Life in England...

WOW – 3 blogs in 2 days?!? Definitely a record! Here are some things I’ve been meaning to write for awhile…just to give you an idea of life here. I think I was better about that when I was in St. Maarten, but that’s probably because I complained about everything, especially in the beginning! No use complaining I’ve realized – just figure it out and move on. Life is different, but different isn’t always bad! Anyway, some of it is interesting…

We have a washing machine next to the kitchen sink. It is about half the size of a washing machine from home. There is no dryer!!! This freaked me out at first. We bought a drying rack at Tesco and keep a sheet spread out in the extra bedroom to lay some shirts flat to dry. Everything actually dries really well. I feel so grateful to have a washing machine that I don’t even care that I don’t have a dryer! (Ricky and G have to use the laundry room in their building. It costs 3 Pounds to wash a load and 1 Pound to dry a load. The machines there are normal sized at least, but we still feel like we save a ton of money by washing here!!! Plus, I don’t have to carry laundry anywhere, which is sooooooooooooo nice!!!!)

Our shower curtain only goes halfway to the back of the shower. The back half of the tub isn’t covered at all and little water droplets end up all over the bathroom. This drove me crazy at first. Oh well – at least we have a tub and shower! We don’t have any towel racks in the bathroom. We have to hang our bath towels in the extra bedroom. This may not seem like that big of a deal – till you forget to grab it before going in to take a shower!

We only have 2 actual windows in our apartment…one in the kitchen and one in the living room. They open at an angle - about 4 inches wide each. There are no screens on the windows! Bees like to fly in here! We’ve had to chase 3 out now! Yuck! We do have several skylights, which are great for letting in natural light. I never need any lights during the day. The skylights open too, but I can’t reach them. I don’t really think I need to be standing on chairs to open them, so I’m usually stuck with them closed unless Phillip is home! We do have a heater, but no air conditioning. That’s normal around here. They say there are usually only a couple of weeks that are miserable with no air conditioning! (I am assuming that will be in August when I am already miserable…that won’t be fun!)

We don’t have a car. You’ve probably guessed that by all of my comments about taxis, busses, and trains! Anyway, it’s really weird to have to walk or call a taxi to get anywhere. I certainly took cars for granted in the US! Taxis and train tickets add up fast! They are expensive!!!!!! However, we’ve decided we just can’t worry about it. We aren’t paying car payments/gas for a car/car insurance or anything, so I guess taxis and train tickets make up for that!

We have a tiny fridge. I thought our fridge in St. Maarten was little – this one is smaller!!!! However, there is also a freezer the same size as the fridge. We have to be careful not to buy too much because the fridge fills up fast, but the freezer is awesome and holds a lot!!! We also have one of those European stoves that I complained about so much in St. Maarten. It is so tiny! However, it actually works right! The one in St. Maarten didn’t bake correctly, which drove me crazy!!! I did a lot more baking there though since I frequently baked cupcakes for the Spouses Organization. Here, I don’t even own a cake pan or muffin tin! So no baking desserts anymore!

We each have a very tiny closet. We also have one chest with 4 drawers that we share. It’s plenty of space actually, because we couldn’t bring that much with us! However, it’s hard to organize things and find a spot for each different type of clothing. Oh well – at least we have closets!!!! We didn’t have any closets in St. Maarten!

We try to get by with the bare minimum here. Our kitchen had basic pots and pans. I did buy a skillet and 2 tiny cookie sheets (so we can bake frozen pizzas!). We have no dishwasher again! UGH! Phillip still likes to say HE has a dishwasher…me! I seriously miss our dishwasher! I have realized I am slower at things now that I’m pregnant. Dishes seem to take me a lot longer to do than they did in St. Maarten. That could also be due to the fact that I used to ALWAYS talk on the phone while doing dishes. We do still have our Vonage phone, which we love!!! However, with the crazy time difference, I just don’t get to talk on the phone as much.

Another difference is that we both seem to need more sleep here. Maybe it’s the weather? Maybe it’s that we do so much on the weekends that we have to catch up? I’m not totally sure. It’s even worse for me since I’m pregnant! I hadn’t realized how tired I would be all the time! I typically sleep about 10 hours a night during the week! On weekends, I only get around 8 because we don’t have time to sleep 10 hours! Ha! Trust me, I am not complaining though – we are so excited about being pregnant! My belly is growing fast now and we like to laugh and joke about it. It’s so amusing at the moment! I have a feeling in a couple more months, when I’m huge, it won’t be so funny anymore though! :-)

Phillip has Good Friday and Easter Monday off from the hospital! Hooray! We took advantage of this long weekend and booked Eurostar tickets to Paris!!! The Eurostar is a train that goes 185 miles per hour! We are leaving early tomorrow morning and will return home Monday evening.

Happy Easter to everyone! Life is good, God is great!!!! :-)