I took Aidan today on a Mommy & Me day to celebrate the end of summer. After going to the Lego store we made a stop at the Rosetta Stone kiosk. Learning Spanish/Catalan has been on my long list of to do's since we know we were going to Spain. I figure now that the kids start school this week, I have absolutely no excuse but to get my ass in gear and learn! So I bought my very expensive tutoring software.
Just took some time to install it - pretty easy stuff. Then the lessons began. I actually really like the software so far and think this whole immersion thing will be good. But the pronunciation thing is what is going to kill me! The "rr" sound is so hard for me! I got 110 right the first time with only 8 wrong the 8 wrong were ones I no joke, tried at least 50 times. Don't ever ask me to say "un hombre" EVER!! I know it's a man, no doubt about that... definitely know the meaning now because I said it a gazillion times! I made it thru lesson 1... only a lot more to go. The woman at the desk said I'd be fluent in 6 months - I told her I have less than 4 to learn so she told me I should get to it! Looks like in addition to work at night, I know what I'll be doing! Josh said he's going to give it a try tomorrow - can't wait to hear how it goes!
Julie
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Shit what were we thinking?????
I had that ah ha moment last night... you know the one where you actually digest everything that's happening and think, oh my god, what the F**k have I done? Yup, that was me last night. I was going to write about it last night but I just didn't have the strength and wanted to digest a little bit more first.
First let me state that I'm still fine with moving, it will be a great experience for all...blah blah blah. But that doesn't mean I don't have the occasional panic attack here. It was like each time I found out I was pregnant - both were planned pregnancies but once I actually found out I was pregnant I freaked. And that was last night (not the pregnancy part, just the panic). Josh and I have searched websites before looking casually at housing - all before we knew for sure we were going. Maybe I just wasn't thinking realistically? Or maybe I just had fantasies of finding exactly the same thing there that we have here (which I know is completely unrealistic, but one can always hope). But it came down to actually starting a casual search (nothing we find now will be available when we move so it's more to see what's it going to be like in our budget and what areas do we like).
Well let me tell you that casual search with our actual budget was not like my casual non budget search of a few months ago. It threw me completely for a loop. I feel like we are going to be living in a cramped 2 maybe 3 bedroom place that someone with very very poor taste decorated. I know that's not fair... it's someplace new in a culture that I'm not familiar with. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to live somewhere that meets my tastes and style. Again realistically probably not going to happen. I think that it just hit that wherever we go is going to be temporary and not really home - this is a good and bad thing. Good because home is here with our family and friends in our house in Attleboro. Bad because this isn't a weeklong vacation - this is still two years and I think I've realized that that isn't a short period of time. Sure it's not long in the span of my lifetime but to be somewhere I don't feel like is home is going to be a challenge. It's a challenge I will embrace and am determined to come to terms with. And by no means does it change my decision to want to go on this journey with Josh and the boys. But it certainly,understandably makes me ambivilant - its unchartered waters for me and by being so, scares the shit out of me every now and again. This isn't some move to another town. I'm moving halfway across the world...
Now that I'm done venting about my panic attack I should mention that I've begun the BIG PURGE as I'm calling it. Most stuff has made it home from the cape since we will be renting out that house the moment construction is complete. The rest of the items will come home at that time. It's all in the garage in various buckets to determine if (A) it stays, (B) it gets donated or (C) it goes in the trash - believe it or not, I'm excited about the prospect of getting a dumpster to get rid of some of this stuff.
The house in Attleboro is about to go into that state as well - as soon as the kids get back to school. Part of me would like to have a giant yard sale but I just don't have the strength for it. Today I was thinking if I could scrape together enough cash from a yard sale that we could afford a bigger prettier place in Barcelona - it would have to be beyond a giant yard sale to make this happen I'm thinking now. But it was a though, albeit a passing one. As much as I don't mind donating the goods to charity or giving items to friends, part of me watches some of this stuff go and thinks, geez, I've spent a shitload of money over the years on all this stuff, I really need to recoup it someway. But since I don't have the time or the patience or even the space to organize a yard sale, I'll just have to cut back on my shopping (big gulp!) if I have hopes of saving some $$$$ or increase my sales at work (in my free time lately). Regardless, we will be together as a family and that's really all that counts right? We're going to learn that things are just that - things...and that there is more to life than a pretty house.
