Moving House! At Christmas! Again!

When we moved to the UK four years ago, we got all our household contents that had been shipped from the states delivered to our home on December 22nd. We spent Christmas surrounded by boxes stacked to the ceiling containing the contents of our old life back in Missouri. We are about to repeat this again, only this time 20 minutes down the road, not across an ocean. I'm not exactly looking forward to the prospect. My kids are really excited though.

The new house is in a neighborhood and there is a large park across the street for them to play at when the weather gets a little less....icky (let's be honest the uk weather is awful). They are gonna be able to ride their bikes and make friends with kids who live a couple doors away instead of having to jump in a car just to go have a couple hours of play.

We have decided to keep them in the same school they are currently attending. It is more of a drive for me in the morning, but keeping some aspects of their life stable right now I think is important. Plus I adore their school. I'm sure it will be worth the commute.

Now, back to sorting out the detritus in this home before the packing crew arrives next week. Here's hoping to a smooth move.

Ha! My Crap Luck Returns!!

The moment I decide to start blogging again, disaster struck my poor lovely MacBook.  Well, actually, it happened before I decided to come back, but I thought we had the issue sorted out.  You see my lovely cute adorable bastard of a kitten knocked an entire glass of juice into the keyboard of the MacBook about 2 weeks ago.  I did what I have done after the two previous spills(beer and coke),battery out, computer pulled apart, mopping up the mess, cleaning with a damp sponge and then letting the computer dry for a week, and the MacBook came back to life.  Then on the 4th day of it being alive, although track pad no longer working, the entire keyboard decided to DIE.  Then my OS decided to error.  I managed to fix the OS, but not the keyboard. 

So  here I am typing on my husbands teeny tiny little Gateway Netbook with the dodgy charger.  It's less than ideal, but I am going to have to deal until I can take my MacBook to the Apple store over in Cambridge to see if they will be super duper nice to me and fix my baby without charging an arm, leg and first born child.  Actually they can have the child.  I'm joking*.

*Mostly joking.  Seriously, holy cow, nobody warned me how much 8 year old girls talk.  I swear, she just talks and talks and talks and talks and talks so more.  And then just when you think she has stopped talking, she starts singing.  Also, what in the blue hell with the random off the wall questions?  No, I don't know the answer.  We can google it later.  Maybe.

I'm Not Dead Yet

September turned into October ,then October turned into November and as November faded by, I decided that maybe I should take another whirl on the blog-a-coster.

These past few months I have been really thinking about the direction I want to take my blog.  I honestly thought about scrapping the Bungalow entirely and either A) stop blogging altogether or B) start a new blog.  However, the Bungalow is my home.  It's my baby.  Ultimately, even if I don't know what I want to write about or not write about, it's mine.  So, here I am.

I have decided however that I am no longer going to take reviews at all on this site.  I know reviews and getting paid to write are all the rage right now in the blogging community, but honestly, it isn't what I like to read.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not being all judgey mcjudgerson about it, because I know times are tough and any way that a mum can make a little money to bring into the household is important, but it just isn't something I want to read- or write.

Also, I am only going to write about things that matter to me.  No jumping on the bandwagon and trying to do every linky in the blogosphere.  In fact, I'm killing my own linky (that obviously hasn't been around in a loooong while) Dear So and So.  If I ever feel the need to participate in a linky, it will be because I want to do it, not because her, her and her are doing it.  I've never been one to follow the crowd and I am certainly not going to start now.

Also, I'm not going to pull any punches anymore.  If I see something and I think it is complete bullshit, it might end up here.  Sorry in advance.  If you don't like it, click the X in the corner.

(sorry for swearing, Granny)

I'm Not Complaining But....

This was they layout of the bed last night while I was sleeping....

Purple- Me (knee actually hanging off the bed)
Pink- KiKi
Orange- Lizabeast the overweight dog.
Blue- Mr Tibbs the 2lb kitten.

