And Whose Mad Idea Was This?!

Wow, can I stop to breathe yet?

1. We have a house. Really, a flat. It is a bit smaller (which is good) and a lot less expensive (which is also good.) We signed the papers on Saturday.

Up until Saturday was packing madness in preparation for the hypothetical move.

2. Saturday morning I RENTED A VEHICLE (Ford Transit Luton) from a van rental company and I had the joy of driving in Britain for the first time. I thought the wrong side of the road would be the worst. Nope. It is the shift on the left side rather than the right. And those round abouts are HARD. To signal properly you have to use the turn signal that tells where you will be going rather than the direction you actually start to turn in. It makes no sense to explain it, and it made no sense in my head while driving, but it does make sense when thought through.

3. Also on Saturday, we moved. 1 friend helped for about an hour. Stephen's mum's partner (SMP) helped. That was it. I have never before moved without having a million friends to help. It was such hard work. The old house is on the 3rd floor, as is the new one. Neither has an elevator. By the end of the day, we were both so exhausted that we couldn't think.

4. I am mean to my feet. Friday at work a mom stepped on my foot with her stiletto heels. So that is bruise 1 on the right foot. Saturday I dropped a table. That is bruise 2 on my right foot. I also kicked a box (bruise 3) and tripped on a stair (bruise 4.) The same table on my foot again (blood blister on top of bruise 2.) My possibly broken toe ached all day from the activity. I caught my right thumb on the railing of the new stairwell 5 or 6 times (yup - bruises) and somehow I managed to develop very nasty bruises on both knees. Poor Stephen has been plagued with leg cramps since, and with good reason: he and SMP did all the heaviest lifting without me.

5. Sunday was a shopping day, and I am now ready for my flight on Thursday morning very early. I will see you all then. I am going to collapse now.

We're Moving House Soon, and I Don't Talk About That In This Post......

My toe, as everyone is wondering, is fine. Apparently not broken, as the pain faded after a few days. The bruising spread to the entire top of my foot, but is finally fading also. This week has been an exciting one for my poor toe... not only was it almost broken, but then the same toe was run over by a speeding tricyclist. I was at work, and managed not to scream. I still don't know how. I don't think that was why the bruising spread, but who actually can tell?

I had a sick adventure this week, too. The wonders of working in Early Childhood is that until your immune system catches up with you, you catch EVERYTHING that the children bring into the classroom. This includes icky-vomitous nasty stomach bugs. Which I caught. Tristan called me on Wednesday night, as I had gone to bed early, and after talking to him I realised that I really felt nauseous. Spent an hour or so in the bathroom, threw up 4 times. Went to bed. Woke up a few hours later. Repeat and rinse. By this time the acid from my stomach was no longer in my stomach and had spread throughout my throat and mouth. It was bad enough that I was not going to be able to sleep through it burning a hole in my esophagus. I dug through the medicine box and found, to my delight, a present left by Kelley when she was here. A liquid antacid. Anise flavoured. Bought at Boots (the 'chemist' - i.e. pharmacy.) Grimacing in advance, then telling myself that beggars cannot be choosers, I took a swig. Ew. So gross that tasting it almost made me sick again, but boy-howdy does the antacid from England work so much better than any I've ever had in the States. 5 minutes later, the burning was gone. Then back to bed me. I had to be up early for work the next morning.

7 am, and I was up calling work to find out if they still wanted me to go in. No answer. Off to work I went, hi-ho, hi-ho. I worked 8 - 9:30, and was told that I look awful, and was asked if I have a history of being 'sickly'. I calmly (I think) explained that it had been a year since working with children, and I was in a new country with new bugs. My immune system is a desert rats'. Not some water-logged river-rats'. They did not understand, but did send me home.

I popped into the store on the way, and made sure we had stuff for the BRAT diet. (We only had rice.) Bananas and wholewheat bread for toast made it into my basket. There was no applesauce, so I add apples to make my own. Then, sparkling water. Now, I have to add a side note about sparkling water. It used to be that I didn't like it. But now I do. It is nice and fizzy and sugar free and yummy goodness. And I was hoping it would settle my stomach. 4 liters in my basket. Luckily I had my backpack. It gives one a new perspective when one has to carry all one's groceries home on one's back. When sick.

Home. Didn't even manage to put all the groceries away. Threw the water into the fridge, fell into bed. Slept. Until 3 in the afternoon. Threw up again. And again. Drank water. Ate banana. Had warm, freshly made applesauce and toast for dinner.

Woke up the next morning feeling so much better. Back to the Work grind.

On an extended note, I really don't like my job very much. I am working in an early childhood center, or at least they claim to be an early childhood center. I actually think it is more like a day care. I work in the preschool classroom, ages 3 - 4, and I can think of so many things I would do differently. The staff in the room are quite content to sit back and do as little as possible, and I work extra hard to cover their slack. The room is filthy, and I have been in the process of going through it during the day and cleaning it, center by center. The other staff have asked me why, and told me that it just isn't worth it. But the children must be affected. I don't want to go into the centers, so what makes me think that the children would want to? They don't teach the children how to take care of the toys or the books. It frustrates me. Christi, I have to say that every day at work I wish fervently that you were here and we were opening an early childhood center together. It is what I day-dream about. We would be cutting edge, and the UK would tremble in awe.

On yet another note, I have 2 huge projects for University next year. One is a literature review, and while I don't know exactly what I am doing (they want something to be VERY narrow scoped, and I haven't gotten it narrow enough, I think) what I have so far is implementing critical literacy in the early childhood classroom. I could use advice, any research, commentary, or even help on narrowing my topic. I am already doing a lot of reading on it. I will also have a large research project in the spring of 2009. I want to do a comparison study between a reception classroom here and a kindergarten classroom there. That will, of course, depend on if I have the money to fly to the US to DO the research, but I would be open to being pointed towards some kindergarten teachers there that might be interested in participating in something like that. There might even be a tie in between classrooms, if the someone is that interested.

Last thing. Ashley made it fine to the States and is now with her Daddy. She almost missed her flight from Houston to El Paso, but the airline was nice and held the plane. I arrive late on the evening of the 17th, for my three weeks of Boo-goodness. I'll update you on all of the Ashley-flight fun next post.

Lookie What I Did!

I think I might have broken my toe today. Stephen and I were rough-housing, and I ran into the living room. I, being brilliantly talented and not a bit clumsy, hit my toe on NOTHING AT ALL (or the floor, I'm not really sure which) and cracked my baby toe on the left very well. The pain was excruciating. I cried, it was that bad. Stephen reached to touch it, and I screamed when he did. I told him I thought he was broken. He said that it was not, I had just jammed it really well. After hobbling my way into the bedroom and moaning for a bit on the bed, I managed to touch it. Dear god. Moving it was impossible. It just hurt too much.

I looked up the symptoms of a broken toe. Mentioned excruciating pain (which I had,) inability to put weight on it (which I could do, though it hurt really badly,) severe bruising (none.) So I just dealt. We got ready to go for a walk. I put on 2 pairs of tight socks (hurt to put them on, but felt good after) and took some ibuprophen. We hobbled out of the door.

This is what we discovered when we got home and I took of my sock.






It is also really really swollen. And still painful. So, I think I either broke it, or really seriously bruised it. Looks awfully purty, doesn't it? I am so proud of me. Still clumsy. I was worried that I was growing out of it.