brit abroad in USA

What a weekend of world events!

2011-05-02T15:27:00.000-04:00

So the weekend started with the excitement and jubilation of a beautiful royal wedding. I had not intended to get sucked into it, but found when I turned the TV on at 6.50am on Friday morning and had missed the ceremony, I was gutted.
I spent the next few hours googling it, watching The Kiss, the drive in the Aston Martin and later, catching the whole thing again on BBC America. All while singing Jerusalem really loud and annoying my Hubs.

My son huffed and puffed and went to bed early.

Too funny not to post

Then the weekend ended with the very sobering news of the death of Public Enemy Number 1, Osama bin Laden, killed by US troops last night, or at some point over the weekend. Justice indeed served, and I can relate to the relief and calm expressed this morning by some of the family of 9/11 Victims.

The conspiracy theories are pretty predictable, their scripts could have been written a week ago or even a year ago. Blah blah. Personally I think a quick burial at sea limits the matyrdom that will surely come and the chances of a permanent shrine.

What I find disturbing is the parties all over the country. Don't get me wrong - I believe taking out this evil was necessary. But I also believe in a poker face & a little sense here that more people are dead. Ten years ago we were disgusted at the cheers and parties held in the Middle East that were shown on our TV, celebrating and jeering about the 9/11 attacks.

I personally think we should be taking the higher moral ground, and not be doing the same thing. And moral high ground or not, I am sure the images of students dancing in the streetsof DC chanting "USA! USA!" will be splashed all over Middle Eastern news as a blast at our baying for Arab blood. More fodder for the budding hater of the West.

So I've had a feeling of trepidation all day. At the morality of our society, at what we deem worthy of a street party, and of what may come. I hope I am wrong.

eReader1: Kindle eBook Giveaway at eReader1

2011-04-11T18:11:00.000-04:00

Over at eReader1, I am running a Kindle ebook giveaway, up to $25 of ebooks from the Kindle 100 Top Seller list and the Kindle NYT Bestseller list.

If you own a Kindle (in any country) you are eligible to enter! See eReader1 for rules and learn how to get more entries!

Credit Scores, again

2011-04-01T09:26:00.000-04:00

A quick follow up to my post the other day about credit scores and the importance of knowing your credit reports and if possible, your score.

This morning, Today Show has covered the topic very briefly in their segment "Foolish Money Mistakes" and mentioned something I missed: that landlords and potential employers may also look at your record. Landlords is understandable... if you're in loads of debt, been declared bankrupt before, you are more of a risk to not pay your rent etc.

But what about potential employers? Surely more debt means you work harder. Right? Well as an employer, I say, Actually no. Employers understand that job losses or pay cuts mean you've been buying groceries and paying bills with your credit card. I've done it before too. They are not looking for a clean and clear history. What employees want to see is how it's being managed, are you responsible, do you care, are you burying your head in the sand on purpose or are you just in over your head?

In our experience, the more badly managed debt an employee has, generally we see one of two things:

1) they don't care about paying bills and are therefore irresponsible and also won't care about their job;

2) they care a lot about their bills but are so worried that they are less focused on the job, always worrying, always stressing... and after the 3 month probationary is over? The pay rise requests start. The snarky comments about "Well you can afford it, you have a nicer car than me!" That may be aimed at co-workers or bosses. Then if they screw up and their job is at risk? The emotional blackmail... "I'll be on the streets if I lose my job."

*sigh* This is just from my experience of course. And not just once or twice: I've come across both of these situations a few times, and it's a royal pain. So yeah, I understand employers running credit checks - doesn't mean they'll run a mile when they see some unpaid medical bills and some credit cards, but they will be looking for signs of how you deal with it & a credit score is just the thing to tell them that.

Went to a Christian concert....

2011-03-31T20:29:00.000-04:00

Last concert I went to was, I think, sometime in the 1990s and a rock/ grunge band with lots of moshing going on. So what happens as I approach my 40s? I go to Christian concerts :)

Album: Recovery

Our church's secondary campus is a large-ish building, an old supermarket in fact and seats about 700 - I get my religion in a strip mall! I'd never actually been to a Christian concert before but Jeremy Casella came in the morning to lead our service in worship and singing. Wow, he was good! So we followed up in the evening too and joined him at his concert. So, we weren't dancing in the aisles and it was a very different experience but we had an inspiring evening of worship and really great music. Casella has a very nice voice (reminds me of Crowded House a bit. Remember them?) and is brilliant with his acoustic guitar.

I wasn't sure what to expect though, I admit. Christian music to me is usually hymns (which I love but I don't have them on CD) or whiny/ preachy country and western (which I can't stand). But this is neither whiny nor judgmental, just great music. Soulful, folksy at times, meaningful and with some lovely melodies. Check out some of the samples at Amazon!

Expat Stuff: Growing a credit score

2011-03-29T09:05:00.001-04:00

I've meant to write a post on this for some time, but I saw this free ebook today Your Credit Score, Your Money & What's at Stake (Updated Edition): How to Improve the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future and it prompted me to go ahead. This is free for Kindle, but you don't need a Kindle to read it. You can get a free app for your PC, iPad, certain cell phones etc and read it there.

For new expats, navigating the 3 different credit bureaus in US can be difficult. Getting certain types of accounts can be difficult, mortgages and credit cards? Near impossible.

There are ways to get started, types of accounts you can get to slowly build your credit rating, and your score: a method that credit agencies use to rate how credit worthy you are. It's based on a combination of what types of accounts you have (loans, some utility bills, contracted bills - like cell phones, bank accounts, store cards, credit cards, car loans etc), then looks at your balances, your upper limits, the time you've had the accounts and your payment history.

It can be hard to manage. You have the right accounts... but the wrong limits. Too high limits and you're a risk: you could max everything out and run off to a desert island. Too low and they wonder why?

Store cards, just one or two, and a utility bill in your name can get you started - manage them for a while, show a positive credit history and you can build up to other things. But a high score is useful in other ways too: when you come to get a mortgage - or even car insurance - the higher your score, the better rates of interest or car insurance rates you can get!

It's important to keep track of your reports, even after you're established with a good score. Mistakes get reported to your record, for example. You can get a free copy of your report from all 3 agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) at http://AnnualCreditReport.com. This is the official site to get a free report once per year - no need to provide credit card details unless you want your score also.
Other sites that require credit cards and free trials may be good sites but aren't the same. But some are good and offer monthly monitoring and access. That's up to you if you want to join but it's not always necessary.

If you ever see me complain about being too busy...

2011-03-21T14:47:00.000-04:00

If you ever see me complain about being too busy... tell me to shut up, will ya?

Like a moron, I just agreed to add more to my Stuff To Do, this time agreeing to join some kind of committee at church, helping with designing flyers and bulletin boards and arranging groups/ meetings.

Don't ask me why I agreed to take on more. I already do some Sunday School teaching, go to a small bible group, joined the team for Operation Christmas Child for later in the year, and... and... oh my, there's another one that Hubs & I do and he reminded me of, but I have forgotten already. I am sure I put it on my phone's calendar so I'll be okay :-)

How did this come about? My stupid enjoyment of surveys. Yeah I am one of those people who likes filling out surveys. We got one for church, asking what we like / don't like, and I spent about an hour thinking of my answers, making suggestions. *sigh* So my suggestions were so good (or rather, no-one else made any)... why don't I help put them in place! I guess put my money/ actions where my mouth is, right?

Oh it will be fun! I just might have even less time for blogging. I'll try not to abandon y'all though!

Spring is almost here... and I am overwhelmed!

2011-03-16T08:43:00.000-04:00

I am overjoyed that Spring is almost here. We're starting to put the past year behind us and look forward to the rest of this year. My brain fog is clearing, and I realize that I've actually lost quite a bit of memory. At work, I see the names of our biggest clients of last year and think, who? I look at the calender and see events on there that I don't recall. It's a bit scary. [The worst downside is that I can't win an argument... everyone knows my brain has been mush, and that means I can't remember what I did say or didn't say, and to whom!]

But along with being overjoyed for Spring, I am also overwhelmed. I have so much to do!! For one thing, I am months behind my work goals.... I have only just finished the year end stuff that I usually have done by January 5th! And that's the important stuff I was focused on!

At home, we had plans for the house that should have been finished by February and are nowhere near. We knocked down the old fireplace in September and still haven't rebuilt. For Christmas, we threw some fabric over it and it's still there. If I uncover it, maybe we'll be prompted to act!

I look at the list on that blog post of 'things to do before Christmas', and after new door, we stopped. So still no curtains, no carpet, no window or door trims, no light in the ceiling, just a hole. ack.

On top of that, we've been promising Daughter a slumber party since her birthday.... in October. And we've told peeps we're having a big BBQ at the start of Summer... which means finishing ^^^these renovations ^^^ and starting new ones!! That also means finishing the bathroom I started in 2007!! (In fairness, I got sick 80% through the bathroom job, and it took weeks to recover; after which I had no motivation to hand mirros and shelves and put all the trim back, and 4 years later, the drywall is now all messed up).
Having a party also means painting the kitchen! And what about all the personal goals I set for the year? And when on earth am I supposed to be booking our vacation?!

Message Stones, SJEngraving

Yesterday I made a major boo-boo at work. I was trying to get an easy task done quickly, flying through some website tasks I've done a thousand times. And I clicked an edit button, flew through whatever pop up came up, yes yes yes, hurry up.... when my stomach suddenly dropped. I'd hit Delete. OMG! I deleted an entire category of products on one of our websites! I was supposed to be adding a new subcategory and instead I wiped one of our major lines and everything beneath it. Nnnoooooo!! UNDO UNDO UNDO. CTRL Z. Backspace. Go back.

Useless. It's gone. I spent the rest of the day planning how to put it all back together and putting the rest of my work on hold.

Am I doing too much? Or just being a whiny wimp? I think the latter but maybe I am being too hard on myself. Thing is, I don't know what to take out... which of the 'things to do' do I not need to do. Maybe we'll scale back the vacation idea and hire a contractor, or a maid?? (Oh a maid, I wish!!)

Clocks, Mothers and Trees

2011-03-11T19:48:00.002-05:00

Okay, heads up. Clocks go forward this weekend. I love going into Daylight Savings Time, the lighter evenings. But I kinda wish it wasn't this weekend. I have loads to do on little sleep (see below), with a stinking headache, and I don't want to miss an hour of sleep tomorrow night. Usually I'd just sleep my regular hours, but I have to take my daughter to 5 church services over the weekend including an early church service on Sunday for a performance. I have to leave at 7.45am, so my brain will think it's 6.45 which is too early on a Sunday. Just sayin'!

stayinbedlady.com

Mothers.... heads up! Mothers day in UK is coming up!! If you are smart (unlike me) you'd've bought a card last May during US Mother's Day, but if you're like me you'll be trawling the shops looking for a nice blank card that you can adapt.
Also check out my page for International Gift Giving and mailing!

Finally....

Yeah, we still have snow. More of it. Can't really complain given that across the world, a major earthquake and tsunami have devastated lives, so I won't complain. I check myself and count my blessings every day!!

So just sharing what happened... last night, I couldn't sleep. I was lying awake at 1.30am when I heard a thud. Not too loud, but kinda like someone falling out of bed. I checked the house, but nothing seemed to be wrong. As I was walking back to bed, I looked out a window in the dining room (we still don't have curtains) and cried, "Holy *##@#*!!" There, against the window, was a big tree. An 80ft wild cherry tree had fallen across the yard, over the chicken coop and was poking into the window.

View from the DR window

The girls in the coop were fine, other than having 2 branches through the wall and roof, and the heavy coop being pushed back a foot and a half!

We lose a lot of trees, but not usually so close to the house. We are surrounded by 100+ acres of woods and hills, so we have our own little microclimate going on: damp, several degrees colder then the rest of the town, but not windy. We lose trees on the hill to wind but by the house, if we lose them it's usually due to terrifying lightning!

No lightning last night; just soft mud from days of rain and then the weight of a lot of sudden snowfall. I didn't get back to sleep till nearly 5am. Then I heard the kids up at 6am, Son yelling "Holy cow! Sis, come look!" And so we all got up...

The Power of De-Stressing

2011-03-04T13:27:00.001-05:00

I don't know if de-stressing is a word in our ever changing language, so if it's not, please don't write and let me know. I am using it and loving it.

There are many levels of stress, and I think I can honestly say that my family has been through some of the worst stress possible in the past year. Not looking for sympathy or gonna explain much about it, suffice to say it was hell on earth and I wouldn't want anyone in the world to suffer it.

Over the year, I also gained weight. A lot. A continuous gain that was consistent and looked like it wasn't going to stop. My eating habits didn't change much, maybe I ate less even. But every time I got on the scale, I'd jumped a pound or two. A couple of weeks ago, I realized I'd gained over 30 pounds, and that just gave me something else to worry about. I was almost at the point of thinking sod it, I can't stop this, might as well make it worthwhile and eat junk I like! I started to see how maybe people got to Biggest Loser level of weights.

Well something happened recently that took away an enormous amount of stress in all of our lives. The atmosphere in our home has lightened and we feel hopeful, for the first time in ages. Rather than forcing myself out of bed, forcing myself to do things with the kids, I am wanting to live a fun life again.

And guess what? I hopped on the scale earlier this week and for the first time in a year, the number had gone down. By 2. Hmmm. Curious. First drop in many many months. So I've weighed myself each day this week... and every day so far has seen a drop. WOW. I haven't exercised or eaten any differently, but there it is, my weight steadily dropping so that I've lost 6.5 pounds in less than a week.

I can only attribute it to the power of stress. Maybe my body had gone into survival mode and was clinging to every morsel, every calorie. And now it doesn't need to anymore so it's shedding the excess! I hope so!! Our bodies are pretty darn incredible really. While it drove me nuts to be gaining that weight, it was my body's way of looking out for me when I wasn't. I'll never look gorgeous in a bikini but so what? It's about being healthy and feeling great, right?

It really is a small world!!

2011-03-02T21:12:00.000-05:00

Holy smokes! If I were a gambler, I wouldn't have put any money on the chance of this happening!

I've been following the blog of Almost American for some time, and she's been following mine. We're both expats, both fed up with snow and are waiting for Spring, and have a few things in common.

But what are the chances of this? Almost American made a post about a town in England where I went to school. And I made a post about where I used to go shopping. And what did we discover? Almost American and I grew up close by. Not only in the same peninsula, or even the same town... but the same road!! About 15 houses away from each other, I'm guessing. I lived in that road till I was about 10, before moving a whopping couple of roads away.

Wow, what memories it's brought back! Riding my bike down to the shops to buy something from the green grocers or Spar, or Nanna giving me a note to buy her cigarettes LOL. Riding my bike on the marshes, trying to get to Wales. There were huge gullies on the marsh and my friend Valerie and I would get scared of the rare tide coming in and trapping us! Taking little footpaths between houses and ending up in a different road. Walking to school and going by a scary empty house and walking through a fenced off area at the end of the road, that we weren't supposed to go through (do you remember that on the corner, opposite the church?)

I used to be out on my bike all the time when I lived in that road. Under 10 and I was out in the morning and came home at dinner time, usually when the street lamps came on. Oh how I wish my kids could have that much freedom. It taught us how to get out of tangles and scrapes before Mum found out, and how to entertain ourselves with nothing but a bike or a random swingrope hanging from a tree over the centuries old wall by the old mines.

What fun! Great memories!

Shopping Here Versus There

2011-03-01T19:47:00.002-05:00

Thought I'd share a visual look at one of the differences in my life: shopping in my hometown in America versus my hometown in England. Yes. I am aware there are crappy places in UK, and gorgeous places in America. But it's my From and To.

From.

I grew up near the historic Roman and Norman City of Chester. Truly beautiful, the shops and stores have stood the hard test of time: 7 or 8 centuries actually. This is downtown Chester...

That's not a faux Tudor. These were built in the 13th century with upgrades
through the centuries. No plywood allowed.

Weekend shopping

I love the wide pedestrian zones. No cars, no taxis, no buses. Just people. That does mean leaving the car and walking.

Pedestrian Zone


Shops below, and steps up to Chester Rows: unique 2 level shopping

One of the narrower and smaller upper Rows

Below: The Upper Rows of the past

Once upon a time... in the upper Rows

Beautiful, hey? Mum and I used to go about once a month when I was growing up. Even if we didn't go in many shops, it was nice to walk around, have a coffee, listen the the Town Cryer at noon, and walk the Rows on a rainy day.

To

So now I live in a really small town, population a couple of hundred. I figured there's nothing to show from there, so some nearby towns.....

Practical, if not pretty

Lots of parking. No need to walk!

Bragged as an architectural highlight of the strip mall

Kinda looks like the last one, huh? Not the same place though.

No strips malls. Historic Downtown.

*sigh*

Meet Me On Monday Meme

2011-02-28T12:43:00.005-05:00

I don't do many Meme's, but feeling meme-ish so I am joining in one from Java at Never Growing Old who frankly has far more energy than me on a Monday morning.Thought I'd join in something light because life has been heavy lately.

Questions:

1. What are you wearing right now?

Um, no I haven't been wearing them all weekend but I am in my PJs. Hubs let me sleep a little late this morning, and I am sipping coffee thinking I must shower and go to work.

They are nice PJs though... though I guess I didn't buy a set so I've had to chop up photos of the top and bottoms, from Simply Vera Wang at Kohls.

Um, note that I wrote this at 8am. It's now afternoon as I finish up the post. I hasten to add I am now in jeans and jumper. :)

2. Do you have any freckles?

No but I have loads of moles. Hundreds. If I lived in the 13th century, or even 1800s, I would have been burned at the stake.

"Examination of a witch" 1853
Thompkins H. Matteson, painter

As I Googled for images, I see how obsessed people get with moles, people blogging what to do about an "ugly" mole on a kid's leg or arm. Weird! I guess having grown up with so many, they don't bother me at all.

3. What is your favorite Lifesaver flavor?

Um. I've never eaten them. Sorry. I have been disappointed in most American sweeties so I tend not to bother.
I do like Fruit Gums though. I wonder if they are the similar? I lost a filling to one once, sitting in a Physics class at school. I couldn't say anything because I wasn't supposed to be eating sweets in class.

4. What is the last movie you saw in the theater?

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 1.
Loved it. It's still showing at our mall cinema so I might go again. It's 1/2 the price of Regal so not a bad night out.

5. Would you rather live without TV or without music?

Hmmmm. That's a hard one because I don't do much of either, though I spend many nights on the couch with the TV on, I am usually reading or on the internet. A harder question would have been would I rather live without Kindle or Internet? (Easy actually, I'd keep my Kindle over all of it.)

How I feel watching too much TV

I have a few fave TV shows, and I listen to music in the car but I don't drive that much anymore. So I probably watch TV more than listen to music. But if I had to pick, I'd prefer to ditch TV. I could probably get rid of TV completely and not care that much.
Living without music would also mean living without song, singing, humming and all the annoying songs that spin round my head, so things would be quite quiet and I'd miss it.

Wanna join in? Write your post then link to it in the fancy linky thingy below... cleverly all the other blogs that use the fancy linky thingy then also get your link, and Java - the one with more energy than me on a Monday morning, gives a shout out to the best one.

Participating blogs....

Did my legs gets shorter?

