finally here

• sorting, piling, taping, boxes, moving trucks, sweating, loading, cleaning, painting, cuts, bruises, so very dirty
• driving, tired, maps, more sweating, so very bleary
• stanley knives, rubbish, packing materials, bubble wrap, dumps, so very tired
• unpacking, assembling, washing, drilling, list making, so very weary
• choosing, deciding, head scratching, imagining, so very puzzled
• seeing what's possible, loving it, showering, so very clean
• walking to internet cafe to write, so very hopeful
• recovering and sighing happily, so very cheery

counting down to Edinburgh

we are on the hole filling, painting over the mess phase... we each have a bag of undies and clean clothes to live off of. Fridge is clean and food free. We have granola bars and take out menus.

Have to wrap the couch and the bed and the tea bags... movers come (I am being optimistic) tomorrow noon and load us up. Then we clean up the remainder of the house and get in the car and climb north for 3 hours. Stay in cheap roadside hotel and get back in the car at Oh:Dark Thirty Wednesday morning to continue the journey 3 1/2 more hours to sign the lease at 10:30 a.m. in Edinburgh. Movers to come to new pad with stuff at noon.

Fingers crossed. New home awaits!

I'd post

a photo of all the boxes I am crowded behind, but we already packed the cord that connects my camera to the computer. Mark, sans job is totally a dynamo with this packing business. I am literally left in the dust, weakly protesting that we don't need to pack up the bathrooms yet as we have 7 more days to live in this house. I can't complain -- he is really doing all the heavy lifting. I am still in the musing stage where I have to consider all my cosmetics and decide which lipsticks are not going to make the move with me. Mark has lists and schedules and time tables. I am clearly not in charge. It is lovely. Even if it is rushing my esoteric approach to packing. And things are getting 'ungrouped' which is a pet disturbance. ("The pillows all have to stay together!")

So I am hanging on to shreds of what is normal. And redefining that word hourly.
Next week at this time, we should be in our car driving part way to E-burgh for our Wednesday morning lease signing and key getting and mover meeting.

Now to ride the wave and throw out what is no longer serving me. Like old eyeliners of my life.

Add Lex in the middle for Charlie's Angels shot. These gals are not only brilliant, but beauties.  

Libby, me & Ulrika. Coach girl power when as we pow-wowed and reunited at Libby's London house for a day of sharing and eating Lurpak.  

summer summed up

Retiree Mark on Parker's Piece (a.k.a Parkers Posey) as we await the 6:00 p.m. opening of Mai Thai restaurant so we could use our (no lie) early bird coupon.

This photo is the wallpaper of my (new) flash mobile phone. I look like a proper savvy career girl again. Or at least my phone does.  

let the packing commence

Starting, um, Saturday!

I just can't seem to want to give up shades of normalcy. Once the first drawer is emptied, the first box created and taped and filled, we will have no more room to walk or breathe. I love normalcy. I loathe chaos.

So I am lalala, Ican'tseeyou to the giant stack of packing supplies in the corner of the living room. (if you face the TV you can't even see 'em!) And taking today as Throwing Away Magazines. It seems safe, makes room and is painless. (relatively, if anyone remembers my 10 year collection of Vanity Fairs in my Quebec House place, you know it ain't THAT easy)

Movers come July 25.

Plenty of time.

lalallalalalalalalala

mark's 2 cents

Mark adds:
- sunny days biking along the river
- discovering cute pubs

And I am adding:
- hanging laundry on our line
- the countrified blue blood Cambridge village types rather than the townies with their king cans of 10:00 a.m. lager who scared me

( I have to make him read this by the way, he claims he ' knows' what is going on in my life, so he doesn't need to read my blog. See how wrong he is??)

things I'll miss in Cambridge

1. watching the treetops and bird activity from the office window
2. biking midday to Cambridge market and looking at used books and fresh fruit
   
3. sessions at the complementary health center with my acupuncturist (and first mother of greenie) Laura
4. the predictability of the overly friendly butcher and the consistently amazing chicken breasts
   
5. living on the dead end with only foot traffic, bike traffic and people turning around in their cars who don't know it is a dead end
6. finding people resting, reading, hanging on any of the many greens at any time of day
7. the library -- order online, pick it up in person, badda boom badda bing
   
8. walking into any class at the gym and knowing someone and being friends with the instructor
   
9. the occasional booze fueled fight in front of our house, giving us front row seats to our morbid curiousity
10. the International store where I could discover ingredients I never knew exisited and I could count on for everything I ever needed for Indian or Thai cooking
    
11. daily Sainsbury trips
12. stretches of time with nothing but dinner to plan
13. my first home in the United Kingdom
14. familiar faces and casual acquaintances at the gym
15. actual friends and cheery souls who made the gym our second home
16. the bumpy, buggy bike path to the gym, where you pass a military training field full of bunnies
17. number 2 bus down Mill Road
    
18. No suits
19. Picturehouse Arts Theater -- for its bad lattes, its tasty cakes, wornout couches and ability to help us feel part of the cool culture, and the steady diet of essential film for 2 years
20. CB2 -- bloody mary, lamb burger lunches
21. annoying owner lady at the noodle house
22. our nearly nonexistent but friendly relations with our neighbor Chris
23. the gas fireplace -- nice for a quick ambiance shortcut or a warm up
24. our parking spot -- crooked and hard to get in, but always there
    
25. the place where we made it all come real
    

P.S.

