Moving, English Weddings & Window Blinds

Does anyone else use the term brainfart? You know what I'm talking about. You're doing something you've done or said hundreds of times, but for some reason - you can't do it right at that moment in time. You stick the envelopes in the postal machine to have them sealed and stamped - but oops, they don't have the letters in them yet. Or you know how to get to McDonalds, and yet you cannot seem to make the steering wheel go the right direction, it takes you 8 turns to get there instead of the one turn it should have taken since it's only 3 blocks from your office. Or you know what size blinds to get, but for some reason you buy 3 sets that are 6 inches too narrow. Even though you measured 4 times and actually looked at the correct ones at the store.

That, my friends, is a brainfart. Evidently my brain is pretty gaseous lately. I have a flatulent brain. I might as well just face it. It's probably just leftover effects from jetlag ... who knows. But I might as well just stay in bed because my brain doesn't want to do anything more useful than sleep.

What Is... 1. Yummier: Chocolate ice cream or strawberry cheesecake?
2. Better to watch on TV: Movies or sports?
3. A better web browser: MSIE or Netscape (or tell us your own favorite!)
4. A better way to travel: Automobile or bus/train?
5. Your preferred camera: Digital or film?
6. A Cooler Vehicle: Motorcycle or sports car?
7. More fun: Video games or board games?
8. Sexier: A perfect body or an intelligent mind?
9. A stinkier smell: Skunk or gasoline (petrol)?
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: What is more important to you: making a ton of money and being at the top of your field, or finding your soulmate and living a comfortable but not wealthy life? How many times must we be told .... money doesn't buy happiness. Just look at all the dysfunctional celebrities and business-world tycoons.

Even though my brain must not be working, I'll try to say a little about our trip to England. Overall, it was a really great trip. We had no big problems traveling, all our planes were on time and our luggage arrived safely (unlike last year .... we didn't get our luggage last year for 2 days! Ugh!). The whole reason we were going over was for the wedding of one of Steve's best friends - Dave. We arrived at Heathrow on Thursday around lunchtime, picked up a rental car and drove down to Steve's sisters (where we were going to be staying for the week). Our neice, Charlotte, had asksed if we could pick her up for school -- so we headed over to Rothwell Junior School and picked up our extremely TALL 10-year old niece. She's just 3 inches shorter than I am .... I think she's going to definitely outgrow both of her parents. It's amazing how quickly kids can grow in just one year. Wow! The next time we see her I'm sure she won't even want to hang out with us ... she'll be too cool for her adult aunt and uncle. Oh well .... maybe she'll still think we're cool simply because we live in the US?? We'll see!!

Thursday night we went out to eat with a huge group of Steve's friends .... and keep in mind that in England, when you go out to eat - you're going out to a pub to drink for several hours and then have dinner. And they don't have non-smoking sections. (In case I haven't mentioned it before ... I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. It makes me physically ill ... I start coughing and my eyes get watery, which causes my contacts to be itchy, and I just generally feel ill.) So - Steve and I are both exhausted and both hacking away practically the whole night from being in a smoke-filled room. When we finally are able to stumble to bed that night, I have never been so thankful for a sofabed in my entire life. It felt like heaven. We slept like rocks that night -- barely moving til the next morning. The wedding was on Friday at 1:00, but we were supposed to meet everyone at 10:30 for all the pre-wedding stuff, getting our flowers on and, of course, having a drink together (drinking is an integral part of English society ... it is wild how much people can drink over there and still have a coherent conversation. Whew!!).

The wedding was held in a little tiny village in England, Tichmarsh, in a church that was built in 1194. We walked from the house where we all got ready to the wedding ... school children were out in the school yards waving at us as we walked to the church. It was almost like a little parade in this tiny village - all of us in our dressy clothes and flowers. The church was a beautiful stone cathedral with the huge tall ceilings and intricate stonework -- really beautiful and once again reminds me of the tremendous history that england (and the rest of europe) has. Nice wedding ceremony .... but it was different from weddings here (or at least from my wedding). They sang hymns, and the minister and congregation recited prayers at the end. It was all very interesting to me though - and they sang a hymn that we had played (instrumentally) at our wedding -- Jerusalem. We had that song while Steve's family came into the sanctuary for our wedding ... in honor of them being from England. (Sometime I'll have to blog about our wedding ... we did a lot of things in our ceremony that they do in England ... like signing our wedding license during the ceremony! We both wanted to include English traditions as well as American traditions in our wedding.)

After the wedding, we went to a little pub in the Stilton village (as in Stilton cheese, have you ever heard of it? me neither.) for the wedding meal. It was a 4 or 5 course meal that was delicious, complete with wine and champagne for the really touching toasts. The meal lasted almost 4 hours, and then we had a short break to go change clothes for the evening buffet and dancing party. Steve and I went back to his sisters for about an hour, changed clothes and then headed back for the party at around 7:00 that night. The buffet was yummy with all sorts of cheeses and breads and meats -- mmm -- and lasted til after midnight. They make weddings a DAY-long affair .... whew! Another exhausting, and yet fun, day

Anyway - moving on. We spent the next 3 days doing this with friends and family, doing a little shopping, and just generally relaxing with everyone. It was a nice change of pace from our trip last year - during which we traveled almost the entire time. On Monday we did our only touristy thing for the year .... we drove to Windsor to tour Windsor Castle and to get a few touristy souvenirs for a few people. We didn't buy that much stuff this year .... we bought several really beautiful prints that we'll have framed for our house .... and a tiny shirt for Sarah and two mugs for my parents. Last year we bought everybody souvenirs - so this year, we felt like we didn't have to dish out a huge amount of money for little trinkets and things. It was kinda nice to just be able to look for really interesting and unique things for our home.

We flew home on Tuesday, and after 23 hours of traveling (between driving to Heathrow, flying to New York, a 3 hour layover, and then the flight to Nashville, and the drive to our house) we finally arrived back at our house, which we had only been living in for 7 days when we left for England. It was nice to be home .... I actually wanted to come home to the house -- it's so different now that we aren't in an apartment anymore. We had somewhere to come HOME to.

We both had to be back at work on Wednesday .... so needless to say we were extremely jetlagged 'til the weekend when we managed to get some rest.However, my parents and grandparents came up for the weekend -- my grandparents hadn't seen the house yet, and they were coming to help us get our yard and flower beds sorted out. It was a busy weekend, and we got a lot accomplished, and it was good to see them -- but we were also relieved when they went home because we finally were able to rest! I also got a headcold upon my return ... it's on its way out now though, I'm almost feeling normal!

We're slowly getting the house sorted out ... room by room it's coming together and we love it so much! I promise to post a few pictures here in a week or so -- as soon as we dig out the digital camera! Well, thus ends my longest blog in a long long time. I hope you guys aren't falling asleep from reading such a long entry! Ta Ta for now .....