Spring in London

Spring is in full bloom here in London. As I type this blog post, Brett and I are enjoying a crisp refreshing glass of white wine while enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

Coming from a city where spring is lucky to show up at the first of May, it has been so refreshing to have a winter that ends in February and where the coldest it ever got during the day was 30 degrees. I always wondered if I would miss the snow, but this winter has proved that I don’t actually like snow unless I am on a mountain. My poor friends in Chicago have suffered through a terrible winter and I’m not even sure if a day like London is having right now is in the near future for them. 

As most of you know, just before Christmas I started working at a butcher shop in Clapham. I worked as the delicatessen, making gourmet sandwiches and handling the deli and cheese counters. There wasn’t too much about working in a butcher shop that phased me, for example seeing headless animals or watching one of the guys blow into the esophagus of a rabbit to make the lungs fill up, but I was quite scared of the huge refrigerator that held all the meat. Something about seeing meat hanging from a meat hook reminds me of some horror movie and the thought of being locked in that refrigerator scared me on a daily basis. 

Although the refrigerator was equivalent to the basement furnace in Home Alone, the butcher shop has been such a positive experience for me. It relieved a lot of the stress and pressure I felt around not having a job. We are approaching our six month anniversary of moving to London and I would have to say that trying to find a job has been the hardest part of our move. Having a temporary job really relived a lot of stress and pressure that I felt about sitting at home all day. When you don’t have a job and no children to keep you busy, you definitely build up a lot of guilt regarding not doing anything all day long. Brett would get home from work and say "How was your day? What did you do?", like most loving husbands do. But something about watching 6 hours straight of "Keeping up with the Kardashians" made me feel guilty. I always thought I would be an awesome Housewife, but at the end of the day, I need a lot on my plate to stay productive. So working at the butcher shop for 6 hours a day helped break up my binge TV sessions, and forced me to be productive outside of those hours. 

But after almost six months of unemployment I have finally found a job! And it's a great job and an international company to which I will most likely be able to transfer back to the state with. The picture below is a view from our offices. 

 I started last week, and some of my initial thoughts are 1. That I miss wearing yoga pants to work 2. The Northern line between 8:15-8:45 is pretty similar to the picture below, no one is physically pushing you, but at times I think I could touch the next person with my tongue. You can only let so many trains pass you before you just force yourself on the train. 

That's it for now... We have our second visitor coming this week... my brother is coming to visit for 10 days!! Woot woot!

Cheers, Mary

Life as Cats

 

Monsieur Nick

We moved into our apartment last week and, as one of my friends put it, we are nesting. By that she meant making our flat a home and becoming accustom to our life in London. As I had previously mentioned, our flat came furnished with the large essential items such as a bed, couch, chest of drawers, ect. However there were still a few items that we needed in order to make our apartment more functional. For instance, Brett brought more shoes to London than I did and because of all his shoes, he was very adamant about having a shoe rack. Seriously, a shoe rack was on the same level of priority as a TV and dishes.

Now I'll take a minute here to explain the purpose of the title of this post: Life as Cats.  When we decided to move abroad I was pretty overwhelmed with all the logistics it was going to take to move us from Chicago to Cincinnati (where our items would be stored and where our parents live) and then to London. My married into mother (I refuse to use the word in-law, as it carries a negative connotation and doesn't begin to describe my love for my married in family) rested assured that everything would work out perfectly because we are cats... excuse me? I mean I LOVE cats, but come again? How are we cats? She explained that we always seem to land on our feet and that our move and time in London will all work out because we always land on our feet. And I took that piece of advice to heart. Like when we didn't have a place to live for the month of September, when I lost my debit card and only source of money three days before we left the States, when we couldn't decide on where we wanted to live and the fact that I don't have a job yet.

Cat Instance #1:
But she is right, we are cats and whatever obstacle that comes up in our lives, we somehow manage to land on our feet. We had put an offer in on a place in West Hampstead, but at the end of the day, I didn't feel excited or nervous on whether we were going to get the place. I think it was that I wasn't sold on West Hampstead. I took that as a bad omen and panicked worrying if we would be in the right location. The next day we toured the Clapham area in anticipation of our flat showings scheduled for the following day. Once we stepped out of the Clapham Common stop, we were sold on the area. Which didn't really help my anxiety because then I needed our relator to find us a flat just as nice as the one in West Hampstead! But as cats will have it, we found the perfect flat, in the perfect area and again landed on our feet.

This is the view from our apartment. We can see Big Ben and Westminster!

Most of the items we purchased to finish off our flat were found via Gumtree, which is similar to Craigslist in the States. However not having a car made the search quite interesting. We ended up finding items all within walking distance, and ended up carrying each item back to our apartment. Including a vanity dressing table, a huge mirror and a TV stand. It took us all day to pick up those items because the walk each way would take about 30 minutes and we obviously could only carry one item at a time. Notice in the picture below, the table we carried 1.5 miles as well as the coffee cup that I found on the side of the street in a box labeled "free".

Cat Instance #2:
The biggest cat-like behavior so far was that the guy across the hall from us was moving to Italy the same weekend as we were moving in! He gave us so many items FOR FREE that he couldn't take to Italy with him.

The worst part about moving to a city via plane, instead of vehicle, is that you can't take the small items that you have had forever, like hangers! We ended up spending 30 quid on 50 HANGERS! So when we started seeing him place items in the hall, we scavenged everything. Here is what we got from him: shoe rack, a few baskets, a few pots, a Brita, a bathroom rug, mop bucket, a light comforter, a few trash cans, two bedside table lamps, extension cords, HANGERS, vases, containers, and a chair! Seriously we took everything he was getting rid of, including a juicer which I don't really think I will ever use, nor really know how to use it.

It was to the point that I was checking the hallway every hour to see if more treasures were out there! Eventually he just invited me into his apartment and practically said "take whatever you need". And now that he is gone, the hallway isn't as cheerful anymore, I felt like every time I turned the corner to our apartment, it was like Christmas morning!

I tried to think of something that I could give him to thank him for everything he gave to us, but being that we just move here, all I could offer him was a bowl of chili. Which he respectfully declined.

Cat Instance #3:
As a domestic house cat, I also sleep a lot since I don't particularly have a job. Which leads to my fourth and final cat-like behavior.

Hopeful Cat Instance #4:
So now to wrap up this cat related post, I am hopeful that I will use some of my cat-magic and land myself a purrrrfect job. Wish me luck!!

Do you guys find yourself acting like cats ever?