8 Photos of Happiness

I have been nominated for the ‘8 Photos of Happiness Tag’ by Angie Americana over at The Stereotypical American. She's a fellow American Expat living in Copenhagen & she's got an awesome blog!

Here are the guidelines for the tag:
1.Thank your nominator/s and link them in your post.
2. Link the creator Ariel's Little Corner of the Internet
3. Post your 8 photos of happiness
4. Pop in a brief description of the photo, why you chose it, or let the photos do the talking!
5. Spread the happiness and tag up to ten other bloggers!

When we moved I sold my big desktop that had years & years worth of photos on it. Steve backed them up on a hard drive but its probably still in a box so these photos are all recent photos.

This is a photo of my mom, me & Steve in Asheville at the Grove Park Inn hotel. My parents have a home in Asheville and it's one of my favorite places in the world. The weather is excellent, they get all 4 seasons unlike Atlanta. The beer is out of this world - there are so many different breweries and they're all great, I've yet to have a bad one. Tubing up the river is super fun, lay in a tub, drink good local beer & just chat with your fellow floaters aka my ideal summer day.

This is a photo from Steve & my first anniversary photo shoot. To say Steve went kicking and screaming would be the understatement of the year. He is not a fan of getting his picture taken but I really wanted some good photos of us so he agreed. We went to a lovely park near our house in Buford on a super hot day - why we both chose to wear long sleeves and pants I couldn't tell you. We didn't pack the ampersand but now I wish we had it to hang on our wall. 

This is a photo we took at Christmas 2014 of my whole family. From left to right its my brother Peter, Mom, sister Hannah, Dad, me & Steve. The dog being held by Hannah is Steve's old dog Gwen who we gave to friends when we moved to the UK. It was really nice to spend the holidays with everyone in Asheville even though Steve got the flu and spent most of the trip in bed. 

This is one of my favorite photos of my parents & I. We are at the Georgia Dome watching Steve & my alma mater Georgia Southern play Georgia State. We won by a landslide of course! Everyone had a great time.

This is Steve & I at the game. I just noticed we're wearing the same thing we wore for our anniversary pictures... I guess we really like these outfits? Haha. 

This was the way we announced our engagement back in February. Steve proposed at my family's country club when we were having pre flight drinks before we left to come to Reading to look for a place to live. We couldn't get a hold of my sister to tell her the good news so we decided to hold off making the big announcement on Facebook. We knew we were going to get bombarded with notifications when we did so we didn't post the picture until we were flying back to the US. When we landed we have over 500 likes, comments and shares between the two of us. 

My first Shake Shack meal! Steve had promised to take me after he went without me in Boston. There is one in Atlanta but we didn't get a chance to go before we left so we went to the one in Covent Garden. If you haven't been to SS I highly recommend it! We still haven't had the custard or milkshakes but I hear they're amazing!

Unfortunately I can't find the photo we took right after we got engaged so this is as close as I can get for today. This is the picture I took to tell my close friends. Mind you, they all knew so they weren't surprised. I was so thankful I had gotten a nice manicure so this picture looks nice, but if you could see what I was wearing you'd laugh. I looked terrible. 

Now it's my turn to nominate some bloggers to take on this challenge. I'm still getting into the swing of blogging again so I don't have 10 bloggers to tag, but if you read this post and would like to join in  please do!

1. Cole over at Weiner Tales - she was my first follower and her blog is adorable!
2. Jamie at lifeSTYLEsmith - she's my cousin and her style is impeccable!
3. MRM the author of Preppy Girl Meets World - one of the first blogs I ever followed
4. Julie from Across the Ponderings  - an ex-expat in Oxford who's just returned to the US
5. Megan at Megan in the Middle - she's an expat living in France, lucky girl!
6. Sarah & Eddie from Wicked Brilliant - fellow expats living in London

Spilled Milk Photography

If you've been reading my blog I'm guessing you've seen all of the pictures I tend to post with 80% of my entries. I recently got a decent DSLR camera & I've been trying to take better photos and sort of find my artistic voice. I'm not sure how well it's going but I figured I'd give it a try. One day I would love to be a professional photographer but I also know how many talented people share this dream (I searched photography on kick starter last night and got loads of people asking for money to start their dream photography business).

Don't worry, I'm not going to try and hit anyone up for money, though I do know a few good charities if you're thinking of tossing some mullah my way. I have, however, started my very own Etsy shop. If you're not familiar with Etsy its a bit like eBay meets a local craft show. Sort of. I've bought tones of things on there, from vintage pins to shampoo & conditioner to address return labels. All Etsy sellers are small businesses, they either sell vintage items, craft supplies or something they make. As of June I opened my own shop, calling it SpilledMilkPhoto... The full name didn't fit. But I still like it. I don't have any fancy descriptions or shop policies, as of right now I only have 5 photos listed but everyone has to start somewhere. I'm only charging $5 for a pdf of my photos. I'm a tad worried that's even too much but we'll see how it goes. I am going to add some more photos soon and if I ever decide to get crafty watch out, I'll be posting those things too.

The name does seem a bit odd, but I sort of like it. I didn't think Bridget Schiller Photography was exciting enough and BSP just seems like an odd ailment you get in your mouth. I also think one day I can get a cute icon made (hello more Etsy shopping).

If you're interested in any of my photography (Mom, if you're reading this I mean people aside from you) please drop me a line. I am a true beginner but I really enjoy it & if I can't make it a career I can at least make it a good hobby.

Here's a link to my shop: Spilled Milk Photography

Link Up

Link Up Here

Back when I used to blog on my old blog Atl Yankee Belle... not sure if any of my old readers have come over to this blog, but I love a good link up. I feel like its a good way to get some more people reading my blog as well as it gives me a subject to write about (aka I get stumped on topics or I have good topics but not sure they're worthy of a post). 

So this post is about getting to know little old me. Since my blog is still pretty new and I haven't gotten a fancy designer layout I don't have a "all about me" section. 

• I've recently started my own herb garden. Since we don't have any outdoor space, not even a balcony I've had to make do with a windowsill 

•  I'm 5'7, telling your height seems to be a thing for this link up so I figured I should include it 

•  I speak a tiny amount of french. After living in Belgium for 5 years this shouldn't surprise anyone yet Steve was shocked when I spoke french when we visited Belgium last weekend

•  I've recently started my own Easy shop featuring my photography. I'm very much a beginner so I'm not charging much for these pictures but I am hoping to make it a real business Spilled Milk Photography

•  I can't drive a manual car. I tried to learn a few years back in an ancient pick up truck in a field full of goats. Needless to say it was a failure of a lesson and I never went back

•  I am not much of a gamer, I don't play PS4 or Xbox or magic or geeky board games, what I do play is the Sims4. Ive been an avid Simmer since the original came out when I was in 8th grade... not so many years ago

•  I'm an excellent procrastinator aka the reason I started this blog post as opposed to running errands or unpacking or starting one of 3 loads of laundry I need to do today 

•  I hoard collect cook books. I had a huge collection at home, at least 50 or so. Yet I never use them when looking for a recipe, I'm all about google. I only packed about 10, but they're pretty so I can use them to decorate

•  Since I've been in the UK I've made 8 dishes I've never cooked before. I've had plenty to time to find new recipes and online shopping has helped too as I don't have to wonder around the supermarket for hours looking for something

Feel like your readers don't know much about you? Why not join this link up! Don't forget to add your post to the main website