F*ck the diet

OK, I only put the star there because I know moms, dads, aunts, uncles, etc sometimes read this blog. The sentiment is uncensored. I need carbs, chocolate and fried food to deal with the stress of this godawful house move. We've hit yet another snag and this one is a doozy. I won't bore you with the gory details but we've decided that whatever happens with our purchase we're still going to sell the flat. This means that I've started looking at rental properties as a fallback. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.

Renting again. Living in someone else's house. Yuck. There are some possible financial benefits to renting for six months and then trying to buy again. There are also some possible mental and emotional drawbacks. Moving twice in one year! Not that we haven't done that before but we didn't have two small children last time. It would be a lot of work and a lot of upheaval. Not to mention the disappointment of not getting the house. The one I've been decorating and nesting in in my head for the last six months. This totally and utterly sucks.

Oh yes, AND if we're in the midst of chaos and confusion and moving on 10 December I'll have to cancel my trip to see Nikki in Romania. My head and heart just can't take all that at once. Not to mention what an unpopular decision it would be with Jason if I waltzed off in the middle of it all. Man, I've got the real estate blues.

Pics to come soon. I know this blog must be getting so boring with nothing but belly-aching and no visuals.

It's just logical

I'm eating a pint of Baileys Haagen-Dazs for dinner. There is a legitimate reason for this and if you just stick around I'll explain it...

It starts on Monday when I was grocery shopping. Toby's friend Solar was coming around for tea on Tuesday and I thought I would let the kids make ice cream sundaes for their dessert. They were having a special buy one get one free on Haagen-Dazs so I got a pint of vanilla for the kids and a pint of Baileys for whenever.

Tuesday comes and the children all have sundaes. Wednesday night Toby and Rosie have sundaes for dessert again and the vanilla is all gone. The Baileys is still untouched.

Tonight I talk to Kellie on the phone. She's convinced Jason to run the Chicago marathon next year with her and she's started training for it. She decided to do Weight Watchers at the same time and she's lost over ten pounds in the last six weeks. This means that I have to start a diet immediately, like tomorrow. Guys, that probably makes no sense but just imagine if your best mate goes out and buys a fancy sports car or one of those new Apple phone thingies. You're really happy for them but at the same time you're desperate to beat or at least match them for pure coolness.

Anyway, there's no way I can diet with a pint of Baileys sitting in the freezer shouting my name so I have to eat the whole pint. Tonight. Right now. You know, just to get it out of the house. See, it all makes perfect sense.

Ho-leee crap

Well, we're still trying to progress the move. We've been aiming to exchange this week and move on Friday 7 December. Unfortunately our moving company is already booked that date. Aaarrrgh!! They are free on the 6th and 10th December so I've asked for contracts for those dates and J and I need to pick one and send it off ASAP or miss out. The company, Russell Fewins, have moved us the last two times and I hate to even imagine trying to find another company at this late date.

Now we just have to make sure we actually can move on one of those dates. I think we should aim for Monday 10 December. There is so much going on at the moment with school events and the holidays that no date is going to be very convenient. I do have a group of mums coming over to our place (wherever that may be) on the 12th December to get raffle tickets ready for the Christmas Fair. Oh, and I'm going to be in Romania the 8-9 December. That will be fun for J. Ah, what calm stress-free lives we lead.

Ho ho ho!!

Well, I hate to be smug (because it always comes back to bite me in the ass) but I've done almost all of the Christmas shopping for the children. I was going to wait until after the move but I noticed that a lot of the things that I was planning to buy, and that Toby put on his Christmas list six weeks ago, were already starting to sell out. I decided to just go for it and I've been able to get almoost everything. Whew!

Now we just have to find places to hide it all. Not easy when the gifts include two small armchairs. Oh well, with all the moving stuff it'll be easy enough to hide a few big boxes.

Now is the really hard part... waiting until Christmas. I'm so excited I could go wake them up right now and give them their presents. I can't wait to see their little faces on Christmas morning.

