London!

Ben & Winston

London…was a blurry trial run.  It is crazy to be so close to such a destination that it doesn’t really feel like you are traveling.  We drove the hour to Epping and hopped on the tube (greatest invention, layout and most efficient public transportation I have ever seen, I'm in love) and rode the remaining half hour or so into Victoria Station.  We wound our way out of the thousands of people coming and going through the station to hunt for our hostel.  We were right near Buckingham Palace, and I knew our hostel was in the other direction from the palace so we stopped and asked a doorman in the raddest top hat and green tails for directions.  We both were dressed too warm for the beautiful sunny day that was upon us, and were getting hungry for lunch.  We kept marching around, referring to our directions, to various maps, etc.  When we finally found it, we were both ready for some pub food and a cold beer.  Alas, the girl at the front desk of the hostel told us that we couldn’t check in without passports, even though our confirmation stated ANY form of government issued ID would be sufficient for check-in.  Being that we both have 4 other forms of ID, including British drivers licenses, we thought we would be fine.  Not so much.  RAGE.  On top of that, they decided to still charge us for the night even though they wouldn’t allow us to check in.  MORE RAGE.  Off to the dispute department I go.  Eff YOU White Ferry Hostel. 

We decided to go find some food and beer and try to hunt for sleeping quarters for the evening.  After some fish and chips and Kronenberg we were feeling much better and called the husband’s favorite hostel to see if there were any rooms open for the night. There were! Hooray! But husband failed to give his name and rode on the statement that the hostel guy gave to ‘come on over’…so by the time we got there the room was gone and I got slapped in an all girls dorm and he in an all dudes.  EPIC RAGING.  I slept in the dudes’ anyway.  Luckily a couple other chicks thought like me and the rest of the occupants happened to be out taking various mind-altering substances until 5 am so they didn’t notice the extra bodies as they stumbled around mumbling various Cheshire-cat-like statements and touching each other. 

We saw Wicked while we were there, which was amazing…especially from 4^th row seats!  I’m totally on the ‘bad’ witch team now. 

The next day we did some touristy things, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, Hyde Park, Big Ben, London Bridge, etc.  See pictures here!  There was also a marathon going on that day, which added to the zillions of people marching around.  They are building and prepping for the Olympics as well of course, which is cool to see.  Even with that many people everywhere, the city still emanates chillness and a relaxed atmosphere.  The architecture is beautiful, and there are still a ton of places that I want to go in the city that can’t possibly be crammed into one weekend.  So once the Olympics  are over, there will be many more weekend trips to London to explore.  Its really nice to know its only a short drive and tube ride away… what a privilege :)

On the homefront, all of our stuff gets here next Friday! Cannot WAIT! We are sleeping under a sheet and cooking in the most wretched pans…lol.  Next weekend will be unpacking joyousness! The job is going great, I work with a fabulous group of people and love what I am doing.  Driving on the other side of the road is fine, the roads here are horrifying however.  A huge part of our orientation was about how many airmen have been killed in the surrounding area in car/motorcycle accidents.  It is a ridiculous amount. We tragically lost another one on Monday, my heart goes out to his friends and family :( I am not looking forward to the roads in winter here. 

This weekend, the exploration of farm shops continues!

With love and gratitude,

Mini Mania!

Minis everywhere!! Old ones, new ones, pimped out ones, crazy painted ones…they are skating around in droves like dirty Chevys in Montana.   I want one!  Someday.  That day is not today.  But when that day comes, this is what it would look like.  Mmmmmm. 

My next fantasy ride. Envision grey rather.

But I digress.  As of May 22^nd, we officially reside in our little English bungalow! It is so lovely and wonderful, I wish you could walk barefoot in our thick, luscious oh-so-green backyard.  We got very lucky and got assigned a 3-bedroom place with a fenced yard.  Some people don’t get a fence even if they have dogs, so we are super grateful for that on top of the general amazingness of life right now.  The dogs are the happiest little scheisters you could imagine.  They have been frolicking and prancing and jumping and rolling and drooling and smiling their little faces off.  We’ve been exploring random footpaths that lead to always beautiful places; one ended up at a small river with 4 huge swans paddling around, one of them perched on a massive nest while giving us the stink eye.  The pigeons here are also enormous.  I think they could fight a chicken and possibly prevail.  The poo that they fling from the sky is proportionate, and somewhat frightening. 

