Major Updates

I don't have much time for a FULL update so here is a short blurb on the major things...

Major Update #1:

The Fortune's will be leaving for the UK, Wednesday, July 1! For those who have been secretly keeping score in the "He Said/She Said" game, that would be a point in the Tiffani column (insert evil laughter here).

Major Update #2:

We have a contract on our house! Just as we were approaching two months on the market, the offers started rolling in. We ended up getting THREE offers over the course of around two days with one buyer being smart enough to offer the full asking price. With nothing EVER being as easy as it should be, we were out of town for my birthday and Father's Day and our Realtor was on vacation in Jamaica, so the deal was done primarily via text message!

In a strange series of events, I got to meet the buyers (a lovely young couple from Pennsylvania) and she told me that she knew when they first came into the neighborhood that this would be a great neighborhood for them. Since this is the best neighborhood in the world, I would say she has excellent taste!

More to come!

A Week Has Passed and I Still Know Who I Am...

The promised identity crisis has not yet occurred. We have been out of school for one week and I don't feel any different. What I mean is it feels like just an ordinary summer. I think there may be something wrong with that.

Last Friday, June 5, my last official day of work, was such a busy day that I didn't have too much time to be sad. My "To Do" list was long and filled with examples of my OCD tendencies. Thanks to some help from my team, I was able to complete most of the items on the list but must confess that I brought home about 3 boxes of manuals and 2 cases of files to sort and reorganize. Well, what can I say?

Throughout the day, many of my colleagues stopped by to wish me good luck and try to make me cry but I was tough. I hate saying goodbye and this time it seems so much harder. These ladies have been my friends, mentors, models, supporters, comic relief, and sometimes my primary source of aggravation. I have spent time with each of them privately and within their teams and have the greatest amount of respect, love and admiration for them all.

But I held my tears until the only other remaining bodies in the building were the destruction crew. My emotional strength disappeared as I pulled my class schedule off the wall and locked the door for the last time. I had the painful thought that this closing door symbolizes the pre-mature ending of an important and meaningful season of my life. I was tempted to open the door back up and slam it really hard but decided that didn't reflect very well on my level of maturity.

This is just the beginning of a series of goodbyes and I expect that each will be difficult in its own way. The whole thing would be so much harder if not for the support of my family. For example, every time I leave to see someone "for the last time", Taylor says, "Don't forget to wear water-proof mascara." Ah, such profound words of wisdom from one so young!


PS. I was going to write a little about my replacements but it just doesn't seem to be the right place. I'm very excited about them, though, so plan on seeing them featured in the near future!

Time to Clean Out the Freezer

With our time in Texas coming to an end, I decided that it might be time to start cleaning out the freezer. It's just a little freezer. How long can it take?

It turns out that a freezer is like a woman's purse. The inside is about 3 times larger than the outside. Where did this stuff come from? I don't like to cook and hate the grocery store so I'm perplexed but I have to figure out what to do with it all.

So...you are going to help find some ideas for making kid-friendly meals in the easiest ways possible, preferably with around 5 ingredients! No exotic food (that's to you, Carol) and we clearly are not vegetarians, so spare us the lentils and tofu.

Here are the contents of our freezer:

7 lbs. catfish fillets
2.4 lbs ground chuck
1 lb bacon
11 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 lbs smoked sausage
1 lb Jimmy Dean sausage
1 pkg Litl Smokies
2 boxes meatballs
2 fillet Mignon
3 lbs beef sirloin fillets
3.5 lbs beef strip loin
1.5 lbs ground beef patties
3.5 lbs hot dogs
5 lbs boneless pork chops
5 mini hot dogs
3 lbs frozen broccoli
3 lbs corn
1 bag steamed rice
1/2 bag chicken fries
5 lbs golden crinkles
4 lbs pizza rolls
2 boxes taquitos
1 pie crust
3 bags dinner rolls
2 lbs steam-N-mash
1 tray rolls

Feel free to post your suggestions as comments or send them via email...tiffanifortune@yahoo.com.

Thanks! Next week, cleaning out the pantry!!!

Kingston upon Thames

Some info on our new town...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Thames
http://www.kingston.gov.uk/default.htm

An Eye Twitch

Some of my favorite literary heroines get eye twitches during stressful events. I always thought this twitch was one of those tools authors use to spice up their writing, for example, rather than say, "He walked in the door and she got mad," it sounds more interesting to say, "He walked in the door and her eye began to twitch."

Lately, every time I hear the word "move", my left eye twitches. It twitches really bad when I type the word "move". I can hardly see right now. We may have to come up with a euphemism for move. (twitch, twitch)

After much debate and massive input from friends and family (which was mostly ignored), Kevin has chosen a house. Just as you may suspect, I am saying that KEVIN chose the house so that if I hate it, I can blame him. He is completely aware of this and I am expecting him to develop his own eye twitch any day now.

Drum roll, please....

Kevin chose the house in Kingston Upon Thames. That would be the 3rd house on our list. The little house. The one that is only 1635 square feet. The one that is closest to his job.

Being close to Kevin's job is a good idea but I don't know where we are going to put all of our stuff. We decided that the last time we lived in a place this small was when we lived in New Jersey (the 2nd time), around 12 years ago. Not only is there one more of us now, we are ALL bigger than we were then and we have SOOOO much more stuff!

