VHS Heaven

When I was on the hunt for picture frames and tea sets at charity shops this week, I came across more than one place that was getting rid of all of their VHS tapes. Are we the last people on earth with a VHS player? I think so! View the rest of our extensive charity shop VHS collection here and here.

One shop was selling the last minute ones for 25 pence each. The other was binning them in big mail bags and begging people to take what they could grab for 10 pence each. After spending just five pounds, I came home with two picture frames, no tea sets, and 14 VHS tapes - including Sister Act and Sister Act 2 on one tape. His eye was most def on this sparrow. Yesss... 

Since Nathan was into drugs instead of Disney as a youth, I'm looking forward to being with him the first time he sees Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Mary Poppins, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Here's to 3,475 more minutes in VHS heaven!

What was your favorite movie on VHS?

Charity Shop Therapy

So, I've got work tomorrow and Friday in South Shields at a "rougher school," according to the supply agency. Wish me luck. Prayers would be even better.

In anticipation of the upcoming trepidation, I done gone and got myself an Easter dress for 4.95.

Every once in a while there will be a gem like this at a charity shop.

Front

Back

Bodice detail

Whoop whoop!

Charity Shop Finds 2.0

Like I said yesterday, Nathan and I spent Saturday running errands and browsing through a couple of charity shops. We've had really good luck with charity shops here so far, and Saturday was no exception. Well... except we didn't find what we were looking for. :) 

Cute boots! The ones I wear all the time here were my mom's that were a little too small from Bass that she passed on to me. I nearly had a heart attack when they got soaked in the rain last week, so I went ahead and bought these, thinking that I could trash them if I needed to. However, when I wore them to church this morning, I realized that they're just a little too big. It looks like my mom may be getting a pair of boots herself when she comes to visit
.

Nathan wears the same sweater almost every day, and he's stretched out the sleeves from pushing them up his arms so much, so we picked up these three jumpers for him. He looks so handsome in them. It's still kind of odd not to see him in his Atlanta summer uniform (short sleeved polo shirt and cargo shorts) or winter uniform (short sleeved polo shirt and jeans).

I found these jumpers for me. When our English friends found out we were moving to England, they all said, "Make sure you have a lot of sweaters!" Now I know what they mean.

Nathan especially liked the minty green one because he said it matched my eyes. Forgive the lack of makeup. And my dark hair. My blonde-ness is quickly diminishing as the sun sets earlier and earlier. It was dark by 4:30 today. Tears!

Deep breath... and now... for the main event... this freakin' adorable Jackie O. jacket. I have absolutely nothing to wear it with or wear it to, but I don't care. It is amazing! I feel like I need some white opera gloves, a black shift dress, some pearls, some kitten heels, and a nice updo. I went back and forth about buying it, but I decided to go for it after Nathan encouraged me to get it. "You're not extravagant," he said. "If you think it's pretty and want it, you should get it."


"Really?" I smiled.


"It's your discretionary fund," he smirked back.

Nathan's Latest Obsession

Everyone who knows my husband knows that he is king of extremes. He is not known as a man of moderation. He loves Puritan paperbacks and Family Guy, two polar opposites in terms of culture, but he has no idea who's popular on the radio right now.  (Cue the "Who's this Bianca person I keep hearing about?" story. It turns out he was referring to Beyonce.)

His latest kick has been all about golf. Let me just start off by saying he plays once a year with my dad at the beach at Christmas, and he loves it because they get to smoke cigars and be outside in shorts in December. However, this latest obsession started shortly after one of our charity shopping sprees. He purchased a Jack Nicklaus "Golf My Way" VHS tape and has played it (I am not lying or even exaggerating) probably 20 times already. We have all of the cheesy music memorized, and it's now part of Nathan's and my whistling repertoire. 

Here's Nathan during viewing number 19 yesterday. Viewing 20 was when I caught him watching the video and doing push-ups simultaneously before his shower this morning.

The video itself reminds me of being at my godparents', Uncle Neal and Aunt Lena's, house when I was young. Uncle Neal used to hit golf balls with his sons into piles of tumbleweeds in the fields behind their house. Jack Nicklaus is dressed just the way I remember my Uncle Neal always being dressed - in golf gear from the 80s. They always had golf on TV on Sundays, and I usually fell asleep watching it. 

 Is it Uncle Neal? No... it's just Jack Nicklaus.

Last week Nathan put his feelers out on Gumtree again and found this really nice set of golf clubs for 50 pounds. It's, like, really nice. I'm not even a golfer and I can tell it's worth way more than 50 pounds.  He's taken to swinging the clubs now with Jack while watching the video. I'm already counting on losing our deposit when one swing goes wrong and a golf club goes through a glass panel on one of the doors. Forgive the blurriness of the image. "Someone" took some time off of watching Jack hit the long ball to pinch me in the bum while I was taking the picture.