Julie
First let me state that I'm still fine with moving, it will be a great experience for all...blah blah blah. But that doesn't mean I don't have the occasional panic attack here. It was like each time I found out I was pregnant - both were planned pregnancies but once I actually found out I was pregnant I freaked. And that was last night (not the pregnancy part, just the panic). Josh and I have searched websites before looking casually at housing - all before we knew for sure we were going. Maybe I just wasn't thinking realistically? Or maybe I just had fantasies of finding exactly the same thing there that we have here (which I know is completely unrealistic, but one can always hope). But it came down to actually starting a casual search (nothing we find now will be available when we move so it's more to see what's it going to be like in our budget and what areas do we like).
Well let me tell you that casual search with our actual budget was not like my casual non budget search of a few months ago. It threw me completely for a loop. I feel like we are going to be living in a cramped 2 maybe 3 bedroom place that someone with very very poor taste decorated. I know that's not fair... it's someplace new in a culture that I'm not familiar with. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to live somewhere that meets my tastes and style. Again realistically probably not going to happen. I think that it just hit that wherever we go is going to be temporary and not really home - this is a good and bad thing. Good because home is here with our family and friends in our house in Attleboro. Bad because this isn't a weeklong vacation - this is still two years and I think I've realized that that isn't a short period of time. Sure it's not long in the span of my lifetime but to be somewhere I don't feel like is home is going to be a challenge. It's a challenge I will embrace and am determined to come to terms with. And by no means does it change my decision to want to go on this journey with Josh and the boys. But it certainly,understandably makes me ambivilant - its unchartered waters for me and by being so, scares the shit out of me every now and again. This isn't some move to another town. I'm moving halfway across the world...
Now that I'm done venting about my panic attack I should mention that I've begun the BIG PURGE as I'm calling it. Most stuff has made it home from the cape since we will be renting out that house the moment construction is complete. The rest of the items will come home at that time. It's all in the garage in various buckets to determine if (A) it stays, (B) it gets donated or (C) it goes in the trash - believe it or not, I'm excited about the prospect of getting a dumpster to get rid of some of this stuff.
The house in Attleboro is about to go into that state as well - as soon as the kids get back to school. Part of me would like to have a giant yard sale but I just don't have the strength for it. Today I was thinking if I could scrape together enough cash from a yard sale that we could afford a bigger prettier place in Barcelona - it would have to be beyond a giant yard sale to make this happen I'm thinking now. But it was a though, albeit a passing one. As much as I don't mind donating the goods to charity or giving items to friends, part of me watches some of this stuff go and thinks, geez, I've spent a shitload of money over the years on all this stuff, I really need to recoup it someway. But since I don't have the time or the patience or even the space to organize a yard sale, I'll just have to cut back on my shopping (big gulp!) if I have hopes of saving some $$$$ or increase my sales at work (in my free time lately). Regardless, we will be together as a family and that's really all that counts right? We're going to learn that things are just that - things...and that there is more to life than a pretty house.
Julie
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The cat is out of the bag... we've told Aidan.
It went surprisingly well. Almost too well. I don't think he was paying attention. Maybe telling him at bedtime was the wrong thing to do? We showed him on the globe where Spain is in relation to Boston. He took it pretty well. His big concern was if we could put a Santa Claus guy on the north pole on the globe and if so will the globe still spin? I thought I'd have so much more to write on this topic but have surprisingly little. He had very few questions other than how do we get there and will we be keeping this house. I guess we'll wait til it gets closer to see how it really hits! My guess is that this is not the end of this topic...
Julie
Julie
Monday, August 17, 2009
Where the hell did this all this crap come from?
