Mostly lemon based

Category: America

  • Making it happen (slowly)

    So things are plodding along. I’d like to make things happen faster, it feels bad being at home while Kathryn’s out working. I feel like I should be doing something more productive with my day, but until we make decisions like “long term where will we be living” and “we want our house to look roughly like this” then it’s all fairly nebulous.

    I’ve got a rough price for our house build, found what will be a workshop on Straw Bale construction I hope to attend (no date for it yet), people who can help with building, I’ve got rough guestimates for prices and some geothermal (ground source heat pump) kit supplier prices. I’ve found solar panel kits that I think we should be able to afford… I am going to have a wander around the library at some point to see if I can find some books to inspire.

    But really, I feel that vague I need to do something without the something to do.

    This is, of course, going to change when I start working. But getting references across country lines, and all that jazz, it takes a while.

    Still it’s given me some time to refresh my auscultation skills which are a little rusty. And I’ve got my volunteering which I start tonight. About which I’m feeling more than a little teeny bit nervous.

    Anyhow, other than that, there’s been some sticker shock. The value of the dollar was, when we came over about 3/4ths a quid. Which meant that price labels are going to freak me out, anyhow. But on top of that, two things that are our current big expenses, cars and food, are already more expensive here. That is proving unnerving as I’m waiting to start working, and our money quietly gets sucked away.

    Still, Kathryn’s been sketching interesting house layouts, and I think we’ve got a good potential car to go look at. So.

    I’d quite like to feel a bit more settled, but at the moment it’s still a bit floaty. And life is full of minor irritations like – the google play store not wanting to switch country (done now, with a bit of help – turns out it has your home address in multiple, unlinked places). But gradually I’m getting there. I am, of course, saving up the ‘I need to go see a doctor at some point’ fun for another day. I rang the insurance company and checked, and it is just ‘go see a doctor, they’ll bill us, we’ll pay the bit we want to pay’ to summarise (some companies seem to want pre-alerting to the fact you’re going to see a doctor (seriously? How complicated do you want to make it?!)). So at some point I’ll find an LGBT friendly doctor (there seem to be scant few who list themselves as such in Oly) – I’ve got one a few names (both in Seattle) that might do.

    But I’d rather not trek to Seattle just to see the doc. Just for my regular meds. Y’know?

  • I cannot explain just how much I’m missing my music collection. Every time I go to listen to something on the tiny, tiny collection of stuff I remembered to stick on my ‘phone before we emigrated I either discover it’s not there, or then am disappointed that it sounds like it’s being played on teeny tiny speakers the size of mouse headphones.

  • “We have normality. I repeat, we have normality.

    …Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.”

    Slowly life is starting to return to normal. Or what passes for normal these days. Although we are both still, seemingly, hyper stressed, and our stuff is one week away from being in the country (as opposed to continuing its trek around the country), and I’m driving a V6 (or V8) Dodge Caravan… but we’re slowly finding our feet.

    I have spent the morning being slightly productive. I’ve been to the Social Security Office (where they were very nice and fixed my name, and I even made two of the people there laugh which was nice). I’ve been to the bank and fixed my PIN which I’ve been unable to remember since picking it when I was given my bank cards. So I can now pay for things on our joint account. I’ve been to the supermarket. I’ve put out the rubbish trash. I’ve bought coffee that’s more to my taste*. I’ve navigated back without google maps. I’ve looked at a lot of old Honda Insights (2001-2006 model year) online – since we think that’s what we’ll be buying. I’ve even found a possible one – which is only 100 miles away.

    I’ve fed the birds, put up a smoke alarm, and emptied the dishwasher.

    It’s all been terribly normal. I might wander out for a walk…who knows.

