Plane time

Haven't had a moment to post in all the mayhem, but we're minutes from boarding and looking so forward to getting a move on. Also, I'm pretty hungry....I could use a meal, even airplane quality.

Tomorrow we land, sleep a few hours and then head straight out to see Miles Kane and Kasabian at the O2 Arena. Needless to say, I'm losing my mind over Miles Kane. He released my favourite album of 2011.

I think we've had such a good send off and with how much technology we actually use, I don't feel like I'll be too far from the people I love. Sorry I didn't cry more - I know I was expected to sob a la my usual, but I'm just feeling so loved and that it's going to be no time before I see you all again!

Off to the plane...and a drink or two...

December 7th?!

Ok, I'm not quite sure when December 7th rolled in....I didn't think it was so....Decembery already. I did spend all of last weekend absorbing a ridiculous amount of roller derby at the World Cup in Toronto, so I missed four days of real life. And I've come home with a technicolour snot-inducing illness. I'd really prefer to not be sick as the countdown ticks away.

There are a couple of things I really want to get off my chest, but I don't have time to bang it all out this morning. Our house is being shown to potential renters, so I need to do one more thorough inspection and then get out of here. As a side note: I don't think I ever want to sell my house; this is already so much work and it's just for renters.

The newest thought plaguing me these past couple of days is that I'm terrified. More specifically, I'm terrified of the prospect of trying to find a job in a new city that is already experiencing employment issues and recession. I haven't been responsible for finding a new job in over four years. And the type of job I'm leaving is not one in a field that is transferable. I don't now how much I'm actually worth in the job market and my current job cannot be used as a reflection of my actual earning potential (no, seriously, you'd have to understand the history to realise I'm not just blowing my own horn here). So yeah. I'm terrified.

James keeps telling me we'll have enough money to live off of and won't need to worry too much at first, but I'm very aware of how poorly I did when I was poor. I don't want to go back there....or even to have those feelings. Let's be honest here too: we're not well off. In fact, we're pretty low on the spectrum compared to other couples we know, but we also don't live outside our means, making it much easier to survive on the income we have. Without me working, I just get scared that we'll feel the pinch of our situation and have to forego certain opportunities that I'd rather be in a position to take.Blah blah blah, money.

Blah blah blah everyone has problems. I better get moving so that I'm not lurking around when our potential renters show up.

We had a party....the pets are gone

This weekend has been a total roller coaster for me. On the one hand we had a series of fantastic evening events and got to have a lot of fun, and then on the other hand, we sent our pets away to my parents' house for the duration of our trip abroad.My emotions are in overdrive. We tried to watch Bridesmaids tonight to lighten the mood and I honestly broke down into melodramatic sobbing fits half a dozen times. I'm not sure if I can take much more of this "moving" process. Whoa.

Art Party

The last thing I should be doing right now is planning activities for London. I should be packing. Or at least thinking about packing. That would be more productive and probably lead to a smoother move in 18 days, but seriously. London has soooo much going on all the time that I'm having a hard time concentrating....and I'm not even there yet!! My latest happy discovery is that there will be a Damien Hirst retrospective in 2012 at the Tate Modern. Yes, a retrospective for a man who is still on the good side of 50 years old. I could slip back into my visual arts degree days and give you an entire essay, complete with sources on the effects of Hirst in the art world, but let's skip it and look a "For the love of God:"

This is James' photo of the poster for the piece. Yes, we photographed the poster. Why? Because in the 36 hours we were in Florence for our honeymoon this past spring, we happened upon a held-over showing of this incredible show piece and I nearly lost my little mind with excitement. The skull has only been in display three times. We dutifully bought our tickets and, after seeing a very private room in one of the Medici apartments (a prerequisite for having the skull on show in the villa - nice touch, Damien), we were escorted into a dark room with another security guard. 

The room was draped in black velvet and the only light source came from display case, atop a pillar in the center of the room. The skull was, quite literally, the only object you could clearly see in the dark. Guests are allotted three minutes to soak in all the splendor and macabre frivolity before being asked to leave. I do think I spent enough time fawning over it that we were given a few extra seconds to absorb the full experience. We left that room and I was stunned. 

Emerging into the light and the now seemingly dull Medici apartments, I knew I had just had an experience of a lifetime. Now I get to experience it all over again! Annnnnnd, if that wasn't enough, the craftsman that worked with Hirst has also got an exhibit about to open in London featuring his other gemstone works. And that is why I can't focus on packing.

The home stretch

We're 20 days away from our flight and my parents will be here this weekend. Part of their trip is to visit and part of it is to take home a number of our more personal items that we don't want to leave in a storage locker for the next two years. The most precious and dear things they're going to take is actually our pets. I don't want poor Molly and Penny to go through the next couple of weeks with the house in total disarray, so I'm saving them the anxiety by sending them along early. But it's making me get weepy every time I think about them or look at them.

So much quiet

I have wanted to write so badly this past week. But I can't bring myself to put my fingers to the smooth, flat glass and actually make the words come out. After some thought on the subject, I feel that the reason I can't bring myself to write is that with each passing day we come closer to leaving and I don't want to brood on the subject any more than I already am. I'm living my own pattern of excitement and loss in a bizarre tidal wave of emotions. As much as I'd like to spare myself the tedium of reliving each passing day by writing about it, that's what I actually wanted to do when I set out on this blog. So even if it's only a few lines, or an image that conveys my feelings of the day, that's what will happen.

