Lark Rise to Candleford

If there's one period drama that has been mentioned to me the most frequently (or scolded for not featuring on this blog), it's Lark Rise to Candleford! So let me hereby officially enter LRTC into the "Enchanted Serenity archives" as a period drama that comes highly recommended! (To clarify, I have seen a few episodes of the first season and have had the best of intentions to catch up to date, so hopefully with this new year I'll make that happen!)

From Wikipedia: Adapted by the BBC from Flora Thompson's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the English countryside, published between 1939 and 1943. The series is set in the small Oxfordshire hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town of Candleford towards the end of the 19th century. In Season Two, episode 17, the date carved on the new clock tower in Candleford is 1895. The series chronicles the daily lives of farm workers, craftsmen, and gentry, observing the characters in loving, boisterous, and competing communities of families, rivals, friends, and neighbours.

The narrative is seen through the eyes of a teenage girl, Laura Timmins (Olivia Hallinan), as she leaves Lark Rise to start a new life under the wing of her cousin, the independent and effervescent Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha), who is Post Mistress at the local Post Office in Candleford. Through these two characters, viewers experience the force of friendship as Laura and Dorcas see each other through the best and worst of times.

** Season 4: Begins January 9 on BBC **
Gabriel (Richard Harrington) joins the cast

BBC Official Site
Unofficial fansite
IMDB

Laura Timmins (Olivia Hallinan)

Emma & Robert Timmins (Claudie Blakley & Brendan Coyle)

Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha)

Pearl & Ruby Pratt ( Matilda Ziegler & Victoria Hamilton)

Sir Timothy Midwinter (Ben Miles)

Lady Adelaide Midwinter (Olivia Grant)

Zillah (Liz Smith)

Caroline Arless (Dawn French)

Robert (Brendan Coyle) will not be seen in Season 4,
we presume he was busy being Lord Crawley's butler at Downton Abbey...

new year, new dreams*

currently: mentally editing my new year's resolutions.

whether you're staying in with take out & drinks - like Carrie & the girls from Sex & the City film - or going all out, wishing all of you a fabulous New Year's !

1.1.11*

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2011!

Another year has come and gone! Hard to believe it. Time really does seem to fly. I want to wish every visitor of The Best Damn Blog a very Happy New Year! I hope 2011 brings happiness, health and blessings to everyone. Can't wait to see what this new year has in store for us.

Modern Cup Designs

Modern mugs and creative mug designs from all over the world,availble on 2011....

My Blogger Resolutions for 2011

I've been writing a list of my New Year's Resolutions for 5 days now and it's still not done. It's not that I have that much of them, it's only that I really have to think through every single aspect of my life and set a realistic goal - and now I want to do the same with my blogger life.
I've been blogging since July 15. It means I've been a blogger for five and a half months now - yayy, soon to be celebrating a half year anniversary :) - and my blogging skills really developed over the months, it can be seen pretty clearly if you check my first 10-15 posts. I didn't really know what to write about and how to write about it, it wasn't clear to me what my (then non-existing) readers might've been interested in and I just took morsels of news and told my opinion about them, basically. Nowadays I almost always have a concrete topic for each of my posts and I've been trying to be a little more qualitative lately.
Design-wise, MFLL's first design was made by me entirely, though I haven't the foggiest idea how to use HTML codes and stuff like that. I just used jpeg images right, I guess it was luck. The second design wasn't really me, it was the blue and brown one, and now this pink-ish design is, let's say, okay. 

Considering all those above, I drove to the conclusion I should make the following resolutions for 2011:
1.) I'll go a bit more pro. I'll try to write really qualitative articles, I'll try to write about useful things, I'll try to write unique articles. I'll use capital letters and will really think about tagging posts before publishing.
2.) I'll leave 250 comments on other blogs a month. It's gonna pretty much force me to get to know new blogs and bloggers (which is also a pleasure for me of course) and will extend the circle of MFLL's readers as well. Also, I might make people feel good by leaving comments and I might even say something useful once in a while.
3.) I'll get to know my readers more and will try to build a community of my readers. Of course it takes a bit more followers and a little more stabile reader basis, but I really do believe I can do it. I will e-mail the commenters, I'll ask for my readers to submit articles and stuff like that, thus I can get in contact with them and get to know them.
4.) I'll have 300 followers by December 31, 2011. I mean, I could get a hundred and one followers in 5.5 months. I need about two times the same amount to accomplish this, which means it's gonna take about 11 months, and then I'm still gonna have a month to get even more. Yaayy.
5.) I'm gonna post at least 2 real articles a week. I've been posting approximately 10 posts a week until now, but they were short and full of photos and stuff, so it's actually a positive change that I'll post 2 real articles a week, since I posted a real article every 2 months until now. Or something like that.
6.) I will continue the My Recent Favorite Blogger series. I promised you I'll do it every month for a week but it pretty much...never happened. I will do it in 2011.

Okay I think that's pretty much it.
What are your resolutions for 2011? I can't wait to read about them. :) xo

Santa, Baby! :-) Christmas At My House.

 I hope all of you had the most beautiful Christmas this year. :-) Mine was somewhat full of unexpected occurrences, but I spent Christmas Day at home with my family sharing happy moments and celebrating this beautiful day :-) I thought I would post some pix of my Christmas home and my favorite gifts too.:-)

 This caricature of Ray and I makes me smile endlessly. It was made by a very talented artist by the name Garrett.I love my cleavage in this picture.:-)))

 I am always looking forward to opening my gifts first thing in the morning. In this regard I am probably still 5 and can't help it.:-)

I fell in love with my new pair of Nina Rici gray suede platform pumps. They are absolutely gorgeous!:-) Ray knows me all too well!:-)

And my beautiful snow white Givenchy blouse. :-)

 I immediately had to put my new Nina Ricci shoes in my "favorite shoes" shoe case. I think they are a work of art!

   I know that Santa is reading this and I just want to say Thank you, Ray, for being so fantastic and going into the whole other scary Nina Ricci shopping adventure. I will be looking forward to Spring to wear this beauties.

 This year Anastasia and I decided to decorated house in blues and gold. Both of us miss Russia and we wanted to bring just a little bit of Russian winter into the house. :-)

 One of our favorite traditions is to open Christmas crackers. They are a lot of fun and each one of them has a tiny surprise inside.

 Anastasia and I usually take turns and make wishes with each opened cracker. :-)

 I do have a lot of art work from the House of Dior. This particular collection of the images always inspires me so much!

 Do you remember my poor Miss Lanvin? Well, I got the new one and it now lives on the shelf with all my Vogues .

 We also love to play vinyl discs. :-) We found this vintage Victrola in one of the tiny vintage stores in New York and brought it home with us. :-)

 This is Midnight and he loves to sleep under the Christmas tree. :-) We have 5 cats living with us all rescued and previously abandoned or abused animals. Each one of them is so precious!Each has its own character. Midnight here, for example, loves Mexican burritos!:-)

 Little Mo enjoyed a lot of snow! We literally could not keep him in the house!He spent his Christmas laying outside in the snow and chasing snowflakes!

With new 2011 almost here I want to wish everybody beautiful and very Happy New Year! Let it be one of the happiest years of your life!:-)))