2011-02-27T08:29:00.001-05:00

I did get out of my jammies yesterday & went shopping for some new jeans, as I am down to 2 pairs of pants that fit. I'm frustrated. I like a particular pair of Levis that I own, and wanted more of them in different colors... they come in casual wash-type all the way to smart indigo blue and black. So I ordered 3 pairs in all the same size. I was reeaaaallllyyy frustrated that of the 3 pairs, only 1 fit. The other 2 were completely different lengths.

Thinking this was just a glitch, bad stock, whatever, I went on the hunt shopping. I found them in Sears and tried them on, same size, different colors. Lo and behold, they are different lengths. What the heck, Levi? I know they are made in third world countries but surely they follow a pattern, right? Please. I'd rather pay $15 more and have them made right.

So, maybe too-long jeans are all the rage?

So, on I hunt. I tried different brands, and even different pants; smart ones, casual. You name it, I tried it. But I couldn't find anything that didn't make me look like a kid trying on mom's clothes: they were all massively too long. Even if I wore heals (rare!!) I'd still be walking on the back of them.

Why is this? Did I get shorter or is that how are made now? I think they look stupid and just bag around my ankles making my legs look a weird shape. I finally found a pair that fit. I don't like them much but they fit, and that will have to do. As I look for photos of too-long-pants online, I see a gazillion other people complaining so maybe the designers should listen up!

Hem Tape, Bristol 6

I found this hem tape online, that lets you temporarily hem jeans at different lengths so you can wear them with flats or heels. I'm not sure how it's different from double-sided sticky, but I am considering trying it.

Anyone have any tips? I wonder whether to just buy what I like and take them to a tailor, if I can find a tailor in my neck of the woods.

Let's get out of the jim jams, shall we? And bring Love, not War

2011-02-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

so it's nearly noon on Saturday and I am still in my PJs. I've had 3 big mugs of coffee, read some blogs and thought about doing some laundry. Especially since during the week we could not put water down any drains. We were having work done on the septic tank that was supposed to take 8 hours. That started Monday. It actually finished Thursday, which meant we were all a big gross and smelly (sponge baths don't cut it) and the laundry baskets are overflowing.

I am torn between enjoying the break in the weather - it's 40 degrees; watching movies all day; having a massive spring clean; or depressing myself by looking at house prices in England. I thought they'd had a housing slump over there. You wouldn't know it by the prices. Holy crow!

I'm trying to get my mind off my Evil Eldest Sister, so I should probably go out and enjoy the weather. I just don't want to come back to a messy house. In my mind, I keep writing letters to my family, then delete them when I remember that...

“Do not those who plot evil go astray?
But those who plan what is good
find love and faithfulness.”
- Proverbs 14:22

and

"Hatred stirs up conflicts
but love conquers all offenses"
- Proverbs 10: 12

but most applicable, since I'm not really planning evil, just telling some truths...

"The one who corrects a mocker
will bring dishonor on himself
the one who rebukes a wicked man will get hurt.
Don't rebuke a mocker or he will hate you;
rebuke a wise man and he will love you."
- Proverbs 9: 7-8

I happened to read these yesterday and they seemed incredibly relevant, so I take it as Divine Intervention and stop myself writing something I may later regret.

So that leaves me with.... go do some laundry, shower, dress and get my lazy miserable butt outside and embrace my surroundings while I have the chance.

3,000 miles, 8 years and rose-tinted relationships

2011-02-24T19:31:00.003-05:00

I come from a pretty large family by today's standards, or at least by today's standards in UK: 3 sisters and a brother. People often assume that means we'd all be close and have fun family memories. That's pretty much not true at all. They are all older than me, by 9 to 18 years and by the time I'd grown to an age of making memories, they'd pretty much moved out. My eldest sister is more like just someone I know; we just share biology and some loud Christmas dinners.

We had a big fight once, my Big Sis and I. She's always been a bully, always. People would groan and leave the room when she'd show up. She's one of those people that just has to get her way, be heard above all else. When my brother was 4, Mum took him to the doctor because he never talked. The doctor spent some time examining and observing. He finally said, "There's nothing wrong with him other than his older sister won't let him speak." That's the story of her life. Telling everyone what to do.

But nearly 8 years ago, we had a fight. I was 30 years old and she stood in my house yelling and shouting and being downright vile. I did something I am really ashamed of: I hit her. Well actually I threw the Yellow Pages at her and we had something of a cat fight, and I kicked her out my house with Good Riddance. I felt both horrified at what I'd done and oddly liberated. For the first time in my life, I actually stood up to my eldest sister.

from Legaljuice.com

It took a few years for me to calm down. After much begging by my mother, I also apologized. I was sorry. It was the only time in my life I'd hit anyone, let alone a woman approaching 50, and I wish I'd had a little more self control to not rise to her bait. I was ashamed of myself.

So all was forgiven. I decided that 3,000 miles of ocean between us was good enough, that I wouldn't burn the bridge for my kids' sake as well as my Mum's, and that we could suffer through the twice-a-decade visit. Indeed, my last visit in 2008 was fine. We smiled, air-kissed, swapped photos. And waved goodbye.

I'm currently planning a trip home, and emailed friends and family letting them know my tentative dates. Imagine my recent shock to get an email from Big Sis, telling me what on earth made me think she wanted to see me again. HUH? I was pretty mad at first. Wrote a reply but deleted it. Penned a letter but tore it up. Wrote a blog post and saved it in drafts. Then calmed down and thought, Nevermind. Who needs her, right? She's not part of my life, and the Christmas card won't be missed.

As I started to get on with it, I noticed my Mum being a little cool on the phone. She started to say things that were a bit odd about my trip, like she didn't know when she'd be home or on holiday. Eventually I left a message on her machine saying, "Hey, I know Big Sis doesn't want to see me. Don't worry about it, I'll stay out of her way. I'm fine about it." Because I was. I'm a big girl now and there's no love lost between us.

from Feminist.com Female Bullies

But they weren't. See, not content with deciding not to see me, Big Sis has decided my mother can't see me either. And since Big Sis is one of the three who helps out my 75 year old mother, and I'm the one who abandoned the family to live in another country, I lose. I got the email this morning from mum via my next-to-youngest Sis saying, forgive me, hope you understand.

Wow. I mean. WOW. I am crushed. I feel like an orphan. Worse. At age 38, I feel utterly abandoned by my mother!

I didn't do much constructive all day today. I wrote about 6 letters to my mum, each one shorter than the rest. The final one being a simple, I forgive you.

What else to do? She's my mum. I can't ask her to choose a daughter, beg her to pick me after all, I'm the nicer one. Or tear her heart up with emotional anger.
But, though I once kicked a bully out of my house, today I kick her out of my life. My family just got a bit smaller today because life's too hard already to let hateful people in.

What's cookin' good lookin'?

2011-02-22T19:33:00.001-05:00

If you're a follower of this blog, you'll know I don't much enjoy cooking. It's not that I can't cook, or even won't cook. I just don't like it very much. Mostly I don't like that other people don't love my food. If I spend an hour chopping, blanching, frying, whipping and dressing, then I expect oohs and ahhs at the table.

Ramsey brings Masterchef to US

Given that the family all have different tastes - Daughter loves pasta, Son loves spicy foods, Hubs likes meaty - then it's hard to satisfy everyone at once. Someone won't love what I make.

Add to that, a crazy workload and I just can't be bothered. When my work assistant went on maternity leave last year, Hubs basically took over that household chore from me. Now that my assistant is back part time, I have realized I need to pick it up again.

We also need to save some money. We need to meet our 2011 financial goals, save for a trip to UK and somehow meet a tithing limit we've recently decided upon. I'd recently read Living Rich by Spending Smart, which gave me a few ideas of places we can cut back. And one way is food spending.

We hardly eat out, but we're not frugal either. We throw away food that's shoved to the back of the fridge and I have no clue what we have in the freezer, or what half of the gazillion cans are in some cupboards.

So I have started menu planning. I invested less than $20 by joining Allrecipes.com. I've used the free version before, but the paid version lets me click recipes into a menu planner and shopping lists, then sorts the lists into categories.

With that, I skipped my regular supermarket and drove to Aldi. I managed to fill more than half my list there, with off-brand labels and a few name brand too. Surprisingly, the oranges we bought there were the tastiest I have had for many years. We saved about 30% on that part of our food bill, so great news. As for the rest, we shopped sales.

So far, the recipes have been a great success. Mostly because I am organized. I know what I am cooking, there's no 5 o'clock panic and I have a recipe. Last night it was delish Chicken Fajita melt, and tonight Lemon Chicken and rice.

Chicken 'fajita' melt

I hope to lose weight too. I have a lot to lose before I can visit my Mum!

Stylish Blogger Award!

2011-02-21T19:27:00.001-05:00

And a big thanks to my blog pal, SenoraG from Reading, Reading & Life, for my new Stylish Blogger Award! It looks purty, eh?

I am a terrible blog reader. I have so little time to write the blogs I write and still try to get round all the blogs I follow. I'd have more time, but for work, kids and um, Farmville, but what can you do? So I know I am doing an injustice to some great blogs by not passing this on to many more! But I will pass it on to a beautiful blog written by Laura, an American in England writing Happy Homemaker UK.
Laura's blog is just so darn pretty to look at, not only gorgeous photos but it's so nice to see how well she's doing the reverse of me... and she seems to do immigration with so much style, too! Check out her blog!

Genning up on US History

2011-02-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

I've decided that it's about time I learn more of America's history. I know some but most of what I learned at school was 20th century US history. I pick bits up from the kids' social studies homework and tests, but I feel it's time I get beyond Basics 101.

I am starting with the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I started reading them last night and I guess I knew more than I thought because not much of it came as a surprise to me. What prompted my new interest was my recent lack of confidence standing up to someone whom I felt was giving out inaccurate information about American law, history and people's rights. Usually I don't get involved but this was during a group meeting I attend and I just didn't think I knew enough to tell the person to stop.

As it turned out, my silent protests were accurate. The debate was about separation of church and state and whether or not the Constitution really demands this. Their argument was that the First Amendment doesn't preclude Government making religious decisions and, citing Sarah Palin as source, that nowhere did the Founding Fathers mention separation of church and state in the Constitution.

The First Amendment doesn't use the term "separation of church and state", that term wasn't coined until a few years later. Instead it states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" In other words, government can't create a religious body - or even a law about doing so - nor restrict anyone's right to worship. It was a few years later that Thomas Jefferson, in a letter explaining this Amendment to religious leaders, said .... "and thus creating a wall of separation between Church and State." This phrase later came to be a catchphrase for this right of religious freedom, reasonably cited in legal cases for the next couple centuries as being the intention behind the clause.

As with most laws, they are expanded as years pass, very often by legal cases in court. Later this would be brought up in many debates, such as whether or not a local government can celebrate one religious holiday while excluding another; or whether that local government can permit the use of state property for one religious festival but deny it for another. Given that the Ninth Amendment specifies that the Bill of Rights is not comprehensive and just because something might be missed out doesn't mean it's excluded, it is quite acceptable that civil rights not even thought of 200 years ago might be re-considered down the road. So as it stands, for example, my town has a Christmas parade every year that is sponsored by a private company. The town gets closed off and Main Street becomes a Christmas festival. The City issues a permit for this. As such, if a non-Christian group requested a similar permit for their religious festival, it could not be denied on religious grounds. To deny it would be granting different rights to different groups based on religious beliefs and thereby a government body is choosing one religion over another, and although not establishing a religion, it is denying one rights while permitting them for another.

So yeah, those who want a religious state can split hairs about the terminology within the Establishment Clause; but the intention is quite clear in that it delivers religious freedom from government, even from the God-fearing Founding Fathers. America's colonists were made up of a great many Europeans escaping religious doctrines & persecution; seeking the right to worship one's own way was a big deal in Colonial America and the new United States.

Personally, I don't want a government to tell me who or how to worship! I have a church I enjoy, and a pastor and Bible for spiritual guidance. At the same time, I don't want non-Christians to tell me my private store can't play Christmas music either or that I can't discuss my religion; I respect your right and so please respect mine. But I find it quite ironic that those in my group proclaiming "all that is wrong with America is this notion of separation between Church and State" also believe that American people's greatest right is freedom of choice, and they get rightfully angry about nations that have no religious freedom, such Saudi Arabia and China! Seems like a pretty big contradiction to me. Freedom is the greatest right, so why take it away by imposing a religious state?

I am not saying that all religious feeling can be kept out of politics. That would be impossible as people are people and policies are thought up, voted on and passed/ declined by people with opinions. But if people want to argue that the Government should be involved in this aspect of ours lives, I wonder why they celebrate Independence Day at all.

Happy V-Day!

2011-02-14T13:28:00.000-05:00

Enjoy! Cuddle with a loved one! Write secret notes and put them in easy-to-find places!

I would but I am all snotty. Nice, huh? Between Hubs and I right now is a big bottle of stinky hand sanitizer. *sigh* Maybe we'll re-schedule.

Spent the morning in FastERcare

2011-02-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

I tried out our new FastERCare facility today... supposedly like ER but for non life-threatening things, like coughs, tummy upsets and x-rays . It's open 9am to 9pm, 7 days a week and avoids a hefty ER bill that comes with some insurance (like mine), and is available when your GP is closed. Sounds good, huh? Sure beats hours in ER and is a step up from the drop in centers at pharmacies.

I'd had a fall a few nights ago, jumped up to get the phone but my foot was totally numb and I decided to walk on it anyway. I went over on my ankle, tried to correct but with a numb foot just went over on it again. Heck, the pain was so bad I thought I was going to throw up! I couldn't move and Daughter had to get me a chair and some ice, amidst my OW OW OW OWWWWWWW WILL SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE! Despite my whining, Daughter ran round fetching everything and making me comfortable. [Note to self: suggest medical career when she's older]

Hubs wanted to take me to the hospital but I know from when Daughter broke her arm, they don't have an on-call orthopedic doctor in the evening so they just splint, ice and send you home with a note to see the doc in the morning. I'm not paying $250 for that, thanks!

This morning it was still pretty bruised and swollen despite all the naproxen I was throwing down my throat, and I couldn't put the side of my foot down so I decided to see a doc. The ortho wouldn't see me right away without a hospital referral and it would be a week or two wait without one. My podiatrist was off today, so I headed to FastERcare.

There was one other patient in the waiting room and one in the bathroom getting a pee sample. I know that because she same down the corridor holding it for all to see. Other than that, it was empty of patients and heavy on staff. Awesome, thought I! Plus, it's not a place for "real emergencies" so you don't get pesky dying people jumping the queue. A quick scan of my drivers license and they had up all my medical data from my doctor. That was weird. Don't get me wrong - I think doctors and hospitals should share data this way. It will result in better care and fewer mistakes, but it felt weird involving my driver's license.

Anyhoo, one other patient in front of me, and they weren't having an x-ray. Yet it still took nearly 2 hours to get an x-ray and another hour to see a doc. Then only seconds to say, "No break, bad sprain. Go home. Oh, are you British?" Poor Hubs had sat in the truck the whole time, playing on his iPod.

No idea what my bill will be. I have a whopping deductible of $2,500. You might wonder why I bother but I do get their contractual discounts. So things like the $200 tylenol dose might go down to a less horrific $25. Not that I got any meds today: I refuse all meds and bandages that I can buy over the counter, knowing I could get them all 10 times cheaper at the Walgreens or Target across the street, even after my insurance company's discounts.

For anyone reading who has never experienced US Emergency Room treatment, and for Brits reading, tylenol = paracetamol, and yes I have seen a child's dose of it charged at $200. For 30 cents worth of medicine. I now take my own with me, kids and adults variety.

Fine dining and low restaurant bills!

2011-02-10T10:52:00.000-05:00

Okay.... I don't want to become a "coupon blog", but I had to share this one. Have you ever bought a gift certificate from Restaurant.com? It's a site that sells low cost gift certificates to thousands of restaurants around the country, such as $25 certificates for $10. There maybe restrictions (such as, min spend $50, or not to be used on a saturday) but it's still a great deal.

For the next for days though, get 80% off Restaurant.com Gift Cards! by using coupon code LOVE at checkout (up until Feb 14) and save another 80%!! So a $50 certificate could cost just $4!!

I found 3 restaurants in my area that use the site, so dinner's set for a few days next week!

Valentine's shopping

2011-02-09T16:33:00.001-05:00

Wondering who still shops for a Valentine gift for their spouse? We do, but each year Hubs outdoes me and buys something way nicer than I buy for him. And let's face it, stuff for women is generally nicer/ sexier/ more romantic.

I have set a price limit of $40 so 1) he doesn't go crazy, 2) we can overcome some of our recent expenses, and 3) I can start saving for a trip to UK this summer. Every time I spend money now I think of the price of tickets!

But I've really no idea what to buy. iPod accessories? He has most things already but I did order a nice skin from DecalGirl for his iPod Touch. They are less than $8 plus shipping. I got one each for the kids too, iPod cover for Son and Kindle skin for Daughter. Hers is a cute one with a giraffe with its head above the clouds.
DecalGirl currently has a 10% discount with coupon code DECAL10.

Other than that, I don't know what to buy!! Hubs buys things when he needs them, so practical things like tools or clothes are usually off the list. Any ideas? Do you still buy gifts for Valentines?

Hall of Shame: Staples EasyTech

2011-02-08T19:40:00.001-05:00

After last week's fiasco with Staples EasyTech I was mad. Really mad. But still not mad enough to quite scream about them. This week though, wow, they reached new lows.

I should've walked out the door when the tech said, "Well.... Staples only lets us order certain things, so I recommend you go to NewEgg.com." I should've turned on my heels and driven 30 miles to the Geek Squad. But it was storming outside, we were expecting that big ice storm still and driving out into it wasn't appealing. So, against my better judgment, I forged ahead. I kinda let myself be talked into a new PC instead of repairing my old one, but thought okay, okay, it's better: better memory, better RAM and a better processor. I'll go for it.

My new PC

Then came the first charge... I told them the main thing I wanted was to have all my data transferred from Old PC to New PC, so I could begin working on it the next morning. With the last PC I bought, that cost me $80 and I was up and running quickly and with no fuss. Their charge? $150.
Ouch! That seemed steep. But I was told this would get all my data transferred to my new PC, my old hard drive backed up onto CDs and some of my old programs re-loaded. I debated it still because it's a lot of money for something I could do myself but I knew I didn't have time - I was weeks behind at work anyway - so I agreed and the tech sold me their Platinum Package.

By the next morning, I was carrying home my new PC. I plugged it in, started looking for files... and nada. Sure, there's My Documents, but where's my email? My customer databases? My Quickbooks data with 6 years of company bookkeeping and federal taxes?? I spent the day very frustrated - loading in programs, finding only the odd folder I needed, and doing a lot of ranting, before Hubs persuaded me to take it back.

Staples first response? Why would you need anything outside of My Documents? Their second response... you'll won't be able to read your old emails on Windows Live Mail, you'll have to pay $140 for a new Outlook program. I knew this was utter BS and refused to part with more $$. And why would any computer tech leave out email, for goodness sake?

I stood there for about 90 minutes while they went back through my old hard drive, started pulling off files, got me back my emails and customer databases. This was a biggy to me: I had 40,000 emails and records of over 10,000 sales transactions that they failed to transfer. At that point, it was late. I agreed to have my hard drive slaved into my PC so I could access it directly myself, but it would have to be the next day, so I went home and started importing all my email into Windows Live Mail (the transfer worked fine too, so I did not need to buy a new program).

