October + November

It's Friday! And I don't have anything due on Monday so that means I can have a fun weekend and I can actually spend a little bit of time doing things like editing photos and such. This post is a little bit all over the place, just a fair warning.

 I suppose I spoke too soon when I spoke of getting into a routine in my last post. Blogging has been the last thing on my mind. I haven't opened Lightroom in weeks and I feel a twinge of guilt every time I read someone else's blog because I feel soooo lazy about finishing some edits and writing a few paragraphs. Instead, I have been doing homework, studying, watching Gilmore Girls, and am still trying to get this apartment in some sort of order while not eating macaroni and cheese for every meal. Forrest has really stepped it up in the dinner making department and I'm sort of ashamed at my myself but also very impressed with homemaker Forrest (who is also taking full-time classes, might I add).

This week has been the first actual cold week this fall, meaning it actually dipped below 50°F during the day and my car windows almost frosted up. It's been really sunny, which I suppose makes up for my frozen hands and nose in the mornings.

So on Veteran's Day on Tuesday, Forrest and I went to the zoo! For free! I knew that marrying a veteran would pay off one of these days. We also went to Dick's and California Pizza Kitchen and got a free carwash, but that's beside the point (my meals were not free). This is the first Veteran's Day that Forrest has actually had off in the last seven years where he could actually enjoy the fruits of his labors. Not a lot of free meals for American veterans in England, you know (although Nando's (my most favorite chain ever with like 400 locations in the UK) gave us 20% off which we found kind of strange, but you know!)

Zoo photos:

This wolf reinforced my belief that Jasper is part wolf. He's a big black wolf-dog and I wish he had a white fluffy wolf friend.

So it was about 30° during our zoo expedition plus wind chill. And it was really crowded! I wasn't expecting so many people to be there, but it was still really fun. Forrest always makes fun of me because of how excited I always am to go to zoos, but I can't help it. I just love them! We had a great time.

*****

Also, I wrote this part below about four weeks ago and promptly lost interest so I sort of finished it above and now my life is mostly caught up:

We finally FINALLY got our shipment of everything we've had in storage for the past year last Friday. Going from around 1500 square feet to less than 600 is quite a change, let me tell you. For instance, we no longer have an entire room to devote to empty boxes. We have about double the amount of closets here (2) but are missing 100% of wardrobes (2) we gave away in England. So by my count, we're down one closet.

But to be fair, at least our dryer is no longer outside in the shed and our washing machine isn't located in the kitchen.

Our movers did such a good job with our stuff. So far, everything I have unpacked has been completely intact (ha, rhyme) and we aren't missing anything. Except for one inexplicable spoon. I have no idea how we're missing one spoon because I watched the moving man wrap them all up individually, so unless he slipped it into his pocket when I wasn't looking as some sort of practical joke, I have no idea what to say about it. If they sold individual spoons, I wouldn't even care. But since all of our silverware came in sets of five, I will forever have an imbalance in my cutlery drawer (and in my heart).

 I suppose I could purchase another set and donate away the butterknife, fork, smaller fork, and big spoon? Really, the little spoons are the best part of the whole set and am I completely ridiculous for thinking about this situation this much? I can't even tell anymore.

But really, if you're ever in East Anglia and need to hire some movers, Arrowdene did a great job. They didn't even pack our garbage (which they tell you to watch out for in Air Force out-processing, so..).

So I really forgot about a very silly amount of things that I owned. Opening boxes was sort of a high for me. And now that everything is unpacked and scattered around in a general mass of clutter, the high is gone. Except did I mention that we have couches now and somewhere to sit besides the ground or in camping chairs? And why didn't we get rid of more stuff before we moved?

*****

And that concludes my past thoughts on moving. Here are some pictures of the giant cemetery across the street and of trees and sunflowers that I took in October!

Update: We got rid of a lot of junk (ahem, Forrest) so our apartment is now easy to navigate and I haven't tripped over a box in weeks. In fact, we only have one box left to unpack (mostly filled with boring paperwork). We spray-painted our ugly filing cabinet last weekend at my parents' and left it in their garage to dry (sorry, Mom and Dad) so hopefully we'll be box-free by next week.

Also, is this not the strangest location of a mushroom you have ever seen?

I thought so. 

Last Month

Driving across the country is time consuming business.

In the last month we have driven over 3,500 miles, looked at 15 or more trucks (still no luck), attended the SEC championship football game (and won!), met our nephew for the first time, and celebrated two major holidays! Well, three, if you count my birthday. Somehow no one ever does.

We also visited the Grand Canyon!

So we're in Washington State now. Finally.

If you're wondering how in the world we made it across the country without purchasing a vehicle, I'll tell you.

I happen to have the very best grandparents in the entire universe, that's how. 

My Papa lent us his beloved F150 and even kissed it goodbye. He kissed me goodbye too, but there were probably more tears for the truck. 

So we packed that sucker up to the brim. It took several hours, a lot of cargo straps, and one of us almost died at one point trying to load a lawn mower. Related: never try to drive a lawn mower up ramps into a pickup truck. You will probably get stuck and flip over. I'll just let you guess who tried that one but his name sounds a lot like a large group of trees and he's only alive today because his pretty wife caught him and saved him from becoming a pancake. 

