"Put down that box of broken glass Charlie!"

As a Mom you do everything you can to protect your children, unless you are trying to cook dinner and your child is tugging on your pant leg while you carry a pot of boiling water to the sink. In that case you will do anything to keep that child entertained and away from your generally klutzy legs. Short of playing with rat poison, an actual rat or sharp knives the boy can entertain himself with anything that will keep him out of my hair for at least 10 minutes.

The other night he played in the freezer. Not so great for the electric bill or the planet, but damnit, I got dinner finished without a single pot of boiling water being spilled on anyone.

As I write this he's bringing me all the contents of the food cabinet. I'm surrounded by custard powder, peanut butter, coffee and taco shells. But hey, I got to post something finally! Totally worth the clean up. Who wants tacos?!

You know you're pregnant when...

you keep putting your underwear on inside out, but you don't bother fixing it right away cause that would involve bending over.

Top Ten Things I Miss About Portland

(besides my friends and family, cause that's a given really)

1. Drinking beers with my friends on a porch in summertime, just shootin' the breeze for hours.
2. Getting Stumptown coffee on a Sunday morning, then crawling back in bed to read the Sunday comics.
3. Spag Fac dates with Jenn.
4. Getting lost in the corn maze & picking berries on Sauvie Island.
5. Sleepovers at my Mom's with my sisters.
6. Making movies with Rene.
7. Eating sushi and drinking sake at Kappaya.
8. Rollerskating at Oaks Park.
9. Driving over the bridges and taking in the view that never gets old.
10. Bloody Marys at The Space Room.

All you Portlanders know what I'm talking about. Enjoy what you have there, it's a lot. And don't you think for one second that we're not moving back someday. Cause we are.

Damn, now I'm super homesick! I miss you all so much! Love you too!

Okay, Deep Breath...

I have a much better prospective on things today. I'm feeling more confident in my decision. I'm looking at it like this: Yeah, it could have been a great opportunity. But no matter what they would have offered me, school will always be the better opportunity. So really, I can't be missing out anything as good as what's in store for me.

I can't thank everyone enought for their supportive comments. I'm not exaggerating when I say they got my through this. I wrote Rene's zen saying ("Leap and the net will appear") on the corner of a piece of paper right before I called the job. After I hung up I had a bit of a cry and then read and reread the quote. I can feel that net forming below me right now.


I love you guys so much!!! Thanks for supporting me, I needed it!

Your mission, should you choose to accept...

I've been working on what I like to call replacement thinking. So when I start thinking of something that depresses me about England, I immediately replace the thought with something positive. Or if I find myself thinking about what I hated the last time I moved here, or some awful experienced I had last time, I stop myself and think instead about how much different this time will be. Not a revolutionary idea, but it seems to be working. It's difficult to always think positively. And it would be so easy to fall into a big pit of self pity. Sometimes self pity can be so rewarding. But it never gets me far for long.

I'm also trying my damnedest to make this move totally different from the last move. It's the same town, same people, same problems as last time. But last time it got the best of me. So I really am trying to, not only think of things differently, but also trying to be a different person. I want to be stronger and more open minded, more tolerant and clear headed.

In some ways I'm looking at this as a mission. I more or less had to make this move (it really was the right thing to do), Paul would have suffered greatly if I had put my foot down about staying in Portland. So I pretend I'm a secret agent sent here for a purpose, and must complete my mission. In real life my mission is to keep my head together and my purpose is to become a better person. But in my imagination I'm a super sexy secret agent sent to England to infiltrate the British people, become one of them and perhaps take down the monarchy.

Even if I wanted to leave I couldn't, so I just have to make sure I don't get myself in a state where I want to get the fuck outta dodge.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all stiff upper lip and emotional suppression for me. There are so many wonderful things about living here. Which is why I'm starting "What Tickles My Pickle About England". A quick little addition at the end of each blog entry about all the great things that make living in England really fucking cool and just that much more tolerable. I really do plan on getting at least one blog entry completed each week as long as I have internet access. And even if I don't have tons of great photos to post.

What Tickles My Pickle About England is Branston's Pickle! It's this fantastic "sauce" I guess you'd call it. It squeezes out of the bottle looking like a dark, small dog turd and tasting like heaven. And you would be sorely mistaken if you think its just a bunch of mashed up pickles. Oh no! This stuff is absolutely chock full of goodness and strange ingredients, such as: swede, onions, cauliflower, vinegar, tomato, apple, dates, mustard, cilantro, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, cloves and of course a few pickles thrown in for good measure. I'm pretty sure it's a super food so I eat as much of it as I can.