Plan B

(Or really, at this point, Plan D, but who’s counting?)

Things have started to look up on the housing front. We are still no closer to knowing when—or if—we’ll be able to buy this house, but the owners, exasperated on our behalf at how long all the bureaucracy is taking (and perhaps on their own, since the house is sitting empty and costing them money), have offered to rent it to us as an interim measure, and then cancel the lease if and when there is a mortgage to replace it. So, barring any further unforeseen hitches, we should be in the house in the next 10 days.

Wordless Wednesday

KC's version of the Citgo sign: the Western Auto Building, from Union Station, May 2010

Mixed blessings

Today marks four months that we’ve been living in a hotel serviced apartment. Four months! Not an anniversary I’m particularly thrilled to be celebrating commemorating.

(Will you bear with me for one moment while I digress to gripe that I can’t believe how long this whole process is taking? I thought the first one was bad, but at least that time we were trying to sort out various banking and mortgage complications at the same time. This time, our financial paperwork is more or less in order. And still it’s been five weeks…and counting…and no closer to knowing when—or if—this one is going to work out. It makes me want to go scream into a pillow. Maybe I will. Excuse me.

Wordless Wednesday

Just another day in the RL kitchen....

Dinner guests

One of the lesser-known drawbacks to being in life limbo is a dearth of people to cook for. In some ways this is for the best, given the corresponding lack of cooking utensils, but that doesn’t make it any easier to adjust to. I read other people’s blogs where they describe cooking up vats of goodies to feed family, friends, neighbors, school groups, and random passersby, and honestly, I feel a little envious. I’ve been bringing homebaked treats to every event I’ve been invited to (adhering to Sparkly Em’s philosophy of “Make friends through cake”), but Miss B’s preschool doesn’t allow homemade food to be brought in (WTH?) and we don’t have enough chairs—or plates—in our serviced apartment to have more than one dinner guest at a time.

Deviled eggs

When I was growing up, I had to eat an egg for breakfast every day. Every. Single. Day. Seven days a week. For approximately 17 years.

(I’m not sure exactly when I started, but I vividly remember staging a revolt on my 18th birthday, as had all my sisters before me. Because I was still in high school, my mother and I struck a deal, cutting eggs for breakfast to three a week until graduation, at which point I swore off them entirely for I forget how long, but until at least sometime in my mid-20s.)

(I think I’ve mentioned before about my mother’s, um, inflexible meal schedule?)

Challenge fail

Well, I really blew it on this month’s Cookbook Challenge: I didn’t even manage to make one recipe from the selected cookbook. I spent plenty of time drooling over the contents beforehand, but when it came down to where the skillet meets the stove (or whatever), I either didn’t have the skillet (or mostly any other piece of equipment I needed), or I didn’t have the motivation. Oh, and then I left town for the last week of the month.

UK recap

I’m back in the US, jet lagged and still recovering from four solid days of meetings and thinking and face-to-face social interaction. I’m glad to be back, but I had a great trip—and was reminded in about equal measure of the things I miss, and don’t miss, about living in the UK.