Finally getting excited

Yesterday we went to the new house to do some measuring. Over the last few weeks we've had lots of hold ups with the move. I won't bore you with the details but more than once we thought it might not happen at all. I've been really down about it all. I hate instability. I'm the kind of person who likes to know what's happening next. Well, at long last things seem to be moving ahead again. We're hoping to exchange next week and move in the week after. Hurrah!

It was so great to see the house again. I just love it. It was a really cold day yesterday but the house was warm and cozy. The flat is always cold and I was a bit concerned about the loft conversion in the house but it was toasty. With the delays we won't have time to do much painting before Christmas but it'll be fine. It's just such a lovely house with good light and nice proportions. I can't wait to get there.

Not only will we be in a new house but we'll be in a new area too. Still only about a 15 minute walk to Blackheath Village but Lee Gree/Hither Green is like a little village itself. It's smaller and not as affluent as Blackheath but it's very up and coming. I've joined a group on Facebook called "Come Hither to Hither Green" and found some great links with info about the area.

The best one is: http://www.myhithergreen.co.uk/ I love the headline "Highly Contagious Dog Virus in the Village". One of the headlines worried me for a moment then I read it more clearly. It's "Pensioner Has Attack on Bus". At first I thought an old lady had been attacked but no, she actually had some chest pains and they had to stop the bus in Hither Green so she could be cared for and taken to hospital. Now that's news.

And a bit of history about Hither Green:

"There were several greens in Lewisham, and two of them were called Hither (nearer) Green and Further Green. Hither Green, near the entrance to the former hospital, was on the site of a hamlet called Romborough, which had not been inhabited since the time of the Black Death.

Hither Green was a wooded area in the Middle Ages, but by the eighteenth century the trees had mostly been felled, and the first houses were built. More houses followed in the nineteenth century, many of them substantial residences. Mountsfield, for instance, was the home of Henry Tibbats Stainton, a famous entomologist. The grounds of this house became the core of Mountsfield Park, which opened in 1905 - it has since been enlarged several times.

The Park Fever Hospital (later called Hither Green Hospital) was opened in 1897 for the treatment of infectious diseases such as scarlet fever or diphtheria. After the Second World War, when it suffered severe damage from bombs, other cases were also treated there. In 1997, after a century of service, the hospital closed and site was developed as housing.

Hither Green railway station was opened on May 1, 1895. It was nationalised in 1947. On 5 November 1967, an express train from Hastings to Charing Cross derailed outside Hither Green station, killing 49 passengers."

Obviously completely unscripted...

Happy Thanksgiving

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More Thanksgivings

Since we're not really having Thanksgiving here today I've been thinking of more Thanksgivings past. I was just reading Nikki's blog and she mentioned the Thanksgivings we had at Grandma's trailer. It could be jam packed with people, sitting on every possible perch and the floor trying to balance plates on knees. At least one year the weather was warm enough that they put blankets on the grass and the kids were sent outside for a picnic Thanksgiving lunch.

Before Tobes and Rosie were born I always worked on Thanksgiving Day. I remember our first Thanksgiving in England. We were so broke but I came home from work and managed to have roast chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli. I was so proud I even took some photos of the food.

Another year I was at a meeting at the Imperial War Museum on Thanksgiving day and feeling very homesick and sorry for myself. We all had lunch in the museum cafe and I realised that there was a table of elderly American men next to us. I went over to wish them a happy Thanksgiving and we started chatting. They were WWII veterans. The five of them had reunited after fifty years for a memorial trip around Europe. Charming, inspiring men. Just chatting with them for a few minutes made it a memorable Thanksgiving day.

Nostalgic day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm feeling a bit sad. It's not a holiday here so Jason will be going to work and Toby to school. I have made some turkey-shaped cookies decorated with the candy corn I bought online for Toby to take to school. Usually we would have a big traditional meal at the weekend with friends but this year we have no plans. The flat isn't suited for big groups but I think I'll probaby do a mini-meal on Sunday with chicken for the four of us. I can't imagine a Thanksgiving going by without sweet potatoes and marshmallows or pumpkin pie.

