Where Have All the Americans Gone?

Hello to all the Americans, I miss a lot of you.

I've been in England for 19 months now and slowly I'm losing touch with my American-ness. I notice when someone else is speaking with an American accent, I purchased a teapot to have tea the right way (brewed in a pot not per glass), I'm starting to "get" the references to British Pop-culture and when I watch American movies I'm starting to think "why are they driving on the wrong side of the ... oh yeah."

I haven't lost the American accent. I'm just as Wisconsin as ever but words like lovely and brilliant have crept into my vocab. I have been corrupted with DVDs like Nighty Night, Gavin and Stacey, Marion & Geoff, League of Gentlemen, etc. Oh, and I finally understand the "Oh!, What's Occurin' " thing that they do on the radio.

For the past few months I've been on a little roller coaster with jobs and apartments but I'd have to say I'm very lucky to be in England, and I'm happy to be learning the culture. And finally, I think my roller coaster has stopped in the station to exchange passengers and I'll be hopping off for now.

For the past year I was on a Maternity cover role when I worked for Asda and as it was coming to an end I didn't know what my future held. Where do I live? Do I go back to Wisconsin? New York? etc. There were several paths I could have taken and surpisingly more than I had even hopped for. But I'm happy to say I'm not moving to Australia just yet, I am staying in England and I'm very happy to have taken a job with Morrisons.

For those who don't know, Asda and Morrisons are competitors so when I gave my notice I was literally escorted off the premises. It was done in the nicest of ways however it's the first time I've been escorted off anyone's premises. After you are used to going to the same place day after day, it's a bit strange and sad to be told you are no longer allowed there anymore.

I'm not complaining, just reflecting... but anyway, I was put on Garden leave. Basically it's a time where I needed to remain available to work for Asda but they did not want me at work and I could not work for anyone else until my notice period was complete. So yeah, time off. Sounds great, right? Well, for anyone who knows me, they know I don't do well with sitting around and doing nothing. Garden leave means you can stay at home but I wasn't exactly allowed to go on holiday or leave the country.

So for the month of April I was in Wales and it was absolutely lovely. I learned how to cover and tar a flat roof, reclaim old bricks and build a brick wall, and how to cut and put up plasterboard. I even did a little gardening on my garden leave. And I was only two blocks from the sea with a sandy beach! You'll never hear me complain of the lovely sound seagulls and waves make.

Oh, and I totally watched the Royal Wedding in my PJs. It was great. I was ready to get dressed at 1pm but they hadn't kissed yet and how can you watch the whole thing without seeing them kiss??? So I held strong and waited the extra half-hour for a smooch on the balcony. It was... kind of worth it.

I'm back at full time work now. I'm just getting used to the change of location and learning the ropes as the new girl but I'm very excited about my new job. I cannot say much more than that... Just know that I'm super happy and I just might get to do a little traveling for work (NYCers I may be knocking on your doors soon).

My first day of work at M's

Other than that, I've given up my gym membership and am looking for a new one near my new job. Until the time comes, the weather has warmed up and I can run outside plus I've found Argos and all of the amazing home-gym equipment I need. I've now got my kettle bells and a yoga/pilates mat.

I do still miss a lot of American things & I had a little cry about being home-sick this weekend. I miss knowing what laundry detergent I normally buy when I go into the grocery store (here I just buy what's on sale and then get it home and hate it). I miss all of my friends and family (that is the #1 thing I miss). And I miss not paying 50 quid for gas/petrol (it's soooo expensive here).

But I'm not ready to go stateside just yet. Until I am, I'll be exploring the UK and what beauties the motherland has to hold.

We went exploring and found this old ship that used to be an amusement park/ship, cool.

No More Dead Ends

I'm totally stoked today. I just cut my own hair and it does not suck.

I've trimmed my own hair before but never given myself a real hair cut.

I am becoming a seasoned hair cutter. Every Sunday is haircut day for Eric. Instead of using a barber he has--conveniently for him--trained me to give him a nice clean man cut. I've gotten used to using clippers and I think I even do a decent fade. However, I'm a girl so unless I want to look like a boy I've got to use different techniques when cutting my hair.

Eric helped me last time and gave me a decent cut. It was pretty standard but clean and looked better with less dead gross dyed ends. The bangs got a little over cut last time. I take full credit and I persevered with a few bobby pins until they were long enough to let down.

So today I decided I needed a new do. I'm trying to grow out the disgusting dyed blonde hairs and cut them off. I'm about halfway so I can't quite get rid of all of them and I do not look nice with a bob. I weighed all my options and got a pair of scissors, well two pairs of scissors. An hour later, voila! I'm super stoked that I cut my own hair today. There are still some dead gross dyed ends that remain but now they look a little bit nicer and I've gotten rid of a whole dustpan full of grossness.

Woot.