Weather....or not

Now, I don't wish to sound as though I'm complaining (since so much of what I've written so far could come off in that vein if you weren't aware of my general sarcasm), but I don't own any cold weather clothing. The yard sale cleared me out of so many of the items I didn't wish to bring to England, and consequently, the majority of my winter wear. Let's be honest, I'm not expecting to need so many woolen turtlenecks in London. And I expect to replenish my wardrobe considerably upon arrival.

I'm also not a cold weather person. I have resigned myself to it in Ottawa and have subsequently purchased snow pants to combat my hatred of chills. But look at the difference in the forecasts today between London and Ottawa! I'm practically gleeful looking at London:

And then there's Ottawa. Today. Right now...outside my front door...brrr!

You'll all have to excuse me while I have a solo dance party in honour of my soon-to-be city and the best weather I could hope for it in October!

Only 45 days to go....

Working Weekend

We spent the bulk of this weekend running around, taking care of those little things that needed attention. Aside from some actual job-related to-do items, there was no end to the mountain of chores that had to be dealt with around the house. During the "heat wave" today we were able to tackle the yard clean up. I'm pretty aggressive at the best of times when it comes to cleaning out at the end of the season, but this year I made sure to go just a little deeper. I feel like I just have to assume that the people we're going to be renting to won't care for gardening and that I'll be back at square one with all those invasive plants when we return.

It seems now as though renting the house has turned a corner and will be a far less painful process than I had imagined. I'm waiting to see how it all turns out, but at the very least, we might have found a property manager we can trust and feel confident that we'll return to our house in *almost* the same condition. We did a little staging of the house to get some photos while the light was good. I trust this guy to know how to rent a house, but I think James and I could both agree that we didn't want to leave the photos to chance when they can place such a crucial role in getting someone to give the ad consideration.

Tomorrow is also our last Halloween for a while. Yes, yes, I've been told that England does Halloween, but let's be honest, it won't be the same. And I won't be packing up my extra-amazing Halloween decorations, so I'll be two years without strobe lights, smoke machines, misters and the other spooky accessories I've collected. So Halloween may exist, but it won't be my Halloween and I'll adapt to, and embrace, the ersatz version next year.

Crying

It's getting to that point for me and for my family that this move is real. I found myself crying at the most random and, let's face it, inconvenient times this week. My mother asks every day how many days I have left in Canada (she knows I'm using a tracking app to watch the days tick away). She's at the point where she's getting tearful just thinking about it and talking on the phone.

Then I have mornings like this one where I wonder why on Earth I'm crying. This is going to be fun. Better than fun. Amazing. And life-changing. And exciting. Crying is for sad things (mostly). This isn't a sad thing. The people in my life will still be there...I'll just have to work harder to connect with them. I've gotten some practice as of late in connecting with someone further afield than my own city or province. It's been very eye-opening to me that I can maintain a fulfilling friendship and a meaningful connection with someone on the other side of the country. I'm glad to have this friendship and know that even further distance won't disrupt this rhythm. That gives me hope for all those friendships I'm scared of losing.

Sounding off

Every day when I get home from work I turn on the Food Network and catch a little cooking action to inspire the creation of dinner. More often than not I end up sitting on the couch, tummy rumbling, wishing I was in their kitchen or that James would get home to make our meal. Today was no exception, however, there's been a line-up change and I'm now welcomed home by Jamie Oliver and his 30 Minute Meals. Fantastic.

Today's meal involved two things I really can't stand: yogurt and pita bread. That's a lie. I do actually like both of those items and eat them consistently. The problem is that I can't stand the way that most Brits say either of those words. They don't sound palatable to my ear (god, that's a bad visual). In London I will, of course, be surrounded by people who say these things in this manner and a whole slew of other pronunciation variations I've never had to contend with daily. And you know what? I'm going to be the one with the accent. I'll be the visitor from away and I'll be the novelty. This will be a new phenomenon for me. 

Anyway, I'm going to live. It's fine. I'll probably end up coming home with some sort of bastardised accent akin to Madonna's. Though, if I'm honest, I'd really like to attract as little attention as possible for my accent. Lucky me that Londonist had a clever little article about pronunciation pitfalls and that many of the comments were, in an uncharacteristic move for the internet, also helpful!

Yup. That's what I'm thinking about today. My funny accent. Not Occupy Wall Street. Not my carbon footprint. Not the soul-crushing reality of my shattered dreams. Just accents. 

Making the cut

Right now I'm trying to determine how to distill two years' worth of "life" into whatever boxes and suit cases we're taking with us to England. There are a lot of things to consider: will we go camping? do I need really cold cold-weather clothing? what if I want one of my books? how much would this cost to replace? And that question, the very last one, is where I'm stuck. Truth be told, I don't want to take much of what I own in my closet. I really would just rather take one suitcase full of clothing and acquire new items upon arrival. Who wouldn't relish the idea of starting over in a new country with a new wardrobe?? Can someone else try explaining this to my husband...he doesn't quite understand.