As kind of a follow up to my last post, as I look around my house getting ready to move, I have to wonder, where did all this shit come from? Seriously, in almost 9 years of living here, I don't know how we accumulated all this stuff! Now I need to figure out what goes, what gets donated, what goes to friends, what gets trashed, what goes to storage, etc etc... It's the most overwhelming process no matter how I look at it. And everytime I do start to look at it, I think...well, the kids will be back to school in "x" weeks. Procrastinating much? I do work best under pressure but I imagine the fall is not going to be a pretty sight! Going back to my last post, I guess it's giving me an opportunity to recycle and reduce the things we want and only buy what we need and I'm certainly not buying much these days knowing I'm just going to have to move it soon anyways.
We did get some potential good news last week too - we accidentally found a renter for our cape house. We have a verbal agreement from her and that's all I'm going to say before I jinx it. I'm hoping to have it all tied up within a week or two. But that means getting all the crap out of the cape house now too. The good thing is that we believe she's going to keep all the furniture and stuff so it will be more about getting out our personal crap. At least with us moving forward on construction this week I've been making several trips down over the last week and bringing stuff back with me. But now it sits in the garage and in my office waiting to be "relocated" to their new homes - where, I'm not quite sure...but at least I'm slowly clearing out one house (only to add content to the other!).
On another note, we got our travel plans late last week. We are doing our "discovery" trip the first week of November where Josh and I will go to Barcelona for a few days on a house/apartment hunting trip. I've very excited about this part, not only to look for a place but also to become more familiar with the area so that when we get there with the kids we won't be going in completely blind. I was really nervous about not getting a discovery trip and showing up with the kids and dogs and not knowing where in the world to go. So this was a major relief on my end to know that I'll hopefully be able to tell the kids when we get there, "this is where we will play in the park and this is where you'll go to school and this is where we are going to live". Let's keep our fingers crossed that we find a place while we are there.
If we don't find a place while we are on our Discovery trip, Josh will need to find one on his own. He will be leaving us around Dec 1 to start the process of transitioning to the BCN office. He will come home for the holidays around Dec 22 to which I am enternally grateful. Besides being worried about going into a new country and city blind, I was also concerned about how we were going to handle the holidays with the kids in a new country. Thankfully, I now don't need to worry about it since we'll be here. I'm sure it will be on a smaller scale since we'll be leaving a few days later but at least we'll be able to take part in the traditions from previous years like making Christmas cookies with Aidan & Liam's friends, making reindeer food, Chinese food on xmas eve with friends and the luminaries. And of course, celebrating with our families!! I'm so glad we don't have to miss that! We will leave for BCN as a family shortly after the New Year.
In the meantime I'm slowly making progress on other items. School applications have been submitted, wires in the process of transferring and passports being renewed. We're close to being done with the most time sensitive items, at least as far as I can tell. My notebook now has 3 pages of "to do" items, so while they aren't all as time sensitive as those, I'm far from done and really just getting started!
Finally we're planning to tell the kids about the move this week. Once again I've been testing the waters with Aidan. Josh and I went to VT over the weekend and I showed Aidan where that was on the map. He said it wasn't far. So I pointed to Spain and asked him if he thought that was far. He said, "well, I think we can walk there". I told him we'd have to take a plane. He reconsidered his answer then. Tonight we were reading a book, UP, and part of the book essentially stated that possessions aren't important, it's people who are important. So once again I said, "even if we don't live here or have a lot of toys, we'll still be a family and be together." Both he and Josh looked at me like I was a little on the crazed side. Not me!!!!
Will post as soon as we tell Aidan so you can hear the agonizing details of telling our 5 year old that we are not just moving but moving to a country where none of us speak the language. Wish us luck!
Julie
We did get some potential good news last week too - we accidentally found a renter for our cape house. We have a verbal agreement from her and that's all I'm going to say before I jinx it. I'm hoping to have it all tied up within a week or two. But that means getting all the crap out of the cape house now too. The good thing is that we believe she's going to keep all the furniture and stuff so it will be more about getting out our personal crap. At least with us moving forward on construction this week I've been making several trips down over the last week and bringing stuff back with me. But now it sits in the garage and in my office waiting to be "relocated" to their new homes - where, I'm not quite sure...but at least I'm slowly clearing out one house (only to add content to the other!).
