Part one: pictures, part 2: life

It’s been about 2 weeks and I feel like talking. So for those of you wanting a short, fun, picture filled blog…..well, I’ll talk about that first, but then, I want to share with you guys(for those who want to know or will read it) some thoughts, goals and ambitions that have been on my mind lately.

TO THE FUN BLOG!:
Over the past 12ish days since my last blog James and I have embarked on a number of daily adventures.


1) Vowing to stick to our newly capped budget (Let’s call that a new year’s resolution) so that when the time comes we can do things we want to do…like go to Paris-and afford it-for my birthday.

2) Two Sundays ago, the 15th, James and I had a day off together…but we ended up babysitting Tony (while mum was at the hotel working). We took him to the park

We took him down by the river to see the ducks and swans...

And I played around with my camera....alot.

3) We’ve stuck to our other New Years Resolution of going to Wye Leisure(our gym/spa) at least 2 times a week. We’re on by the skin of our teeth on that one, but some exercise is better than no exercise. Unfortunately yesterday, and today (and probably tomorrow too) we’re unable to go to the gym because they’re doing maintenance on it…so by the end of this week we will probably go twice in a row to make up for the fact that it’s been closed.

4) This last Sunday, I was woken up yet again by the pitter patter of Tony feet. Mum was working at the hotel again, so she brought tony into town and had him dropped off at the flat for me to look after him. So I took him to the park again.

Hanging out with Tony is alright and I don’t mind it so much, but it’s the fact that it’s sprung on me, on my day off, when I’m unprepared for it, and NO ONE ASKS me if it’s alright that I look after Tony. It’s just assumed. And you know what they say about the word assume…it makes an ass- out of –u- and –me-.


That’s all for the fun picture blog. Serious life changing blog/Jenny rant blog is up next:

RANT!
I’ve been thinking a lot about life, rent, how to get by, what I want to make of my life, etc, etc, etc. Since our recent spending spree over Christmas, James and I have been thinking of new ways to ‘cut the budget’ so we can afford our Paris trip which is half paid for, as well as affording rent and such.

So far, our rent gets taken out at the end of every month and we’ve paid our property tax(called council tax over here) up until march. That’s standard. But we have yet to see an electric/gas bill in the FOUR MONTHS we’ve been here. We’ve talked to the company we switched to and they said they’d take care of telling the current company that they’re now in charge of our property gas/electrics. Well, we haven’t seen a bill, new or old and we still have power so, I’m not complaining. It just puts us a little on edge that no one’s contacted us to read the meter(cause it’s inside our gated complex), and if and when we DO get a bill we have NO clue how high it will be.

Our other, more ongoing problem is that we spend way too much on food when we could be cutting back to save money. Food is standard, but when you’re poor you can’t afford to be eating like you live in a hotel. James has been brought up with ‘fancy food tastes’ as I call it. He can’t just have simple mac and cheese, so we buy things that jazzes up pasta to his taste. It’s good, but we’ve spending money we can’t afford to garnish our food. And when we ‘run out of food’ the excuse it always, “it’s okay. I have some tips from tonight”. Tips and wages alike, I think all money earned should be put to good use. So…that way of thinking worries me.

Thinking about money in the long and the short run: Short run is, can we afford our living? Rent, bills, etc? And the long run is a lot more ‘what if’. What if we can’t save enough money for our future? James’ plan in life is to open his own restaurant/hotel/etc once his father either fires him or sells the hotel. If we don’t have any money saved up, and something suddenly happens that lands him out of a job, how can we afford to start our own place(oh yeah, his dream involves me working with him). I know there are certain securities to working with your father…father owns business, you have job for as long as that stays the status quo. But if he sells the business to retire, suddenly, your secure job is poof! It makes me worry.

And then there’s other future plans: Travels, babies, buying a house, pets, and career plans.

1) James and I have plans to travel all over the place, including back to America for my last brother’s wedding(whenever it may be) and to visit my parents, ESPECIALLY when it’s their time to leave us(whenever that may be). But with all these places we want to go (some of which include France, Italy, Germany), how are we ever going to afford to go to them if we can’t save money properly? Our forever fluxing bank account tells us that as soon as we put money in, more money gets taken out for our expenses. So, to me that means we need to cut back on things to save money, or make more money.

2) Babies. Don’t worry, there’s none yet. But when we do have kids, that’s another expense that is going to be difficult for us. Babies are needy and money hoggers. As soon as I can’t work and have to take care of a child, our bank account will decrease rapidly to negative intervals, unless we have money saved aside. Again, this tells me that before we think about having kids, we need to change our spending patterns and save.

3) Buying a home. A standard. But James is very specific in what he wants our dream home to be, which I’m fine with. It’s just financially, it’s the more expensive option. We want a little country house with fields around us and a nice garden. Whether we get a house like this in future years is completely up to our financial stability.