Tripping over blogs on the Internet this week, I happened upon a new (to me) one, The Cherry Blossom Girl, and am already in love with her style and her closet. And the, lo and behold, she puts credits on each post and a number of items come from asos. Can we talk for a minute about how I'm moving to England and I love this girl's style and that the pieces I'm coveting on her blog come from an online retailer based in England? I know! Fate! So now that our hotel is booked I have a two month UK address. I'm already pre-shopping.

Sorry James, I need some new threads.

Coming Clean

It bears pointing out that I am very excited about this move. As much as I know I'm going to complain, cry and generally find our itinerant lifestyle tedious over the next few months (ok, who are we kidding, right until we're in our own flat in March), I also acknowledge how incredibly lucky we are to be in this position. Not everyone gets this sort of opportunity. And certainly not with the same level of financial support. We are lucky. 

There. I've acknowledged it. I thank my lucky stars constantly that we're going, but that doesn't mean I can't do a little complaining and be honest about my situation. So, I'm going to complain in the upcoming two years, ok? But let's all remember that this post happened so that I don't have to worry about if people think I'm a spoiled diva or something. Apologies in advance for giving you that impression.

Awesome. Moving on.

It's kinda like...

I figured out this feeling I have all the time: it's low-level anticipation. It's the kind of anticipation you get when you're waiting for Christmas. Or your birthday, if you're not down with Christmas. Or maybe Halloween. Maybe you're just really into Halloween. Regardless, it's the type of anticipation that you can't do anything about. The date is fixed. You can't speed up time and you can't skip a few days to get there sooner. You just have to wait. And wait. And wait.

So I'm waiting.

The one really poor thing about this type of anticipation, however, is that (for me, at least) it leads to inactivity. I get so consumed by the end that I forget I have to continue living my life until it arrives. I can't just sit around the house hitting "sync" in Byline Reader on my iPad. Or playing endless rounds of backgammon against the computer as the clock slowly counts down. Heaven help me if that's how I spend my last less-than-two months in Canada.

My new mission is to include more "living" and less "waiting" into the daily routine. I have to get out there and see friends. I should probably also consider starting packing piles. And maybe plan a few going away parties. Probably a birthday party too, considering my 30th birthday will take place three days before we board our plane.

Right, time to crack on.

62 and counting

The days are running down faster than I expected.

We went to the cottage this past weekend for Thanksgiving. It was the last time that I'll likely see a number of my family members, including my brother. On the one hand, I was sad, but on the other it felt unreal in part because of how many days we still have in Canada and in part because of how ill I felt for unrelated reasons. It's a bit odd not knowing when I'll see my brother again. We've been apart more than we've been together during his lifetime, so it's normal for us in a way, but at least I've always known vaguely when we'd be face to face again.

My cousin is looking to visit us and I suggested she visit in January or February. I'd be thrilled if that actually came to fruition. We'll be living in our hotel for those months which makes it a little cramped, but it also means that I'll likely not be working and can show her around in proper tourist fashion.

Work has been all sorts of crazy lately. The store that I work for was sold and the new owners are relying on me to supply them with much of the information that they're going to need to run the store upon my departure. It's the absolute last thing I want to be doing during my last few months in Canada. I hate that this has been put on me during a time in my life when I'd really like to make work a secondary or tertiary concern. I've always put this job ahead of other aspects of my life and it makes me feel almost taken for granted that I'm going to continue to do so when the job and the future of the store has so little bearing on my future. *sigh* But I'm also not the sort of person who can do their job at a lesser level of satisfaction. It's like I've been trapped into this ordeal, without my consent and without any consideration toward my own quality of life.

So that's what's been making me crazy these last few months. Too much on my plate from a job that I won't hold in two months or be able to come back to upon our return to Canada.

Our accommodations are being booked today in London. After that, we'll have flights booked and all the other necessities. Our passports were renewed, complete with serial-killer-esque photo for me and a visa is in the works. The trip we're taking to Chazieux for Christmas has been planned and it appears we'll be taking an overnight ferry for part of the trip. I'm curious about this ferry business. I hated the overnight train we took from Paris to Florence. I can't imagine a ferry is any better.

Oh, and our yard sale was a huge success! I forgot to mention that people came in droves to buy our cast-offs, to the tune of nearly $900! It felt great to get rid of so much of our things, but it was also the coldest day of the month thus far.

One less thing to do. We must soldier on.

Not feeling it

Everything has been so time-consuming lately and it's left me feeling as though I'm disappointing a lot of people. I don't have time to do it all and it's starting to wear on me. I want to be able to see everyone and spend time with the people I care about, but I'm also stressed about not getting everything done in time for the move. It feels, a lot of the time, like people don't understand the amount of work this is for us. And for me especially, with work being a lot more hectic in the next couple of months for various reasons. I hate being made to feel as though I'm letting people down when I can't do it all, attend everything, commit to each person exactly when they want me to be there. I've never handled that well in the best of times, so right now is even more anxiety-inducing for me. I don't like the idea that I'll be leaving for two years, having disappointed the majority of the people I love and care for.

