Jen on the Edge

I don’t believe I’ve told y’all about one of our Jenworld traditions when we travel. You know how some people collect things when they’re on vacation — shot glasses, fridge magnets, tea towels, etc.? Well, we collect charms for our charm bracelets. This is actually just the girls and me, as Pete doesn’t have a charm bracelet, but I suppose we could start a new trend for men.

Whenever we go on vacation, I keep an eye out for silver charms to add our growing collection. When I do find the right one, I get three — one for each of us. I know, I know, the matching mother/daughter thing is a bit cutesy, but I’m thinking it doesn’t really apply for accessories. I love the idea of us having not only the shared memories of our vacations, but also the same charms for each memory.

My charm bracelet is actually a bangle. It’s easy to remove the end and add more charms, plus I don’t have to worry about the bracelet breaking, which is what happened many times with my old bracelet. I have charms going back more than ten years, including some that I bought more for their kitsch value than because of a memorable trip. (The Alamo and Carlsbad Caverns, anyone?)

The girls love looking at my charms and hearing about our trip to New Zealand when I was pregnant with Graceful (a kiwibird charm) or how much we loved Arizona (1996) and New Mexico (1997). I also have the Eiffel Tower, as a promise for the future.

I got the girls lighthouses for our first-ever family vacation, which was a beach trip when the girls were 1 and 3. For some reason, I didn’t get myself one and I have no idea why. I also got them little charms in the shape of Texas to commemorate their first trip to visit Pete’s family in Houston, as well their first trip on an airplane. (They were almost 2 and 4 and absolute ANGELS on the flight, so maybe I should have gotten angel charms instead.)

All three of us have the Statue of Liberty (2003), Cinderella’s castle from our trip to Disney World in 2004, the state of California (2005), and the Sears Tower (2006). I also got us wee White House charms (2006), but that’s more because the visit was special for us as a family, than because it was a major family trip. (My sister arranged for it after my father expressed the desire to see it before he dies.) And of course, the girls and I now have Big Ben charms to help us remember our trip to England. (I tried to get replica Crown Jewels but wasn’t willing to spend $50 per charm.)

My hope is that one day, the girls will look at their bracelets and remember how much fun we had in England in 2008 or (cross your fingers) Paris in 2010. I hope that one day their sons and daughters will play with the charms and ask to be told again about how Grandpa Pete and Grandma Jen kept getting lost in England.

The girls don’t actually have their bracelets yet and, for that matter, I’m not sure if they are aware that I’ve been collecting charms for them. I know I’ve told them, but that certainly doesn’t mean they were paying attention. Until recently, I’ve kept the charms in my jewelry box, but I just bought the bracelets and will soon take the whole little pile of silver to the jewelry store to have have the links soldered. I’m thinking of giving the girls their bracelets for Christmas, with the provision that, for now, they’ll continue to live in my jewelry box so that no one is tempted to use them as necklaces for Webkinz or as a prop in some other game. This is not paranoia on my part; there is a precedent for nice children’s jewelry ending up as garlands in the dollhouse.

Since I know someone will ask, here’s a photo of my bracelet, as modeled by one of my American Girl friends:

I know that some of you have some sort of similar tradition, whether it’s related to travel or not. So please take a moment to share them here. (Guider, please tell everyone about the Scottish menswear tradition in your family, because that one is particularly nice.)

Okay, so as I figured, in spite of my efforts to stay up until 10:00 last night, it’s now 5 a.m. and I’m already awake for the day. For me east-to-west jet lag is the killer and it will take me three days to get my body back to normal. Elegant is already awake too and I expect to hear Graceful moving around any time now. I’m planning to send the girls to school in three hours, but with notes to their teachers to call me if anyone starts to flag a bit in the afternoon.

So… our trip. I’ve already posted a few snippets about it, but I’m also going to give you a brief-ish recap now. I spent a lot of hours thinking about how to blog this in a way that would capture how much fun we had, but without turning it into one of those awful experiences like when Great-Uncle Norman once again makes the entire family look at his slides from his trip to China 30 years ago. Hopefully, I won’t lose too many of you before the end.

