) 

I think that about covers things so far… more on my next post.  I’m sure I will remember something else to tell you!

Tags: Edinburgh New Town Apartment, Scotland

I am thrilled my garden shed is built! My Mother-in-Law’s best friend has one and when I saw it, I knew that I wanted one too! We got rid of a jacuzzi in our backyard and the cement pad was “available”! My husband and I had been up to Cambria and got some ideas from a cute garden shed up there. Here are my pictures from beginning to end and a little info along the way!

The start -
We went on the hunt for old doors and such … Our initial idea was to build a simple structure that we could hang doors from so that the shed would be “open” and “airy”. It has turned out completely different, but that’s a good thing.

We found this place - Silverado Warehouse and bought our screen doors, work bench door and back splash and window door.

And … we got a few ideas -

Lots of doors to choose from!

Our choices -

We found two sets of screen doors in other areas on the grounds and here are the doors waiting to be used -

We found an old sink at a junk store in San Clemente - South Coast Furniture and Secondhand Store

So the project began -

Extending the cement pad -

Starting on the roof -

My sink area is going back by the fence -

My husband stained the wood while it went up to prevent termites from eating it!  I won’t be painting it, just leaving it like it looks here -

Sink station and cement work is being done -

Bricks will be layed back to the fence and the back walls have gone in - plus the roof!

I went to Sepulveda Building Supplies and bought my stone for the floor.  Here is our idea and what I bought-

It was a little intimadating at Sepulveda Building Supplies, but the salesman made it easy and took me out to the yard to choose my stone.  SO many to choose from!

I chose my stone by thickness and the look I wanted.  A worker brought the container to the weigh station and hand picked my stone with my help.  I think I bought 500-600 pounds.  The salesman helped calculate how many pounds I would need for the area I was going to cover.

I layed all of the pieces out and started to complete the puzzle!  You’ll see a black slate piece in my floor.  This came from extra slate from my parent’s home.  I wanted a little piece of my childhood home in my garden shed.

Grouting begins and the floor is getting done!

The two large screen doors I bought fit perfect on the side.  I was excited to be able to just open this entire side up!

You will see tongue-and-groove wood on both sides of my screen doors.  The guy I hired did this without asking as he thought I would like it.  I didn’t and have since removed it.

Time to finish the sides of the floor.

The final side starts taking shape!

You can see my sink station is complete.  The small screen door is in and I made it open as another way in!  The top (window) door is in and on door hinges and can swing out and up.  We will put some hooks or something on the eves to hold it open.

My work bench is in!  I will be tiling each of the three square areas to make the door a flat table top.

Time to finish up and add wire mesh to the open areas.

The bottom on the front you can see is open so I can hose the shed out.

My husband has stained the inside walls with a nice blue stain and also added my light.

I still have shelfs to put up and some other cute stuff!!

I love it !!!

Tags: Garden Shed

Planning our trip to Scotland and London, I knew I would be doing a TON of walking!  I had been to both countries/cities before and wore some Clark Privo’s and they were great.  I bought a new pair of Merrill’s  but wanted a second pair of comfortable shoes!

Since I LOVE Sanuk’s I went on the hunt for a new pair for the trip.  (If you check on a past Sanuk post, you will see my Sanuk collection.)  I went to the Hobie store and checked out their selection of Sanuk’s.  Nothing really “did” it for me .. until the sales girl turned my attention to these -

YES !!!!   I loved them and they are comfortable from the minute you put them on!  They are like harachi’s kind of ..  I can’t even find them on the Sanuk website!

The only day they bugged me was walking the entire downtown area of Inverness Scotland.  My toes were bugging me and sometimes the back strap slipped off.  But … overall they were great.  Get them a little snug as they have stretched out a bit.

We went to the Edinburgh Castle and my husband had me take a picture of his Sanuks next to the oldest chapel - dating back to the 1200’s !!!

We are a Sanuk family :)  Sanuk’s are great!

More on my travels to Scotland and London soon - where to stay, eat, what to see, etc…

Tags: London, Sanuk, Scotland

We went shopping at Anthropolgie one day and saw this pillow -

It was really cute and expensive!  When you can sew, you seem to not buy things, but know you can make them.  I went to JoAnne’s fabrics and bought a Pillowform pillow.  It measured about 12″ x 24″.  I bought some beige muslin fabric and cute fabric for the strips.

 - Wash all of your fabric before sewing to address any shrinkage issues.

I measured the pillow and cut the muslin for the pillow case. 

I then cut the fabric into strips and ironed them before sewing.

I gathered each piece of fabric in three places and sewed this gathering into place with a single line of stitching.  I pinned them to the piece of muslin.

I then sewed all of my fabric pieces onto the muslin. 

When all of the pieces were sewn onto the muslin, I ironed it and trimmed the edges with overhang.

With right sides together, sew the two muslin pieces together to form the pillow case.

Try it on your pillow!  Looking pretty good!  Now I just need to finish the end.  I wanted to be able to take the pillow case off for washing, so I decided to use a couple of buttons.  First, I hemmed the ends to make it look neat.

I made the end fold under, so I had to mark my button holes carefully.   I made two button holes.

Ta-Da !!

 All Done!

Tags: Pillow Case, Sewing

My daughter Heather introduced me to these wonderful cookies … well cookie dough.  You could say they are “Simply” ready to bake into delicious cookies!

With our family of 5 down to a family of 3 (two daughters have moved out), I no longer bake a double batch of cookies.  And … with us watching our weight, I rarely bake cookies at all.  So, when my daughter brought a package of this cookie dough over for dessert, I thought, “This is great!  Just the right amount to bake and have in the house - only a dozen.”

I bought a package of each, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip and had this great idea :)  Put them together - half and half …  So, I cut each pad of cookie dough in half and stuck half the peanut butter and half the chocolate chip together.  YUM!  Who doesn’t like chocolate with their peanut butter?

They are really good! You should try it!

They do tend to come apart in the middle, so if you try this, perhaps “push” them together “tighter”.

You can find the “Simply” by Pillsbury in your grocery store’s cold food isle … you know with the cheese and bacon!

Tags: Cookies, Simply