A little tiny freakout

Ok, so I was out with the dog this morning and thinking about the move...and then my stomach lurched. The time of day and the quality of the light reminded me of my first morning in England and the light around St. Pancras. I've had a few "whoa, this is happening" moments in the last few months, but none that were quite so vivid.

I'm so going to be that girl at the airport crying her eyes out as we depart from Canada.

Yard Sale Domination

This past weekend was spent staring down every item in our house and making the T.S.P. call. We were both working full-tilt and I think we covered more ground than both of us ever hoped to in two days. Our basement is jammed full of sale stuff and I'm thoroughly excited to get this sale done. The sheer amount of the items we're parting with was a surprise and we were so brutal in our decision making.

It feels like such a big part of prepping for our move and moving past this weekend will make me feel a lot lighter and closer to our date. Now the sorting and pricing begins...I do love a little project. Ha ha...

Gahhh!!!

Ok, I'm indulging myself right now and imaging a thousand wonderful things I want to do when we move to England. All I can really manage to type out right now (time is an issue this morning), is that I'm sooooooo excited!!!!

I just want to get there.

That is all. Back to your regularly scheduled day.

A whole lot of hurry up and wait

It's all been a little bureaucratic around here lately. Lots of filling out of forms (thankfully lawyers seem to be handling the bulk of this work) and then waiting for things to happen. We did, delightfully enough, have to renew our passports early. That meant a new passport photo. Too bad I wasn't thinking about that when I got dressed that morning. Oh well, it's just five years, eh? Suffice to say, I'm not legally allowed to leave the country for the next two weeks or so as part of the requirement was having your previous passport invalidated. I didn't have plans to go anywhere, but it does seem a little frightful to not have a passport at hand. I can hardly believe there are people out there (quite a lot in fact) who don't have a passport.

In other news, I'm sick this week. I've been on the couch for the better part of two days now and am rounding the corner on this head cold. I blame children. But, then again, I'll always blame children for things. While on the couch, I delved deep into Netflix and came up with the film, "Love, Actually" and I'm shocked to report, I've never seen it. James swears up and down he has, so I can only imagine when he found the time to watch it...without me. The setting is all sort of London-y at Christmas which wasn't lost on me. I'll be there in two months and 23 days. I cried a bunch and I'm fully aware that I will cry most of this holiday season, being away from my family as we will be. London is exactly what it was in the film: a setting. In my mind it's a film environment or a tourist destination. It's not a place to live. I'm going to find it very odd, I think.

I suppose I could also share that we have a potential place to live for the first 8 weeks or so that we're there. The accommodations are all taken care of for us, so we've been sent the Marylyn Lodge to look over and approve. I don't really know what more I'm supposed to require, so this looks sufficient. And I did lose about ten minutes to Google Streetview already. Have located several places of interest, such as a Starbucks and one place called The Peacock. I feel like this will disappoint me, however I set myself up for it....nothing that's actually called "The Peacock" is going to be half as good as I imagine it to be. At the very least, the area looks like it will accommodate my stomach on a whim, but it's downtown. The point isn't to have a heart and soul, the point is to be close to the financial district and, in this case, mere moments from Tower Bridge.

Our yard sale is not shaping up as quickly as I'd hoped, but the interest is high. It makes me laugh, every person I mention the yard sale to has the same response, "Oh, you guys have great stuff! What day is it??" I wasn't aware so many people were interested in securing little pieces of our life. Thankfully we're taking the time to do a thorough cleanse shortly and now we have the added pressure of not wanting to disappoint anyone. It actually makes parting with my "on the fence" items a lot easier.

Dance the night away

For two years running, The Reverb Syndicate have been ever-so-fortunate to be invited to play at Barnstorm. Last year the Soviet Sisters were able to come along, but this year we were one down and when there's only two of you, that's noticeable. So I didn't dance the show. But after the set our contingent headed over to the Chill Out Barn where we did get to dancing. I was mid-dance when I realised that this sort of dance breakout is going to be a rare event for me in the coming months. It takes a particular sort atmosphere and carefully curated participants to all get their groove on over the same music in the right mood for the night. We had that last night and I'm thankful. The ease with which this occurs in my Ottawa life will be harder to come by in my London life.

I've been thinking a lot about friends and friendships lately as I realise I may see the end of many of the more tenuous connections in my life with this move. I haven't tried as hard as I should with my friends. It's a trait I think I've picked up from my family: during my childhood my mother always had work friends and then a string of one-at-a-time supernova friendships that burned bright and strong then completely disappeared. My father might have other friends, but I really only know of one constant outside of the workplace and, even then, I'm not sure how often they're in contact. Both of my parents have cultivated strong relationships with our family, though, so please don't take this to mean they are hermits. And in the ten years since I've lived at home, I know they've expanded their circles quite a bit, but that's not the example I grew up around. Bearing this in mind, I see now that I didn't pick up the skills I think are necessary to really build and foster a friendship with my peers.

