The Humdrum of Everyday Life

In this season of my life, I have a lot of time to think. It's both a blessing and a curse. I'm alone to marinate in my thoughts as I go about the day, until I think I’m gonna go C.R.A.Z.Y. I need a second opinion, people!! This is way too much Susie Ambrose for me. She just won't shut up.

(Side note: I'm amazed at how pregnancy affects my brain - it's so much harder to think! I drove 20 min to the store the other day only to drive 20 min straight back because I'd forgotten to close the door ... only to find it closed. Facepalm.)

Even though I'm still in the process of finding new friends, I’m constantly working through a list of things to do. Errands re the house, grocery shopping, dealing with fixers and providers, hitting the gym and making time for yoga, cooking, cleaning, Skyping, laundry, doing my coursework, etc. The more peaceful to-dos like Bible study can fall by the wayside, as my true priority list deviates to my ‘hey, this makes me feel productive!’ list. Hubby sometimes laments that I can’t sit still through an entire movie with him.

Today I found myself crashed out on the semi-dressed spare bed, my fingers hooking onto my sneakers in one hand and a bill in the other. The sun was warming the white linen and making the golden-painted walls shine. Moments like that are my bliss. When I finally stop and lie down. That’s when the little boy starts moving. There’s a small nudge in one side of my belly, next thing there’s a soft kick to the other. I smile, because it almost feels like he’s saying, ‘Good job, Mommy! You’re resting!’

After spending ample time in an 80% unfurnished house and feeling pretty lonely at times, I realized recently that I was focusing on lack instead of abundance. We all have things we wish were different in our lives and it will be that way until we die.

It’s great to have goals in life, but it can create the equation of: ‘effort à acquiring à happiness’. This way of thinking puts happiness out of our reach, because the goal posts always move! Something new and different soon grabs our attention, ensuring that we can never be content with what we have. I’m sick of living by that equation, aren't you? I want happiness and contentment right now.

Positive thoughts reframe our whole lives. They are the difference between frustration at the stain marks over the table and delight that we have a table in the first place. They move us from an anxious, poor, dissatisfied and tired experience of life into a peaceful, rich, satiated and energized experience of life. And nothing has to change apart from our thoughts and attitude!

There’s this commercial for Direct TV that shows a painfully awkward guy being awkward. Then, the same guy dressed all slick and cool walks into the frame and says, ‘Don’t be like this me, get rid of cable and upgrade to Direct TV.’ I prodded the hubby and said, ‘This is the problem! This is how we’re made to think!’ Hubby nodded in agreement, in all likelihood rolling his eyes internally and thinking: great, here she goes again.

Whatever our issues are, perhaps it would help to ruminate less about the problem and evasive solution, and more about how to be grateful for what we have? Enjoying the good moments, the good people and the good things, however small they may feature.

I'm trying it out anyway, and I have a sneaky feeling that the rest will begin to fall into place ...

Adapting to Americanisms

Reading and writing the date is now something that takes more mental effort than it should. I always feel slightly nervous when someone hands me a document to sign and date. First, I pause at my last name (I still have to fight the instinct to write my maiden name) and then I gaze in apprehension at the space for the date. Thirteen, zero one … No wait … there’s only twelve months, I need to switch it … the first month, day thirteen, 2015.

As someone who is exceptionally fond on logic, I miss the sense of writing the date in increasing units. Driving on the other side of the road was WAY easier than re-learning how to write the date. Thankfully, I've only found myself on the ‘wrong side’ once, and that was in a parking lot so it didn't really matter. Everyone’s confused in a parking lot. ‘Crap, I’m going the wrong way!’, ‘How do I get out of here!?’ In my brain, things start from the left to right, like reading and writing. It doesn't help that I’m a lefty.

I have to admit, I also wasn't expecting people to find my accent difficult to understand. I guess there’s less British TV here than there is American TV in the UK. When I’m in the grocery store and the sales assistant asks me what I’m looking for, I’m usually met with a blank stare. It took me a while to realize that sometimes people are listening more to my accent than what I’m actually saying. I've even taken to putting on an American accent when I’m on the phone, or when I’m ordering ‘warder’ to drink, just to save time. Which is seriously embarrassing because my American accent sounds like I have an unhinged jaw. 

My biggest surprise has been that no one really uses electric kettles here. They still heat up cold water on the stove, or zap it in the microwave. One of the most surreal experiences of my life has been showing people how when you flick the switch on the kettle, it makes the water boil quickly. ‘Ooooooo!!’

Other things that have taken some getting used to are: mailboxes (having your mail sitting outside your house instead of being delivered into your house), price labels not including the tax, gaps between restroom cubicle doors (awkward), home air conditioning, not being able to walk to any destinations (apart from when we lived in the city), using airplanes like trains, and 24/7 sports. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the last one. I might have to secretly unsubscribe us from ESPN and pretend it’s broken. Although the hubby would just watch it on his ‘cell phone’ … during dinner … in a restaurant. Okay, that’s only happened once. Twice.

On my list of American favorite things are: filtered water and ice directly from the fridge, s’mores, automatic cars, super friendly people (I’m now BFFs with the security system installer), American TV shows, the growing number of health food stores and the national anthem. I’m not sure why, but I’m frequently humming the American national anthem. So I think I’ll put that as a side note on my citizenship test. I even know it has four verses not just one! (Smiles self-importantly)

Yep. I think I'm pretty well adjusted. 

Setting Up Shop

Happy 2015! So it’s been just over a month since we ‘moved in’ to our new home and we've spent all of 6 nights here. We're back in Georgia after the Christmas vacation and it's time for everyday life to begin again. Unsurprisingly, being first-time home owners in a new state is complicated! ‘Wow, look at all the space!’ soon turns into the realization that the bigger the house is, the more can go wrong. I’m still trying to figure our bad luck in having 0/4 toilets that work properly.

As a perfectionist (I have a feeling either this or motherhood is going to cure me of it) – I can see every scratch and cracked light, let alone the broken and off-gassing new dresser, the already malfunctioning TV system and the things that fall off the wall when you use them.

As a five-month pregnant woman still battling with nausea and exhaustion, I also don’t appreciate being kept up by a security system that starts bleeping at 2am, or a dying smoke alarm the following night that starts bleeping at 3am. Thank goodness I have a super hubby who is good at taking charge.

I really shouldn’t complain …. but the hormones are making me do it. And that pesky perfectionism. Honestly, why am I focusing on the echoing rooms and bare-nailed walls instead of the big kitchen, lovely double deck and backyard overlooking a lake? We are so fortunate. I am so fortunate.

We all go through this, don’t we? Nothing is ever as easy as we think it should be. Often a quick fix becomes a four-attempt experience before it’s sorted out. And all money-conscious people gasp over the frequent revelations of how much being an adult costs. ‘How much? Geeeeze! Hold on while I Google how much we can get for my kidney on the Black Market.’

Even my generous, money-easy hubby is starting to twitch. Remember when we decided to buy a big empty house, live in a place where two cars are needed, and get pregnant? Yeeeah …. we’re pretty smart.

But as I sit here with bump and some lemon tea, the sky is blue and the sun is shining on our leaf-strewn backyard. (I haven’t actually been in the backyard yet, but it looks very nice.) I’m eyeing my pen and notepad beside me. It’s waiting for me plan the week of plumbers, security system men, washer/drier deliveries, furniture fixers and healthcare appointments – and despite my pregnant brain fog, I suddenly feel ready to conquer this.