Next day.... Hubs took back my PC and old HD so they could slave it in to the new computer, as discussed. However, now there was another tech, this one the 3rd one involved. He said we couldn't slave the HD (I have no idea why) and "Besides," says he, "the Platinum Setup you bought doesn't cover data transfer! That's going to cost more money."

Um.... let's back up... I asked for data transfer. Is it my fault the dude sold that as a Platinum Setup. "Oh no, if you read the brochure, Platinum isn't a transfer package," he still insisted. So now Hubs was told he had to buy a new 500 GB external hard drive ($70) and pay for the data transfer ($80). Yup, another $150. For this sum, all the data would be taken off the hard drive and put on the external drive.

Twiddle thumbs.... get on with other things....spend yet another day without my computer. The call came last night as the store was closing that my PC was ready. We raced over and were told it had a virus from a Spongebob game, and he "saved what he could." Oh and "Sign here." I was suspicious... the only Spongebob game had been on there for 5 years and I do nightly virus and Trojan scans, but they were closing so we signed and left.

This morning (deep breath) I open up the external hard drive to find he had transferred only 5 GB of files. FIVE. I started having a bit of a meltdown at this stage because WHERE THE HECK IS MY QUICKBOOKS? Where are my CAD files? Where are all my customer contracts and custom designs??

That's it. I'd had enough of Staples and their utter BS, so I had Hubs pull out my back-up HD and put the old one in there. After a little fiddling and transferring permissions, I had complete access to the remaining 60 GB of data they'd left behind. The data he claimed a fake virus had deleted. It was all there, and if I'd done all this myself a week ago when this all started, it would have been done in 4 hours and $300 cheaper! Oh and I wouldn't have been insane with frustration and driven my poor husband and co-workers completely crazy.

I am disgusted at Staples for the poor training of their EasyTech staff, for different messages from different staff, for their inability to do basic things (like transferring ownership of the entire HD instead of folder at a time), for overselling, for not knowing their product and mostly for outright lying. There was no virus or trojan. The files weren't gone, deleted, damaged or inaccessible. They were all there; they just didn't have staff that knew what to do. (A note to EasyTech: Google search is your friend.)

Tonight, my PC is all fixed up. The folders are transferred and all is right in my PC world. A complete back up is underway to 2 places: the back up HD and to the new external hard drive.

I will never, I repeat NEVER allow Staples staff near one of my electronics ever again. Paper, sure. Office chair, maybe. Puters? Never. #1 in my 2011 Hall of Shame.

Game Day Eating! And icy woes...

2011-02-06T14:13:00.000-05:00

I think Daughter & I really were the only people not wearing Steelers clothing in church today. Not being a football fan, I guess I am an oddball today! I will, of course, support them in the Superbowl today since they are my local team. Do I have to watch though? I don't know the rules and all I do is compare it to rugby anyway, so I ruin it for everyone, I am sure.

We were invited to a game party. It was a bit last minute though and Hubs hates last minute things. I jumped at it 2 weeks ago because I am all for improving our social life. This time, I agreed with Hubs simply because I don't want to be a party pooper by being the only person not jumping up and down at the TV and waving a Terrible Towel.

I will join in the eating though! We have loads of food being prepared. Hubs has made lots of dips and nibbly things. I'm making some chunky bread. I was going to make beer bread but only need one can of beer. Can I buy one can of beer locally? Oh no! Some silly law means 1) I can't buy it in the supermarket, and 2) the beer store can only buy it buy the case, and 3) I can't buy it in the wine store.
#2 always makes me shake my head. Apparently I can only buy beer if I am prepared to get plastered or get other people to share it with me.

Anyhoo, I am making cola bread instead. No, I don't have a recipe. It's a cheat mix from a Tastefully Simple party. I do have a recipe for a great white chili though! I will post that sometime soon.

We also have to tackle some ice today. The gutters of our roof are struggling. On at least one side we have a build up of about 6 inches of solid ice that's making the eaves sag. It's hovering around freezing today so there's a small amount of dripping going on, but just enough to make the higher-up snow melt, roll to the ice and freeze, making it worse. Hubs is attaching some kind of gutter heating thingymajig that's supposed to help it melt faster. We'll see if it helps.

What an odd week! Out with a BANG!

2011-02-04T21:14:00.000-05:00

Literally.

We were sitting here, nice and quiet. Ready to relax and start the weekend. And suddenly, seemingly from the vicinity of the kitchen, we heard a bang, zzzzzzzz, bang. The lights flickered heavily and the floor even vibrated.

Some choice words were heard from Hubs and me, and we leaped up to see WTH was going on. All okay upstairs we realized quickly that it came from the basement and was probably electrical. And where was the cat? A moment of panic, a moment of... omg what if she's dead? and at least it was quick (I know, I know)....ran to check Daughter's bed and phew, Cat was there.

The lights in the basement were dead, but a sweep of a flashlight revealed some smoke in the air. Wow, pitch dark looking for the source of smoke in a messy, over-crowded basement with a lot of electrical stuff was a bit scary.

Long story short, we found the culprit. A wall socket was sitting beneath (another) leaking pipe. Water seeped in and started a small fire. Thankfully there wasn't much around to burn and it put itself out. It wasn't near any electronics, the big piles of laundry on my folding table or any curtains, so it all ended okay. Blew up a modem plug so we nearly had to forfeit the internet for the weekend *horror*. But we have 3 phone lines so decided to forfeit one of them instead. :)

All's well. Drama is over. It's been a rough week since it started and I am glad to see the back of it. Hubs said I've been a bit of a bitch all week. He didn't use the B word, but then he didn't just say a "bit" either. Sorry hon.

And the crap of it is, I am out of tea. Having to make do with a pint of wine instead. Shame, huh?

Stupid computer techs!

2011-02-03T20:15:00.001-05:00

Stressed out. I mean STRESSED. OUT.

I have spent a couple of days transferring all the data from my old computer onto my new computer. It's been quite a chore because I had a LOT of stuff - 8 years of business and personal files, documents, images, over 40,000 emails, several databases, a couple of website backups, and a lot of junk.

Let me say, I didn't want a new computer. Problems with mine forced action, and I had to be pressured into buying a new one versus fixing my old one. So I probably entered this whole deal with a bad attitude, k? I admit it. But I swear, even Ghandi would have lost his temper at least once in the past couple of days.

On Tuesday, when I bought the PC, I opted to have the techs transfer everything over with their *Platinum setup*. Now, I could have paid less for the Silver or Gold set up but Platinum... hey this is the biz! Platinum, right? It's gonna be great! I was miffed at the $150 cost because I knew it was something I could do myself but didn't have the time. So with the thought that I could spend Tuesday catching up on something else, then be working on my new PC by Wednesday morning, I reluctantly paid the money.

Well, by noon Wednesday, I wanted to cry. The transfer was useless. For one thing, I later found out they only transferred the My Documents and My Pictures folder, and a teeny bit more - just enough more to think it was all there and to spend hours trying to work with it. But the reality was there were no emails, no databases, no backups from my App Data or Program Files, no databases. I was pretty furious, and after fighting it all until about 4pm, I went back to them. Turns out, they'd left a LOT on my old hard drive and didn't know why I wanted anything off the other folders. Seriously? Okay, so these guys were no more than kids... probably don't realise that older operating systems saved back ups to anything other than Documents. (Annoyingly Windows 7 does, and I hate My Docs being filled with program stuff!)

Secondly, I couldn't get Outlook Express to transfer to Windows 7. One tech said, "Oh yeah. You can't read OE emails in Windows 7. You can never open them again." WWWTTTTTTHHHHH??? [Hubs at this point was begging them to help. He'd been hearing my anger all day]. Their solution: Buy a $140 program. Whatever. I'll fix it myself. By the way, this wasn't some hokey small town shop. This was at Staples. [Note to self: Travel the extra 40 mins and go to the Geek Squad next time.]

So, I fixed it myself. Pulled most of the stuff off the hard drive, and spend some time figuring where it had to go and how to convert what needed to be converted. Reloading programs, databases, emails and numerous other things. I still need to find my book keeping files, which are pretty vital, but other than that I really just have some tweaking to do. For some bizarre reason, it shows all Arial and Verdana font types in Italic and everything on the internet is in bold. It's uber annoying. But I can live with it.

By now, my head hurts, my eyes hurt, my brain hurts and the people around me hurt from all the snapping, mouse slamming and stomping I have been doing. Good job they love me.

Closed for the day! Ice and computers!

2011-02-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

So, I was ground to a halt by ice and a dead computer. Neither problem is related to the other, apart from the fact they both happened today. It's been a dodgy week for bad stuff, really. Not terrible, life changing disasters; but annoyances and frustrations that get in the way and make life difficult.

On Saturday, we had a power cut. Everything flickered, came back on, flickered, on.... on....on... and off. Power off. Oh and that means a lot more than no lights and no TV! For one, our digital phones don't work in a power cut, nor do our cable modems, so communication goes down too. (Last year's power cut also took out a cell tower so was even worse). We also have an electric stove, so we can't cook. But the two biggies are that (i) our well pump doesn't work in a power outage, and (ii) nor does the furnace!

We happened to have a fair bit of bottled water as Hubs bought lots on sale, so apart from showers and flushing the loo, we were okay for a bit. The furnace though? Wow! It got cold quick! The fireplace is still unusable from our stopped-for-winter renovations so we added a few clothing layers. We played a board game (Trivial Pursuit; Daughter won), hunted down candles and flashlights, got dressed in the dark and went out to dinner. Nothing fancy - we had no running water remember, and no way to heat water, so anything fancy was really out of the question. A trip to Target to buy more candles and on to home to find the lights back on. Whew! Only 6 hour power cut that time!

We're prepped for another outage and have the Genny ready this time, because like everywhere else, the ice is thickening, branches are falling and it's rough out there! I've said this before, but I go through more outages in 1 year here than in 30 years of living in UK. Because basically, the electrical infrastructure here is very outdated. Wires and supply lines above ground make outages far more frequent that they need to be.

Sure, I understand that the supply lines went in years ago - but so did they in Europe. And while there are overhead lines & pylons, it's rare to walk through even a 1,000 year old city in England and see great big cables going across the street, as you see so often here. Because simply, even though yes, they had (and still have some) above ground wiring there, much of it was moved underground in later years making them much less open to damage by storms, and in the case of last weekend, people crashing into the poles.

The photo above is what I currently fear.... the tree branches look white with ice, yet surprisingly it's just warm enough for snow to melt. It drips from the roof and trees, mixes with the ice and freezes as ice. I am sure it won't be long before the power lines look the same.

As for my desktop computer... well that just decided to die so I ended up buying a new one. Not wanting to drive to a bigger city, I ended up buying an HP from Staples. I hate HP and I hope I am not making a big mistake. I pick it up tomorrow; I've payed for the tech guy to transfer my data from my hard drive to the new 1TB (1, 024 GB!!!!) with 6 GB RAM. Wooah! And as long as the guy takes off a lot of the HP crap that usually clogs down any HP product, that storage won't be wasted and bogged down. Let's just hope the weather lets me drive to pick it up tomorrow!

Territorial pets

2011-01-26T19:21:00.001-05:00

My pets got some new gifts; the Dog received a bone and Cat a new scratch pad. Usually my animals are best buddies. They will share a bed, cuddle up, groom each other and even hunt together. But tonight they are utterly selfish and have laid claim to their presents and are not sharing with anyone.

My Dog has spent two days totally stressed out about her bone. Usually she'll chew a treat to pieces in about 4 minutes but this is a keeper. As a result, she can't finish it but doesn't want anyone else to have it. She tried hiding it under my sofa cushion while I was out & was most PO'd when I pulled it out and put it on the floor. She then tried to cover it with a Kleenex, but the tissue wasn't big enough so she ended up lying on it.
Tonight however, she is walking around the basement, whining loudly, with it hanging out of her mouth and looking for a hiding place. I tried to hide it for her, but that wasn't good enough because I know where it is obviously, so she's still wandering around there trying to decide what to do.

Cat, on the other hand, got a new scratch pad. One of those with a ball-in-a-track going around it as a toy. I don't know how she knew it was hers, but within minutes of me putting it down, she appeared from the bedroom and immediately laid claim. She's pretty much sat like this for the past hour. Anyone who comes near her gets The Glare.

More free time as an Expat? Seriously??

2011-01-25T12:00:00.002-05:00

So, I was recently reading the results of a survey carried out by ExpatArrivals.com and it started out like this:

Expat life has many payoffs, although increased salary is not among them. Only 21% reported that their salary was significantly better, with 22% reporting their salary as much lower.

However, the amount of free time improved for 61%, while social connections (41%) and love lives (47%) took distinctly upward trends while abroad.

I want to look at some of these because it's kind of implying that becoming an expat means you get loads of free time to make loads of new friends and have a rocking love life.

social connections (41%) and love lives (47%) took distinctly upward trends while abroad

Spin it how you like. It still means that, for social connections 59% and, for love lives 53%, did NOT take an upward trend. For those people, social connections and love lives are the same as or worse than back home.

Here's one though "the amount of free time improved for 61%". Hmmmm. I am not entirely sure how that can be for the majority, since moving out of Europe to many other countries means fewer mandatory breaks and vacation days off work.

Example. When I lived in UK, I had a full time job and I started (yes, started) with the standard and mandated 20 days paid vacation per year. I progressed to 30 days paid vacation, plus the regular 8 holidays: Christmas, Boxing Day, NY Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, Spring Bank Holiday, August Bank Holiday.

When I moved to US, um I didn't get any vacation days. None. Zip. Nada. Hubs got 10 paid vacation days after working somewhere for nearly 10 years. American companies do not have to give any paid vacation. In my company, you have to work here a year full time before getting some days, and the most we offer is 10 days after working here a few years. Oh, and 5 paid holidays.

That's a fairly typical transition for many people with a work permit when leaving Europe. According to Gaebler, the average American takes 10.2 paid vacation days per year, compared with 25 in UK and up to 30 in France.

Without reading more of the survey from the original source, I can only guess that the stats in the survey must include people moving from US to Europe (imagine the elation going from 1 week vacation to 4!) or for people coming to US without or unable to get work permits. I do know expats who came here because their spouse got a great job transfer, but they themselves cannot get a work visa.

Honestly, I was shocked - SHOCKED - I tell ya when I moved here and had to give up all that leisure time! I loved traveling, been all over Europe for weekends or fortnight trips. No more. It never occurred to me that "the greatest nation in the world" had such a crappy non-policy on vacation time, meaning for many, life is simply work, work, work.

Anarchy in the UK

2011-01-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of imgur

Steeler Time!

2011-01-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

I am not a fan of (American) Football, but oh boy, do the locals go all out for Steeler games! Wow! Every game is like a Soccer FA Cup Final or something. When I go to church tomorrow, I will be one of the few people not wearing a Steelers jersey. Probably just me, the Pastor and his wife won't be in black & gold.

So, usually when there's a game on, I get to hang out on the computer or in my Kindle for a few hours, but tomorrow will be a little different. The family of one of Daughter's friends is having a game party and we're invited. I would normally say no to such sport-watching events except i) they are nice people, ii) we don't know them all that well and it's a chance to meet them better and their friends, and iii) we blew off the rest of the weekend plans so it would be nice to do something.

We just agreed to go for one half of the game. God knows why, but American Football games drag on ALL night. The clock gets stopped when someone blows their nose. So one half is all I can handle, and the kids have to get up for school the next day. It's not like it's the Superbowl or something. It's just a game, people.

Not moving today

2011-01-22T11:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's says -14°F / -25°F. I thought it was a bit nippy when I let my dog out this morning.
We had planned a day out in Pittsburgh today but that ain't happening.

Free offer from Vistaprint

2011-01-20T08:56:00.000-05:00

Ever seen your kids' friends give out "business cards" & thought they were a great idea? Or wanted personalized notelets? I love personalized things and have toyed with doing modern day calling cards for the family. A family I know has one card for the whole family with all their phone numbers and a family photo on there.
I think pre-printed return address stickers are the most common personalized item I see used. Hubs receives them in the mail from a charity, but none come in my name so I guess I will have to buy!

Well, Vistaprint are giving away some free samples! And not just a handful... you can get 250 business cards made, or 140 address labels or notepad of 50 sheets. I haven't tested their service so I cannot vouch for it, but I think I will give it a try.

Going to school in my PJs

2011-01-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

No, I don't mean I am enrolling in a cyber school and taking classes online. I mean, I'm about to do what I've scoffed at for years - I am running Daughter to school in my PJs.
I see other parents do this and think mean things. But it's Thursday.... got to get to school an hour early for band practice, and it's cold and snowy and blah. And I just couldn't drag myself out of bed at 6 am this morning for a shower, so I'll do that when I get home. Besides, I don't get out the car.... just drive her straight to the sidewalk in the drop off zone and let her hop out.

Hubs sometimes goes to the store in his slippers and I yell at him. I'd better hope he doesn't read this or I won't be able to nag him about it ever again.

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes are HERE!!

2011-01-19T20:53:00.000-05:00

Oh oh, I just found out! Kellogg's have seen sense and brought the delish Crunchy Nut Cornflakes to US! I've moaned about missing these for years, and here they are. I haven't seen them in stores yet, and don't see them on the Kellogg "where to buy" page either, so I'm stocking up online!

Hugh Laurie in an old Crunchy Nut advert!

A funny..... John Cleese on Terror

2011-01-18T14:54:00.000-05:00

Someone sent this to me by email and parts made me cry laughing. Not sure if it's really from John Cleese, am trying to find the original or a video but can't. Other versions online are shorter so I guess this has been added to along the way. Anyway, it's hilarious.

From the BBC - by John Cleese.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from"Miffed" to "Peeved."

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.

Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a

recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual;the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from"No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!", "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend",

and "The barbie is cancelled."

So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

Lazy day for some & fears abound

2011-01-17T17:35:00.000-05:00

Alas, it was not a lazy day for me. We get very few days off so I worked today while the kids were off school for Martin Luther King Jr Day. I kept Son working with me for most of the day (he's still grounded for a little while longer), but Daughter got to hang around reading, making cartoons (she's a Flipnoter) and gaming.

I must find something better for tomorrow's day off school! Maybe make Daughter finish a scrapbook she started last fall or something creative. I'd take the day off but I am swamped with end-of-year bookkeeping and doing employee taxes. I am already missing some deadlines so can't afford a day for fun. I'd send them to the neighbor's cool hill for sledding but I think they went to Mexico for some sun.

*Thinking* about going snowtubing at the weekend, though I'm careful not to voice that outloud lest the kids put it in a contract. There's a resort about 2 hours away and they have ski-lifts for the lazy. I am a WIMP in snow so not sure how I'll do. I haven't been down a snowy hill in about 30 years, since the day I fell forward on my runner sledge and rode the whole hill with my head stuck underneath and my butt in the air. The combination of pain and humiliation scarred me for life.

And the winner was..... me!

2011-01-14T18:03:00.001-05:00

I ~~never~~ hardly* ever win anything, and despite my hopes of winning the $330 million lottery jackpot being dashed a few weeks ago, I can still rejoice at my recent raffle win. Last Autumn I entered a raffle at a local festival, then forgot all about it. Then a few days ago, I received a phone call... I'd won a prize!