The cookies I made are from Mom's recipe. She makes them every Christmas. I made them with butter instead of Crisco (because we don't have Crisco here) and wondered if they would taste very different. But they don't. They are exactly the same. My first bite almost took my breath away, it was so full of memories. Even now I feel weepy with nostalgia just thinking about it.

My expat grocery order is coming in handy today. I'm drinking a cup of General Foods International Coffee Cafe Mocha. I really wanted the Cafe Vienna but the trouble with expat shopping is that you have to just take whatever is available. The Mocha works though. I love these coffess though I know they are about as far from real coffee as one can get. In fact, they weren't legal to sell here for a long time because they fail the European Trades Description Act for coffee. The same for Velveeta, it can't legally be called cheese in Europe. I don't know how they're managing to sell the coffee now but it's nice to get it every once in awhile.

I've been thinking about Thanksgivings past today and included a couple of photos. I think my most memorable Thanksgiving is the one we spent in Tokyo. Our apartment was Japanese so we didn't have an oven, just a tiny fish grill. I did have a small microwave with a convection oven and managed to make a pumpkin pie but we went out for the big meal. Our favourite restaurant, Westpark Cafe, did a good job with the turkey and sweet potatoes and we filled a long table with friends and had a great time. We went back to our place for pumpkin pie, henceforth known as marrow pie (thank you Chris) and I remember the guys standing on the balcony talking and laughing and me, Nikki and Annelouise sitting at the table, drinking red wine and bemoaning our childlessness, though Annelouise and I would soon discover that we were actually pregnant at the time. Toby and Rowan were born a week apart.

That was in 2001. In 1997 I was in the hospital on Thanksgiving day having a breast lump removed. I remember the stress of the morning, realising they mistakenly had me down for a mastectomy. Thank God I'm a nosy, sometimes bolshy, bird and read through my file then raised the roof when I discovered the mistake. Luckily the day is more memorable now for when I came out of surgery and Jason was there waiting for me. We had been married for five years by then but I fell in love with him all over again just seeing the look of relief on his face when I came out alive.

And then last Thanksgiving was a special one too. We went to Texas and spent the holiday at Mom and Dad's. It was Rosie's first trip to Texas and she was right at home. Jon and Angie were expecting Ian, Nikki came in from San Diego and the whole family was together. I wonder when we'll have a Thanksgiving like that again.

Overheard...

Toby: Look Rosie, I can pick you up now... [Grunting sound and Rosie laughing]... and when we have the new baby you can pick her up. Won't that be lovely! [No, I am not pregnant nor do I plan to be anytime soon!]

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Toby singing Avril Lavigne's I Don't Like Your Girlfriend in the living room with Rosie chiming in on the "No way! No way!" part.

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Toby while holding his crotch: "Mommy my tentacles are hurting."

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Rosie, after Toby shows her the picture he's drawn "Das lubby, dahlin" (That's lovely, darling).

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During the rugby World Cup recently Jason was dreamily talking about Toby playing for England one day. I said that Rosie is the more likely rugby player in the family and this was proved correct in her music class last week. We were singing a new song where we all sit in a circle and the teacher gently rolls a ball to a child while singing and the child gently rolls it back. When it was Rosie's turn the ball started coming towards her and right at the last second she stood up and booted it across the room! Everyone was so shocked and it almost smacked the teacher in the face. I apologised but I was laughing at the same time so it wasn't a great apology.

Busy, busy, busy

So much has been going on! We went to Cambridge at the end of Toby's half-term for Rosie's birthday. Jason's parents couldn't make it in the end so we had Rosie's party at a local restaurant instead of The Orchard. It was just us, Jenny & Kieran and their children and we had a lovely time. Rosie loved it and even did a decent job of blowing out her candles. Toby gave her a Sleeping Beauty suitcase and Jason and I gave her a Disney Princess play kitchen. Those of you who knew me before Rosie was born please do not remind me of the number of times I said that I would not buy loads of pink stuff for my daughter! Rules like that are made to be broken.