Saturday, April 5

I’ve already told you a bit about our lack of sleep on the first day, so let me instead show you where we started things off.

Our hotel was right next to the London Eye:

In case you’re not familiar with London geography, the London Eye is on the south side of the Thames, just across from the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. So, a great location and we took full advantage of being so close by doing a lot of walking. A lot, which is probably what saved my dimpled white arse from gaining too much weight from all the chocolate we sampled.

What is it about those red phone booths that makes tourists do stupid things?

We went to Buckingham Palace, but alas did not meet HRH Queen Elizabeth II. Such a shame, as Elegant has just about perfected her British accent and her royal wave.

We did, however, visit the royal mews and checked out a couple of her horses and some mighty fine royal vehicles:

You might recognize that from Charles and Diana’s fairy tale wedding.

When the girls saw it, they gasped, and Elegant asked, “Is that one of the seven Wonders of the World?”

I hope to goodness that neither one of them gets any grand ideas for their own weddings one day, because I’m pretty sure this carriage isn’t available for non-royal weddings.

Sunday, April 6

When I first mentioned on this blog several months ago that we were going to London in early April, several people told me how nice the weather in London is in April. THEY LIED. We woke up on Sunday morning to discover that it was SNOWING. I am not making this up. And, for the record, we damn near froze our bums off the first few days PLUS we saw some sort of rain (albeit sometimes just sprinkles) Every Single Day that we were in England. Except, of course, on the last day.

Because it was snowing on Sunday, we decided to stick with inside activities, such as Madame Tussaud’s. We took many silly photos, including this one:

Mrs. G., this one’s for you:

I tried to get close enough to get a photo of me lovin’ on your secret boyfriend, but the crowds of lustful women were just too thick.

We came out of Madame Tussaud’s and discovered that, not only had it stopped snowing, but that the SUN WAS SHINING. We worked through our confusion and continued exploring.

We went to the Tate Modern (south side of the Thames) and then walked across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul’s Cathedral:

For the Boden and Mini Boden fans who recognize the girls’ pants, I never made it to the store, which is out in the suburbs in an inconvenient location. I can tell you, however, that the British children I saw were rarely quite as colorful as mine. Also, the two times I did recognize Mini Boden clothes on wee British girls, they were in browns or blues, not pinks. Londoners in particular, and Brits to a lesser extent, are not as colorful as Americans. Every time we got on the Tube, we would be almost glowing with color, while everyone else wore black, grey, and earth tones. It was rare that we saw an overcoat that wasn’t black or dark gray, but we did at least see little splashes of color in odd shoes, sweaters, or scarves.

Monday, April 7

We spent much of the day at the Tower of London, where Elegant sighed with dismay that her jewels are nowhere nearly as fabulous as the Crown Jewels.

Would you look at that? It’s raining again.

Some very smart grandparents gave the girls their very own digital cameras last Christmas, and Pete and I enjoyed watching the girls record the vacation through their eyes:

I could have just taken a photo of the guards myself, but it was so much more fun to get the photo of Elegant photographing them.

After a messy dinner of ice cream that evening, Pete took Elegant back to the hotel to hose her down, while Graceful and I rode the London Eye. For some reason, Elegant really really really didn’t want to ride the London Eye and Pete wasn’t all that interested either, so it was just G and me.

I’m surprised that Graceful didn’t fill her camera’s memory card with just this one experience — she took dozens of photos. I took some too, but mostly I just enjoyed watching her and how delighted she was.

Tuesday, April 7

We packed up and left London. We had to go back to Heathrow to get our rental car, which turned into an adventure that took hours. No, I’m not exaggerating. First, there was the hour-long Tube ride to get to the airport. Then there was the trekking through the terminal to get to the designated meeting spot for the shuttle bus that would take us to the place where the rental cars are kept. Supposedly it was close, but it took a long time. Then there was the HOUR to actually go through Express Pick-Up. One employee. That’s how many people were staffing the desk. If any of you is planning to rent a car from Heathrow any time soon, check first to make sure the cars are actually near enough to pick up quickly. Don’t use Dollar or Thrifty, as they’re staffed by the same person and he seemed a bit incompetent. And it was nearly as bad when we returned the car a week later.

