Self Portrait: ‘North Wind’

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There is a line taken from the film adaptation of Chocolat

that as a Third Culture Kid it truly speaks to my nomadic nature.

“But still the clever north wind was not satisfied.

It spoke…of towns yet to be visited, friends in need

yet to be discovered, battles yet to be fought”

I am a free spirit that feels blown to new places.

When you have yet to ever live in one place for longer than a three years,

you wonder if you can ever truly settle down.

Since I have only been in my current location since Christmas,

we will just have to wait and see.

Where do you think I be in two and a half years from now?

Like this self portrait? This was a self portrait I was commissioned to do for Girl Gone International magazine. To see the other self portraits I did for the magazine, check out issue two which is out now.

Are you a Girl Gone International?

Find out from our Facebook page: Girl Gone International on facebook

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DO YOU LOVE SELF PORTRAITS?

I try to do one every week and post on a Saturday.

If you would like to link up with me, add this button to your blog. I would love to see your photography!

Grab button for A Compass Rose's Self Portrait Saturday

Best Week Ever #4

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Another week is wrapping up this summer and it has been quite warm. How hot has it been here in England? Well to give you an idea Betsy at Betsy Transatlantically wrote about it in Heat Wave! I honestly love having a summer in England and I know I will miss it once we go back to freezing in coats for the rest of the year and the beginning of next. I will say that not having AC is making me want to wear not much more than a bikini in the house. At night especially I feel like I am melting.

Wales is also experiencing the heat which means we potentially have a great week ahead of us for our Vow Renewal! I am more than excited about the possibility of not being rained out *knockonwood* and have been getting a nice tan this week in preparation for wearing my white wedding gown again. Overall despite the high heat it has been a really productive week and the last week of school for my boys. After school today my boys are officially on Summer Vacation and that makes this:

the Best Week Ever!

I have been featured on two different blogs this week. Here about The Craziest Thing I Have Ever Done for a Boy with Patricia at Kisses and Croissants and Painting Pictures: Passort to the World with Rachel Pieh Jones at Djibouti Jones. The later is about Third Culture Kids and how I view my past in relation to my future. It was a fun piece to write as I love sharing the insights of being a TCK.

1. Self Portrait Saturday. This Saturday my portrait was entitled ‘In the Wings‘. Which was pretty perfect for the weekend given that I went to my first audition in about nine years. I would have gone sooner but have let my accent hold me back. I’ve finally decided to start really working on softening it and start going to auditions. I grew up in the theatre as a girl and acting became the one constant in my highly nomadic upbringing. I majored in Theatre in Uni and it was how I met my husband. However after having kids and being a military wife I knew I would have to put my passions on hold for a while. Its been really nice to come out of the shadows and start pursing an interest that has been hidden inside for a while.

2. A Perfect Sunday. I love my weekends the best because it is family time. Last sunday we went for a lovely stroll along the canal into town and I posted about it on Sunday. This weekend we spent a perfect Sunday by taking a taxi into town of Lansdown. It is the location of a battle from the English Civil War and we went for a total 8 hour country walk in Lansdown and then walking back to our home.

3. Weekly Wishes. Another entry for the link up with Melyssa from the Nectar Collective. I talked about my situation with the wedding dress I wore ten years ago this August and what I’m attempting to do to wear it again for our vow renewal in Wales.

4. Travel Tuesday. Our Second #TravelTuesday with my beautiful cohost Belinda of Found Love. Now What? was my second part of the Pompeii series. Last week I shared the Darker side of Pompeii and this week I shared the Lighter side of Pompeii. Did you link up?

5. A Moment to Reflect. It is okay to not completely plan out posts. While I tend to have a structure going with my daily posts on ACR, I used this Wednesday to just reflect on life. I talked about how Pinterest was making me rethink my wedding plans and what I am most excited about for the Vow Renewal.

