Day to Day Life

If you've been reading the blog for the past several months, you may have noticed that although I frequently tell about our exciting (or sometimes, not so exciting) adventures, I rarely talk about day-to-day life. That is largely intentional. One, I personally don't find that day-to-day life usually makes for good reading. For an example of what it might look like, see the paragraph below. However, perhaps just as importantly, I don't want to air out our problems. This week, I'm making an exception.

This is the example of day-to-day life blogging. If you're not interested, please move on to the next paragraph. Today, I woke up before the sun. Again. The sun is only just now beginning to rise a bit before seven, so it's hard to believe that in a few months, it will be light at five in the morning, and last until around ten at night. I then took my shower, got dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast, which this morning was Frosties. (That's the UK version of Frosted Flakes. Still has the tiger on the box, tastes the same, etc., etc., just called "Frosties".) Then it was the walk to the station for the train. Since I was working in Bracknell today, I had to change at Clapham Junction, and ride out to Bracknell, so my commute this morning was about an hour and 45 minutes. I then went in and accounted. (While I might love to say more, (1) most of you would find it boring anyway, and (2) due to securities rules, I generally can't divulge too much anyway.) Okay, got the picture?

So, anyway, above paragraph aside (which, by the way, is all true), I thought I might shed some more light on our recent developments. As you probably all know, during our stay here in the UK, we are renting out our house in the States. So far, so good. However, last Saturday, we got an e-mail saying that our renters were moving out. Not good. In fact, I would say that threw us into immediate panic. That being said, the situation was not immediately dire, and we did discuss several options, among them the possibility that Michelle and the kids could come home in April, when our lease expires here. Obviously, that was one possibility which had some fairly significant ramifications, and is, I believe, rather a last resort than a great solution. We are now in the process of searching for new renters. So - as you may be able to imagine, this is a big deal for us. Not finding a renter will put us in a pretty tight spot. We think we may have found someone, but we are still waiting at this point.

I would say that the rent situation has consumed a good bit of our energy during the past week. Unfortunately, on Friday night, we discovered that Dalton has another ear infection (to tell the tale of his ear infections could be a whole post in itself). I guess really, he and Maggie have been trading sniffly noses and other cold symptoms for a bit now, so it was only a matter of time before he got an ear infection. So, we ended up spending the weekend at home - no exciting excursions this week, although we did go for a quick walk on Sunday on the Moors, a little reserve about half a mile from the house.

So, that's all for now. This week is Dalton's half-term, so he is out of school for the week. We're hoping to make an excursion at least one of the days that he's out, we just have to figure out where and when (and wait for all to feel better).

Bachelor's Weekend

This weekend is a "bachelor's weekend" for me, since Michelle has gone away - I'll let her post about her trip when she returns. However, don't let that conjure up pictures of wild parties or any such thing - for me, it's a stern reminder of how miserable I would be without Michelle in my life. Don't get me wrong, there is something good about time for myself, time alone with the kids, etc., but having spent a month alone back in April/May, I came to the realisation that I just wasn't meant to be alone.

To boot, Dalton has been fighting a fever and cough for the past week, and I had to homeschool Maggie today. I feel like I did okay, but wow, what a challenge. Not only that, but yesterday, we sent Dalton to school, only to have him seriously relapse last night. I took him to the doctor today (free visit by the way, thank you NHS), and found out that he likely has an ear infection as well. For those of you who don't know, Dalton has had a fight with ear infections ever since he was a wee lad - we took him in to get his first tubes at about 1 1/2 years old. He has since had his adenoids removed, and that has definitely slowed things a bit, but he still struggles.

So, anyway, I'm here with the kids, and although I had hoped to do something "cool" with them, we'll likely spend the entire weekend at home, hoping that Dalton will recover, giving him lots of medicine, and otherwise trying to survive. I guess really what this makes me think of is how grateful I am for Michelle, and her patience and willingness to deal with the kids and their problems on a daily basis. There was a parent at the school on Thursday when we picked up Dalton who made a comment about how when the wives leave, the fathers always say they go into "survival" mode - which, for me, anyway, is definitely true. Michelle does so much for our family, and I think I'm probably pretty poor at realising exactly how much she does, and how little I express my appreciation. So, Boo, I love you, I miss you, I hope you're having fun, and I'm going to try to have some flowers on the table for you when you get home.