We had a great Halloween with our vampire and pink Power Ranger. Quentin Road was pretty quiet but we went over to see Toby's friend Teddy on Boyne Road and there were loads of trick or treaters. Lots of fun.

Tobes is back at school and they've been studying home architecture. We had our parent/teacher conference last week and the feedback was all good. Tobes has really settled in and loves his teacher, Mr Wilson. I've been busy with my new role as Secretary of the Friends Committee. We had a bake sale at the beginning of the month (note to self: rice crispy treats do not sell in England) and next week is a fundraising fashion show. I've also been revamping the Friends newsletter, typing up some pages for the handbook, making posters for the panto and collecting money for tickets. I'm really enjoying it all.

Jason has been travelling with work. Last week he was in Beijing and Singapore and next week he's in Miami. After that he shouldn't have anymore trips until the new year. Of course, that doesn't mean that things will calm down since we'll hopefully be moving by the end of the month. It's all still moving forward, though slowly. I've been making my plans for Christmas in the new place. I have an idea for a treasure hunt advent calendar for the children and a stack of menu ideas for the holiday period. All good things!

Rosie walking like a penguin

Rosie walking like a penguin

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From Elizabeth's blog...

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Beauty salon receptionist
2. One of those annoying women who squirt you with perfume in a department store
3. Grants officer for an arts charity
4. Mom

[My addition}
Four jobs I have interviewed for but did not get in my life:
1. Underwater mermaid at Aquarena Falls
2. Door to door knife salesman
3. Vet's assistant (I passed out at the interview while he was neutering a cat)
4. Oil company director's PA (I booked and paid for a trip to Budapest instead of Bucharest during my trial period)

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. To Catch a Thief
2. Rear Window
3. Grease 2
4. Hot Fuzz

Four places I have lived:
1. Mesquite, Tx
2. Cambridge, England
3. Tokyo
4. London, England

Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. Nigella Express
2. Have I Got News for You
3. QI
4. University Challenge

Four places I have been:
1. Prague, Czech Republic
2. Hakone, Japan
3. Sydney, Australia
4. Nacogdoches, Texas

Four People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Elizabeth
2. Nikki
3. Moms in the Friends group at school
4. Family

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Papa John's pizza
2. Those chocolate desserts that are cake on the outside and goo on the inside
3. Bread & butter
4. Cheese

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. In bed
2. On my parents' couch
3. Sitting in a coffee shop reading a good book
4. On an airplane going somewhere new

Things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Hopefully moving (who knows at this point!)
2. Seeing Toby in the school nativity play.
3. Seeing Rosie's face on Christmas morning. This is the first year that she'll really get it.
4. Going to the Blackheath Christmas Eve procession with our little family.

Half - term

Tobes is off school for half-term this week. So far we've met up with a new friend, a French lady named Isabelle and her little boy Leo-Paul. Toby and I have been to the dentist. No cavities, lovely clean teeth and two wobbly teeth at the bottom (Toby, not me). Today we went to see Marija and her little boy James for lunch. Marija is a really good cook and today was no exception. We came home stuffed and the children were worn out from playing and painting.

Tomorrow Toby's friends Max and Teddy are coming over to play. I've got some Halloween craft stuff for them so they can make black cat and witch magnets. I'm doing some brownies with jack o'lantern sprinkles (many thanks Nikki for that Halloween package in the past, it's still going!) and Toby chose some big pasta tubes which we're serving with pesto for lunch and calling them witch's fingers.

On Friday we're packing and leaving for Cambridge for the weekend. Jenny's little girl has her birthday party on Saturday and we're having a little party at The Orchard for Rosie's second birthday on Sunday. It's just going to be us, J's parents, J's Nana and Jenny's family but I've got some Dora the Explorer napkins and hats and I've made favour bags for the children. I also ordered a Dora cake topper that says "Happy 2nd Birthday Rosie Rae". It arrived today and Toby read it over my shoulder then his jaw dropped and he said "Mommy, how does Dora know Rosie's name?!" So sweet.