She's Very Observant

This weekend the bungalow crew and I headed down to the British Museum.  It is actually quite embarrassing that we have lived here for four years and this is the first time that we have made our way down there.  We did however, finally make it down to see the treasures stored there.  And it was amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  I know we didn't even cover a third of all the collections and I am already dying to go back and see the bits we missed. 

But that isn't the story I am writing about, just the setting. 

We were walking around the classical Greece section of the museum, admiring the beautiful statues and friezes, as you do, and my kids didn't even bat an eyelash at all the statues being naked.  I bet you're all thinking "how cultural!" well, yeah I guess.  I mean, it is certainly a bit highbrow for my children and I was really proud of how mature they were acting. 

Caroline in particular was really taking it all in.  Then she turned to me and said very seriously and said "Mummy, he doesn't have a penis!" 

Then out of my mouth popped "Well, he is very old."

Just Like Kids

Imagine this conversation between adults....

Person 1 of a Christian family- "Hi, how old are you?"
Person 2 of Muslim family- "I'm ___"
Person 1- "Cool, I' ___.  My birthday is December 22nd.  Just three days before Christmas!"
Person2-  "Awesome that means you get a Christmas and Birthday presents all at once!!"

And off they go skipping and working together completely uncaring of each others differences. 

Cause that is what I saw the other day between my daughter and a little girl on the playground the other day.  I just wish adults could be so cool. 

It Was An Accident I Swear!

The first thing you all need to know is that I have a major fear of authority.  I am seriously scared of pissing off "The Man"(not as in my husband.  I am perfectly good at doing that on a regular basis) or any sort of person with even the slightest bit of authority over my life.  So when it came time to renew my visa to stay in the UK, I made sure that I started it early so that I wouldn't accidentally overstay. 

So my husband got the forms from the passport/visa office on base and sent them to me and I filled them out and went into the office and they told me that the forms were out of date and that the UK Home Office had changed the forms.  So I filled out the new 23 pages of forms.  While I was filling out the new forms I took a look at the old visa inside my passport only to have one of those moments where my stomach literally shot into my throat and I thought I was going to heave up my dinner onto my ugly kitchen carpet. 

My visa had expired.  In NOVEMBER.  I am here illegally. 

So at this point I did what any sane person would do.  I started panicking.  First I told my husband, who wasn't amused.  He gave me the stern "how the hell did this happen?" face.  Then I called my best friend who tried to reassure me that everything would be fine surely.  Then I called Liz who told me that "We never throw anyone out".  Skyped with Nickie who kinda helped me not panic so much by making me laugh and distracting me by making rude cucumber jokes while she was cooking.  And then internally freaked out until this morning when the realization that I had to go into the passport office and admit that my paperwork and my children's paperwork was immensely screwed up.  The whole time thinking "They're gonna deport me!" 

So I Facebook messaged Liz and jokingly asked if she knew anyone who sold Xanex on the down low.  To which she replied "We're British, we just drink gin." And I told her that I couldn't drink gin because I was going to have to drive to base and didn't need to get nicked for a drink driving offense on the way down to sort out my visa issues because I didn't want to end up as a story plastered across the front page of the Daily Mail.  Which she acknowledged was a fair point.  To be fair though, I bet I could have sold my story for a good bit of money and taken some properly trashy photographs of me with my boobs hanging out and a cigarette in my hand for the front page. 

So I headed down to the passport office still feeling like I was going to be sick on my nice semi new black flats.  I filled out my information on the computer queuing system and when the lady called me to be seen I walked up and said "I have a big big big problem.  My visa has expired and I didn't realize it til I was filling out my visa extension paperwork because..." and then she interrupted me and said "because your orders said you were here for four years and your visa was only issued for three years.  Don't worry you won't be deported."  And that is when the whole situation became kinda funny for me and I didn't feel sick anymore.

Apparently the consulate in New York doesn't know how to read American military orders very well and this has happened a number of times.  Now I don't feel so special. 

But since I am still scared of "The Man" I am going to distract them with cute pictures of our new kitten, Mr Tibbs, until I am legal in about 12 weeks give or take depending on the bureaucracy involved.  The paperwork is in the mail so to speak.