Some people have been wondering what the hell I've been doing if not blogging. Happily (for me), I have been busy! Busy is good. Our condo neighbors in Seattle (you know... back when we lived there... sniff sniff) experienced a very similar move to ours, but in reverse - from London to Seattle. One of them had a job (the reason for their move) and one did not. The one who did not have a job eventually felt so unhappy and isolated (I'm sure a fruitless job search did not help) that they decided it would be best for him to move back to London and continue their relationship long distance. When they found out about our move, Otto and Saul urged me to have "a plan" for how I was going to occupy my time after the move. Being EXTREMELY stressed out at the time, I sorta shrugged it off. However, the more I thought about it I realized they were right. The fact that they took to asking me "Do you have a plan yet??!" every time I saw them in the hallway probably helped. I never wrote it down or anything so official, but the plan in my head looked something like this:
1. Awesome Boyfriend. Phew. This didn't require much planning. I am insanely lucky to have a boyfriend who actually enjoys spending every waking second (when not at work) with me and who very happily gmail chats with me ALL DAY LONG. Willingly in constant contact after 5 years? I call that success. Not to mention his uncanny ability to satisfy need for "girl talk"at appropriate intervals. He will also suffer through impromptu dance parties during movie credits if the music is particularly catchy (at home, mind you).
2. The Dogs. Well, they were never NOT part of the plan, but life without Plato and Sascha would be very, very sad. They force me to get outside everyday, explore the neighborhood, and actually interact with people at the park. Without the dogs, I feel slightly adrift. It is nice to elicit that much excitement when you come home, even if you've only gone out to get the mail.
3. The House. I knew shopping for furniture and making some improvements on the house would be a fool-proof way of staving off post-move blues. Man, I love that stuff. I have designed and re-designed our kitchen about a million times - just for fun. We're not even planning on redoing the kitchen. Along the way I've met a lot of local people, particularly Rob the bathroom guy, who is near and dear to my heart after two straight weeks of meticulous tiling.
4. The Gym. Admittedly, this one did not turn out exactly as I had planned. My gym in Seattle was very small and very social. I made tons of friends there and even if we never saw each other with make-up on or in regular clothes, it made everything a lot more fun. My gym here is awesome but it is HUGE (there were over 60 people in my BodyCombat class today) and NO ONE talks to each other. It is literally a running joke amongst the class instructors that people refuse to interact with them. "Hey, everybody ready for class today?!!" Silence. So strange. Still, a place to go during the week and jump around/generally look silly amongst other people? Definitely an integral part of "the plan".
5. Horses. Don't even ask me how this became part of the plan. Having escaped the horse-craziness of my youth, I would have thought that I'd now be immune, but not so my friends. It is back with a vengeance, although slightly tempered by the fact that being an adult beginner often makes you look/feel incredibly stupid a lot of the time. My instructor Corinne has the honor of being my first official friend in the UK (as evidenced by my willingness to spend 4 hours on Tuesday in the pouring rain setting up electric fencing, at which point the slave driver became the slave when I insisted that we have THE STRAIGHTEST line of fencing in all the West Midlands and possibly the world) and I even work with horses (for Louise, she of the pink eyeshadow and waist length bleach blond braid - nuff said). I know there hasn't been much, if any, blog-time devoted to the horses so far, but now that I've finally admitted to starting a completely new hobby at the age of 25, you can expect some updates in that area.
Generally, that is the plan. Of course, there are a lot of random things that fit in there too.
1. Watching Friends (not anymore though THANKS FOR NOTHING E4)
2. Cooking more. I have actually
run out of some spices and had to buy more - that makes me proud.
3. Baking more. Good way to spend a couple free hours on a rainy weekday afternoon.
4. Reading. I've always been the kind of person who can easily spend a solid few hours reading each day, so you can imagine I've read quite a few books in the last year or so. Thank god for the free classics on the iPad. To be honest, I have very rarely met a book I didn't enjoy reading so I'm not much of a critic, but I think it would be interesting to make a list of what I've read since moving.
5. Blogs. I have a very very long list of blogs I check regularly. Jeff is always amazed at the amount of time I am able to occupy myself on the internets. A couple nights ago, he was gaming while I watched a movie. I paused it to look something up on my phone and a while later Jeff took off his headphones and was like "Dude, you have been on the internet ON YOUR PHONE for over an hour... what are you doing?" Ummm, I don't even know.
6. Cleaning. Ha ha, I know. Some of you might laugh, but I have a cleaning routine and it makes me happy to stick to it. I loathe waking up to dirty dishes in the sink and I can't enjoy my Norah Jones/good book/cup of tea when the house is a mess. You should see how good the white carpet looks in my parents' house after 20 years of kids/cats/dogs. Clean is in my genes.
7. Weeding. As Jeff says "One day of planting... 364 days of weeding."
8. Making trips to Ikea
9. Buying milk. I can't wait to move home and have a gigantic fridge and buy multiple gallons of milk at one time.
Okayyy that's enough of that.... time for a cute picture of the dogs (oh and add that to the list: 10. Taking pictures of the dogs.)
