The Pea Green Boat

A Crossroads

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:56:00 +0000

Well, no I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, but I have been spending some time in contemplation. I have increasingly felt that my blogging life has reached a kind of crossroads and it's time for decisions to be made.

When I started The Pea Green Boat back in January 2008, my purpose was to learn about the art of blogging. I wanted to explore my writing, commit to regular creativity and learn about building an online presence. What I got in return though was far more than I bargained for.

Through my written journal, I've made connections with people all over the world and in some cases built friendships. I've learned a lot about myself too which has given me a confidence that has reached into other areas of my life. This renewed self esteem and love for the written word, prompted me to begin another blog last June, which focuses on only one aspect of my life - knitting. Could I continue to write animatedly about a seemingly narrower subject?

The answer has been a resounding 'yes.' I've discovered that I love writing about knitting (who'd have thought it?) and somehow I'm never at a loss for something to say on the matter. In turn this has led to almost total immersion in my subject (yes, the house is full of needles, yarn and knitting publications) and even public recognition (at The Little Guy's end-of-season basketball party yesterday, my constant knitting at practices was applauded in the coaches speech!)

It seems natural now then, to have reached a crossroads (induced by time restraints). I have to decide which blog to pursue as life is just too hectic for me to balance both for much longer. On reflection, I feel that The Pea Green Boat (in it's present form at least) has served its original purpose. I won't be abandoning ship (I'll still be checking up on you all), but I have decided that the time has come to make for land and, perhaps dry dock for a while.

In the meantime, I intend to go out on a high note. Last week Rudee at A Knitting Nurse sent me this award which I would like to pass on. Rudee has been a wonderful cyber friend; a true supporter, so if I could I'd award the award back to her! But in the tradition of 'sharing the love' I'm going to pass it on to 8 others whose friendship I have been lucky enough to enjoy.

According to the authors of this award, this blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

So, my friends, here's to you Anvilcloud, Expatmum, Ali, Donna, Almost American, Ped Crossing, Bella and Sarah. Thanks for all your support, your friendship and your great blogs!

Feeling.....Completely Worn Out!

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:35:00 +0000

I'm knackered. There's no way around it, I'm completely and utterly cream crackered. My body aches in places I didn't know I had and I could fall asleep at the drop of a hat. What incredibly contorting sport have I been involved in now, you ask? Well, I've been........

PAINTING!

We had a 4 day weekend here in the US and I just couldn't let that large block of time go by without attempting to show my house a little TLC. I was determined to set to and paint DD1's bedroom before she moves out. We haven't managed to put a lick of paint on the inside of this house in the four years since we've been here (and I don't think it's seen any since it was built 18yrs ago), so it's long overdue. We've been rather preoccupied with adapting to American life, organizing 3 kids lives and, oh yes, staying employed.

I knew that eventually it would fall to me to grapple the DIY reins out of ExpatOwl's hands and begin the task of painting this house. The fact that he's only had one day off work in the past 6 weeks made that job a lot easier than I originally anticipated and the fact that he was away this weekend too has meant that there's been one less person to try to fit into the house amongst the removed furniture and general clutter that spewed out of DD1's bedroom. To reinforce the shift of power, I donned his work overalls, rolled up at the bottoms and sexily tied with a piece of string at the middle to give me a waist. With an old shower cap on my head, I looked.............determined!

I was on a tight schedule. I knew that I would have to fill all the holes in the walls on Thursday night if I was going to be able to sand and prime the next day, so as soon as basketball practice was over, I set to with my spatula. Friday I was back to work by 9am and spent the whole day sanding, masking off and priming the entire room (including the ceiling). As it started to go dark, I got the arc lights out. The windows were open, but even although it was freezing outside, we worked up quite a bit of heat rollering everything in sight. Even The Little Guy donned an oversize T-shirt and shower cap from the dollar store and splattered paint all over himself and the closet walls!

I finished at midnight. The rest of the family had drifted off to bed long beforehand, so I was left to wash the rollers while I contemplated the bomb site that was now my kitchen, the scene of hot and cold running snacks all day long.

I was back on the job after Saturdays basketball defeat, this time armed with the most fantastic ceiling paint I've ever seen advertised. It goes on pink and then dries white, which turned out to be marvellous as I was trying to paint on top of the white undercoat. DD1 looked a little apprehensive as I turned her ceiling a bright fushia pink with my roller expertly duct taped to an old broom handle (frugal's in remember.) Two hours later though, it had dried to a lushious white.

Sunday saw the two of us painting down to the wire. I was masking and unmasking walls (ofcourse she wanted them two different colours!) but the end result has been worth the work. It looks GREAT!! Now I just have to do the rest of the house (groan.)

Just as I finished scraping the last of the paint off my dry, worn hands, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to reveal a tall, dark-haired young man sporting two earrings and a clipboard.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am, and how are you?"
"Fine," I replied cautiously, closing the front door behind me.
"I was just calling to see whether you would like a free estimate on how much it would cost to paint the inside of your house," he said, brightly.

What are the odds, I thought. What are the friggin' odds that some dude would come knocking on my door at this very second asking me that!

Through gritted teeth I joyfully announced that I was just in the process of doing it myself, then I came back in, closed the door and fell into a heap of uncontollable laughter.

"Ok, God. Very funny!!"

Earthquake

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:14:00 +0000

I'm a bit tired this morning. I was rudely awakened at 5.25 am by the small matter of a 4.5 magnitude earthquake. To be honest, it isn't the earthquake that's caused my tiredness, it's rather the fact that I'm sleeping with a man who is working 14hrs a day, 7 days a week right now. To say that he's exhausted is an understatement. I see him briefly in the morning and then not again until he wakes me up in the night snoring like a warthog!

So it was this morning. The sleeping mask and earplugs must have been defective, because I woke up at 4.30 to the deep rumblings of a worn out man sleeping. I sighed, rolled over and tried to drift back off. The next thing I knew there was an almighty bang and the bed shook. I sat bolt upright in bed fully expecting to see The Little Guy standing in the doorway shaking with fear having had a nightmare. There was no one. I looked at the clock - 5.25am. Maybe the window had cracked?.......... Perhaps there was a burglar outside, I thought?......... Unlikely, I countered. They'd already been round at 3am earlier in the week! (Nextdoor, I hasten to add.)

Slowly reality dawned. Could it have been an earthquake? Hmmm, what do I do?

I lay there for another ten minutes and then tiptoed downstairs to make a cup of tea. (British to the core!) The girls were awake too and instantly confirmed my suspicions. "Yes, Mum, it felt like an earthquake."

Switching on the TV, we watched the first reports coming in on the local news. At this point I realised that the most worrying aspect of the whole incident was not that ExpatOwl slept through the whole thing (he's slept through a Cat 2 hurricane before!) but that I have no instinctive reaction when the earthquake hits. I've never done an earthquake drill, so it takes me forever to work out what is actually going on!

Two months after we arrived in the Northwest we experienced our first quake. It happened at night. We were sleeping on airbeds as our shipment had not arrived from Europe yet. In fact we'd just bought a bed (destined for DD1 eventually), so ExpatOwl was in that, but I'd given up trying to squeeze into a full-sized (double) bed with a man who's 6 foot 3" and had gone back to the airbed. When the floor started to roll beneath me, I was about to yell at him to stop thrashing about, when I remembered where I was. As I really came to, I realised that it wasn't just the bed that was moving, it was the whole room! The quake was small, 3.6, and the epicenter was about 6 miles away. For a girl from East Anglia though, it was a wierd experience!

This morning's experience was different - less shaking, more loud noise. (I never knew earthquakes could sound like a sonic boom.) Thankfully everyone and everything is ok. Brings the old First Aid kit and emergency supplies back to the top of the list though. Think I'll go and check things are up-to-date..........just in case!

Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Well, the past two weeks have been rather hectic. The kids have all been off school sick one after the other, so I've barely had a moment without someone yelling "Muuuuummm!" Thankfully no one has required a doctor, which is just as well because DD2 still hasn't received her insurance card.

The medical insurance saga continued for several days before I finally got somewhere with it. ExpatOwl was quaking in his boots, fearing that he had left his youngest daughter off the original application form and wouldn't live to see his next birthday if he was guilty. He begged the lady at the insurance company to put him out of his misery. He got to live. The mistake, she said, was theirs. Someone in data entry had simply missed DD2 out when they'd entered our information. She is now number 5 on our family I.D. but still awaiting the paperwork to prove that they have actually rectified the situation.

After several phone calls (in which I managed to get myself a case number), I was able to ascertain that we get to keep our lovely pediatrician! The relief was immense. DD1 will be able to continue with the expert care she has received to date which makes the increased costs almost worth it.