On another note, we got our travel plans late last week. We are doing our "discovery" trip the first week of November where Josh and I will go to Barcelona for a few days on a house/apartment hunting trip. I've very excited about this part, not only to look for a place but also to become more familiar with the area so that when we get there with the kids we won't be going in completely blind. I was really nervous about not getting a discovery trip and showing up with the kids and dogs and not knowing where in the world to go. So this was a major relief on my end to know that I'll hopefully be able to tell the kids when we get there, "this is where we will play in the park and this is where you'll go to school and this is where we are going to live". Let's keep our fingers crossed that we find a place while we are there.
If we don't find a place while we are on our Discovery trip, Josh will need to find one on his own. He will be leaving us around Dec 1 to start the process of transitioning to the BCN office. He will come home for the holidays around Dec 22 to which I am enternally grateful. Besides being worried about going into a new country and city blind, I was also concerned about how we were going to handle the holidays with the kids in a new country. Thankfully, I now don't need to worry about it since we'll be here. I'm sure it will be on a smaller scale since we'll be leaving a few days later but at least we'll be able to take part in the traditions from previous years like making Christmas cookies with Aidan & Liam's friends, making reindeer food, Chinese food on xmas eve with friends and the luminaries. And of course, celebrating with our families!! I'm so glad we don't have to miss that! We will leave for BCN as a family shortly after the New Year.
In the meantime I'm slowly making progress on other items. School applications have been submitted, wires in the process of transferring and passports being renewed. We're close to being done with the most time sensitive items, at least as far as I can tell. My notebook now has 3 pages of "to do" items, so while they aren't all as time sensitive as those, I'm far from done and really just getting started!
Finally we're planning to tell the kids about the move this week. Once again I've been testing the waters with Aidan. Josh and I went to VT over the weekend and I showed Aidan where that was on the map. He said it wasn't far. So I pointed to Spain and asked him if he thought that was far. He said, "well, I think we can walk there". I told him we'd have to take a plane. He reconsidered his answer then. Tonight we were reading a book, UP, and part of the book essentially stated that possessions aren't important, it's people who are important. So once again I said, "even if we don't live here or have a lot of toys, we'll still be a family and be together." Both he and Josh looked at me like I was a little on the crazed side. Not me!!!!
Will post as soon as we tell Aidan so you can hear the agonizing details of telling our 5 year old that we are not just moving but moving to a country where none of us speak the language. Wish us luck!
Julie
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Going green, reducing our carbon footprint and getting skinny in the process...
One of the more interesting things, for me at least, will be the fact that more than likely we aren't going to have a car in Barcelona. You see, if you don't know it already... I'm a driver. I love to drive. I offer to drive anywhere with my friends or family - not just because I like to be in control, but simply because I enjoy driving. My friend Kath and I were supposed to drive to PA today to go to the Boden warehouse sale and by no means was I intimidated by this drive, unfortunately we had to cancel. My 2006 Sienna that is just about 2 1/2 years old and has over 57, 000 miles on it - that says it all.
Anyways, you get it... I like to drive. So not having a car in Barcelona is a little initimidating for me. I'm going to need to walk everywhere or take public transit (which I hear is fabulous over there). But I'm trying to look at this as a positive thing. While I will certainly miss driving terribly (notice I didn't say my car which I'm not particular fond of), I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge of having to walk everywhere. It will be a great chance to get in shape as well as to reduce our carbon footprint since we won't have any gas emissions (ok, I can't speak for Josh!). It will also help us to reduce our carbon footprint because I think we will be more cautious about the things we purchase since we will need to carry them back home with us - we can't just throw the items in the back of the car and go. This holds true for groceries, toys, clothes, and more. I think it will be an excellent opportunity to differentiate between needs and wants. What do we really need to survive here and what do we want that will generate pleasure and is there a happy medium? Maybe this is a habit I can bring back to the US with me - I know Josh will certainly be pleased if this journey also reduces my shopping habits!!!