6. Throwback Thursday. My photography post on Thursday was a throwback to my Model of the Month project in 2010 with a LookBook shoot in Hawaii. In the digital age where photos can just be forgotten on hard drives it is nice to bring them out again.

Thinking of Sponsoring for August?

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GOOD READS

f r o m t h i s w e e k

Kayleigh (The Way I Wanderlust): 30 before 30 List

Luchessa (Beauty Expression): Essence Peel off Base Coat

Mrs. B (World Traveling Military Family): Homecoming Photos by a Yellow Ribbon Photographer

Jessica (Jessica Lynn Writes): Loving My Tiger Stripes

Lisa (Expandng): Tips on Photographing Butterflies

Belinda (Found Love. Now What?) Five Lessons I Learned in Paris

Jade (An Invisible Crown) My Top Five London Attractions

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Q: How has this been your Best Week Ever?

Link up for BEST WEEK EVER!

Join the Weekly link up. How has this week been your best week ever?

Share your weekly recaps and add this button to your blog.

RULES:

1. Add this button to your post

2. Join the Linkup

3. Hop around to other participants and share with them your BWE.

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also I am linking up with Casey from We Took the Road Less Traveled:

Photography: LookBook Hawaii Pt. I

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For today’s Throwback photography post I take you to the LookBook inspired shoot with model Kristen in Hawaii. You might remember her from the title image on my post Photography and the Lies I Believed. Kristen was one of several models that partook in my ‘Model of the Month‘ project in 2010, being the cover girl for April. She also modeled with Alysha, the model of the month for March, showcased in my posts the Living Dolls and Colour Pop. For the LookBook series the clothing came from selected choices from her own wardrobe and we shot in and around her home with my lighting setup from AlienBees. It became a part one of a two part shoot as we met up soon after to shoot at Lanikai beach. My favourite moments of the day were making use of the amazing window light coming into the sun room which I used as backlighting against a monochromatic outfit choice.

Q: Which was your favourite Cover option from the three pictured above?

A Moment to Reflect

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We leave for Wales in just nine days and things have begun to get busy around here.

I do not know if we will have wifi while we are away for our Vow Renewal.

So I have been preparing posts and working on a surprise for my readers.

Which I will announce soon.

I love to plan to things.

I was planning my own 30th birthday party last year.

Due to unforeseen circumstances the party fell through

and I was just happy to make it back to England in time

to blow out my candle with my husband.

As I started planning our 10th Anniversary

which quickly became a Vow Renewal celebration

I went on Pinterest to plan out in full force.

Not sure if you have noticed

but I have twelve boards

designated to my ‘I Do Again‘ theme.

Even many of my pins from my 30th Birthday ideas

bled into my vision for a perfect Vow Renewal.

But now that my anniversary is just fifteen days away

I have been avoiding pinterest.

Do not get me wrong I love that site.

But there are just all these things I would have loved to

find

get

buy

make

that when all is said in done is just not practical at this time

I basically am looking around at what is in our house

to make do with for the ceremony.

Yes I still love planning.

Yes I would still love to host amazing stylized parties.

I’m much inspired by Tori Spelling.

She influenced how I did my son’s comic book party.

I would love to host a few parties a year

for friends that love to come to dinner parties

that had all these perfect details.

And play the perfect host.

But

It has made me refocus.

in regards to our vow renewal.

I am happy to just have my family here.

I am under the assumption my husband’s father is still coming.

But his mother has still decided to not come.

I know we cannot force her to be here.

It is still our time of celebration.

It just makes me realize how much I love my family.

And the way they love and accept Ryan unconditionally.

My mum and my sister are flying here to be with us.

My dad will be watching down from heaven.

Our friends from Uni are coming with their kids.

That is what is has become all about…the people.

The memories we will make.

The photographs that will capture the good times.

We are pretty excited to be counting down the days.

My sons wake me up to tell me how many days

until their Nonna gets here.

They bug me to do a google hangout with her

it seems like every other day.

