Monday 27 June 2011

I'm a...

Well besides being a stepmom, daughter, sister, aunt, wife, stepsister and friend....

I have become a lass, m8 (mate), chick, bird, pet and feel as if I have made more true friends.

Not that I didn't feel as I had friends before but wow the circle is growing and everyone is so lovely.

I do have to admit it takes some work getting used to being called chick and pet and I am Prince Charming's bird.  Well for one I don't belong in the zoo but they are terms of affection really.

I am proud to be one of the lasses and a mate. I think being American helps me as I will talk to anyone which seems to work for me and I have gained some very cool mates.  Of course it takes time but if you aren't willing to put yourself out there, you will never know right?

Somedays I reflect on all the people I know from all the years of my life and I am truely blessed to realise I have wonderful friendships spanning all cultures, states, countries and honestly couldn't ask for me...

*Ok I could ask for more but not in the friendship areana but I didn't want to sounds greedy and start in on the bathrooms again ;-)

snow white

Monday 20 June 2011

Bathroom NO Bathrooms!

Have I been spoiled my whole life? No I don't think so.

I can't recall a time in my life where I didn't have more then one bathroom - seriously I can't.
Even as a child I am pretty sure we always had one downstairs and at LEAST one upstairs.  I am having a problem wrapping my head around looking for a new house and everything is one bathroom.  They call it the "family bathroom" WTH I don't want to share my bathroom and hand towels with the family.  My bathroom should be a peaceful adult space where you can go and its always clean and fresh with no toys, no shampoo across the tiles of the shower or toothpaste left in the sink.

I think I am looked at weird when I put my foot down and say I will not move until I get my own bathroom umm sorry en suite.  There are priorities and that is one of them - call me weird.  Prince charming keeps saying well we just don't do it that way.  My reply - we will do it that way.  I can't imagine 20 years sharing a bathroom, I just can't haha

Call me weird - its cool, I am just an American living in a new world and some things I can't let go.
1. En suite
2. Grass in my back yard (not my garden but I do want a garden to grow things in)
3. Open plan kitchen and living room
4. Oh and proper sheets not the 200 thread crap they call luxury here.


(You will notice a theme in my blog about bathrooms/linens - it has become a slight obsession with me.)

Do you share? Do you want to share?

snow wife

"Oh he is just someone I met in the bathroom!"
Coming to American Movie Quote

Wednesday 15 June 2011

I left school years ago...

I always had decent grades and thought I understood things pretty well then WHAM you land in another country.

Let's just say I now have major brain farts on certain phrases and spelling of words.  I always thought oh that won't be me, I have lived so many years with US phrases and words engraved in my brain but it has happened.

Few randoms happenings:
  1. I couldn't remember what what a car park was called for a brief moment duh parking lot
  2. I actually used the UK 1st floor correctly and then had to think if it was right because here the 1st floor is the second floor because the 1st floor is the ground floor here. (see how you can confuse yourself?)
  3. The Z and S conundrum  - organize/organise OR apologize/apologise I randomly do it both ways now!
  4. Doubling the "L" - I see it and it looks right but US programs tell me I am wrong so it's another one I use both obviously  travelling/traveling OR fuelling/fueling
  5. Using "pissed" this is common in our neck of the woods - He was pissed like...That is a full sentence. It means woah was he drunk and it isn't like anything.  The like is just an add-on like a valley girl would say but with a Geordie accent.
There are loads more but it is just funny weird to me how things creep into your vocabulary without realizing/realising you do it.

Snow Wife

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
C.S. Lewis

Monday 6 June 2011

18 to drink?

We all know what we were like as dwarfs, we wanted to be grown ups and get there as soon as possible. right?

We dressed older? We might have had fake ID's? We were scoring cheap beer or crap alcohol just to drink because we were cool.

Obviously this still  happens but it seems here in the UK its younger and younger. Maybe because the drinking age is 18 so parents start letting dwarfs drink at home earlier (from my own experience) to take the "edge" off going out and drinking or sneaking around.

I am not sure how I feel about this...I am not sure when it's ok to let your dwarfs have a drink or try a type of alcohol.  I would let the dwarfs taste something sure but when is the age you let them actually have a drink?  When do you start looking out for the signs of your dwarfs going out and drinking at someone else's house?  How do you feel about parents of your dwarfs friends buying alcohol for dwarfs and letting them drink without your permission?

We don't want to be the hard core crazy parents because we know it will happen but we want it to be handled in a calm and respectful manor. We want the dwarfs to realise the outcome of drinking and what can happen to them not just the fun side of feeling everything is funny and you and your friends are having a grand old time.

At the age of 16 here as well as the US seems to be an appropriate age to allow your dwarf to have a liquid beverage in your presence.  Now I said "a liquid beverage" I didn't say get shitfaced drunk.  We have a few cocktails in front of the kids or when out to dinner or even around friends.  It shows responsible drinking as one of us is always driving - we try to set by example. So to allow them to "try" a sip in our presence seems like a better idea then to go drink god knows what, with god knows what's been put in it with "friends." 

I know the law is 18 to purchase alcohol but the age to consume is alcohol is 5 years old in the private house with parental consent (WTH) and at 16 they can drink when having a meal with with a parent (fair enough). It boggles my mind as I know I was no princess and I sure as hell didn't drink in front of my parents until I was 17 but I was a senior in high school (starting college/university the next year).

So how do you handle it? What if they are 12,13,14, 15 ?

snow wife

I began drinking alcohol at the age of thirteen and gave it up in my fifty sixth year; it was like going straight from puberty to a mid-life crisis.
George Montgomery