Once we got the car, however, our road trip began. We were off to Oxford, to visit friends who normally live down the street from us but have been on sabbatical this year.

Here are my girls with our friends’ youngest daughter walking in Oxford:

I think any building that has a carved figure picking its nose needs to be shared here:

Oh no, my children didn’t giggle and guffaw over that one.

We had an amazing afternoon exploring Oxford and then we drove to the Cotswolds to stay the night at a B&B on a farm.

Wednesday, April 9

We spent part of the day at Warwick Castle:

By this point, the girls were getting a bit “castled out” so we opted to have an easy day and to spend some time at the B&B just hanging out. Since it was on a small farm, there was much to explore. The B&B owners have two small children, including a five-year-old daughter who fell into deep and abiding love with Elegant and who was therefore waiting for us when we got returned in the afternoon.

Graceful spent much of the afternoon playing with Max the dog and Laura the lamb, but she did join the younger girls in the barn for some jumping fun:

Thursday, April 10

We checked out of the B&B and started heading northward.

We explored one cute little Cotswolds town:

Then we drove to Cadbury World.

Ahhh, chocolate Mecca. That’s really the only way I can describe it. Unlike Hershey Park, you can actually see chocolate being made AND the Cadbury people were very generous with the chocolate freebies. I think we might still have some left.

I couldn’t take any photos inside, so you just have to trust me when I tell you we had a terrific time.

Afterward, we got in the car and headed to the Guider’s house for our first ever meeting. It was supposed to take an hour to get there, so we allowed 90 minutes, just in case. TWO HOURS LATER, we arrived. We were an hour late and didn’t have a cell phone to call the Guider, for which I felt terrible, especially since she was worried too. After a little getting-to-know-you time, we left the house and went to the Brownie pack meeting, which the Guider has detailed here. I took photos, but promised not to put them on the blog, so just imagine my two girls meeting 19 new girls and everyone getting along wonderfully.

Pete spent his time at a nearby pub and then came back to get his women. We went back to the Guider’s house and spent an hour talking with her and Mr. Guider, while my girls played with Guider’s 9 y.o. daughter. During this time, Guider’s younger son was most definitely not asleep in his bed. Oops. Sorry about the noise! For photos and more details, see here.

We stayed at a nearby inn, which the Guider recommended and then got up the next morning to head back to the beautiful English countryside.

Friday, April 11

Our plan was to drive to Bath and explore this famous city, but we once again went astray with the directions. We’re not normally so idiotic — and in fact Pete and I are both quite excellent at navigating — so I can only chalk this one up to some vagaries in British road signage.

So instead of going to Bath first, we went to Cheddar Gorge to see where cheddar cheese originated. The town is a tourist trap, but we enjoyed learning more about how cheese is made and seeing the gorge where the cheese used to be cured in caves:

We spent more time exploring adorable British towns as we headed toward our B&B. How is it possible for an entire country to be so damn cute? Even towns off the beaten path were precious. And the countryside is just so green and easy on the eye.

We thought about going into Bath to explore a bit, but we once more took a wrong turn and ended up driving through Bath. On Friday. At rush hour. Sigh…

We eventually made it to our B&B and had a quiet evening.

Saturday, April 12

We explored Bath a bit, but honestly people, we were getting a bit tired of sightseeing. We ended up spending a couple of hours at Royal Victoria Park, which is next to the Royal Crescent, and is one of the finest parks we’ve ever seen.

The park had numerous play areas and virtually everything was better than anything we’d ever seen before. There was even a place with a zip wire, which we enjoyed fully:

After that, we opted for another quiet evening in our B&B.

Sunday, April 13

What should we do on our last full day in Merrie Olde England? So many possibilities, but we ultimately decided on one of the most famous places of all:

I know, I know, Stonehenge is touristy, but how can anyone pass up the opportunity to visit a 5,000 year old structure?

Oh and look, it was raining and cold again.

Conclusion

Our trip was everything we hoped it would be and possibly even better. We got to see friends old and new, which is always so nice. We made memories that we’ll be discussing for years and have enough photos among the three cameras (around 700, I think) to keep me busy for a while.