But, being close to Kevin's job will mean that he is with us more, and that is very important. After all, if he had to spend 2 or more hours commuting every day, it would almost defeat the point of us moving there. Hmmmm....It is probably best to avoid that line of thinking.

We have not yet sold our current house (twitch, twitch) but we decided that we are going to leave the US the last week of June anyway. Our very small house in England will be ready for us July 1, so we may as well get going.

Speaking of our current house, I really want to know who in this world willingly makes their bed every morning? I am seriously considering moving our bedroom furniture into storage and throwing down some sleeping bags just to get out of making that bed every day. It is a huge bed but I don't really think it would matter. It's just not something I want to do first thing every day. It's like starting every day in the most boring way possible. What kind of day can you look forward to when it starts out like that?

And it really isn't all that easy to keep the house in "show condition" all the time. Any of the time. Ever.

Kevin and I have the same cleaning disorder, the one where the more we clean, the messier everything gets. Kevin spent most of the weekend "cleaning" the garage (ie., examining every item in the garage that he either forgot he owned or never knew he owned, cleaning it with the proper tools, disassembling it then throwing it away or giving it to Chris) while I spent most of the weekend further cleaning the office (ie., making sure that the 4 boxes of files that we are storing are all chronologically and alphabetically ordered and that all file folders have labels that are printed in the same font, Georgia 14, just like this blog).

I wonder why it takes us so long to get stuff done? Do you think the people who viewed the house today will understand why the disgusting toilet brush was soaking in the bathtub? I forgot to hide it because I found more folders to label!

OK, so I may have a twitching eye and hair that is falling out but, darn it, if we ever get audited by the IRS, they are going to be very impressed with my filing system!

What Did She Say?

Teenagers. Grrrrr....I can't understand a word my daughter says. If she isn't mumbling, she's talking faster than the speed of light. Even when she does speak in an audible voice and at a normal rate, most of the time, she still doesn't make sense.

This morning, some time before 6 am, as I am denying that it is time to get up, the teenager in question comes roaring into our bedroom in a panic. "The power went out!", she shouts and runs out of the room.

Rolling over, I mumbled to Kevin, "What did she say? The power is out? It can't be out. The lights are on."

Kevin grunts.

As the teenager continues her panicked rant (No power means no flat iron. No flat iron means no perfect hair. No perfect hair means bad day for all.), I stumble across the landing and into the kid's apartment. Sure enough, a flip of the switch confirms her story. There is no power on that side of the house.

Teenager continues flailing around while I stumble back to my room to get Kevin to check the breaker box. While I'm dragging Kevin out the bed, teenager decides to be proactive and fix the breaker herself. The door opens, shuts and then opens again a few seconds later.

I shouted down the stairs, "Dad will fix it," and heard her shout back very calmly, "Good. There's a possum in the pool."

What? "Kevin, did she say there was a possum in the pool?" Kevin grunts.

Maybe my brain just delivered the wrong translation. "What?" I shouted.

"A-possum-in-the-pool," she over-articulates, slowly, as if I am dim as well as deaf.

I trip down the stairs, still half asleep, and peek out the window. (I'm no idiot. I won't go outside until I do a little recon.)

Guess what? There was a possum in the pool. Here is the pictorial proof.

Mother's Day 2009

Happy Mother's Day!

Since Kevin has been in London for 2 weeks and just returned last night, today is an even more rewarding Mother's Day. What better gift could I have than being able to say, "Go ask your dad."?

OK, there is one better gift. Some time alone. Just me, alone at home, with the dog and all my favorite toys. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

Men and kids don't understand this desire to be alone, though. They had planned to take me to see the new Star Trek movie which they know I want to see. (This is much better than the year they took me bowling. Bowling? Does that sound like something I would want to do on Mother's Day?) Going to the movies is a good idea but do you know who else goes to the movies on Mother's Day? Right, other families. Families = kids = lots of little people that I probably know. I adore all my students but I don't really want to hang out with them on Mother's Day. Got the picture?

So, I sent Kevin and the kids off to the movies and decided to spend this quiet time blogging (and bragging) about my Mother's Day gift.

My hubby has a very strong desire to buy me jewelry for every event. Since I don't wear much jewelry (don't even have my wedding ring on right now), and since he and I have very different tastes in jewelry, I placed a "NO Jewelry" restriction on all gifts a few years ago. Instead of abiding by my wishes, he has made it his life's endeavor to "fairly" circumvent the rules. Sneaky man.


This year, my Mother's Day gift is not jewelry, oh no, no breaking the rules in this family. It is a flash drive. Can he help it that the flash drive is encased in a beautiful Swarovsky encrusted, heart-shaped pendant? It is tech, NOT jewelry. Whatever. It's a pretty darn good gift!


This is not the first non-jewelry gift I have gotten. It seems we may have started a trend. The first was also a pendant and much more girly.




As my previous blog posts have shown, I am not the only one who enjoys interesting gadgets, though. Kevin finds plenty of opportunities to sate his desire for the unseen, unusual, and sometimes useless! His poker buddies are never far from his mind when he keeps this poker chip USB drive in his pocket. We are all waiting for the time when he will try to play it!

One more Mother's Day is almost behind us and I have another gift planned for myself tonight. When Kevin and the kids get home from the movies, I'm sending them to do the grocery shopping! See, Kevin, I can be sneaky, too!