1 Week ago: My hair was out of control!!! Gross.


Today: Post haircut

What's for dinner? Detox Night 4

I'm just not as inspired tonight. I had a long day and was the last one to leave work tonight. So, when getting home I just wanted to eat and not do anything.

With that said, it wasn't a bad dinner by any means and I managed to get slightly creative when putting it all together. But it was more of a standard "I just need to eat" dinner.

The menu:
Detox Scallop Paella
Although I could have gone with rice, it would have taken too long to make and tonight's dinner was about quick and easy. So it's a Quinoa paella with scallops, parsnips, carrots and broccoli. Topped with red onions and served with a avocado slices.
After the blueberry passion fruit with mint last night, I am pretty excited about making desserts that are satisfying yet healthy. They'll never be similar to a bowl of ice cream but I'd like to think that my desserts are a bit more posh and would possibly cost more in a restaurant. Anyway, tonight I went with a soy banana-passion fruit smoothie with frozen blueberries and mint leaves.

Time for bed!

What's for dinner? Detox Night 3

Since I added the creative element of blogging to my detox, I'm more excited about having a meal that is free of wheat, dairy, added sugar and added sodium. I suppose the rice noodles constitute as processed but everything else is fresh or frozen from fresh.

I've gotten a little creative with tonight's dinner. It was either go shopping for something new or have steamed chicken and some sort of veg again. Blah!

Also, I just got my super awesome discount card for work and was itching to get my 10% discount. So after work I zipped over to the local Asda and got some scallops, fresh herbs and some cheap tights.

I wanted a soup tonight but realised that soup is super bland without salt. To counter that I've added some spice and used very flavourful herbs, and vegetables.

Tonight's Dinner:
Scallop and Rice Noodle Stew:
I lightly pan fried scallops, scallions and garlic with a spritz of olive oil. Once the garlic turned brown I added enough water to make a soup. Then I chopped red chillies for a spice and parsnips for flavor. I'm addicted to these tiny baby mushrooms, so I threw in a handful of those as well and then gave the soup a squirt of lemon. Finally the rice noodles went in just before the soup was finished.

Bonus: Eric's out of town and since we only have 1 set of chopsticks I got to use them (it's my fault we only have one set, I lost one under our porch).

Tonight I was craving a bit more. I'm jones-ing a bit for sweets so I made a detox dessert.

Passion fruit and chilled blueberries with mint.

What's for dinner? Detox Dinner: Night 2

I've got a lot of work I still need to do tonight so I'll make this brief.

Tonight's dinner:
Wheat free, gluten free rice noodles with steamed chicken breast bits, parsnips, carrots and green beans. Topped with pepper and a bit of cilantro (coriander for the Brits).

To drink: I've gone for water flavored with clementine and lime juice.

And-- yep I'm shamelessly promoting my employer-- all purchased at Asda. I think the parsnips were even Smart Price.

What's for dinner? Detox Dinner: Night 1

Eric went out of town and I decided it was time for a detox. Not that I'm a drug addict or anything but I have been known to hit the bottle over the past few (cold) months.

Anyway I'm going substance free for a week and maybe more. No Alcohol, no caffine, no wheat, no dairy, no added sugars, no added salt or sodium and no processed foods. Let's see if I can keep up the nightly posts of "what's for dinner?". However, knowing me, I will probably stick with the same meal every night this week until I run out and have to buy more un-processed food.

Tonight's Special:

Steamed chicken breast and vegetables seasoned with tyme, pepper and lemon and lightly dusted with olive oil. Served over a bed of watercress and avocado with a side of Quinoa. Finished off with a topping of salad cress for colour and crunch!

ps. It's actually really yummy!

Business Parties, Gym Buddies and Car Camping

Muah-ha-ha. March you did not escape me. I bet you thought you could get away un-blogged. No such luck.

I'm aiming to be better at this. However, I know that my lack of camera is directly tied to my lack of blog posts. As a creative I'm led by thought provoking ideas and usually that come to me by way of photography. Anyway, no more excuses or I'll have to answer to Bunmi (I'll explain who that is soon, patience my dears).

I've started my AMAZING job at Asda. It has been a whirl-wind. I'm not sure that my feet have totally landed but it's been going really well and for the first time in my career I am 100% happy with my role and responsibilities. I love it. I'm not sure I've really truly felt that about a job before. I've loved my colleagues and what I was doing but not like this. No offense to other jobs I've had. If you worked at Asda you'd get it. The culture is like no other.

For example: we had a Marketing day. Well more or less an afternoon and a night. The agenda went a little like this: First we had a Coaching Contract and a Academy Presentation in the afternoon and then we moved on to an all-over-Leeds team-building scavenger hunt. The hunt included team shots of 1) How many people fit in a phone booth (we fit 8) 2) How many can you get in a conga line (15 or so for Asda Brand Team) 3)A group photo with only 5 team members touching the ground (we had none touching the ground) 4) Team Busking (one girl did the splits) 5) A shop window with team members in it (Jim got in with the Diesel "sexy" display). And there were more.