Soon.

So if I seem a bit busy or slow to answer

on the social media front

it is because we are busy in preparation.

I just needed a day to reflect on everything in my head.

Thank you for listening to me today.

Stay tuned for the special surprise.

Also August Sponsorships have opened up!

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Become a Sponsor for August

Pompeii: The Lighter Side [Travel Tuesdays]

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If you caught last week’s Pompeii post, The Darker Side, today is the continuation post of Pompeii, the Lighter Side. If you have not heard my personal connection with Pompeii and the area around Naples, make sure to check out last week’s post for Travel Tuesdays. I really enjoyed Pompeii and took hundreds of photographs. So it has been hard to pick out the favourites to share with you on the blog. I just cannot wait to return again with my sons so that they can experience the history left behind.

Q: Have you ever been to Pompeii?

TRAVEL TUESDAY!

Together with my cohost Belinda from Found Love. Now What?

a Weekly Travel Linkup. Share your Travel stories and wanderlust addictions.

Grab button for A Compass Rose's Travel Tuesdays

Code below or Feel free to save this button to your computer and upload it in your post.

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So happy to introduce you to my Cohost for Travel Tuesday who is also my sponsor this month! Belinda of Found Love. Now What? is an expat blogger living in Wales. If you have not checked out her video logs yet, I highly recommend it when you visit her blog. Her first VLOG: A little Advice on Long Distance Relationships is great as she refers to herself as LDR Veteran.

Her blog: http://www.foundlovenowwhat.com/

Additional Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoundLoveNowWhat

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/FoundLove_Blog

Bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/3990633

Weekly Wishes #3

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Most European calendars start the week on Monday and it is why I love starting off my Mondays with Weekly Wishes. As an update on Weekly Wishes #1, I went on my first audition in nine years yesterday. I know my accent was not perfect, but I still had a lot of fun. In place of being nervous I realised I have a lot of work to do in getting used to cold readings again. There is nothing worse than holding a script in your hand and getting that moment of disconnect when trying to locate the next line. It has fueled the fire of my passion for theatre and I am not searching out for more auditions to attend. I already have one next month circled on my calendar. For Weekly Wishes#2 I have started to make a dent on the weeding out of clothes. Actually I have a great start on my kids’ clothing too! My kids mostly wear school uniforms, dressy casual (jeans and button up dress shirts), and pyjamas. Through outside family they have acquired all these clothes they never wear. I have stacks of brand new clothes that I am going to sell on ebay since the boys will not wear them. So we are getting closer to the finish line with the ‘Spring Cleaning’.

Weekly Wishes # 3

w i s h e s f o r t h i s w e e k

My wedding gown. If you have missed out on the story about my custom made gown I had talked about how the zipper had broken in my ‘Crushed’ Self Portrait post. While I know we could get the zipper fixed I am not going to be able to get a corset in time for our Vow Renewal in a couple of weeks. Since I wore a corset with this dress 10 years ago I have decided to go another route. Today I will be taking out the zipper and attempting to make it a lace back instead. So my weekly wish is that I can accomplish this successfully as we leave on Saturday of next week for Wales. My American expat friend is going to be helping me this week with her sewing machine and we seem pretty confident that we can pull this off. I am going to be wearing flats since we plan to be out in the countryside of Snowdonia and I want to be able to walk without falling down on uneven surfaces. This means I can take up the hem and use that extra fabric to accomplish the goal. Fingers crossed!

Q: What are your Weekly Wishes? Have you linked up?

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Today I would like to introduce you to my beautiful sponsor, Jessica.

She is dear to my heart because she is a fellow USAF wife and is currently stationed in Italy.

You have heard me talk about military moves before, check out her post: 1000 Pounds, What Would You Pack

Her blog: http://www.jessicalynnwrites.com/

Additional Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaLynnWrites

Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaLynnWrites

Bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3943401/jessica-lynn-writes

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