21/10/2015

A Day In The Life Of...

After six months of summer weather, the temperatures are slowly dropping finally...I now believe you can have too much of a good thing! I am getting so bored of summer clothes and I am finding myself looking longingly at the new autumn fashions arriving in the shops and online, in the mornings I can now wear a cardigan or jumper but by the afternoons its back to shorts and dresses.

Those of you who know me or read my post last year about our first Halloween in America may remember I am not the worlds biggest fan of over the top Halloween decorations, they just mildly freak me out! 

So here we are again and from exactly 1st October pumpkins started appearing on doorsteps, this progressed to fake snarling black cats and rats on mail boxes, to white life size 'ghosts' and skeletons hanging from trees and foot wide fake spiders climbing houses. My eldest daughter took the pictures whilst we did a drive by up our street...










Even our dog barks and growls at this house!
My husband and I love a good Indian curry so us having trouble finding a good curry house in Austin caused us much distress for months! At the weekend we went to in my opinion, the best Indian restaurant in Austin called G'Raj Mahal, each dish is made to order including choosing how spicy you would like your food. Shame we are currently out of their delivery zone...

This morning I had a shock as I opened the front door because on the front lawn was an armadillo. I had only seen them dead on the road after getting squashed by cars so I wrongly assumed they were as slow as hedgehogs, turns out they are quite quick on their feet so my photo is not quite as clear as I was hoping...maybe they freeze in the car headlights. The girls were delighted to watch it scurry across the garden!



This weekend will be exciting to me for two reasons, firstly we are going to see a world famous American rapper live in concert and also we'll be watching a world famous race, I'll update you all next time...

04/10/2015

Blogathon ATX

Last Saturday I attended my very first blogging conference in Austin, I wasn't quite sure what to expect but I loved it and was sad I had to leave early.

#BlogathonATX is an annual day-long event facilitating blogging, collaboration, tech support and roundtable discussions led by some of the brightest blogging experts and social media enthusiasts in Austin and beyond. Source: Blogathonatx.com






The day started with a humorous panel comprising of four female bloggers discussing 'Social Media You Can See' focusing specifically on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

All of these ladies had a wealth of social media knowledge and experience, I still consider myself an amateur blogger but with an enterprising passion to grow my blog I just need to learn how...




Lunch was sponsored by Stiles Switch BBQ and Brew http://www.stilesswitchbbq.com of course. Well we are in Austin Texas it was never going to be cucumber sandwiches and sausage rolls!


Next up on the panel were people who had found success by connecting with their readers and discussed 'Know Your Reader/Define Your Voice'.




The panels I missed were 'Blogging For Real' and 'Getting What You Want from Your Blog'. Such a shame but I will most definitely be back next year.


On a final note I recently went to one of my favourite Italian restaurant's downtown Austin called Vespaio I am not a massive fan of taking pictures of my food in restaurants, however this particular evening I just had to do it. On the menu was 'Colossal Scrimp' I thought they must mean king prawns but as it turns out colossal scrimp is exactly what they meant! I had literally never seen anything like it before it was HUGE but very tasty and I would throughly recommend it.