Hello

Some holiday photos for you

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you have a wonderful day full of family, happiness, good food and good times. It's been a quiet but very lovely day here so far. We ate bagels with cream cheese and salmon with mimosas for breakfast and opened out presents with Mick's mom and his stepdad. I am astounded at the generosity these people have shown to me. I received such wonderful gifts that were unnecessary but so appreciated. We are about to eat our big Christmas dinner, then it's off to visit Grampy and then spend the evening with my sister in law, her boyfriend, and pops in law.

I was able to speak to all my family members last night. They are all celebrating at my parent's house in Yuma. I really wish Mick and I could be there, but I've managed from being too bummed. Next year will be here before we know it. I will also speak to my family again tonight, but until then I'm going to dedicate this little song to them, courtesy of Judy Garland.




Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light,
Next year all our troubles will be
out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yule-tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be
miles away

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were near to us
Will be dear to us once more

Someday soon, we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Going the Distance

In writing this blog, in telling the story of Aindrea and Mick, and in talking to people face to face, I've been surprised to hear how many of them (the women, really) want what I have. I'm not surprised that they want a fantastic husband who is also your best friend, but they want the whole process. It happens almost daily, a customer at the pub will notice that I'm obviously not from around here, ask where I'm from.
"America"
"Oh, what are you doing all the way over here."
"I married an Englishman."
"Oh, how did you meet?"
"We met online as teenagers. Over the years we kept in touch finally met, and now here we are."
"Oh, how romantic, what a love story!"
And I'm always a little bit surprised. Even a friend of mine said to me once, "I want what you have. I want that love story and I want a British boy."
We all want a love story, and we all deserve a great one. British men are plenty nice, but they're still just men. What I don't think people realize is just how hard it all is, and how much it entails. I love Mick more that anything in the world, but would I recommend that any couple go through what we did? Absolutely not. It's hard, it hurts, you find the most stupid things to argue about when you're apart, and you just end up not being very nice to each other a lot of the time. Not because you're horrible or you don't love each other, but because you're so frustrated with the situation and you don't know how else to express it. We were only apart for 7 months, but in that time, we had a lot of arguments, a lot of doubts, and I even had to visit the ER twice because I was in so much stress, I had a panic attack that lasted for several days.
Mick and I have both talked about this, and we have agreed that if, for some reason (God forbid) things didn't work out for us, we wouldn't do this again, with another person. Would I do it again, with Mick? Yes, because what we have is special and unbreakable. It takes unquestionable and complete trust, a lot of faith, and the kind of love you only find once in a lifetime.
I think it's really important that people don't limit themselves. If you decide at some point in your life that you're going to have, x,y,z (in my friends case, a British man), you're going to be focused on only one area. And if you do that, you're going to limit yourself and you might miss out on something really fantastic. Perhaps a Swedish guy? An Australian guy? A guy from New York or Vancouver, or, most desirably, a guy from your own town. Don't put yourself in a box, be open to life and all the surprises that life sends your way. I didn't plan to fall in love with an English boy, but it fell in my lap, I discovered how important he was to me and I decided that, come hell or high water, I'd fight to keep him. We can't help who we love, and so that also means that you can't make yourself love someone. You might find someone who checks all the boxes on your list, but at the end of the day, you might really surprise yourself with what you actually want.

Today I met a girl in the pub, and she asked all those typical questions. Once she realized we had been long distance, she immediately launched into all these questions about how she should handle a sitation with a guy that is long distance. I immediately recalled the insecurities, the desperation, the excitement, and the sadness. Let me tell you, I didn't envy this girl one little bit. I basically told her that she just had to be open, honest, and decide what would work for her, and would just have to go with the flow.
And then she spoke the words, "but I don't want to just wait and see, I want to know."
I could have laughed out loud. Not because it's funny what she said, or that it's so unusual or unreasonable to want to know how love will turn out, but because I can remember saying that to my mom, or to Brittany, curled up on her couch and wallowing in the distance. "I just want to know if we're going to make it." Over and over. I was such a broken record. I wished the girl luck and walked away wondering when I'd become Dr. Love, but I was glad to be able to help, because I certainly know how she feels.
Nobody has a crystal ball (as my mom has told me over and over and over my entire life when I worry about something) and we can't know how something is going to turn out.
But isn't not knowing half the fun?

I guess I just wanted to bring some light to the situation. I'm not saying I'm not really happy, because I am. I have snagged an amazing opportunity- I'm living in another country and learning about another culture, I'm a newlywed and the world is my oyster. But we're still a couple, like anyone else. We fight. I'm sometimes really unreasonable, and he's sometimes really insensitive. I get sad and homesick and want to go home somedays, and he gets sad about that. But each day, we wake up in the same bed, happy to see the other there. And that's all we wanted for so very long.

You just have to greet life with open arms, take what it gives you, and turn that into something that makes you want to get up every day and smile at the world. I found it in an English boy, but you mind find it somewhere else. And that is beautiful.

