Anniversary Plans

We just booked a two night stay in Bath for our anniversary!  I am SO excited.

We are staying at a hotel with a restaurant downstairs so that we can have dinner together after Vivian goes to bed.  I looked at "What's On" in Bath and found out that it's National Apple Day on Saturday so we are going out to an apple farm for fun, games and cider pressing tours.  There's a beer festival going on in Bath as well that day, so I guess I know what we're doing after Apple Day.

On Sunday we're taking a drive up to Tetbury to visit the Westonbrit Arboretum.  It's the largest arboretum in England (or maybe the UK) and is the Number 1 place to visit in England to see fall colours.

This is my dream weekend.  Fall colours, apples, probably pumpkins.  Fun for Vivian and fun for us.  Now I just need to spend the next couple of weeks thinking about all of the reasons it's going to end up being terrible so that I end up having at least a decent time.  These expectations of mine are a real liability!

Chili Powder

I realized today, after 4 months of living here and countless batches of chili being made, that chili powder here is in fact quite different from "American chili powder."  Chili powder here is basically crushed chilies or cayenne-like pepper!  No wonder Vivian hasn't liked one batch of chili since we've been here.  I thought that it was just that I was using a new recipe, but nope!  So, if anyone wants to send us chili powder, we'd be happy to accept it!  Otherwise we'll wait until November and load up!

On a completely different note, I just saw this article on the BBC and thought it was amusing.  ENJOY.

(PS... I have a backlog of blogs that I'm planning to catch up on as soon as I can.)

But we all speak English!

I just realized that since we have lived here (4 months now) I have been using fabric softener instead of soap to wash our clothes!  How embarrassing!  How did this happen?  We all speak English, don't we? What is my problem?

Tomorrow I will begin the process of rewashing every single thing we own - especially all of the kitchen towels which have been growing increasing disgusting every week.

AH!

Now don't start that again...

Today was a great day!  We went to Little Kickers in the morning with Vivian.  She is so cute "playing football."  It's interesting to see her little character come out in these types of situations.  She always hangs back at first - she seems a bit shy.  When there are directions to do something, she doesn't obey them right away but if I repeat them she usually follows my direction.  When they tell all the kids to do something the kids will all take off and Vivian will be hanging back spinning in circles looking at the ceiling or something.  She seems to be a bit of a dreamer.

The mum that I ran into on the bus, Jenny, invited us to join her, Logan, her friend Kara, and her son, also Logan, for a takeaway coffee and playtime at the sandpit.  It was nice.  The boys weren't quite as enamored with the sandpit as Viv so they kept running off causing their mums to chase them, but we still talked a bit and had a nice time.

When Viv woke up we went for an hour-long bike ride in Wandsworth Common and around the bordering neighbourhoods.  It was quite a nice ride and Vivian loved it.  She even peeped in the forest for the first time without a potty.  Quite a milestone!  She's a true "mountain woman" now! :)

So, why after a day like today, do I feel bummed out?  Well, I have heard from several sources that British people don't really talk about their feelings much.  They don't let on that they have any problems.  I found out on Sunday at church that a woman who is 39 weeks pregnant had a baby who died two weeks later last year, so I "shouldn't ask her about her pregnancy."  That warning made me want to ask her even more.  She probably doesn't have anyone to talk to about how hard that was and everyone just ignores that it happened.  When things are hard for me will people around here think I'm just a whiner if I ask for advice or input?  Will I ever really be able to make good friends here?  Am I destined to have the kind of surface level friendships that I am so excited to have now but which will grow quite boring if they never move on past this stage?

The whole setup of tiny family units where one person works and the other stays home is actually quite unhealthy I think.  Within a supportive and family-like community where you have other moms, dads, friends, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles to support you and share in your ups and downs it makes sense, but in our situation - completely isolated from everyone on the planet that we know - it seems completely insane to me.  Even though I have been hard at work recruiting friends, it's not really enough right now.  I crave the closeness of the friends and family that I left behind!

While Mark is in Chicago

The expectations game continues to surprise me although I should know how it works by now.  I have been absolutely dreading this week that Mark is in Chicago.  It's one of the reasons I was so incredibly bummed out last Friday at the company Christmas party... I knew that Mark was leaving and I would be all alone with no friends and nothing to do.

But... this week has been so much fun.  First of all, the weather has been outstanding which, I have come to realize, makes a HUGE difference.  When the sun shines here it is like everything is okay.  People are happy, everyone is outside wearing summer dresses and sandals and birds are singing.