After the scavenger hunt--that we did not win even though we were really successful--we had a evening awards ceremony and dinner sponsored by the top man in charge. I won't name names but it was a great night. We ate (Simon A. had two cheesecakes) we danced (Becky got all groovy to 70s music) and we stayed the night in Leeds.

(quick cell phone pic of Leeds on my way home from work)

It was a fabulous time. Thank you big boss for being so generous.

And on a personal note I think I've made my first friend at work!!! Well I'll wait until she reads this and then she can decide if she wants to keep hanging out with me. I met Bunmi at the Best Welcome. Best Welcome is the induction where you learn all about the business. Anyway B and I were in the same group that went in-store and I really liked her from the moment I met her and we got to talking. She's the kind of woman to speak her mind openly and honestly. I like that. And I totally get all of the online marketing stuff that she deals with. So anyway I thought... this chick is cool.

After that, I kept seeing her around the office and we'd say hi but in a rush. One day she stopped me and said something like "okay we need to get tea or lunch and catch up." And we did. Woot!

THEN One morning I was half-awake dodging speeding cars and nyc-style jaywalking to the gym when I heard someone call my name. No kidding, B had joined the same gym and I and we were both making our way there at 6am or something ridiculous like that.

So we are gym buddies and work buddies. And although we mostly email saying "sorry I have to move our afternoon 15 min tea party, a meeting just appeared out of nowhere," I dig B and can't wait to have a girl's night in Leeds with her and her flat-mate.

You'd think with all that going on I'd have no time for Eric.... well you'd be wrong. I do still have weekends to catch up with Eric and our friends. E and I have been on a few different adventures in the past month and had a great DIY experiment last weekend.

Three weekends ago we went to York on Saturday. It was raining and thought a day of museums would be a good way to spend our day. After waiting in line for the Jorvik Viking Centre, we were prompted by an impending crowd of school children to shift our plans over to the York Abby for the afternoon. Great decision.

We stumbled into a tour led by an elderly man with a wealth of history. I think our tour lasted a couple of hours, but we were in no hurry and I really enjoy hearing the stories from an elderly man. They are something you cannot get from the internet, tv or even books. there is something special about hearing it with their own spin on it. When the tour was over we finished off that afternoon by sticking around for evening song. Eric spotted some benches atop radiators at the back of the nave and we sat in York Abby listening to the solemn sound of the human voice in religious chant.


I forgot to preface this weekend with: Eric sent me a text on Friday afternoon saying that we should do 3 peaks on Saturday. Three peaks is a marathon of hiking. Literally 26 miles of rocky uphill, through muddy sheep pasture, over rock wall, up crag and waterfall climbing/hiking. I said okay but knew that we'd be lucky to get 1 peak in.

So you already know we didn't so 3 peaks Saturday but we did do 1 peak Sunday. it was the most wonderful sunny day and we drove out to the Yorkshire Dales to hike Ingleborough. No big deal.
And although we had already hiked up to 15 feet from Ingleborough in December it was unbeknown to us and so we were excited to see the top.

(Someone told me to do it)

I whined a little bit (which Eric doesn't like) but it was mostly because a rushed big lunch hadn't sat well in my nether regions. But when we got to the top I sort of forgot all of that and was very happy to have finally (for the second time*) climbed one of the three peaks.

Two weekends ago we had a car camping trip with some friends of ours. Eric has been very excited about turning his car into a RWOOV (pronounced R woo V). He has a Dawoo Lanos and with a little bit of cardboard, some black thrift store curtains, and a sun shade, he's turned it into an E certified home for sleeping in.

(car camping in style)

To anyone who's curious I explain my okay-ness with car camping as so:
When I was little my dad wasn't sure that he would have a son... and I was the third daughter. So, I got to go hunting, fishing, trapping and riding around in the army green Jeep. And I loved it.

So when it comes to roughing it, I'm cool. I don't mind peeing into a milk jug off the side of a boat or brushing my teeth in the middle of the forest. In fact, I may actually like it. So car camping isn't a big deal but many people think I'm nuts. Anyway that's what we did two weekends ago. We drove out to the lake district, car camped, then hiked around the lake in Glennridding all day. It was Fantastic! Towards the end of the hike I think getting off the beaten path was a challenge to everyone and we were a bit worried. But it was a good adventure and we all felt that we had achieved something by the end of the day.

(the gang that car camped and rambled down Eric trail)

(From Left: Franklin, Me, Sarah K. enjoying the lake view)

Sunday we did nothing. Car camping will take it out of you.

(Benefit of car camping=you are already there when you wake up)

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*Right before Christmas We tried the Gaping Gill/Ingleborough hike from a different direction. It was a rough day and my hiking boots were new therefore 3 miles and 2 giant blisters into it we gave up 15 feet from seeing the top. That day it was foggy and we thought that over the next hill was another... but we were wrong.