Life Admin...

Well hello there...it's been a while! As you can probably tell, I've taken a little blogging hiatus. It's not blogging, it's me you see. So much has been going on lately that blogging has just had to take a back seat. When I'm stressed/nervous/excited everything else has to stop so that I can process whichever big thing is happening. This time there have been a few big things going on simultaneously, so there has been a heck of a lot of life admin...let me fill you in.

The first major thing that happened is that Oscar got a job offer which was so good that we just couldn't refuse it. This new job just happens to be in NORFOLK! So we will be packing up our things once more and heading back down to the east coast of Englandshire for some new adventures! I am pretty excited about this for many reasons, but really I've just missed living in England! 

I know you must think that we move a heck of a lot...and to most, we do. But whilst we have no real commitments or responsibilities, we want to be able to explore, have adventures and truthfully...go where the work is. These jobs are slowly setting up a future that we both can't believe we're lucky enough to have access to. Within the next year or two we should be able to finally buy the house of our dreams - I've almost persuaded O to let me buy a big ramshackle house in the country with gardens huge enough for at least two or three dogs to roam around in...and maybe a few chickens! Once we move I'm finally going to learn to drive (I've been promised a nice car if I do, nice little incentive there!), take a photography course and hopefully find a yoga class to start going to. 

As if that wasn't enough to digest, I got offered a job the day after O did. Luckily, they were kind enough to offer it to me on a temporary basis so I was able to say yes to it. I'll be helping out at a local opticians until around mid July. My first day is tomorrow...how will I cope working full-time again?! ;)

On a slightly disappointing note, we've had to postpone our Canada trip next month :( Rubbish, I know, but we have so much going on that it just wouldn't be feasible to go. We were very lucky to be able to postpone our flights til later in the year and we managed to get full refunds from all our hotels etc, so we haven't lost anything by cancelling. 

Just to blow your minds a little more, O's family are organising a trip for us all next summer to...BARBADOS! Yup, we were given this little surprise on the day I got offered my job (many head explosions were had). So even though we've had to cancel one holiday, we've got another in the bag!

Moving down south is probably going to take a few months to organise. O's start date will be in June sometime, which means there will be a slight overlap. I'll stay up here whilst he heads down to Norfolk to start his new job. To begin with he'll be working one week on and one week off. This means that he'll be able to come back home to Scotland every other week. I'm so relieved about this, as I was dreading living in the bungalow alone for a few months. Once I finish work, we'll start looking for somewhere to live. We're both thinking of Norwich at the moment, but we have plenty of time to explore all the areas before we make up our minds. We might need help from any of you lovely people who have knowledge of the area! :)

So that's pretty much everything summed up for the moment and the reason why my little corner of the internet has been so quiet lately. I'm not sure how I'll cope with working full-time and blogging, but lots of you make it look easy so I'm sure I'll be grand! 

Now I'm off to spend my last day of freedom food shopping and catching up on all your lovely blogs! If you have any Norfolk recommendations for...pretty much anything, please be so kind and leave me a comment below. :)

Moving Meltdown!

The above tape dispenser may look innocent enough, but let me tell you...its been solely responsible for me having a nervous (rage-filled) breakdown this week. O came home one evening to find me ranting and raving about how I was going to throw it out the window (my words were much less polite, believe me). 

As you may have heard, we are moving in 12 days. How many boxes have I got to pack? A million. How many have I actually packed? About six. So, you may know where this post is leading, don't you? A list of everything hateful about packing/moving! Let's go! 

1. Moving all your crap from one house to another makes your realise how much crap you actually have. This then leads to you deciding that before you can actually pack, you must have a big clear out.

2. Said clear out takes about a week and you only have two bin bags to show for it. 

3. Ordering boxes to pack your crap in is hard work. O ordered 25 boxes, when I went to the garage to fetch them, we realised that they were only suitable to move the Borrowers. Yep, the boxes were teeny tiny. Lucky if we could fit three books in a box. Needless to say, more boxes have been ordered...we're paying Staples' wages right now.

4. Tape dispensers are EVIL. I've spent more time repositioning/de-sticking/throttling the tape than I have sticking things with it. 

5. Emptying your bookshelves makes you realise how dusty your house truly is. Must try to be a better housewife.

6. Boxes full of books are pretty heavy. Don't drop them on your toes. Too late.

7. When you're renting, you discover lots of marks on the walls/carpets that your pretty sure weren't there before. Rug Doctor and those invisible eraser things will be your savior. 

8. Having moved four times in the last three years, you'd think we have this moving/packing thing down. We don't. We never learn our lesson and start early. 

9. It's pretty expensive to pay people to move your crap. It's also pretty difficult to list all the crap that you have in order to get a quote from said expensive moving people. 

10. Re-directing your mail also isn't cheap.

11. Calling your bank, energy provider, council etc to tell them you're moving never gets any less annoying. The hold music also never gets any better. 

12. Opening the garage (which has never housed your car) gives you that sinking feeling when you realise you forgot you have a MASSIVE BBQ and a lawnmower amongst other garden related tools. 

13. Realising that you can't pack half of your crap until at least a few days before you're actually moving is also mildly frustrating.

14. Your other half finally seeing how many pairs of shoes/handbags etc that you actually have. Whoops.

Wow. Making this list was pretty cathartic and I'm already feeling a little less stabby than I was half an hour ago. Sorry that you had to witness my moving meltdown. I'm pretty sure that I've missed lots of packing dramas but I'm sure you'll all let me off the hook. They say that moving is one of the most stressful things out there and heck they're SO right.

Now, tell me. Tell me all your moving horrors. They'll make me feel better, I'm sure of it. Won't they?