Yesterday our next door neighbour invited us over to her house while she was feeding her 8 month old son.  (I had invited them earlier in the day but they were napping so she invited us once she woke up.)  We had a glass of wine while she fed Oscar and Vivi played in the garden with their bubble machine.  She was really fun to talk to and very sweet with Vivian.  I'm so thankful to have nice neighbours.  (The ones on the other side are quite unfriendly, but I don't care... we have so many really nice neighbours that it doesn't bother me at all.)

Viv and I have been so busy this week that I cancelled something on Friday afternoon and was relieved that someone cancelled on me this morning.  We have gone to the Olympics, I went to my first book club, we met an old friend and played in the park with her puppy, we walked barefoot in the grass in Wandsworth Common, we went to the sandbox twice (and this morning I took a book and laid in the sun and read while Viv played happily), we had a mini impromptu playdate with the next-door neighbour and we worked in the garden for hours this afternoon.

I miss Mark but I have to admit that I am really happy right now.  I feel so encouraged by the past week.  Mark was out of town, the one friend that I first made was out of town and we still stayed quite busy, were social and had a ton of fun!  Now I'm looking forward to the first night that I'm going to sit on the couch and watch a movie by myself.  Up until now I've been reading every chance I got and have finished We Bought a Zoo.  It was a great book.  Very engaging and fun.  I look forward to going to Devon County to visit sometime.

I know that I promised to be honest in my blogs, and this is how I truly feel right now.  If things were always like this, I would never want to move.  We worked in the garden this afternoon and could hear neighbours next door and two doors down playing with their kids and having a blast in the sunshine.  We saw snails, worms and a frog while we worked and played and Vivi was in heaven.  Granted some of that is the magic of her age - everything is either exciting and amazing or absolutely terrible and today it happened to be amazing.  As I was putting Viv to bed I looked out and saw the clouds turning pink as the sun went down.  I went to open the window in my bedroom and looked out over this luscious garden area and these typical London terrace houses and saw a woman picking fruit off of the tree in her tiny garden.  It was just idyllic.

I know that things will get hard again... I've learned that many times over.  The good news is that the good times are getting better and more social and the bad times, while still excruciating, I know will pass.  One of the reasons I'm probably okay is that it's been so long since we've seen anyone we really know.  Mark's parents come this week.  I am so excited to see them!  Hopefully when they leave I'm not terribly sad again.  Perhaps I'll just schedule another really busy and social week for right after they leave!  For now I'm going to clean up the dishes, pour myself a glass of wine, crack open my dark chocolate with mint and watch my lovely British film.

An American Friend

An old friend of mine (well, she was mostly Kristin's friend, but I knew her and liked her) recently got married and moved to London.  Lacey arrived about two weeks ago and we went up to see her at her new place in Chelsea.  It was so much fun.  I was really excited to see a familiar face and we just had a great time with her and her adorable dog, Chloe.  Vivian absolutely LOVED Chloe and Chloe was really sweet with her. Viv was in heaven!

It was so wonderful to talk to Lacey.  I could have stayed all day and chatted.  We haven't seen each other in about 15 years but we know the same people, we know each other's families and it was just so nice to spend time with someone who knew about me and my life.  I have missed that.  It was nice not to have to start from scratch, and not to have to think about what I was saying and whether or not I sounded like a stupid American.

I am really looking forward to spending more time with Lacey!  And I'm sure Vivi is really looking forward to spending more time with Chloe!

Honesty

I realized that in reading my blog you might not actually get a feel for how things really are for me here.  Since there are people who read the blog who I know really care about us I think I try to be honest, but not too honest so that anyone is alarmed.  All in all we are doing really well, but there are definitely many more hard days than I have indicated.

I was talking to Sara and telling her about some of these hard days and she encouraged me to write about them.  Perhaps now is the time to do that.  I can assure you that we are doing really really well right now, but you can go back and read through what it was like in the past couple of weeks (once I actually type them all up).

It's not completely altruistic, however, this silence about struggling.  Sometimes I just don't want people (you) to think that I can't hang or that I'm a whiner or that I think my life is so hard when in reality we are full to the brim with blessings, advantages and opportunities.  This blog isn't about what you think though, is it?  It's about our reality.  I realized that my whole life I have kept a journal that has the nitty gritty about my life in poorly written, tear-stained paper journals.  Now I have decided to open myself up and have ended up editing out some of the really important parts.  I realized just after college that my journals were a valuable source of reality/history for me.  I found myself doing research on myself to help me understand why I was in the 'same' dysfunctional relationship again or struggling with the same issues.  There were definitely patterns and I was so thankful that I had hard evidence to prove that.  It helped me make necessary changes and get to a better place.

So, although the posts that I plan to write about times or events have already happened, I will try my best to write what I was actually feeling.  I don't think it will be that difficult.  These are consistently recurring emotions and thoughts, so I'm quite familiar with them.

