Hi, I'm Kitty, and I have an addiction......

 And here is my dealer.....

Okay, so I'm back in Glasgow and I can hardly believe that I have only been buying from Pat since June 2021.  I guess that is just how addictions go, the time and money start to drain from all accounts.  I have even gotten my good friends roped into this passion of mine as well.  Sorry Effie.  

Here is my downfall....

I mean, come on......   You see, I certainly don't NEED this table, but look how wee it is!!!  It's so cute and adorable!  The little leather on top, a couple of drawers.  It is heavier than expected and makes a great sofa side table.

And then there is this....

It's a kneeling chair.  what?

Who needs some prayers??   (like the entire world right now)

  I'm loving this drop leaf dining table, now complete with chairs from a rather sketchy warehouse that I begged Effie to drive me to.  We both commented that we would go nowhere near that place in the dark.  Effie even asked the dealer if she felt safe there.  LOL!    Y'all, it was the Glasgow Hood.

This addiction can take you down some dark and winding roads.  With fear of rejection and failure.  Worry that you won't get your fix and will miss out on all the good deals.  It will have you shopping when you don't need to.  Showing up at the warehouse at any hour of the day.  Scouring the store when any friend says they need a side table.  "Oh, you need a personal shopper,"   ........just say the word!

This was a beauty but I had to send her back to make way for this behemoth of a replacement.  But seriously, how could I turn this down?

I totally blame Pat for sending me a picture of this when I clearly had zero room for it.   I was at the warehouse within 24 hours of the photo, and purchased it in less than 72 hours.  I really tried to resist, but it was futile. 

These stunners are hanging on my wall.  The gold treasure being a round carved piece of marble in the center from late 1800 Russia.  ( I think this may be it's second appearance in the Scotland Squad blog).  

When you have such addictions, you can't help but drag your friends into the fun..  Here are some of Effie's treasures...

Scotch made chest of drawers.

Huge wardrobe for Hugo!  Complete with pull out shelves and inside door beveled mirrors.

A side table she didn't want, but now loves.

And a piece she almost didn't buy ......... this amazing bookshelf.  I was soooo worried one of us would miss out on this treasure, but her husband Gru made the decision to bring it in.  They haven't looked back and it is now fully utilized.  

Okay now, back to me....

You'd think that we lived in a big house, but we do not.  

Oh but this one came from my own British Heart Foundation shop.  And it has a bit of a back story.  It came in and the manager put £10 on it.  That is £7.50 with my volunteer discount.  So I hemmed and hawed and then decided I better have it.  Again this is not about need!  I failed to put a 'sold' sign on it, and went about my business until some girl brought it to the register commenting loudly on how beautiful it was.  I told her sadly, that it was sold, and she went on and on how it doesn't have a sold sign, how she could just take it and run out of the store and how beautiful it was (again) and that it would look great in her flat right around the corner.  I never told her it was mine, but she did finally leave the store.  That day I proceeded to carry it home and I must tell you, it is a beveled mirror and is not light weight.  But none the less, it's here and hanging in all of its glory in the front hallway.  

And just as a reminder, here is what started it all.  At that wee store called Open Gates on Dumbarton road.  It remains my favorite piece to this day, not only for it's beauty, but for all of the doors (or should I say gates) it has opened for me since.  Now I know Pat, Big Davie, Linda and just now meeting the rest of the crew.  Because it seems when you buy so much and won't stop shopping there, they put you on the Board of Directors!  I can't wait to see where all this will go.......

But what I love more than anything, is that this is a charity shop.  Open Gates helps to rehabilitate prisoners through employment and training programs with the aim to stop re-offenders.  Eliminating the revolving door to prison.  

Okay, I'm in, and if my addiction can help individuals and the community that I live in, then why not?  

http://www.opengates.scot

(new website coming soon)

craic'n celtic board member

Kitty

💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

A couple of absolute belters!!!

I am back in Scotland!   After flying back with Levi and Mama, I got all settled in and checked out the new house. Ever since being back I have been working on applying to jobs, taking an online finance class and re-applying to Glasgow University. After a week of applying for jobs, I got an online interview secured at Marks and Spencers. Last week I had the interview and it went pretty well. I got a call and was informed that I got the job at the M&S bakery that is a 16 minute bike ride away from our place. I needed a way to get there since the start time was 6 AM, so we had to find a bike. 

My mom texted Pat (our friend at Open Gates) just to see if he had any bikes at the moment and it turned out he had 2 'belters' as he called them. We walked down to Open Gates and I rode both of the bikes around to try them out. They were both pretty good, so we bought them.  We got a great deal on them, 2 bikes for 90 Pounds. Mama and I rode them back home.  It was amazing how it all fell into place, since Pat doesn't usually have bikes, but these had just come in. Our timing couldn't have been better! 

