The little village

The little village we are going to be living in looks so quaint in pictures. My husband has obviously seen the village already, and he said we will all love it. It is in the county of Cheshire East, near Manchester. From what I have read, it is apparently an area where a lot of the “football” players from Manchester United live. Of course, me not really being a soccer, I mean “football” fan, I could walk into a restaurant and sit right beside them and not know who they are. I do have a picture in my head of them all being in the pub, drinking beer, wearing their football jerseys and missing lots of teeth? Not sure why. As I mentioned in a previous post, the village has some American favorites –a Starbucks, Subway, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Domino’s pizza. In addition they have many, many pubs –about 30 to be exact. This town does not look big enough for that, so there literally must be one on each street corner. I don’t think we will be lacking in fish and chips or bangers and mash. Which by the way, are things I don’t eat, not that it should surprise anyone! I have actually attached two pictures of the town –one is an old church (an old church in England, who would have thought??) and the other is the main street in town. Since this is apparently within a 10 minute walk of our house, I think Gerbie and I will set off to explore it quite often while daddy is at work and Bean is in school. They have a library, several little shops, and a couple of grocery stores. Now, if we can just pray for a few days where it doesn’t rain while we have these walks.

National Healthcare System

When you realize you are going to be out of your homeland for awhile, you start thinking of things you need to do to prepare. I have now scheduled physicals and annual appointments for everyone in my family, for everything I can think of –most of these are falling earlier than they would normally in the calendar year, but I have a comfort level with our doctors here in our hometown. I want our healthcare providers to do our physicals, dental and eye appointments before we leave. We are moving into the land of the NHS (National Healthcare System) and I am not entirely sure how it works, or how easy it is to navigate. I have heard mixed reviews about the NHS from the expat websites I am using for a lot of my research. While I think there are definite advantages to how the UK health system works, there are also probably going to be some disadvantages, especially early on –not knowing how to find the right doctors being the first one. One thing I need to figure out right away –what happens if we need to take the girls to an emergency appointment? Also, I have a prescription medication that I take monthly, how do I get this filled? I have requested digital medical records for the girls from their pediatrician; I am just waiting on the CD’s to be ready for pickup. While we are in England, I will need to be able to provide the vaccine records for the girls, especially for Bean’s new school. Fortunately, Bean just had all of her booster shots in October when she turned 5, and will not need any more until age 10. Gerbie had her last round of shots at 18 months, and will not need any until she turns 5. That timing worked out well, and aside from annual flu shots, we won’t need any other vaccines for them until we return. There are so many things to think about when you are going to move, even more things to think about when the move is overseas!

Feeling scattered

This blog is my outlet and helps me cope with this big life change. Sometimes I am up, sometimes I am down....today, I am feeling very scattered –literally. The moving company came out to do a final quote for my husband’s company. So we walked through the house, telling this nice lady what we are taking on our air freight --500 pounds maximum, to mostly be used for everyone’s clothes, shoes, towels and sheets - and what will go in the 40 foot sea freight container. Most of our other items, like furniture, are going into storage, some of which is already in the POD container in the driveway waiting for pickup tomorrow. The rest will be piled into it when we have the storage unit redelivered, in our final weeks here. And then there are some things that are too delicate, fragile or awkward for storage, that are being scattered out to our parents. This is a very unsettling feeling –to know we are not going to have a permanent home for our “things” for a few years. When we get back, we will find a new house, collect all these items from storage and from our family and try to put our home back together, but right now, that seems way off in the future. Don’t get me wrong –these “things” are exactly that, my true home is where my husband and girls are, but it still doesn’t eliminate this feeling. I think everyone needs to feel like they have a place for their things. The other reason I am feeling scattered…I am looking at the calendar, thinking we don’t have much time left to get all of this logistically scheduled out. We will be able to take as many as three suitcases each with us, but it may take 1-2 weeks for the air freight to reach us, potentially 6-8 weeks for the sea freight. So what goes in each of these things? When do we have the movers come to pack up the rest of our things for the air freight and sea freight? When do we have the POD storage container come back out for the rest of our furniture? What do we do after all of that is gone, and our house is empty? Do we live in a hotel for a few days? We need to keep Bean in school until the day we leave, so we need to stay close. We have to reroute our mail, notify the utility companies, make sure our house is clean for the showings that will continue, and find someone to shovel our walkways if it snows. I am unbelievably overwhelmed thinking about all of this. Once we finalize a date for our flights, I will try to work backwards on getting some of this figured out, but in the meantime, it is no wonder that the bag of chocolate my mother-in-law was kind enough to bring us over the weekend, is almost empty now.