I also plan to write more often about the good things.  Just because we're more settled and aren't having as many exciting adventures doing touristy things doesn't mean that these aren't important events for me or my family.  So... if things start to get more boring to read or if it seems like things are getting harder rather than easier, I think it's probably because I'm being more honest.

Book Club

When our neighbour girl, Sophia, put the flyer through our mail slot to advertise her babysitting it was probably one of the best things to happen to us since moving to London.  She has been absolutely fantastic for Vivian and we've also been introduced to her whole family who are very sweet.  Her mother invited me to a book club which is for just the people on our street.

I found out about it about a week ago and went to buy The Great Gatsby to make sure that I had time to read through the whole thing by the time we got to Tuesday night.  I succeeded!

Sarah came to pick me up (Sophia was watching Vivian since Mark was out of town) and we walked down the block.  I could not believe it, but I actually knew 2 other women there because they go to our church and are extremely friendly.  It was so nice going somewhere that you expect to know no one and end up knowing 3 people!

I have never been in a book club but this one is great.  I was kind of surprised by how little depth we really got into about the book but it was really fun to talk about it.  The host and I actually had almost 100% opposite perspectives about the book but I don't think there was any ill will (at least I hope not - I have a really hard time keeping my mouth shut sometimes).  Since the book is considered a great American novel, she themed the food for the evening as American.  She served a pizza and a pie that I had never even heard of (Befanti? Bunofi?) that was banana and toffee and absolutely delicious.

I was really impressed by what books they've already read (Anna Karenina, Wolf Hall) and what's on the list to come.  It was wonderful to be with adults having adult conversations with no kids around screaming and distracting us.  I can't wait until next month.  The book this time is Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.  I've never heard of it but it's quite long and I don't even have it yet.  Better get cracking!

Paralympic Swimming / Olympic Park

On Sunday night out of the blue I got a text from a woman I had just exchanged numbers with at church that morning.  She said she had two extra tickets for Paralympic Swimming on Tuesday morning and I could have them if I wanted them.  Wow!  I couldn't believe it.  We had been trying to get tickets to anything we could find but everything was sold out... what a stroke of luck!  (Mark was going to be in Chicago so he wouldn't have been able to go even if there was a ticket for him.)

We got up early this morning and left the house by 7:30.  It took quite a while to get there because it was rush hour on the tube (which was a first for me... wow is it hot in there!) but we still got into our seats just a bit after 9:30.  I knew that there would be a lot of walking, but the stairs... oh my!  We checked our buggy outside the area and Vivian proceeded to walk up 2 flights of stairs to get into the stadium, 4 flights to get up to our section and then probably the equivalent of 2 or 3 more to get up to our seats 5 rows from the very top.  It was crazy and I couldn't believe that she did all that stair climbing herself!

I was a bit overwhelmed when we first arrived.  We were watching people with no arms swim faster in the pool than I ever have with all of my full functioning limbs.  A guy with no arms and only one leg took second place in one of the first events we saw.  I was teared up for the first 20 - 30 minutes we were there.  It was incredible.  I have heard that the US is only airing 4 30 minute episodes of the paralympics and that's a shame.  The people here are crazy over it.  The stars of the paralympics are household names.  At book club later in the evening we actually interrupted the conversation to watch a race because everyone was so into it.

So, we had a great time watching the events.  I taught Viv to chant "USA USA" without any shame because we were at the Olympics for the love.  She did great almost the whole time.  She loved sitting on the steps (although it was kind of terrifying for me - I kept my arms in front of her most of the time) and then sitting on her chair that folded down.  She had several different snacks to keep her busy and then right at the end I brought out the iPad to help her last to the end (of course she couldn't hear it so she was frustrated).

Once we got out into Olympic Park the real fun began.  I had no idea where anything was a she decided it was a good time to start arching her back and screaming as though someone was trying to kill her.  I ignored it and just pushed the buggy through the busiest picnic area I've ever seen.  I was getting all kinds of stares and glares, but what am I supposed to do?  She was out of control and there was nothing I could do.  Finally she calmed down and we proceeded directly out of the park.  It's kind of a shame.  I know there were amazing things to see in there but I just could not do it.  It wasn't enjoyable for me, it was about 100 degrees (ok probably about 70 but it seemed ridiculously hot) and she was on her last leg.

I decided to take the route that didn't require me to walk all the way back to the front entrance.  It was the recommended route ... but it was probably 2.5 - 3 miles away!  If I'd have know that I definitely would not have taken it.  By the time we got to the train I was exhausted, sweaty and wished we'd never gone to the event.  Of course I'm very glad that we went... it just makes me realize that when you go to something like that with a 2 year old it better be amazing!  It was - I will never forget it, and I'll make sure that she's reminded of it regularly throughout her life! :)