Our New, Last, House

Well we're in.


If one could see how loaded that statement is...

This was not one of my favorite moves, and it certainly wasn't the smoothest. If one were to go back and read all of the fears I had of what would happen when we vacated our last house (with the shady landlord), one would discover that landlords shouldn't be prejudged.  The recent landlord, who I (wrongly) thought "also being military would understand the stresses and paperwork involved to extricate our lives from this country" bit us in the backside BIG TIME... and is still biting. I see all of the red flags now. The ones I didn't pay attention to as I moved us while the husband was deployed.

Our new landlords (a couple), are every bit as lovely as the other was conniving. Having known them for the last 6 years, and know of the reputation they have in our village and schools, I feel safe. An additional assurance is that the people who share the other buildings associated with this farm (there's a bungalow overlooking our farmhouse and two barn conversions adjacent to it), all love Mr and Mrs C.

My kids are so joy-filled I often find myself standing at the window watching them laugh and play. The little ones have two new friends their age to ride bikes with, the two older ones-who were without internet for a week- joined in for the first time in ages. My garden has been filled with kids of all ages from the minute we moved in.

I could quite happily lie down and die in my new kitchen. There is a cupboard for everything.

The house has a great "feel" to it.  It's been filled with happy families for decades (Mr. C was born and reared in this house).



So why am I depressed?

I think the stress of it all has hit and it's everything I can do to keep plodding through the unpacking stage.
I'll survive.

Would you like a tour? Pre-my clutter added photos perhaps?

 This is the room I am writing from and yes, it IS really that small.

 The kitchen- before I covered the work tops with boxes

 From J2's bedroom window. To the left is the bungalow, straight ahead the 

barn conversion they hope to have finished by Christmas.

 Our front door -which is silly really, as we park and enter from the back.

The "front" of the house.

It would make a perfect haunted house, don't you think? 

our driveway.

See? It's all good. What was all the fuss about getting the shock that we'd have to move a few weeks back?

Whoever Said, "Change is Good" Deserves a Punch in the Eye

A simple week, broken down:

Monday:

Maybe I'll blog today. It'll be a retrospective post about contentment. I'll reflect on the dour state I was in when I began blogging and how I have found peace and acceptance for my life. Very self-indulgent, but hey, it's my blog! Ahhh, ran out of time. Maybe tomorrow?

Tuesday:

Sexy Guy comes home with news. Apparently they've just lifted the "7-Year Max" restriction for military to be stationed in England. After all of the agony making the decision to return to the states rather than take any other over-seas base (since staying here was NOT an option). My poor brain can NOT focus on anything!

Wednesday:

Sexy Guy still has the paperwork that's supposed to be turned in because we are now wracked with indecision.

• My mother is not in good health, we should go back to the states. 
• Oldest son and wife could possibly have a baby within the next three years and I need to be close to them! 
• Oldest son is not well and may have to accept a Medical Discharge from the Air Force-we could end up in Idaho while he goes back to Arizona. 
• Four other kids leave the only friends and schools they've known. 
• Older of the four boys will have an opportunity to salvage some American schooling if we return now-he'll have two years of High School. AAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!
• Cost of Visas and car tax if we stay!
• Everything we will miss if we leave.

Thursday:

We have dinner guests coming at 5pm. I wake up with a chesty cold and am a miserable sod. I have a good shout at a child or two who are pushing all of my wrong buttons. I get the two youngest to the school and realize it's "move up" day.
THE day they look forward to.
THE day where everyone moves up into the class they will have next year.
Remorse hits for the terrible start and I hug them, tell them I love them and to enjoy their day. Luckily, kids are extremely forgiving and they leave me with smiles.

An hour later the phone rings, "Your daughter pinched her hand in a basketball goal and is ok but will have a nasty blood blister when she gets home".
Of course it's my fault! Don't you know that I know that already?  I sent her off to school distracted! Never mind that it was her excessive distraction that had caused the Mum meltdown in the first place.

I begin cooking the dinner and cleaning the house. My kitchen looks like a bomb went off in the produce section of a grocery store. I also have not tidied up along the way as it's pointless with this meal really...and there's a rap at the door.

Rap rap.

It's a timid rap, so I'm not even sure I heard it.

There's a tiny, well-dressed woman there. She introduces herself as a member of our Estate Agency.

My Mind: "Oh no you don't, you will NOT conduct our August inspection right now, no warning, when my kitchen is turned upside down!" The sound of three different kinds of expensive meats  sizzling on the stove top pull me from the panicked conversation in my own mind.

"I'm afraid I'm the bearer of bad news," she says...

...and everything goes fuzzy from there.
Something about, "Landlord's personal circumstances have changed" and "...need to vacate the property by September".

I remember numbly mumbling something about "...having just passed our 1-year-left mark" and "...the bad timing of trying to find a new place", and hearing her say, "Oh sh**".
Beautifully put, bless her.