We’re already talking about our next trip, but it won’t be any time soon. Graceful is lobbying for France next, which Pete and I think is a fun idea for maybe 2010 or 2011. We’re toying with various options for 2009, including a National Parks tour in Utah. Or maybe we’ll drive up to Canada. Who knows?

What I do know is that it will take us some time to replenish our bank account. England is expensive on a good day and it’s hellaciously expensive for Americans right now. (Blame George W. Bush. I do.) By the end of our trip, my credit card was whimpering loudly every time I pulled it out to pay for something.

So now we’re home again. It was nice to sleep in my own bed last night and I’m absolutely looking forward to reintroducing myself to American plumbing today — particularly my shower. Pete stayed up late last night working on the mountains of dirty laundry while the girls and I slept. I will be invading Whole Foods today and forking over vast sums of money to restock our fridge. The girls have school and Pete and I have to remember what working for a living is like.

And, I have loads and loads of blog entries to read and catch up on what my bloggy friends have been doing in the past ten days. I missed you guys and am happy to be reconnected!

While I’m off over here …

… y’all try to stay out of trouble in my absence, ‘kay?

We are not taking a laptop with us, which means I will be OFFLINE (*sob*) for 10 days. It’s possible I’ll pop into an internet cafe and do a quick post, but don’t count on it. A vacation is for experiencing new things, not surfing the ‘Net and checking emails.

Make sure you read Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet while I’m gone, starting today — Recycla talks about easy eco travel. I’m serious. I want you to read Eco Women. Because I busted my big white ass butt to get my posts written in advance, so that Melissa can post for me in my absence. So a little appreciation for that hard labor on my part, please. Plus, I don’t want to come home and find out that you’re all driving Hummers and leaving all your lights on all the time, just because I left the country.

Somewhere around the 10th or 11th, you might want to check in with Guider. I’m not trying to tell her what to post, but if she’s a good friend, she’ll at least mention our first-ever meeting on her blog, at least just so that my mother will know that my family is alive and well in a far-off country. (The infamous Grandma A$s doesn’t like it when her loved ones get on airplanes…)

(Don’t worry Mom. We probably won’t die in a plane crash. Probably.)

We get home on the 14th. If I’m not dead tired from the jet lag, I’ll post that night. More likely, I’ll wake up at 4 a.m. the next day and THEN I’ll post, because east-to-west jet lag is the absolute worst for me.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good bye!

Why is it that many of us women find it so difficult to pack for a vacation? Or, maybe it’s just me and not the majority of females. Maybe I’m just weird about my travel wardrobe.

First of all, there are limits on how much I can take. I hate being limited.

For this trip, I get about half of one medium size suitcase. Yes folks, we here in Jenworld seem to think that four of us can take only two medium suitcases to England for ten days AND not do laundry while we’re on the road. We’re almost cute in our naivete’.

I also have three other suitcases on standby.

We can take up to two suitcases each, but the reality is that we’re going to land in London on Saturday at around 7 a.m. Pete and I will need to navigate customs, get through Heathrow, and then take the Tube into the city with two exhausted children and our luggage. By our calculations, it’s totally do-able, as long as one hand is holding one child and the other hand is rolling a suitcase. Any more than that will ruin our precarious balance of sanity and alertness at that hour of the morning.

(Anyone know if Starbucks has infiltrated the U.K. — specifically Heathrow?)

So I need to pack light, but pack well.

I need to pack for rain — duh, this is England. I’m torn between taking this coat (royal blue) and this one (blue). The first one screams “American tourist.” It does have the advantage of being waterproof, but has the disadvantage of not being very warm. The second coat isn’t technically waterproof, but should do fine in a London drizzle, plus I have a cute rain hat to go with it. And, it’s warm.

I need to pack for chilly weather because I utterly loathe being cold and being cold will ruin a vacation for me. Layers are the key to my warmth and happiness. At this point, I have packed one lightweight quilted riding jacket, two cashmere sweaters, and four pashimas/scarves/wraps.

I also need to pack for possible nice weather. Stop snickering. It doesn’t rain all the time in England. Hang on a second, while I check the weather forecast again.

