The Tales of Missus P.

It’s my last weekend in Florida for a while. I cleaned up some but I’ve lounged more than anything. There’s the kitchen garbage to be thrown out and a few boxes for donating to the charity shop. My box of handbags is the main donation.

Jake will visit the vet one last time on Monday to get his tick and tapeworm vaccine before we head across the pond Wednesday night. I have my new, (additional) big suitcase so I can manage things easier than having a bunch of small bags to cart through London.

There won’t be a lot of touristy-ness going on next week. While I’d love to see London, with two 28″ suitcases, a garnet bag, a carry-on, a cat and an 8 & 1/2 hour flight just completed, I think my sight seeing trip will have to be done one weekend in the near future.

These next four days will be just getting everything I absolutely need done, done. Cancel the utilities for February, pack, store, toss. I have to back up the computer with my new, fancy 1T external hard drive too.

The electricity’s been off for almost two hours now. Luckily it’s not a super hot (or cold) night. It was supposed to be back on by 9PM but it’s now 8:55 and, nope, no power.

I have my plane tickets (one for Jake too) so we’ll be heading to England next week. I’m so excited! I won’t have to sit in dark rooms by myself anymore. Plus, we can have our own Christmas in January. We’ll do the tree, movies, turkey, stockings, shopping and all as if it were December. I’m sure this will be a great story for the grandkids one day.

I now have electricity (FPL says a vehicle hit a power pole – Ohno!) and have the evening to study up for my Elem Ed test I’m taking on Friday.

I’m headed across the pond next week! Finally! I have Jake’s pet passport to get finalized but his cargo ticket has been booked. My ticket is set too; Premium Economy this time so I can have more luggage allowance hopefully. So my adventures will be more adventurous very soon. Now I can post pictures and talk about my trips to museums and art galleries rather than shopping at the grocery store.

I was glad to see my back in the day friend, Crystal, for lunch last week too. There’s a big part of me here and a big part of me that has a whole new beginning.

Resolutions and things I want to accomplish in 2011:

Get packed up and across the pond with the cat.
Get into teacher training so I can teach in England.
Get back into an exercise routine.
Go back to Weight Watchers.
Take trips around the UK.
Visit Steve’s folks.
Have 1st anniversary at Disney World.
Take Education classes online in the summer.
Get a television for our bedroom.
Have an awesome post-Christmas.
Have an awesome Christmas in Dec together.
Keep up on my blogs.
Graduate from TWU with my Master’s in Library Science.
Get a Windows 7 phone once my iPhone contract is up.
Have a great first year as a married woman.

I love that it’s 79F degrees again. I want to enjoy my Floridian lifestyle the right way for the next six weeks. I’m fine with having a sunny Christmas this year.

I also found out that one of the UK colleges where I applied for the teacher training courses has offered me an interview. (If you’ll recall, the first place I sent my application was all worried about their high school test scores, which may be the case with all their college entry requirements.) Anyway, I’ll have to request a rescheduling of the interview as they want to conduct it on the day I’ll get to England. But if I can get it for a couple days after, Steve showed me how easy it will be to get on the bus and take a 30 minute trip to the University. The idea of learning to ride the bus, not to mention the metro, will be a whole adventure in itself.

Right now Steve’s at his Christmas work dinner and I’m contemplating what to have for dinner myself. I tried to get to the gym yesterday but I did my Christmas shopping instead. (Got Mom a green Christmas sweatshirt for her to wear now though.) I knew that school was out today and more people would be in Wal-mart and Target. I have what I want for everyone now. I still have a few things to get Dad for his birthday and Steve for our post-Christmas (both in January.)

I’m still working on setting up my online education classes too. I still like the idea of taking classes that count toward an MEd degree.

Today I finally got my UK Visa.  It took a little over a month to process, taking into account the Thanksgiving holiday.  After getting the papers together for two months so a one month turn out rate from the British Consulate isn’t bad at all.  (I think they deserve a Christmas card.) 

Now that the hard part is over, the paperwork part, there is the planning to think of.  By the end of January, I’ll be in the UK.  It will be a great start to the new year.  While I hate being away from Steve for Christmas, it does make the holiday much easier to get through knowing that I’ll be there soon enough.  This means two Christmases!  We’ll put up the tree and open presents and watch A Christmas Story just like it’s December 25th.  I still like to think that this will be a great story for our grandkids.  2010 was a wonderful year and starting off 2011 with my official move to England will make it another wonderful year.

So that gives me about six weeks to enjoy my break from school, have Christmas with my parents, get myself packed up, and my money saved.  At least I won’t have to fight the holiday crowds at the airport (I can only imagine what the lines at the body scanners will be like next week) and I can have a better pick of flights.  I thought about going over for Christmas, then coming back to get Jake, but that will be a whole plane ticket’s worth of cash that I need to get Jake to London.  I was thinking it would be $400-$500 for a cat to travel across the pond but online I’m hearing an estimated $1000 to bring a pet.  That, along with my own plane ticket and the extra baggage fees (I have a lot of sweaters to bring) is going to be a bit pricey. 

Still, I’ll be headed to my new home soon and that’s made me feel way more Christmasy.  Today I went with my parents to the mall, ate Chic-Fil-A (and the rest of that gingerbread I made at home, thank you very much), got a candy cane from Santa, picked out some new Nike + shoes (purple!) as one of my Santa gifts and had an all around nice outting.  I won’t start my new classes until the 18th, and then I should be headed across the pond a week later.  That makes it way convenient to not be travelling and having big, important assignments due at the same time.  I’m still looking into the Education classes I’ll take next year too.