4) Pets. James is forever a dog person so we have leveled with each other and decided that later in our middle age when we’ve got a house with a garden, we’ll buy(because no one will ever GIVE you a dog here…you have to BUY dogs) a Malamute Husky puppy…which will set us back a few hundred pounds. Dogs are expensive.

5) Career.

I’ve thought a lot about what I want to do for a career. Something that would actually make us more money than me working part time, minimum wage and barely getting by. I’ve thought about being a school teacher(I’ve been told, you can get a teaching degree over here by 2 years of schooling and interning simultaneously). I’ve also thought about being some sort of RN, in a hospital, or a mental institution because there are LOADS of jobs going for Nurses in the Herefordshire County. I’ve also thought about going back to Psychology, but I don’t know how successful that would be over here. It seems like there’s more therapy jobs in demand for all the Yuppy, over-reacting Americans than there is a need for them here.

All of these jobs though, take money. Money to go back to school and study. And I don’t know if I can handle going to school, spending money to GO to school, and not working all that I can so that we stay afloat. But at the same time, I want James and I to have our best chance at a good life and for that to happen we need a more stable income than me being paid the same amount in a month, that I could earn in a week at six flags.

In a way, I kind of want to take a chance on my artistic side and see if I can start my own business. Like writing. Has Nanowrimo prepared me to take the next step to revising and trying to publish books? Or, alternatively, I’ve recently thought about learning to use my camera better, so that I can take pictures and sell canvas photos. Ya know, take artsy photos and then have them printed on canvases to sell to the public. But I don’t know if I could actually pull it off to make a bit of quick dosh(cash).

If any of my friends/family are reading this and have an opinion of it, please share.

News, if you can call it that

I've been bugged by a few people about when I'm blogging next. I try not to blog unless there's something important or big happening, but here are this month's highlights so far...the little stuff:

1. James and I working more hours because people are sick/unable to come in/let go/etc. Us working more = More money

2. We spent way too much on Christmas and James' birthday London trip so we're trying to bump up our bank account. SO far, it's looking pretty good because we're not spending money too much and we're being penny pinchers until my birthday in February. ALong with living expenses, we have my birthday, my friend from America--Krystyne--coming over, and a belated birthday trip to Paris ALL in february to come. So, money is essential. For living, and for saving up for my birthday.

3. Since December, James and I have been going to the Gym, Wye Leisure. It's a very nice facility (hopefully pictures will come soon so I can show you how posh, nice, it is). We've been there at least once a week, even when our schedules are crazy(except for Christmas...because we were Christmasing and then Londoning). Last week we managed to go twice, which is good and this week we aim on going 3 times (once already, hopefully again tonight, then Saturday as well).

These machines kick your bum. When you sign up they put you on a "program", basically what they know you can achieve on each machine based on a physical assessment they do at the start.

Coolest part about this Gym is that all the machines are on a key tog system. You insert the key into the tredmill or the abdductor machine and it programs the machine to set itself to the specifications set in your program. You CAN change it on the machine...for instance, if lifting 30kg is too light, you can change it to 35kg or whatever, but when you "Check out" at the end of your gym session on this little kiosk at the door, it will tell you which exercises you haven't completed, or which ones you've done more training than your program expects you to do. It's really cool. And it's hard. I struggle, but it's because I'm out of shape.

4. I FINALLY got the right SD card for my camera. So, I've been taking pictures ALOT and messing around with my cool new Samsung Multiview camera. There's some really odd, but really cool things it can do.

My husband's head on a graffiti wall and on the cover of a newspaper, courtesy of the "Magic Frame" feature.

Again, my husband, the subject of every shot practically. This time messing around with level, brightness, and contrast.

A week or so ago we went up to Mum's house and took the dogs for a walk through the fields. I brought my camera to mess around with some scenic photography...and got some of my husband and the dogs too.

This is one of the 'vintage' effects, making it look like an old timey photo with the center somewhat faded and the corners of the picture dark.

Classic black and white. COOOOOOOL tree picture. I fell in love with this shot when I took it.

Vintage, faded picture again, this time of some trees and a duck pond with loads of ducks.

And I'm not sure if these will come out full view, but these are some panoramic shots my camera took from the top of the hill. Look at all that beautiful countryside.

Those are the highlights for now, for those of you who want to keep up on all the latest news.

Hopefully I'll write again soon,

Jenny V

Christmas Day, and the surrounding events

Christmas has been a big deal this year, and yet it’s been such an epic fail at the same time. Let’s get all the sad soppy things out of the way, shall we?

