We Made it!

We are settled into our new Home...for the next month, at least.  Not quite sure what my feelings are about being here just yet...sleep will help.  But I am up for an adventure, so i'm still happy we came here.  And we had some fun on the way here:

At the Indy Airport (earlier I told family it was the Philly airport during our layover, but I was also sleep deprived, and not sure of what happened, when), anywho....at the Indy airport while waiting to board our flight and trying to relax after realizing I left my cell phone in my in-law's car, Josh and I had just ordered a couple of beer.  While waiting on our alcohol, we couldn't help but comment to the guys sitting next to us.  One had just come back from Zimbabwe.  He had a whole stack of money:  20 million dollar bills, 100 million dollar bills....and this, a fifty billion dollar bill.  Had to get a pic of Josh holding that kind of money.  It's really just pennies on the dollar...not worth much at all..but just seeing that value on money....very fun.

And then this was definitely at the Philly airport during our layover.  we were chugging across the airport to get to the int'l terminal, and saw a lego liberty bell.  we're lego fiends, and had to stop for a quick pic.

The flight from philly to Manchester was a lot more painful than i was expecting...our flight got delayed after we were already on the tarmac, so that added an hour and a half to the cramped quarters of our unexpectedly down-graded (size wise) plane.  Thunderstorms in the area.  But we finally took off, but we never did get very comfy for the flight, so we were and still are exhausted on the drive from the airport to our apartment.

We were shocked to lean the name of our driver:  John O'Hare.  A very well known football player in this area...and he even played for a team in Dallas back in his heyday.  He played for the famous/infamous football manager, Brian Clough.  Clough is a very common name in England, but pronounced "Clouff", rather than how Josh's family says it "Clo".  So we're Mr. and Mrs. "Clouff" here.  Watch the movie "The Damned United"...it tells all about Brian Clough and John O'Hare (although the movie too quite a bit of creative liberties with the truth.  Made for a very interesting conversation in the car.)

But the one last photo to show you before I zonk out for the night:  I just really like the side panel for this milk container (part of a few welcome items in our Kitchen).

:)

yup!

serviced housing for the 1st month.  then we have to move.  i'm not going to be annoyed about the fact that we'll have to pack up all our stuff just a month after getting there...and having to move 1 month is better than 5 months in when we're certain to have acquired more things by then.  and i get a nice reprieve from having to clean house for a month.  not too shabby!

a place to live...

Ok, so we're still waiting on apartment/address verification for our new diggs in Derby.....

Way back in Nov, when we were ramping up for our original departure date of early Jan., we had put in our preference for a fairly new complex, right on the edge of the City Center area (downtown).  So i would be within walking distance of everything during the day while Josh was at work.  (I won't be covered for driving over there, but the company covers Josh..he even gets driving lessons :) ).

And to back peddle just a wee bit, we actually originally requested an apartment in a super nice complex that a coworker stayed in during a month long stay..also right on edge of the City Center.  We were told that we couldn't live there because that was "serviced housing"...i.e. a weekly cleaning service went in to clean the place.  People who are there for a month or less get put up in serviced housing, as it's cheaper than a hotel.  But it's waaaay more expensive than just a regular ole flat. 

Well, we find out today, that part of the hold up with getting us an apartment is that, that um, they ran out of available apartments that the company has rights to.  yeah.  There are so many Americans (and possibly employees from other countries, but we've heard from a lot of Americans already) over in Derby right now that they ran out of apartments!

So guess what.  It looks like we're getting put in the swanky serviced housing complex.  (well, according to online pix, it looks pretty swanky)

But its more than likely that we will get moved out of serviced housing once a regular apartment vacates.

the one thing that would be pretty upsetting is if they try and put us in an apartment complex on the outskirts of town.  I guess those apartments are pretty nice, but you have to have a car to get anywhere, or so we've been told by some couples currently staying there.  and so we keep repeating that i won't be able to drive while we're there, so i need to be in walking distance of downtown.  it will be interesting to see what happens.

the anxiety of all of this is starting to manifest itself.  not feeling so great the last couple of days.  having a hard time finishing up my work from the nausea.  ugh. 

my mama is coming into town on Saturday to help me get the house in order for Pops.  I'm looking forward to having my mama all to myself for a day.  and hopefully we'll be assigned an address tomorrow!

Now we're cookin!

I just received out Visas!! Already have scans emailed off to josh's company.  plane tickets were reserved yesterday.  now, just waiting to hear what our address will be to finalize the last of the details!

We leave Indy next Thursday afternoon!

crown count

well, i just got done packaging, weight and inventorying  the crowns made thus far.  only 125 crown sets.  that's well below what i wanted to have in stock before heading out.  I do have a handful of other crown nearly ready go, that I abandoned in order to just finish up what the 125 that were already done and needed to get boxed up.  I did want to have 200 sets.

but frankly, those 125 sets take up quite a bit more space than i was expecting, so there's not much more room for additional boxes.  I'll be inventorying the candle sets tomorrow.

me again

yes, i'm doing all sorts of Blogging these days!

anyway, i was just getting around to adding tags to all my past postings.  and i just noticed that i had a few comments on some posts--FUN!  i hadn't noticed the comments before, and I'm sorry for not actually responding to them before....many of them from my beautiful friend, Diana.  :)  

And an incredibly helpful comment from someone about phone services!

