Moving Stress

Today was truthfully the most stressful day of my life. I acknowledge that means that my life thus far has been a cakewalk. But no matter how blessed I am or how much we love Aberdeen, moving is still stressful y’all. Especially when you move all of your stuff across an ocean, anxiously await its arrival for 6 weeks, and then discover that hardly any of it fits into your house.

I got seriously weary of hearing the moving guys say ‘yea, that’s not going to fit up the stairwell’ or ‘the doorway’s not big enough to fit your couch through’. Towards the end, they just started laughing when I asked if something might fit upstairs or in our living room.

The silver lining logic of ‘well not having our furniture right away will give us time to plan out where we want everything to go’ went out the window quite quickly. I was forced to be two things that definitely aren’t part of my genetic makeup: flexible and decisive.

Honestly, I was so stressed out that at one point, I was in the fetal position with my hands around my knees, rocking myself as a form of self-soothing. And at another point, I called my mom and started bawling as soon as she answered the phone. I’m not proud of either of these reactions. I thought I was a bit stronger. But, when your life is a cakewalk, you start to think you’re pretty well adjusted when you’re actually one barely-too-big-to-fit entertainment console away from a psychotic break. 

After a good cry and an equally good ‘snap out of it’ pep talk from my mom, I started to regain my composure and ever since, Jonathan and I have been brainstorming on how we can possibly rearrange our layout to accommodate our belongings. Our Guest bedroom furniture won’t fit up the stairs, which means it’s got to go downstairs. Which means our office has to go upstairs.

And our pull out sofa didn’t even come close to fitting through the door frame of our living room and for now is setting up camp in our kitchen until we can find a good home for her. In the meantime, I am scouring Laura Ashley catalogs for a suitable replacement. 

We also had to get creative with shoving as much furniture up the stairwell that we could. Sometimes this means sawing off the legs of your dresser. Sometimes it means your husband pitching in to help with some heavy lifting.

I don’t even want to think of how we are supposed to get that thing out of our house. I’m sure our movers will be writing down our address and are already planning on calling in sick the day we move out of Aberdeen. 

It’s just so frustrating! Our house was definitely not the nicest one we saw while house hunting, but one of the draws was that the rooms were big enough for our furnishings. We just didn’t realize that it was the pathways to these rooms that weren’t quite big enough.

It’s only our 3^rd move in 4 years. I’m sure next time, we’ll finally get it right…

Sorry that there isn’t much of a positive spin on this post, but anything other than whiny complaining would be a bit dishonest. Poor, poor, pitiful me, having a hard time moving my Pottery Barn furniture to Scotland. You really feel sorry for me, don’t you? I know, I know...first world problems. But moving is stressful, y'all! 

And just so you know, I wasn't the only one who regressed in my coping patterns. Samson also fell back into his old neuroses of licking the wall when he's nervous.

And yes, I'm totally using my dog's psychotic behavior to normalize my own pitiful defense mechanisms. Because that's not crazy at all...  

Friday Photos: Scottish Sky

One of my favorite things about Scotland is the light. The weather changes so frequently and the way the sun bounces off the clouds and hillsides can make the same scene look drastically different throughout the day. This week we had some great examples of this, so I took some pictures to illustrate.

Same street, different day. And here are some other various  pictures of the Scottish sky that struck my fancy this week.

Our sea shipment is set to be delivered on Monday (happy dance!), so I forsee next week being busy-busy. I'll try my best to keep posting everyday, but I cant make any promises. This weekend will also be hectic with trying to run errands and deep clean the house before our shipment arrives. Once that furniture goes down, the carpet underneath probably won't get vacuumed for the next 2-3 years. Speaking of vacuums, lookie what I got.

Jonathan's been hesitant about getting me a Dyson because of the implications of buying your wife a vacuum cleaner as a gift. Who spread the lie that women don't want cleaning tools, cooking supplies, and exercise equipment as gifts? That is such false information, and every time a birthday/anniversary/Christmas passes and Jonathan buys me yet another romantic gift, I grill him on why he didn't get me the food processor that I asked for.
He swears that me asking for such items is luring him into a trap and as soon as I see an elliptical machine with a bow under the Christmas tree, I'll turn into an emotional wreck and accuse him of calling me fat. Erroneous!
I begged and pleaded for a Dyson vacuum cleaner for our anniversary and once again, he did not deliver, refusing to mark our anniversary with a cleaning apparatus. So last weekend I marched him right on over to Curry's and we purchased this bad boy. When we got home, Jonathan and I had a fight over who was going to get to vacuum the house first. Vacuuming has quickly gone from my least favorite to most favorite chore. Fortunately, we have burgundy carpet and two white dogs who shed an impossible amount, so I get to vacuum every. single. day. Lucky me. 