As to the Human Resources dept at my husband's company, well, we did as Expatmum suggested and contacted them, but they seem to have a small problem with time management. Either that or they don't know how to use a telephone? Living in a completely different time zone to us seems to be causing some problems because they have yet to return our calls. Mind you, we're learning that being based in a state on the other side of the country from your head office, doesn't come without its problems. I'm quite shocked to discover that the cultural differences can be so great between one state and another that communication can be misinterpreted. When I come off the phone fuming because someone at the insurance company has talked down to me in a patronizing tone, ExpatOwl quickly assures me that that is not the intention, but just the way it is there.

This makes what happened last week seem all the more remarkable to me. The fact that America swore in a new president who won election by a monstrous landslide in a country of such huge diversity, is truely miraculous. It's like trying to get the whole of Europe, Scandinavia and the Balkans to agree on one representative! They may speak the same language (or languages as Spanish is very widespread), but culturally, this country is incredibly diverse. Obviously not everyone agrees with the results of the election, but the fact that so many people in this vast nation did vote for a change, is a testament to the power of democracy. It is amazing to see people coming together, despite their differences, to make things better.

But that's what is so unique about America. It embraces the elements that make someone different. From a young age kids are taught to be proud of who they are. Even at school, they start getting up there in front of their peers to do "Show and Tell" when they're in Kindergarten. This is in stark contrast to our more reserved British upbringing. I love this part of America. It's great to watch my naturally shy kids begin to blossom as they're forced to overcome their fears.

To be frank, they're not the only ones. Last week I taught my second art class. I wasn't as nervous this time. I was more frustrated by the fact that TLG fell ill on the one day in 6 weeks that I'd committed myself to doing something for an hour! I'd cancelled December's lesson because he was sick, so I just couldn't do it again. I had a sleepless night trying to work out what I was going to do. Thankfully DD2 came down with the same thing and so she stayed home to look after him. I've never been so glad to have her off sick!
But I digress. The class went well and I actually found myself enjoying it. The teacher and I got into a routine. I spoke to the class and she moved the slides at my request. Even the Norwegian Rosemaling exercise went well. I led the kids through the process step by step and even managed not to be freaked out when the Principal wandered into the classroom, just as I was waving my brush around like a conductor's baton demonstrating the stroke.

Hopefully, with practice, I can follow in my kids footsteps and allow America to help me blossom into my true self, free of some of the inhibitions that make me oh, so.........well.....errr.....British?

Medical Minefield

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:45:00 +0000

The ferocious US medical system makes the old NHS look like your cuddly Great Aunt Betty. You know, she of the big comforting bosom and voluminous apron. Right now I just want to run right back into her arms, even if I die in the queue waiting for my protective hug.

You see, I'm still struggling to deal with the intricacies of a system which contains so many paper pushers that it makes government look lightweight. The words "Red Tape" seem insufficient to describe what goes on in the medical arena here, unless ofcourse you're talking red duct tape! (a la "Red Green!" for all my Canadian friends.)

In the 4yrs we've been here, we've had 3 different insurance contracts. Each one has resulted in increasingly higher bills and a change of doctors. You see, if your doctor isn't contracted with your insurance company, you have to find another or otherwise pay higher costs. As a family of five, three of whom require specialist care, this is naturally out of the question.

Insurance contracts often change with the waning year, so January is quite a 'hot' time in the medical insurance business. I soon discovered that the beginning of the year would become synonimous with looking for new care providers (so much for continuity of care.) Yet it was only in my second year here that I discovered that it works both ways. Imagine my horror when the family doctor, who I had come to respect and rely on, told me that he was no longer contracted with our insurance company and therefore could no longer treat my family! I spent several months looking for a new one, got accused of 'starving' my skinny (but healthy) teen when I did and finally ended up in the lap of a saintly pediatrician, which was the one good thing to come out of the whole experience.

Well, it's January again and I'm an anxious wreck. I fought through snow and ice at the end of December to get two of the kids to their allergy specialist before our insurance changed. We said goodbye. You see, I had to make medical decisions based on money, which, when you hail from a land with socialised medicine, is an extremely difficult thing to do. We have had to discontinue treatment for one child after three years. I'm hoping it will have been enough to build her immunity. Fingers crossed.

I'm also crossing my fingers that we can keep our wonderful pediatrician. I don't fancy being accused of not feeding my kids again. I also don't fancy trying to find someone who won't fiddle around with her medication just as she's approaching the SAT's and AP tests. Without her medication, she'd be bouncing off the walls and her whole future would be at stake.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Due to an admin error we only just got our new insurance cards. Due to another admin error, there are only four of them! At last count, we were five. The Little Guy's feeling good. For the first time in his life, his rank got bumped up and he came in as number 4 on the family medical listing. DD2 wasn't so lucky. It would appear that she's ceased to exist.

What does this mean?

Goodness only knows. Do I stop her going to her first dance competition this weekend, because she's got no coverage? Do I keep her confined to her room, so that she doesn't trip down the stairs, eat something bad or get knocked over by a maniac on a motorcycle? As she joins the ranks of the approximately 46 million uninsured Americans, do I pull nationality and stoically declare, "She's British !" forcing her to stick out that stiff upper lip, or do I cave to the inevitable and give Verizon (phone company) an extremely good business day.

I guess it'll be the latter. I'll have to get on that telephone again and find out who made the error this time, wish that I hadn't taken for granted the stress-free days of NHS England, and dream of running back to Great Auntie Betty's ample bosom.

It's Wild In The West

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Well, I'm still here, but boy they don't call it "The Wild West" for nothing! There's never a dull moment here. You certainly learn to respect the power of nature when it seems to be battering you continuously. At least, you should. How anyone who just lived through all our snow and now all the floods can dispute global warming is beyond me. When we moved here, we were told that the valley flooded roughly once every ten years. Ummm, well we've been here for 4 and it's flooded about 3 times already.

Our two rivers crested at historic levels last Friday turning our valley into a giant lake and stranding people on either side of it. Getting in and out of the town has been difficult as this limits everyone to two routes, which then become clogged with traffic.

Thursday night ExpatOwl and I took a trip downtown to view the swollen river from the safety of a local alehouse (old habits die hard). Half the town was out doing the same thing, but the pub was surprisingly quiet. Small town America still hasn't quite got the hang of captive audiences and marketing opportunities, but I digress.

Well, our pretty little summer attraction had turned into an angry, brown surging mass of water and debris and was moving at a dangerous pace through the town centre to the sea. The tv crews were out in force, kindly leaving their arc lights on between reports so that all the spectators could still see. In fact, it turned into quite a social event, us having an impromtu date night and then bumping into a friend at 11pm on the river bank.

The other consequence ofcourse though was that the children ended up with a no school day on Friday. Can you believe it? We started the week with a 2hr late start because of snow and ended it with a no-school day because of flooding. If the weather doesn't settle down soon, I'll be homeschooling!

True Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:57:00 +0000

A new year. The time when everyone reassesses their lives, makes resolutions and sets goals. Not a bad idea, I suppose, but not something I'm really inclined to do on a large scale any more. Perhaps I've learned from experience that most New Year's resolutions are broken by the second week in February, or maybe it's just that I prefer to set goals at other times of the year? Who knows. I will however point you in the direction of the best blog piece that I've read so far on this subject.

Over at Zen Habits Leo Babauta encourages us to find the pleasure in 'now'. He really made me stop and think. Like most people, I'm always thinking that if I reach x,y or z circumstance, I'll be truely happy, but happiness is really far more than that. It is only when we find happiness in the moment, that we become truely happy.

2008 was a 'no go' year for us in many ways. We just didn't seem to progress at all, in fact, like many people we took several steps backwards. We spent 6 mths wondering whether ExpatOwl would still have a job by Christmas, continued to pay through the nose for everything because our credit history (as immigrants) is still too short and finished the year having all our benefits changed. We are paying a lot more and getting much less, so yet again we have to rebudget.

ExpatOwl worked so hard in the final 4mths of 2008 that we hardly saw him. When he eventually got home for Christmas, we got snowed in for 2 weeks, the Christmas tree was frozen and the presents didn't arrive until January 3rd (thanks to a very disorganised UPS who couldn't clear snow from their own yard and who then delivered our presents to the wrong address).

Looking back on it all, I just have to laugh though, because even when the world is kicking you in the butt, there are beautiful moments. The pumpkin patch in the autumn sunshine; the team spirit at the soccer tournament; sneaking into the High School Spirit Assembly; eating my home grown and canned dilled pickles; seeing my kids finally wear the woolly socks I've knitted them. Even the snow has been spectacular and turned our neighbourhood into a winter wonderland. I cross country skied from my own front door to a house two blocks away! Imagine that.