I took one of the bikes down to a bike shop to check on the back break pads. They told me they looked good and they just tightened up my back breaks a bit so they work better. I also bought us a couple helmets and bike locks because apparently bikes get stolen in Glasgow pretty frequently. 

Soon after, I was walking around the house and discovered a fox that was laying in the sun right outside our back door leading to our garden.

I went outside to sit on the table in our garden with some tea and listen to a book. The fox was pretty calm, he just migrated down to the lower part of our garden. 

This weekend my Mom and I took a bus into town to go to TK Maxx. We needed some new paraben free shampoo, oils and tea. We went to the big TK Maxx on Argyle street first. We found some good shampoo and oils and I looked around all the Teas they had for a while and got about 6 new boxes of tea, each one different. I also found a cool new large tea mug. After we were done shopping we walked over to the other TK Maxx on Sauchiehall street, it is a bit smaller but we were searching for a salad topper that the first TK Maxx did not have in stock. On our walk down Buchanan street we saw a large protest march going on. It was in protest of all of the government restrictions in place / vaccine mandates. etc. It was great to see. One sticker I read said "It matters not to free men what tyrants write on paper".

 We looked around the other TK Maxx but could not find the salad topper, so we took the bus back home. I tried my new peppermint and licorice tea once we got back. We must have over 20 boxes of tea in our tea collection at this point.

On Saturday for dinner we made a chicken pot pie. We cut up chicken, carrots, celery and peas and simmered them in chicken broth for 15 minutes. We also painted the bottom sheet of pastry with egg white and baked it before hand so that the bottom of the pot pie stayed crispy after we baked the entire dish. It turned out very delicious. It was baked just the right amount. Aine came over for dinner and she really liked it. We all played Racko after dinner for a bit.  

Sunday morning, Levi and I went to 

Café D'Jaconelli which has been there since 1924. It had a cool interior with a jukebox and a fish tank in the wall. I got a full breakfast and Levi got 2 portions of french toast. We had ice cream for dessert which was really good since they make their own.

I'm glad we have some bikes now to get around town easier! It was a good week.

-Jackson

- January 23, 2022 - 

Belter:  What it usually means =  A loud, forceful singer.  

Meaning in Glasgow = AMAZING!

PS - Kitty Crocker has been busy, lots of fun food coming your way in the near future! 

Lord Levi's favorite Christmas gift

So I thought I wasn't going to be going home for Christmas, as well as everyone else in the family. I thought I would spend my Christmas here in the grey Glasgow city and get one day of snow. To my surprise, in late December my mother gifted me a letter and told me I should open it. Inside was a card saying that we would be going back to the US next Friday and that nobody knew. 

That's a pretty good Christmas gift if you ask me.

   

After the amazing news, I spent the rest of the week just going to school normally, waiting for Friday. Once the week was over we packed our stuff and we left at like 5 AM. Our first flight was to Dublin.  It was not a long one, and I just slept the whole way. Once we were there we had a layover of 2 hours and had to wait in the terminal, but thats no surprise to us. So we did and after the hours were over we got on our plane and settled in. This one was 8 hours to Chicago. 

On the plane, I watched Blade Runner 2049 two times and then went to sleep for the remaining hours. 

It's a nice view over Chicago, I didn't get any pictures so you'll just have to trust me on this one, I can't say as much for the city itself though...

After we got to Chicago, we didn't know if our bags went all the way through to Michigan or if we had to pick them up from baggage claim and then put them on to the next plane. So we went to the baggage claim area and waited for over an hour for our bags because what if they weren't all the way through and we just left our bags in Chicago?  There were other people in the same situation we talked to and after discussing for a while, we all just decided to go to our separate flights and go. So we did.

 

Luckily once we were home we got to the baggage claim and were relieved to see our bags spinning around on the conveyor belt. My mom was a little mad at the airliners for not being clearer on the bags. But in the end, it all worked out.

We left with all of our bags and stuff and got to the curb of the airport. My mom tried an Uber but nobody was nearby, so we just looked for a Taxi manually and found one guy who was very happy to take us. We got in and the man started chatting, he was super religious and was amazed at my name being very biblical. He was saying "Praise the Lord." and stuff, he was the nicest guy I've met in a long long time.

He eventually got us home and wished us a great time. We got our luggage all in the house and I just walked upstairs and said hi to Carly, she was a little confused so it was funny. After we met with Carly, Chelsie got home and we told Carly to call her name, so she came upstairs and we surprised her. After we met those 2 we lured Jackson and my  over by saying water pipes were leaking on the piano. So they came running and expected to see water everywhere but saw us instead. It was a great reunion. 

 

I spent the night at my father's house that night and it was a great time catching up with everyone. For the next couple of days, we would be just hanging out setting up Christmas decor and the huge tree in Mama's living room.