Yes, I have friends. I even have some great friends and some whom I'd consider to be quite close. But I don't put the right amount of effort into them and so I haven't done them justice. It used to make me very sad, but now I have lived with it for so long and have adapted my definition of "friend" to such an extent that I don't feel sad, though I do wish to improve on my efforts. In this one area, however, I have been incredibly lucky as two of our friends have impeccable taste in friends. This sounds a bit odd, I know, but they're masters. They've constructed an amazing group of wonderful people with solid characteristics and warm personalities that all support and encourage each other. Through contact with them, I've been able to share in this group and have had some of my most fun and memorable moments with these people. It was this group that I was dancing with last night and it's this group that I'm going to miss getting to know better in the coming couple of years.

I don't see my connections to this group as tenuous enough to break irreparably, but I do know that I'll lose others. This is a loss I'm willing to accept as I know I can have a direct impact on who gets lost in the shuffle and who stays the course. My brief sojourn abroad will give me a crash course in friendship-making and I look forward to making it work.

99

The stress is making me sick. There's a cold coming on and I just want to walk out the door and leave now. The piddly nit-picky parts of packing/prepping have worn on my nerves and I feel lonely all the time.

100 days, 100 nights

Tomorrow my countdown lurches (much like my stomach), into the double digits. It's alarming how short 100 days actually is when you stop to think.

My stress and concern for Penny has been assuaged. The trip to my parents' house went well enough. Tigg barely noted Penny and there was no bloodshed. I'm going to call that a success. What's more is that Penny loves the house. She's already commandeered spots that are now hers and there's so much carpet. At one point she was dragging herself across the living room purely by claw across the carpet. She was in compete broadloom heaven. That's one little stressor out of the way....now to confront the dozens more waiting in the wings.

It was actually alarming how my mood changed the second we returned to Ottawa. The stress and overwhelming feelings hit me and I was thrown right into the sort of mood where no one wins. I had no idea being in Ottawa and dealing with all of this was destroying me as a person in little ways. To remedy this, I think my only hope is to do as much as possible, as quickly as possible. That can't possibly go poorly, right? *eye roll*

The majority of our weekend was spent with my family helping them plan their European adventure. It was a lot of fun to get caught up in someone else's plans and forget my own. I'll be meeting up with the group of them about mid-trip in Chaziuex, France, where we'll also be spending Christmas this year. I'm looking forward to it all and will likely let that consume me for some time during the bleak English winter.

Chazieux, France

Our packing efforts got off to, what I thought at the time was, a good start. I've since realised one lonely box of yard sale-worthy books does not cut the mustard and a redoubling of efforts is called for on both our parts. I should probably be packing, not blogging right now...

Bumps in the road

Ok, I've been going back and forth about writing this and have finally decided that this blog is intended to write about our move....and this greatly affects the move. I cant very well continue discussing various aspects of this major change in our life without first addressing this, so I should write. We've had a bit of a bumpy road this past few days with some news we weren't expecting. No, I'm not pregnant...gross.

James' sister is not going to be moving into our house as we had previously arranged. I was panic-stricken at hearing this, though have since channeled my panic into a "get it done now" mentality. Obviously, this requires some context: we own a home in a beautiful part of Ottawa that is hard to get into and therefore we do not want to sell. We were so lucky to get in when we did and the particular factors that made it possible won't come up again. There is also the matter of the entire contents of said home, a perky little Mazda 3 and our cat Penny (yes, Penny Lane....James loves the Beatles in a manner which I can only compare to a bingo lady and her troll dolls). So, we have gone from the comfort of knowing we had to do very minimal packing and no rearranging of the house/car/cat scenario to an entirely diametrically opposed scenario wherein we are emptying the house, selling the car and sending the cat away with the dog.

I know, right? And the app on my iPad indicates that all this must happen in the next 104 days because that's how long it is until we move.

So here's where we stand: this weekend we are going to take the cat and the dog to my parents' house. No, we're not leaving them there yet, but we need to drive the four hours to Oshawa to put our Penny face to face with my Tigger and see how much blood is shed. Tigger is my cat, who lives with my parents and is, from experience, the meanest and toughest cat I've ever met. He adores me and my father and really does detest everyone else. You can only imagine how thrilled I am that we get to send our poor, lazy Penny to the Dove Killer (literally - our neighbourhood dove population rises and falls with his moods....though, I hear he has moved on to bunnies this summer). Here's hoping that by the end of the weekend they're friends because I really can't handle the stress of having Penny live with anyone other than my family at this point.

Then there's the house. Let's just say my little T.S.P. strategy is going to have to become far more aggressive. Americans-at-Black-Friday-door-crasher-sales aggressive. Part of going to visit my folks this weekend is being there to help my mother sort our her basement and spare spaces so that she can make room for our entire house full of stuff. Raw deal for my mom, non? After we have some space cleared, it's a matter of taking everything, packing it away and moving it all to Oshawa.

Good times.

And then, of course, there's the car. Well-maintained, reliable and still in remarkable shape. It's being sold. We don't see the point in parking it for two years and since James' sister won't be needing it (our entire motivation for keeping it with the house), it goes. I'm less shattered about this - I don't even drive. It's just one of those newly added items on our to-do list that I wasn't expecting.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, I suppose. We're still going and this is just something we have to deal with to make that happen. Besides, how nice will it be to completely pare down our life? In two years when we open those boxes and unpack what we deemed worthy to keep, we're going to have a house limited in clutter.