[Checking the Weather Channel and the BBC...]

Okay, I’m back and I’m thinking we don’t need to pack sunblock. Maybe I’ll add another sweater to the pile.

There will be a lot of black in my wardrobe. Black pants, black shirts, etc. Oh, and some jeans too. But no khaki pants, because the reality is that I’m going to have to wear all of my pants at least two or three times on this trip and we all just know I’d drop pizza on my khakis within the first five minutes of putting them on and then have to wear them dirty for the rest of the trip.

So — black and denim. At least everything matches.

To liven up all that Angelina Jolie black, I’ll be accessorizing with color. The aforementioned sweaters and pashimas. Plenty of great jewelry.

I’m only allowing myself only two pairs of shoes. I know, it’s heartbreaking to be limited thusly, but shoes take up too much room in the suitcases. Right now, I’m thinking about these and these — both in black. The first ones aren’t attractive, but my bad Achilles tendon is giving me so many problems this week that I’m wearing a brace again and popping lots of Advil. Good shoes with excellent support are a must.

Luckily, Pete won’t be packing any sweaters or bulky items. He just doesn’t get cold. He wears shorts year ’round, I kid you not. Thus far, he’s packed several pairs of shorts in varying shades of khaki, khaki, and khaki, including two new pairs from Old Navy. I plan to blatantly steal borrow some of his space in the suitcase in order to meet my own wardrobe needs.

Then there are the girls. Graceful has done a great job of sorting through her clothes and putting outfits together. She’ll be wearing her usual combos of pants, shirts, and a fleece for warmth. As for Elegant, well she’ll just be her vivid self while we’re traveling. As of this moment, however, all she has packed is three nightgowns and 11 pairs of socks. At least her feet will be warm.

So we’re all pretty excited here in Jenworld. In 33 hours, we take off. I’ll post one final time tomorrow morning and then you get 10 days of peace and quiet.

Have I told y’all about the Trip Fairy?

[Listen to me, people. I am 72 hours from leaving for Merrie Olde England and I sound like Britney Spears. I might as well tattoo "American from the South" on my forehead.]

Anyhoo, the Trip Fairy. I am her, she is me, and the girls know it. But it doesn’t matter because the girls LURVE the Trip Fairy and I get serious amounts of R-E-S-P-E-C-T from them when the Trip Fairy makes an appearance.

Here’s how it works:

The Trip Fairy buys all sorts of new books, little toys, and junk food for a trip. She loads up a backpack for each child in Jenworld. If it’s a flying trip, the girls are not allowed to peek until we get on the plane and their seatbelts are on. If it’s a driving trip, they have to wait until we’ve at least backed the car out of the damn driveway.

The Trip Fairy is known to be generous; in other words, she spends far too much money in the quest for peace during the journey. But what a great peace it is! Seriously, hours of silence, as the girls read their new books, eat their junk food, and check out their new toys.

For the impending trip, the Trip Fairy has, frankly, outdone her winged self.

Check it out:

Books. The trick here is to find books that are long enough to occupy Graceful but not so heavy that they weigh us down. So far, the list includes Harry Potter #3 and Septimus Heap #3, as well as others than I can’t think of at this moment. Elegant’s books are somewhat shorter but still interesting enough that Graceful can read them too when she finishes her own pile.

[And yes Guider, I am aware that your country has many bookstores that we could visit. But we have to first get through the long flight TO England. After that, we actually do have a list of specific books we want to get while we're in the land of fish and chips.]

Mad Libs. That’s got to be at least two hours of children who, while not quiet, are at least laughing and entertaining their own damn selves. In addition to the Mad Libs, I also got each girl a special notebook for either doodling in or recording their memories. And I even found some fun pens to go with the notebooks.

Plastic toys — specifically Pocket Puppies. These will probably have some marvelous adventures on the plane, all over England, and then on the return trip. I normally don’t like to buy plastic crapola, but I make an exception if I’m going to be confined in a small space with my children for a number of hours.