1. Thank god England lost on Saturday to Portugal. I mean, sorry St. George, but I couldn't take the pressure. The country really shuts DOWN and collectively bites all of its nails. Too much angst and violent hope. Now people can be bitter and complain about the now canned manager Sven and get on with living and there are now only the semi finals and the final to endure. I am voting for Italy.
2. Thank god we can replace football with the Cambridge Film Festival. We are signed up for 8 films in the next 10 days. Mark hearts not working. I heart summer movies in A/C.
3. Covered 700+ miles on the train north yesterday -- to E-burgh and back in one day to visit and measure and touch our new garden flat. Eating in the 1st Class dining car is truly a highlight of living. We are giddy excited and Mark has the flat completely (I am very serious) laid out on Excel, with furniture and storage placement according to height and width measurement specs. These are reasons why I love him.
4. And finally, a disclosure. I think I forgot to brush my teeth today. Seriously.

fourth of July

In England... easy to 100% forget this holiday. I actually didn't even remember until I looked at the calendar at noon. And while I would really like a grilled brat, a familial or friend gathering, I am ok being over here.

July 4th just makes me think if being at Silver Lake all day with the family, getting as tan as possible (possibly flirting with Bill Cooley, my summer lust) and high-tailing it home to Hales Corners for fireworks at the park... a.k.a. Trolling around with friends and scoping out as many upper classmen boys and looking for a party. It was teenage hormone time. And also remarking every year about babies in diapers and sparklers too close... and lots of OFF!

It was a time to reconnect with people from school that you hadn't seen since it let out and cause trouble. Not very patriotic. And sadly, now that I am older and hardly ever trolling for upperclassmen, and way over here in a country that we are celebrating independence FROM, I don't miss it. Sad really.

I like that flag cake.

2gether2much

Mark's last day of BT employment was yesterday. Yay for him. No more answering to the Man. No more office. He is his own person now until Uni of Edinburgh claims his brain and his waking hours in September. He is free bird.

And now we embark on what most retirees fear and dread and get therapy for. Both of us home. Together. In the 3rd month of marriage. I have had the run of the house as the lady of the manor now for almost 2 years now. Sending him off in the morning like a nice June Cleaver with a packed lunch and a kiss and sinking happily into My Day. Napping at whim, coaching with office door open, having questionably un-nutritious lunches, going to day-time gym classes on my own, being OCD about checking e-mail, chatting to Lexie for long conversations about tidying up the house and coaching issues and sex lives and nothing and everything , tidying up 10 minutes before he gets home. And I was always happy as a puppy to see him. Ahhhhhhh. Sweet, beautiful life.

Now no more sending him out the door. Since we have been back from our marathon wedding trips, he has been around more than ever and I have not, repeat not handled it with grace and love. We were both trashed and exhausted and eager to zone out and routine-ize out lives. Which for me included him being, um, not here. Solitude has been the more glorious gift of this move over here... Who knew I would lap it up so greedily?

Where was my space? My TV time? My silent place? My long and empty day to fill without conversation or negotiation or witness? I missed it!! So I have been kinda snappish, short and annoyed. And now I must stop. We have been given 2 months together without the pull of full time jobs. To pack, to move, to lay by the pool, to go the gym, to be. Something , I know, we must take advantage of and ENJOY! It shant happen again until we ARE retired. Yet, I can't help but wonder, why now this lesson/or this gift? I struggle without boundaries of you go, I stay, see you later. How do you miss someone who never leaves?

We have never been ones to shy away from a challenge with each other, but this one is throwing me. In the next year we will be swapping roles -- from student to earner. And I am resisting giving up this luxury of time and space. Or, resisting sharing it. Selfish cow that I am.

I know marriage is hard and we just started. Or maybe I should say, live is kinda hard and marriage is part of it. Or the coach in me would say, new things are scary. Uncharted territory can shake you up. It wakes you up and makes you notice where you are going and what you are doing. Maybe I have just been a bit too cozy in this easy place and now it is time to wake up and join the land of the day-job, the land of stepping up and the land I just signed up for -- of togetherness. Lots of it. For a long long time.