So, busy days ahead and then all back to normal on Monday when Toby goes back to school.

American food and family smells

I put in an order today to Skyco which is the expat grocery website I use for a taste of home. This is what I ordered today:

Farley's Candy Corn 12oz £ 1.58
Kraft Jet Puffed Mini White Marshmallows 10.5oz £ 1.59
Peppermint Candy Canes (Red & White) 1 oz £ 2.40
Lifesavers Butter Rum Roll 1.14oz £ 0.81
Lifesavers Wint O Green .84oz £ 0.81
Nabisco Teddy Grahams Cinnamon 10oz £ 3.56
Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Original 170g £ 1.50
General Foods Instant Coffee French Vanilla 226g £ 5.39
Betty Crocker Supermoist Cinnamon Swirl Mix 608g £ 2.56
Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cake Mix 410g £ 2.57
Betty Crocker Pound Cake Mix 454g £ 2.57
Liptons Onion Soup Mix 2pk £ 1.86
Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper Beef Pasta

I got a few things for Halloween and Thanksgiving (the British marshmallows just don't work with yams for some reason, too runny), a few things for Christmas and some treats. I came very close to buying a box of regular Cheerios but at almost $14 I just couldn't justify it. We do get the multi-grain Cheerios here and that will have to do.

As I was going through the groceries I started thinking about the smell of Christmas - cinnamon, pine, cold air and coal fires. And that got me thinking about a study that was recently done on what most people think their parents smell like. They were joking about it on a TV show the other night and I notice that Elizabeth has a link to an article about the study on her blog. The results were surprising only in that they were so stereotypical. Moms smell like laundry detergent and dads smell like motor oil, apparently. Not really how I remember my parents though.

When I think of my Mom I think of cinnamon toast, Dippity Do (though I don't know that Mom ever used it), and two perfumes - Emeraude by Coty and Jontue by Revlon. When I was older it was Sebastian Shaper hairspray and face powder. Smells associated with Dad are leather, gunmetal (Dad was a policeman) Certs and Marlboro cigarettes . The smell of rain and freshly cut grass always reminds me of Dad too. I wonder what the children will remember when they think of us?

From yesterday's school assembly

A couple of videos of Toby at his assembly. The first one is Tobes delivering his line "Please turn off any mobile phones". You can hear me giggling in both videos and in the first one, just as Mr Wilson starts to play the guitar, you can hear Rosie shout "Music!". The special topic for this term has been bears and in the second video the children are pretending to be bears running through a forest during a thunderstorm.


Autumn Year 1 Assembly I

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Autumn Year 1 Assembly II

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It seems I'm constantly writing blog entries in my head then sitting down at the computer and going completely blank. I think it's because I'm usually here at the end of the day when I'm not exactly at my best.

Let's see... Toby has his class assembly at school today. His line was "Please turn off your mobile phones" and he did very well. We could hear him all the way at the back. I've got a few clips from the assembly which I'll post another time.

In the meantime here are a few recent photos. As I was downloading them I realised it's like a Mary Catherine fashion show. MC kindly passed on some of her lovely clothes that she had outgrown and Rosie wears them all the time. I'm sure Elizabeth will recognise the strawberry cardigan and hat and the little sweater dress. We get loads of compliments whenever Rosie wears them so thank you again!

The house move progresses, though slowly. We're hoping to move the week of 19 November. I've been devouring home decorating magazines and trying to channel my energy into jobs that I can do now like getting the sofa re-upholstered and ordering curtains for the new place. I just can't wait to get my hands on the place! Nothing makes my heart beat faster like a new project.