It is a truly wonderful life.  Last night I was finally able to empty the two massive suitcases that I have been living out of for the past month and a half. Granted, we only have a few hangers and shelves since our stuff isn’t here yet.  But the suitcases are officially put away, which brings me much joy.  As I write this, we are sitting on our loaner couch in our empty living room with the doors and windows open, the breeze blowing through, the sound of lawns being mowed and my most favorite scent of fresh cut grass wafting through the air.  Something that I have been dreaming of for a very long time now is also happening.  Simplicity.  Since the day I moved to Seattle back in 2005, life has been rather chaotic.  Not the bad kind of chaotic, just the crazy-busy-commuting-going to college-working-interning-trying to have a social life too and not sleeping enough or exercising enough kind of chaotic.  Which I suppose sounds bad as I re-read it, but I loved every single second of it.  I was working my ass off to get what I wanted out of life in many aspects, and reaped great rewards for it.  But I of course always thought of the day when I would be done with school, done having to intern, have more time to paint, sleep, exercise and cook a normal meal, and miracle of miracles, not have to sit in my car for two hours per day to get to work and back.  Well that day has finally arrived.  I not only don’t have a commute, but I can WALK to work.  While surrounded by grass and trees and chirping birds.  And I can get up every morning and go to Crossfit.  And I can walk home from work, cook delicious healthy food while watching our dogs flip for joy in the backyard, and not have any homework.  Which means I can paint. And read for pleasure.  And go to sleep at a decent hour like an old person.  On top of all this, I have a job and working environment that is perfect for me, an absolutely incredible husband, wonderfully supportive friends and family, and we freaking live in ENGLAND.  To add to the simplicity, we have one very low-cost car, no rent, no utility bills and no cell phone bills.  Just internet.  JOY. 

We also went on our first adventure to LONDON this weekend, which is another blog altogether once I get the pictures edited! AND all of our stuff gets here Thursday!!! Wheeeee!!!

Slowly Settling

Hooray for artistic talent that is beyond my comprehension...

So I am officially in-processed and I start my new gig on Wednesday!  For the first time in my life, I have my very own, massive office with a huge window and a couple of delicious vintage-y leather chairs, and endless wall space to hang art of my choosing! Soooo very excited!! I also passed my driving test and have obtained my British license, which is a relief.  Not that I’m looking forward to navigating massive speeding roundabouts, but apparently I’m legal to do so. 

We move into our place on Tuesday, which I am also incredibly excited for.  No more pooing the dogs on leashes!  Our furniture and things may arrive sooner than I expected as well, which will bring me much joy.  I am particularly excited for our bed and bedding, my good knives, my magical garlic roller and drawers and drawers of art supplies.  It’s funny the things we end up missing the most.  My husband is of course excited for his reunion with the 52” flat screen and blu-ray player.  And most of all, we will be hugging the grill and slinging tasty slabs of meat and veggies all the live long day.  Stove top meat just doesn’t cut it anymore I guess. 

