Heeding the Call of Nature

So the weather has been pretty fair for the last month and within that month I have encountered three separate incidents of people relieving themselves in public. The most recent was while I was on a walk with Zariah. A father was helping his son whizz on the grass right out in the open. Before that, I looked out the window one day and saw a grown man using a tree as a urinal, again in plain sight.

My first witness was while I was walking through the park across the street and saw a mother bent over, holding her child under the knees, with their back leaning against her and their pants around their ankles. While holding her child like this she was encouraging their bowel movement right there on the grass! After my initial astonishment, I admit I had a moment of understanding because Zariah is still not potty trained and I have really stressed about potty training her when we don't have a car. There are few public toilets about and sometimes it's twenty minutes to get where we are walking to. So I have stressed a little about what I might do in a situation like that. But that's where my understanding ended, because the thought to drop my daughter's pants in a public place and encourage her to do her business right there in the open, would have NEVER occurred to me! I would have just hurried to wherever we were going and if she messed her pants I would deal with it.

What the heck?! It is funny and dumbfounding and funny and astonishing and funny and not funny. I don't know what else to say.

Asia

Usually when we are out and about, things just go smoother if we can find a way to motivate Zariah to behave instead of just enforcing consequences when she misbehaves. We have used several methods of "motivation" unfortunately including treats and "chicken & fries" in extreme circumstances. But I try to tell myself that it's not bribery because instead of giving them to her when she is misbehaving, I tell her that she can earn them with good behavior. Recently she has developed a fascination with coins, and I've decided to take advantage. So we are now officially bribing our child with money.

Zariah turned three on Monday. We had a party for her the Saturday before. It was a Dora The Explorer picnic at the park. It was really nice. On her birthday, I was able to find movie tickets for only 1.50, so we took her to see her first film at the cinema. It was "Horton Hears a Who". We were a little hesitant, not sure if she would sit through the whole thing, but she cruised through like an angel and asked for "more Horton" when the credits came on.

She has been endlessly playing with her new toys and especially loving her baby doll set and tea set, of course.

We have been putting in job applications as well as looking for possible funding for a PhD. At the same time we have been doing some serious brainstorming about what other options we have available to us. We've been trying to develop a plan B. As we've been thinking about it, we keep leaning toward what was actually our plan C about 1 year ago. That would be teaching English as a foreign language. We are thinking about this again because it would give Brent more international experience as well as the opportunity to learn a foreign language, which could very well tip the scales toward a favorable job when we are done. There are only a few countries that seem feasible enough to consider; South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and United Arab Emirates. But yeah, I guess we'll see.

Sales-jerk

I read through the letter that just came in the mail from our power company with confusion. It said, "We're sorry to see you go" and "These are all the reasons why you should stay..." when I had not taken any action to leave our current power provider.

The last time I had even thought about our power company was when a salesman came to my door asking if I wanted to switch to a company called npower. He gave me a quick schpeal about their special offer. They were going to "guarantee" that we would save money if we switched to them and if they didn't they would "pay us 100 pounds".

I told him we might be moving outside the country soon and I wasn't sure if I wanted to mix things up. He responded with "You want to save money right?" he waited for an answer as I resentfully provided him with a "yes" to his idiotic question. He continued, "NPower guarantees to save you money, it's that simple". All you have to do is sign right here which gives us permission to call Eon and take over as your provider (which seems to be how all the utility companies work around here).

He was a friendly, likable guy and I have to admit that I was tempted. It really did sound like a good deal. So I told him that I might be interested, but I wasn't going to sign anything without talking to my husband and reading the fine print. I also told him that I respect the fact that he probably works off of commission and that if I did decide to sign up, I would like to have his name so that I could make sure he got commission for the sale. He interrupted me saying that he didn't think of his job as a sales job, he thought of it as a service job, because he knew he was saving people money and that's why he did it. (Ummmm, no retard, you are not walking around in this FREEZING cold weather because you like to serve people. You and I both know it, so don't try to tell me anything else) I looked at him awkwardly for a moment and then asked him again if I could have his name. He took one of the pamphlets he gave me during his schpeal, wrote his name on it and asked if he could stop by another time. I said that would be fine and he left.