Staying home

I had to drive up to my office today, to meet a coworker for a lunch meeting. While I was there, I took the opportunity to clear out some of the personal items in my desk. Since I work from home full time now, I hardly want to drive 45 minutes to get to the office, so I am never there. In about a month, I will be quitting my job. For the next two years while we are in England, I will be a stay at home mom. I started working when I was 16 and from that time on, have always worked. When I first got pregnant with Bean, I thought about being a stay at home mom. It was a brief, fleeting thought, as my husband will tell you. It’s not that I didn’t want to be with her all day long, it was more complicated than that. I liked working, and I even thought it would make me a better mom. I would have my career by day, and I would be more patient with her, more willing to read book after book in the evenings. Family time would have more quality on the weekends. It would show her as an example, that a woman could have a career and a family. I never expected at that time all the guilt I would feel for working. Every time she was sick and I was torn between missing a meeting, not meeting a deadline or an angry boss. Every time she cried when I left her at school and every time I missed her so much it hurt to look at her picture during the day, feeling like I was letting her down by working. At the same time, I saw the positives of her being in daycare and preschool. She was very social and adaptable. She was learning things I was not even aware she could learn at such a young age –she flourished and thrived in that setting. It got even more difficult when I had Gerbie –the same feelings came along, but also, an even higher daycare bill. However, I have been fortunate to have a supportive husband through all of this. He has let me do what I feel is best, and when I have had doubts or have been upset, he has supported me through those emotions. I am looking forward to the next two years, because I will get to experience being a stay at home mom for the first time. It is the perfect time and opportunity. Gerbie is at the perfect age –too young for preschool, but old enough that we can have a lot of fun. She is a momma’s girl all the way –very attached to me. I will be able to take Bean to and from school, spend my day with Gerbie, and have the summer with both girls. I am going to cherish this time with them, and try to make it enjoyable for both. When we come back to the US, Gerbie will be ready for school, and it will be time for me to work again, but not in Human Resources any longer. During the time we are abroad, I want to renew my teaching certificate with online course work and renew my teaching license. This will allow me to be home with them when they are out of school. And that, I think, will be the perfect balance for me.

Home away from home: Part 2

Colonel Mustard did it in the conservatory with a candlestick. I was at dinner the other night with a very close friend and I was telling her about the house we found. I told her that I really like the room that they call the conservatory. She said it sounded like it should be in the game of Clue, now every time I think of that room, I think of Colonel Mustard and the candlestick. The picture of this room is above. So, we have the house! We found out this morning. It is a 4 bedroom, stand alone house. The kids will be able to have their own bedroom, plus we will have a guest room -so no excuses for those who have said they will come visit, there is going to be plenty of space. Outside is a fenced in little backyard, plus a park is very close. I have attached a couple of pictures of the house. One is the living room area, and in the back of the living room you may see the formal dining room. Another picture shows the breakfast table/nook area. Also a plus, the house is fully furnished, so we will take only the furniture we really want to take. It appears to be only a half mile from the school we are interested in taking Bean to, and only a 10 minute walk into town. I am quite happy with the details of our home away from home. Finally, this is starting to feel a little bit more real.

Home away from home

I have not written much lately because, well, there is not much NEW going on right now. Same stuff....trying to sell the house, getting things packed....but finally something new did happen. My husband went on the home search yesterday. His company had us complete a list of what our criteria would be, they picked out 12 properties that they felt matched this criteria, and he spent all day yesterday touring and taking pictures. He sent me these pictures yesterday and we talked about his top three and we have it narrowed down to one we both really like. I am extremely happy with our choice, but now we are waiting on the company rep to work out the lease agreement, so in an effort not to jinx it, I can't share the details yet. Hopefully we will hear back today that the terms are settled and I will post some pictures of it. This place actually meets all the things I wanted, plus more than I expected. Maybe it will actually feel like our home away from home? I hope so. I also feel like we are in the home stretch on things here in the US. We have tentatively decided mid March will be the time we all go --dates dependent on finalizing a few things here. Since it is already the end of January, this time is going to fly by! This adds a little stress to get things wrapped up here, but also provides me some relief. I KNOW when things have to be done now, and I am pretty good at meeting deadlines. Also, daddy is coming home today --he is on a flight, about half way across the pond as I write this. The girls and I can't wait to see him tonight! He will be home for two weeks before he leaves again, so we have a lot to do, but first priority --some quality time together as a family.