The prize was a Movie Basket, with three DVDs (Prince of Persia, The Notebook and Tooth Fairy), boxes of chocolate and sweeties, popcorn, root beer and chips and dip.
Sadly, this thing had been carried around a few events since last September. A few things had to be tossed (out of date or melted-then-solidified, yuck!) but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I gratefully accepted. We had a Prince of Persia night last week, so maybe Tooth Fairy this week. I can't face the weepy Notebook.

Daughter models the prize!

* hardly, meaning very little or infrequently. As opposed to "not hardly" which is said incorrectly by many Americans and means "not infrequently" or quite a bit.

How private is private?

2011-01-12T18:54:00.002-05:00

I've always thought I was pretty good at keeping my identity, and many of my personal details, safe and private on the internet. I consider my blogs part of my personal life and so some things are naturally protected, but in my business life I also have a couple of retail websites, and so my business life is less private. I use a PO Box for mail and for form filling, and have a separate business phone number, so I'm not bothered by those things being public.

Last night, however, I decided to do my regular but infrequent Google search on myself to make sure I was still fairly private. I was a little surprised therefore to see my name, address and phone number come up. I dug a little deeper, and checked a couple of people-finding websites and was really shocked at the results! Now that Google maps also shows street views, with head-on photos of houses, I'd like my address kept even more private, thanks! That's an awesome feature if say, you're checking out a vacation resort, but do I really want my house and car available on a map for everyone in the world so see? No, I do not!

Two such sites for this research are pipl.com and kgbpeople.com - excellent resources to look for someone, or to find out what's "out there" about you. PIPL trawls other websites and goes up to 50 pages deep. It will look through Intelius, White Pages and many others. With that, I was shocked to learn that, not only are MY personal details very much out there, but that other people are listed as living at my address! Each piece of information lists its source, and so I was able to go to some of them to fix things! For example, I was able to create an account at Whitepages.com to remove my home phone number. Doing a reverse address look up, I was able to see the other names associated with the house. I have emailed them to find out how to remove a couple of people who are listed at my address and have me listed in their list of "associated people." I am waiting to hear back from them.

The other, kgbpeople, was interesting. It has tabbed sections, and trawls social networking sites, images, youtube, Amazon wishlists etc to get the nitty gritty on someone. From that, I found a few surprising results. My personal Facebook page was still nice and private, but I did find info about me that was broadcast from a Facebook app. I was then able to change my privacy settings at the source.

I also found some reviews that I had posted... reviews of products originally written under a username, but lo and behold, here under my FULL name, town and zip! The website Insiderpages.com was going against their privacy policy and giving out more details than they should have been! Well, thankfully the reviews are positive ones. But what if I were writing a review to warn people about a shady company, to warn of intimidating sales tactics, or bullying scammers? Although Insiderpages still correctly showed only my username, the crawling databases showed all the other details!

Finally, after checking out all of this, I decided to run my credit reports. At the official free credit report website, annualcreditreport.com, you can get the 3 free credit reports per year without having to sign up to free trials or give credit card info. You don't get credit scores but you do see what information is recorded against your name and social security number, including credit cards, loans and accounts set up with budget payments (such as utility bills). Mine looked fine, but we've still to pull the reports for Hubs too to make sure these mysterious names against our address aren't also registering any loans in his name! With the option to get online paperless billing, we might never know what someone is doing until it's too late.

Punishing Teens... who suffers more?

2011-01-11T19:21:00.002-05:00

I hate being the bad guy, and I hate even more that I am turned into the bad guy when I put my foot down. Like, Um, I'm not the one who broke the rules here, get it? I have decided that Pouty Faces and Stomping Feet will have no impact on me.

Teenage Son recently decided my rules for the computer didn't apply to him and was blithely sneaking from his room in the middle of the night and playing games on my work computer. Little did he know that I am far better at checking internet history than he is at trying to cover it up. So he was nabbed.

This is the second time but because I didn't notice right away, it's been going on for a while. Second offense coming after a few recent detentions in school... we're into harsher punishment AND restitution matey boy.

I don't want this to drag on forever, so it's short and sharp. After school he works in my office, followed by extra chores of laundry, vacuuming, dog grooming and snow shoveling. No electronics, music or TV for a week. CD player, iPod, DS are hidden and we only own one TV. (I know, how old fashioned.) The only other activities he can do are studying for school and reading.

The kicker though..... cell phone service has been suspended. Ouch! And that won't come back on until grades come up and a few Trust Tests are passed with flying colors.

Making a photo collage!

2011-01-10T20:05:00.002-05:00

I've noticed that people my age and below don't often have many photo frames around their homes, and I wonder if that's because most of our photos are digital and we just never get to print them out.

I bought an electronic photo viewer, which is pretty cool, but I also want pictures around the house, on walls, mantles, window sills, dressers. I decided to do a big wall collage of pictures from different times in our lives. I didn't want them to be too uniform so I've been snapping up all sorts of photo frames in different colors, shapes and sizes. There are quite a few in sales at this time of year so I've grabbed about 15 so far.

When I have maybe another dozen, I plan to get down all our photos and also go through the thousands of photos I have on my computer. How to narrow them to just 25 or so will be hard, but I plan to do it! It's a project that will take a while, I am sure, but I am looking forward to it. Then will be the job of printing, framing and coming up with a great way to display them.

5 Things.... I'd do if I won the lottery

2011-01-09T16:08:00.001-05:00

We used to talk about this at home, what we'd do if we won the lottery. I'm not talking a few hundred thousand here, I'm talking an obscene amount of multi-millions only seen in American lotteries.

I say we USED to talk about it, and that's because I refuse to anymore. Because it causes arguments. We've never won more than $20 (because we hardly ever play) but nevertheless, we argue over what to do with the three hundred million dollars if we did win it. Whether we'd get a lump sum or take the 26 annual payments (Hubs says lump sum, I say 26 installments). Whether we'd go public or keep it a secret (we both agree secret but disagree over totally secret or tell family). And where we'd live.

So since it's really unlikely that we'll ever win, I banned the topic. If we do ever win, we can fight about it then.

But, since it's just you and me, I'll tell ya! Bear in mind, I change my mind a lot. Sometimes my list is more noble, sometimes less so. But today's 5 Things I'd do if I won the lottery are...

5. Set up trust funds for the kids to be released at different times of their lives. They'd be contingent on things like having a job, not being lazy bums and things like that.

4. Buy a few houses. I'd like one in England, obviously. One over here, maybe further East, between Philly and NYC - still out of the big cities but within a couple of hours drive. And I'd like one where we can go somewhere warm for winter. I'd also buy houses, or give equivalent $$, amount to my immediate family - Mum, sisters etc.

3. Find a good financial adviser and take the money in 26 annual installments. Why? Because for one, I've heard of too many people blowing it all: going into businesses that lose everything, buying 3 legged racehorses, being taken in by gold-digging new friends, or just not managing it and letting it all go to their head. So, this way, if I went a bit nuts with it for a couple of years, I'd still have plenty of time to learn how to deal with it and still have a guaranteed cool 10 million a year for a couple of decades.

2. Combine my long term interest in buying/ selling houses with some kind of charity work. Not sure what. When I was a kid, I'd sit on the school bus and go by empty houses. I had a dream of buying them, fixing them up and letting homeless families live in them. Maybe I'd fulfill that dream.

1. I'd never cook or clean again. Yup, I'd get me a cook and a cleaner! I might hire someone to teach me to cook too, but I'd only cook for pleasure when I felt like it, not for, you know, keeping my family alive with good nutritious healthy tasty food. I'd leave that to someone else.

Prayers for the victims of the Tucson AZ Shooting

2011-01-08T16:49:00.002-05:00

Today there has been yet another horrifying public shooting, this time at a small political gathering in an Arizona supermarket, resulting in 6 deaths and 12 wounded, according to latest CNN reports and CNN blog. Among them is Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, Rep. for Arizona. She was shot in the head, reportedly 4 times in what sounds like a direct assassination attempt, rather than anything random. Early reports claimed she had died but the most current ones state that she is undergoing surgery, and I hope she, and the others injured, will recover.

The 22 year old suspected murderer is in custody.

For the families of those who were killed, I have experienced what their families are going through and I know the horror they are feeling right now. All I can offer is prayers for the victims, and for the families; that they have strength and courage at this time.

Speculations are naturally flying about why this small political meeting was targeted. In my opinion, hatred and extremism has been boiling for a while. I see signs around town claiming Democrats are "evil", and many of the more extreme stickers and posters that I see are alongside those with violent 'mottos'. This may be the tragic and devastating result of such extremist thinking. Although I am quite sure that even those politicians who spout some of the nastier rhetoric to advance their careers will be disgusted with today's events, all those with a public voice need to remember how those words can incite hatred and violence, and that someone already unstable or a born sociopath may be just looking for a reason to commit such a heinous act.

I continue to hope and pray that the hate mongering stops. That the hate-filled rallies, blogs, newspapers and so-called reporters realize where they are taking things, whether intentional or not. And you know, even if it turns out the murderer had other motives or causes, it matters not. It's just a matter of time before someone takes the words of hate too far.

Things to do in 2011!

2011-01-07T10:28:00.004-05:00

I have a bunch of things I want and/ or need to do this year! And I think I am going to use this blog to monitor if I actually do them or not.

5. Financial Goals

Start a retirement fund. I am self employed so have no company pension plan. I still don't have enough work credits for US social security and I haven't been paying into the UK National Insurance, and don't even get the letters from them anymore. I am 38 years old. I'd better get a fund going!
Get term life insurance, and maybe disability insurance.
Start & maintain college fund for the kids. Yup, I've been meaning to for YEARS but - like retirement things - they are so confusing that I never knew where to start!

4. Family Goals

We have movie night already but add in a Games Night once a week.
Go somewhere new at least once a month.... a new town or museum or adventure park.
Use our membership to the Carnegie museums & galleries at least 3 times this year!
Get back into Geocaching! An awesome family activity - get out and about, and have fun!

3. Health & Personal

Go to gym! When the kids are swimming, get on the exercise bike instead of sitting on the bleachers!
Use our pool. Um, I didn't go in our swimming pool once last summer.
Lose 25 pounds. Need to get back to my 2009 weight
Eat more fiber, more fish and less red meat
Finish reading the Bible
Reconsider Sunday School teaching... I help with Sunday School once a month and am not sure how much I like it. Look into other ministries through church.
Cook more. Hubs did much of the cooking last year. I need to get a stockpile of easy tasty recipes that I can always fall back on.

2. Home

Finish living room! Rebuild the fireplace, make new radiator covers, add woodwork, buy new carpet
Finish the bathroom that we started 3 years ago!

1. Vacations and fun...

Have a couple of weekends away and take a trip to England!! Somehow save for a trip for 4 of us while achieving financial goals in step 1 above.
Invite people over for BBQs and swimming. Make some new friends!
Have a date night with Hubs at least once a fortnight. We haven't had a night out alone for several years. Fix That!

I have quite a lot of stuff on there! I wonder how much I will get done? And what have I missed? Any ideas for more family fun?

Resuming New Year goals: Decluttering, part 3. Laundry!

2011-01-04T08:31:00.000-05:00

So, this isn't a new New Year resolution. Uncluttering my home, family, self, life was a goal I set myself early last year. I set myself a 6 month goal to unclutter my house and be organized. I was using a book Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin R Doland which was pretty good at giving me the much needed first steps.

Life changed and more important things took over, and I didn't get back to it until later in 2010. One thing I really appreciated was uncluttering and reorganizing our laundry area. I went from a combo washer/ dryer in my kitchen in UK, where I'd also hang laundry outside or by big radiators, to having 2 side-by-side machines in my large basement. It still took years to get a system going though, and we'd let dry laundry sit in baskets getting wrinkly, then we'd fold clothes on the living room furniture. It was really a pain. Plus I rarely do ironing, so we'd be wrinkly a lot.

My new system isn't high tech but it does require some space and some small investments. I hated laundry so this new organization, which eased some of the pain of it, was worth it to me.

Sorting system

I bought a triple laundry basket that would assist everyone in sorting their own laundry. The kids can now sort their own laundry more easily (I got them doing this from an early age!) A basket for darks, lights, and one for delicates.
The basket part is a canvas material that can be removed easily for washing.

Second was to organize my detergents etc. We bought pedestal drawers for both machines, but a shelf will do!

Folding and sorting the clean clothes

My favorite part of my new system is a folding table. I bought a cheap resin/ plastic foldaway table. I leave it permanently assembled but they are handy since they are easy to set up, store away, move around and can usually be bought for under $50, or less in a sale.

I have a hanging rail loaded up with lots of spare hangers, so jeans, shirts and sweaters get hung on hangers as soon as they leave the tumble dryer. It's also great if I take things out a little damp, so they can dry wrinkle-free.

Beneath the table & above on shelves I keep some totes and boxes. These are labeled for various things...

1) Trash
I keep a small bin available. This is for cleaning the lint screen but also dealing immediately with worn out/ torn/ holey clothes that cannot be repaired or re-issued as something else. I might turn ripped jeans into shorts or t-shirts into cleaning rags, but if the elastic has worn out on my knickers then they are out. In the bin they go!
Keeping a pair of scissors handy to cut up t-shirts to rags, for example, is useful. Otherwise the old shirts might sit on the table for 6 months before I do anything with them.

2) Out of season clothes
My kids are always recirculating clothes. Most out of season clothing goes up above their closet, but some seems to end up in the laundry weekly, either because they insist on still wearing it or they don't bother putting it away for the season. As I come across them, they go straight into the relevant tote. Since I get mice in my basement sometimes, this is a plastic lidded tote.

3) Odd socks
Oh we all have them. Sort 50 pairs of socks but somehow have 17 stray odd ones with no mates. I try to buy multi-packs of identical socks to avoid this, but Hubs might buy some of his own, or Daughter decides she needs lots of stripey socks etc, so we still get a lot of odd socks.
So after sorting, the odd socks go in the Odd Sock Box, and next time I do socks and end up with some strays, I pull out the box and try to make some more pairs.

4) Small things
I keep a small box handy for small items like hankies and wash cloths, and only deal with it when it gets full.

5) Wrinkly things
I rarely iron, so this is a small basket. Most wrinkly things go back in the tumble dryer with a wet towel, to steam a little then get hung up. Some clothing won't co-operate though so it either goes in this small ironing basket or if it's a real pain, ends up in box 6...

6) Charity/ Thrift box
With a teenage boy and a tween girl, we don't get many opportunities for hand-me-downs, so as clothes become too small, straight in the box they go. When the box gets full, I tape it up. When I get 2 or 3 full boxes, off they go to the thrift store.

None of this is particularly new. I am sure home magazines have written these tips a thousand times, but I thought I'd explain how well it works and has made laundry much less depressing. It'll never be up there on my favorite activity list but it's a less stressful experience now.

If you have any extra tips to share, or if you try out one of these ideas, I'd love to hear about them!

Ending the year as I don't mean to go on!

2010-12-31T11:48:00.000-05:00

I've been really lazy this week. I took the whole week off work. That was a really bad move as I am weeks behind bookkeeping and soon I have to start end of year stuff and taxes. Ugh.

Anyway, I took the time off because I wanted to hang out with the kids and have fun. I planned to go to Pittsburgh for some fun, like the Carnegie Science Center in the day, maybe the theater or symphony at night. We planned to bake cookies, make glittery crafts, go for walks and have snowball fights. I imagined being a fun Mum, that the kids would go back to school on Monday filled with fun stories and great memories.

Instead I have been a lump, and now it's Friday and I am riddled with guilt. I have lost a week of my life and done nothing good with it. (Laundry doesn't count.) I do not intend to go into 2011 with this lazy attitude.

On the plus side, this has been a much needed brain rest. I had reached the point recently when the words I said or wrote did not correspond with what I was actually trying to say. I've gone back and re-read emails I sent to people and do not know what the heck I was saying.... random words inserted here and there. Some of this was just caused by overwork, but also general stress and my mouth and fingers said things that just didn't make sense.

I think I am going to make ME time for myself. I am thinking of taking a Yoga class, or Yolates, as is being offered locally. If I take some planned me time, maybe I can then regenerate and enjoy the time I have with the kids. That's one of my hopes for the new year: as we enter 2011, I want to enjoy my time with the kids.

Some good things that happened this year....

When we faced adversity, Hubs and I didn't take up smoking again! We stayed away from cigarettes.

We went back to church and re-connected with God. That's been huge in my life, and I am really glad we found such a nice church.

We took a great family vacation that we plan to repeat next year!

We began the much needed renovations in the house, and I am now sitting in a pretty living room!

I haven't yet decided what I want for the next year. I do have some goals, mostly about improving our family time, as well as some financial goals. I'll share those next week!

Goodbye 2010.

Hiding the chocolate from the dog!

2010-12-30T17:02:00.001-05:00

If, like me, you have a lot of chocolate around after Christmas, don't forget to make it dog or puppy proof, if you have a canine friend.

My dog has been into chocolate more than once. Every now and then we get slack and we've come home to find gifts torn open and the chocolate gone. She's a medium sized dog at 75 pounds, so the odd milk chocolate coin wasn't too bad given her size. Last night though, my dog Peanut got into several things that we had put well out of the way. She must have climbed up to counters to get them down, and then tore through thick plastic packaging to get into the goodies inside. She'd got into various items, ranging from a dark chocolate Terry's Orange and a package of drinking chocolate with chocolate chips.

Depending on the type of chocolate, the quantity eaten and the size of your dog, symptoms can vary from diarrhea and sickness to seizures to cardiac arrest, and even death. The smaller the dog, and the higher the cocoa content, the worse the outcome. White chocolate is naturally the least dangerous, with baking chocolate and cocoa powder being dangerous in very small amounts. What's poisonous to them is theobromine, a stimulant in the cocoa bean. Dogs can't metabolize it and as it builds up, it can become fatal.

How do you know if your pooch will just have a mild sugar rush, or whether you should be rushing your buddy to the emergency vet?

Interactive chocolate chart
National Geographic

Well there are numerous charts online, some just telling you how many milligrams of theobromine are in the chocolate, leaving you to figure out if Fido has consumed too much or not. And if you're really stressed out and in a panic, doing the math gets confusing and worrying. I found a great chart at National Geographic though. The Interactive Chocolate Chart lets you select the dog size then use the chart to determine what kind of chocolate your dog consumed and how much of it. If your dog falls into the darker bands, then get him to the vet, but even the first two can be harmful.

My dog Peanut fell into the vomiting/ diarrhea line, but thankfully she's been okay all day. We canceled our plans to go to the Carnegie Science Center today in case she did get sick, but I was confident that she hadn't had enough theobromine to cause the more severe side effects.

Our chocolate has now been moved into a chest with a lock on it.

If unsure, call your vet or National Animal Poison Information Center at 1-888-252-7387. Leaving it too late can be fatal. In the early stages, the vet could reverse the poisoning with certain treatments or even vomiting.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T09:47:00.000-05:00

In case I get too caught up in the day's preparations, I will send my good wishes out now.
At this point, I was going to post a photo of our tree and decorated fireplace, but I can't find my SD card reader for my phone, so I'll share someone else's prettier decor.

May you have a very Merry and Blessed Christmas. Be safe and well.
I hope your Turkey is moist, and the sprouts not too smelly.
May you receive gifts you enjoy and need, and may you enjoy the smiles of those who receive gifts from you.

For those who, like us, have lost loved ones this year or who remember loved ones, may you have peace. May the memories be good ones and bring you joy of them, not sadness.

Spare a moment to remember the birth of Christ our Saviour and give thanks for Him.