Later that night as I read through the fine print, it explained to me that if I had signed what he was asking me to, I would have locked myself into a 12 month contract with NPower. The jerk didn't say a thing about the contract even after I told him we might be leaving the country withing 6 months. I also read more about the "guarantee" and all the terms and conditions that make it impossible to hold them to it. I was disgusted and threw away all the materials just after noticing that when he wrote his name, he started to write "O" then crossed it out and wrote "Anthony". Hmmm, how often do you start writing your name with the wrong letter?

Now I was looking at a letter from Eon thinking "No way". I called Eon and they confirmed exactly what I suspected. They said they have been having a lot of trouble with NPower salesmen signing for people without their permission for commission! That scuzz-bucket signed us up anyway! I specifically told him no and he took the liberty of switching my power companies for me! Ugh! 'What was that again? It's not really a sales job because you're in it for the service? Oh, is that why you're cheating your company out of commission and illegally switching peoples power companies? Yeah, real "service"-oriented.'

Thankfully it didn't take too long to clear up over the phone, but I still just can't believe the nerve of that sales-jerk.

Geography

There is so much going on in our world. I don't ever really plan on being completely on top of it all, I don't have that kind of time. But I found it really bothered me when I put up a new world map in our living room and found several countries I had never even heard of before. So I have been wanting to make myself more aware. I have been making more of an effort to keep up with world news and recently, after being inspired by a friend of mine who issued this challenge, I have been homeschooling myself in Geography. I have been studying and memorizing maps.

I started with countries. And since I'm in Europe right now and always seem to be at a loss when it comes to the location of eastern European countries, I started there.

Now, after a week, if given a blank map of Europe or South America I can fill all the countries easily. It has been fun, and I’m tackling Asia & The Middle East next.

I know there are new things to learn everyday, and I have been learning, but it's been two and a half years since I was in school and it just feels good to be learning in that way again.

Yaaaa-Hoooo!

This morning the first stirrings we heard from Zariah were of her yelling in her loudest possible 3 year old voice "Yaaaaaa-Hoooooo!". Upon entering her room I saw that she had opened her window and was directing this exclamation at all the nicely dressed business people walking to their offices downtown.

I LOVE my daughter.

Summer Solstice

It's mid-may, 9:00pm and still light outside. Weird. I've heard on summer solstice it is light till past 10:00. I guess that makes up for the sun setting at 3:45 mid-winter, but I still wish the times were a little more evenly distributed. Geez.

Demotivators

Lately I have been contemplating motivation. As in what motivates me and why and how I can use that to succeed in areas that I have not been successful in before, but maybe I'll bore you with my thoughts and conclusions about that some other time. For now I am just going to share with you something I found a while ago called Demotivators. They really inspired (lol)me so I just thought I would share.











Hehehe

Are You A Noisemaker?

My daughter loves to make noises. She has always been extremely vocal. I will never forget the first time we put her in the baby swing at a park, so we could push her really high. I think she was 10 or 11 months old. She laughed and giggled and squealed uninterrupted for a half hour straight. It was so funny Brent and I had to take turns pushing because we were both laughing so hard. At one point I remember having to sit on the floor, because my laughter at her laughter rendered my legs utterly useless.

Ever since, I have noticed that she cannot enjoy herself silently. I always figured she was pretty average in this until I started getting comments from other moms on how funny she is about it. From pouring glitter on some glue with a shriek and a giggle to simply jumping over a puddle accompanied by a high-pitched "Woo", that's the first step...."Hoooooo", and that's the actual jump.

After the first comment, I started thinking "Where does she get this from?" Then the next time I played with her at the park I started noticing that I was making all sorts of noises. I am where she gets it from! I had no idea I make so many unconscious noises. I don't do it alone, (at least I don't think I do!) just when I'm playing with her, like she and I need some sort of sound effects to play to.