Signs

I’m not obsessive about this, but I do believe in signs. Some I believe are from God. Some are probably not, but I do believe they are signs nonetheless. I had a sign this morning –I opened my pantry to get out something for breakfast, and some chocolate fell off the top shelf right onto my feet. Who am I to argue with this sign? After scarfing down my chocolate, I mean breakfast, I contemplated signs a little bit. When my husband and I were thinking of taking this job opportunity, we both were looking for signs. At this moment in time, I don’t remember what they all were, but we did see a lot of them. One day in the car, while we were talking about whether to take this job or not, we looked up and the car we were following had a Great Britain sticker on it. Interesting, right? My mom and I had a long conversation this weekend about signs and God’s plans for us. We don’t always know what the plan is, until much later, but I fully believe if you trust your instincts and listen to what you are hearing and seeing that you will be following your path. And maybe there are multiple paths you can take? I know, this is a deep subject and some people may not agree, and that is fine, these are my personal beliefs. Right now, I have a family member who is having a hard time with us moving to another country. He is worried about terrorist attacks, or some groups of people that may hate Americans. I don’t discount some of this happens in foreign countries, I personally was against my daughter going to an American school in England for that very reason. But the bottom line is, it can also happen here in the US. So I think you just have to follow the signs you see, trust your instincts and pray that your family is safe. And when chocolate falls out of the pantry at your feet –eat it, no matter what time of day it is.

Officially on the market

We are one step closer! The house officially went on the market on Friday and we have our first showing this afternoon. Since this is our first home, we have never gone through this process before. I am a little nervous about trying to keep the house “show ready” with two kids, ages 5 and 2. Not to mention that my little one goes to bed incredibly early and I would imagine that a lot of people probably look at houses in the evenings. This will be an experience! We are just hoping it sells quickly –although in this market, we are not counting on it. On the England front, my husband is doing well. He comes home on Friday and will stay for two weeks before he goes back to England again. That will hopefully be his last trip over there alone –the plan is, when he comes back to the US again, it will be in March when we are all ready to go (dates still to be determined, but hopefully decided very soon!). On Saturday, we have a PODS storage container coming to the house, and we are planning on loading it up with the items that are NOT going with us to England. It will have to be redelivered prior to us leaving, for the furniture we are still using but not taking with us. I can’t wait until my to-do list starts getting smaller instead of longer!

Do they have chicken nuggets in England?

Bean is starting to get very curious. Yesterday we had a long skype conversation with daddy, and Bean was asking him lots of questions. What time is it there, what day is it there, what do they have to eat there? And most importantly –do they have chicken nuggets??? It is funny, because on the first day there, my dear hubby went to the grocery to get some food for his temporary apartment. Later that day when we skyped each other, I made him open his refrigerator and show me what was in it. I was really looking for any types of brands that I recognize. Nope, nothing. He told me his coworker took him shopping and was throwing things in his cart that he would need. He came home and unloaded it and didn’t know what half of it was. I am a picky eater, and my children have unfortunately followed suit. I am hoping we find some things to eat that we will like. I have confirmed with our parents that they won’t mind sending us care packages of Kraft Mac and Cheese and Spagettio’s though, as we won’t be able to find these kiddy staples over there –so thank goodness they don’t mind. Also, on my husband’s walk around the town a few days ago, he was scoping out some places to eat –good news! Besides the pubs that are on every corner, they have a Domino’s pizza, a Subway and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don’t normally eat at any of these places, but they are American and familiar, so it is good to know they are there. Not clear yet on whether there is a McDonald’s in the town, hubby is going to scope that out, as happy meals are nice treats for the kids. As far as cooking, we have been planning on taking all of our own dishes, drinking glasses, pots/pans and silverware. Yesterday on the phone, hubby made a comment that another expat coworker got his ship freight and was going to leave early to get it all unpacked and put away. (By the way, there are now 4 of his former American coworkers living in England, including his boss, so they have been very helpful). I asked –how long has he been there, and to my surprise hubby said –6 weeks. WHAT???? We will have to go 6 weeks without our things? I expected 2 or even 3, but not 6!!! How are we going to cook? What are we going to eat with? Hubby’s response –we will get lots of takeout during that time. I think maybe I need to sneak some paper plates into my luggage and hope we have a microwave. I asked him to confirm the timeframe so we are prepared. Anything we absolutely need right away, we will need to make sure is packed in our suitcases coming with us. This will most definitely be an adventure.