Merry Christmas!!

A day off work! And over indulgence.

2010-12-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

I don't get many days off, but I am taking one today! Well, it won't be a full day off, I still have to check work emails just in case there's something needs urgent attention, like a customer's Christmas order not arriving yet.

Other than that, I do have a busy day ahead. This morning I have a lot of gifts to wrap - I did a lot of emotional spending this year and the kids have a ridiculous amount of gifts. Really they do. Then Hubs bought even more, so with only half wrapped, under the tree is full. I would curb it all and go hand them to kids without but we did some of that already. As well as filling 4 boxes for Operation Christmas Child, we shopped Thanksgiving dinner for two local families, fulfilled a Santa-list for a local child for Christmas, and gave some winter coats to a homeless shelter.

The kids took part in all of that, and have been doing their own Secret Santas.... baking cookies, making Christmas ornaments and using their allowance to buy gifts secretly for other people. They've loved the surprise element of it and loved trying to go better each day with something new, and have loved the whole giving aspect of it all.

I don't spoil the kids often though, so I have explained that this mass of presents won't be happening again!

Other than gift wrapping, today I also have to find the box of my best china and stemware that I packed away for renovations, find my Christmas table cloths and wash them, make the cranberry sauce, buy Hubs one more gift, and take Son to a doctors appointment. Then tonight we're making truffles and then glittering up some flora pulled in from the yard. I am tired already!

Starting Christmas Dinner

2010-12-22T11:24:00.000-05:00

It's years since I had a traditional English Christmas Dinner because Hubs usually does the cooking. Since we have turkey at Thanksgiving, he does a ham for Christmas, along with veggies like squash and asparagus.
That's nice but not Christmassy to me, so this year I said I'd do it.

Since I said that, I went into a panic. I am a crap cook and have only made Christmas Dinner twice before: once as a student when 4 of us shared the job of making Christmas Dinner for 20 people, and once a Muslim friend and I cooked a chicken Christmas dinner together. It was pretty non-traditional but fun.

I watched Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Christmas on BBC America last week for some ideas. He made it look so easy (haha) that I decided that's what we're doing. Prepping lots on Thursday and Friday so we can have a beautiful dinner on Saturday. Even making cranberry sauce from scratch!!

Problem was, Gordon didn't give the recipes and I cannot find them anywhere. We recorded the show so watched it over and over, writing things down and committing to memory as much as we could, and guessing on quantities. The only thing I am not doing is the dessert. Instead I bought in cheesecake and Mince pies (bought the LAST box in TJ Maxx! Woot!)

So on the menu will be:
     Turkey, lemon and parsley butter coating, wrapped in bacon and from-scratch gravy
     Pork, pistachio and apricot stuffing (Hubs is making that)
   Cranberry sauce, made with apple and orange and port
     Roast potatoes, big thick chunky ones with turmeric and chili!
     Sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta
     Asparagus, for Hubs - he doesn't like sprouts

    Mint chocolate truffles.

The turkey, stuffing, cranberry and truffles will all be prepped by Friday afternoon. I feel a lot more confident about timing and the turkey... Gordon says let it rest as long as it cooks. If it cooks for 3 hours, let it rest 3 hours. That makes timing loads easier: prep Friday, in the oven at 9am Saturday, out at noon, serve at 3pm. Put on silly cracker hats and get eating!

Understanding the Americans!

2010-12-21T20:11:00.003-05:00

I've just finished reading "Understanding the Americans" by Yale Richmond, a book for foreign visitors to the United States. It covers facts and stats about Americans, as well as observations and cultural traits.

Most of them are either pretty well known or at least obvious after a short stay in the States: lack of public transport outside of major cities, the sprawl of shopping, how elections work, massive food portions and the addiction to eating out, and how many guns there are ("if all the guns in the country were spread around, there would be one for every 916 men, women, and children out of 1,000").

I read a few things that I hadn't known before moving here but I wished I'd known before I settled in.... such as, American's generally don't like unexpected visits. Don't just stop by unannounced. That's very different to most Brits. Typically if you show up, at any time of day, the kettle will go on and everyone starts chatting. Even if the host is cooking dinner or in the middle of ironing, they'll put the kettle on and even carry on their chores - but you're still welcomed. Experiencing the opposite - standing at the door with a polite "how can I help you" - can make one feel a little unwanted and unwelcomed and I wish I'd known early on not to take it personally.

Now there were a few things I disagreed with. One tip explains what to do with all the knives and forks at a table setting. PAH! I rarely see a properly set table, so I guess that's very fine dining only. In another, Richmond says:

Our inner feelings are also private. Like the British, Americans are brought up to maintain a "stiff upper lip," which in practical terms means not to flaunt your feelings or show others how you feel, especially when something bad happens to you. Don't shout, don't wave your arms, don't make a scene, we are taught...

I beg to differ on that one. On the whole, Americans are much more ostentatious than Britons. Maybe Americans feel that they are not loud or showing emotion, but seriously.... watch a few Brits in crisis. Experience some tea-making marathons and quiet mourning or even celebrating and learn what stiff upper lip really means!

On the whole though, for a new immigrant or for someone coming for an extended stay, there are some useful tips and advice for getting along with, understanding and not offending the natives.

It's nearly time!

2010-12-20T18:23:00.000-05:00

This weekend was so busy and tiring that I hated my alarm clock this morning. On Saturday, we finished painting and did all the touch ups, got the dining furniture out of the kitchen, cleaned the kitchen, did all the electrical outlets, cleaned the living room and dusted and vacuumed. That took pretty much the whole day.

At the same time, we were watching/ listening to Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Christmas on BBC America. I'd recorded it last week, and we watched that 3 or 4 times till his gorgeous looking recipes were pretty much drilled into our brain. We are going to try to re-create most of it this Christmas!

By about 6 o'clock, Hubs dragged the Christmas decorations down from the attic and we began the real fun! This year I won my 6 year battle to get an artificial tree. Yes, I know real trees are nicer and smell good, but they prickle, scratch and give me rashes when I hang the lights, and then come January 6th, it sits on my back porch for months till the snow melts then gets dragged to the pond for a fish habitat. Then I spend 4 more months picking pine needles out of the carpet.

This year we went fake

As you can see, the fireplace is still not rebuilt, so we plan to make a cover for it! Not sure how yet, but we're going to pretty it up with some material and then we can finish decorating for the holiday.

A note to local radio and newspapers... Christmas

2010-12-16T08:29:00.000-05:00

Um. I hate to break it to the local radio and newspapers that seem to think we're on the Third Days of Christmas.... the Twelve Days haven't started yet. They don't start until Christmas Day and are more like a countdown to the Epiphany on January 6th.

I am quite sure this now annual tradition on the radio and even TV ads and TV shows touting a 12 Day countdown to Christmas is nothing more than an advertising ploy, but its simply incorrect and confuses many people. I've mentioned this to a couple of people, and had the response: "Are you sure the twelve days starts on Christmas, not before?"

I think in England this is more commonly known, whether or not you are a church-goer. In US, many people take their Christmas trees and lights down on December 26th. In Britain, that would be Boxing Day - still a part of Christmas and one of my favorite days of the year. Traditionally in UK, the tree comes down January 6th and schools don't resume until the 12th day is over. When I moved to US, I was really surprised when schools went back at so early.

So perhaps it's one of those cultural differences. Perhaps it's only my county that touts this incorrect information. Either way, I like to spread out Christmas, and my Christmas tree won't come down until after the new year.

Digging out my emergency kit

2010-12-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

On went the winter tyres last week. (That's tires to yanks. I got told off on my facebook page for writing tyres *rolls eyes*).

So, on went the winter tyres. We live on a hill and in 2008, I had to abandon my car a couple of times because I got stuck in the snow. At the end of last winter, even with winter tyres I had to ditch the car once and call my husband. That was when we called an Emergency Stop to winter and ran away for a weekend.

I have also dug out an emergency kit that I have. It has a basic first aid kit, but it also includes things for a winter break down.... flash light, thermal blanket & hand warmers, and such. I plan to add a few items to it. I always like to have things like a lighter handy. Tissues, hand sanitizer, water, couple spare batteries, a small amount of cash. Not too much of anything, but enough so that if I am stranded somewhere for a few hours then I won't freeze to death.

Temps here are already COLD. Yesterday's heat index was 2 °F (-17°C) and it will only get colder in January. If I do get stuck and have to walk a mile or wait in a cold car, then I want to be prepared.

I realized that Hubs doesn't have one, so ordered one for him too. He has a truck, and it has a better chance in the snow that my car... but then he's out in the snow a lot more than I am.

The cat loves the window too!

2010-12-09T19:53:00.000-05:00

And check out those icicles on this morning's photo!

This is as far as we've got with decorating inside... some poinsettia, candles and a lit wreath.

Good news... the dry wall guy will be back on Saturday to fix the mess left by the window guys. So then, we can paint!

It's a bit overwhelming, this feeling that all needs to be done by Christmas, but I just can't imagine having Christmas dinner in all this mess. Did I mention I'd promised to cook Christmas dinner? Yup. No big deal, you say? Well, it's only my FIRST! Yup, I've never cooked Christmas dinner before. Yikes! The pressure is even more on!

Purdy lights!

2010-12-07T15:47:00.000-05:00

Loving the new bay window this Christmas. We have it pretty crammed with poinsettia, candles and now a lit wreath too.

Underneath there, we have some ugly bushes, but with the lights then snow, they look like cool colored candy floss/ cotton candy bushes!

I am trying to remain cheerful as the holiday approaches, but I feel the stresses. I haven't written more than 10% of my cards or thought about many other things I need to do. We have sponsored another child through church and I still need to buy his gifts by next Sunday.

A pretty big thing is that I need to finish painting the living room, although it's primed as you can see in pic. 1. Hey, how do you like the wall sconces? I love them!

Stunning scenes in Harry Potter

2010-12-05T17:05:00.000-05:00

I just loved the new Harry Potter film - part 1 of the Deathly Hallows. If a trip to the cinema weren't so expensive, I'd go back for another viewing tonight! ($48 on popcorn and pop for 4 is crazy!) This was one of those rare occassions when the film was not just as good as, but better than the book!

Malham Cove Limestone Pavement
© 2010 Príamo Melo

Loved the acting, the moodiness, the quietness, the suspense. Above all, simply loved the cinematography and stunning landscapes that backdropped so many scenes; the forests, the beautiful Pembroke beach in south Wales and the dramatic limestone pavement of Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales. Really, the British Isles are stunning and the amazing film shots reminded what a gorgeous place it is!

We're planning a trip home next Summer, so Son asked can we time our trip for Part 2. We wouldn't get to see it any sooner... the release dates are the same, but maybe the atmosphere would be more exciting! And maybe he's hoping we'll bump into a few cast members, you know, England being so tiny and all that.

US 1: UK 0 - snow preparedness

2010-12-02T16:49:00.001-05:00

Gotta give this point to the US. Well, some of the US anyway - those parts used to getting snow. I was dreading taking Daughter to early band practice this morning, knowing we'd had some snowfall through the night. I shouldn't have worried. The plows were out early and most roads were scraped clean. Hubs has already prepped his tractor with a new plow blade this year so he's good to go.

Some poor soul stranded on a
flooded rail track

And yesterday we saw our county's new school delay alerts in action. Severe flooding in some areas left cars stranded and even floating down the road, so schools all across the county had a 2 hr delay. At 6.30am the phone rang and cell phones beeped with our new Delay Alerts. No more watching the scrolling thing at the bottom of the news, waiting an hour to see if the school's name comes up! Now we get the info nice and early so we have time to crawl back to bed if needed.

A lesson in table manners

2010-11-28T17:51:00.000-05:00

Before I dare take my kids on a trip to England, I think I'll need a few long sessions in table manners. Not because they are rude at the table or talk with their mouths full, but because the concept of using a knife seems so alien to them. I seem like such nag when I say "Use your knife!" or ask that they don't try to cut their food up with the side of their fork. My son doesn't seem able to keep a knife in his hand for more than one bite, even if he does use it to cut.

Indeed, it makes me feel silly to enforce it when we're in a restaurant and not a single adult seems to know they even have a knife. I even get funny looks from the waitress when I ask for a fresh set of silverware (cutlery) with each course. Sorry, I just don't want to lick my knife clean thanks, or even use my napkin to wipe my knife and fork of the last course so I can start my next course with clean eating utensils. That's just gross.

Anyway, I know that despite my vain attempts at teaching which fork to use at a properly set table, my kids just don't care about it. Teachers are no help when they kids aren't even allowed a knife in school, and all they get to use are sporks and their fingers. No-one else around them cares, so to them I am just over fussy and picky. I don't think I could attend lunch at school: it would give me palpitations to watch such caveman-like behaviour.

Nearly finished Christmas shopping!

2010-11-26T19:47:00.000-05:00

Did quite a lot of my shopping online this year, and as the kids get older and clothes are far more acceptable gifts, I am doing okay. We had a trip to Target for a few things, and really, I am nearly finished. I am thrilled as usually I am still shopping on December 23rd. We even have some lights hanging outside! In November!!

Ironically, having made numerous posts about buying early to ship abroad, I still haven't finished shopping for my mum. I had a personalized calender made for her at the Lifetouch portrait website - they do the school photographs each year, so I had their code for this years photos for both children. To that, I added some vacation photos and made a great gift for her. I want to buy something to go with it though and I am coming up short. The main reason: clothing sizes. They are just too different from country to country; and in US I find a size for, say, a dress is not the same as a nightie. Or a size for pants is not the same as underpants. It's really weird.

For other family members in UK, I went onto UK websites and had UK Gift Cards sent to my mum. She'll pop them in some signed cards I'll send ahead. Apple and Amazon are easy to buy from: go to the co.uk sites and login with your regular .com account, and ship to someone back home.

So this weekend, I want to finish off shopping for Mum, write all my cards. Then go & see Harry Potter!
Then next weekend? I MUST finish painting the living room and dining room. Walking around the furniture in the middle of the kitchen is a nightmare - and may have cured my desire for a kitchen island!

New Traditions - Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T11:59:00.002-05:00

What a lovely holiday Thanksgiving is. I've come to really enjoy this day, and see it as a not too shabby trade off for losing Boxing Day. (I still take Boxing Day off work but it's not the same).

This year has been very hard, but we recognize how many Blessings we have, and we receive with them with thanks. More than ever, I am thankful that we have enough always to get by and that we have a strong family. Despite losing two important family members this year, I am grateful for what they did for us, the unspoken protection they gave us. For this I thank God every day.

I am thankful for great kids, some wonderful supportive friends. And I am thankful that God listens to my rantings, accepts my anger, teaches me forgiveness and grace.

Have a wonderful day, be safe and remember what good you have in your life. Be safe. And if you get up at 2 am in the morning to stand outside in long queues for discounted electronics... then you're crazier than me LOL I'll be tucked up in bed with an over-stuffed belly! Enjoy!

[p.s. I am also thankful that my husband does all the cooking today, and many days!]

Christmas Shopping with Free Money!

2010-11-24T15:17:00.000-05:00

I can never stick to a budget at Christmas. I make the kids create a wish list but I always want to buy them things that are not on the list.

This year I had a lot of free gift cards - rewards from using my bank's credit card and also from MyPoints.com. I ended up with $800 in Amazon gift cards and $300 in Target cards. The funny thing was with the banking points catalog - I could get 2 Amazon Kindles (price $189 each) or $800 in Amazon gift cards. Why would I get the product when I could get double the value in vouchers?? I also like that I can buy Gift Cards for other stores with them!

I figured we'd have a free Christmas but you know what? My want-to-buy list just got bigger. No, no. We won't be greedy! Out of those gift cards, I can buy some other much needs things, like clothes and food.

I don't anticipate getting such large rewards again any time soon. With MyPoints, I manage to get $200 to $300 each year, but the bank one took me a few years to accumulate. I'd forgotten all about it till recently and what a nice surprise! Now to spend them wisely.

I dislike mall shopping, so will be doing some online. I have a bunch of things in my Amazon shopping cart already and I plan to keep checking back to see if any prices drop over the next few days: I read that the 2nd generation Kindle will be $89 on Friday, so I might nab one of them for Daughter. Hubs wants an iPod Touch, so maybe one of the older generation models will be on sale too! Son has decided he wants cowboy boots and... well.... I just don't know what to say about that one!

Have you had your Weetabix today?

2010-11-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

I recently learned that not every expat realized they could get Weetabix in the US, so I am here to share the great news! A growing number of supermarkets in the USA sell Weetabix - on not just in the imported food aisles. You can often find it in the organic section. To find your nearest stockist, just type in your zip code at WeetabixinUSA.com. If you cannot find one nearby, you can still get them online!

So, if you've never tried Weetabix what will you be getting? I love them but I don't advise you try one dry. I did that once - a friend & I had a dry-weetabix eating competition when we were 6, and we were spitting Weetabix flakes after about 15 seconds.

I like mine pretty much as I did as a kid -with icy cold milk, a little sugar, let them soak for a few minutes. Now I like to add a handful of fresh blueberries too for a burst of flavor. YUM!!

The Meaning of Jay

2010-11-17T19:07:00.000-05:00

Is my life surrounded by coincidence or is the pattern far more meaningful than that? I've posted a couple of times about freaky coincidences: obvious patterns that occur in waves, e.g. 3 customers the other day named Finley, Findlay and Fidely. Then the next day we had Barrett, Barrette and Barnett.

Funny, huh?

But more that than is the numbers and letters that follow me through my life. The biggest... letter J

The following J's in my family: Joan (known as Joby Nana to the kids, Joby being a pony), Jason, Jessica, Jon and a Jackie.My neighbors are Jodi, Judy, Joshua, Jackie and Jeff - in a road with only 7 houses.
Amongst my friends here are Judy, Jen, Jackie. My first dog was Jenny. My husbands first girlfriend was Jennifer.My son's friends are Jericho, Jarott and Jerod (although all his female friends are Ks).Daughter's best friend is Jocelyn and her 2 school bus drivers? Jack and Jackie. Oh, even my pastor... I thought his name was David but that's his middle name. His first name is... J.

So maybe J is just really popular? It is, I know but....

J is letter 10.October is month 10.
Daughter and I have birthdays in month 10, along with 2 nephews, 12 friends and numerous cousins. If I put them all on the calender, every day on October would be full. Three of them are on the 12th (me and 2 best friends)

Hubs, Mum and Son: All J's and all born in June. Their birthdays are 10 days apart.In the 6th month, June
Hubs (J) is 6/3
Son (J)is 6/13
Mum (J) is 6/23
I could get into it even more.... June = 6th, 6th letter = F, F is our family name LOL. I count J's all the time though. It's a bit of an obsession.

Congrats Will & Kate...

2010-11-16T09:48:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Prince William and his new fiance Kate Middleton, who announced their engagement this morning. Brave girl, taking on the role of future Queen of England!

Now onto more practical things... I do hope their wedding doesn't clash with my plans for a trip home. Mum's 75th birthday is next summer and I have been planning a trip back. Naturally, if a Royal Wedding falls within the same fortnight, flights and accommodation prices are going to rocket! Maybe I ought to start booking things now!

In Remembrance

2010-11-11T09:44:00.000-05:00

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, 1915

This day is recognized slightly differently in our countries. In the UK, it's a day to remember the fallen and is marked by a 2 minutes silence on Remembrance Sunday. In US, it changed from Armistice Day to Veterans Day after WWII and the Korean War, to honor all vets.