My biggest anxiety through all of this is the fact that we have to rent our house. I've never rented a property before and, while I know we are hiring a property management firm, I'm still horrified by what prospective tenants could do to the space I have spent three careful years crafting. I'm mentally (and physically) kissing my damask wallpaper goodbye. I can't see what surviving two years of renters and acknowledge that it will not be here when we return. That's the hardest part. Not knowing what will change and what will be worse off through this ordeal.

If I were 30 years older, I'd have adopted my family's newest slogan, "it is what it is" and have said that a thousand times in the last 48 hours. Sigh. It may be, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

A little underwhelmed

I've stalled a little....did you notice? First of all, I've told next to no one where to find this, so I know that I'm writing without the pressure of a dedicated audience (save for the few who have found me, clever you!). And I've also found it hard to write about the unknown. In many ways aspects of this trip are completely unknown to me yet and I have this notion in my head that I must write about the concrete and in multiple paragraphs with deep insight.

I'm going to blame this fixation on the other, more talented writers in my life whom I'm terribly fortunate to know, such as Wayne K Spear and Joel Crary. Every day as my RSS reader picks up stories from their respective blogs I am equal parts eager to read and dread to be reminded of my own languishing blog. Truth be told, both of these men are writers. It is their actual occupation and it's unfair for me to make comparisons between their output and my own. It's like repainting the bathroom and then throwing up my hands in disgust that I didn't recreate a faithful copy of "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe." I'm just that critical and unfair to myself.

Since I'm here though, I should point out that I have a notebook quickly being stuffed with ideas for writing and topics to explore. So, I'm getting there. If I can be permitted my awkward growing stage, I'm sure I'll find a way to maintain this that is both comfortable for me and interesting for you (the "you" who are already here and the "you" I will eventually share this with). For now that might mean getting up early to write....I read about this concept yesterday in an article that gave advice akin to the idea that an hour of work before noon is worth two after noon. Call me selfish, but I'd like that hour to belong to me right now.

One way ticket and the power of TSP

I've been reeling over the entire situation for a few weeks, clearly, but James said something the other day that completely hit me: when we get on that plane in December (in four months), we will be boarding with a one-way ticket. There's no return ticket here. We're off and going, for real. I've been getting tiny little lurches in my stomach thinking about this and what it means.

In getting my mind space ready, I've been thinking about our physical space and what needs to be done to clear out and pack. It all comes down to TSP. TSP is one of my family's favourite cleaning solutions. When we move into a new space, we always wash down the walls with TSP, even my lonely little rental apartments. When you clean the walls so thoroughly it makes a space truly your own. So in getting my personal space ready for this move, I'm going to be using T.S.P.: take, store, purge. If I'm not taking it and I don't feel like it's worth storing, then I must purge. We'll see what makes the cut.

Visitors visiting

We haven't even left yet and so many people have said they'd like to come visit. If even a fraction of them do arrive on our door step, we'll still have plenty to keep us from feeling the sting of homesickness for all that long. I get the feeling I'm going to become very familiar with the flat-to-airport tube run. Just knowing that so many people even want to come visit is a huge reminder of how much we're loved and likely to be missed. It feels good.

Top Five Tuesday: Food II

Since I went on last week about the five British foods I'm excited to get snacking on, I thought it only fair to make mention of the Canadian/North American fare I'm going to longingly miss....though I'm sure my waistline won't.

1. Poutine. I don't care what I come across there in terms of post-bar alcohol sop-ups, poutine is the tops. I don't eat all that much of it here, but I'm sure I'm still eating more an a normal, healthy body should.

2. Candy. Ok, again, I have to believe I will find suitable replacements for most of the candy I adore, but I know, from working in the industry, that certain items just won't be available. I'm going to try to refrain from begging care packages of mint cookie malt balls, but I can't be certain I'll survive without them.

3. Christmas dinner. I love my new family and appreciate their traditions and British-y customs, but I have to say, Christmas dinner at my house is my favourite meal of the year (a close second being Thanksgiving....which is nearly the same). British Christmas will not include my aunt's sticks or the perogies and kapusta. Or the endless cosmos. Heaven help me if there's a goose involved instead of a turkey. I've had Christmas pudding...it's about as appealing as wet socks. I think, beyond all other foods, Christmas dinner will be my "woe is me" pinnacle.

4. Art-Is-In bread...or really anything Kevin makes, for that matter. This bakery is, far and away, one of my happiest of happy places. The product is amazing. All of it. Every single thing. I don't think a week goes by where I don't eat at least two things from here, if not more. And the energy and excitement pouring out of Kevin is awe-inspiring. He's so talented and I'm going to miss seeing what he comes up with in the next few years. He's the mad genius of the high end food world and I'm very fortunate to have gotten to know him just a teeny bit.

5. Barbecue. To be truthful, I don't know how much barbecue there is in the UK, and I'm sure there's plenty, but I can't imagine we're going to own a grill. Given that the majority of our meals are grilled once the snow melts, I'm going to find it very challenging if we don't have a BBQ. There's a particular steak spice that I'll actually be packing a jar of, just to ensure we have some in London.

