Spring break

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!

Packing

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.

The trip fairy

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.

Checklist

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.

Such language from such a nice man

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.”

On being mocked by a Brit…

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.

Counting the days

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 get by with a little help from my friends*

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.

Anglophilia, Willy Wonka, Monty Python’s castle, and other travel musings

We’re still on an Anglo High here in Jenworld. We’ll eventually calm down, but for now we’re just so damn excited about going to England in April. I was so jazzed yesterday that I could hardly focus on work. Even the girls are pumped — all of their Barbies now have British accents.

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions, either via comments or emails. Y’all have some great ideas and I appreciate your sharing them. Feel free to keep ‘em coming. Oh, and Green Girl in Wisconsin? Thanks for the guide book recommendation. I went to Barnes & Noble today and got a copy. Not only will it be helpful with trip planning, but since it weighs about 17 pounds, I can use it to help weigh down my suitcase lid when I’m trying to zip it shut.

To those of you who waxed poetic about how romantic London will be in April, here’s my question for you: Have you ever traveled with children? Seriously. There is no romance in sharing a hotel room with the kidlets for ten days straight. Yes, we could get a suite, which is what we do when we travel domestically, but the fact is we’ll be in one of the most expensive cities on the planet, so we won’t be getting a suite at the Ritz or even at the Dew Drop Inn. We will very likely be getting a basic room at a B&B and paying an arm and a leg AND a boob for it.

Guess what amazing thing we discovered last night? (And Guider, I cannot believe you didn’t mention this to me already. I thought we were friends.)

Cadbury World

That’s right people. A factory tour of my favorite British chocolate company. This could very well be the thing that helps us decide on going to the Cotswolds instead of York. I know, I know, it’s probably a tourist trap and not all that great. Who cares? It can’t possibly be as lame as Hershey’s so-called factory tour and, even if it is, Cadbury World has the largest retail shop of Cadbury’s products in the world, so I’m totally good with that.

When I told Elegant about Cadbury World, she mused that it would be just like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Only, without Willy Wonka. And no creepy Oompa Loompas. And no missing children. But, just the same, otherwise.

I asked Pete if he wanted to go to Legoland Windsor. You know, my husband, a.k.a. Mr. Amusement Park. The very same guy who was in Orlando one week ago today. Do you want to want to know what he said? “Eh, I don’t know. Maybe.” Clearly, something is off kilter in the universe today.

When I woke up this morning, I naturally started thinking about this trip. But then my thoughts wandered and I started remembering some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen:

• Milford Sound in New Zealand — The drive there was gorgeous (you’ve probably seen it in some Mazda ads on TV) and then our tour of the sound was even more stunning.
• Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona — Between Sedona and Flagstaff. This is one of the greatest drives we’ve ever had.
• Castle Stalker in Loch Laich in Scotland. It’s a teeny tiny castle on a teeny tiny island IN the loch. (Also featured in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” — something every person should be familiar with.)
• Closer to home, one of the reasons we live in Virginia is the Blue Ridge Mountains. I grew up having mountain views around me and life without them would not be possible.
• There’s a beach near Santa Barbara that is my favorite beach ever. Towering cliffs separate the beach from the mainland and give the area a cozy, protected feeling. The beach itself has the most abundant offerings of shells, rocks, sea glass, and driftwood. And the Channel Islands are 40 miles off in the distance, but look much closer.

But I want to hear from y’all. Where have you been that was so beautiful it took your breah away?

Elegant wants to have tea with the Queen

Before you read any further, you should really go read this post so as to fully appreciate what I’m about to say. Trust me on this one. I’ll wait here until you come back.

You’re back? Good, because here’s what I have to say:

WE BOUGHT FOUR PLANE TICKETS TO LONDON!!!

No, we’re not excited at all. We don’t have a stack of guide books and two maps of London on our coffee table, with three more books expected in today’s mail. No, I haven’t compiled a packing list for a trip that’s more than two months away. Graceful has most certainly not been reading a guide book, nor has she asked to ride a double decker bus. Elegant hasn’t been walking around perfecting her British accent. And we definitely didn’t talk about the trip while we walked to school this morning.

We’re all perfectly calm about it all.

When the girls went to bed last night, they knew that this trip was a possibility. Pete was still working on our airfare, so things weren’t set yet. When I woke the girls this morning, I told them that we’d bought the tickets.

Elegant asked, “So are we really going?”

I said, “Unless something comes up.” (Thinking of my father’s iffy health.)

Elegant said, “You mean, like the circus?!?”

Graceful is already thinking about what she’s going to pack — she is SO MUCH like me.

We don’t have a definite itinerary yet, only a vague plan to spend a large chunk of time in London, with a day trip to Oxford to see friends who are on sabbatical there. We’ve talked about going up to York, which we love, but we’ve also talked about heading the other direction to the Cotswolds and then on to Shakespeare Country. (Guider, I’ll email you about this.)

So anyway, lots of exciting things for us to think about!

Now we just all have to be patient until April. Sigh.