A Few Thoughts for Today

Hello, dear family and friends!

There are not a lot of new things going on at the moment, but I thought I might share some thoughts about my work here. But first: a few facts which, together, equal a funny party story.

Brits call the clothing worn betwixt waist and ankles "trousers."
To the British, "pants” is a shortened version of the word "underpants."

The word "khaki," when pronounced by an Englishman sounds like "cocky." When an American says "khaki," it sounds to a Brit like "cacky," their word meaning "poopy."

Thus, when an American says he (or she of course) is wearing khaki pants to the party, it sounds to the Brit as though she will be arriving in poopy underwear. 

Work is…different, in a refreshing, pleasant way. I work two or three days, then get two or three days off; it’s a traditional shift-work schedule, and while I get a lot of time off, I work a lot of 12+ hour shifts, which is quite tiring after the third day of work. However, I have a great shift of folks who work with me, and I really enjoy the patient care aspect of the work here. I do a lot of stitches, IVs, wound care, ortho/casting, and other urgent care sorts of things. Not too many true emergencies, but we do have at least one unconscious drunk guy per weekend who needs to be picked up in an ambulance and sobered up, so that’s always a good time…!

We have a four bed ER—we see about 30 patients per day…it’s slow—I’m not going to lie to you—but because it’s small, we don’t have any students, residents, etc, and we get to do all the sutures and other cool things that need to be done. It’s a good kind of work.

I’m deeply entrenched in home decorating and painting—the British version of Home Depot is the greatest place ever!! I love to browse at paint colors (and Martha Stewart’s recommended schemes) until I’m no longer able to distinguish any color—it’s my version of online gambling; I’m totally addicted! My current favorite colors are putty/grey/beige and gentle pastel sage green. I’m pretty excited about it!

The weather here is amazing when compared to San Antonio! It’s cool most days, a little dark and grey, but crisp and lovely. Some days are sunny and clear, but still not hot or humid, and I must say, it’s perfect. You will all have to come visit me, because I like it here so much that I may not ever leave...!

Week Four--Has it Been that Long Already?!

It has been a little while since I've updated here, but that is because we moved into our little rental house in Bury and we don't have internet set up there yet. Also, Travis and I both started working, so we've been pretty busy and distracted. Most importantly, however, we've been distracted and stressed because we BOUGHT a HOUSE. Well, I should say we are buying a house, because we are still in mortgage-paperwork-land, but it's still very exciting and terrifying.
This house was actually the first house we viewed and we have loved it from the very beginning. We viewed dozens of properties in the last few weeks, and none of them compared to that first, beautiful, perfect house. It's brand new--actually, won't be completed until November--it's in Mildenhall (about 8 minutes away from our work), it's a three-story townhouse with plenty of bedrooms (GUESTrooms!! Come visit us; we'll be settled and open for business in November!). Because it's new, we have a lot of input regarding fixtures and carpet, tiling etc., so all in all, it's just absolutely perfect.
To be honest, we were shocked by how well it all played out: we made a low-ball offer in order to start negotiations on the low end of things, and the builders accepted it. The estate agent with whom we've been working was shocked that it all worked out so quickly and easily--she had helped sell almost 100 homes in the development, but turns out we (accidentally) made our offer at just the right moment, when the developers/builders were trying to make a quota. We worked in a few perks in negotiations--afore mentioned carpets and turf/grass, appliances, etc., and we've been busy checking in with them every few days to see how the construction is progressing. I'm pretty sure that every carpenter on the job will be on a first-name basis with me by November. ("Thanks for the doughnuts, Ma'am; Yes, we're working as fast as we can.")
While we're waiting for housing details to close, we're working away at the hospital--I'm working 12-hour shifts in the ER and Travis is working M-F in the BMET shop. The not-great part about that is that we only really get every other weekend together, but the good news is that one of us is generally home to hang out with Lego, run errands--and check in on the house, of course! ("No, Sir--explaining how much your dog will appreciate your new yard will NOT speed things up. We're working as fast as we can.")
So overall, I think it's fair to say that we are settling in quite nicely...we have a British car and a British mortgage pending. We have British cell phones and British cookies on the shelf of our British rental house while we wait--patiently!--on our British home to be finished. ("I can't wait to be done with this job.")