To me the biggest bonus will be my fantasy that I will be not only skinnier upon my return to the US but in much better shape because I've had to walk everywhere and not sit on my butt in the car. Realistic? Not so sure... but I've set the expectation so now I've got to rise to the challenge.
Julie
Anyways, you get it... I like to drive. So not having a car in Barcelona is a little initimidating for me. I'm going to need to walk everywhere or take public transit (which I hear is fabulous over there). But I'm trying to look at this as a positive thing. While I will certainly miss driving terribly (notice I didn't say my car which I'm not particular fond of), I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge of having to walk everywhere. It will be a great chance to get in shape as well as to reduce our carbon footprint since we won't have any gas emissions (ok, I can't speak for Josh!). It will also help us to reduce our carbon footprint because I think we will be more cautious about the things we purchase since we will need to carry them back home with us - we can't just throw the items in the back of the car and go. This holds true for groceries, toys, clothes, and more. I think it will be an excellent opportunity to differentiate between needs and wants. What do we really need to survive here and what do we want that will generate pleasure and is there a happy medium? Maybe this is a habit I can bring back to the US with me - I know Josh will certainly be pleased if this journey also reduces my shopping habits!!!
To me the biggest bonus will be my fantasy that I will be not only skinnier upon my return to the US but in much better shape because I've had to walk everywhere and not sit on my butt in the car. Realistic? Not so sure... but I've set the expectation so now I've got to rise to the challenge.
Julie
Friday, August 7, 2009
Challenges to come...
As I head out for my monthly massage (everyone should indulge in a little "me" time), I can't help but think of all the challenges ahead of us. We've lived in this house for almost 9 years now and our support system is here as well as our network of doctors, dentists, financial people, landscapers, hair stylist, etc etc (this is above and beyond the obvious friends and family whom I'm sad to leave too).
So now that we embark on our journey, we'll need to find all new "people" - something that under normal circumstances might not be too hard, say moving to a new town or even a new state. At least everyone speaks the same language. My guess is it will work similarly over there where we'll connect with parents of kids at Aidan & Liam's school and ask them for references for those people. But yet it still seems kind of intimidating - something about being across the ocean makes it scarier for some reason. But beyond the doctors, dentists, vets, and more, I can't help but wonder, will I find a good spa and will the masseuse be as good as Kelly? One can only guess I suppose and I should probably prioritize this lower on the totem pole than it is currently appearing.
Josh just got home so I'm off for my massage - more later!!
Julie
So now that we embark on our journey, we'll need to find all new "people" - something that under normal circumstances might not be too hard, say moving to a new town or even a new state. At least everyone speaks the same language. My guess is it will work similarly over there where we'll connect with parents of kids at Aidan & Liam's school and ask them for references for those people. But yet it still seems kind of intimidating - something about being across the ocean makes it scarier for some reason. But beyond the doctors, dentists, vets, and more, I can't help but wonder, will I find a good spa and will the masseuse be as good as Kelly? One can only guess I suppose and I should probably prioritize this lower on the totem pole than it is currently appearing.
Josh just got home so I'm off for my massage - more later!!
Julie
Thursday, August 6, 2009
And so the craziness begins...
I've never blogged before so this is going to be a whole new experience above and beyond this new wild rollercoaster of a ride we are about to embark on. So on Tuesday we signed the contract confirming that we are, indeed, going to Barcelona later this year (exact date still TBD). It's a 2 year contract and something we've been waiting on for more than a year now. It's a really exciting time, yet stressful and even sad perhaps. And I would even dare say, feeling a bit guilty - almost like survivors guilt. Like we're leaving everyone to have this great adventure and our friends and family won't be with us. But it is what it is and I need to move on from that. As Josh says (way too often), "Julie, you are focusing on the wrong box".
So now I'm in manic or maybe even panic mode. Ok, I can't say that I'm just entering that mode as if I haven't been like that for the last few months when this appeared to be a reality. In actuality, I've been freaking out about this for months and running around like a crazy woman giving away all my baby stuff, trying to purge the house (and yet it seems like there still is an abundance of crap here that still needs to go), and just trying to figure out which side is up.