These are the moments that I choose to savour from 2008 and look forward to adding to in 2009. Thanks for the reminder, Leo. True happiness really is in the small things.

Deep Freeze

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:12:00 +0000

This morning the thermometer said -14.7C (6 point something Fahrenheit!) It wasn't lying. Outside everywhere looks like a picture postcard. The kids have been home since DD2's band concert on Tuesday night. So has ExpatOwl, working away from the bedroom rather than braving the highways to get to the office.

The house is looking a little more Christmasy now as we've had plenty of time to clear out the mess and generally clean up a bit. The abrupt end to the 2008 school year has left us with a bit more family time to savour.

Cabin fever is setting in a little though.

In a desperate effort to alleviate any sibling tensions, we decided to venture out this morning. We dressed for the arctic and piled into the little red truck just to get over to our local Fred Meyer store, which is normally a ten minute drive away. With another storm pending this evening, we needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping and stock up with milk, eggs etc.

We weren't alone.

The place was heaving with people who, like us, had all been trapped inside for the past 3 days. It was my idea of hell! I hate shopping at the best of times and do all I can to avoid going to the store, but under the present conditions, it was a necessity. Thankfully, I didn't need much as I keep a large chest freezer in my garage that houses enough rations to last us several weeks. I've never been so glad of it.

The Christmas tree situation has been another matter though. We had planned to get one when ExpatOwl got back from his last trip. We like to take an annual outing to the tree farm, select our tree, saw it down and finish off with a nice mug of hot apple cider. Our plan was to go last Sunday. Unfortunately, it started to snow and has hardly stopped since.

Plan B was to go after work on Friday. The kids had a half day, we could knock off early and head out to the farm, joyously singing Christmas carols as we returned with our prize.

Err, no such luck.

With all the streets like skating rinks and the hill at the end of the street closed to traffic, we weren't going anywhere.

Plan C was to get a cut tree in the garden center at Fred Meyer. Desperate times mean desperate measures. As I perused the aisles searching for food items, ExpatOwl sidled up to me and whispered the immortal words, "Houston, we have a problem."

"What?" I replied.

"We may have a small problem in the Christmas tree department."

The image of our bare front room loomed before me as the full shock and horror hit. OMG, we might not be able to get a tree.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"They don't have any left."

Plan D, can you believe it, we're on plan D in the Christmas tree department! My Walton-style family outing to choose our Christmas tree was receding into the depths of my memory as fast as Santa's sleigh.

"Artificial?" I queried, gulping at the inevitable expense this plan would incur.

ExpatOwl disappeared.

Half an hour later, as if by magic, he appeared by my side again.

"I've got a tree," he whispered conspiratorially. OMG, what had he done. Had he stolen one out of someone else's truck, or worse still, grabbed a chain saw and attacked one of the many fir trees that dot our local landscape?

"I got it nextdoor at Home Depot," he added, "It was the last one."

The relief was palpable. Phew, we wouldn't have to disappoint the kids after all. We got the tree home in the back of the truck and manhandled it into the house. It's sitting in the corner of the front room right by the window thawing out. You see, it's a frozen tree. The branches are so stiff that it looks as if it's still tied up. It's the funniest looking tree we've ever seen. We have been assured that as it thaws and the sap starts flowing again, the dear tree will lower it's branches and look quite stunning. I do hope so, although after what we've been through to get it, I'm just happy to have any kind of yuletide decoration!

Brrrr! Who Turned The Thermostat Down?

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:25:00 +0000

For a moment when I woke up this morning, I thought I was back in Norway. Then as I came to, I realised that the weight of the thick duvet, flannel duvet cover, quilt and three woollen blankets could only mean that I was in America. The fact that I went to bed with 3 pairs of socks on too will tell you just what the weather has thrown at us this time.

A voice from the other side of the mountain of bedclothes offered to warm me up, but I declined, prefering instead to tiptoe down the stairs to the kitchen in search of that essential British emergency item, a cup of tea.

The thermometer on the windowsill blinked at me. The outside temperature read -11C!! ( 11.5F) I shook it. It must be wrong? But no, on further inspection, it was bone-chillingly accurate. Good grief, it's cold!

It started on Saturday night. The snow came thick and fast much to everyone's excitement. By Sunday morning, we woke to a crisp clear day and 4" of snow on the ground. Bang went our trip to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. Our front room is still devoid of festive cheer today, as it doesn't look as if it'll be safe for us to venture out into the depths of the countryside in the Little Red Truck until Friday at the earliest. Oh well, we'll put it down to experience.

What an experience it's turning into though. The kids have been on a 2hr late start for the past two days, which, frankly, we've needed. Navigating thick patches of ice in the car in the dark is no fun, particularly when no one around you has a clue how to drive in ice and snow! ExpatOwl put studded tires on my car at the weekend, so I am at least equipped to go out in the present conditions, but the problem is not me, it's everyone else. Good grief, you'd think it was the middle of summer the way some people drive. The speeds are unbelievable. It's safer to stay at home, not because of the weather, but because of the other drivers!

Mind you, I'm not sure The Little Guy would agree with that last fact. Yesterday I got back from a long slow haul out to the Allergists clinic with DD2, only to find the little dude sporting a rapidly swelling right eye. He'd only slipped over on the ice and hit his face on the side of the sledge, hadn't he. In the absense of half a filet steak, we put a pack of frozen peas on it and today he's gone to school with quite a shiner developing. I wonder if he could claim that some journalist threw a pair of shoes at him?

The Darling Daughters have also finally decided that subzero temperatures mean that one is obliged to wear a coat, however 'uncool' it looks. DD2 has also claimed back the knitted stripey socks that she returned to me a few months ago claiming that she'd never wear them. Huh! Desperate times, and all that. Even ExpatOwl has been digging around in his sweater drawer looking for something warm and woolly. If I'm not careful he'll start nagging me to finish knitting the Norwegian sweater I started making for him about four years ago.

It's not over yet though. The forecast is for more snow tonight and cold temperatures for the next two weeks. At this rate we could well be skiing in our own front garden just like we used to in Norway. Indeed, when I emerge from beneath the bedclothes tomorrow, it looks like I could be forgiven for thinking that I'm having a Scandinavian experience.

It Takes A Village

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:20:00 +0000

I had to be in four different locations at the same time last night. Now I'm not superwoman (although I do my best) so a plan of action had to be concocted. I had known for about two weeks that this night was going to come, so I had been mulling strategies over at the back of my mind ever since, but why, oh why do strangers somehow manage to choose that night to make things even more complicated? I guess it's the law of s*d in full flow again.

This week didn't start too well really. I already had appointments on the calendar that would test any scheduling expert, so I knew I was in for a busy one. Then Monday morning I woke up to find The Little Guy with a complexion that only Big Bird can carry off well! The bags under his eyes were so big too that any airline would have charged him for excess baggage!

Great. One kid home and I had to go to my annual physical; an appointment I'd had for 3 months.

I called my neighbour, who also had a sick child at home. We pooled resources. She took the sick kids, I went to the doctor's office and ran errands. Thank goodness for good friends!

By the end of the day, the boy had bounced back. "YES," I thought, "I'll be able to make my dental check-up tomorrow." I was desperate not to have to pay a cancellation fee and the neighbours had encouraged me to keep the appointment, assuring me that we'd work something out if he was still ill.

Tuesday morning DD2 woke up with a fever of 102F! Bugger! I'd have to leave her home alone when she was sick. "Go to your appointment," said my friends. "We'll check on her."...........And they did. When I called to see how she was doing, she'd been offered chicken noodle soup and TLC in my absense. The value of friendship is truly priceless.

By Wednesday I'd cancelled my art class and the cat's appointment for a nail trim though. It was time to take care of the piles of bedding that need laundering when a kid has such a high fever that they perspire enough to water the garden. By this point it was also obvious that my Thurday night plans were going to be complicated further.

I addressed the problem by cancelling The Little Guy's basketball practice. There was just no way I could take him there for 6pm, then over to his end-of-season soccer party at 6.30 at the same time as attending DD1's induction ceremony into the National Honor Society (also at 6.30) and take care of a now fever free DD2. One woman is just not enough! Even when every event was within a five minute radius of the house, I just couldn't do it all.

