Christmas 2010

My first Christmas away from home....

Nick cooked for me...

Heidi got to sample chicken, a rarity in our mostly vegetarian house...

My mother-in-law came to visit...

We finished decorating our living room, and Nick got his first real tree that he can remember, just in time for Christmas.

I wore sparkle gold nail polish 

and drank enough bailey's and coffee to make me jittery until next year....

I kicked ass in scrabble.  

Nick thought he had us beat with "urinal" 

but I seemed to surpass him with a few clever placements of words like "debt" and "Jew"...

(even if they did accuse me of cheating...sore losers if you ask me)

Santa came...

Nick's mum got Heidi a snuggie, which she ate.

I made Cincinnati's favorite Christmas morning breakfast, 

Virginia Bakery's Schnecken... with lots of love and butter; 

which rose more than I thought it would...

But it still turned out alright, though it seemed to need MORE butter.  

Honestly, what doesn't need more butter - right?

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas too!

It's Been A Long December....

And there's reason to believe,

maybe this year will be better than the last.

I've been quietly singing this Counting Crows song to myself all month long.  Because 2010 has been hard.  Really really hard.  A year of unemployment leaving me feeling lost, bored, worthless, and stressed.  On top of that the persistent feeling of homesickness, a lack of English friends, and my uncle's unexpected death - made 2010 one of the toughest on record.  All year I've been feeling more stagnant than ever, just trying, hoping and praying for something to happen to reignite my passion for life.  

But I can't stop thinking about this picture on the right that Nick took of me and Heidi on their birthday in November.  It reminded me of the one on the left which we took the day we went to pick her out from the breeder last January, when she was only 6 weeks old.  I can't believe how much she's grown in the past year and I'm sure she doesn't realize it at all.  And I guess maybe I've grown up a lot without realizing it too.  I've become more determined, I've set more goals, I've learned how to deal with stress without becoming an emotional basket case (most the time), when to spend money and when to save it (Nick swears my year of unemployment will actually save us more money than a years salary in the long run since I've finally learned how to budget), I've learned what's really important in my life - God, family and friends.  I'm most certainly a much better wife than I was this time last year.  So as much as I hate the phrase.... I guess 2010 was a "Character Builder".... 


On Christmas Eve I got a phone call, and it might as well have been God on the other end of the line because to be honest I was losing my religion this December, but the good news came that I finally got a job!  My prayers have been answered.  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I can visibly see the pressure being lifted off Nick.  I know this is going to make a massive difference to our life, and I am certainly looking forward to going into 2011 as a member of the workforce.  

Here's to this year being better than the last!

Merry Christmas!

Sunday Trading Hours

Dear England,


Let's be honest.  I've never liked you that much.  In fact, when I learned we had to live here rather than America, because of stupid immigration laws and such, I cried for about 3 days straight.  After that I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and I resigned myself to the fact that I could make the most of it.  Until I got here last July.  I walked in the front door of Nick's home in London and burst into tears all over again.  In fairness, England, that was his fault since he promised it would be freshly decorated and lets just say well... it was not.


Over the course of this year however, I think that we have for the most part made our peace with each other.  I no longer use the word "hate" when referring to this country, but you and I both know that I "prefer" America.  Sometimes I feel like we're colleagues that have to work together, so we're sucking it up and putting on a polite front, even though we both know that this relationship will never amount to a hardcore love affair or a forever friendship.


England, getting to this point in our relationship, it took a lot of work for me, you know?  But now I tolerate you, in fact I would go so far as to say that occasionally I even find you charming.  The views around here are pretty gorgeous if I'm going to be honest.