Josh thinks that the houses are going to move themselves and the kids will sign themselves up for school, dogs will get their own shots, but realistically folks, we all know who needs to handle it. Me!! And honestly, I feel better doing it myself anyways - I'll know it's done my way. No, not anal at all there!!! So now it's purge, organize, make lists... lots of lists. I bought a notebook just for all the tasks I need to do (and yes, creating a blog was one of them, so yea, I get to check an action item off the list - again, can you say anal?).
So at this point you are probably already bored thinking, woo hoo, great she gets to go to Barcelona and is already complaining. By no means am I complaining - I'm excited! Just overwhelmed at this point too. I'm hoping to post some fun and funny stuff over the next few months as we get prepared for the big departure date. My guess is the posting about how Aidan takes the big move will prove to be an interesting one and will be coming up as soon as we get our actual departure date so we can give him some solid info. Still trying to figure out the approach on that one. I've been testing the waters a little bit with him by buying him a globe and showing him different places (he would like to know if you dig to China will they know he is coming??), telling him that daddy has a new job, talking about friends that have moved. When he asks if we are ever going to move, I don't want to lie to him so for now I've been saying, "well someday we might". Then he proceeds to freak out. Not a great sign of things to come. He does seem to like the idea of videocams to chat with his friends though... I guess it could go either way. Stay tuned!!!
So I hope you'll all check in from time to time to see what we are up to - from telling the kids about the big move, to our discovery trip to Barcelona to find a home, to packing up the houses, kids and dogs, moving my business across the ocean (yet still working in the US) to what I'm going to guess will be a hellish flight to get there and then adjusting to a whole new world for us - oh and did I mention that Josh and I don't speak Spanish?? It will be amusing I'm sure (at least to you, it may not be to me at the time!)!
Signing off for now... it's been a long day of school applications, gym cancellations and even some work thrown in there. Night all!!!
Julie
So now I'm in manic or maybe even panic mode. Ok, I can't say that I'm just entering that mode as if I haven't been like that for the last few months when this appeared to be a reality. In actuality, I've been freaking out about this for months and running around like a crazy woman giving away all my baby stuff, trying to purge the house (and yet it seems like there still is an abundance of crap here that still needs to go), and just trying to figure out which side is up.
Josh thinks that the houses are going to move themselves and the kids will sign themselves up for school, dogs will get their own shots, but realistically folks, we all know who needs to handle it. Me!! And honestly, I feel better doing it myself anyways - I'll know it's done my way. No, not anal at all there!!! So now it's purge, organize, make lists... lots of lists. I bought a notebook just for all the tasks I need to do (and yes, creating a blog was one of them, so yea, I get to check an action item off the list - again, can you say anal?).
So at this point you are probably already bored thinking, woo hoo, great she gets to go to Barcelona and is already complaining. By no means am I complaining - I'm excited! Just overwhelmed at this point too. I'm hoping to post some fun and funny stuff over the next few months as we get prepared for the big departure date. My guess is the posting about how Aidan takes the big move will prove to be an interesting one and will be coming up as soon as we get our actual departure date so we can give him some solid info. Still trying to figure out the approach on that one. I've been testing the waters a little bit with him by buying him a globe and showing him different places (he would like to know if you dig to China will they know he is coming??), telling him that daddy has a new job, talking about friends that have moved. When he asks if we are ever going to move, I don't want to lie to him so for now I've been saying, "well someday we might". Then he proceeds to freak out. Not a great sign of things to come. He does seem to like the idea of videocams to chat with his friends though... I guess it could go either way. Stay tuned!!!
So I hope you'll all check in from time to time to see what we are up to - from telling the kids about the big move, to our discovery trip to Barcelona to find a home, to packing up the houses, kids and dogs, moving my business across the ocean (yet still working in the US) to what I'm going to guess will be a hellish flight to get there and then adjusting to a whole new world for us - oh and did I mention that Josh and I don't speak Spanish?? It will be amusing I'm sure (at least to you, it may not be to me at the time!)!
Signing off for now... it's been a long day of school applications, gym cancellations and even some work thrown in there. Night all!!!
Julie
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