Movement

While I love the company of my husband, sometimes you just need some girl time.  And I got that in spades yesterday.

Right after school, I left for Covent Garden with a friend from work.  We were going shopping for all things Clinique…it was one of those times where if you buy two items you get a free gift.  As I haven’t purchased any makeup in a while, I thought it’d be nice to get a new lippy in a bright sunshiny colour (sometimes you need that in non-sunshiny London) and hope to find a mascara that won’t run under my eyes…we’ll see what the outcome is on that, but the lippy is a nice bright rose pink - perhaps a bit 80s but kinda fun.

Then on to Hammersmith to meet up with a few Americans in hopes of joining other at an expat meetup.  Well…we never met any other Americans, but we certainly had our share of fun, decent Indian and a few laughs.  We’re definitely heading back to the Dove as it’s a cool bar and the houseboat guys kept us on our toes.  Entertaining all around…I think my witty remarks were well regarded - then again it might have been my alcohol fueled mind perceiving it that way.  Irrespective of that, it was a night to remember.  Great time girls!!!

There is so much going on right now in our lives.  Not that I’m complaining cause a lot of it is very positive, but as I told a group of parents last night, even positive events can cause stress.

We found out yesterday that we have a provisional exchange date of May 14 (or at least within a day or so of that).  And then we also found out that the people buying it are a father & son combo.  The dad is going to be re-mortgaging his house instead of getting a new mortgage, which should be easier.  So we may actually be finishing everything up within one month!  That’s great news.  It also means we can seriously think about putting in an offer quite soon.

We went to see a mortgage broker yesterday.  My job pays for it so it made sense to use his services.  And it went well.  With our good credit rating (good thing I’ve lived here for a bunch of years), our salaries and what we’ll have to put down, we’re in good position for getting the mortgage we want and a decent one at that.

We have decided that we want to see the first house we viewed again.  We really think it’s a good value for the money and, in fact, they just brought the price down £10,000, so it’s even more in our range.  Which is fantastic.  Now we just have to hope that it doesn’t sell before we can get to it!

I went to see a doctor today.  We’re starting to check into our fertility.  We haven’t been using birth control for over a year and really trying for six months…so it was time to get things checked out.  I’m going to have to make an appointment for blood work and an ultrasound, while Roy gets to get his swimmers checked.  Joy.  Not so much.

So there’s tons going on.  Lots good, lots stressful.  But it’s moving us in a direction which we want…a house, a garden/yard and possibly a baby.  Fingers crossed that it all works out!

I work with one young girl who is struggling a bit.  She became friends with older students, leaving behind some of her peers.  The older students are now in the midst of being, well, older and my young student is feeling left behind.  And she’s struggling more as she recognizes that she may have caused other to feel the way she is feeling right now.

Friendship is tough.  Dealing with differences, hormones, changed…it’s all quite hard.   And it gets harder as you get older, unless, perhaps, you remain in the same town with the same people for your entire life (though that could bring up other problems).

My first move was to college.  I knew no one.  And I was thrilled.  I had been around the same people for most of my life and felt it was time for a change.  I wanted to BE someone new.  The only way to make this move was to leave.  And I had a blast.  I made some good friends.  Two of which I still communicate with sporadically.

Then post-college.  I moved home for a bit and had a bunch of my old high school friends around.  It was a nice into into ‘the real world’…but I never really met anyone else cause it was too comfortable.  I didn’t have to make an effort.

I moved after that many other times, never again to be around an old friend.  In NJ, my only good friend was my boyfriend and that wasn’t a good thing.  We were too exclusive.  I didn’t have a life outside of him and hanging with my roommates once in a while.  In DC, I worked in a boarding school and became good friends over time with a few other teachers.  I still talk to them and really loved their company.  In Boston, I met a wild group of women who I will have as lifelong friends.  But again, it took some time and some effort.  It never came easy.

Here in London…well, I had one good friend who moved back to the States.  And I’m currently developing a few female friendships.  I don’t have a BFF like I did in high school…but I do have people to hang with.  But my husband, well, he’s my best friend forever.  And in some ways, that’s a really good thing.  But I do miss having one person here I can talk to about EVERYTHING and go out with regularly.  But that may come eventually…in time.  Cause it gets harder as you get older.  But the friendships you do form, can be seriously strong.

So…what’s the current dilemma?  Well, we’ve seen two houses so far.  They are just about as different as you can get.

One is nicely decorated and has a lot of what we like already.  It seems like it is within our price range.  While we’d eventually like to do some more work on it, we could move in just about right away.

Second house.  Needs TONS of work to even make it livable.  But we could get it all done to our own spec.  That’s if we could buy it for the right price (aka at least 50 thousand less than what we could get house one for).