Snacks and treats. Sure, they’ll feed us on the plane, but what’s a vacay without some fun foods? Plus, I don’t ever want to be in one of those travel situations you read about in the newspaper, involving passengers stuck on a plane on the runway for hours, with no food or drinks (or clean toilets, but I can’t control that). If I could wheel a ginormous cooler of food and drinks onto the plane, I would.

The Trip Fairy will also very thoughtfully remember to pack the girls’ iPods and they’ll be recharged and with new tunes. More emphasis on groups like Queen and less on craptacular stuff like High School Musical. [shudder]

And, it’s likely that the girls will take a few photos on the digital cameras that their grandparents gave them for Christmas. Knowing Elegant, her memory card will be full before we’ve even left the safety of the Eastern Seaboard.

Then there’s the on-flight entertainment provided by Virgin Atlantic: TV screens for every seat, with special channels just for the kidlets.

Now that I think about it, I’m wondering if there’s too much to do and the girls won’t sleep at all during the flight. Argh, I hope not, because the last thing I want to happen is for everyone to be wide awake for four or five hours and then only nap for an hour until the lights come on and breakfast is served.

Maybe the Trip Fairy should slip some Valium into the girls’ bags too.

This is my real checklist of things to do this week before I’m allowed to get on the plane and get the hell out of here:

1. Go to The Tarzhay and pick up last minute supplies.
2. Go to the pharmacy and ask them to beg the insurance company to allow me to order my birth control a week early so that I don’t come back from England with more than I planned on.
3. Take a mountain of boxes to the recycling center so that it’s no longer on my screened porch. Not vital, but I hate coming home to a messy house and right now those boxes state to the world, “White trash lives here.”
4. Reschedule my appointment with Richard the Hair God. Right now, I’m supposed to see him the morning after we get back. People, I’m here to tell you that the morning after we arrive, I won’t be able to hold my head up, much less keep it steady so that the Hair God can cut my hair more or less evenly.
5. Color my hair. I WILL NOT go to England with obvious gray hairs.
6. Photocopy our passports. My in-laws once went to Barcelona and, 30 minutes after they dropped their luggage off at their hotel, Pete’s stepmother was mugged. Guess what was in her purse? Their passports and their plane tickets. Guess what they did not have copies of?
7. Go to the post office and mail my stepmother’s birthday present.
8. But first I need to wrap the gift.
9. Mail a check to my sister-in-law, who kindly replenished Elegant’s Lilly Pullitzer dress collection.
10. Charge the camera battery and all of the iPods.
11. Put new music on the girls’ iPods and mine. For them, less Hannah Montana and more classic rock. Pete thinks we also need to put “Rule Britannia” on them too.
12. On Thursday, I need to clean all three bathrooms, mop the kitchen, and dust and vacuum the entire house. See #3. I hate coming home to a dirty, messy house. The empty fridge and mountain of laundry are bad enough.

Then there’s my work checklist. I worked 40+ hours last week, plus about 15 or 16 this weekend, and have another 30 or more to work between now and Thursday night. I’m supposed to work 20 hours/week.

Yeah, it’s going to be a busy week.  But that’s okay, because in four days and ten hours, I’ll be sitting on a plane and hopefully it will be taking off on time.

The scene: The Jenworld Blogging Headquarters and Webkinz Zone (a.k.a. the study in our house).

The people:  Pete and Jen — each of us is at a computer.

Pete’s working on hotel reservations in That Country Across The Ocean That You’re All So Damn Sick Of Me Mentioning.

(Yes Jen, we know you’re visiting the Mother Country, now shut up, will you.).

Pete, looking at a hotel suggested by Guider, “Oh, this place has free breakfasts.”

Jen, reading stuff online and not paying close attention, “That’s good.”

Pete, “Hey, since everything’s going to cost an arm and a dick anyway, we might as well get something free.”

So my friend The Guider mocks me a bit in her blog today. Good-natured mocking and I take it with the good humor with which it was intended. Feel free to go over there and join in the fun. And all because I thought Isla Fisher’s name was pronounced differently than it is. Sigh…

Just remember Guider, I live in a country where one can easily buy all the ingredients for S’mores. Maybe, if you are nice to me, I’ll give up some critical clothing space in my suitcase and instead pack some graham crackers and Hershey bars for you.

