Update

Everyone, and I mean everyone (except Camilla, who barely moved, and so has an excuse) had updated their blogs when I checked them today, so I figured that it was my turn also. I was going to be amazing, and tell some funny anecdote, but I can't think of any, so we'll just stick to the family news.

We bought our plane tickets last week; $2073.26 worth of them (for three round trip tickets; Lydia gets her own seat). I like having them bought, because no matter what happens now, we are at least flying to England. They took all the money Avram had earned so far over the summer, which is somewhat sobering. World traveling is really not for the student budget.

We're in the depths of trying to finish up the technical aspects of going to Oxford; Avram needs to get passport photos (we need about twelve for all of the various programs at Oxford), we need to find a bank for our student loans and finish them, we need to sign and return the contract for Oxford, and most importantly we need to find a bank in America that will let us open a reciprocal bank account in England, because we need to have an English bank account for Avram to work in England, but we can't just get a bank account if we're only students. Some parts of moving to a foreign country I think I can live without.

Like their paper size is different; about a quarter of an inch narrower, and the same amount again longer; not much difference, so little I hadn't even noticed it. Except their documents won't print on our printer unless we very carefully feed every sheet by hand (the printer's in a different room from the computer). And I don't even want to think about us trying to print things in England (because the software's set up differently, so even on screen the pages are different sizes). Should we bring our own Comp. paper, and always print our papers at home? Will the professors accept different sizes of pages anyway? The questions, the questions.

This post is beginning to sound kind of down. I don't mean it to be. I'm finally starting to feel like going to England is real, instead of just an idea we talk about. And once we're in England, I'll be glad we took care of all of these technical aspects here. (which reminds me, we also need visas). And we've begun shopping for Lydia's new winter/spring wardrobe.

We only have seven weeks of work left, and then one week of preparation before we leave on September 27th. Writing it down, it sounds like a long time, but it doesn't feel like it when I think of all we need to do before then.

Lydia's doing well, as always. Since I weaned her last month, we've started a bedtime routine (this week we did; we're a little slow on the changes). So far it's going well; Lydia definitely knows where the routine is headed in the end every night, because she'll start fussing whenever I mentions sleeping, or bed. But she's gone to sleep fairly easily, for her. She doesn't really talk at all, and although she knows about seven or eight words, rarely uses them. And when she does, it's usually because someone else says the word first, and she's mimicking them. She'll talk eventually, just like she learned to walk when she was ready.

My garden continues to struggle along; it's been a good learning experience in gardening, but it's also a very good thing we don't depend on my labors to eat. My vegetables keep on rotting/their bottoms turning black while still on the vine (the zucchinis rot, the bell peppers turn black) I don't know what this means, but hopefully next time I have a garden, we won't have this problem.

I had already published this post, and was reading it over when I felt how blah it was. I'm sorry, I suppose the summer heat and humdrum routine are getting to me. Every day and every week are the same, and we have no friends here to even see on the weekends. I just feel like on the one hand everything is so topsy-turvy in feeling somewhat homeless, and trying to get everything to work for England, and on the other hand nothing ever happens. I'll write a happy, up-beat post next time, I promise.