So - do we go for house one or two?  Right now we can’t go for either as we haven’t finished our process…so it might be a moot point…and we still have a few places to look at on Thursday.  But who knows?  It might be a decision we have to make. 

We took a group of students on a Leadership Retreat this weekend.  It worked out very well.  Despite awful cold and wet weather, we had an amazing time.  Here are some pics from this experience (no pics of kids faces to protect their privacy)…

I’m heading out in an hour or so on a school trip.  It is the Leadership Retreat for 15 of our students.  We’re going to the Brecon Beacons in Wales.  It’s unfortunate that it’s meant to be gross weather as I would love to have taken my nice camera with me…pics would be perfect on this.  But I refuse to do damage to either of my cameras, so I’ll have to just be okay with pics on my phone and borrowing pics from others.

We’re staying in the Pwll Du Adventure Centre (no I do not know how to pronounce the first word).  It has bunk beds and all…always a fun time with kids.  But as it’s only one night, it’s not so bad.  I kinda love this sort of thing and don’t get to do it too often as Roy isn’t really an outdoorsy sort of guy.

So…will come back and let you know all about my adventures with teens…and post pics to here and my 365 blog!

I have decided to join the throngs and do a 365  Project.  What is this?  Well…you take one picture for every day of a year.  Cool, eh?  I love photography, and am in fact taking a class this spring.  So that will work quite well with this project.  I love to write about my life, as inane as it can get…so again, a great project for moi!  So I started with my first picture and will continue on.  I probably won’t post every day, but will post every picture I take.

I have my small camera in my work bag and I plan on using my new digital SLR on weekends when I have more time and ability to carry big equipment.  Pictures are us!

This project will not take me away from my beloved blog.  I will still need to moan and groan about life as well as celebrate my successes & those of friends and family.  This is my hiding place from some people.  My connection to others.  So I’ll carry on.

Anyway - I’d love to invite you to check out my new ‘thang’ at the following address:  http://lianes365.wordpress.com.  While the pics may not be spectacular all the time, they will have a story to tell!

There are positives and negatives to every event in one’s life.  That’s why on a stress scale, getting married has such a high score - yeah, it’s a great thing, but gosh darn it, there’s a lot of stress involved!

So what are the repercussions of having accepted an offer on our flat?  Let me tell you what I’ve thought about so far….

• no more keeping the flat perfectly clean at all times - while we were always clean, in the past we kinda let slide the neat part…when the flat was still being sold, we had to be clean and neat at all times.
• I can actually do the laundry whenever I want - and I don’t have to worry about having to take down clean wet laundry cause someone is coming over to check out the flat (I’ve done this two times).
• I can leave out the iron and ironing board - it’s a pain to have to carry it in and out of our bathroom closet every morning to iron (yes, I iron my clothes every morning so that they are fresh looking)
• We can now look forward to being the buyer in this market as we’ll have more than 20% down for our mortgage (closer to 35%)…hopefully we’ll get a break in the price of a house we’re interested in.
• Now we have to think about everything that we have to do in order to move…it kept me up last night quite a while
• Nights of sleeping less due to thinking about everything
• We’ll have to meet with a mortgage advisor, talk to a lot of different estate agents, etc…lots of meetings yet again
• We’re going to be moving in with Roy’s parents a lot sooner than later.  Pray for us.

We accepted an offer on our flat.  While it’s not what we had hoped for 8 months previous, it’s a solid offer for the market.  And it means that we will be able to make a move on looking for a house quite soon.  We’ve asked that they work on exchanging within a month (we can do it easily on our end as we have a fantastic solicitor working with us)…which might mean that we could find a place and exchange by the end of the summer.  Things are just looking up!

Remember how just a few weeks ago I had what I called a ‘girl cold’?  Well, it seemed to hit me again last night.  I felt like I was hacking up a lung.  Poor Roy must not have gotten too much sleep…but I really, really didn’t get hardly any.  I woke up just before my alarm was meant to go off in a complete fit.  It felt really horrible.  So I called in sick…I didn’t want to do it as I had a lot to do today and I know now that I have to go to school this weekend to make up for it.  But I felt so horribly I had to do it.  I then went back to bed…and slept until 11:45am.  Clearly I was fighting something.

And now, though I feel a bit groggy still at 1pm, I don’t have the sensation that I’m going to cough.  The sleep was what I needed to really fight it off. 

At least I’m really starting to look after myself.  I’ve begun to eat in a much more healthy manner, with lots of veg and fruit, with smaller portions of the main course.  I’ve begun to workout.  Last night I went to the gym with a friend and she gave me my first squash lesson.  I had such a good time…it showed me how unfit I am, but I loved it.  And then we went climbing at the rock wall in the gym.  I really think I’m going to feel so much better if I can do this regularly!  And hopefully, sleep will be better so I don’t have to worry about getting sick again!