My plan was:
1) Leave at 6.10
2) Take TLG directly to soccer party (at teammate's house)
3) Take DD1 to Honor Society event
4) Leave DD2 home with a movie

The evening actually went like this:
1) DD1 had a panic over dress code
2) Nextdoor neighbour called to say two strange men were knocking on doors asking for donations to some medical fund
3)I closed all the blinds and turned off the lights on the front of house
4) DD1 was still having a clothing crisis
5) 6.15 I drove TLG to his party
6) 6.30 I picked up DD1, checked on DD2 and left for the High School event
7)8pm. I called to check on DD2. The doorbell had rung and she was so scared that she'd called the nextdoor neighbours, who'd come over to be with her. As I spoke to her, I drove past 2 strange men with clipboards wandering up the next street in the dark.
8) DD1 and I went to the soccer party. We caught up with our friends before they all left.
9) I collected TLG and headed home
10) Inside the hallway was a huge package (about 4 feet tall). The ring on the doorbell earlier had been the UPS man! DD2 was feeling stupid for troubling the neighbours. I assured her she'd done the right thing.
11) We all fell into bed exhausted.
12) I forgot to get the bread for breakfast out of the freezer.

This morning we woke up to the headline news that a woman in our town had been robbed and beaten by two men last night. Coincidence? I don't think so. Scary? You betya!!

The Importance Of Being Proactive Not Reactive.

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:30:00 +0000

I've just read a great article over at Get Rich Slowly about how to prepare yourself for a potential lay-off. As the unemployment statistics here in the US are now at a 26yr high, I thought I'd share the link. It's a guest post by Kevin Merritt, founder and CEO of Blist, a web-based list-sharing and database application.

What Kevin says about updating your skills, reducing your household budget to prepare for a drop in salary and networking are fundamental to redundancy insurance, but are these tactics only necessary during a recession? Frankly, from our own personal experience, protecting yourself from a potential lay-off should be an ongoing habit. Gone are the days of the 'job for life' which ends with a a firm handshake, pat on the back and a gold watch. Today's global marketplace, is tough, competitive and shrinking. It's a case of survival of the fittest and the fittest today is the person who can adapt to continuous change.

We have learned all of this the hard way. Back in 1994 we were a young, naive couple living in the UK. DD1 was 2 and DD2 was just 3mths old. ExpatOwl had a 'steady' job as a middle manager with an electronics firm. When I was pregnant with DD1 we had moved to the south coast of England because his company relocated there and we were just beginning to feel at home in our new location. I'd left my job to follow his and our imminent new addition precluded me from employment in our new town. Recently his company had been sold to another higher up the corporate tree, but we had no reason to fear any changes. The products he oversaw were selling well and the market was buoyant.

Then one ordinary day, ExpatOwl came home from work as usual and told me in a hushed voice that he'd been laid off. The shock was immense. Neither of us could believe what was happening. We had a 2yr old and a new baby, our mortgage was constantly climbing and we were already living on tuna pasta bake. I'd become an expert on "100 different meals to cook with ground beef!"

To top it all, after 10yrs with the firm, they'd given him half an hour to clear out his desk.

The shame and humiliation brought ExpatOwl to his knees. Why had this happened? What had he done wrong? He'd always worked hard, to the point of putting his family second at times. He'd been headhunted during the previous summer by other people who obviously valued his skills. Raised to believe in the 'Last in, first out,' theory, he'd seen no reason for concern and had therefore missed all the signs of potential doom. He'd also always believed that redundancy was a reflection on a person's quality of work, but was to learn that in the corporate world the company budget is the controlling factor, not its human capital.

I had never seen my husband cry until that day. Nor have I since.

In the end, he was lucky. Unemployment lasted a mere 3 days. Sweeping cuts by senior executives who did not understand the value of their middle managers, led to an offer from the competitor, who coundn't believe his luck at getting such a skilled worker. It wasn't easy though. The new job necessitated a 2hr commute each way and world travel. Our little girls grew up without Daddy.

This experience became the cornerstone of our lives. From that day on, we resolved that the only company we were committed to was "Oue Family Inc!" The lessons we learned over that week have stood us in good stead since. We became more proactive, learned to read the writing on the wall when the corporate world started shifting and have made decisions accordingly. It's hard to know when to jump or when to wait to be pushed. Each situation is different, but if you have your financial house in order, living with the consequences is much easier. I took over our finances, resolved to run our household like a business and have budgeted my way through three different currencies in 14yrs.

You see, we have been prepared to go anywhere and do anything to stay employed. This has meant adapting to new cultures and new experiences, skills that are a necessity in today's world. Financially it would have been great to stay in one place, build equity in our home and prepare for retirement, but that has not been possible for us. We've had some priceless experiences along the way though and have taught our children firsthand about the world of work that they will soon enter. They are prepared to have several jobs (even careers) in their lifetime and to take control of their futures.

To them, it's normal.

As you know, we're at that juncture again. The morning after his recent international flight home, ExpatOwl could be found in the city networking at a trade show. The 'Powers-That-Be' would be well adviced to do all they can to keep him if they want to maintain their market share. But no matter what they decide, you can be sure that we'll be playing the game on our terms, even if the axe does eventually fall!

Giving Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:51:00 +0000

Thanksgiving is rapidly turning into my favourite holiday. We get an entire four days in a row off for a start, which is pretty amazing for America. Add to that the traditional turkey dinner and you have a winner. It is also devoid of all the hassle and consumerism of Christmas, which I find very appealing.

Making the turkey dinner is the greatest challenge, coming as it does on a Thursday and requiring several different accompanying dishes. In large families this is normally achieved by each person bringing a dish to the Thanksgiving table. When there's only five of you though and you all live in the same house, it's still down to me. This year I didn't get any time to plan ahead. Having attended "Grandparent's Day" at The Little Guy's school the day before and been encouraged by his teacher to share with the class how "I like to spend time with my grandchildren" (I'm a gifted actress), I had little time to grapple with green beans beforehand.

Thursday seemed to arrive at lightening speed.

I did make a few inroads this year though. The benefit of not having to keep extended family satisfied by your presence, is that you get to be totally casual about the turkey dinner. This year I introduced DD1 to the ease of homemade cranberry sauce and DD2 to the joys of stuffing. My plan? To ensure that these two dishes will make it to my Thanksgiving table in the years ahead without me having to make them! Smart, huh?!

While they were suitably occupied, I read the recipe for my piece de resistance; an acorn squash. It looked simple enough. Cooking this would ensure that Thanksgiving dinner was not just the same meal that we eat at Christmas. After all, a British Christmas dinner is based on turkey too and there is a chance you can have too much of a good thing.

ExpatOwl didn't think there was much chance of that in this instance. He'd already remarked on the small size of the turkey when it was defrosting. I confess it had seemed to wither away to the size of a large British chicken and was hardly looking like Bernard Matthews best. What on earth would he think when it came out of the oven? Perhaps I could pass it off as grouse or a French hen?

Meanwhile, the acorn squash was an adventure in itself. Halfway through the afternoon my husband found me staggering around the kitchen with the darned thing stuck on the end of my best carving knife. He wrestled the implement from me, fearful that I might cut myself, and proceeded to lever the blade out of the squash splitting the latter in two as he did so. My relief was palpable. I'm still having nightmares now, although baked with a little butter and brown sugar, that squash was divine and really made our Thanksgiving dinner.

We were lucky. We had a feast on Thanksgiving which we all took part in creating. Even The Little Guy chopped carrots and peeled potatoes. We were grateful to have ExpatOwl home for a few days too. Those four days were an oasis of calm in the storm that is our daily lives.

As I stood outside in the dark last night and waved him off on his travels again, I was truly thankful for them!

An Expat Christmas Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:12:00 +0000

As an Expat, Christmas can be an interesting time of the year. Not only do you get to view the strange juletide traditions of new lands, but you get to develop your own little festive routines. One of these is the Christmas shopping ritual. For Expats, this invariably starts in October. As most of our gift recipients live half a world away, our purchases have to be made in good time in order to enter the various global postal systems.

I was doing ok. I say 'was' because I've just come a cropper. My parcels to Europe were purchased, wrapped and packaged and have been waiting on the hall table for me to find time in my diary to make it to the Post Office. Today was the day. I had already spent an hour and a half discovering that Amazon UK is still not a financially viable option for me. With the recent currency changes, I had hoped that the exchange rate would now make it a possibility when it comes to gifts. As I can pay in pounds from my British account, I was considering this method of gift buying for my final two UK presents. Then I reached the online checkout and discovered that the gift wrapping charges made the whole process ridiculously expensive, so I'm back to square one.

But I digress. Having discovered that it's still cheaper to buy here and mail presents myself, I drove round to the PO and staggered out of the car with four boxes piled up on each other. I could barely see over the top of them and was totally dependent on other kind customers to open the doors for me. Once inside I picked up the required green customs forms and spent another ten minutes laboriously filling out all the details of my 'surprise' gifts!