Missing daddy

We are all missing daddy right now. This should be easy for me, because since the day I met him, he has always had to travel for his work. He has spent weeks at a time in Australia and the UK. He has been to Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, France and Switzerland. I am sure I have not even listed all the places he has been. He has traveled all over the US. However, in the last year and a half, his company had all but eliminated travel. He has only had a few short trips to New York in that time. I got used to him being home and as a result of that, it is much harder now to be separated. I have been suffering from a pinched nerve, from stress I am sure. This morning, I woke up with a numb arm again (pinched nerve is back!). I came home from taking the kids to school, logged into my computer and checked a few of the blogs I read regularly and realized my life is not so bad. (see my blog titled Perspective and you will know what I am talking about). And yes, again, it puts my issues in perspective, and I suddenly feel better. Even though we are separated right now, our family will all be together again in March when we move. I am fortunate enough to be married to my best friend and a man I love so much. He is such a good daddy to our girls. I love watching him with the girls, tickling them or laughing with them. They also miss him so much right now. Gerbie picks my phone up randomly and says into it–mish you daddy. And Bean has been emotional and needy, sure signs that she is missing him. We will all be together soon, this stressful time will pass, and everything will work out ok. We will get the house ready for sale, get things into storage and figure out what we need to take. I will figure out how to navigate a new country and our family will try to come and visit. When I am feeling overwhelmed, I need to read my blog on Perspective again and be thankful for my blessings.

The importance of washers and dryers

My husband has checked out two living spaces for us this week and one is looking pretty positive right now. He will still go on an official home search with the company’s consultant, but the place he likes sounds promising to me –another expat coworker and his family are already there, and it takes only a few minutes to walk into town, which is a quaint suburb of Manchester. The first thing you encounter on this walk is a Starbucks. I am sold. You can also walk to the grocery store, restaurants and shops, and believe me, the less driving I need to do on the wrong, I mean different, side of the street, the better my frame of mind will be. Also, on a positive note, this place has a separate washer and dryer. This may seem funny, however, in England, there is something I have never seen or heard about in the U.S. Not to say they don’t exist here, but I was blissfully unaware of their existence. It is a washer/dryer combo that they use to conserve space. You wash your clothes, remove them and shake them out, and then put them back in on a different setting to dry them. I found out months ago from my research that we should try to avoid this combo appliance, as it takes 4 hours to wash and fully dry a small load of clothes. And I mean a SMALL load. My husband has one of these appliances in his temporary apartment. After spending all day today getting two small loads of laundry done, he whole heartedly agrees that we do not want one of these space savers. Two kids plus two adults equals an amazing amount of laundry each week. I personally don’t want to spend all day, every day doing laundry, only to never, ever be caught up. Not my idea of fun. On a sad note, my dog is officially living at my parent’s house now. While she was with me this week, I had her groomed, she had her annual check-up and shots and the vet wrote out a prescription for her dog food (yes, she is kind of a high maintenance girl). I also bought her a name tag with her new address and phone number on it. Today we moved all of her things into my parents house. Within a few hours of being there, as what I am sure was a sign of rebellion, she left a nice deposit on her new living room floor. I am thinking that she is trying to get “kicked out” so she can come back home with me, as this is pretty uncharacteristic of her. I don’t need to share my mental state about this, it is not a good one, but since our house is officially on the market in less than one week, and in two weeks we start moving stuff into storage, it is better for her to just be at their house now. I will still see her at least a few times before we go. I am still completely overwhelmed with the amount of things we need to do, not only to get the house ready to sell, but to get everything packed up. My mom, after a few days at my house this week just looked at me and said –"I am overwhelmed for you –I have been packing and packing and it seems to not be making a dent". Tell me about it –thanks mom.