   

And then Christmas came, Oma, Papa, Jackson, Mama, and I all gathered in the living room at around 9. It was a nice and simple Christmas, everyone was opening their gifts and giving gifts. It was a great time, I gave my dad a mug and some oils, he gave me some nice headphones. Mama gave me the ability to come home, I got her a mug as well. (I'm not great at gifting so I just give everyone mugs I make for them. Easy.) 

We all had a great time on Christmas in general and I am very glad and thankful I got to visit home. I had a great time and we even managed to snag Jackson to come back over here! 

As the taxi driver would say; God bless

-Levi

Merry Christmas 2021!

Jackson:

Friday December 17th, my dad and I got a call from Chelsea saying that the ceiling above the piano had started to leak again and that she needed our help to stop it. My dad grabbed me and we ran over to the 455 house ready to see the piano dripping with water. We ran inside and Chelsea lead us to the piano room, the door opened and there waiting for us was Levi and Mama. Papa and I were so shocked. I was talking to Mama on the phone right before when it was 1 AM in Glasgow, completely unaware that they were in a taxi driving home from the airport at the same time. 

When I walked into the piano room, I was shocked because I was expecting to see the piano covered in water, but instead Levi and Mama were standing there and the piano was completely fine. I was so happy to see them and bewildered as to how they were able to get home without anybody knowing. I gave Mama and Levi huge hugs and I was just so grateful that they came back for Christmas. 

After they got back, Mama and I went on a Costco and Meijer run to get some food and some extra lights we needed for the candles we were going to set up in the windows of the house. After testing a bunch of our candles we ended up having around 20 light bulbs that didn't work, and we needed a few extra candles also. We worked our way around the house room by room putting up the candles and finding all the extension cords we needed. In the end, the house looked very beautiful and atmospheric with a candle in each window.

If you are wondering, there are about 80 candles in total!

Now with the Scotland Squad back together, plus Oma,  We got out the board games.

We found Guesstures and played it with Mama, Oma and Levi. 

Oma was the star of the show, leading she and Mama to a victory.  

Next up......

Mama, Levi and I played cribbage, I won this game by a little bit.

Mama was green and. none too happy...

Since we were going to spend Christmas morning all together now, we needed to get the house more appropriately decorated.  

Levi, Mama, and I set up the Christmas decorations including the Christmas tree. We had mostly red lights with a few green ones, and we got out the huge collection of ornaments we had and put them on the tree. 

On Christmas eve, Levi and I walked down to the downtown market and got some gifts for Papa and some things to eat on Christmas day. We got a french lemon yogurt cake from the pastry shop and some salted caramel ice cream from Loves Ice cream. 

Oma came over for Christmas eve and brought Moxie with her. Levi and I went on a walk with Oma and Moxie that night and we saw some luminaries set around Pleasant Park and around Heritage Hill. There were a lot of luminaries on Madison street. We saw all of the houses that had Christmas decorations out, and all the trees in the windows.  It was beautiful!

We had a feast that day as we made a charcuterie board with some sausages and cheeses that Mama and I had picked out at the downtown market. We had gone to Apertivo to get some Calabrese salami, an aged goats cheese and a black pepper garlic salami. Oma brought over a summer sausage and some dips to add to the board, we added some vegetables as well.

After the walk all of us watched Home Alone. Mama had never seen it before, and it was a good Christmas eve movie to watch.

Christmas morning we all woke up around 9 AM. Papa came over and we all went into the living room with the Christmas tree. It was beautiful with all the red lights and the angel at the top. We turned the couch around so we could face the tree. There were a lot of gifts under the tree, it was so fun to have Christmas with everyone together, even Moxie. 

Levi gave Mama a mug that he made in school in his Nuvu class that had the Scottish flag on it with a Hello Kitty in the middle of it. 

Mama got me a really good juicer that is able to get higher yield of juice from a ton of different vegetables. It is great for celery, carrots and any hard vegetable.  Levi even got Levi underwear, now he will know which ones are his.  

It was a great Christmas having Mama and Levi back in Grand Rapids. 

Jackson

 

And isn't that the true meaning of Christmas?!  Family and time together.  A true Mama's dream.  This is Kitty with a postscript to Jackson's synopsis.  It was an absolute blast surprising the fam, and we had a beautiful holiday being back in Michigan.   I'm so glad we made it, as it isn't the easiest to travel at this time, but it was certainly worth it.  To all of you friends that I would have loved to see, please know I will make it a point to see you this summer.  This was a quick trip made with the sole intention for Levi to see his dad and for me to see my firstborn son.  I love you all and send you virtual hugs.  Happy New Year and please god let 2022 be the end of covid and all pandemic related chaos!  At least that is my biggest hope for us all.  

❤️💚

Christmas Cracker Kitty