However, you went and effed it up yesterday.  Seriously, while I had great plans to schedule the most perfectly productive morning around a bus schedule that only runs ONCE an hour, YOUR stupid rules went and screwed up my meticulously planned morning.  My game plan was to catch the bus at 8:45, drop off our drycleaning, go to the DIY store, take a yoga class, and head home to spend the rest of the day working on our house.  Of course, I somehow manage to just barely miss the bus, making chasing it with my arms flailing like an asshole to catch it at the next stop seem feasible, but the bus driver failed to stop at the next stop and I was left in it's dust cursing public transportation.


Luckily, some woman named Janet took pity on my foolish looking self and offered me a ride to Morrisons, the grocery store where we get our dry cleaning done.  That was nice, and let me tell you England, you almost redeemed yourself there.  But When I got to Morrisons at around 9 am, I went inside, and tried to drop off my dry cleaning.  However, apparently, because it was Sunday, that means there are Sunday trading hours.  Meaning even though the store is OPEN at NINE, and there are PEOPLE working in the store, but you can't actually buy anything until TEN.  All you can do is BROWSE.  What the hell kind of sense does that make?  My plans were totally screwed up then and I just about threw a BF in the middle of the supermarket. Yes a Bitch Fit.


And you know what England, despite all the progress we have made together, this really made me want to punch you in your pasty, crooked toothed smiling face - if only you had a face, I think thats what it would look like.  Just one face to represent this wacky, backwards, wannabe version of the US.  Seriously, Sunday trading hours from 10-4?! Biggest crock of shit ever.


I'm going to try to pretend this didn't happen so we can get on with being amicable.


Sincerely,
Kelly Leigh

Baby I Like You Just the Way You Are

So I was going to post some pretty before and after shots today and show you some of the hard work we have been doing to the house, my new hair do, and my birthday present, but apparently, my memory card is broken.  Boo.  You'll have to wait to see what a hipster I have turned into lately.  Anyways here is a run down of the past few days with some Etsy art I've had my eye on just to spruce this lame post up a little bit.

Stella Stars and Stripes... 

I wish I could have one of these made of me and Doodle.

My birthday was on Saturday and it was very very good.  Nick got me a diana mini and I love her.  Then our Ikea furniture arrived and we spent the day building furniture.  We went out to a restaurant in Sheffield that was actually decent, (these are hard to find here) and saw the new Harry Potter movie.  Nick didn't get it so he has ordered all the previous ones on Love Film (similar to netflix) so we can have a movie marathon.  I hate movie marathons because my butt gets numb, but I kinda want to rewatch all the movies too.  Anyways the best part of Saturday was NOTHING bad happened.  This is unusual for my birthday.  I was soooo pleased.

Heart and Key Print

I want this for our bedroom super bad.

On Monday we went to London and I took my diana for her first real spin.  I hope the pictures turned out!  We had a fabulous time.  We went out to lunch on Charlotte Street, and shopped till we dropped on Oxford and Regent Street.  I was SO happy to find Anthropologie has opened on Regent Street, and I got a little overwhelmed at Top Shop.  I think I've been living in the country too long because the crowds were getting on my nerves.  But we still had fun.  I must say though I was disappointed the Christmas lights were exactly the same as last year, Nick says they usually change them each year, so it must be a recession thing.  Also, Selfridges is my favorite place to shop in London, but they TOTALLY let me down.  We were planning on picking up decorations in their Christmas shop, but they were all effed up and picked over.  I bought a pair of boots there too, but they have a tear I didn't notice and now I need to figure out how to return them without going to London.  Luckily, Anthropologie made up for Selfridges' suckage.

Humpback Whale Painting

This would be perfect for Nick's study, too bad it's out of our price range.

In other news, I had my hair highlighted blonde, but you can barely tell.  We picked out a new fireplace, I ordered flooring for the downstairs, I got a job interview (eeek!), it's snowing again and I'm almost finished painting the living room.  Once I get a new memory card I'll have so much to show you!!


ps. I found out what my mom got me for Christmas today, and I knew what Nick got me for my birthday a few days before hand.  Online shops should be more careful not to ruin surprises.  Do you guys know what you're getting?