Life Sparkles

Morning Posts.

If you follow me on Instagram (and if you aren’t, why aren’t you?) you will know that most mornings I post a good morning story just to say hello to the day and to anyone who sees the story. I think it’s just lovely to say good morning to people and smile and most of the time it cheers the other person up, gives them a lift and for all we know, we might be the only person that has spoken to them that day. Now of course unless I do a video or post a photo of me smiling, you can’t see the smile but I hope that my morning snapshot of the view outside my door gives someone a different viewpoint or that the music I choose with the post gives them happy vibes.

Just recently we have had the most beautiful, hot and I mean hot, weather in the UK and my good morning photo’s have looked much better than the usual grey, possibly raining, or just very cold snaps I usually get to take. I have loved them so much I decided to share them on my blog for all to see.

I’m not a careful photographer, I point the phone and click and the two with the early morning sunshine I absolutely love. Those were taken at himself’s place when I’ve been over helping him care for his Mom. You can see from two of the photo’s that the grass has just become dry dust with the lack of rain. These true blue skies remind me of holidays either at home as a child with my cousins where we would lie on the ground, gazing up at the sky waiting for a cloud to pass or holidays abroad where the blue skies appear to be just endless.

Working in the sunshine.

I feel like I’m just chatting on now for no apparent reason, I’m just feeling so happy and at peace with life at the moment and it’s been a long time coming. The Summer sunshine, the music on the radio, the sound of the aircraft in the sky and sitting outside in my garden typing is just making me so happy.

There’s a country song which contains the lyrics ‘I’m a little drunk on you and high on summertime’. I think that today I’m a little drunk on life and high on summertime.

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

Birthdays

A beautiful hot, sunny month of July, well mostly hot and sunny, and it was my birthday month and it feels like I celebrated my birthday for most of the month. Perhaps we have all gone a little celebration crazy after all the lockdown birthday’s of the past year or so. I have to say I am so lucky and so blessed that I have such lovely people around me who wanted to meet up, celebrate, talk, laugh, cry and generally re-connect. I have kept my social circle quite small especially as I am supporting himself with his Mom. I don’t want to take any risks with her health. I have my stock of lateral flow tests and anytime I see anyone, I take a test a few days later to protect anyone I may see as well as myself. So far so good, all negative.

Because of my extreme tiredness, all social dates were very well spaced out which is probably why I feel I was celebrating all month long. There was birthday cakes, prosecco, pizza, barbecue’s, prosecco, beautiful cards and gifts, more prosecco…you get the picture. It was just wonderful, all of it, absolutely wonderful and I loved every second and felt very loved by everyone involved in giving me such a fabulous birthday. I am so grateful and blessed, the sparkle was in full sparkle mode.

These are just a few photo’s of my celebrations on various days. The birthday, in the pink manicure, the beautiful blue skies and sunset. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of my five cousins who spoiled me so much as they aren’t on social media at all so I haven’t posted my snaps with them. I probably do enough social media for all of them!

Needless to say, additional weight was gained during this glorious month of celebration and I enjoyed every single mouthful. My clothes are bursting at the seams post lockdown and birthday so time to get my act together regarding goodies and exercise and let’s get this sparkle show back on the road again.

Here we go again!

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

Perfect Time To Be Happy

At last, with vaccinations, restrictions being lifted at various times and a new normal way of life happening it has been just lovely to get out and about a little more. I have to admit that I personally think I was very lucky in the lockdown period. Caring for my parents meant that I was more or less in a lockdown situation for four years. I had just started to venture out and about again when the real lockdown arrived. I was more or less used to not going anywhere socially or even shopping although as usual the minute you are told you can’t do something, you want to do it even more.

Anyway, back to this year and things getting a little easier and days that the sun has shone so brightly and it has felt warm outside. I had a lovely afternoon catching up with my cousins in their garden and it felt like a holiday. So good to see them in person rather than on video calls. Yes, there was Prosecco.