As usual, the queue was growing rapidly. I joined it, carrying my stack of parcels and hoping my arms would hold out. Then as I peeped around the side of them, I saw it. The sign!

"It is a federal offense to pack anything potentially hazardous to Postal workers. We will always ask you whether you have packed anything:

LIQUID
Perishable
etc
etc

"Crap!" I thought, suddenly remembering the small bottle of aftershave that I'd bought for my father-in-law, which was nestled neatly in one of my boxes. "Bloody H***! It's liquid!" Images of the immigration authorities turning up at my door and dragging me away in handcuffs, flooded my mind.

With that I stalked out of the PO, knowing that I was now going to have to head home again with the parcels (and their redundant green slips), try to remember which box the aftershave was in and then start all over again.

Guess what ExpatOwl's getting for his birthday?!

Normal? What's that?

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:49:00 +0000

I'm sleeping on the sofa. No, ExpatOwl and I haven't had a major falling out, despite the fact that his reappearance always takes me some time to adjust to. No, it's far more basic than that.

He's got jet-lag!

The problem with having a a spouse who treats an aeroplane like a bus service, is that his body is always in another time zone to your own. Not only do we all have to manage without him for weeks on end, but when he returns he's still not totally back in the land of the living. It's bad enough when he's spent two weeks on the East coast and ends up being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 3 am every day and snoring on the sofa by 8 every night, but after a trip to Europe, it's a whole different ball game. He sleeps at the wrong time and eats at the wrong time. He wants toast and cereal when we fancy a steak dinner and vice versa. Disruptive is an understatement.

Having stayed awake for 24hrs, poor ExpatOwl arrived home on Friday night and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. The good 'ol sofa is used to it and welcomed him with its well worn leather and long corner sweep that easily accommodates a man who's over 6 feet tall. The rest of us greeted him enthusiastically and then got on with our lives. At least we tried to, but the decibel level of "The Man From Europe's" snoring was hardly conducive to successful viewing of "Survivor Man". By 10pm, in order to keep from forcing ExpatOwl to try out basic survival techniques in the biting cold of the back garden, I woke him up. He staggered up to bed, fell into it and instantly returned to his previous comatose state.

I grabbed my duvet and headed back to the still warm sofa.

Now, I'm not a thrasher, you know, one of those people who toss and turn all night flailing around in their sleep as if their lives depended on it. In fact, I sleep so gently that I look like rigamortis has set in! (DD1 has testified to this.) Consequently, I'm perfectly able to sleep on our narrow European-sized sofa without falling off in the night. In fact, when ExpatOwl's jet-lagged, it's the one place that I'm guaranteed at least 7hrs of sleep.

So, that's why I'm on the sofa and have been for the past three nights. Judging by the reduced level of aeroplane air induced snoring and Expat's joyous declaration that he'd woken at 5am this morning, I should be back in the marital bed by Thanksgiving!

Nothing's Ever Simple

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:45:00 +0000

I seem to be having a run of...how can I describe them...awkward moments. You know, the sort that cause you to think "Oh, no, not again." They're normally accompanied by a resigned sigh and some hairbrained attempt at a solution. In fact a better term would probably be, "problem situations."

Take this weekend for instance. ExpatOwl flew off to Europe on Friday morning, so it was back to the one-woman-show again. The Little Guy had a soccer tournament all weekend (his first). To add to the fun, the Water Board was working on the water treatment works from 9pm Friday until 9 am Saturday morning. We had to leave at 8.

We all showered the night before, but come Saturday my hair was just not going to play ball. I thrust it into a pony tail and stuffed a baseball hat on top of the shaggy mess (my camping look.)

No one recognised me all day, which was just as well because having spent most of Friday loading up the car with supplies for the day and then driving out to the substitute fields (ours are underwater!), I was knackered.

As soon as we arrived, I turned to TLG, who was hastily putting on his cleats, and asked,
"Do you want to take your asthma inhaler now, or just before the first game?"
I rummaged in his soccer bag waiting for his reply. There was an ominous silence.
"Er, I used it yesterday when I was playing outside with my friends and I think I might have forgotten to put it back in my bag, Mum. It's in the garage."

I tried to swallow the rising tide of anger I felt as I emerged empty handed from the inside of the soccer bag and tried to accept the inevitable. I was doomed. There was just no way this event was going to be problem free, was there! With a day ahead of us filled with a minimum of three games, there was no way TLG could play without his inhaler. I'd have to drive all the way home and back again.

I did.

It was nice weather for a country drive.

I missed the first game, but managed to watch my mini Beckham and his team make their way to the semi-finals by winning the next two. This would mean we'd have to come back on Sunday.

Sunday dawned fresh and foggy, but by lunchtime the worst of the weather was over. The coach called to remind me to bring a white T-shirt as the opposing team normally wore red like us. TLG put one on immediately so that we wouldn't forget.

We made our way out to the much emptier fields (only 4 teams playing) only to discover, to my absolute horror, that the opposing team had decided to wear white. Our boys were wearing their regular red shirts............. and where was TLG's? At home on top of the laundry pile!

We borrowed one from the opposing side. Number 15 had now become the second number 10 on our team. The boys fought bravely, but lost 2-0. We were hugely proud of them though as the team that beat them was a select team and went on to win the final. (Select is a higher level team of kids who get year long soccer tuition.)

My third situation then arose today. I needed to wrap some Christmas presents for family back in the UK. I have a large Christmas wrapping bag that gets stuffed with paper, ribbons etc every January during the sales and then gets put away until now. Searching for it in the garage, I discovered that ExpatOwl had stored it out of reach. Not just slightly out of reach, like on the top of the shelves that line the side of the garage. Nooooo, right up in the top of the eaves!!

Spitting bricks and swearing to myself like a mad woman, I attempted to climb a ladder holding a very long extendable pole with my feather duster on the end of it. I figured that if I could push the bottom of the bag until I wiggled it free, I might be able to snag one of the handles with the end of the pole and bring it down.

Dangling precariously from the top of the A-frame ladder and waving my pole like a conductor's baton, I swung at the corner of the swollen bag that was hanging over the edge of the garage beam. It moved slightly. I tried again, then again and again, swearing blue murder at the lengths I had to go to just to wrap a few Christmas gifts!

Suddenly the bag's handle was visible. As I hooked my delightful lime green, plastic duster through both bright red handles, the entire bag slid down the pole and there was the deep ripping sound of fabric tearing. The whole thing was so heavy that the bag slid back off the end of the pole and fell to the ground, the dark green material gaping where the handles had been half-ripped away from the bag's body. Shiny gold packing ribbon twinkled at me from inside.

I stared at my bag, the supposedly neat and useful answer to everyone's wrapping needs, from the top of the ladder.

"Why is nothing ever simple?" I thought as I grabbed a roll of black duct tape and a Stanley knife on the way back down.

{Sigh}

The Morning After........

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:38:00 +0000

I'm knackered! It's the post-Halloween hangover and I just can't move.

The uncarved pumpkins are still sitting there in the garage glaring at me accusingly, but I'm just wiped. The past 48hrs have been a total whirlwind, including parent conferences, trick or treating, a football game, a party, a soccer game and a desperate need to open a bottle of Expatmum's favourite tipple, Pinot Grigio! Naturally, I succumbed so I'm now also suffering from a mild hangover.

It started on Thursday. The Darling Daughter's had a half day, which is a total joke as it actually means that they start school at 7.30 AM and are finished at 10.30 AM. After getting them and then The Little Guy off to school, I hardly had time to do anything before I was on driving duty again. After lunch DD1 had a date with a miniature pumpkin and an 88yr old gentleman at the Senior Centre. They were going to paint together, so Mum's taxi service was needed. After dropping her off, I then had to head to the High School for parent conferences.

It was the first year that I've had two High Schoolers to contend with. I'd planned a strategy. I printed off their timetables from the computer and headed for the core subject teachers first - Maths and English. I'd learned from previous experience, that the more teachers I can fit in during the first 20 minutes after the doors open the better. I moved like a woman possessed, darting from one place to the next. Then as the queues began to lengthen, my pace slowed. I ticked off the teachers on my pieces of paper and slowly got through them all. Two and a half hours later, I left the building and just made it to the Elementary school to collect TLG.

I opened the Pinot Grigio that night (with food ofcourse.) It had been a crazy day and I still had Halloween things to do.