The last couple of weeks my mind has also been consumed by the development of my shop on Etsy.  This has been something that has been on my mind for a long time now, since my discovery of Etsy a couple years ago.  I’ve never been good at marketing myself or talking about my work, I think mostly because I don’t feel like I can ever explain it well enough to convey what prompted the creation in the first place.  I also have always felt strange about profiting off a gift/talent that I was born with.  It can be quite the conundrum.  But as I get older, I feel less strange about it and have more of the mindset that – if I can create something that brings someone else joy, and they are willing to pay to own it, then that begins to construct the dream that everyone has of getting paid to do what you absolutely love to do in life.  So that is the direction I’m trying to head.  Another slight obstacle is the fact that I love to paint massive paintings on thick-edged canvases, which results in outrageous shipping fees for myself/the buyer.  So I’ve been working on ideas for products that serve a purpose, are functional, beautiful, depicting of my style, which I enjoy creating and are affordable for the buyer and inexpensive to ship.  Enter the silk painting class that I had been hunting for for months – the weekend before we left Phoenix.  Perfect.  I fell in love, and painting super rad and beautiful silk scarves fits all of the above criteria.  So while I’m still going to be painting giant canvases as I see fit, I am also transitioning into 8”x56” silk painted scarves as well.  I’m thinking about starting another page within this blog that is solely dedicated to the artistic process once I get my studio set up in our new place.  I think it will be really interesting to be able to look back on pieces and the making of as I move forward with this.  It will take me a bit to build up the inventory of course, there is a steaming and hand-washing process that comes after the painting is done, but I’m really looking forward to the whole process and the finished product and of course seeing the shop itself come together.   

Send good creative energy please!!

With love and gratitude,

Em

Bury St. Edmunds

Trying to call the monks.

We went on a little adventure today!  Click here for more photos!  Bury St. Edmunds is a lovely little town about 30 minutes from base with an incredible cathedral and abbey gardens and ruins.  The cathedral and ruins are only a sliver of what used to stand before Henry VIII decided to abolish all things established by Catholic authority.  St. Edmund is a martyr that died at the hands of the vikings in his refusal to deny Christ.  After Henry banished all the Catholic monks and told them to get new jobs, they forgot (I think on purpose) to tell anyone where the body of Edmund was buried; I would imagine to prevent it being exhumed and destroyed by tyrants.  It was a  beautiful day and a beautiful sight.  So much history and fabulousness.  And tasty pub food! Hooray!

Dog Poo Dreams

So have you ever been woken from a dead sleep by the aroma of something nearby?  Just the other night I was dreaming of being on a train, trying to make sure that some babysitting plans for some random child were confirmed, when all of a sudden little piles of dog poo started appearing in the aisle of the train car.  As I realized what they were, the smell of hot, steaming dog shit overtook my senses and I awoke only to poke my husband awake to tell him that Henry had, yet again, taken a massive, overwhelmingly smelly dump in his kennel.  He isn’t adjusting well to the move let’s just say.  It doesn’t help that the temporary housing facility lacks fences and we are required to keep them on leashes at all times.  I mean, would you really want to take a crap while someone had a rope tied to your necklace? Me either.  Thankfully Scarlet is a shameless pooper so we are only cleaning half the stank that we could be.  I am counting the days until we get to move in to our wonderful home with a fenced yard – May 22^nd!

Remnants of jet lag are still lingering, and the change in number of daylight hours is an adjustment as well.  I woke up this morning at 0430 to head to Crossfit and it was getting light, and we go to bed at 1030 and it is barely getting dark.  I wasn’t expecting that, I didn’t think our longitudinal difference from Montana/Seattle was that large.  I hear that in the winter though it makes up for it.  I prefer the light hours of course :) Today was my first day back at Crossfit in almost three weeks, and I was scared I was going to have lost much of my momentum but I can still do all of my pull ups and still jump just as high – hooray! 

This week was full of orientations, briefings, paperwork, meetings, and a ton of other stuff I can barely remember.  The Chief here is very personable and inspiring, and the Brits working on base through the Royal Air Force are fabulous as well.  There is very much a sense of community here, and people are much more knowledgeable, helpful and kind than I experienced at our last location.  It is lovely.   I take my driver’s test next week; lots of crazy signs to memorize but much of it is perfectly similar so I’m not too worried.  AND I got an official job offer about two minutes ago, so that is a weight off the shoulders as well!  I definitely wasn’t expecting to snag such well-fitting employment so quickly and I’m very excited! 

Tomorrow we are going to Bury St. Edmunds for the day to explore, and Saturday we may head to Ely to see one of the oldest and largest cathedrals in the world.  I hear it is a magnificent sight, and I’m excited to have some good photography opportunities finally!  Photos to come!!