Seeing as how it's November and we still hadn't gotten Nathan a scarf or gloves, we spent Saturday trolling the charity shops again. We didn't find any scarves or gloves there, but he did find this jacket, which he snapped up because he said, and I quote, "It looks like a golf jacket." 

And what else did he find in the book section? Why, it's Golf My Way with Jack Nicklaus, this time in print! Never mind that he has the entire video memorized, he just had to buy the book as well. 


It's a good thing that we decided early in our marriage to each have a discretionary fund each month so we couldn't nit-pick each other's every purchase. I don't get upset when he buys beer or Jack Nicklaus golf books or coffee, and he doesn't get upset when I buy bags or shoes or the darling jacket I'm going to show you tomorrow.


Nighty night pets!

Technological Neanderthals

Nathan and I took the train up to Newcastle on Saturday.  We had planned the trip the day before because we wanted to try the train thing out, and Newcastle is a bigger city only about 15 minutes away.  The extra bonus was that Nathan got a reply to his "Wanted: VCR" ad (Yes, he's weird, and yes, he also still prefers cassette tapes to "these newfangled compact discs") on Gumtree that morning and the fellow with the goods was going to meet us there.  Sure enough, we made the exchange with an older proper chain-smoking Geordie (a native Northeastern Englishman) who called me "Sweetheart" upon meeting and "Pet" when saying goodbye.  

Since we'd already made the charity shop rounds in Newcastle, we decided to hit them all up again for VHS tapes.  It seems that no one really buys VHS tapes anymore, so there were lots of great ones to choose from.  We restrained ourselves and only got these.

You should have seen us on the train back to Durham, lugging more than 40 VHS tapes plus the actual VHS player in two very full backpacks and several extra shopping bags.

Against Nathan's wishes to sanctify me by forbidding me from organizing them, I of course was excited to order them according to genre.  What he doesn't know is that I arranged them from kiddiest to girliest to manliest from the top left to the bottom right.  He thinks I didn't organize them because I didn't alphabetize them, but he knows very little about the depth of my neuroticism and how far I'm willing to go to hide it from him.  You can click on the actual picture to make it bigger and view our new VHS library.

And this?  Tasty Fried Chicken.  It's closed.  Shocker.

Charity Shop Finds

While waiting to move in a couple weeks ago, Nathan and I spent a day with the car doing some charity shop (thrift store) shopping.  We spent the entire day scouring tiny little spaces in three different cities (Gateshead, Newcastle, and Durham).  These weren't like the mega-sized Salvation Army store on Rosedale Hwy.  They were small little storefronts supporting charities like cancer research, arthritis, cerebral palsy, etc.  

While window shopping in Gateshead, a rough looking crowd walked by and one of the guys pinched Nathan's bum to get a laugh from his friends.  Nathan gave him a "DUDE!" look and muttered, "Better me than you, Sweetie."  Later, he asked me, "Do you think he did that because of my glasses?  Do they look gay?!"  I'm chuckling as I type.  He's still not 100% comfortable with them on, although it helps that our new friend Sam has a pair almost identical to his.

First things first!  What else would you expect from the Parkers but more books?  Nathan found the complete set of Churchill's books on WWI (among other things), and I found some cookbooks (among other things).  I discovered that I also had to buy a kitchen scale to get the right measurements (in grams instead of cups, etc.).  Luckily, I also brought my measuring cups and spoons to go with my Fix It and Forget It slow cooker cook book from home.  You'll also note the Life on Earth book by the same author who narrated the BBC series Planet Earth, David Attenborough.

Nathan also bought some shoes ("These feel like they belong to me!"), three pairs of jeans, and a fleece which smelled like smoke - not the campfire kind, the cigarette kind.  It took two washings to get it out.

Now, each one of my finds gets its own picture. :)  This comfy sweater is from Marks&Spencer.  Hannah Simms told me it was a good store before we got here, but I hadn't been in one at that point.  I think it will be my new housecoat.

An oatmeal sweater (called a jumper here).  It's really high quality from what I can tell, and it had the original price tag still on it.

 This dress was so cute!  It was kind of a splurge, costing about $6. :)  I love the ric-rac at the bottom and the detailing on the bodice as well.  You can click on any one of these pictures to see them in a larger size, by the way.

 I was wearing this little number in my last post...

 under this sweater.  I love the gold buttons on the flowy pockets.

 Banana Republic... what what!

 For work, a sweater vest.  I liked the mother-of-pearl buttons on the side.

And now, for the greatest find of all - this darling coat!  It gets two pictures because it's so darn awesome.  It's a little big, but I anticipate wearing a lot of layers under this baby come winter.  The best part it, it cost less than $6!

We had a fun time shopping (minus the bum pinching incident).  One of the challenges was trying to figure out what sizes we are in this new country.  It turns out I am anywhere between an 8 (the cream dress) and a 14 (the green coat), but my shoe size is only a 4 (a 7 in the States).  It just goes to show that your size is truly just a number - any amount of different numbers in any given country.