So there we go, a Top Five Tuesday on food I'll miss.

Snakes and cap guns

Tonight was the first night since we decided we're going that I'm genuinely sad to be leaving. Ironically, my night was spent at a going away party for two friends moving to Montreal. I'm getting to a place where I'm finally comfortable with the people in my life and truly excited that they're in my life....and we're leaving. I don't regret the decision to go, but as I've started thinking about all the people with whom I'd like to spend time before I go, I realize that I'm going to miss this group of people more than I believe I would have missed other groups in various times of my life.,,,if that makes any sense.

Two years isn't an especially long time, but it seems like a long enough stretch when faced with the knowledge that this group will change and evolve in my absence. I suppose it's all a gamble, but I'm going to miss them terribly.

D-E-G and so on

I had a moment tonight where it was just James and I and we were doing something together. It was spontaneous and exactly what I needed at that exact moment. I'm so very thankful that those moments exist and I'm reminded that, though our surroundings may alter and our "normal" turned on its head, we'll have each other through it all and, very likely, more of those moments.

And, just to really bring this back on topic to London, here:

A little cultural integration

As mentioned before, my cultural experience, where London is concerned, consists mainly of overly-curated film and television selections. I don't mind this one bit, but it occurred to me that I'd like to find the London equivalents for all the various city-specific online content I dearly enjoy here in Ottawa. My very first foray into this turned up The Londonist. This seems like a pretty all-around site for information and news-like items, however, I'm still trying to search out something a little more finely tailored to my interests. The search continues, however passively, for the time being.

On the plus side, London, unlike Ottawa has a far wider variety of iPhone and iPad apps in all sorts of categories. Perhaps I'll write up a little about them in the next little while.

Nothing to report

Ok, can I just say, I have nothing mind-blowing or insightful or overly humourous to say. I'm just really relishing the idea that I'm going to be living in London soon. When the years started passing and James and I set up some roots here in Ottawa, I truly believed my "get up and move a zillion miles away" stage was over and that I'd missed my chance. But here it is and I'm spending a lot of my waking hours thinking about how lucky we are and how much of an adventure this is all going to be. And in London, of all places.....when I used to think, in my internal story, where I'd imagine myself living it has always been London. *sigh*

Not everyone gets the chance to uproot themselves and start over somewhere in the safest and most secure situations. We really do have an incredible opportunity unfolding for us.

Top Five Tuesday: Food Edition

I thought it might be fun to keep a little running list of the Top Five topics related to the move. Some completely ridiculous and some totally conceivable. Like this one, for instance, this one is entirely reasonable: the Top Five Foods I'm Looking Forward to Eating More of in England!

1. Clotted Cream: this stuff is incredible and we will buy it from time to time, but it's imported, not so fresh and expensive. I can't wait to get my hands on some fresh clotted cream!!

2. Fish and Chips: self explanatory....I love fish and chips! The one portion I ate during my only other trip to London was not enough. I can't wait to hunt down a killer fish and chips.

3. British Sweets: ok, this is sorta cheating since I have access to a pretty awesome selection through my job right now, but there's so much more to British sweets that I'm looking forward to exploring and revisiting. Is it wrong that I want to position us geographically near a local confectionery so that I can keep my fix close at hand? Yeah...I might have a problem...

4. Curry: prior to meeting James, I didn't eat curry. I had a host of other culinary experiences, but curry never made it onto my radar. In fact, I didn't like curry for a long time after we met and I didn't have the heart to tell his kind, good looking man who kept making me dinner....so it happens that I learned to like curry. It's a good thing too, from what James tells me....he makes it seem as though that's all we'll be eating, but I suspect that's just wishful thinking on his part. For my part, I'm just eager for a few new curry experiences.

5. Monster Munch: if our friend Helen is to be believed, this is ambrosia for British people. I'll hold off on judging this one until I've sampled a few flavours, but let's just say, expectations are pretty high given all the praise and glory Helen has been heaping on this for years. I'll keep you posted.

So yeah, there we go....a Top Five Tuesday theme! Yay!

An eye-spy just for me

When this whole "move to London" event was just a dangling carrot for some far-away possibility, it was March. I remember this because we were preparing to leave for the airport while simultaneously downloading the job descriptions and requirements. We were headed to Vancouver to see good friends and family and now we had a sixteen page document to read on the way. If you know me at all, you'll know then, that once there was a remote chance of such an event taking place, I jumped on it and let it occupy my day-dreaming. This is nothing new. I fuel my day dreams with all sorts of themes and story lines, nearly all of which are as tangible as steam from a kettle. Regardless of where I am or what I'm doing, even if I am at my most content, I am always day dreaming of something else. It isn't a "grass is greener" phenomenon, it's the dialogue to the book I have in my head that I maintain simply for my own amusement.

Given all this, you can only imagine what sort of fodder a London job posting would provide! And then, as if preordained (in my head), this image appeared in my news reader.