    That said, I was pretty down last night – after we realised our plans for the house were wildly optimistic, and that the house sale and the minor and various other things had cut us back by nearly $40k all in. To say I was grumpy really doesn’t entirely cover the range of my utter disappointment. Especially since early in the evening we’d both agreed that buying an EV right now is probably not the best plan (we’d love to, but we’re not sure whether we need the super expensive not-really-in-our-price-range one, and with the 200 mile EVs coming in next year, that should drop the price of the ones we want anyway – and by then we should know more about what we’re needing it to be capable of). But having reached that disappointing conclusion the looming possibility that we might not be building our place, and then the realization that we might not be able to do geothermal heating, because we probably couldn’t afford the house-with-land…and then spiralling ‘oh fuck it all’ meant I was pretty fed up by the time we hit bed.

    However, having slumped into bed we did some sums and realized that we were planning a house way bigger than we need.

    Actually, our last house came in at around 900 Sq Ft (not including the garage). And building something a around that size is probably within our budget. Just because everyone else has 2000 sq ft houses doesn’t mean we need that much. To be honest, we don’t really need even 1000 sq ft of space… but it was a nice size. This house we’re in is probably around 1600 or so sq ft, and is actually vast (at least to my little British brain). So it’s possible the building idea is back on. Which makes me happier…

    …so, uh, yeah.

    …so better. Yeah. That’s my opinion.

    * The people we’re renting from like a really dark roast, and kindly left us coffee. I like a much milder roast… I got my coffee – and then made a substance that’s a bit like coffee and more like water. Me and the drip filter need to make friends.

  • Of all the things…

    …I thought I’d struggle to get in the USA, Rosehip tea wasn’t one of them.

    Now I know, if we go to the right grocery store, we’ll find it. I have faith.

    But it’s my go-to bed-time comfort-tea. And we’ve not got any. And we’ve been to about 4 stores, and none of them have had it. It’s becoming a quest.

    And I’ve got a cold. So I want my go-to-comfort-bed-time-cozy-snuggly-tea. *sulk*.

    I’ve also spent the day not buying things on e-bay (or cars.com, or craigslist) which is a dubious past time that leads to temptation*. And temptation leads to…

    …yeah. So, I have to be careful.

    On the plus side, despite lurgee, I’ve managed to finally stop playing voicemail ping-pong and actually caught the person I was aiming to catch, and have now arranged a second interview for next week. Ra! (TerrifiedRa!).

    * Look! The ungodly offspring of a Range Rover and a Morris Marina! That clearly should be on our drive. What’s that you say? A Commuta-Car! Fuck yeah! Need that right away. Oh, poor little DS… I hear your cries… I’ll look after you… Gaaah.

    And that’s before we’ve even got to test equipment… Or stuff for the business…

  • Oh hey, it’s 2016

    How did that happen then?

    So, I think I missed my year in review thing for 2014, and I’ve felt a bit sad about that. But hey. Instead of worrying about it more, here is my 2015 in review, since 2016 has arrived.

    A few days ago we were sat with our friends seeing in the New Year and talking about how hard 2015 was. Everyone I know seems to have had a tough 2015. It certainly felt that way from my personal perspective.

    They were commenting that they sent their application in to move to the US in January. Having checked, we started dinking with the paperwork in January… And getting the house actually ready for sale. I spent most of the actual year just decorating. Decorating and finishing The List. It’s weird to think that the last year has largely been spent just in stasis. What is weird though is that actually? actually? Actually… we sent our application in in May. Those first 5 months of faffing and getting all of our ducks in some kind of row-based-organisation may have made the process feel painfully long, but they paid off. Because we’ve arrived and many things have aligned.

    Although I’ll grant, I still have no job.

    So whilst it feels like 2015 was really, really stressful stasis, most of that stress (as is so often the case with me) was self inflicted. Some of it was shite like the NCLEX exam which it turned out was not quite the disaster predicted. And whilst I’ve been looking at posts for something other than decorating, I’m finding that that part of my perception is right, I did mainly spend the year decorating. We did do some fun stuff though. Beyond the decorating, I did manage to cram in some more fun tasks – like building the greenshed. I also spent an inordinate amount of time on my 1920s/30’s bike that is currently traversing the ocean.