Visions of first and last months rent, deposits and agent fees dance in my head.


Yeah.

Contentment is not all it's cracked up to be. Peace and joy and butterflies are fleeting and may just be the precursor from impending life implosions. 

Maybe I'm being dramatic, but it's my blog, I can do that here.

In real life, I'm packing. And looking for a house that will accept a 10-month lease while still falling into our school catchment so the kids don't have to changes schools their last year here.

Who hoot! Yahoo! 

“Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” 
JD Salinger--The Catcher in the Rye 

Friday:

On the bright side (yes, there is one), there is ONE house within 5 miles of our village. It's a farmhouse with the right amount of space and rooms. It's out in the country again which means more driving to get kids where they need to be, but the nearest farmhouse to it is Son # 3's best friend. 
We booked a viewing (for tonight). All Thursday evening I was tempted to text the BF's mum to say, "What do you know about that house????", but I didn't. When we drove out to confirm where it was, we saw her husband and fought the urge to ask him about the house.


And then my cell phone rings. It's her. Son # 3's best friend's mum. "Hiya J, I have a question that's a little awkward to ask..."

My mind: Well, the word is out, Son #3 must've Facebooked his friend. Just don't cry, just don't cry, just don't cry...

"...are you viewing a house to let tomorrow?"

"Yes..."

"That's MY house! It's our farmhouse!"

After I explained our situation, she said, "We'll work with you, don't worry about the deposits, we'll work something out".

My mind: "just don't cry, just don't cry, just don't cry..." 


I'll post pictures soon. If you don't mind, I wouldn't refuse prayers that the base will approve the house (they would have failed the one we're currently in if I hadn't had a friend who swore he'd fix all of the "dangerous" things they found), and it will fit our needs.


Other than that, life is good. Change is good for you, right?




“Sometimes," Jem said, "our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.”
―Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

A Picture of Me Without You, or, There's a Tear in My Beer

Times like these make me wish I drank. Or liked country music. Or both. Because today is a cry-in-your-beer kinda day.

One child went off on a school trip today. That didn't make me cry, I'm quite happy for him as he was so excited.

Three kids and I went out to McDonalds. That didn't make me cry because it is SUCH A RARE EVENT, you would've thought I had taken them to Disneyland. They were very excited and thanked me several times. And amazingly, no one cried when I rolled the window down and one balloon (from said fine dining establishment) flew out of the car.

Same three kids and I rented a movie DESPITE the poor reviews. I didn't cry over that either. In fact, I learned that people who do reviews are idiots. Mirror Mirror was fun. The kids laughed and my artsy brain was drunk on gorgeous images. And what can I say? Julia Roberts, in a movie where she doesn't drop the F-bomb, is a lovable villain.

Today it rains...again.
I don't cry over rain.

Ok, I did get frustrated when it rained EVERY SINGLE DAY that the son and DIL were here (and most days were all-day rain), but I always give thanks for rain.
Growing up in Arizona will do that to you.

Today marks the one year countdown to our leaving England. There's so much I haven't seen yet! There's so much I know I will miss. I believe this tiny little island is going to leave a massive-sized hole in my heart. I imagine myself, sitting in a barren, pub-less desert, with skin as brown as Earl Grey tea, singing:

"Like a treasure that travels with me down every road
There's this longing lonesome and deep
Kind of bitter, kind of sweet
There's a hole in my heart
There's a hole in my heart
There's a hole in my heart in the shape of you (, Britain)"-Jewel, with a little help from me.

I know. Sad sack. Glass half empty. Or Glass nearly dry with hard water stains. I can hear you non-country music lovers (and people who know that there are real problems in the world and I'm whinging about having to move in a year):

"Pull yourself up by yer bootstraps!"

Yeah. I've always hated that expression too.

Come on, cry with me.

  Poppies, Lawn bowls, Autumn hay stacks and Cricket

Castles, churches and the Queen's Calvary

Hairy Coos, windmills and clotted cream

History, history, and more history.

Don't worry. 

I have begun to make another list. One of all of the things that we can look forward to back in the states as well. I'm thinking with 365 days to write, I should be able to come up with a pretty impressive list.  Anyone want to contribute?

Two Roads Diverged...

How rude, I know. No goodbye, nothing.

My blog is having an identity crises. It doesn't know what it wants to be... a travelogue? A Mommy blog? A Military Wife blog? A Craft/Art/Things-I-Do-With-My-Own-Two-Hands blog? A Bare-Thy-Soul blog? Which direction do I go with this?

The said blog owner is fine. Great actually. Probably because there's been lots of traveling involved (sightseeing!) and her good friend CREATIVITY has come back (hopefully to stay, she's been missed terribly!). Feeling connected again.

Don't delete me from your blog rolls yet, I'll get this figured out soon.

For now, a little about where I've been since we last talked:

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
 

White Hart Lane, home of the Tottenham Hotspurs. 

