So there was this one time I went to London...

For as long as I can remember, I've had a thing for London, and all things British.  There was a time when I would have said that my plans for college included a year abroad, living and working in London.  While I didn't quite accomplish that dream, I did get the chance to go to London, and it was everything I imagined it would be.

Toward the end of my senior year in high school, my cousin Lindsey found out that a friend, A, would be traveling to London for two weeks to do some work for the U.S. Navy Reserves.  A wanted her daughter to come for a week of the trip, but her daughter was only about 14ish, a bit young for traveling alone internationally.  Enter-- Lindsey and me.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime:  All we had to do was pay for our airfare and travel with A's daughter and her friend, and we would have a week in London.  Who could pass that up?!  This was in June of the year 2000, so the price of airfare had not skyrocketed yet; I'm thinking our tickets were around $500-600, round-trip.  It was my high school graduation present from my mom...best gift EVER!

From the moment we landed, England lived up to my every dream.  I remember just listening to everyone around me, hoping they would keep talking, so I could take in more of those fabulous accents.  The man who stamped my passport noted that we were from the States, and he asked if we were visiting on "holiday"...it took me a few seconds to realize that was the British way of saying "vacation". 

We stayed in an apartment ("flat"!) in the heart of the city, within walking distance of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.  I can't remember much about the apartment, other than the sloping ceilings, claw-foot tub, and the doorman, but it was just perfect.  I really need to pull out some pictures to jog my memory, but I think they are in a closet somewhere at my mom's house.

We spent our week in London taking in all the sights and history the city has to offer.  The highlights I can remember most clearly are:  Buckingham Palace (where we also saw the changing of the guard, which was really cool), the Tower of London (possibly my very favorite spot), Westminster Abbey, Covent Garden (where I bought my first legal beer--at age 18!), Bond Street, and the original Hard Rock Cafe. 

For this small-town Alabama girl, just wandering the streets and people-watching was great entertainment.  And the Underground...I remember how extremely proud I was that we navigated the Underground without getting lost!  I had never been on a subway before, so that was quite the experience in and of itself. 

Tower of London (image credit:  http://www.londonpass.com)

 

Westminster Abbey (image credit:  http://static.westminster-abbey.org)

Buckingham Palace (http://www.wikipedia.org)

image credit:  www.wikipedia.org

Other notable memories about London:

-- Many people were just as curious to hear our accents as we were theirs.  We kept having to explain that we were from the South, and no, we don't talk exactly like most Americans!

-- A lady in the market called us "love"...it seemed so quintessentially British, and I adored it.

-- Despite the reputation of being cool and rainy, it was actually quite warm the week we were there...and the lack of air conditioning in many areas came as a bit of a shock to us (everyone in the South has central heat and air...it's nearly a fact of life).

-- We southerners also like our drinks cold...and with ice, which proved a little difficult to obtain in London.  When we requested ice in our drinks, it was usually only two or three cubes, not the glassful we are accustomed to!

-- The soft drinks looked the same (same labels and packaging), but they definitely had a different taste to them.  One of the first things we did when landed in the States was get a "real" American Dr. Pepper.  (That was truly the only complaint I remember, food-wise...we enjoyed everything else!)

-- Again, this was my first trip to a truly huge city (except Washington DC, if that counts, but those were school trips, so quite different), but I was surprised to find that I never felt afraid.  I know London has its problems, and I probably romanticized it a bit, but the city felt very civilized and safe to me.  I did not hesitate to walk a few blocks by myself, which was a pretty big feat for me in a strange city (remember:  I had just turned 18).

So, that's the story of my trip of a lifetime.  I don't know when I will get the chance to go back, but it's on my life list for sure.  I hope to be able to stay a little longer next time and travel outside the city.  (Jeremy?  Start planning now for our 10th anniversary?)  We did get to take the Chunnel train over to Paris for the day, but other than that we stayed in London.  (The day in Paris is quite a story in itself, so I'll save it for another time.  I wouldn't turn down a trip back to Paris, but there are definitely other places higher on the list!)

Do you share my London love?  Where is your dream travel destination?  Have you crossed any destinations off your "life list"?