So yeah, apparently it's rubbing off.

Urban Awakening

Lately I find myself surrounded by one of my favorite color combinations; the dark brown weathered bark of trees contrasted with the bright, beautiful yellowish green of fresh new leaves. The rain has changed. It is no longer the blustery pelts of cold water that I work to protect myself from. It is now the kind of rain that makes me want to shed all protection from it and lift my face toward the heavens, letting the gentle raindrops trickle down my face.

It is not just the earth that is awakening around here, the city is coming alive. Each time I go downtown there are more and more people there. It seems like each group of people we pass on the sidewalk is speaking a different language than the last one. There are brighter, prettier flowers at the farmer's market. People are playing in the fountains. The grass everywhere is covered with an array of dandelions and daisies. The park across the street is frequented more and more by picnickers and practicing football teams. The playground is full of children. The Canal Tours and the Sightseeing buses begin running this month too. I am so excited to see all of these things happening. This and other images here

Today we went to the Urbis. It is an exhibition centre about city life. Their latest exhibits are "How Manga took over the world" "Urban Gardens" and "Mathew Williamson: 10 years in fashion". It was so much fun. We loved the Manga exhibit, being so bright, fun and colorful. I wish I had photos of the Urban Gardens exhibit. They had a mock kitchen and lounge to illustrate unique ways to incorporate foliage into decor. My favorite part by far was the section devoted to urban architecture that incorporates vegetation. The last exhibit was basically a mannequin fashion show with Matthew Williamson's most iconic designs. Zoe had fun looking at the dresses, of course.

Wrapping Up

I know it's taking me ages to finish telling about our time with Brent's parents. I've been a little ill and haven't felt like writing, so I'm going to wrap this up right now.

The next day we drove to St. Andrews, about an hour north of Edinburgh on the coast. There I had another fabulous surprise. St. Andrews is not like any other beach town I've ever seen, yet at the same time it is exactly how I would picture and old Scottish town on the coast. I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the only way I can think to describe it. It was a good sized town. Downtown had some grand architecture for a small town. As we made our way through the town toward the coast, we found a lot of the homes were built with stone in a lovely old cottage style. There were mossy stone steps leading up to the front door running parallel to the house. When we got to the beach we found the ruins of an Abbey and a Castle right on the edge of it making for a unique and stunning view from every angle.

This and some more neat pictures on Wikipedia

We also went to Stirling which is famous for one of William Wallace's first and most famous battles took place. We knew there was a monument there for him and wanted to see it since he is a distant relative and the man that began Brent's obsession with the UK, ultimately bringing us here in the first place. We thought it was just going to be a statue with a nice plaque that we could have our picture taken next to. Boy were we wrong!

The monument is a massive tower atop the biggest hill in Sterling. The monument can be seen for miles in any direction. After you climb the short steep trail to the tower, you continue to climb up the tower, to four different levels of rooms completely devoted to William Wallace. Then at the very top is the most magnificent view of the beautiful Scottish landscape.

Also on Wikipedia

The next day we explored a bit more in Manchester and took it easy because we were all starting to get worn out.

Then on Saturday we drove south to Chester. Chester is a beautiful old Roman town with the Roman wall still intact. We explored downtown in the beautiful Tudor and cobblestone shopping district. We looked around the Abbey and the Town Hall. Then we discovered an amazing bakery called Chatwins. We had a lovely steak pie and I discovered my new favorite pastry dessert. It is called a Copenhagen Slice. It's similar to a Neapolitan, but amazingly enough, even better.

Neapolitan

Afterward, we drove north again to go home through Liverpool. We stopped and walked through beautiful downtown out to the docks to see the monument placed there by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Then Sunday we went to church and rested. I said my farewells to Brent's parents that evening and they left early Monday morning.

We had so much fun. It was by far the best time we have had since we've been here. It was so nice to spend time with family and to actually go out and see this amazing country we are living in.