We had a lot of Forrest's old possessions to move plus our Black Friday deals and all of our luggage. We are still living out of the same luggage on account of our new room at my parents' has only one small dresser and I have three drawers and Forrest has one. Funny how that works out, but I guess I'm just a quicker draw and that Forrest is lucky I saved him a drawer at all. It's just the nice type of person I am is all. But there is still an awful lot of clothing in the suitcases (and in my case on the floor because I got sick of walking around four suitcases) And I am way off subject.

Maybe I should have kept up with blogging more this past month and then I wouldn't talk Forrest's ear off every night when he's trying to sleep. 

Anyway, one month later and all I really wanted to do was post some really cute pictures I took yesterday of Pendleton the hedgehog. 

His Christmas photos!

Photogenic, no? He doesn't smile very much, however. 

But we do!

Merry Christmas from us a day late!

Bury St. Edmunds

 

 

 

 

Happy Friday! Is it Friday? I'm a little mixed up on schedules/days/everything right now due to quite a long flight a couple of days ago and the absurd amount of sleep that has transpired as a result.

I meant to post this before we left England as a sort of tribute to our lovely little English town, but it turns out that moving takes a lot more time than one would think and blogging kind of gets thrown onto the back-burner. 

So here I am alone in Forrest's brother's house with a bunch of time on my hands as Forrest drives down to Tennessee to pick up Bessie the truck so that we may have transportation once more. And everyone else is at work.

Why don't I edit some photos I thought! I'm finally almost caught up on sleep (thank you, melatonin!) and I have partaken in Wendy's twice in the last two days. Oh, Wendy's, how I have missed thee.

So here it is! A few thoughts on our town.

Bury St. Edmunds is the most adorable town in England. Of this I am sure. We lived on the outskirts for two-and-a-half years. Oh, it was a good time. 

I'm kind of already emotionally spent from the last week of saying goodbye and maybe I'm not as rested as I thought so I don't really have too many meaningful things to say. But I really never took the time to photograph around the town and really regretted it at the last minute. I took these about two weeks before we left and I sure am glad I documented it.

Bury has pretty much anything you could ever need in a town. It's the biggest town in Suffolk (which is kind of silly because it's really not that big, but that's Suffolk, I suppose) and a bustling little town it is. 

Forrest bought my engagement ring in Bury St. Edmunds at a jewelry store that has been around about as long as the U.S. has been a country. I looove that my ring is from England (where we also got engaged-in Bath). 

We watched the Olympic torch go through Bury last July and oh, it was exciting! I don't think I ever posted pictures from that on my blog, but I should.

We have taken every visiting relative to see the gigantic St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and the smallest pub in England (The Nutshell; it's tiny). It is such a great town for tourists because it's small and easily walk-able but oh so cute and full of fun things.

One time a parrot said hello to me in a British accent in the cathedral gardens aviary. I didn't even realize parrots could have accents until that encounter, but I sure am glad to know now.

There are so many unique things in Bury and so many English products that are made there. I feel a sort of pride for Bury St. Edmunds and I'm not even English. It's a special town.

I love Bury St. Edmunds and I don't care who knows.

We are leaving England next week.

In eight days. 

Eight.

We had our household goods packed up yesterday and we're camping out in the living room on an air mattress and some camping chairs. Our whole lives are now in a metal crate somewhere and now we get to live out of suitcases for three months which is kind of thrilling in a weird way. But mostly it's just something that makes me sigh a lot and hope for a new dresser in Seattle.

Tonight is our last night in our first house together and it's really sad. We have such wonderful memories here as newlyweds and as hosts to visiting family and with all of the friends we have made here. We've spent two Christmases here and three summers. We've had so much fun living here. 

My friend Rachel gave me a painting today of the best thatched houses in our neighborhood with this engraved on the back: Your first home together was in Hengrave; may you have many more happy homes together. May God bless you on your new adventure.

And I almost cried when she handed it to me because it was so perfect.

I will really miss living here! 

Everything took so long to happen and now it's all happening so fast I can't even remember what day it is. I can't believe we're actually leaving.

I always knew we were going to. I knew perfectly well going into this that we were here for two years and that was it. But then two years slowly stretched into two and a half and somehow it just seemed like it was all going to last forever and Forrest and I would be here in England, in this small fairyland, happy but not really content. 

We are ready to leave.

Now that all of our furniture and almost everything else we own is gone, it's finally starting to seem real. This move is something that I can almost reach out and touch. I'm not sure I'll be able to fully accept it until we're actually sitting on a runway.

I want to stay forever. 

But I wanted to leave six months ago. 

I can't quit the flip-flopping. I think I have some real problems.

This house has been good to us.

I learned how to cook in this house. And I learned how to knit. I learned so many valuable things right here in this little house!

Forrest and I learned how to be married here.

Even with all of the mold, and the too-thick walls so that we never have phone reception, and the weird shower, we have loved this adorable little ex-barn cottage.

We will never ever have another first home.

Goodbye, Grange Farm Croft. And goodbye, Hengrave. 

We're saying goodbye with pizza tonight for pizza has been a much loved meal in this house and will be forever and ever amen.

Now back I go to cleaning because our house inspection is in two days and I have cleaned exactly one room.