This Christmas has been, let’s just say, one of my least favorite. I’ve missed my family terribly as well as our family traditions. Christmas in England this year have been delayed at best. Decorations and getting a tree became most of a task than an adventure. I tried so hard to do everything I could, but I just couldn’t get into the Christmas spirit. Finally, 3 days before Christmas I made my last attempt at trying to make Christmas in England feel Christmasy—I tried to make a batch of 4 different holiday treats that my mom makes every year, so I could take some into the girls at work and some for the Vidler family for Christmas day. I started making cookies as soon as James and I got home (which was 9pm) and baked until 1am resulting in a break down crying fit, and my hubby consoling me. I exclaimed, ‘It doesn’t feel like Christmas unless there’s my mom’s holiday treats!’ and I was trying so hard to do everything myself instead of asking him for help. Finally, we, together, made up all the treats and headed to bed.

That’s the sum up of me missing my family and Christmas in Cali.

With that out of the way, here’s Christmas with the Vidlers:

The ENTIRE Vidler family had to work on Christmas day, aside from 7 year old Tony who hung out with me all day. We watched TV/movies that he brought over, he opened his presents, I made him a hot chocolate with his new SpongeBob mug that we bought him for Christmas, and then we went on a treasure hunt that led to the Hotel. I planned a Christmas Treasure hunt for Tony, which he loved, that made him go from Clue to clue (like the games my parents did for us every Christmas), that led him eventually to a treasure box with a combo lock on it. He had to figure out the combination, then inside was all his favorite things: Spongebob magazine, marahmellows, sweets, a giant Christmas pen, lego starwars figure…and I even let him keep the treasure box which I didn’t plan on, but he asked me if he could keep it. :)



Doing the treasure hunt with Tony was the first time it actually felt like Christmas to me for more than a few minutes. Then we had dinner at the hotel with the rest of the family. The Hotel was closed and locked, Harry warmed up the leftover courses, Sam and Alice served/brought everything to the table, James Sr. whined impatiently (he wanted to go up and take a quick nap before having to come down and open up the bar at 6pm again for the Christmas drinking crowd), and everyone helped clear the table and get things ready for the evening before heading back to the Dam Barn to open presents.

Opening presents went faster than I’m used to. John(the eldest brother, visiting from Manchester) was impatient and wanted to open up presents and ditch the family for the pub as soon as possible….but then again, that’s the way John is. My hubby, and Alice, got me a brand new Samsung MultiView Digital Camera. It’s AMAZING! And what I wanted….just years down the line when it wasn’t the most expensive new thing on the market (hence why they went halvesies on it). It’s a cool camera—the view screen flips 180* so you can do things like a self portrait shot and still be able to look at what you’re taking a picture of on the screen. The other feature this camera has that my old camera doesn’t(a feature I would LOVE to have all the time) is SOUND on the video. For some reason my old camera doesn’t have a mic on it, so I’ve been only getting video without sound.

Anyway…I haven’t been able to test out my camera yet because the guy James bought the camera from sold him an SD card, but the camera only takes MICRO SD, so we’re sorting that out soon.

James’ big present from me this year was a Gamer bean bag Chair. It’s blue and white(Chelsea football colors, which is his favorite), and has a back rest as well, so it’s like having another chair in the flat. HE LOVES his bean bag chair. And it's HUGE! He;s obsessed with sitting in it and sometimes will opt out of cuddling on the couch, just because it's so comfy. Just as well that he's obsessed with it, cause he got some new games for Christmas as well.


Other Christmas presents, just to recap:

Greg and Annie got us a Brita water filter(James LOVES playing with it for the first time, and now we’re drinking loads more water. THANK YOU!)

Mum and Dad(McClellan) got James a pepper mill and me an electric heating pad(which we were thrilled to each get. THANK YOU!!!)

Steven and Jeni send us over these cool picture frames. (Unfortunately one of them got chipped/cracked during shipped, but they ARE still functional, and it adds more character to the frames...so thank you!)


Alice gave James a stir fry pan and a Kenwood all in one mixer, so that will be put to use. And other than that we got an assortment of personal presents….bath bombs n’ soaps, video games, Bath and Body works lotions and hand sanitizers, MALT, DVDs(Harry Potter, Easy A), etc, etc, etc. The only other thing is that mum and dad sent us over a box of ‘little presents’, but I had WAY more to open than James…simply because they didn’t know what cheap gifts they could send him, so I ended up buying him 2 cheap Music Albums on play.com to make up the difference.

CHRISTMAS soon ended, and James’ Birthday began. For his birthday we went to London(2/3 hours drive) to see a Chelsea Football match. I even put on a Chelsea jersey to cheer on my hubby's favorite team!

James wore his Chelsea Christmas hat that Tony gave him as a gift. Goofy looking, huh? tehehehe

After that we went to Hard Rock Café for his birthday Lunch/Dinner,


And then we went across the street to Hyde Park and Winter Wonderland Carnival that we went to last year.