And speaking of projects, I went round to the former Friends secretary's house last night to do a handover of paperwork. I've got three folders full of stuff now and I'm looking forward to getting going. My first meeting as the official new secretary is 30 October and I'm really excited. It's so nice to use my brain a bit more and become a more operative part of the school community.

Still nursing here. Very rough night but I think Tobes is slowly getting better, he's certainly getting more cranky. This morning he corrected my grammar. If he has the energy for that then he must be feeling at least a bit better.

I've been going a bit stir crazy but, fortified with Gu chocolate desserts and a stack of gossip mags, I am surviving. Last weekend we went to Borders and I bought an Us Weekly magazine. I do love the American mags. I was surprised and delighted to see an ad for Alice Temperley at Target of all places! Jason is in the States this week and I've given him a list of everything I like. Hopefully he'll come home with a few treats.

Poorly boy

Tobes is still ill. He was much better on Friday, was out and about this weekend and then last night he took a turn. Fever, rash and a terrible headache which made him sensitive to light. We called NHS Direct and they said we should take him into the hospital so Jason took him down to the Lewisham A&E (Emergency Room).

It was diagnosed as a virus, probably the same one Rosie had, but we learned that Tobes should be taking a higher dose of paracetemol (Tylenol). The over the counter stuff is dosed by age but Toby is a big boy and Jason was told that he should be on the 6+ formula already based on his weight. So, that's why the fever was so difficult to get down. We weren't giving him enough medicine.

Jason left for California this morning and about an hour after he walked out the door Tobes started vomiting. Great. His fever shot up to 102.6 but when I tried to give him any meds he would just vomit them back up. He was even struggling to keep water down. I spent a few hours mopping his brow with a cold cloth and trying to keep him cool and then I remembered the Italian suppositories.

A couple of years ago we were in Venice and Toby developed a fever. On the continent there are a lot of medicines that are taken by suppository including paracetemol. Apparently it's absorbed into the system faster and therefore works faster when taken up the back passage. Of course, they do have tablets too but suppositories are normal as well. Anyway, I dug out the ones prescribed to Toby by the hotel doctor in Italy, checked they were still in date and then... ahem... administered them. Within fifteen minutes Toby's fever came down and he was able to sleep. Magic!

Unfortunately, we only had three left and with the instructions on Toby's new dosage that's just enough for one dose. I have a feeling we're going to need more so I rang the chemist in Blackheath to see if they carried them. They do but they cost 40 pounds for ten!! That's like $80. Good God. I could go to the doctor tomorrow, request a prescription and get them for free but I'm not sure how we would get through the night without them. It looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just pay for them. That is some expensive paracetemol.

Shopping

We're in the depths of another illness phase here. Toby is the latest victim. He's had fevers of 102 degrees since Wednesday afternoon. I went to a school meeting last night and apparently it's a virus that's going around. He's feeling fine right now since he had doses of both Calpol and Nurofen this morning and he and Rosie are snuggled up under Grandma's quilt on the sofa watching Dr Who.

So, I've been doing the Florence Nightingale thing all week, first with Rosie and now with Tobes. But what's a nurse to do trapped in the house all day? Shop online of course! With the house move sometime in November I have a lot to shop for at the moment. We'll need a new washer, dryer and fridge freezer. Such fun shopping for major appliances.

Today it's the fridge freezer. Unfortunately the kitchen is just too small for a big American style side by side model (Elizabeth you are so lucky!) but there are a lot of options. At the moment my favourite is this one. Great features including frost free. I've never had a frost free freezer in England so have spent my adult life chipping out ice and going through the mess of defrosting every six months or so. Absolute heaven to never do that again. I also like this one. It even has plumbed cold water available from the door. No ice, but still a nice little luxury.

But the fridge to have at the moment is this one. Undoubtedly beautiful but look at the price! I'm not sure my thrifty little heart could take that. I spoke to a salesperson about fridges and she said that the Smeg really aren't very good fridges but people love them because of the way they look. They are gorgeous but I'm not sure that they're that gorgeous. What do you think?

Rosie talking

Rosie talking

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