You may remember hearing about Tottenham with the riots recently. Plenty of buildings nearby are still boarded up.

 This is the face of a boy who didn't think we could beat them

 But beat them we did!

 This is at the end of the game as the players were clapping to us and we were cheering to them.

If the Hubby had taken photos when we scored, you would've seen a half-nekked young man next to me (who had ripped his shirt off, jumped over chairs and ended up in our row). 

A guy in front of the Hubby jumped down a 

couple of rows. No one minds, and

it's not odd to be hugging strangers at goal time.

The next morning, we woke up and had our English breakfasts (eggs, fried toast, beans, tomato etc) and drove by Stonehenge...

 Yes, "drove by". No sense in stopping a third time. Seen it, done it.

Drove some more....

I love Spring in England. There's bright yellow fields of Rapeseed everywhere and Claritin is my best friend.

As The Man drives, I fiddle with travel books and phone apps. I can't stand the thought of getting home and discovering we were right next to some special place that we could have taken a few minutes to go and see...
like how Chatsworth House was RIGHT THERE as we drove around for three days in the Peak District in 2007.

As we drove through the gorgeous English countryside towards our Devon and Cornwall destination,

we saw a sign that I vaguely remembered from somewhere...

We gambled, took the exit and am so happy we did!

But,
 I'll have tell you more about that incredible place later.

Here's a hint:

Sorry about the ads, there's nothing I can do about those.

Hope you are all well and happy and enjoying your summer.

Ta ta for now!

Dream a Little Dream

It's like that nightmare where one dreams that one has signed up for a college course and completely forgot to attend any of the classes. I popped onto my blog yesterday only to find that it's been an ENTIRE month since I last posted. How can that be?  

I blame Pinterest. Who sent me to that evil place anyway???

"What's been going on?" you ask.

Well, since you asked...

Terrible news. The wonderful photo editing site, Picnik, closed down! So now I'll have to actually use my Photoshop. Boooooo. Like I have time to edit my own photos.

Unedited photo from my garden

School just broke out for Easter Break, (although no one calls it Easter break anymore--even in CHURCH of England schools. Funny how the teachers and staff all wish us a happy Easter as we walk away loaded down by our children's paper mache eggs. Pssst, YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE with the "Spring Half Term" name).

Did I mention that Pinterest is evil? When I leave my computer today I am going to construct my own padded camera bag, a marshmallow trebuchet, some Peanut Butter cup brownies, and finally start working on my artist's journal. Key words to that sentence are "when I leave my computer today..."

Hubby ran another Half Marathon down in the London area. Because that's what he does for fun. I, on the other hand, did not even run to the mailbox at all this month. I was busy looking at how to dye Easter eggs with silk scarves on Pinterest.

Ok, obviously I wasn't there with him. I would have NEVER let him leave the house in black shorts with a navy shirt.

The youngest child finally succumbed to the Fifth Disease virus running rampant in our school (every year, every Spring). Supposedly you get it once and your body builds antibodies against it.
My daughter probably got it from her best friend who has been hit with it several times (as has her sister who is in my boy's class). Bless.
I used to say, "Oh, don't worry about us, we're immunized!" because I had read somewhere that it is a strain of the Chicken Pox virus (which the British kids don't get vaccinations for)...

Well now I will say,

"Back off Typhoid Mary!!".

Ok, I really wouldn't say that. I adore that family.

cursed with her Dad's sense of color coordination

My oldest boy and his wife will be here in 25 days. Not that I'm counting and booking every tour and several shows for my new daughter to do with me. She, unlike the Son #1, does NOT want to sit around for three weeks playing video games in the house. We're going to see Highclere Castle (filming sight for Downton Abbey) and a couple of shows on the West End in London. We've got a dance performance booked in Norwich and crafts lined up for whenever we're home. Poor thing has NO IDEA what she's married into...

I applied for a job.

It's a non-paying job, so is it really a job?
I don't think I'm getting it since I haven't been contacted and it's been a full week since I turned my "package" in.

Whether I hear from them or not, I am a better person for applying because A) I REALLY stepped out of my comfort zone by going for it and B) my being gutted!! disappointed about not getting it is actually a great thing.
After so many years of my dreams taking a back seat to my husband's military obligations and my kiddos' activities, I was afraid I didn't have any dreams left.
I WANTED this job even though it scared the soggy Cheerios out of me.

At the beginning of putting my "package" together, the voices in my mind whispered the usual, "I'm not good enough"s and "I don't have the experience they are looking for"s, but by the end of my two-day process the voices had transformed to: "Heck yeah! I could not only do this job well, but my unique perspective would be an asset!". 
Yeah. The transformation was into hillbilly, but the positive voice? That's a good feeling.

Until they call and tell me that I am indeed the bomb, 
well, I'll just start dreaming again...

What have you done this week that stretched your belief in yourself?