There was MUCH MORE to it than last year. There was a Bar that was literally on a rotating platform that was furnished like a Carousel.

There were cool shops like a place that made wooden ties, and another stall which homemade soaps and bath stuff that were made to look like cakes, cupcakes, etc. VERY decadent stuff.

The rest of our 2 day London was spent sightseeing, but unfortunately which we were there we were sick. I had been sick for most of December, but it got worse while we were in London and ended up giving it to James. Luckily, it was after his birthday! So, he ended up having a good birthday on Dec 26th, then everything went to crap on the 27th and things started going array.

We had planned to get up early the 27th to go to Cambridge Theatre and snag two cheap tickets to Matilda the Musical(a fantastic show that we lucked out on seeing last year in Stratford before it because popular and went to the West End…the London Broadway basically).

Unfortunately, because we were sick, we decided to sleep in and only get there 30min before the box office opened at 10am, and there were already 15 people in line. They were only handing out 8 tickets at 5 pounds each for people under 26 years of age, and we were there too late. So instead, we ended up getting breakfast at this Café across the street from the theatre and sulking.

Sulking soon turned into happiness, when the food turned out to be amazing and distracted us from the sadness of not having gotten tickets.

After food we had a bit of time to kill, but during that time, we were traveling and ended up in Kings Cross Station, we decided to go try and find the Harry Potter bit--Platform 9 and 3/4 that we couldn't find last year because of all the construction. Wef ound it, and that also made me momentarily happy.

The other thing planned for the 27th was going to meet up with my friend Crystallynn, from California. She was in London for 2 weeks which coincided with our London trip so we planned to meet up in a pub in Camden. Unfortunately, because of a combination of tube closures and our own stupidity for staying at the Sherlock Holmes museum too long, we ended up getting to the pub an HOUR later than we had planned to meet up. With NO phone number and limited facebook access, we missed our meet up and I was completely distraught.

We ended up wanding around Camden for the rest of the day, then going back to the hotel to rest. At least the Sherlock Museum was good, right?

Here's a picture of James on a bench at Baker Street Station, the station right next to the Sherlock Museum.

The famous Baker Street Station has been connected with Sherlock for decades and there's always been little Sherlock sillouettes on the tiles on the walls, but since the new movie came out there are promotional posters too which I think adds some character to it as well.

James being Sherlock, by the Statue of Sherlock Holmes outside Baker Street Station.

Inside the house we took loads of pictures but these are the ones I liked the best with us in them.

James on one of the staircases, with the old ugly carpet on them.

Basically the museum was in the Sherlock house, 221b Baker Street, and was spread out in the rooms of the house, which carried up 4 stories. On the last one there was only a toilet(hence my weird pose here:)

and a small little bit/ladder that led up to the attic, which was filled with props of luggage.

Here's me in Camden, eating at one of the Moped seated bench tables outside some food stalls in the Camden Lock.

James, feeling sickies and still looking cool on the London underground.

Later that night we went for food at an American Style Diner(because James, still sick, desperately wanted a milkshake and a coke).

More travel on the tube......

And we were back at the hotel. We sent Crystallynn a message on facebook in a desperate attempt to meet up again, and luckily, she checked her facebook, sent a message back and gave us a location they were going for lunch the next day to meet up at.

I was NOT going to miss this chance again, so we located the place where they were going for lunch an hour later, then ended up killing time wandering around Trafalgar Square (which was close to where the café was).

Finally, at long last, we meet up with Crystallynn and her friend. We had lunch together, then went to this Benjamin Franklin house nearby.

It was more of a bragging rights “this is the oldest building still standing, with original floorboards, where Benjamin Franklin lived”. That sort of thing. The collest part is that they had a replica upstairs of the Glass Armonica, that Ben Franklin invented, and you could actually PLAY it! So we had a go at playing it—which is a bit like playing the piano. The gold bits on the rims of some of the glasses were the equivalent of the black keys on a piano.

After that we hit the pub, and I introduced Crystallynn to the greatest drink ever—WKD(wicked). I keep saying it’s basically liquid Sourbelt candy in alcoholic form. AMAZING!
After that it was goodbye and goodnight for us.

Since it’s tradition, here’s some pictures of our hotel room:

The hotel was extremely nice. They upgraded our room to an Executive suite on the top floor (7th) of the hotel, which had a great big bed, and a luxury bath tub. Very nice. We like…especially free upgrades. (BTW James is being weird, he was in every shot, and made funny faces/poses in each one, don't mind what he's doing). :P

The only other picture I have is one of James on our way back to Ross Vegas. He looks proper American Mogul here with his coffee and talking on his phone. I thought it was funny.

-JM