London Getaway

Yesterday afternoon Mick and I returned from our mini trip to London. We went up early on Monday and stayed the night. We walked and walked (as one does when in London) and finished up our Christmas shopping, saw some of our favourites sights again, and enjoyed good food. In the evening we hailed a cab and went past Buckingham Palace and Horse Guard Parade and Trafalgar Square and got dropped off in front of the Garrick Theatre. Chicago did not disappoint. The music was great ad America Fererra was fantastic. Even Mick didn't hate it too much.
After the show we visited the M&Ms store in Leicester Square, then caught another can back to the hotel, where we slept the sleep of people who walked miles in a cold and rainy city. I'm the morning we had breakfast at a pub near the hotel, then we walked past Marble Arch over to Hyde Park for the winter wonderland carnival. We drank mulled wine, are roasted chestnuts, and Mick even won me a little stuffed pig shooting Christmas ornaments. After that it was back to the hotel to grab our things and get a cab to the train station. Neither of us wanted to leave - it was wonderful to have some us time, and I for one came home feeling very full of love.
I just love London in the winter, especially at Christmastime.
Have some pictures :)

Snow and Musicals

I'm really, really cold!

It snowed on Friday morning. I was sitting in bed, looking at my phone. Checked the weather, saw it was meant to be snowing. I started an epic battle with the sheets in order to get to the window. Mick muttered angrily and asked what I was doing. Away to the window I flew with a flash, tore back the shutters and opened the sash (couldn't resist) and, yes, IT WAS SNOWING! I took some pictures, but you couldn't really tell that it was snowing, and it didn't stick or anything. Boo. It was nice for the couple hours while it lasted!
I have three days off, so tomorrow Mick and I are taking the train up to London for a little Christmas-y goodness! We're going to go to a few winter markets to finish up our Christmas shopping and then, tomorrow night....

We're going to see Chicago in the West End! I've never been to the theatre, and for some reason, even though he's been bitching about it since, Mick offered to take me to see a musical. I jumped at the chance, although I've forbidden him from complaining about it. Why take me somewhere to enjoy something just to ruin it with complaining, right?
Anyways, it should be a really good couple days. We're staying in London tomorrow night and catching the train home midday Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to getting away and having some time together, I've been working a good deal lately and we've actually been pretty busy!
Here's what's been going on lately in photos :)
Hope everyone is having a good pre-Christmas week!

First time living somewhere that it snows!

This is where I work.

Some holiday nibbles and gift wrapping.

Wintry mornings

Transitions

Winter creeps in so slowly that you don't even notice it. I check my phone weather forecast and each week the first digit in temperatures drops. It's only in the 40s now, due to be 30s next week. I know that's not as cold as a lot of the places you folks live, but I've been told the cold in England is different, and I have to take people's words for it, having spent exactly no time in cold climes before. Apparently it's the damp that does it here. It gets in your bones. Or so I'm told.
So, as winter presses her nose against the window, peering in and preparing herself to settle in heavily, Mick and I prepare for something as well. It's time to dip our toes into apartment hunting. We've looked at one place, but for our reasons we've decided to keep looking elsewhere, even though we really liked it. Nothing serious yet, no paperwork has been filled out, we're just collecting out data, looking online, and planning to go look. And, oh, is it exciting!

A Slightly Hyper Post

Today I worked from 10am-6pm with a slew of families swinging in and out the door. The comfy, worn in couches scattered about the warm pub were filled with laughter and chit-chat, and my hands were satisfied and sticky from pulling lots and lots of pints. Two o'clock rolled around and my boss said I could take my break. I donned my wool coat and scarf (never thought I'd say that!) and walked across the square to the supermarket to buy a sandwich and a drink. My selections in hand (chicken salad sandwich, strawberry flavored water and sour coke bottles), I paid and exited the store. To my immense puzzlement, as I walked through the sliding doors, I was accosted (ok, not really, I just never pass up an opportunity to use that word. Accosted. Accosted! I love it) by charity collectors holding their plastic coin cup things and wearing... wait for it!.... GIANT DOG COSTUMES. We're not just talking a painted face and ears, people. We're talking the hole getup- a full on furry costume with giant head and everything. Actually, it was probably pretty warm, now that I think about it. Anyway, there was Christmas music blaring from mysteriously placed speakers and booths and things set up. In a daze, I grabbed a few coins from my pocket and chucked them in the cup. The Giant Dog I deposited my money to waved with his big, fake, awkward hands. Character costumes like that have always freaked me out a bit. I don't know, it might be the vow of silence the people who wear them seem to take. It's just weird, okay?!
Anyways, I retreated to the safety of my designated lunch spot- a tree planter with a large base to sit on. I munched on my sandwich and watched the way the light played on the pavers, the sides of brick buildings, and shone around the corner, bursting through a narrow walkway. I fell in love with winter light today. And as I snapped pictures, a children's choir at the charity thing began to sing "Good King Wenceslas," which always reminds me of that scene in the end of Love Actually where Hugh Grant is desperately searching an entire street of houses, asking for the girl he loves, tryyying to find out if she lives there because she only gave him the name of the street she lived on and not the house number. And three little girls open the door and don't realize Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister, because they're like, seven. So they ask if he's a Carol Singer and he starts to sing to humor them. And his driver, who is standing behind him, busts out in this really sexy bass voice, and Hugh Grant does this surprised little face and turns around and looks at the driver. (I tried to find a clip on youtube to no avail). It always makes me smile, as does anything to do with Hugh Grant, and particularly Love Actually. I smiled and snapped pictures until my hands started to go numb, at which point I decided it was probably time to go back to work.

My lunch spot. I love how the concrete and wood eat up the light and hold it tight.

Pavers also enjoy eating the light. Also- I much prefer the footwear of bartending to the footwear of teaching. Vans to work? Yes, please!

This picture literally stops my breath. The way the light bends around the building and down this little walkway. Be still, my heart!

Have a fantastic Saturday, you!