    Some of the highlights of the year were in London. We spent a lot of time, relatively, visiting various museums in London. We hit up a fabulous Daphne Oram exhibit at the Science Museum, and also saw an utterly amazing Cosmonaut exhibition. And we saw a phenominal exhibition at the V&A called The Fabric of India (which I don’t seem to have written about weirdly).

    We also had one of the most stunning holidays we’ve been on, dragging the Prius thousands of miles through Norway – a place which I’d wanted to visit for a very, very long time. Especially since I’ve a friend over there and had wanted to see her in her natural stomping grounds. And understand why she said it was so incredible. We didn’t quite make it all the way up to see her, but I do understand now. It’s just stunning.

    What has been less fun and continues to be a bit of a pain is that my laptop broke… It still spontaneously reboots and now the battery (its second in its 8 year life) is dead. I’m trying to decide what the future holds for it. I’m loathe to replace something that, broadly speaking, does most of what I need. But a retina/infinity/ultrahighres display is really tempting. Of course, at the moment, not having a job means that ‘plugging it in all the time’ is pretty much the answer.

    I did have some tech successes though. The media server was upgraded and although for a while it became a pain in the ass, it eventually got sorted and turned into a nice piece of kit. When it arrives in the US it’ll need a new power-supply though, as the current one is only 240 volt. Grr. The RiscPC has been repaired – with much help from John. Sadly the original mainboard is beyond salvage having been doused liberally in battery gunk.

    Also with help from John, the Squeezebox2 was resurrected, adding more exciting kit to our Logitech Squeezebox collection. Much loved and completely unsupported now…

    And of course… Rebecca returned to the road. Again. Briefly. She’s now in a shipping container crossing the ocean. Or something like that… hopefully she’ll be here soon, along with the rest of our stuff. At least, that which fitted in the container.

    And all of that leads us into 2016, where we’re considering building a house, starting a business, and are currently planning to move somewhere neither of us have ever lived before. Which’ll be an exciting first for us.

    And I’m starting this year in my trademark soothing fashion. With a driver’s exam. Woot.

  • It’s like an alternate dimension.

    I know people have transferred their lives through far greater changes than this. Moving from the UK to the US is hardly considered complex by the standards of modern life. And let us be clear, there are people who are, at this very moment, undergoing enormously harder life changes that this.

    I understand that, and I look at where I’m at and think I should just relax and enjoy it. And in some moments I do, but I’ve not yet really relaxed into it. Most days still feel like my brain is trying to absorb every single thing that surrounds me.

    It doesn’t help that I’ve got a driver’s test approaching, so when I’m driving I keep switching in to ‘driving test mode’ to try and make sure that all the bad habits of 20 years of driving don’t make me fail. I’ve also not yet had any good luck on the job front. Although it is, obviously, Christmas and the New Year period, but job wise I’m still lacking.

    And it turns out I don’t particularly enjoy being a ‘kept woman’. I mean, Kathryn is being wonderful, as always. But I really don’t like that I’m not bringing anything in to the household. And yes, yes, it’s only been a bit over a week and a half. And yes, most of that week was Christmas, and I have done some applying for jobs. But still. On the plus side, I’ve volunteered at a clinic, and am going there for induction soon. Which will at least get my skills being used a little and keep me from becoming completely rusty.

    It nags at me though, and makes me feel uncomfortable about me spending any money. Which is hard, because there are many nice shops in Olympia. Lots of lovely bookshops, and coffee shops, and eateries.

    Thankfully, it’s not actually terribly easy for me to spend money because with no social security number I can’t open a bank account. So I’ve still only got my UK bank account which I’m trying not to really use.

    Anyhow, ignoring the whinging, it has actually been a lovely Christmas. It’s been filled with perhaps an ennui, or some degree of melancholy because I’m not going to see my mother – and I think this is the first Christmas, ever, in my life, where I’ve not gone to see my mother at some point in the Christmas / New Year period. On top of which, she’s not entirely well at the moment, making me feel even worse about it than I might have done. Sorry, that was more whinging.

