Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...

...it's off to work on the bathroom they go.

And they're doing a cracking job.

The downstairs toilet, the half bath, the cloakroom, whatever you want to call it, that's what we're having redone at the moment. When The Boy moved into this house oh those many moons ago, the little downstairs cloakroom was clad in orange TEXTURED carpet, with an ORANGE sink and an ORANGE toilet. I suppose it was more a terracotta color, but ugly is ugly, no matter WHAT name you give it! The sink was too tiny to be functional, and you needed to be a weightlifter in order to have enough strength to flush the toilet. The COLORS, too, just made an already small room look EVEN SMALLER. Add a strip of really ugly coat hooks along the length of one wall, and you had a disaster of a room!

For the longest time we've talked about changing it, but we were complacent, and just never got around to doing it. But now, seeing as we are about to sell our house for our big move (back) across the pond, what we "would like to do some day" has become a vital necessity for marketing our house.

For the years that I've been here, I've seen around the area a red van belonging to a local company. We needed some general repairs done, and had them round to give us an estimate. While they were here, we showed them the bathroom and asked for an estimate for that, as well. They gave us a reasonable price, so we scheduled the work to be started today.

So the guys are downstairs now gutting the little room, ripping out that nasty, yucky orange carpet, pulling out the UGLY cabinet someone had knocked up in a hurry to sit the sink on, and GETTING RID of that awful orange toilet!

In case no one believes me about just HOW DISMAL it was in there, I have pictures!

(Mind you, the walls look like that because we've just recently ripped the painted over wallpaper off of the walls in there, and taken out all of the FUGLY tiles!!)

I've got some high hopes for that little bathroom, and I think we'll see it REALLY come together. When the tiling and suite installation is finished in there and it's time to paint, we'll go with a really nice, soft white to lighten the room. I'm DEFINITELY excited to know that it's all starting to take shape!

March 2010

WOW. There's so much going on for 2010.

Not a lot of people know this, but we'll be moving (back, for me) to the US this year, and we are currently in the process of procuring The Boy's US visa. His interview date approaches rapidly, and before TOO very long we'll find out if he's given his US visa straight away, or if we have other requirements to fulfil, first. We're pretty hopeful, actually, that he'll get it on his interview date; we've been reading so very many forums and have been gathering up every single bit of information recommended by people who have already had their visas granted.

As for ME, this is my third year here in the UK, and because I am married to a British citizen I'm now entitled to British citizenship, myself. So MY appointment with the "Nationality Checking Service" is next week. While I don't have to attend an interview for my citizenship like The Boy will for his US visa, I've got some pretty intense paperwork that must be filled out correctly, and the NCS is a division of the UK Border Agency provided on a local level which helps people with their applications, ensuring the correct information is provided and in the correct forms. Once my citizenship is granted, I'll only have to wait to attend a scheduled citizenship ceremony in my local area --unless I want to attend one in a DIFFERENT part of the UK, OR we've already moved back to the US (in which case I just write and ask to take part in a citizenship ceremony in the US at a British Consulate near me). SO many details to that. Anyway, as it is now, I have the appropriate paperwork and only need the help dotting the i's and crossing the t's. This is, afterall, the last step in my requirements for the past three years, steps which have included my spousal visa, my Indefinite Leave to Remain, passing my Life in the UK test, and now application for British citizenship. This day seemed so very far away when I first moved here; now it's almost behind me, and we're preparing for The Boy's entry into the US, after which HE'LL have three years until US citizenship. Crazy stuff.

So that's where we are right now with that all important, socially created "status": LOTS of paperwork and research, lots of form filling and application deadlines.

But that's not it, entirely. We're also having to put some work into the house in order to sell it (hopefully not long after it's listed, too). So far we've added on a deck and some extensive back gardening (we did that before we realized we'd be moving), had the front AND back gardens re-turfed and painted a lot of the rooms. We're having a few of the rooms inside redone, too, like the downstairs cloakroom and the kitchen. We're also painting some interior wood surfaces that had previously been woodstained. It's a LOT of work, but it's been good so far, and should DEFINITELY pay off when the time comes.

It's taken me a long time to feel "at home" in this house --there has been much painting, a bathroom re-haul and a general reordering of the upstairs layout-- but now, and especially on a bright, sunny day when the house is flooded with warm, inviting light, I realize just how nice this place is, and how a little part of me (a bigger part than I'm going to admit to anyone) will miss it, and certain things about it. We'll eventually find a house in the US which I'm sure will be much bigger than this one (This is a four bedroomed, detached house in a nice area, but houses in the UK are some of the smallest in all of Europe!), with so many more features, but I'm expecting that THIS house will stay with me and that quietly I'll compare other houses to it, features, rooms, colors --whether or not more space automatically equals that all important "cozy" feeling. We'll see. It's going to be interesting leaving this place I thought I hated for so long, yet on many occasions didn't want to leave, even for interesting parties and evenings out.

So there you have it. The majority of our March in a nutshell.

However, seeing as "all work and no play makes The Girl and The Boy 'grumpy Gusses'", we'll take some time out for some entertainment and see Varekai this month, too. wh00t!