Designed by Nick Prints, this is an adorable diagram of all that London has to offer. Can you believe that my mind immediately decided, "yes, well, better add a star to this reader item so that I can go back to it when I'm ready to write a blog post about it in my "moving to London" blog." See? Always dreaming and thinking and producing my own internal storyline. It was like my own personal sign that our move was already decided and we just had to wait out the details. Ok, well, not quite. I'm not nearly that much of a hippy...or any part of a hippy at all, really. But still, how much of a delightful coincidence to hear about the job posting and have this arrive less than a week later to further taunt me.

Anyway, as it stands, I really do adore this print and just might have to pick up a copy for myself once we arrive (I refuse to pay to ship something to Canada that I'm only going to have to drag back to the UK, even something as tiny as this). Then, I figure, I can go about using this as my checklist of what one should most certainly do whilst in London.

We're out of my shampoo

Seriously, this isn't as big a deal as the title makes it out to be, however, I ran out of shampoo. Ok, that's a lie, I ran out of the conditioner. But when they're a two-step treatment, when you're out of one, you might as well be out of both. And, of course, today was a hair washing day. So what does any of this have to do with London? Well, in a last-ditch effort to avoid using James' two-in-one that I will not name, I checked the cupboard for a miracle. As it turns out, I still had the shampoo and conditioner that I brought back from Italy! I set to work lathering up and remembered the ordeal of finding them in Italy and how in every country we've been to, we've always ended up searching for something completely pedestrian and how it's always an adventure.

I get the feeling that I will be living that experience, probably with hilarious results, over a period of a few months upon arriving in London. We won't be packing an arsenal of personal products in our suitcases and I sure as hell am not devoting precious cargo space to soap when I could be bringing over yet another "I can't possibly live without this" sort of item. So aside from our basic toiletries kit (James insists this is a "sponge kit"), we'll be stocking up upon arrival and the great product comparison will begin.

Now, don't try to assuage my lighthearted concerns with placating tones and reminders that they'll have many of the same items/brands. I've seen what a change in country (and thus market) can do to a product. Yes, favourite brand X exists there, but they call favourite item X something different and the packaging throws me off and I'm still standing in a chemists (pharmacy, mom) trying to piece together a memory of what I bought in Canada with the new offerings in England. And, let's be honest, they're not going to have my favourite body wash. That one is certain. So it's all trial and comically egregious error until we hit our groove. Good thing you get to follow along, eh?

A litany of surprises

Ever since we found out that this impending move really was going to happen and wasn't just some crazy story I'd used to fuel my day dreaming while lying in bed each night, I've been scrutinizing various aspects of my Canadian life to understand how my life will change once we're finally in London. Silly things, almost insignificant things, have occupied my mind in ways I never thought possible!

For instance, the day we arrive in London, I will have a pocketful of some currency I can't quickly identify and enumerate in my head. Sure, I'll figure this out in a jiffy, and this in and of itself doesn't seem like much, but I expect I will go through that process a hundred times over in the first week we're in London. When you start to add up all the little, insignificant differences, it actually amounts to, well, a lorry full of insignificant differences. Did you catch that? I used the word "lorry" instead of "truck" because in England that's what I'm likely to hear. I'm already going to stick out when I open my mouth due to my (hopefully endearing) Canadian accent, so no harm in leaving it at that and picking up some British terms before we've even landed.

I've learned that I am, if anything, very laid back and capable of adapting to these sorts of scenarios, so I have no fears of extreme culture shock or of a tearful outburst in a tube station when I'm asked to use an Oyster card and I don't see a fish monger anywhere. But I am learning that I relish in these little differences and quirks that will make living in London an entirely thrilling and endlessly amusing situation. For my part, I'm inclined to share these here, as social observation, and to help flesh out the "today I walked around and looked at stuff" posts that I'm sure are bound to run amok in tediously short time come December 2011.

Brass Tacks

Though I expect this will likely be the first place my mother looks when she wakes up every morning (once I finally tell her it exists), and will fuel my parents' insatiable need for more information about us, I have to imagine people who don't know me/us will stumble on by and maybe they'll have questions. Are you one of those people? Have you stumbled upon me neatly tapping away at the keyboard? If you are, here's some basic and not-so-basic info that might help:

• My name is Katie, I'm nearly 30, and I'm Canadian
• I have spent a grand total of five days in England prior to December 2011
• Through my husband (British citizen) and my own interests, I have a basic understanding of British culture, garnered almost entirely from Fawlty Towers, Little Britain, Spaced and anything done by Sue Perkins and Giles Coren that Canadian Broadcast Services deem fit to share with us on Canadian airwaves (and some that they don't...)
• Until December 2011, I work in a sweets shop
• My educational background is Classical Studies and Visual Arts (I'm heaps of fun in museums!)
• Mashed potatoes and gravy really are  meal unto themselves

So there you have it! This is likely worth expanding in the future, but for now, I'm sure this will suffice!

Oh, hello blog!

I've put up some fancy new digs here on the internet! James (husband) and I will be moving to London, England in a matter of months and we're going to be documenting our journey for family and friends back home. If others happen to follow along, the more the merrier! We're expecting to expand this to include separate blogs for us both as well as ways to find all of our other online content, but that's all to come. In the mean time, I want to get cracking on my own posts so that I'm already well in the habit before we even hit jolly old England.

Welcome aboard, this should be, if anything, amusing.