    What I intended to talk about was how very, very lucky I do feel. Because from this distance it seems our friends seem to have landed and been more or less dumped into the everyday life of America, without quite the level of support that we’ve received. At every turn we’ve been so generously supported by family and friends. We’ve had more of a social life than we probably ever had in Bristol. Whisked out for dinners and drinks… Introduced to people who might help. Cheerfully greeted by old friends keen to catch up.

    Christmas Eve we slipped over to Kathryn’s Dad’s house, spent the evening chatting, eating delicious food, and introducing them to Christmas crackers… Then Christmas day was spent relaxing at Kathryn’s mom’s house with yet more yummy food, more christmas crackers and us breaking out Gubs – which continues to prove popular.

    It does all feel odd though. I know, intellectually, it’s not a holiday. And more and more it feels unlike a holiday…as the day-to-day takes hold and the tedium of job applications grips me. It also feels slightly like home, because I’ve visited Kathryn’s family and friends several times over the years, so Olympia is familiar to me. I can’t navigate, because my map of Oly is so sketchy, but a lot of the shops and spaces are places I’ve been.

    Which all leaves me feeling odd. Slightly out of place, as it were. Which I assume will settle down. Hopefully soon.

  • Blessing or Challenge

    So when we arrived, we had set up a 6 month sublet in the city where Kathryn grew up. It’s ace. We’re sharing for a couple of weeks with the (lovely) people who own the house and then we’ll be here about 5 months without them. The timing’s impeccable, and the location’s delicious. It seemed like an awesome plan.

    Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to work for these 6 months. A discussion with the recruiter this morning did not go particularly well… they were very much of the opinion that they want at least a year’s commitment for foreign nurses… which I can give… when we’re settled somewhere. But as we’re looking at places a couple of hours away from where we are staying at the moment as where we’ll settle, commuting to a job here for 6 months after we’ve moved is not very practical. Since we want to build somewhere anyway, that would put the kibosh on that too… because commuting loads would prevent me from building anything much.

    Anyhow. We’ll see how this plays out. I’d suspected this might be a problem, but if anyone needs a nurse or a technical writer in the Olympia area… I’m available.

  • Dear god, was that stressful enough

    I don’t think I can truly describe how insanely stressful this whole experience has been. I have no idea how my friends with kids did this. Moving day approached with startling rapidity and we threw our life into boxes and containers, and also into charity shops and onto gumtree.

    Slow improvement....
    (more…)

  • One step forward, two steps back.

    And so it continues. We had a good weekend – headed over to see our friends James and Rachel, and nearly froze to death out at Waddesden Manor. As we went to leave Bristol we stepped outside the door and went “Oh dear god it’s cold”. From an incredibly mild November it’d suddenly become a bitterly cold November. There was an icy wind and clear winter skies… and we scuttled back in and grabbed an extra jumper and then headed off.

    After chilling (or warming) at James’s, we crept out to see the Christmas fair and, we thought, the manor. Unfortunately, it turned out that Manor tickets were sold out… so we padded around the Christmas fair – which was fun – until the icy wind finally beat us into submission. We tried hiding in the gift shop in the manor for a while, but when the sun went down we gave in to the inevitability of failure, abandoned the idea of seeing the light display, and headed back to James’s home.

    There, once thawed, we tried out a new game for us (old for them) called Takenoko. Despite looking very simple, it’s excellent fun, and although it’s competitive, because of the game mechanics you’re not deliberately screwing everyone else’s game up. The whole thing’s fun and gentle, and yes…it’s been added to the list of games we want.