Only a few weeks to go until we are here:

Only a few weeks until Elegant gets to don a tiara and have tea with HRH Elizabeth II here:

(Not really, but a girl can dream about tea with royalty, right?)

After we bought our plane tickets a few months ago, we were very excited and spent days talking about nothing but England. Many emails went back and forth between the Guider and me as we made our plans.

Then, reality set in. Because of my father’s illness, we were hesitant to plan too much, in case we needed to cancel at the last minute. And while there’s still a possibility we might have to cancel, I’m feeling more confident that things will be okay. Plus, my sister told me the other night to make our plans, go, and have a great time. She might be the younger sister, but she has a strong personality and I often (but not always) listen to her when she tells me to do something.

Last night, Pete and I started working on hotel reservations. Actually, it was Pete who was working, while I sat at the other computer and read blogs. We have a basic itinerary and Pete started at the beginning and tried to find a hotel room in London for less than $250/night.

Yes, you read that correctly. London is already one of the most expensive cities on the planet, but because the dollar is so weak these days, take any price that’s in pounds and double it and that’s the American equivalent. It really sucks. In fact, Pete has stopped converting pounds to dollars and just simply talks about things in pounds. Much less painful that way.

I suppose I really have no room to complain. I’m going to England, not trying to decide between feeding the children or paying the electric bill.

I was just hoping to have some money left AFTER the trip to feed the children AND pay the electric bill, but it appears we’ll have to make some difficult choices after we have tea with the Queen and buy our tickets to Madame Tussaud’s.

I have decided that you, my bloggy friends, are truly wonderful people. Well, okay, I’ve long since known that, but my appreciation increased recently.

To wit:

• A couple weeks ago, I expressed concern about potentially being gang pressed into helping a neighbor that I don’t particularly want to help. Y’all came through with some great advice.
• Yesterday, I was feeling a bit down about losing motivation in my continuing quest to get to a healthy weight. Your comments were really supportive and helped me regain some of my positive attitude.
• The Guider has been invaluable as we’ve planned our trip to England. She’s researched hotels, suggested about places to visit, and answered a number of my questions. I was already eager to meet her, but now I really can’t wait.
• I’ve been having a problem with dry flaky irritated skin around my eyes this winter — more so than I usually do. Since Traci has a beauty blog, I emailed her with a plea for advice. She did some research and got back to me with some suggestions, which I will be implementing this week.
• Our dishwasher died a long, slow death. It took months, as vital organs died one-by-one. Pete would tinker with it and either things would or would not improve. We called in outside help, which confirmed that our dishwasher was dying and we should put it out of its misery. I was ready to take a sledge hammer to it, but Pete tried more life support, to no avail. We agreed to pull the plug. Then, Pete dithered on what to purchase, so I emailed Marijean, who’s an appliance guru, and asked for guidance. She came through with suggestions, which Pete acted on last week, and some guys are here installing the new appliance as I type. (No Mj, I don’t know what it is. Only that it’s white, it’s a Sears something-or-the-other, and it cost slightly less than one sale-priced Virgin Atlantic ticket to London.)

So you, my friends, rock. Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments and general friendship.

About the dishwasher. I have to tell you that these are the quietest workers evereverever. Seriously. They’re not talking and their tools are making only muted noises. I swear, it’s like they’re Scientologists during a silent labor and delivery, only without the crazy. Amazing.

Finally, one more thing about the upcoming trip: I walked into the study last night, to find my husband looking at a website that looked suspiciously like he was planning to visit a British amusement park. I reminded him that amusement parks are not part of the approved itinerary. Specifically, he was looking at info on the London Dungeon, which we both agree we are most definitely not visiting. But! The website is rather amusing, especially this list of rides. I thought the U.S. was the world leader in amusement concepts, but I’m going to have to tip my hat to the Brits. Where else, I ask you, can you relive the London Fire of 1666, pretend to be a prostitute stalked by Jack the Ripper, AND experience the Great Plague of 1665, complete with boils? Pure genius, I tell you.

We’re still not going.

* With thanks to the Fab Four.