This post was inspired by Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.  Be sure to check out her post for lots of awesome links!

Things I've Done

It's a good day for a list, don't you think?

I am 29 years old, and I have...

1.  Visited London, the city of my dreams.

2.  Worked for eight different employers since age 14.

3.  Had seven different cars/SUVs, three of which were Hondas.

4.  Had two significant car wrecks.

5.  Learned to play the flute and piccolo.

6.  Read thousands of books, including almost fifty this year.


7.  Nursed my babies.

8.  Attended the same church my entire life.

9.  Been baptized and given my heart to Jesus.


10.  Been inside the White House.

11.  Taken three cruises (Bahamas, Mexico, Mexico).

12.  Won a spelling bee.

13.  Taught a college course.

14.  Ridden in a horse-drawn carriage.

15.  Made many, many mistakes.

16.  Been forgiven.

17.  Seen a cow give birth (Random, right?!).

18.  Gone fishing with my dad.

19.  Played slot machines in Las Vegas.

20.  Had three dogs and at least a dozen cats over the years.

21.  Had my heart broken (or so I thought at the time).

22.  Been to Disney World.

Thanks to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop for the inspiration!  Check out more posts on this week's topics here. 

How many of these things have YOU done??

You lost me at the couch

You had me at 'hello'...

You complete me...

Show me the MONEY!

Quick...name that movie!

Back in high school, Jerry Maguire was my go-to romantic movie.  I remember many a nights on the couch, thinking about what it might be like to have a guy like that one day.  My friend E and I watched it over and over, quoting lines in conversation, and dreaming of finding that guy who would look at us and say, "You complete me". 

Then Tom Cruise jumped on a couch and ruined it all.  I just couldn't get the same enjoyment out of the movie after I realized the star was a quack. 

In retrospect, it's a little hard to figure out why I thought this movie was so romantic anyway...other than the quotable lines, I mean.  Dorothy (Renee Zellweger...LOVE her!) loves Jerry Maguire for some reason we really don't see...she hardly knows him.  He willingly accepts her help and company with his new business venture, but doesn't really seem to reciprocate her feelings.  He marries her to stop her from leaving, but it still doesn't feel like he's totally in the relationship.  In fact, watching it a few years after high school, Jerry Maguire seemed like a bit of jerk... I must have missed that the first time around.  It's not until he thinks he is losing Dorothy (and that CUTE kid) that he pulls out all the stops and finally seems to actually want a relationship.  That's where those cute cheesey lines come in.

Here it is fourteen or so years after that movie came out, and thank goodness I can honestly say that I found a guy much better than that arrogant Jerry Maguire!  He may not be the most romantic soul on earth...we don't recite poetry or make dramatic confessions of our undying love.  But really, who needs that anyway?? 

(Although I do believe there may be a long-lost love note from our college years containing the phrase "You complete me"...and no, it wasn't from me!  I'm sure Jeremy would deny it now.  He's way too cool for all that cheesey stuff.)  ; )

In the 'Hood

The heat has finally broken around here over the last few days, so we have been able to spend a little more time outside in the evenings.  Unfortunately, I have the mosquito bites to prove it.  We were playing in the driveway the other night when five or six of the neighborhood kids stopped by to see the girls.  The bigger kids were walking around with the girls, pulling their wagon, and letting them sit on their bicycles.  Addison and Mackenzie loved the attention, and I loved watching all the kids gathered in our front yard. 

When I was growing up, I fantasized about living in a neighborhood where my friends could walk over to play and we could all ride our bikes together.  I grew up on a farm, surrounded by pastures and barns.  The only people that lived nearby were family members, and though my cousins weren't too far away, the road we lived on was too dangerous for us to walk back and forth.  While I very much enjoyed living out there and growing up with a variety of animals in my front yard, it would have been nice to have some company around sometimes.

I was about twelve when my dad remarried and moved into a neighborhood across town.  It was the kind of neighborhood I had imagined must exist somewhere...a pack of kids roaming the streets, riding bikes, jumping on trampolines...just hanging out until the streetlights came on and they went home for dinner.  I was already good friends with several of the neighborhood kids, so I jumped right into the mix.  Though my sister and I didn't spend all that much time over there, and the time I was there was generally spent with my dad, I did get to enjoy a bit of the 'neighborhood feeling' I had never understood before.