Oh how I miss my duvet!

2010-11-10T08:38:00.000-05:00

When I was eight years old, I switched from kiddy blankets to "grown up" duvets, or quilts as we called them. I was so excited. They were comfy, warm and the bed was so much easier to make.
About 10 years ago, I splurged and bought a fabulous set of goose down duvets: a lightweight one, a medium one and then they'd button together to make a heavy winter one.

Pretty & changeable
cover from Next

Well I lugged that set over the ocean, leaving behind my old fashioned duvet covers thinking I could get new ones, right? Bloody 'ell. When I first went to a store and asked where they stocked duvet covers, I thought I must be speaking another language or maybe they have a different word for duvet, since they looked at me so funny. They showed me comforters. Nope, not quite. I explained the difference. Uhhhh, no they'd never heard of them. Seriously??

Gradually I have seen them creep into stores: duvets and sometimes, if lucky, covers for them: fairly ugly and scratchy ones too. We tried one, and DH proclaimed he needed his sheets and blankets back. UGH! The duvets I see don't have tog ratings yet (rating to show how warm they are, 3.5 for summer, 15 for cold winters) but I've seen a couple basic "warm" and "warmer" ratings. There's hope, but the darn cover makers need to get on board.

Why do I hate sheets and blankets? On my bed we have sheet, lovely plush blanket, a comforter and a thin patchwork quilt/ throw. And when it gets colder, we just add more. The top sheet is crap and useless. They are only sold in sets, you can't just buy a bottom fitted sheet and a top flat sheet. So you buy a set with bottom sheet with deep pockets to fit the 3ft high princess and the pea mattress that you need a step ladder to climb into each night. Do they make the top sheet bigger to fit also? Oh nooooo, that would make sense. So that sits on top of the mattress and flaps an inch down the side, it cannot be tucked in. That means within 5 minutes switching off the lights, one of us turns and that's it. The sheet is now in the middle of the bed and the night twist begins. It's not long before the stupid blankets follow, and we're yanking and kicking and twisting and freezing.

They are just so.... primitive.

Gun Control and Family Friends

2010-11-06T19:32:00.001-04:00

This isn't a post about legalities and gun control in society generally, but more about gun control and/ or safety on local and personal levels.

Coming from UK, this wasn't a question that ever really occurred to me. Indeed, it didn't for a long time here. If my kids went to a new friend's house, I would think about what kind of family they were and who was around when my kids stayed over, but guns never entered my head. It was someone on the British Expats forum that brought it to my mind a couple of years ago.

I was nervous to broach it at first. How do you ask? Um, do you have guns? Do you lock them up? Well we did ask a neighbor and they assured us, yes they were locked up. What we didn't ask was about BB guns and air soft rifles. They weren't locked up, and it wasn't long before there was an accident. My kids and theirs did a bit of air soft rifle practice, innocently firing at a tree. A ricochet hit my daughter - 1/4 inch above her eye leaving a nasty wound. I was furious. We all were: at the kids who should know better, and at the neighbors for leaving open access.

But that's not all. A friend of ours told us that several years ago, his 15 year old was shot in the cheek and jaw with a hand gun. They thought it was unloaded and were playing around. Worse still, earlier this year my father in law was murdered with his own gun - a small 22 rifle that he used to shoot vermin in his fields. He had larger guns locked up, but I guess he thought this one wasn't too lethal.

I argued with him more than once over the years about guns. He'd argue back, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." I couldn't say that was totally wrong, but he was convinced that I was totally wrong. But with a gun in hand, a split second of rage can destroy lives forever. That moment could have passed in one of a thousand different ways had the gun not been so handy - maybe a fight, maybe even a violent one but not a necessarily a certain death. I told him that at least four times.

Such experiences only back up my fear and hatred of guns and of loose laws. For years I was told that I was just a liberal. That I didn't understand because I wasn't from America. They are right. I don't understand and never will. I sit here often on Saturday nights listening to gunshots around - not violence going on, but drunken target shooting in the farms and yards around. Rural neighborhoods aren't so strict as the cities. I stay inside.

So I still wonder though, how do I ask new friends about gun safety and control in their homes? I can tell my kids till I am blue in the face about safety, but I can't control what friends do in their homes. How does one ask such a question?

Freaky Invasions

2010-11-05T18:26:00.000-04:00

Is anyone else suffering from a stink bug invasion this year? I spy yet another crawling along the wall, up by the ceiling. We shoo out about one a day. Okay okay, they are not exactly swarming all over us, but usually I might see one or 2 per year, not per day!

I read there's a new kind of stink bug in USA, that's been brought in from Asia by accident. It has no natural predator so it's just multiplying, and destoying crops, much like the Japanese beetle. Problem is, they look almost identical to regular ones so I haven't started killing them yet.

New Harry Potter and New Hair

2010-11-02T08:25:00.001-04:00

I know this is old news, but with the new Harry Potter around the corner, I thought I'd mention that and Emma Watson's new hair all at the same time.

I love HP, really enjoyed the books... well all except the last one. I wasn't much impressed with some of the filler Rowling used to bridge plot holes, nor some of the characters' personality changes - but for once the new film looks like it will beat the book by a mile. The trailers look very exciting!

And so we're nearly at the end... watching these characters grow from tiny First Years in high school to gangly Third and Fourth Years to mature, almost fully grown Sixth Formers (for the yanks, high school in UK starts at 6th grade equivalent). They all seem to have skipped the zitty stage, lucky for them. And what a beauty Emma Watson (Hermione) has become. As I looked up some photos to post here, I realized that her hair may be as talked about as the Rachel Cut was for Jennifer Aniston. Emma was always a pretty girl, but sorry Ron, she's way out your league now!

International Gift Giving Part 5: Alternatives to Mailing Gifts

2010-11-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

When shipping gets expensive or you're running out of time to meet international mail deadlines, what else can you do? Well of course you can send money in a card but that can be risky. Gift cards aren't much good in a foreign currency so that's pretty much out, unless it's for a specific website that they want to order from.

And then there's a caution with pre-paid credit cards...anyone who has visited UK in recent years has probably hit this snag: cards in England now have special chips in them and without it, the card readers don't read your credit card. Now, maybe in big metro areas with lots of tourists they deal with this okay (manually processing the card, for example) but last time I visited my Mum, I struggled and just had to get cash out. So basically, I don't know if pre-paid credit cards are the best idea.

So what else?

One thing I like to do is shop online from UK websites and have the items sent direct. For example, Amazon makes it very easy to add an alternative address. I do it directly from Amazon.co.uk actually. I have my family set up as alternative addresses and send straight to them. That's really great if you want to send an electronic item and voltage/ plugs are an issue - buy the UK version.

The upside:

lower shipping if ordering from UK site
family don't have to pay import taxes
Amazon do gift wrapping and allow you to write a note
you can pay with US address and ship to UK address
you can send a gift card

Downside:

Cost of items might be a lot higher so you don't really save anything
Can seem a bit impersonal

Ebay is another (.com or co.uk) - simply change the "ship to" address at checkout. Fair warning: don't ask the seller to change it for you. For their protection they need to ship to the address you type in. If you ask them to change it after you've ordered and paid, they may simply say no and I wouldn't blame them.
I ship to gift addresses all the time from my business but the customer MUST put the correct shipping address into the checkout for or paypal payment as I use that to print the shipping labels, AND that way they pay correct shipping costs too.

How about sending money via Paypal? This is SUPER easy for sending money to or fro. I sent instructions to one of my sisters on how to set up an account and now they pool funds and send to my kids, and I can send to them also. Usually there is a currency exchange fee but there is everywhere!

Gift baskets and flowers - many sites arrange these for you now. You just go online, place an order and they will deliver for you. Gift Baskets Overseas is one example, although when I order flowers and plants for my Mum, I just call or email the florist nearest her house that takes credit card over the phone or online! A simple google search will bring up a bunch of them.

Operation Christmas Child Part 2

2010-10-30T10:46:00.000-04:00

I'll be turning in my shoeboxes this weekend. I spent too long wrapping them - the lids have to be wrapped separately so that the boxes can be checked. That's cool, but I had those flip-top shoeboxes and they're a bit harder to wrap nicely! I think next year I will splurge on some inexpensive pretty boxes from TJ Maxx.

Booty going in: a mixture of some small toys, school supplies and necessities like toothpaste, toothbrushes and soap. Oh and some gum and hard lollipops. I also included a short note in each box. Sometimes some of the older kids write back, and of course it depends if they can read/ write English.

The kids and I had lots of fun shopping for these and putting them together. We spend about $100 on four shoeboxes. Plus $7 per box delivery donation. I made that donation online at the Samaritan's Purse website. Then they email a label that I printed off onto sticky paper and stuck to the box. It shows what age group the gift is for, and has a barcode so I can track where the gifts end up. You could just put a check in the box instead.

$100 for 4 gifts is not a lot. I probably could have shopped even more wisely, but I still bought a lot in sales and at close-out stores. So for example, a pack of $12 socks cost $5; and I could buy 2 packs of cards for $1 at the Dollar Store, instead of a couple dollars each elsewhere. We took the money from our Christmas budget and are all more than happy to make such a small sacrifice so someone, somewhere gets a small gift this year.

For more info on how to join in - either financially or by donating your time, see my previous post

Politics Get Even Crazier

2010-10-29T11:53:00.046-04:00

I can't believe how vile the political campaigns have become. And how contradicting too! I just watched an ad this morning claiming we need to break Obama's status quo of everything the same, and then at the end saying "if you want to stop Obama's radical changes...". Well what is it? Everything the same or radical changes? They are mutually exclusive. You cannot have it both ways. Same with the claims of "socialist" in one speech and "fascist" in the next. If yer gonna throw insults, at least be consistent!

I can only guess these mudslinging ads from both sides are aimed at those who just want someone to dislike. BTW, in case it ain't obvious, I am - by American standards - something of a flaming liberal. So yeah, the "Tea Party" scare me. Not because they might win very much, but some of them are scary nasty people.

One, for example, is gunning for a democrat because he is Muslim, claiming "he's the most radical". That kind of thing scares the crap out of me. And another who says why should health insurance companies cover preventative medicine and long term conditions.... errr, cuz I flipping PAY them to, maybe??

Do they just randomly pick something that the Left want, label it "Un-American" and "Anti-Freedom" and say they'll do opposite but with a cherry on top?

The recent violence at one rally - where a female protester was dragged to the ground and had her head & neck pushed down to the curb by some guys size 12s, resulting in concussion - only begs the question, what kind of supporters are they? Are they that pumped up at rallies that they'll drag down a lone unprotected protester? And even afterwards, when things are calmer, no real apologies come out. The perpetrator blames his bad back on stomping her head, and in fact appeared on a TV show demanding an apology from her! Rand Paul says there were "crowd control issues." C'mon! Admit it! A few people got over the top and violent. Admit it, apologize. I'd have less contempt for you if you could bring yourself to do so!

In a way I am glad I cannot vote. I can turn off the ads, tell the telemarketers to Get Lost. If I could vote, I'd want to see some old-style campaigning: tell me what GOOD you are planning to do; don't tell me what BAD the other side are doing.

And I have a way out..... if they take control and turn the country into an all-white, all-straight, Christian-only, liberal-hating, education-fearing, xenophobic, moose-shooting, gun-toting, all-out-winking-DRILL-fest, I can always repatriate back to the old country.

International Gift Giving Part 4: Ideas

2010-10-28T16:04:00.000-04:00

Last week I started a series of posts about International Gift Giving - that is, some tips and ideas for those of us who live abroad and will be sending gifts back home for Christmas or other holidays and festivals. I've covered postage costs and options and customs forms and charges so far. And now onto some gift ideas and cautions.

DVDs: DVDs are much cheaper in US than UK, and they are lightweight for shipping, so they may seem like great gifts! But DVDs are classified by Region. This is based on what part of the world they are to be sold - North America, Europe etc. Region 1 DVDs don't work on Region 2 DVD players. Check to see if your friend has a Region Free DVD player before sending them an earlier release DVD. Sometimes they can watch on a computer but newer computers also have that blocked (gggrrrr HP!).

Some DVD players are region free. Others can be "hacked" - it's not a hack in the computer sense of the word; more like a code you can use with your remote control to tell your DVD player to accept other region DVDs.
I've had that work on some players. My new-ish player is supposed to have a setting that you easily select but it doesn't work.

You can still make your own DVD family videos - family videos and photo slideshows make awesome gifts to the family back home!! Most desktop computers come with a basic movie-making package. And most cell phones come with a mini video recorder! Even those 30 second clips can make a great little home movie that the Grandparents love to see! Buy bulk blank DVDs and get burning! They family will LOVE them plus they are really lightweight for shipping. Likewise a simple CD-R with a photo slideshow, or an audio of your kids singing and sending Christmas messages will make hearts melt.

Music CDs are fine to send. No region issues, they are cheaper in US and lightweight.

Clothes - I love sending clothes. TJ Maxx has great Osh Kosh and Timberland bargains for my young nephews, and I like to send my mum nice jumpers and scarves. However, UK and US sizes differ. And it's not always a simple case of size 12 there is size 10 here. Sometimes it's as much of a difference as UK size 14 is a US size 8. I ask my family for measurements in inches and then take a tape measure shopping with me. Shoes aren't so bad if you buy European brands and they have UK sizes on the label, such as Clark's and Reeboks.

Food. Well aside from the question - do you really think your sister wants Herschey's chocolate bars?? - there's the question of safety. First of all, you must follow import/ export laws. Meats, for example, are a no-no. As are plants. A box of chocs is fine, as long as you pack it so it won't melt. Packing peanuts are decent insulators but I wouldn't rely on them to keep food cold, where temperature is important for food saftey.
You might want to avoid sending bags of anything powdery or sugary! I once traveled with bath salts in my bag. They broke apart, and when my bag was inspected at the airport, I had a whole lot of questions to answer! I think only the overpowering scent of flowers saved my butt.

Electronic photo frame. Okay - so UK has different plugs and voltage thank USA; get round charging problems by including a travel plug, or if the giftee has a computer, many can be charged via USB. My mum is computer-illiterate, but all I have to do is send an SD-card of photos. If I ask my sister nicely, she can transfer them for me. Otherwise mum can just pop it in, and use the remote control to see photos from that card. Just like getting out a new photo album.

An alternative is a little photo key chain

If none of the electronic work for you - photoframe or CD slideshows - a simple photo album will thrill those at home who are missing you!

British Countyside: Landscape Photographer of the Year

2010-10-28T07:13:00.000-04:00

I have to share this - some truly stunning landscape photographs of Britain. It's hard to pick a favorite so I'll just ahead a link to the slideshow without further ado.

Bridges across the Dart at Bellever, Dartmoor, Devon
by Colin Grace (Commended, Classic view)

I give up (the house. again.)

2010-10-27T19:33:00.000-04:00

I have just spent a revolting half an hour cleaning up a vile stinking sludge from under my kitchen sink. I feel sick. We'd noticed a smell when we ran the water into the sink and thought we had problems with the drains. Being on a septic system, that wouldn't be shocking.

We started treating the system, beginning with simple remedies like baking soda (bicarb) and egg yolks - apparently they help with the good bacteria and don't upset the pH balance. When they didn't work, we started with commercial products. Hubs noticed a gap widening between the old sink and the counter so we thought, hmmm maybe gunk had gotten in there. We cleaned it out and re-sealed. The smell went down a bit and we thought, Aha! Got it!

Not quite. That was a few days ago. Today I opened the sink cupboard and it smelled somewhat musty. I moved something aside, and spotted something a bit sludgy looking. Long story short - yet another pipe under the sink has been leaking. This time a constant leak, rotting the bottom of the cabinet and leaving a nasty swamp. I nearly barfed, I admit it. The kids ran away.

So I cleaned it up, gagging the whole time. Amazing that as soon as I pulled out all the bottles and sodden boxes, the stench multiplied exponentially. Bear in mind that only few weeks ago we cleaned that whole cupboard out and fixed a different pipe, I don't know how the heck this got so bad so quickly.

I am so sick of the plumbing problems in this house. We stopped calling a plumber a few years ago, learning how to do some ourselves, since we were spending a fortune on plumbing issues. Under this sink alone, this is the 6th leak in 4 years: every time a different problem! And not just this sink: with one bathroom sink, on the day we moved in I ran the water, it went through the drain..... and straight out the bottom onto my feet.
Septic back ups, rusty well water, e-coli in the well, iron bacteria, every pipe in the house leaking.... really enough!!

And the house isn't that old. It was built in the 60s. 1960s, not 1860s or 1760s. Problem is, it appears it was built like crap.

International Gift Giving Part 3: Customs Forms and Charges

2010-10-27T14:49:00.001-04:00

CUSTOMS

Customs Forms for you

USPS Priority Mail labels created online print out with customs information included. But for smaller First Class packages you will need to fill out a small form. You can order them free online at the USPS Postal Store, or pick some up at your post office.This is for packages up to 4 pounds in weight and shipping with the slower First Class method. This can take weeks, sometimes as much as 6 weeks, so start prepping now!

Customs charges for your family
Yep, even gifts aren't tax free. Just like coming through the declaration line with your Duty Free from Spain, there may be VAT to pay and/ or customs duty. I learned that my first year here. I mailed gifts in one massive box for my whole family and mailed it to my Mum so she could play Mrs. Christmas. My declared valued was about $300. Poor Mum had to pay VAT and Customs duty.

From HM Revenue and Customs site:

2.4 Gifts

Goods sent as a gift that are over £40 in value are liable to import VAT. Customs duty also becomes payable if the value of the goods is over £135 but is waived if the amount of duty calculated is less than £9.
To qualify as a gift:
the customs declaration must be completed correctly
the gift must be sent from a private person outside the EU to a private person(s) in this country
there is no commercial or trade element and the gift has not been paid for either directly or indirectly
the gift is of an occasional nature only, for example, for a birthday or anniversary.
Note: if you purchase goods from outside the EU to give as a gift to a relative or friend, whether or not addressed to that person, is treated as a ‘commercial consignment’ for which the import VAT relief threshold is £18 (paragraph 2.3 refers).

WHAT CANNOT BE SENT and other things to remember

Look through the HM Revenue information about importing to see what limits there are for certain items and what are prohibited. Likewise, check with USPS if you are unsure if you can put something in the mail system on this side of the pond.
List of what you cannot send to UK according to USPS can be found here: visit link

Bear in mind, when sending electronics, US and UK have different voltage systems. You can send a travel plug with some small items, but with other items it won't be adequate.

Food. Well aside from the question - do you really think your sister wants Herschey's chocolate bars?? - there's the question of safety. First of all, you must follow import/ export laws. Meats, for example, are a no-no. As are plants. A box of chocs is fine, as long as you pack it so it won't melt. Styrofoam packing peanuts are decent insulators, although I wouldn't trust them where temperature control is vital to food safety.
You might want to avoid sending bags of anything powdery or sugary! I once traveled with bath salts in my bag. They broke apart, and when my bag was inspected at the airport, I had a whole lot of questions to answer! I think only the overpowering scent of flowers saved my butt.

Teaching Sunday School

2010-10-26T13:22:00.000-04:00

I'm not really sure how this happened, but this weekend I am teaching a class of Sunday School for 1st and 2nd Graders.