Exploring with The Explorers

One thing I would definitely recommend to anyone moving abroad is to look into joining the American Women’s Association wherever you are. Aberdeen has an especially great group of women who have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome and to get me involved. I haven’t had this sort of explosion of facebook friends since back in my sorority days, and the AWA dues are about 1/10 of the price of the DZ ones, so I’m definitely getting more friends for my money hereJ.

Once you’re in the AWA, you have about 20 social groups to choose from depending on where your interests lie. Since I love to hike, eat, and read, I’ve gotten involved in three different groups pertaining to those interests.

Last Thursday was my first hike with the ‘Explorers’ who generally go on 7-10 mile hikes twice a month. Apparently, the Explorers is a more intense version of ‘The Walkabouts’ who take more leisurely walks that usually include a lunch afterward. I plan on joining both.

I was a bit intimidated to join the Explorers and worried that my amateur hiking skills would slow the group down. Fortunately, last week’s hike of the Circuit of Iverbervie, Beholm, and Gourdon was a good one to get started on, since it was only about 5-6 miles and involved a pit stop at the Mill of Beholm along the way. We had about a half mile initial climb and then the rest of the walk was pretty flat.

We had some great vantage points of both the countryside and the ocean, but our views were somewhat diminished by the thick fog that was out that morning. Though the fog was obstructive in some regards, it added an air of mystique to the scenery.

Our pitstop was at the Mill of Beholm which is a restored Mill secretly tucked along the route. The mill includes clean restroom facilities, a gift shop, and a cafe that doubles as a program for teaching culinary and hospitality skills to adults with special needs. I’ve noticed a few of these programs around Aberdeen and think it is such a wonderful social service to help these adults become integrated into the workforce.  

All in all, I think I held my weight on the hike and had a good time with great company. Of course, the best part for me was photographing cows.

Eventually I want to have a gallery wall filled just with pictures of Scottish farm animals. Honestly, I can’t get enough.

And I haven’t even had the chance to photograph any of the famously adorable highland coos yet. I hope I’m not driving the first time I spot one because I will surely run off the road in my excitement.

And really, could you blame me?

Samson's Best Day Ever

Samson and Bailey are about as opposite as two dogs can get. Bailey is big; Samson is small. Bailey is brilliant; Samson is more ‘simple-minded’. Bailey is rambunctious; Samson is all gentleness. Bailey is well trained while Samson is well behaved. Bailey is hyperactive; Samson is the dictionary definition of relaxed.

Since our two dogs are so different, they have an entirely different set of needs. Since Bailey is our more high maintenance dog who requires an hour of exercise per day, she’s been getting a lot of one on one attention lately; getting to go for jogs and hikes while Samson is often left behind.

I’ve been feeling mighty guilty over this disparity so on Sunday Jonathan and I decided to spend some one on one time with our baby boy.  I had heard that Crathes Castle Estate had a few forests trails that were about 4-5 miles long, so that’s where we decided to explore.

At the beginning of the walk, Samson was so excited and pulling on the lead so bad that I’m sure he didn’t appreciate how this walk was different than any other. However, shortly into the walk, we started walking parallel to the Dee River, which distracted this water dog enough to slow down and smell the rabbit poop.

He insisted that he get in for a swim, and since I was still feeling guilty, I obliged him. After about 3 miles of scenery such as this:

we decided to take a breather on one of the many park benches strewn along the trail.

Towards the end of the hike, we crossed a bridge over a fish ladder that helps salmon get upstream and I had to closely supervise Sam to make sure he didn’t jump in after them.

We also came across an old cemetery complete with Celtic crosses and that elusive thing known in Scotland as sunlight.

The drive to Crathes from Aberdeen only took us 30 minutes, and the paths were well marked and scenic, so we’ll definitely be making a return trip soon. On our drive back to Aberdeen, Samson napped in the car while Jonathan and I stopped to take a look around ‘The Mains of Drum Garden Center’ in Drumoak.

Garden Centers in Scotland are vastly different than what you would think of in the States. Yes, they have garden supplies, but they also sell clothes, furniture, gifts, food, etc and also have nice cafes located inside. If you’re ever in Scotland and pass by one of these hidden gems, I suggest you stop in for a look around.

I had a basket full of goodies when Jonathan’s hungry monster appeared, and he insisted that he couldn’t wait to be served at the restaurant and needed a snack NOW. Such is the nature of the hungry monster. I had to abandon my basket and take him directly to the car where I had my secret cookie stash. Oh well, it just gives me another excuse to go back soon.

Since Jon was still hungry when we got home, I made him a peanut butter sandwich with the last of our JIF Natural Jar (sniff, sniff). Since I needed to clean out the peanut butter jar before it could be recycled, I decided to cap of Samson’s perfect day by letting him lick it clean.

Now, Samson is a rescue dog, so I can’t speak for the first 4 years of his life, but I’m guessing that Sunday, the 10th of June, will go down in his record books as the best day ever.