*********

I hit the ground running on Friday, trying to ignore the headache that was starting to brew. It was D-Day. Halloween had arrived and I wasn't ready.This dressing up lark really is a mother's nightmare. You have to start thinking about it weeks beforehand and despite everything else that's going on in your life, it sits there nagging at you. Then the days start to morph together and before you know it, there's hardly any time left.

This does not account for the 'hitches' that crop up along the way either, the major one being that one or other child changes their mind at the last minute and decides x,y or z is wrong with their costume!

Don't forget too, that dressing up for school that day is a must, but nothing scary ofcourse. The Little Guy's school planned for the students to dress as book characters. Great idea, but some of us just can't manage to plan one costume to fit both needs. TLG decided to be Calvin and take his stuffed Hobbs along with him. "Great," I thought, picking up a red and white striped shirt from JCPenny's for $3.00 last week. "We'll just slick up his hair with some gel and we're away."

No such luck. In the end it was me who was stuffed. He changed his mind.

Panic set in and he decided not to dress up at all. He didn't want to spend the last session of his extra Maths class dressed as a comic book character. Instead, he longed to get home and put on the Seahawks Football strip complete with helmet, that he'd got for Christmas last year and go trick or treating.

We couldn't find the trousers!

With five minutes to go before we should have been downtown cruising through the shops trick or treating with friends, we were running around the house searching through laundry baskets looking for the white football leggings that he'd recently covered with green grass stains.

It was my fault. I knew I'd washed them, but I wasn't quite sure what had happened after that? I'd also been somewhat sidetracked by a knitted panther hat that DD2 had started making the previous weekend to wear as her costume. She'd realised mid-week that time was running out and had persuaded me to finish it off for her. I'd made two earflaps, ties and one ear and had been planning to complete the final ear and sewing on Friday morning.

Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men!!

Naturally my telephone rang continuously on Friday. People whom I hadn't heard from for weeks chose Friday to catch up (including ExpatOwl, who called for the first time in a week.). It was great to chat with them all, but when my Mum started a deep discussion on how to adapt the traditional Yorkshire Parkin recipe that I'd sent her during the week, I began to panic. I tucked the phone under my chin, tried to keep sewing and stifled the desire to snap, "Can't you just do it the way it says?!"

When DD2 got home ( at 10.30AM!) She looked at her unfinished hat, then at me and was wise enough not to make a comment. She went to complete the rest of her costume. We'd already had the conversation about dress code (i.e. What message do you think those fishnet tights and hotpants are conveying?) I'd managed to talk her into thick, matron-style tights, but the hotpants made it out the door (the black high-top Converse helped control the effect though.)

We took The Little Guy trick or treating for an hour, meeting up with friends and neighbours along the way. I wore a large orange hat with a small pumpkin dangling from the end of it. He could see me in the crowds every time he came out of a store. So far so good.

We resorted to McDonalds (again!) for dinner. Time was of the essence. DD2 had to be at the local Football game to play in the band by 6pm. It was 5.30.

An hour later TLG and I were sitting in the stands under a blanket watching the game. We'd changed hats and were now dressed in warm coats, gloves and hats displaying team colours. I was glad it was an exciting game or I'd have been asleep. We jumped and cheered until the last second as our team scored a 49 to 48 point win and made it to the play-offs.

It was 10PM by the time we got home. DD1 took over and put her little brother to bed. I was needed at a neighbourhood party that had started at 6PM. It was two doors away, which by this point was about as far as I could manage. I had a couple of beers, relayed the story of the game and then headed back to my bed by midnight.

*********

The alarm went off this morning at 7. I hit it.

By 7.45 I admited defeat and went to get TLG up. He pulled on his soccer kit in a sugar induced daze. I pulled on my clothes........with a hangover. We went to meet his team down on a damp, soggy soccer field.

It's the day after Halloween (and those bl***y pumpkins are still staring at me!)

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:52:00 +0000

We went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday.

Having got up at the crack of dawn to drive to a football (soccer) pitch in a place I didn't even know (without the aid of Dashboard Doris), so that The Little Guy could get a serious bruising from the opposing team ( and their goalpost), I did the dutiful parent thing and took him to get a pumpkin.

To be honest, it was a case of "when can we fit it in?" It's nearly Halloween, he's only nine, he hasn't grown out of the whole adventure yet (do they ever?). In the absense (yet again) of ExpatOwl, someone had to do the honours. Naturally it was me.

It was a beautiful afternoon. Having had the forethought to take an ice pack to the morning soccer game, I had already treated his wounds on the sidelines and we'd discovered that he would live. His ego had taken a bashing though and without 'dad' to remark on the spectacular goal he'd scored before he was launched headfirst at the goalpost by a sliding tackle from the opposing team, pumpkin purchasing therapy was in order.

We drove to the farm accompanied by The Darling Daughters. They were ofcourse just joining their little brother to ensure that he had the full pumpkin patch experience. Funny how we came away with three pumpkins though!

The Little Guy wandered excitedly into the patch followed closely by his mother pushing a large, red wheelbarrow. I was dressed for the occasion, looking for all intents and purposes like a lost hiker. The sun beat down on us as we gazed at what was left of the great orange orbs and I wished I'd managed to get there sooner. The place was heaving with people and crushed pumpkins.

Thankfully he soon found the perfect specimen. "This is it, Mum," he shouted, gazing excitedly at the biggest pumpkin I've ever had the pleasure of trying to carry. All that weight training at Pilates was about to pay off! I hauled his prize into the wheelbarrow and set off back towards the farm shop, hoping I wasn't going to put my back out.

"I've found one too," cried DD1, cradling a medium-sized pumpkin in her arms as she caught up with me.

"Me too!" came a cry from my left. Soon the wheelbarrow was full and I began the slow, staggering walk back to the farm shop. My back was running with sweat, my face was flushed and my hands were sore.........but I'd promised my son a pumpkin and this pumpkin was what he was getting. At the back of my mind I hoped I'd be able to get it into the back of the car. I'd look pretty stupid otherwise, having bought a huge pumpkin and then not be able to get it home. This giant vegetable was turning into a matter of pride, I could tell.

Then there was the guilt. The prospect of TLG's disappointed face if we had to leave the giant pumpkin behind after all his (my) efforts was just too much. My 'mummy-guilt'ometer' was obviously working well. Let's face it, dad was away, he'd got injured at soccer, life was a bummer in TLG's eyes. The only way to rectify the situation was to get him a BIG pumpkin.....................................so we did.

Now all we have to do is find the time to scoop it out and carve it! I'm not holding out much hope that this'll happen before Halloween, but you never know. He wants me to lift it in from the garage so that he can carve it on the kitchen table as usual. (Get real, dude. My bionic arm seized up in the '80's! I really am not superwoman.) I've tried to explain that it was hard enough getting the big beast out of the boot of the car. There's no way that I can get it up a flight of stairs, through the hallway and into the kitchen. Sorry - not going to happen.

So he (and his sisters) will be doing their scooping in the cold, damp garage. Once it's hollowed out, then we'll move the great pumpkin inside.

"Don't forget to bake the seeds Mum, so that I can snack on them," TLG reminded me when I suggested this compromise.

Ah! The light dawned.

"Is that why you wanted such a big pumpkin?" I asked, innocently.

"Ofcourse," he replied, with a nonchalant air. "I love eating those pumpkin seeds!"

US Election: The British Solution

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I found this in my inbox this morning and couldn't resist sharing it. Bear in mind though, that it is a bit of lighthearted humour!!

Message from the Queen

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II .
In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Fast Talking Fast Food

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:53:00 +0000

Last Friday I finally succumbed to the pressures of trying to be all things to all people and did the unthinkable. I took the kids to get McDonalds for dinner!

Now, I never, repeat NEVER do that. I am such a fresh food freak, that I even bake my own bread because I hate all the sugar and preservatives that are hidden in the floppy stuff they call bread here. (Incidently, I've lost 6lbs in the 6 weeks that I haven't eaten store bought bread...and I eat a lot of bread!)

Well, we went and ordered our Mighty Kids Meals and Double Quarterpounder With Everything Meals before the Homecoming game last Friday. DD2 asked if she could get two things. "Sure," I said, thinking that as we don't eat take out very often, it wouldn't hurt.

"Great," she said, smiling, "Then I'll have a Chicken Snack Crap too."
"A what?" I asked.
"A Chicken Snack Crap. Oh, Mum you have to try it," she declared excitedly. "It's made with the 'not-so-good' bits of the chicken, so it's on the dollar menu, but it tastes reeaally good!"