Well, I am sure how it happened. I've been wanting to do more outside of work (um, other than renovations, thanks!) and an announcement was made at church that they needed help in their expanded kids area. They now have 120 kids going to Sunday School plus the nursery, and they run Sunday School from 2 locations.
I put my name down, thinking I could help with nursery or pre-K. They are very short on helpers for the newer location, so I guess I was best/ only choice for this coming week.

I am a bit nervous actually. This particular class runs for a long time, nearly 90 minutes. A long time to keep 6 and 7 year olds focused. This week's lesson is Joshua and there's not a whole lot of ideas for teaching on Joshua when I look online. Maybe I'll build a wall of boxes and see if they can shake it down with stomps and claps, like the Walls of Jericho. Ooo sounds like a lot of noise to me. Maybe not a great idea.

I will have help - another volunteer has come forward, and my son will be helping too. He's helped other teachers for the past 2 weeks so I am hoping he can give me some tips and we can all just take it in turns to do a craft or read.

International Gift Giving Part 2: Holiday Shipping

2010-10-25T12:41:00.001-04:00

Last week I started a series of posts about International Gift Giving - that is, some tips and ideas for those of us who live abroad and will be sending gifts back home for Christmas or other holidays and festivals.

Today, a big one to consider: postage. Before you get too carried away buying up cheaper designer label jeans to send back to your sister, keep in mind how much it will cost to send there. A few details below...

MAILING DATES

Remember not to just check US mailing dates but keep an eye on the Royal Mail. Postal strikes in UK, or other issues like this year's Icelandic volcano eruption, can delay mail unexpectedly. So far dates haven't been announced for international shipping from US, but they have been announced for shipping to Military addresses. See link: Military Mailing Deadline
Holiday shipping deadlines for others should appear on this USPS page soon.

POSTAGE COSTS

Although it is cheaper to send from US to UK, US postage has gotten much pricier in the past few years. I ship items daily with our business and may be our local Post Office's best customer - so I keep track of prices!

Cards. Stamps for posting Christmas cards come in different prices. No longer does one stamp fit all. If you send a square shaped envelope, for example, be prepared to pay more for that than for a regular rectangular envelope.
At time of writing:

1 oz regular card: $0.98 stamp
1 oz square card: $1.18 stamp
1oz large A4 style: $1.24

Square rate also applies for any "unusual" shape or if it contains a rigid item, such as cardboard to prevent photos bending.

You may find it cheaper to put a bunch of cards into one big envelope or even a box. A 12 oz large envelope costs $8.84, for example. Even better is a Priority International Flat Rate envelope. This won't carry tracking but can weigh up to 4 pounds weight, and have a flat cost of $13.45.

This could save a lot of stamps if you can deliver all your cards to one address and have someone from home hand them out. Or you could address them and have the person put UK stamps on for you. Be good, send some money for this! And ask first if they mind helping you out. Don't assume! This is a busy time for many people.

Packages:

First Class International

Max weight: 4 pounds
Can be slow, up to 5 to 8 weeks at Christmas time

Priority Mail International
Nice thing about this:

free boxes from the post office,
print your labels for free on the USPS website
also get a discount when you create the label online
request free pick up and your mail carrier will collect it from your house/ mailbox
fairly fast service
you can track your packages online (free when printed online)

Pricing can be high (see chart below)

Flat Rate Boxes:

Medium – $43.45;
Large – $55.95

Medium has 2 shapes: shirt box shape and shoe box shape. They are not very big, despite what the commercials show on TV. Large is approx 12x12x5.

Both have a max limit of 20 pounds for international shipping. I reckon that if the item I am shipping weighs more than 6 pounds, it's worth squeezing in a medium flat rate box. If it weighs more than 10 pounds, it's worth trying to get into a Large Flat Rate box. Plus I can throw in everyone's cards and letters, and since I ask nicely, Mum hands them out for me.

For all other information about shipping to UK with USPS, see link Great Britain and Northern Ireland

US Mail/ USPS used to hold their prices for a long time. In the last few years though, they've raises prices annually - usually at the beginning of the year so these should be good until 2011.

Tomorrow: Customs
what can and cannot be posted,
Customs labels and customs charges

Trip to the vet

2010-10-23T11:13:00.000-04:00

Poor Kitty Cat got into a fight a few nights ago. A neighboring farm cat came wandering and our Kitty Cat - despite being 7 pounds to the other cat's 20 pounds - will fight to defend her turf. The sound of a cat fight coming from the dark trees is not something I wish to hear very often!

The fight didn't last long and we chased off the massive fluffy intruder (whose eyes glow red in the dark, creepy). Kitty came him, looking pretty PO'd. Next day she had a small limp but by yesterday she could barely put her back left leg down so I took her to the vet.

Turned out she had a few hidden wounds: both back legs and a nasty tear under her front "armpit". One her back paws had a bad tear between the toes and was weeping some nasty infection. Bear in mind, this inspection by the vet included 3 of us holding her down. My cat may be a beauty and a cutey when she wants, but she makes a good attempt to claw your arm when she doesn't want to be held. I think her tail puffed up to about 7 times its usual size.

Anyway, the vet gave her an antibiotic injection (whew, no tablets!) and some liquid pain killers (whew, no tablets!). The pain killers don't even need to be swallowed - just squirt into mouth with syringe and it gets absorbed into the mouth. Great! Easy! Right? haha. First dose ended up on my jeans. Rest up, catch her unawares, grab scruff of neck, get it done.

Nowhere does Halloween like America!!

2010-10-21T09:12:00.001-04:00

I think it's safe to say when it comes to Halloween, America does it bigger and better than anywhere else. Never before I had seen so many people go to so much effort. Not just one house in the road with a token pumpkin in the window, or a couple of kids going Trick or Treating! Oh no!

Here you'll find houses decorated for weeks ahead of time: the most elaborate Jack O' Lantern carvings you can imagine; smoke machines; front lawn graveyards; hanging skeletons and vampires; giant blow up pumpkins, ghosts and witches. Not to mention more candy and sweeties than you've seen in your LIFE with dressed up grown ups handing them out. For once, what you see in Hollywood movies really happens in every street across America.

In our town, we have fairly strict TorT rules. Hours are set from 6.30 to 8 in the neighborhoods, with kids over 13 not allowed to wear masks. This is to prevent some of the nastier tricks that get pulled. Last year we went to another neighborhood to join in (too few houses in our rural area). By 8.05 though, the porch lights were out and everyone was inside. We had to walk a few blocks to the car (no sidewalks. America doesn't do sidewalks outside of the cities!). By 8.10, a few state troopers were cruising round, looking for any late trouble makers.

This year, we have an added celebration though: a nearby city is having an all day TorT fest: shops giving out candy for a few hours, followed by a parade and then a costume competition! I don't go in for it all very much but do take the kids, although son is now too old to join in with some of it.

A couple of years ago, we did get into Pumpkin Carving though. We went crazy, did about 5 each and put them outside. Tried to get a photo and without flash, I got the most wicked effect with the camera: the light looks as though it's coming out of the pumpkins. If you look closely you might see the zombie face and the witch burning at the stake.

Our carving competition a few years ago
Freaky photo!

Operation Christmas Child

2010-10-20T18:54:00.001-04:00

Yes, yes, there was a drought and now I'm doing 2 posts today. Well the year's running away with me, what can I say?

Thought I'd mention Operation Christmas Child. It's something I've wanted to do for years but I'm finally doing it this year. This program is run by Samaritan's Purse and they deliver gifts to kids who would have very little during the Christmas period. Last year they delivered gifts to 8 millions children in 95 countries!

How does it work?
Basically select what "kind" of child you want to gift to (boy/ girl, then pick an age group) and you fill up a shoebox with small age appropriate gifts.

I've had 4 boxes under my bed all year and add to it as I see things on sale and also when I stop by shops like Dollar Tree, the One Stop at Target and 5 Below:

Necessities:

soap/ toothbrushes/ toothpaste/ washcloths, lip balm
school supplies, stickers, picture books for little kids, coloring books & crayons
kleenex, wet wipes, first aid kit, flashlight
comb/ brush
socks and underwear, hat scarf and gloves, t-shirts, PJs
sunglasses, ball caps, scarfs

Fun things to include

small toys, playing cards, Happy Meal toys, toy cars
yo-yos, penny whistles, harmonicas, slinky, travel games
hair things, toy beads, friendship bracelet
stuffed animals and Beanie Babies, dolls
Jumping ropes, Jacks, chalk
Chewing gum, Mentos

There are a few things that you should not put in there:

NO War related items (toy guns, knives, soldiers, etc.) Your gift may end up in an orphanage of a war-torn country. Those kids do not need reminders of war and violence!

NO Liquids (shampoo, glue, nail polish, etc.)
NO Medicines (vitamins, drops, etc.)
NO Glass or breakable items (mirrors, china dolls, etc.)
NO Chocolate or perishable food items
No Used or worn items

What to do with your box?

Each box requires a $7 donation inside to go towards delivery.
Now, I had planned to mail them to the relevant address (below), but my Church is joining in this year, and in 2 weeks we're having a big packing day to pack up general donations into shoeboxes so I will take mine to them.
If you don't have a local donation centre, Send your box to:
Samaritan's Purse
Operation Christmas Child
801 Bamboo Road
P.O Box 3000
Boone, NC 28607

To find out more, check out the Operation Christmas Child website.

If you can't afford to fill a box, you might find a local center who need volunteers for one of their packing parties, or who would be very happy to accept any small items that you can provide.

Check out what went in our boxes!! Part 2

International Gift Giving

2010-10-20T16:32:00.000-04:00

Over the next few days, I will be putting together some useful information for mailing overseas. It will focus on shipping to United Kingdom from USA, but may have some useful info for expats in other countries too. It's especially useful for the new expat.

As early as it seems to me, it's almost time to start buying and sending gifts overseas. In order for them to arrive in UK in time for Christmas, I like to mail my cards and gifts by the first week of December, and then I send them Priority Mail - it's faster, simpler and has tracking.

If you are a new expat reading this, and you're about to spend spend spend on gifts for your loves ones back home, there are a few things to keep in mind. CDs, jeans, designer labels, perfumes etc might well be cheaper here and so great gifts to send home but there are sometimes hidden costs! I hope to help you avoid some of my past mistakes!

Stay posted!

Changing my strengths list: Striking off Tolerance

2010-10-19T18:47:00.001-04:00

You know how people generally talk about their strengths and weaknesses? They are all very subjective and biased of course: I might think I am kind and you might think I am a stingy old goat. And I wonder how many people change their mental list - come to the realization that what they think is a good quality is really a bad quality, OR it is a good quality but they are just not good at it like they always thought.

Let's look at one of mine. Tolerance. For the past 25 years I thought I was a tolerant person. I'd even list it right up there in my Top 5. Where other people are intolerant, I am the opposite. For example, people who are homophobic or against a religion or immigrants may be called intolerant. I am none of those things so that must make me tolerant, right? When I moved to US and experienced more intolerance than I really expected from an educated wealthy country, I figured I was a step ahead.

I've come to realize though that for someone who prides myself on being tolerant, I am really very intolerant. There are a whole LOT of things that I cannot and do not tolerate, and I really must learn how to. For years I'd laugh when my old boss would comment that I didn't suffer fools. I thought that was a positive thing! I now think he meant I needed to work on that a bit. I didn't equate that to being intolerant.So I'm striking tolerance from my strengths list and adding it to my "Need to Improve" list.

I am intolerant of teenage mood swings. Of stupid people. Of rude people. Of customers who treat clerks like scum. Of people who assume the worst. Of people who refuse to play by the rules but expect everyone else to. Of people who are disloyal, or lazy, or who lie or steal.

In other words, as my old boss said, I don't suffer fools. Bad thing? Good thing? Does it make me better? Are some kind of intolerances acceptable? Or does it just make me feel like I am superior?

In fact, as I write this I have decided that I hate the word tolerance and I might strike it from all my lists completely.
If I say I am tolerant, it sounds like I am putting up with something so pat me on the back.
If I say I am intolerant, then I think I am superior and better than everyone else.
If I say, I am only intolerant of annoying people, then I am playing Judge and deciding it's okay to be intolerant of this set of people but not that set of people.

So I am not just striking it from my strengths or my weaknesses, I might just strike it from my vocab altogether. How does the word patience grab you instead?

Decluttering.... part 2

2010-10-18T15:57:00.000-04:00

Declutter or unclutter? Apparently it's "unclutter" but I cannot help saying the former.

On Saturday, I decided to pull out all my painting supplies so I could make one trip to Lowes to buy what I needed. I wanted to see what I had and what needed replacing. Shouldn't take long, right? Especially since I put them all in a big tote last time I had a big project, right?

You'd think so. The reality of it was that I spent 2 hours in the garage just trying to find the tote. Why? Partly because I got sidetracked by the small tubs of plumbing supplies, tools, drywall supplies, gardening tools etc that were a complete mess. While I was doing it, I realized a few things. Being disorganized and having clutter is expensive. I found numerous items that we thought we'd lost - still in brand new packaging! Items we have since bought again! I found other items that were out of date (glue gone hard, for example), or damaged because they hadn't been put away properly. All need to be replaced. On top of that, it's really a waste of time to be always looking for things that aren't where they should be!

I found most of what I was looking for. I did not find my best paint brushes though. I actually used them this year. I remember washing them after I used them. I do not know where I put them and will probably have to buy more.

Hubs and I are as bad as each other for this. He'll buy double supplies and put the extras away, or leave them in the bag in the basement. Weeks later, can't find them, he'll buy it again. Suze Orman (you know that financial lady that's on TV) said once that you have to look after your stuff to be wealthy - something like that anyway. Her reasoning was that if you don't look after your things, if your living space is a mess, you cannot possibly value those things. And if you don't value your possessions, you'll be wasteful. They'll lose value more quickly, or you have to replace them more often. Makes sense.

Or at least, it all made sense when I was frustrated on Saturday. I would have achieved more with my day if the garage hadn't been a mess. But training myself to have a place for everything AND put everything in its place is an ongoing battle!

Decluttering my life

2010-10-17T17:32:00.001-04:00

I'm being a bit of a cheat here, and copying a post I made earlier this year on my ereader1 blog. I decided to recycle it because in a way, much of our renovations - although always planned - sought motivation from this book. This wasn't my soul motivation - circumstances that changed our lives this year also made us sit up and think about our lives, what we were doing with them and how we were living them - but it got me started.

One topic we raised was our home. As a fixer-upper, we'd determined that it would take us years to fix up. And with that, our attitude was fairly slow and laid back. We came to realize that it was getting us down and making us unhappy at home, so we wanted to do something about it. This book gave me the first step.

Before you read it, a note. I am obviously way behind schedule. I'd given myself until May to get done. Well, that didn't happen because we extended from uncluttering to renovating, but c'est la vie!

Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin R Doland- originally posted Feb 19, 2010

My latest ongoing reading/ long term project stems from picking up a Kindle freebie: Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin R Doland. This winter has been long and hard. Coming straight after a wet and dreary summer, it's safe to say we have the Winter Blues here in Western Pennsylvania, and finding motivation for such awful tasks as uncluttering the hallway closet doesn't come easy.

Doland's step-by-step program to unlcuttering your life in a week seemed a bit too good to be true. And it is really; some of the steps she says you can do before work or in an afternoon really take days or weeks on their own. One of *the* biggies - clearing out the boxes of sentimental junk collected over 30 years - she says to do before you even start on step one. HA! I thought she was going to tell me how to cull all of that! But that's fine. Really. Because what it did do was get my arse moving. Chapter 1 down and I was ready to get going.

Doland said I could re-organize my closet on Monday morning before work. Well in all honesty, a full Sunday afternoon was more realistic (and my closet is tiny), followed by 3 more Sundays doing the kids' closets, and 4 trips to the charity shop. But not only did it give me the motivation to do it, it also let me do it guilt-free. Those pants that I have never worn and frankly never will? Off to charity! That $300 skirt new with tags but bought in a sale 3 years ago? Off to consignment. Guilt free clearing out is what it's about, and for ~~tight wad~~ frugal person such as myself, that's #1! :-)

What I noticed almost immediately - aside from guilt free closet emptying - was how great it felt to have things organized again! My kids get ready quicker in the morning. My daughter has acres of space now that she's parted with a jungle of stuffed animals! Our old photos came out of boxes, into photo frames and onto newly cleared shelves! Step 1 Closets over and on to Doland's Monday afternoon: My desk at work.

I'm reading each section as I have the time to fit it into my life. I've given myself until May to finish reading the book and uncluttering the whole house, at which point I plan to be outside enjoying Summer! I know I'll be skipping sections of the book, such as chapters on how to run meetings at work or give presentations. Having skimmed them, I don't feel they are applicable to everyone, nor are they that great.

In the meantime, we are loving our new tidy wardrobes, organized bookcases and reduced shelf of cookery books. I'm loving the new cubby my husband built for the bathroom towels. No longer am I scowling at everyone for the messy shoes everywhere. Maybe I'll get through the rest of winter with some sanity left!

Windows in, but still so much to do!

2010-10-16T10:28:00.001-04:00

I love my new windows. This is my favorite: a 10 ft wide bay window in my living room. What a difference it makes. It's not so peachy as the photo makes it look - it's wooden trim that I need to paint or stain.

New Bay Window

Old Window

The whole window makes the room feel so much more spacious! The old one had to be replaced, and any 10ft window was going to be expensive, so the bit extra for the bay was worth it to us. It's a north facing window surrounded by 80 ft pine trees so not a bright spot. Taking in as much light as possible is important, and now the outside landscape is the focal point of the room.

Still so much to do though. I was a bit disappointed when the installers didn't fix some of my new drywall that they damaged. I'd planned to do windows THEN drywall but they said they'd fix any issues. So I'll get that done this weekend, and now comes the mammoth job of priming the walls and ceiling, and then painting. We haven't chosen colors yet. That'll be a big task.

On top of that, I also have to try to color-match paint in the kids' rooms. New windows in there, but again, damage to paint needs touching up, and all the windows need trim (when they house was built, none of the windows and only some doors were trimmed.)

I'd hoped to have it all done by end of the month but now I'm hoping to have all but the fireplace finished by Thanksgiving. First I have to order the lights! I've been promising to do it all week! Hubs has been working outside all morning, finishing some landscaping before winter. I am still sitting here in my PJs drinking coffee, so guilt, if not motivation, is going to drive me out of my seat any moment now!

Meme: Things that make me mad

2010-10-14T18:46:00.001-04:00

Probably an ongoing meme, since I do get mad once in a while.

What's made me mad today?

What's made me mad today is the number of free kittens and puppies that I see advertised on my local freecycle website. I can't stand this for a number of reasons....

For one thing, "back street" breeding is totally irresponsible and unregulated. Accidental mating of your 2 best buddies isn't cute. It's terrible. There are tens of thousands of strays put down all the time in America, and chances are some of your adorable little pups will end up in a pound too. Those 6 pups might go onto to parent up to seven thousand puppies between them in the next 3 or 4 years. Not to mention, I bet almost all of them haven't been tested for common breed diseases, such as hip or eye diseases, so they just get passed down to the next generation.

I think if you have a male and female or a pet that can come into contact with the opposite sex, then it is your duty to spay/ neuter. In my not-so-humble opinion, that is as much part of having a pet as taking them for their rabies shots. And if you can't afford it, don't get one! There's no law to say you have to have one.
You can, of course, pop to the Humane Society to adopt - their animals are spayed and neutered. They do have a very reasonable adoption fee though.