When I was in 9th grade, there was a disturbing incident with some rogue skunks at my house out on the farm (that's a whole story for another day; I still shudder at the memories whenever I smell a skunk!).  My mom moved us into an apartment in town while she looked for a house.  My best friend Kelly lived in the apartment complex, and although we weren't BFFs quite yet, we were able to hang out together and she introduced me to some of the other kids in the area.  It was such a fun concept to me that I was able to walk out the front door and see some of my friends. 

We weren't in the apartment too long before we moved into the house where my mom still lives.  Although it's technically only one street, I guess you could say it was a neighborhood.  By this time, I was in high school and was more interested in making friends who could drive than walking to someone's house...which was good because almost everyone in the neighborhood was retired and their kids were long gone.  There was a family with a daughter my sister's age, which was nice for her.  Still, it was a nice (paved!) street where we could walk, rollerblade (yes, it was the 90s!), and ride bikes. 

When Jeremy and I bought our first house, I was still a little enthralled by the concept of a neighborhood where we could actually get out and walk a mile or two, get to know our neighbors, and have someone to pick up mail when we were out of town.  Of course, it didn't exactly happen that way...we only really got to know one set of neighbors and another set called the police when our dogs escaped the fence one afternoon, leading to a bit of tension on that front.  But it was nice to see kids out playing football in the cul-de-sac and to be able to take the girls on a nice walk without having to load up the stroller and drive somewhere.

While house-hunting a few months ago, a good neighborhood was one of the top requirements on my list.  I knew we would be in this house for much of the girls' childhood, and I wanted a place they could safely roam with their friends in a few years.  We received housewarming gifts from a few neighbors when we moved in, and after meeting some of those around us, I was sure we were going to love our new little place in the world.  On these summer evenings, while watching those kids race up and down the street on their bicycles, catching snippets of nine-year-old conversations as they cut through our yard to the street behind us, and hearing the parents shout that it is time to come in and eat, I am reassured again that we made the right choice. 

Before long, it will be our own girls out there learning to ride bicycles, whispering about school and friends and, yes, eventually about boys.  (But I hope they wait MANY years before the boy part kicks in!)

Don't forget to visit Mama Kat's each week for more Writer's Workshop posts!

Mommy Time-Out

We have tried time-outs a few times with Addison and Mackenzie, but I don't think they quite get it yet.  They generally end up standing up in the chair I put them in and laughing at each other.

The point of time-out is to take a few minutes of quiet time to think about what you've done wrong, correct? 

Do you think maybe I could get a mommy time-out?  Maybe I haven't necessarily done anything wrong (though I'm sure I could come up with a few things if I thought about it long enough-ha!), but the idea of sitting quietly, with nothing expected of me except to think for a few minutes sounds pretty good to me!

I hear that some kids get sent to their room for time-out.  Can I be sent to my bedroom for a time-out?  Pretty please?

There isn't even a tv in there anymore, so all I would have to do is sit quietly and think.  If I could take my Kindle, I would gladly stay in there for hours and hours, just reading.  If my time-out went a little too long, I would just curl up in my big, soft bed for a long nap.  I haven't had nearly enough of those since my little stinkers came along 16 months ago.

Maybe Addison & Mackenzie have the right idea...maybe this time-out stuff doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Anyone want to come watch my kids so I can have a nice, long time-out?!

What If?

Back when I was 15 or so, I had big plans for my life.  I was going to college and law school, neither of which would be anywhere near my hometown.  I wanted to spend a year in London, either working or taking classes abroad.  No marriage until I finished all those other goals first, of course.  I wasn't sure what kind of law I wanted to practice, and I considered that I might even want to teach college (that's one part of the plan that did work out).

Well, as we all know, life happens.  By the time I graduated high school, I was dating a totally-wrong-for-me older guy with no ambition whatsoever (except his truck; he had plenty of ambitions there, as if it mattered).  A real winner, right?  I blame it on the ignorance of youth. 