    Then Sunday we headed over to my sister’s house for lunch – it’s been a long time since we’ve been over there, and bloody hell have their kids grown. I’d forgotten the way that teens shoot skywards. Anyway, after yummy food we got in some more gaming, playing Gubs, which is almost invariably popular with people we play it with, but in the boys hands turned into an all out war on other players in a competitive way we’ve not seen before(!). We also played Gloom which we delight in, but which we got the rules wrong for until about 3/4 the way through. In this case it just meant that I died with painfully positive people… something that should be a bit of a rarity, but actually didn’t hugely affect the playability of it.

    Anyway, it was a good weekend all round, and then Monday we headed over to see our friends with a new* baby who is very cute. They also seem to be doing well, so that was all very positive and happy.

    Then yesterday, we headed down to drop off pot-plants at my mum’s (because we won’t be able to take pot-plants with us). All of this is because we’d been told last week that exchange of contracts was ‘just waiting on new, corrected, mortgage paperwork’**. And whilst we were there we got the exciting news that the paperwork for the mortgage had arrived with the buyers.

    …but no. Then we decided to take a giant leap backwards.

    We’d been told that the buyer’s solicitors had assured our solicitor that there were no further queries. Hence us signing our contract over a week ago. But yesterday they suddenly raised further queries. Only they’re not further queries, they’re the same (damn) queries that were raised 3 weeks ago, and which we responded to. It’s not like we’re giving vague, wooly answers. We’ve given our answers, paid for indemnity cover against ridiculous things (like the £4 / yr charge that’s payable to a non-existent, defunct company…in case they raise themselves, zombie-like, from the dead, and demand back payments****), and we’ve in general sucked it up. But now they’ve said they want things that don’t exist and can’t be obtained. At least, it would be difficult, cost £1000s and take large chunks of time to obtain.

    Finally, yesterday, we said “No” to our solicitor. “No”, we won’t pay this frivolous thing. If their solicitors want indemnity against the 78 year old access road being bought by someone and the owners suddenly being barred access to it, they can pay themselves. We didn’t get indemnity against it because in UK law we have a right of access over that road.

    The most frustrating thing is that what we get from the estate agents is that the buyers are really excited and want to move in. They, apparently, were thrilled to get their re-done mortgage paperwork yesterday, because they thought that meant we’d be moving forward. This all appears to be solicitor and mortgage company demands for the impossible.

    So we’ve moved from just waiting for some paperwork (“Yay! We should get completion in a few days!”) to waiting for solicitors that seem unable to talk to each other to reach an agreement**** which has made us arrive at “Oh god, we’re never, ever going to move”. It’s incredibly frustrating and is contributing to an all round low mood. Not aided by the fact that I am barely able to get any work at the moment – so we’re only just covering bills rather than saving up to move.

    To sum up: *STRESS* and *Really f*cking pissed off*.

    * 7 Week old.
    ** cf. 2 weeks ago when we were told exchange would happen that week***.
    *** cf. 1 week ago when were were almost sure to have an exchange of contracts that week.
    **** Which, even if they’d never been payed (I think they were payed up until either the 50s or the 80s) would amount to a grand total of £312.
    ***** Ours essentially whinge continuously about the unavailability of theirs, but then only seem to actually do anything when we ring them and say “what are you doing”. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their solicitor was saying that ours wasn’t supplying sensible answers to the questions.

  • So that chicken counting

    The car cost about £6k more than it was meant to.
    The house is selling for £10k less than we originally agreed.
    I’ve earned around £8k less than I was hoping/expecting to.
    …oh, and the pound’s dropped against the dollar by quite a bit.

    This is going less well than we might hope.

    I tried not to engage in too much counting of eggs before they hatched, but seriously, this is quite painful at the moment. Despite being available pretty much every day where I can be, I’ve *just about* equalled my pay when I was working for the NHS, working privately. Normally I could earn about 3x as much… but our ‘illustrious’ Health Secretary has made it very difficult for the NHS to use agency nurses. Now, if the NHS suddenly had enough nurses that’d make more sense, but actually, hospitals (ime) are just running short staffed. I’d actually suck up lower pay, but it’s too late for me to join another agency.

    So it’s just painful at the moment.

    And that’s today’s financial news.