Vile puppy mill

Sometimes those ads in the paper? The "not free but cheap" ones? They are not always accidental breeding, or someone thinking their adorable chihuahua and their handsome beagle would make sweetie-pie babies together. Sometimes they are from puppy mills. Don't know a puppy mill? Picture hundreds of dogs standing in wire cages all of their lives, constantly pregnant. Never allowed out, never walked, barely vetted, rarely petted. Constantly pregnant, going crazy, their feet wrecked by standing on wire mesh all day. Living a life of utter misery.

Why else? Well, did you ever stop to think who might be getting your cuties that you're giving away for free? They can end up in homes of serial abusers - people who get a kick out of hurting animals. Sold into animal labs for experiments. Sold for pelts. Or "rescued" by some who mean well, but have no business having more pets. Ever seen them on the news: animal rescue brings out 45 cats and 27 dogs, the house piled with faeces? Yeah, those people don't need any more.

Today I saw someone who seemed to be doing it the right away. She had become ill and so couldn't look after her dog properly anymore. Instead of offering it up for free, she was asking for a re-homing fee. I saw some comments complaining about it, people saying they couldn't afford the $50 she was asking and they were doing her a favor. She didn't see it that way, and I agree with her.

I say the re-homing fee is great. If the new owner cannot afford the $50 re-homing fee, how can they afford the annual vaccinations? The tick prevention that's needed in our area due to high rates of Lyme Disease? Or any other vets bills? Let alone the expense of food! I think she was right: weeding out the serial rescuers, the irresponsible and the chances of it being sold to a puppy mill.

Of course, there are plenty of loving homes out there! I am sure many of the ads I see end up with happy results. It's the hidden story that makes me want to cry every time I see one of these ads. Yup, I've commented on the local freecycle before. Lots of people have! I've wanted to "rescue" a few myself. But that perpetuates the problem: irresponsible breeding and puppy mills. I'll stick to rescuing from the Humane Society.

Peanut and Nadine, best friends to each other
and to me

Peanut, from SPCA
a kill-shelter. She would have been euthanized
within 3 more days if we hadn't adopted her

Nadine, aka Kitty
from Humane Society,
a no-kill shelter. Almost always full.

Nasty walls... renovations continue!

2010-10-09T19:26:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we had some unexpected surprises when we tore down the fake wood paneling. Why that horrible stuff was ever invented I do not know, but hey ho. We started tearing it down for the drywall guy. We debated going over the old insulation or tearing it out, but a musty smell to the paneling made us remove a couple of sections to investigate.

Yikes! Was I glad that we did! For one thing, there was a mouse nest. With live mice in it. For another, there were carpenter ants. And on the chimney wall, we found big holes and rotting gypsum board. After an initial panic (what's causing the damp? How do the mice get in and out of that apparently sealed section?) we found much of the cause: under the window, where the builder had butted gypsum panels, there were big gaps where he hadn't done it right. Water then could seep in, as well as allow in little critters. On the chimney wall, we discovered there had been an old roof leak, that caused quite a lot of damage but was now okay since we had the roof re-done 4 years ago.

Rotting gypsum

One might ask, didn't the house inspector spot all this before we moved in? Hmmmmm..... well that would not be the first time we have asked that question regarding this house. In fact, it's probably been asked about 14 times. We've had so many issues with leaks, septic problems, broken pipes, rotten walls, mice and gophers, more leaks, floods, falling walls that sometimes we wonder whether to just sell up and start somewhere else.

Some of this is new to me. I've renovated houses several times before but never done so much in a wood frame house with gypsum. [I still cannot get my head around houses built with wood frame and plywood or gypsum!] Drywall is fairly new to me, having only lived with real plaster before. Of course, plasterers are expensive and there are not many skilled ones around.

Thankfully, Hubs was pretty handy and came to the rescue, filling gaps with that spray foam that hardens in minutes, making repairs and removing said mice.


After holes fixed and new insulation installed

That last photo was days ago. We now have the drywall all up and tomorrow it's getting its final mudding. Cannot wait! More photos to follow!

Trip for an xray

2010-10-08T15:36:00.000-04:00

Nothing major.... I've been snotty for months now, and last week it turned into a painful cough. Yesterday I finally gave in and went to the doc for some antibiotics. {Annoyingly I started to feel better last night, can you believe it?} Since I told the doctor that my chest hurt, he wanted me to go for an xray, to rule out pneumonia I suppose. Personally I think it was more to do with a bad cold, a cough and pulling mouldy old insulation out the walls, but what do I know? God knows how much this will cost, but I guess Doc wants to cover his butt. Besides, I figured after 18 years of smoking, having a professional look at my lung xrays probably wouldn't be a bad thing.

Instead of going to the hospital for the xray, I went into one of the many new walk in labs/ xray facilities that have popped up around us in the past couple of years. Now generally, I have not been much impressed with American ER facilities. Yes, they are usually more nicely decorated than UK versions; they have comfier chairs and fewer sick people in the waiting rooms. But I've had several visits there with the kids - for broken bones or cuts that need stitches - to know that the waiting times aren't much better than in UK. AND last time daughter went with a badly broken arm, there was no orthopaedic doctor working! So they put on the homemade splint that I had made and sent us home for the night with some painkillers, with instructions to see the ortho the next day. Hmph! Bad break too that needed pulling and stretching to re-set the bone.

Back to yesterday.... given my previously negative experiences of walk-ins, I was therefore pretty impressed with this xray lab. Toodling along with my print out from the doc, I walked in, wrote down my name, sat down, read one page of my book and then was called in. Within 15 minutes, I was back in my car headed home.

It was a nice building, mainly dedicated to being a new cardiovascular center I think, but I was surprised how empty the place was. No-one else was in there for the xray or lab/ bloodwork facility and you gotta ask, how's it paying for itself?? I guess it must be since it's a business - not government or charity run health center.

Happy Birthday, Daughter!

2010-10-06T18:55:00.000-04:00

My daughter turned 11 this week. We celebrated with a day out to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. She wanted to see the dinosaur display again, and the amazing display of natural gems and crystals. Really, they are stunning. I don't think there is any art in the world that can hold a candle to some of those natural beauties!

Our daughter is a pretty good kid. She's an avid reader, has a funny sense of humour and is something of a tomboy. You will never find her in pink or anything flowery, and rarely in a dress. She's never been a "doll" girl and about the girliest thing about her is her long hair.

She's a smart girl too, with some good nouse (common sense) as well as academic smarts. Once in a while, she has a feisty streak - common to all the females in my family! - but on the upside of that, she's confident and independent, and almost always willing to try something new (the exception being new foods.)

On the whole, we think she's pretty darn cool and I am very proud to have such a beautiful girl! Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

Busy weekend ahead!

2010-10-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

So, someone told me I take on too much. I thought about the moms who are running round everyday after school to this club and that dance lesson and karate and soccer, and though Nnaaahhhh, I don't do that much. Then I was reminded that I work full time too. Not all Moms do. I tend to forget that.

Well this weekend is no exception really. Monday will be Daughter's 11th birthday! Woot! We're having a day out tomorrow in Pittsburgh to her venue of choice, the Carnegie Natural History Museum (phew, not Chuck E Cheeses! Progress!) followed by her favorite restaurant: Olive Garden. She's invited her best friend and we should have fun.

This isn't her full celebration though. Last year her birthday was a bit rubbish: 200 miles away doing a craft show, in the rain, in a parking lot. So we promised her a better one this year with a party and sleepover. That isn't happening until November though, because we're trying to get some of our renovations done before winter. Thankfully she's a smart gal and isn't too upset about it. Well, she's getting 2 birthdays really, so that makes up for it.

Tonight I have to pack up the living room and dining room, pack up the bookcases and china cabinets - because we're tearing down the 1960s wood paneling and getting drywall and a whole new plastered ceiling. Oh I cannot wait. We live at the edge the woods, so our house is dark enough. Low windows and low eaves block even more light, so then on top - dark fake wood paneling - is just too depressing. I couldn't face another winter of it!

We had several price estimates to have the walls done. They varied enormously, of course, from $800 plus materials to $2500 plus materials. Woah! In fairness the high quote was a plasterer, not just a dry wall guy, and plastering is a dying trade so the skilled guys charge a lot. To plaster was going to be over $5k for the two rooms, so that's not happening.

We're preparing for lots of dust for a while, as he comes back to sand, mud, dry. Sand, mud, dry. I tried it once when we drywalled the bathroom. I did all the mudding and it's not easy, so this one I am leaving to the pros.

Texting 1,2,3

2010-09-30T12:50:00.000-04:00

I've always had a little rant that US cell phones and wireless companies seemed years behind those in Europe: behind with competition, SIM cards and their flexibility, pricing plans and calling overseas. Up until recently, I was told my provider - Verizon - couldn't connect for international texting, for example. And although phones now have SIM cards, blocks within them prevent users from being able to switch from phone to phone without losing data or changing plans.

I was feeling a little left out when some friends of mine around the world were able to quickly share texts and photos. Yeah yeah, boo hoo. I could pick up the phone or write an email, right? Sure! But texting makes things so quick. I can be out and about, and share a photo in an instant. The phone's great but with time differences and costs, calls are few and far between. And when I make a call, it tends to be an hour long or more - hard to plan into a day when it's dinner time here and bedtime there.

So, on the off chance the other day, I tried a text to a friend in London. Lo and behold, I got a message back in minutes! Woah! And not only mates in UK - many of my old friends have emigrated and are in Australia or Germany. Suddenly everyone felt closer! Instead of thousands of miles and hours apart, we were able to share some news in seconds.

Of course, it could still get pricey. I checked with Verizon and of course, international texts are not covered in any calling plan options, and true to US-style, you pay for incoming texts too - not just the ones sent out.
Sending international texts with Verizon Wireless is currently 25 cents each. Receiving is 20 cents.

Well, I don't plan to use it like a teenager, with my fingertips glued to the keyboard. But it just feels good to have the option. Another little way to stay in touch across so many miles.

A Day in the Colonies

2010-09-25T20:05:00.000-04:00

Daughter & I had a girls' day out today. We went to a local annual fall festival, called Penn's Colony Festival . I had become a little disheartened by some small town festivals that promised much and delivered only stalls of junk food and imported junk flea market goods.

But this was a good old folk art and craft festival, with all the vendors dressed in Colonial garb, bagpipes playing, Union Jack's flying and lots of Redcoats about. Found a cool stall selling gorgeous handpainted gourds. Bought Hubs a birdhouse with the 4 seasons painted on, as that's his current theme. And bought myself some very cool gourd Christmas ornaments. Will take photos next week and share.

I confess, I don't know much colonial history - beyond what I learn in my kids' social studies books (and they repeat the same stuff every year, so it sinks in). I didn't really study it in school. What's to learn? The yanks kicked our arses and have been celebrating it every year ever since. What more is there? Besides, we had a loooong history to learn about, and tons of successful wars and a thousand kings and queens names to remember.

Colonial eating. Um, philly steak and fries

Wool spinning

Gotta get a snap of the Jack

DD pans for gold. Or pyrite.

Colonial Camp. These guys take it pretty seriously!
Spot the Union Jack!

That's more British flags in Pennsylvania than the whole of GB, eh?

As you can see, I have my new phone camera and SD card working!

Book writing celebrities: Cybill

2010-09-23T07:13:00.000-04:00

I'm currently reading the autobiography of Cybill Shepherd, entitled Cybill Disobedience. Quite honestly, it's not a book I would have picked up normally but it was free as a Kindle edition so I thought why not? It will be a break from my reading norm, and I do like successful women.

Aside from the writing and littering of typos, one thing I am struggling with is when I try to envisage Cybill in a role, I keep seeing Kathleen Turner in my head. Not when I think of Moonlighting, because Maddie is Cybill but when she describes another scene in her career or I try to imagine which one she was in a certain film, Turner's image pops up instead. Only when Cybill mentions Moonlighting or L'Oreal's I'm Worth It commercials do I see her big smile and go, Oh that one!

Cybill Shepherd

Kathleen Turner

They are not exactly the spitting image of each other, are they? Maybe it's just that these two very beautiful women were around in my formative teenage years, and still pop up sometimes today, and as they get older I feel older too. Or maybe it's just that they had great smiles and big hair.

Meeting British Expats

2010-09-22T18:14:00.000-04:00

In the past 7 years, I have only met 4 British people in America. Of them, one was while on vacation in New Jersey, and the other 3 were local.

The 3 locals had lived here a lot longer than I and were all very homesick. None of them knew each other and yet they'd lived in our small area for over 15 years. One has since moved away, and I occasionally bump into one of the others. Maybe we ought to get together for an English Ladies Day or something. Or even for Guy Fawkes night. Ohhhh, I like that idea. Bring out the sparklers!

On each occasion that I've met a Brit it's been a very similar scenario: excitement at meeting, wallowing in home sickness, complaining about the American health care system, complaining about food, complaining about the price of flights home and then how expensive it seems when we get there (bear in mind, we forget we also earned more money there). Same old, same old.

Must be over a year since I met any. Last week though, I got to speak to a fellow English woman who was living in California. She was placing an order with us and I am sure she was as surprised to hear my voice as I was hers. But even odder, was a few days later getting a call from another English lady - ordering the same item but living in Philly. Go figure.

It's funny talking to another Briton on the phone after so long (other than my Mum). After hearing American accents everywhere every day for years, hearing my accent back at me makes me super aware of my own voice and I think how strange I sound.

Both ladies had pretty different lives to me though. Both had their English husbands and English kids with them - who naturally understood a lot of the homesickness etc. Both lived in cities with a rich and diverse culture as opposed to my tiny rural middle-of-nowhere town. And both were resigned to living here forever - they had been here long enough that their kids were growing/ grown and didn't want to leave. Hmmm, kids complicate things, huh? Gone are the days of packing up the bags and going anywhere on a whim!

I got to meet one of the British couples too! They drove out here from Philly - about a 6 hour drive - to meet us briefly, see what we made and all that. Then they drove off to southern Virginia. See, you can tell they've been here decades! That would be a 2 day trip to most Brits! I was mad at myself though - we don't have a kettle in the shop so I didn't get to share a cup of tea and my new packet of Hob Nobs - a ritual that can only truly be appreciated by those from the Other Side Of The Pond.

Buying cold remedies

2010-09-20T14:48:00.000-04:00

Having sneezed and sneezed for weeks with what could be an allergy, I am now afflicted with the Back To School cold. I don't feel as bad as I could with a cold, but you know that feeling when you hit the bridge of your nose really hard? And get water up your nose and your sinuses just ring with pain? Yeah, that's how I feel today, plus a headache, and everything smells funny, like old onions. [Note to self to check storeroom for old onions]

I went to the pharmacist yesterday to get some Sudafed - about the only thing I find that makes breathing bearable and doesn't require you to stick things up your nostrils. Of course, you cannot get the decent stuff - pseudophedrine - off the shelf anymore. You have to ask the pharmacist for it. And then you swipe your driving license and they check to see how much you have purchased recently. I am not sure if they check just their records, but if they also check what you've bought in other stores in the area/ county/ state. However, purchase 9g a month and you are considered a "risk": that is, they think you could be using it to create crystal meth. [Don't ask me, I have no idea how!]

How much is 9g, I wondered? Well, I just looked up dosage for a standard pack; i.e. not a slow release one a day tablet.(Source: http://www.drugs.com/pseudoephedrine.html)

30 to 60 mg orally every 4 to 6 hours as needed, max does 240 mg per day for up to 7 days. After 7 days see a doctor. (Not for a cold at $75 per visit, thanks very much!)

So if I had the max dose, that's 1680 mg per week for one person with a stinking cold.
If my hubs wants some too, and maybe son at adult dose and daughter at kids' dose, that's around 6g in a week for a family of 4 with rotten colds.

So, 9 grams in a month really isn't all as much as it seems. It's not like carrying bags of the stuff out of the store, it's just a few boxes. Fewer than a winter of colds in our house requires anyway. Heck, 2 colds a month and we'd be looking for some other meds to help us breathe more easily. Makes me feel like a criminal when I skulk to the counter, snotty and sneezy, asking for my medicine.

Pick up trucks

2010-09-15T20:44:00.000-04:00

I don't have any stats to back this up, but I am pretty sure that there are way more pick up trucks per person or square mile or whatever in America than in England. Just sayin'.

I am not a huge fan of pick ups, but tonight I find myself the wife of a pick up driver. Hubs has traded in his H3 for a Toyota Tundra. It's more practical for work and with the trade in and some cash down, we're actually a bit better off each month. It's a crew cab so the kids can fit in comfortably, and I believe it's all comfier than the Hummer was. I hated the H3 - to look at and to sit in. Long trips were hell on my back. I always called it The Monster.

So the new truck isn't quite a monster but it's still big. Swamps my little Mazda. But Hubs is happy and I really like the lower payments!

Stop the diet! I want to get off!

2010-09-14T12:42:00.000-04:00

This month marks my 7 year anniversary of my move to USA! To celebrate, last weekend I spent a silly amount of money on English food. We drove to the nearest place that has a few shelves of British food (about an hour away) and 2 bags later, I was already up to $200. ugh!

What did I get? No chocolate, surprisingly. Unless you count the chocolate digestive biscuits and hob nobs. So: biccies, Ribena, Heinz salad dressing, some cans of soup, and some curry sauces: Britain's adopted cuisine.

Not a lot for $200, eh? The small bottle of Ribena was a whopping $10. That's why I don't do it often.

Then we went down towards Pittsburgh for some shopping. And saw The Cheesecake Factory. I'd never been so decided we had to get some cheesecake to take home. $7 a slice, yikes! But WOW. I mean, really wow. I chose the 30th anniversary chocolate layer cheesecake. I made it last 3 days because it was so rich and I'm glad I did, because each night I got to savour a little taste of perfection. I don't think cheesecake will ever taste as good again. Happy Expat Anniversary to me!

Demolition Day!!

2010-09-12T15:56:00.000-04:00

Lately we've been making a lot of plans and getting lots of estimates for home improvements and renovations. These have been a long time coming: they are mostly things we planned to do 4 years ago when we moved in. But back then, we had so many water issues that we sank tens of thousands of dollars into fixing all that. Floods, water well problems and even septic issues took their toll on our bank account.

In that time, our home has been rather less than we'd hoped. Embarrassed by nasty carpet and dank paneling, we barely let people in the house, let alone entertain. So we're finally do more about it. Having spent so much time working on the outside, now it's time for more work on the inside.

By Christmas, we plan on having:
- new windows
- new drywall in living and dining room (open plan)
- newly plastered ceiling
- new front door
- new fireplace
- new curtains
- new carpet
- new lighting

A lot is going on!! Windows and door are ordered. Electrical wiring has been done. And today we started demo on the fireplace! It was a pretty ugly feature, surrounded by ugly walls and ugly carpet. We plan to narrow the fireplace by about a foot.

Today's work....

Old fireplace


Use those muscles!


Rubbly mess

This afternoon

Now, hubs ordered the new stone a few weeks ago. Apparently I said I liked it but I don't remember, so I really hope I do like it. He's also planning on a big chunky wooden mantel. Today though, he decided he might fall short on how much stone he has, so he's ordering more. Looks like we won't be starting the re-build right away.

New drywall is due to start in a few weeks too, so we'll be ripping out the fake paneling soon. YEAH! Now that is something I look forward too!