I was not exactly excited by the prospect of my beautiful, healthy child eating something so substandard, but I was rather more intrigued by the audacity of the McDonalds marketing department. Had they really become so self-confident that they believed that they could now actually market something on the dollar menu with the title "Crap?" Did they think that their consumers were really so stupid? Honestly, these giant corporations are really getting too big for their boots now! Fancy being so 'cock sure' of making money that you'd actually dare to name a product "Crap!"

I was off on one of my 'the nerve of corporate marketing' tirades. Those golden arches must really be pretty darned golden if they didn't even need to pretend to sell good stuff anymore!

When the food arrived, I dutifully tasted the offending item and was surprised to find that it did indeed taste pretty good. DD2 tucked in eagerly, pieces of shredded lettuce and chicken disappearing into her mouth like a rabbit chewing on grass.

"What did you say it's called?" I asked as a piece of flour tortilla dropped into DD2's lap.
"A Chicken Snack Wrap," she replied, between mouthfuls.
"Chicken Snack WRAP?" I queried.
"Yes, Mum."
"Oh thank goodness for that," I said. "For a moment there, I thought you said Crap!!"

Who ya gonna call?

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:14:00 +0000

I've been thinking about emergencies recently. Over at Get Rich Slowly today, they were talking about cash and a lot of readers have it stashed ready for emergencies. I have to confess that I also have some funds ready for use should the need arise. It's part of the realisation that slowly dawns on a foreigner when they find themselves living in an earthquake zone. You need to be prepared.

I've learned not to let my gas (petrol) tank fall below the half full marker and I stock pile non-perishable foods too. The Red Cross supply wonderful emergency packs in their online store, so I have one in the car and the house, ready for action. In fact, I've already tested the battery radio as we often get power cuts (outages) at this time of year, and I've also brewed up at 6am using our camping kettle on the outside BBQ. Yes, this is America, the land that still hangs its cables above ground, open to everything the elements have to throw at them.

I think my preparedness all started when my sister got caught in the London bombings a few years back. She just happened to be there that day for a business meeting and ended up having to stay overnight. Thankfully, she emerged from the experience unscathed, but realised how little prepared for an emergency she really was.

She told me this over the phone as I looked out of my window in the Pacific Northwest at Mt. Rainier, one of the largest mountains in the Cascade range, which has not errupted for 100yrs. It could do so at any time. I had already experienced two earthquake tremors within the first two months of being in the US, so I resolved to get more organised.

One of the main things I did was to program ICE numbers into my cell phone. To my surprise my friends did not know what this was. I'd first come across "In Case of Emergency" numbers in England and had them in my mobile device there. They are the numbers of your nearest and dearest, your emergency contacts. ExpatOwl is ICE1 in my cell phone.

Today I hopped over to my friend Gill's site and she had an excellent description of the whole system there. She reminds us that paramedics never know which are the most important numbers on our list, so using ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc is invaluable to them. Check it out.

This is possibly the best thing you can do to prepare for an emergency. Let's spread the word. It may not help me dig out from under the ash of Rainier, but at least the medics will know who to call when they find me!!

Attacked on all sides.

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:31:00 +0000

I can feel it coming on. I'm sinking fast. The dreaded lergy is about to get me.

It started yesterday afternoon with a scratchy throat and an insatiable thirst. I've been fighting a fever for over a week, you know, one of those ones that hit 99F and just don't seem to do anything. I've plodded on though and had just about decided that I'd conquered the germs when my nose began to give that Samantha ("Bewitched") twitch. Today, twitch has turned to drip.

I did manage to get the girls off to a Careers Fair last night though. The Freshman needed mum to guide her around, but the junior, after 2 years of experience, was quite confident talking to college admissions personel. Mind you, she came home having fallen in love with a private, out-of-state college that we haven't got a hope in hell of paying for!

DD2 has also developed a passion for fashion that could see me with a glittering future as a bag lady (and I'm not talking Dolce and Gabbana here!) Design school doesn't look cheap. Now is the time as a parent that you wish 'Santa' hadn't bought all those Bratz dolls for her for Christmas!

The Little Guy came away longing to hose down burning buildings having had the exciting experience of wearing a real firefighter's helmet. He got a bookmark too. The prospect of death and destruction is still too unreal to penetrate him, despite the fact that a local fire this week claimed 4 lives. He's still young enough to see all of the glamour (especially the giant hoses) and none of the heartache.

I was relieved when we got home. I'd missed the Palin/Biden debate, my nose was dripping and I just wanted a hot toddy and my knitting to comfort me.

Then the phone rang.

It was almost 8.45PM and some guy was calling about SAT/ACT prep materials. DD1 had ticked a box somewhere, sometime, and they were calling in response to this. "We like to go through it all with the parents," he said. My brain felt like a sponge, the effects of the hot toddy were beginning to take hold, I was being blinded by facts as I listened to the blurb. I felt confused. When had she filled in a form? What was this guy going on about? The fog closed in around me.

"Hold on a minute," I said, suddenly coming to. "Where did my daughter tick this box?"
"It could have been at a careers fair (no it couldn't!) or online. It can take us 6 months to get round to replying."
"And when do I have to pay for these prep materials?"
"Well, you have to secure them with a credit/debit card up front." (MAJOR RED WARNING LIGHTS FLASHING!)
"ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!" I exploded.
"Well, that's a normal reaction, Ma'am."
"Yes," I replied, wide awake now and shaking with anxiety. "I am certainly not doing this over the phone or before I've checked you out thoroughly."
"Well, if you'd like to get a pen I'll give you our website address and my name."
I took down his details and then asked, "Do you have a telephone number that I can contact you directly on?"
"All our details are on the site, Ma'am."

What a surprise (not!)

I put down the phone, my hand shaking. I was tired, my nose was running and suddenly I felt violated. They'd entered my home again when I was at my most vulnerable. The children had heard every word and were looking at me like I'd just had a one-on-one conversation with the devil. I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd come really close to letting my natural desire to prepare my daughter for SAT's and my ignorance as an immigrant, lead me into a mistake of gargantuan proportions.

Suddenly, I really missed ExpatOwl.

Fishy Business

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:22:00 +0000

My chance to volunteer in my neighbourhood and community arrived sooner than expected. I've been doing quite a bit in the past few days. The thing about volunteering is that you never really know what you'll get out of the experience. You go into it expecting nothing but to give to others, but it's quite amazing what you end up getting out of these opportunities yourself.

Last week I took delivery of three young girls at 6.30 in the morning, so that their mum could accept an offer to take a child-free trip for a week with an old friend. Wednesday, Thurday and Friday the three bleary-eyed youngsters appeared on my doorstep and then said goodbye to their grateful father as he whizzed off to work. Today it's Monday and we began the process again after a weekend break.

It's been amazing how easily we've slipped into a routine. The Little Guy thinks it's fun having so many people over for breakfast and has suddenly developed the habit of laying out his clothes the night before! I've been trying to get him to do this for several years. Suddenly, the prospect of literally getting caught with his trousers down by three girls has spurred him on to plan ahead. It's a wonderful moment.

The Darling Daughters are another matter entirely though. After three days of pretending that they actually get along in the mornings, (for fear of frightening the younger girls) they resorted to type today. The shouting rang out as normal. I suspect it did have something to do with the fact that they both got a little overexcited at youth club on Sunday night.

They weren't the only ones.

My second volunteer opportunity was last night. I was rostered on to assist at the church High School youth group. I was a little apprehensive, but as soon as I walked into the youth room, the years rolled back. No, I didn't embarrass the Darling Daughters by rolling too far back, I was just reminded of the time I spent in my early '20's assisting at a youth program in England. The cosy chairs, the game tables and the young people all brought it flooding back.

To break the ice, we played games. Suddenly I found myself swept up into a hilarious game of Sardines. Thirteen teenagers and three 'adults' were running round the church in the dark hunting for the person who was hiding. The secret place turned out to be a closet full of chairs. It had two folding doors. I opened the first which revealed a stack of tables, turned to tell the girl next to me that there was no one there, but she'd disappeared. I found her and about four others behind the second door. I squeezed in.

We all tried not to laugh.

Shortly afterwards two others found us. We huddled up further. Then my girls appeared, slid nimbly through the door and hastily folded it behind them. We all tried to stiffle giggles as we heard others running around frantically looking for us.

"Would this be a bad time to tell you that I get claustraphobic?" said DD2

The kids spluttered with laughter and one more person squeezed her way through the folding door.

"It's getting hot in here," said a voice from the back of the cupboard, "I hope they find us soon."

Then someone burped.

We all laughed, clamping our hands over our mouths to try to smother the sound.

From the far left corner of the closet, the Youth Director's voice whispered, "Is there anyone still looking?"

"I think Mum's still out there," replied DD1 in hushed tones.