There were a couple of birthday’s amongst the neighbours so I set to baking some cakes. My Mom and my Sister were fantastic cake bakers and I was always just awful. The sponge never rose for me, more like a biscuit base than Victoria Sponge. However in the last couple of years my cake baking has improved. I like to think Mom passed it to me. One of these days I’ll have to bake one of these for himself so that I can have the odd slice. Not even I could finish a whole cake!!

Between the global pandemic, losing my parents and helping himself to care for his Mom who has Vascular Dementia I have realised that what my Dad used to say to me on a regular basis is so true. Life is for living, don’t take life too seriously and the time to be happy is now. I am at peace with my choices, I am free and I have been told that I make people happy with my music, my posts and my random Instagram chats. This makes me happy. I know we all have duties, obligations and worries but we also have life and we owe it to ourselves to be happy and make someone else happy if we can.

Be Happy.

Do something everyday that makes you happy. Now is the perfect time to be happy.

With love and sparkles xxx

The Music Sparkle.

Dancing Feet and Cowboy Boots.

It’s a while since I managed to post a catch up blog, it’s on my to do list. However, last night I managed to get out to see my favourite Irish music star, John McNicholl and I just had to post a few pictures tonight.

John doesn’t visit Birmingham too often and as I am unable to travel to see him in other parts of the UK or Ireland, I have to wait for him to play my city and hope I can get out to the dance. It takes some strategic planning these days to do so, especially as it entails a late night but things worked in my favour last night and Cinderella did go to the ball. Cinderella also checked her phone every five minutes but that’s how it goes these days. I was so glad I was there. John has a fabulously rich voice and sings not only Irish and Irish Country music but also some Rock and Roll, Sixties and last night we had some Neil Diamond too. John has boundless energy on stage, a real entertainer. He has a great band of musicians with him, the music is wonderful. I was up on that dance floor almost all night, I made the most of the freedom I was enjoying, I felt like me again, if that makes sense? My knees are paying the price today though…

There are a lovely bunch of people I meet at John’s gigs and I’ve made some wonderful friends over the past four years. I was really feeling the love last night from them all. They had missed me posting on Facebook (I had no idea I hadn’t posted there since August), they were concerned about me, was I ok? Was I getting out? I’m still feeling emotional from the genuine concern and caring about me from these friends. I feel so loved by them and that feels so warm and comforting.

John himself is a true gentleman and I am so happy to count him as a friend also. Rumour has it that he is back in Birmingham in January so fingers crossed I’ll be pulling on the cowboy boots and heading for the dance floor again then.

So, a few photos from last night, I was so happy, I made them all have their photo taken with me.

John McNicholl

John McNicholl

John McNicholl

Shane who plays Guitar in John’s band.

Johnny who plays the drums in the band.

My friend April and myself.

I’m wearing the dress I bought for my Graduation which I ended up deferring until next year. However, I’m so happy with how I look for a change, that 22 lbs weight loss makes such a difference. No wonder I was a diva on the dance floor, I had the energy to do so!!

© @aurorasparkles 2017

Travel Sparkles.

Lake District.

In September 2005, himself and I travelled a few hours North on the motorway to the Lake District of England and it was here we surprisingly discovered that we love walking and hiking.  We were not kitted out correctly but being the first week of September the weather was kind, lots of showers but nothing that we couldn’t handle with the clothes we had with us, plus, if we had needed to, we were surrounded by shops providing everything we would need.

What a truly beautiful area of England, we barely touched the surface and hopefully one day we will travel there again to explore some more of it’s beauty.  I’ve posted below a few photo’s of the trip which I particularly like and they do give a taste of the beauty of the area.

We stayed in Bowness in Windermere which was an ideal location, a few minutes walk from both Bowness and Windermere.  We visited Coniston Water, Ambleside and Keswick. All of which I would highly recommend for walking, touring and also for a relaxing long weekend, there are some fabulous hotels in the area.

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