I've been published!!!

It's not been that long since I moved down to Charlotte, but so far I'm quickly settling in here. It's funny though, people seem to look at me like I'm crazy when they meet me and hear that I moved from London to Charlotte on purpose.

I got a chance to tell the story of why I moved here and got published! Check out the article here.

Levi Respects Jon

Do you remember when you found out that Santa Claus wasn't real? Or the time when your parents made a promise they didn't keep? Completely upsetting, right?

Am I the only one, and I know I'm not, who feels like Jon and Kate just told me that the tooth fairy doesn't exist? Like so many people, I used to love Jon and Kate Plus 8. Years ago, it reminded me so much of my childhood going to pick apples, carving pumpkins, swimming, camping in the backyard and baking cookies - even Maddy's outbursts are strangely familiar.

What a difference a few years can make! It's been said in thousands of blogs before this one, but I really hate that things have ended up like this for this family.

Which brings me to my next point. I found the link below last week.

Levi Calls Jon a Good Guy

People Magazine recently reported that Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's ex-boyfriend, can relate to Jon Gosslin calling him a good guy. Isn't that the straw that breaks the camel's back Jon? Say what you want about the Palin's and Levi's family, but neither one exactly represents a normal upbringing or aspirational public persona.

Here's hoping that Jon will see the link above and snap out of it...

Welcome back!

It’s been over two years, so I can’t even really apologize for not writing recently. This blog used to be about my college days in London and my travels after graduating. Hopefully there will still be lots of travels, but mostly I’m focusing on my day to day and the funny things that happen to me. 

My ongoing battle right now is figuring out how to use Twitter. It’s not just for social networking purposes that I want to get the hang of it - even my boss emailed the other day instructing me to post a Twitter RT of information?!?

It’s not as if I’m not digital either, I work at a digital agency for a living. It’s more that I still don’t see the practical purpose of Twitter if you don’t have something constantly going on in your personal life. We’ll  see what happens and I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Do you use Twitter? Do you love it?

Alex Catching Lightening Bugs

It's easy to forget about the little things in life. I never really thought about lightening bugs or catching them recently, but I got a big kick out of watching Alex catch his first one at our house in Indiana.

Fat-Tastic

Ok, so you know that it has to be big these days if I’m posting pictures or blogging! About six weeks ago I suggested to Jocelyn that we should get a cat --  to which she responded by vehemently rejecting the idea. She hates cats, would probably sooner die than live with the majority of the cats who have crossed her path throughout her life...

Today, we brought home Fatty, our new two-year-old Tabby cat from a rescue shelter near our home. There’s a story that gets us from rejecting the idea of a cat to visiting a cat shelter, to telling off the woman who didn’t want us to have the cat (all of these are Jocelyn’s actions :)

Basically, after the fourth “spider as big as your head” that we saw in our apartment, I was losing sleep and going slightly insane looking everywhere for the next one to jump out. So I started asking neighbors if they’d seen spiders. One said she barely had any at all, but they have a cat who eats them or chases them away... I mentioned this to Joce who had tackled three of the four hideous spiders.

A few days later, she sends an email with research she’d done on local cat shelters... she decided she hated both cats and spiders, but she hated spiders more... let’s get a cat!

So we went to the Mayhew Animal Shelter and found Casper AKA “Fatty”. We instantly loved him. He crawled into our laps the instant that we knelt down and we knew he wasn’t likely to hiss at us or bite us, two of the main things that really concerned Joce.

I can’t go through all the details of how much work it took to get Fatty, but we now have him on a foster basis until we move in December, at which time, the Mayhew will be coming out again (yeah, again) to our new home to inspect it just like they did our current place.

So we picked him up today, he didn’t cry in the cat carrier or get sick on the Tube or freak out when we opened the door. He promptly walked out and began inspected the place. He rubbed up on all the walls and then plopped himself in the middle of our living room and rolled on his back.

So far, we’ve been able to cut his claws, successfully feed him, he’s gone to the bathroom in his litter box and  we’ve figured out that the more attention that we can give him the better. I also took him outside on our balcony to give him a quick hairbrush (which he loved indoors, but obviously brushing him inside is an oxymoronic idea if it’s meant to help keep down the pet hair). So I took him outside...

Previous to doing this, he’d simply purred his little heart out... Not so outdoors. He actually growled although he still let me brush him. So, I think he’s not such a great outdoors kind of cat, but maybe it was just cause it’s his first day.

Right now, we have foil on the couch so he won’t sleep on it at night and he’s fairly happily curled up on the mat in the kitchen ready for a long nights sleep. Both me and Joce have officially turned into those people who can only talk about their babies or their dogs or in our case our cat. We absolutely love him!

Spider

Ok, so I haven’t written in months and I apologize, but nothing like a good old fashioned scare to the heart to get you writing again. Today, I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life apart from at a zoo. And no, I didn’t see it on the street or in a park or somewhere I could forget about it, it was in my room. Literally, the body of this thing was about the size of two quarters next to one another. That doesn’t count its legs, which had proper joints on them like humans. It also had fangs, real hissing fangs.

Yup, such a beast was just hanging out in my room, just before bedtime. I literally didn’t scream because I didn’t want to startle it and have it move. So I ran into Joce’s room and she came to survey the situation. She must have understood the no screaming thing as well. Since she was on the phone with her dad, she got some advice and went to get her whiffle ball bat (yup the old school fat red one, it was necessary, they don’t understand baseball in this country). 

On the other hand, I went to find a male who could properly deal with the situation. I knocked on the door of two of my neighbors. No luck. So I looked out on the balcony and saw that another neighbor across the courtyard was in his kitchen. So I ran downstairs and stood under his window flailing my arms in an attempt to get his attention. I did so he came to our flat and took a look. 

When he walked in, he said, “Oh that’s no big deal”.  But when the thing moved, he jumped so hard he broke my dresser drawers, but I couldn’t care less...

Oh yeah, he’d brought over one of his sister’s shoes with him, there was no way this heel was going to do anything for this thing. If we splattered it it would have created a huge mess on the wall. Plus, we were advised from some other Brits that Joce was on the phone with, that killing it might release babies and they would hatch (I thought that was cockroaches, but whatever). 

So this guy gets a Tupperware container, slams it over the thing and then closes the lid on it. Takes it home with him and puts in on its porch to basically suffocate...

I can’t sleep, because I’m sure there will be another one. There is a good reason to have screens on your windows. Why is England like a third world country? Even worse, Africa has nets everywhere, why does it seem so hard for these people? That thing was too big to get in through a crack in the wall. It just waltzed in from my big window that we keep open because they don’t have air conditioning here. Oh geez, screens people, screens.

Leaving China

I’m on the plane now headed back to London. Shanghai was incredible. The people, the culture, the food, all so different from anywhere I’ve lived or travelled. I don’t know that I could ever live in China, but I see why Querston likes it.

Thanks to her, Omar and Sly, I’ve now been on three continents in this world! Hopefully we can meet up again in London or even in a more exotic beach town... Lord knows we all need the sun!