"England for Dummies"...

Quote of the Day: "Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused."

How sad to wake up to the news about Peter Jennings dying of lung cancer. I mean, I grew up with the guy. He was a talented journalist. He will be missed. He died way too young, in my opinion.

The weekend was slow and dull. I am completely burned out from going to bed at 2 am five nights in a row, and right about now I'm wishing I was a coffee drinker. But alas, I'm not.

I'm bummed because I got sniped at the last minute on my Ebay auction last night--it was a big lot of vintage Sweet Valley High books (1-55 in SEQUENTIAL order, none missing) and some #$&*!! newbie with a feedback number barely into the double digits bid WAY high in the last 10 seconds. Biatch. I was very angry. Then again, I am guilty of sniping myself--I guess I should have waited to bid on them at all until the end. The only consolation I have is that my bid was pretty high and she now has to pay double what they were going for until the last ten seconds when she got all crazy with her bid amount! Heh heh. Serves her right, the little #&**! Sniper.

I'm finally cleaning out my craft room because it's starting to get very full. I am selling about 20 of my Stampin Up retired/rare stamp sets on Ebay because I just don't have room. (Even if I had room, I've never used them and they're just taking up space). I was heavy into collecting Stampin' Up! stamp sets four years ago.
Now I've grown out of it and it's all about Research Books: Books on the Edwardians, the Victorians, the Tudors, World History, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Maps, Baedeker, etc. My new novel series has my heroine traveling pretty much anywhere, any time, so I am starting to build my own personal research library. Latest additions:

Elizabeth I: Her life in Letters, Felix Pryor
(This book is amazing, it is a large full-size book with full color scans of letters Elizabeth I wrote and received during her lifetime. Man, it's cool.

What Life Was Like in the Age of Chivalry (Medieval Europe AD 800-1500) Time Life Books

The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain, John Morrill

I think you can deduct from my choices that I am a hopeless Anglophile. I love all things Britain, especially the history. I even collect antique Edwardian and Victorian tea sets, for Heck's sake.

Don't get me wrong, I am an extremely patriotic flag-flying-outside-of-my-house-American, but the writers I loved growing up (Jane Austen, etc.) were all Brits and their stories were set in England. There's just something about that fun place across the Pond that calls to me.

Here's the sad part: I've never been. The furthest I've gotten out of the states was a bicycle trip to the San Juan Islands when I was a teen. (yeah, I know, not close at all.) All my historical novels for the most part are set in England, and only because of extensive research on my part through books. I have the Google version of England (past and present) and that will have to do for now.
We didn't have a whole lot of money for travel growing up, and now that I have the means for travel, I have three young children keeping me busy. I think when they're older we'll go, but for now, it will have to wait.
I told Hubby that when the kids are grown, we're going to do some serious traveling: England, Scotland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Argentina (his old stomping grounds) France maybe (kinda snobby, that lot) and I would love to go to Egypt and do the pyramids/tombs/Cairo Museum thing, but I wouldn't feel safe there anymore. Then again, you never know what could happen in ten years.

But now I'm rambling. I'm butt tired, and the kids need attention. Hubby comes home from Las Vegas today, and he'll be burned out, so we'll both be rags. We'll have to go to bed early.

Man, I need some orange juice...