"No, I'm not," I said, "I've been in here longer than you have!"

With that, the entire closet errupted into fits of stomach-crunching laughter. The lights went on in the main room and the doors to the closet were wrenched open. We'd been found. We fell out of the chair cupboard, beaming our heads off and laughing fit to burst. Gulping in fresh air, the kids all looked at each other and laughed again. I locked eyes with my girls. There was a joyous light shining in their eyes and I knew that through this volunteer opportunity, we'd just made a memory that we'd never forget.

A Scot, A Spider and Me.

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:16:00 +0000

This week my blogging friend Ali over at Ali Blah Blah made a very important observation about the current mortgage crisis. She very deftly pointed out that not all of us who find ourselves at the mercy of the current financial meltdown are spendthrifts or financial dunderheads.

Sometimes the tide turns and you just get unlucky.

Yes, some people have taken huge risks, forgetting that high tides always become low tides at some point, but others, like us, have just got caught in the headlights. We did everything right. We've just been screwed by the system. This system, that works on credit history, makes it impossible for a middle-aged foreigner to be anything other than an 18yr old in its financial eyes. As first time buyers in the 21st century, the system dictates that you can't have a fixed-rate mortgage even if you're debt free and putting 20% down. That lack of credit history is just too risky.

We had proof of 25yrs of regular mortgage payments in Europe, including a letter from our previous lender, but it made no difference. They were only selling ARM's to first-timers and that was that.

Well, who's looking risky now?!!

The decisions at the top have proved less than intelligent and many are now victims of the aggressive sale of risky loans, not always because they were greedy, but because the people selling them were. My fear though is that it won't stop there. Defaulting on one type of payment affects your credit scores which, in turn increases your rates on other loans. Choosing between putting food on the table or paying that credit card bill could see your car insurance increase because you choose to eat rather than pay off consumer debt. As your other bills increase, you enter the pick'n'mix cycle, paying one off one month and another the next. As your credit score drops, your bills increase. It's a vicious circle, which could see everyone spiralling into poverty.

That's why I can identify with the Scot, Robert The Bruce (mentioned in Ali's post.) Holed up in his cave somewhere in the Borders of Scotland, he was debating whether to cut his losses and flee the country or stay to claim his rights to the crown. Sitting there, he watched a spider trying to build a successful web. It took eight attempts - "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!"

Sometimes I wonder what on earth I'm doing in America? In December it will be a mere four years since our arrival and suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the biggest financial crisis this country has seen since The Great Depression. I feel vulnerable. I needed more time to stabalize our financial life after the move. Instead I'm faced with an adjustable rate mortgage, no life insurance, no college savings and a breadwinner whose job is in jeopardy. I'm not even American, so why on earth should I stay?

But then I look at the faces of the little girls who I'm taking care of so that their mum can take a trip (I'm getting 6 kids to school every day for the next week!) I see the smile of thanks from a mother at the school bus, as I surrepticiously slip her a bag of The Little Guy's cast off clothes and I feel the love as my friend offers me peaches from her overburdened tree. I think of that spider hanging on in there, believing that 'the only way is up;' that things will get better. I forgive Robert The Bruce for slaughtering my ancester, John Comyn, on the steps of Greyfriars Church, and decide that blue blood is still blue blood. I dust myself down and stride back out there to help my friends, neighbours and community defeat the Corporate enemy and lay claim to their country's crown once more.

Democracy - Government "of the people, by the people, for the people." Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address.

So, I've had to resort to stripping!

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:12:00 +0000

I ache all over. No, I haven't gone down with the lergy (yet) my muscles are simply aching from having to clean my kitchen and breakfast room floors yesterday. I know, I know, it's a good work out, but my body would tend to disagree this morning. All it can say is:

WHO THE HELL INVENTED LINOLEUM?

I hate the stuff! It's been a longstanding aversion, although I can't for the life of me remember how it started. I think I just hated the look of it. We had some in our first apartment, white with black diamonds. It was a bugger to clean even then, but as the kitchen was galley style and I could reach the sink, counter and cooker all from the middle of the room, it took all of five minutes to scrub.

When we moved into our first proper house it had the same kind of floor, this time with a breakfast area attached which made it about ten times the size of our galley. I think it was vinyl though. A quick wash over with some Mr Muscle and you couldn't tell the kids had even been there. It was the perfect floor for small children. Spills were easily wiped away and even the Darling Daughters early artistic endeavours were effortlessly removed from the floor.

Our Norwegian house was a different prospect. We went upmarket and opted for tiles. They were beautiful terracota ones kept warm by an underfloor heating system. Again, cleaning was a synch. A quick once over with a mop and bucket on a regular basis kept them looking beautiful and again when it came to The Little Guy's first finger foods all over the floor or the cats dicky tummy resulting in a coagulated mess, the tiles were king. (The only reason I'll never have tiles in the kitchen again is because when you drop something, it breaks instantly. No double bounce with terracota tiles.........and I drop things......a lot!!)

Then I moved to America.

Oh, my God, the floor. Not only is it huge, but it's WHITE linoleum. Honestly, you can't get much more impractical than that. To top it all it has a wax finish, that when fresh and new gives it a glorious shine. Over time however, it actually attracts the dirt resulting in a black residue. Once that happens, no matter how hard you wash and scrub, it never looks truely clean.

With all the kids running in and out of the house this summer, my kitchen/breakfast room floor has disintegrated into a a surface that wouldn't look out of place on the back of a zebra! I've been embarrassed to have anyone round. I've also become increasingly disheartened over my weekly floor wash. Basically, it hardly looked as if I'd done anything.

So yesterday I broke out the chemicals. Yes, to get this floor clean I have to use an ammonia and water solution and then get down on my hands and knees to strip back every inch of wax from the floor. I have to open all the windows so that I don't inhale too much of the toxic fumes, and when I've done it all, I have to rinse it all off with fresh, clean water.

It took two hours!

Just as I finished, my sister Skyped me from the UK. I was listening to some obnoxiously light-hearted summer music whilst I scrubbed, trying to ignore my aching knees. As I ran to click the mouse on the green 'answer' button, I was breathing so heavily that she thought I'd been doing Pilates. The combination of music blaring out as my microphone went into action and my heavy breathing could only mean exercise. When I showed her my nice floor she kindly told me that they have machines at her place of work that strip the wax off the floor and then reseal them.

Lucky old them!

At least I've had a good work out I guess (and it didn't cost me a penny.) I swear I woke up today 3 pounds lighter. Mind you, I don't think lino stripping as a form of exercise will catch on. There's really no glamour in it and the ammonia fumes have probably defeated any health gains I might have acquired. In fact, I think my best bet is probably to make friends with the school janitor. Then maybe next time he'll let me borrow the school stripping machine instead.

The Lergey Has Entered The Building!

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:17:00 +0000

It would appear that the lergey has entered the building. It kind of snuck in the backdoor, catching us totally unawares. I mean, you know it's not all going to be plain sailing on the health front as soon as the kids go back to school, but how on earth do those germs travel about so quickly?

Last week The Little Guy's soccer buddy had a fever of 103F, so I knew it was out there. He'd got it from another boy who he carpools with. Thank goodness soccer is played outside at this time of year. At least then the germs can run around as freely as the kids. This time though, it's the oldest child who's brought the lergey into our house.

DD1 has suffered from hayfever this summer for the first time. She's been sniveling and sniffing on and off for weeks, so none of us really batted an eyelid when she came downstairs yesterday morning sneezing her head off. 'Not unusual,' we thought, lulled into a false sense of security by the high pollen counts broadcast across our location. "It'll get better when the winter comes," I said attempting to console her as she ate a daily spoonful of local honey (natural allergy remedy) and packed her school bag.

When I picked her up in the afternoon though, she was still sniffing. Her nose had begun to take on a Rudolph-like hue and, looking at me with sad eyes, she said those immortal words; "Mum, I think it's a cold."

I resisted the urge to pick up a family pack of garlic tablets on the way home and instead promised lashings of hot honey and lemon and a peppermint steam bath to unblock her sinuses. Mentally I was trying to locate my vitamins, hoping that it wasn't too late to revive my neglected immune system.

Time will tell if my preventative care will save the rest of us, or whether I'm in for my first dose of school absenses and re-runs of "Top Gear." I hope we've got some new episodes. I'm already way too familiar with Jeremy Clarkson after last season and it's not actually a relationship I want to pursue. At least not as intimately as I did last winter. You can have too much of a good thing. In fact, come to think of it, it is only September. I could have an entire six months or more ahead of me with 'Hamster' and the gang invading my family room!

When do they start selling flu shots around here?