silver1978

Really? I am pretty much the opposite. Stupidity sometimes can't be helped, ignorance can always be helped with knowledge.

And I don't go anywhere without my Pepto.

silver1978

I am a certified sci-fi loving mmporg player computer loving techno-geek

silver1978

I have super hearing....ask my son I can hear him getting into trouble a mile away
I would also like to join the petite persons club, I am 5'3" (My husband is 6'1"!!).
As for clothes and shoes, I love them both. However, I am very very picky. I typically won't wear anything with the designers name where it can be seen- I just think it sucks to pay lots of $$ for something so I can advertise for someones company! I have a lot of problems finding clothes that fit me because although I am short, I am we will say "top-heavy." I have never been able to buy a two-piece set of anything!!! And I must have a terribly popular pants size because every time I look for pants, they have all the sizes below and above in petite but rarely my size. When I find a brand, I tend to stick with it- there are only two brands of jeans I find fit me properly and thats Levi's and Old Navy.

I do a lot of my shopping online right now because living in the UK on an American salary is EXPENSIVE. Everything costs me twice as much as in the states! For example, I bought my son school pants(he goes to a British school and has to wear a uniform) at one of the local Gaps- they were £18 which translates to $36 when I can buy them in the states for $18. Luckily I have an APO box (which is considered an American address) as well as a British address so shipping is always good for me no matter what country I buy from

Anyone have plans for the weekend? I am having my sons 9th b-day party Saturday afternoon and then about 2 hours after that ends I have to attend the Kahki Ball (formal dinner for the military E-7 plus). I am going to be so tired!!!!

silver1978

And thats all I have to say about that!

silver1978

Good morning everyone. Thought I would get up early, make some breakfast and watch some shows!



And even though I don't really drink coffee, brewed some up just for you all!

silver1978

Thats rather odd, because usually my breakfast consists of a Diet Coke but today I really felt like having something carb-ridden so we had french toast. Maybe its just that time of year?

silver1978

Hiyas- the picture has to be hosted at an alternative site such as photbucket. When you Press the reply button, there is a little icon that looks like a small photograph and says image. Click that and a popup window appears. Put int he location of the picture and submit.

silver1978

Its 4 am in the UK.....I know where I SHOULD be!

silver1978

Heartburn Been having it a lot lately. Took some Tagamet, waiting for it to kick in. Plus since I didn't get to sleep until almost 8am after bringing hubby to the airport, my schedules all messed up again. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to keeping regular hours- usually I can train myself with Ambien but it only takes one night of staying up all night to mess me up again!

silver1978

I'm in the UK Not from the UK but living here We used to have a post where members could mark their location, will see if I can find it.

silver1978

http://www.friendvista.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=1052

silver1978

Can it be chocolate? Thats a great code word!

silver1978

I am on page 56 now.......I think someones messing with our minds?

silver1978

Sorry to derail, but thought you ladies might like to read this

    After months of cold and rainy weather, we are finally coming up to summer
    and BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the
    etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity, as it's the only type of
    cooking a 'real' man will do, probably because there is an element of danger
    involved.

    When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put
    into motion:

    Routine ...
    (1) The woman buys the food.
    (2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.
    (3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with
    the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is
    lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.

    Here comes the important part:

    (4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

    More routine .....
    (5) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
    (6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks
    her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the
    situation.
     
    Important again:

    (7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

    More routine .....
    (8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces,
    and brings them to the table.
    (9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

    And most important of all:
    10) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and thanks HIM for his cooking efforts.
    (11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed her night off.  Upon
    seeing her annoyed reaction, he concludes that there's just no pleasing some
    women ....

silver1978

We just found out that my mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital and is currently in the ICU. She's doing okay from what they tell us, but it's so frustrating to be so far away. Oddly enough- it has something to do with a heart murmur they found a while back- apparently she was over-exerting herself and it caused something like a heart attack. Anyway- please keep her in your thoughts everyone.

silver1978

Universal health care is lovely, truly, but I find that there still is a marked difference in patient treatment between private and public health care. Those who can afford private insurance here, do. Universal health care should be available (Although I don't believe that mandated health care coverage is a good idea but that's another story) AND the standards of such heath care should be equal to that of private health care, but that does not tend to be the case. [ I grew up very poor and we were always on the public health care system in the US (Medicaid), so when I was very poor, I was covered. Once I grew up and started making money on my own, I no longer qualified for Medicaid, but couldn't afford private insurance either. So I understand the difficulties of a purely private system and those who can't afford it.]

Some of my experiences with the UK heath system.

A guy I work with needed surgery on his arm. The public heath care system had him scheduled for 3 months in the future. He went to a private doctor and was able to get into surgery in 2 weeks.

When I was in the hospital for 5 days, it was the public hospital (I didn't know the difference then!). It was really not a pleasant experience (not that hospitals ever are). I never had the same doctor. I saw a doctor once per day. No medical tests or discharges were done on weekends or after certain times of day. In five days, they only managed to complete one test (an ultrasound) and that was only after I had asked the nurse and 2 of the doctors when they were going to do it.  I was in a ward, there were 8 women in my room.