Anywho, I know to keep a better eye out for comments now, lesson learned.  back to work now.  really.

phew!

alright, the Visas have been granted.  They're on their way to us right now.  should have them in hand tomorrow.  and josh is working on booking the flights.  looks like we'll be flying into Manchester, even though we preferred Heathrow.  Hopefully, the airport will stay open  (it was closed Sunday from the Icelandic volcano plume).

I'm getting all the crowns packaged up today.  tomorrow i'll do candles.

and lots of errands to run today!

finally, a pic

When Josh came home from work today, he started laughing at how many crowns I had out on the table and kitchen counter (don't worry, I haven't cooked anything in about 2 weeks now, the counters are clean :)  )

So we took a pic of what things looked like this evening...Pardon the funny spot lighting off to the side.  that's my make-shift photo set-up, as my usual crown photo spot has been torn down to make room for inventory storage.

Oh, and today was not our lucky day either.  Maybe we'll be granted the Visas tomorrow?

maybe today

OK, we weren't lucky on Friday....the consulate hadn't released our Visas by the close of business Friday.  Maybe today!

waiting game

Ok, we overnighted out visa applications to a company in chicago who aids in rush visas.  but we had a delay, because we only included one photo, each, in our original application.  turns out we needed 2 photos of each.

josh about hit the roof when I told him (yeah, i got to field all those emails).  so we got new mugshots taken (ugh...end of the day, tired, can't even show a hint of a smile...yeah, not very pretty).  overnighted those.  chicago got them.  our applications are at the consulate.  so now we wait....until they hopefully grant us visas...in which case, they will then be overnighted, with all our originals-hopefully.    so there is a slim chance we will have everything back tomorrow....or Saturday....or Monday...

We had to mail josh's actual ph.d diploma (he was not happy about that), a full 12 months of pay stubs, our original marriage license, our passports, multiple applications, photos...photo copies of all of that...and rights to our first born child.

:)

i have given myself only until the end of this week to finish making stock.  i need to post photos of the stock..but i'm so overwhelmed, i don't even feel like transferring photos off my camera!

i will soon, though.. josh has taken some pretty amusing photos of all the crowns.

ok, back to work.

On the record...

Well we just got back from having our biometric info taken.   It was at the immigration office here in Indy--so that was pretty neat to get to see people who are going through the naturalization process.  But i didn't have much time to do any people watching (a favorite pastime) as they called us right back.  but when we first went to the proper room, right after getting off the elevator, you get searched..so it's just an intimidating way to start the fairly benign process of scanning fingerprints. 

The finger-print scanning thing was pretty cool, and then it was just a quick photo--like for a driver's license.  We were under the impression that it'd be one of those cool 360 degree style photos.  not so much.  It took all of 10 minutes, plus $5 for parking.

so we're waiting on Rolls Royces Global HR office to submit a letter certifying employment....and then once we have that, we'll be overnighting our huge application packet (including josh's ph.d. diploma (Oy!)) to the uk embassy in chicago.  we'll be employing a company to help rush the process along, so that with any luck, we'll receive the Visas within 3 days after they receive the application.

Then we can book the plane tickets.


Almost there......

Really feeling the stress...

But i really can't complain, as things are chugging along pretty smoothly.  The reality of being away from home and my kitties for 6 months is starting to set it.  Starting to feel nervous about all the work stuff (my work, not Josh's).

My car is due to come off its lease while we're away, so we just made arrangements to buy out the lease early.  So need to go sign papers at the bank soon.  On Thursday, we go downtown to get our biometric info taken.   we got out passport photos taken that have to accompany the visa application. (don't worry, we already have actual passports).  but thursday, after our appt, we'll be overnight the application to the UK embassy in chicago.  Many of josh's coworkers have received their visas in as little as 3 days.

once we have the visas, and scan a copy to the right people with josh's work, then we'll finally be allowed to book plane tickets....and we'll actually get the rest of the relocation info.

A recliner, to help my dad feel more at-home here is being delivered any day now.

my dad will be here for several days next week.

I'm about 1/2 way done with the amount of crown stock i want to get made...and don't talk to me about the candles.  ugh.

I have mass quantities of photos i need to post on the site....but i do have a new laptop (well, new to me, it's a refurbished lenovo (IBM)) that will allow me to do some good work on the go.  I have my new camera already.

we have all our dr's appts taken care of before we leave...we just need to stock up on a few things we want to take with us (contact lens solution), and stock up on goodies for daddy (kool-aid and m-n-ms) and i guess we're good to go.  I'm freaking out that we really only have about 3 weeks until we leave..so back to work.