The Olympic Torch comes to Aberdeen

Since the 2012 Summer Olympics are being held in London, the Olympic torch has been making a tour around the United Kingdom. We were there to greet the torch as it’s made its way into the Aberdeen city center last night, and Bailey and I saw it again this morning as it passed a block from our house. A block from our house! How cool is that?

Last night was a very festive time in Aberdeen and the crowds were out in full force. Our friend Kristin was gracious enough to invite everyone over to her flat which was a block from the route downtown. After feasting on fajitas and other Tex-Mex goodies, we headed to the route to catch a glimpse. The procession was a bit anticlimactic since before the torch was scheduled to arrive, there were several buses blaring music that we thought were leading in the torch bearer.

However, after the buses passed, we were left in silence for about 10 minutes, until all of a sudden a few cop motorcycles came by, a tall person commented that they could see the torch, and boom, it was right in front of me.

Unfortunately, this short girl couldn’t see over the crowds of people, but Jillian got a great picture that she shared with me. 

I figured this morning would afford a clearer view of the actual torch, so I grabbed Bailey and headed out to wait for the procession as it passed right by our house.

Even Bailey could feel the excitement in the atmosphere, but after a few anti-climactic fake-outs, she decided to take a nap.

Of course, I knew the musical buses signified another 10 minute wait, so I wasn’t fooled this time around.

The interim time was very atmospheric though since a bagpiper was playing from a balcony in the apartments behind us, and the crowds were singing along to what I assumed to be the national anthem. For a moment, I got really homesick and longed to hear the words “and the land of the free and the home of the brave”.

After about 30 minutes of standing in the cold-windy-rain (would Aberdeen have it any other way?), we caught a great glimpse of the legendry flame. I still didn’t get a picture quite as good as Jillian’s last night, but it was much improved over what I could snap in the city center crowds yesterday.

Altogether, it was a memorable and surreal experience; one that I feel honored and blessed to have participated in. The Olympics have a special significance to our family since my cousin Katherine is an Olympic medalist.

She earned a silver and bronze medal for short track speed skating during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, and the sacrifices that she’s made to reach that elite status is nothing short of inspiring. Thinking of her training regimen has gotten me through many P90x sessions. Realizing that my hard workouts are her ‘light’ days is truly humbling. 

Because of her, anytime I think about Olympic athletes, I’m left with a chill on my flesh and a tear in my eye. Sorry to be so sentimental, but it’s the stinkin’ Olympic torch, people. The Olympic torch! A block from my house! Life is so amazing sometimes.

A Typical Scottish Saturday

I figured I’d share with you what a typical Saturday in Aberdeen looks like for us. The mornings generally look something like this:

Can’t spot Samson? Don’t you worry, all you have to do is pull back the covers, and you’ll find him.

After wrangling these 3 sleepy heads out of bed, we usually get some morning exercise before plotting out the days’ activities. This past Saturday included a “crawfish boil” hosted by Schlumberger out at Fraser castle. That was a lot of information, so let me repeat myself. A crawfish boil. At a castle. Seriously.

Now, I have to admit that calling the event a “crawfish boil” was a bit of false advertisement, but there were boiled shrimp, lobster, and langoustines which bear a striking resemblance to crawfish. I’d say the potato to Langoustine ratio is reversed from what I’d traditionally label a crawfish platter, but beggars can’t be choosers.

On another note, how fun is it to say the word ‘langoustine’? So much fun that for the time being, I’ve renamed Samson by this appellation. He just looks more like a ‘Langoustine’ than a ‘Samson’, wouldn’t you say?

After chowing down on lunch, we were treated to a tour of Fraser castle and a walk around the castle grounds, which was a perfect way to break in my new Hunter Boots.

For dinner, we attended an AWA dinner that Jillian organized at Ciao Napoli, which is a great little Italian place. We had great appetizers, entrees, and wine, but were still tempted by dessert. The only issue was that we couldn’t decide whether we wanted to share tiramisu or gelato. When pressured to make a decision, we decided to go with the tiramisu, but as luck would have it, the waitress accidently brought out an extra gelato, so we graciously volunteered to take the complementary dessert off her hands. We’re just good people like that. Plus, sharing is so much easier when you’re splitting two desserts.

All in all, it was a pretty perfect Saturday, and actually pretty reflective of how we spend our weekends here. There is always something going on, you just have to go out there and find it. We’ve been making a habit of saying yes to every invitation that we can possibly attend, and it’s making for a pretty busy social life. We’re having a great time, but Saturday naps are becoming a necessity as well.

Today, the Olympic torch is making it's way through Aberdeen, ending with a concert in the City Center. Jonathan and I definitely plan to be in attendance, sporting our red white and blue. I'm just glad that our two countries share the same colors. Go Team USA! (And Team UK, of course.)