After being informed by one of the ladies on the ward about the private hospital here, I finally got myself discharged from the public hospital. Because I have private insurance through the military, I was able to be seen at the private hospital. The difference was amazing. I was scheduled for the tests I needed right away, I had one doctor to oversee my treatment, and there was a signficant difference in the courtesy of the staff.

Anyway! Just wanted to share my two cents on that subject.

Onto another: I quit my job today.
Originally I was very happy to get this job. I wanted something to do while my son was in school so was working part-time, at first I was working from 10am to 4pm. I asked if we could change it to from 9am-3pm Tues-Friday and about 8 hours on Saturday for a total of 32 hours a week so I would be available to bring and get my son from school. Around Christmas time, they needed some extra help at the store and asked if I would work 39 hours a week for a while. I said ok.

At the end of January, I asked to go back down to 32 hours a week, but was told they couldn't do that! Apparently, they had put in paperwork to the home office changing my contract hours to 39 hours per week until the end of September. I was mad, but I said ok, I can deal with that as long as we can arrange something so on the days my husband is unable to pick my son up from school, I will be able to. Ok, so I was now working 39 hours a week at my part time job. This means I was at work for 41.5 hours a week (lunches).

After coming back off sick leave, my new manager informed me that the old management had allowed the employees too much flexibility and too many accommodation  to the employees and that the employees should be accommodating the needs of management instead. She also informed me that I would be moved from the section I was working in to the front office (which I was ok with). I explained to her that I was happy to move and I was ok with the schedule changes, but the only thing I asked was to not come in until 9am (otherwise I would need a sitter in the morning and in the afternoon). I get my schedule the next day: 8:30am-5:30pm this week and 7:30am-4:30pm next week. I tried talking to her about it and all I could get out of her was basically, It doesn't matter what you want, this is what I need.

So between this new rigidness in scheduling, her general attitude and the fact my husband will be in Afghanistan (leaving in November) and I will be single parenting for 9 months, I went in Monday to talk to the other manager (her boss). I told him the situation and informed him I would be putting in my two week notice. This morning, I was getting ready for work and I couldn't for the life of me understand why I was bothering with the two week notice- the times they wanted me to work made things very difficult. SO I went in this morning and gave him written intention of immediate resignation. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted already.

Wow, didn't mean to write so much. Thanks for letting me rant lol.

silver1978

One of the first things we had to do when moving to the UK was adjust to the driving. First, it's the whole other side of the road thing. This is harder then I thought it would be- it requires readjustment of a lot of ingrained habits, like which way to look before pulling out.

And secondly, distance here does not equal time. If, in the states, I say I have 60 miles to go- we can pretty much assume that's an hour. Here, due to the roads and traffic, it might take me 2 hours to go 60 miles. We are 212 miles from London. It usually takes us about 4.5 hours to get there.  53 miles from Manchester, 1.5-2 hour drive.

I have learned a love of trains here! It is so much nicer when I have to fly out of London or whatnot to take the train and the underground rather than driving through all that mess. It only takes 3.5 hours by train. I haven't embraced the bus system yet, but thats mainly because there are no bus stops near where I live.

Hubby and I have done a lot of driving in the past. I used to drive regularly from Virginia Beach, VA to Bloomington, IN before we were married (when he got orders to IN and I was still in VA). I really don't like to drive- behind the wheel or the passenger seat. It's really really boring to me at this point! Plus, I have been in 8 car accidents (none while I was driving, knock on wood) so it makes me very very wary.

Oh barb, I really don't like driving in New England anymore- maybe because I grew up there. The scenery becomes really monotonous really fast

[ Last edited by silver1978 at 9-26-2008 10:27 ]

silver1978

We lived in North Carolina, just south of the Virginia border. My husband commuted up to Norfolk, about a 50 mile drive, and it took him maybe an hour each way- he was able to use less traveled roads to get there. To contrast, when I was still in the Navy, I lived 10 miles from the base and it regularly took over an hour to get to base because of the horrible amount of traffic from Virginia Beach to Norfolk. So I feel you with the traffic, it can be horrendous.

silver1978

When we celebrate American holidays here, I usually do something up for my son to bring to school so they can learn about American holidays too and why we celebrate them. He, of course, learns about British holidays at school so I thought it would be interesting for them to learn about American ones as well Fourth of July is an interesting one to discuss! (The one thing I do worry about with my son going to British school is the learning curve in regards to American history when he goes back to the US- that and the spelling differences )

silver1978

Some of the ones I have run into already with my son and his schoola re check/cheque. airplane/aeroplane, most of the double L words (fulfill vs. fulfil), program/programme, tire/tyre. There are a lot. Pronunciations are even more confusing: A-LUM-I-NUM versus AL-U-MIN-I-UM.

As for religious holidays- I too enjoy learning about the different cultures and things, but let me tell you when your family tree reads like the UN of religions, it's difficult We have Baptist, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Wiccan, Protestant, and a couple other religions being practiced by members of my family. I usually just end up sending out a rather generic holiday card in December. I have gone to midnight mass (in Latin) with my grandmother at the Catholic church, I have had latkes and ate kosher with my brother, participated in a winter solstice celebration with my aunt, and sang gospel in a Baptist church with my best friend. It's really interesting and eye opening to say the least