Anyway, by the time I went to college, I didn't want to be too far from home.  I always knew in the back of my mind that our relationship wouldn't handle any sort of distance well, but at least I had the good sense not to totally derail my college plans.  (And thank goodness for a mom who would never have let that happen!)  Instead of an Ivy-league school or at least one a couple of states away, I landed at a relatively small university two hours from my hometown.  Naturally, like so many others, my high school relationship was pretty much history by Christmas break. 

When it came time to make plans to return to school for spring semester, I just couldn't do it.  Although my best friend was attending the same college, we weren't rooming together (I had a private room the first semester) and we hadn't made much of an effort to get to know other people or get involved on campus, mostly because of those silly hometown boys we spent so much time worrying about.  I chose not to go back to the university.  I just couldn't handle going back to a place where I felt so lonely and far away from my friends and family.  It was an emotional time, with a lot of change going on in my life, and I needed to be back in my comfort zone.  In a matter of just a few days, I made the transfer to the local community college where, incidentally, I now teach.

Of course, after a year and a half there, I was ready to go again, though not so far this time.  I headed over to UAH, less than an hour away, but in a much bigger city than the one I'm from.  This time, I was ready.  My best friend was by my side once again (she had come home after spring semester and joined me at the community college, where we had lots of fun with all our old, familiar friends), and we jumped headfirst into traditional college life...sororities, clubs, parties, and boys. 

Life was finally on the right track.  I loved every minute at UAH, and ended up completing my master's degree there and working at the school for awhile.  (I met Jeremy at one of those early parties, which certainly changed the course of my life again...but that's a story for another day.)

And what happened to the law school plans?  Well, I worked at a large law firm in college, and though it was a good job where I made lots of contacts, I could see the stress that literally hung in the air in that place.  Of course, it was a prestigious firm with lots of large corporate clients, and I realized that not all attorneys landed a job like that...but still.  I couldn't imagine myself in a place like that.  I decided I would probably always feel a little out of place in that world.  I skipped the pressure and competition of law school and pursued a master's degree in political science, a field I loved and knew I would be happy studying.  Ironically, I wound up working in the legal field anyway, though for a prosecutor, which is definitely the side of the law I prefer to be on! 

Occasionally, I stop for a minute and remember the girl I was back then, back when I made all those decisions that changed the course of my life.  What if I had taken the more bold path, thrown that stupid boy and all my insecurities to the side, and gone off to pursue that life I used to think I would have?  How different would I be today?  It's hard to picture myself at a huge university...would I have still chosen political science?  If I had gone to London, would I have stayed?  I know from my trip there several years ago that likely the only thing to bring me back would be my family.  My family and my hometown do have quite the pull though, maybe I was always going to come back here.  If I had gone to law school, or even chosen a different career path, where would I be now? 

One single decision might have changed everything about the course of my life.  If I had gone off to London or the faraway undetermined college, I would never have met my husband.  Even if I had gone to UAH first, rather than waiting until my junior year, we might have met and not liked each other at all.  We could have met and been dating other people.  Who knows?  And of course, without Jeremy, I wouldn't have the two sweet girls who now make my world go round. 

Even if life didn't turn out the way I planned it all those years ago, I think it's a pretty great life to have.  I've got a husband who is completely devoted to me and our family, who works hard for us, and who makes me laugh just about every day.  We have built a good life together, laughing, loving, and squabbling through the years.  We may not have prestigious careers or a swanky city townhouse, but I think we both do good, honorable work and we truly enjoy our jobs.  We have a house that we love in the town that's played such a big part in my life.  And we have two daughters who have brought a fulfillment to our lives that we never even knew we were missing.  They have brought even more love and laughter into our world, and they've taught me to appreciate what really matters in life. 

It may not be the road I imagined myself taking, but someone knew where I was headed all along.  It's exactly where I'm meant to be, and exactly where I want to be.  But I wouldn't say no to a vacation in London in a few years!  (hint, hint...)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.  ~Jeremiah 29:11

This is my first time to participate in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.  Click on over and check it out!