Settling in

Hubby is getting settled in, has started work today and is getting acclimated. He gave us a Skype video tour yesterday of his new temporary digs. Bean loved seeing where daddy is right now. He said that Knutsford, Cheshire is a really quaint England village. This is very close to the place we are going to be house hunting in. Skype is going to be what gets us through this temporary separation right now, and will probably be our lifeline to our family once we all go, as long as we can negotiate the significant time difference (5 hours). The girls got to talk to him for a long time on the computer camera after school yesterday, and they were being there typical goofy selves. Gerbie was acting like a monkey and singing her ABC’s for daddy –which consists of four letters –ABCD, followed by the name of who she is singing them for –so it was ABCD daddy over and over again. It was a little sad this morning though, our normal routine in the morning is Gerbie wakes us up, normally very early (5:30ish) and we bring her into our bed. Then Bean wakes up and comes in, and our whole family (dog included) cuddles in bed before we get up to start our day. This morning was no different, with one big exception –daddy was not in bed with us. So Bean says to me, the whole family is in bed, except for daddy, so we are NOT happy this morning. We all miss him. He will go house hunting and car shopping very soon. My mom, thank god for her, is here this week helping me, and she is in the process of sorting and packing lots of things for us. Right now she has a project going on in the basement – toys. What to take, what to get rid of that the kids have outgrown, and what to store. And this is no little project. I am not sure how the kids got this many toys in the short span of their little lives. So I am very thankful for her help this week. Things are coming along, and we are getting closer. We are still shooting for March to make the move.

Finally

For anyone wondering, yes he finally made it to Manchester. His flight was delayed again, and again, but finally left at 1:30 am this morning. He landed in Manchester minutes after they reopened the airport, which had been closed due to bad weather. They are apparently in the midst of the worst snow storm that Manchester has seen in over 30 years. Good timing, right? After he finally was able to get off the plane (he sat on the runway for quite some time while they tried to clear a path to the gate), he was picked up, checked into temp housing and a coworker came and took him grocery shopping. This has truly been a trip from hell for him. He said this would be an adventure, I don’t think this is the kind he was looking for!!

Try, Try Again

My husband and I both believe things happen for a reason. You may not know what it is until later, but you usually figure it out. He was delayed yesterday and ended up back home (see last blog post for details). Shortly after he got home, we got a breaking CNN news alert on our blackberry's, there was a security breach at Newark Airport. Everyone was cleared from the Continental terminal, and rescreened, planes were delayed or cancelled, and this lasted all night. My husband, had he been able to get there, on his Continental flight, probably would have been stuck there all night. So we were grateful he was safe and sound at home instead. But has he made it to England yet? Not quite. He has made it to Newark, but he has been delayed there. They are still backed up from the event last night. Right now he is still scheduled to go out tonight, but not until really late. I hope he makes it out and has a safe flight, and finally gets there. As we were talking a little bit ago, we both were hoping that these kind of delays do not happen when we all go together and have the kids with us --I am nervous enough about flying overseas with them, let alone dealing with travel delays like the one he has encountered. Praying for a safe trip for him, we miss him already.

Travel fun

I knew it was going to happen, I just was not sure when. I had a minor breakdown on Saturday night. I had been kind of emotional all day. My baby was turning 2, we had a party with some of our friends and family and I was sad that it would be our last for several years with these people that are such a big part of our lives, and hubby was going to be leaving the next day. That plus the packing and storing of a lot of our things, it was all a bit much. We are also giving our baby stuff away and even though we are incredibly happy with our two beautiful children, it was still sad to watch it go out the door. So many memories in all of those things! But now someone else gets to make new memories with them, and that is great. Today Bean and I took daddy to the airport. I was not sure how it was going to be with her, but she really wanted to go. When she was probably 2 or 3, he had to go to Hong Kong for over 2 weeks and she was screaming in the car for him to stay, trying to take her seat belt off to get to him and reaching for him. It was incredibly hard for me to watch, incredibly hard for daddy to get out of the car and leave, and incredibly hard on Bean. After that, we never took daddy to the airport again. He either drove and left his car there, or had a taxi pick him up for the long trips. But this time, Bean is older and she asked to go, and we figured it might be ok. We went in with him, she hugged and kissed him, watched him walk through security, and then she started to cry, saying she missed him already. It was sad, and a happy meal was offered to make her feel better (I am not ashamed, it worked after all) But then half way home, a text comes from daddy –mechanical problems on one plane, a back up into Newark for another, he is not sure he is actually going to get out tonight. As I type this, he is at the airport waiting to see if he will actually leave today. If he is not gone by 7:15 p.m., he will miss his connection, so I may be driving back to pick him up tonight and taking him again at 4:00 a.m. for an early flight. Air travel is so much fun. Let’s hope this does not happen in a few months when we have two kids with us!! On a good note, we did get all of our visas and I think my husband is more than ready to get started at work. He packed as much as he could get on the plane with him this time, and will be house hunting and car hunting shortly after he gets there. Things are moving along- as long as my husband actually gets to leave the airport! Update: he missed his connection, is back at home, and we are going to try this again tomorrow. Start date will be one day later --let's hope for no more delays!!