Sunday

I had another driving lesson today, which went pretty well. At one point I had some idiot in an SUV tailgating me, even though I was actually driving slightly over the speed limit. That pissed me off - I slowed down and gave them the finger! Oops. I probably shouldn't do that, but it worked, they backed off. I'm not gonna be bullied into driving faster just because some impatient tw*t behind me can't tolerate the speed limit! Some people... jeez!

I'm doing much better with changing gears and my confidence levels are higher now too. I'm getting used to driving on the big roads - it's still daunting to me but I just need to keep doing it and eventually it'll be second nature.

After my lesson we went to get some groceries, then came home. I've been doing some laundry and prepping for dinner tonight, we're making green curry so I've chopped up the onion and red bell pepper, and the chicken. We're taking the girls to the dog park in around half an hour, so when we get back dinner shouldn't take too long to make. I've also done the dishes twice today already, after our pancake breakfast and just now too. I'm really trying to keep on top of the housework at the moment, it's easy to let things slide sometimes and I end up getting mad at myself so I'm making a concerted effort to be a good little housewife. I'm still not sure it's really who I am, but I'm trying to give it a chance. I do want to provide a good home environment for us, I can't provide for us financially right now so it's the best I can do really. The thing is, I could get a random job doing something rubbish, and I don't want to put people down who do those jobs because I think people do whatever they have to do in order to live, but I don't need to work right now. In some ways I feel guilty about that, but then at the same time it's not really anyone's business but ours. Hubby is happy with our situation, and he likes that the house is kept nice without him having to do anything around the house. I can also take care of the dogs so he doesn't have to worry about them while he's working. Basically what I'm saying is that this works for us - so I don't know why I feel guilty sometimes. I'm just not used to being unemployed yet, I guess!

We still haven't seen any houses yet, I really hope our realtor gets in touch with us soon (i.e. tonight or tomorrow) to set up an appointment with us. I don't want to sound harsh, but if she doesn't then I'm considering hiring someone else. Our lease on the house is up in 8 months and we want to find somewhere soon to get the ball rolling!

It's almost Christmas! How did that happen?!

Today we took pug-pug to the vet for her vaccinations - she had 3 in total, one for rabies, one for kennel cough and another that's a combined vaccine for parvovirus, parainfluenza, canine distemper and possibly something else too! We also had her tested for heartworm - negative, as expected. :) We've started her on a monthly heartworm preventative too. While we were there we saw loads of hand made doggy food bowls, they were so cute! We got her a gorgeous light blue one, it was only $3. We'll take her old one over to the in-laws' house so that when we go round there we don't need to remember her bowl!

At some point today I need to do some housework and wrap some Christmas presents! I've ordered prints of 3 of our wedding photos, they're photos of my hubby and his brother, who was best man. When hubby finishes work today we're going to go and look for some nice frames, because we're giving them to my brother-in-law for Christmas. We also got him a couple of cactus arrangements, there are 3 small cacti in each pot. Not conventional Christmas presents I guess, but we're pretty sure he'll like them. $5 to print the photos (7x5") and about $13 for the cacti, plus whatever we spend on frames for the photos. We're heading over to Hobby Lobby for the frames, they're usually on sale there and they have a big selection. Plus I always find interesting things in there!

I'm still waiting for one thing I ordered online for hubby. Hopefully it'll come in the next couple of days so I can get it wrapped in plenty of time! I also ordered Christmas cards for hubby from Moonpig.com, they had a buy one get one free offer on so I got him one from pug-pug and one from me. The one from me has a couple of our photos on it! I love that site, it's awesome. The one from pug-pug has a pug on the front and I personalized the text - it says "Hi Daddy!" on the front, it's so cute! Including postage it only cost $4.60 for both cards (with one being free) which is really great value! I've been trying to budget my money and make it go further, so every little helps! I'm sure he'll be really happy with them, and he won't be expecting them so they'll be a nice surprise! :)

As far as his presents go, he's done pretty well! As I said, I've been trying to budget as much as I can so I've been shopping around for the best deal when it comes to buying pretty much anything. This is the first time since I was 16 that I've not had a job, so I do need to be careful with money. Anyway, he wanted either an 8GB or 16GB flash drive for his present, so I looked online at a few places and found a really good 16GB one for $25 with free shipping! I was in Walmart yesterday and they had 16GB drives for $40, so I think I lucked out with my online find! :) I also got him a cool funny T-shirt from Engrish.com, which was in the sale for $11.65 plus shipping ($16.50 total - the original price without shipping was $18.95 so I did good there too). I got him a really cool present "from pug-pug" too - a set of 6 coasters each with different photos of pug-pug on! I thought that was pretty neat - he definitely won't be expecting those! Plus, we actually do need some coasters, hehe. I used walgreens.com for those, it couldn't have been easier! I might buy him some candy or beef jerky or something like that, too. That would be an unexpected gift - but most definitely appreciated!

I bought the vast majority of pug-pugs Christmas presents from PetSmart in their 50% off sale so I saved quite a bit there too. That's the only reason she's ended up with so many presents - I think she has 8! Hers are the only ones that are all wrapped up, too. And she's the only one with an actual Christmas stocking! Maybe we are a little crazy after all... ;)

Right now I'm waiting for one of my friends on Skype - I'm not sure if she's gonna show... My mom called yesterday and I told her how let down I feel by so many people who just don't make the effort, and she was surprised when I mentioned my cousin and how he hasn't bothered getting in touch. I also told her that I'm a bit pissed about how virtually nobody could be bothered to send us a card when we got married, and how we've received very few Christmas cards. She agreed that people are crap! Oh well, it's out of my hands now since I decided not to pursue contact with those people who aren't bothering with me.

I can't believe it's almost Christmas, it doesn't feel like all that long since I got to the US back in early September! I'm just so glad to be here with my gorgeous hubby and our cute little pug-pug. My Dad should be arriving in 10 days, if his flight isn't cancelled because of the snow and ice in the UK. He still hasn't called, by the way. We're back in the familiar situation of us not speaking for however long because he doesn't call when he's meant to (i.e. at all) and I refuse to call him because I'm fed up of being the only one doing the communicating (as usual). He'll call eventually...

A successful shopping trip!

This morning we had croissants for breakfast - mmmmmm :)

Then we went to our local mall to finish our Christmas shopping. I really only needed to get a present for my Dad, but as it happened JCPenney had an awesome sale on! We finally got some new pillows - we bought a king size bed in September just after I got here, and never got king size pillows because the ones we wanted weren't on sale. Well, today, they were only $8.70 each! Originally they were meant to be like $30 each, so how cool is that?! I got my Dad a neck massager (he has a bad neck) which was originally $40 and was only $20 today. I also got a couple of cute Christmas decorations (little snowmen with our names on!) and a lovely cuddly teddy bear (I'm a sucker for cuddlies!). The snowmen were originally $8 each but ended up costing all of $2.31 a piece, and the bear was originally $20 but ended up being $4.34. At full price our total would've been $140, and it only came to $50! I'm so pleased with all my purchases, they were fantastic value! It's even more fantastic when I convert the price in dollars to British pounds - it comes to £32! In the UK that doesn't exactly go very far - there's no way I would've been able to buy all of that. Gotta love America for the awesome pre-Christmas sales!!! :)

Well, the weather in the UK right now is really bad. I've just looked on a news website and a lot of the airports are either closed or facing huge disruption. I checked on the British Airways website and the London Heathrow to Phoenix flight is cancelled today. That's the flight my Dad is getting on December 30th... all the weather reports say the bad weather is going to last at least a month, so he might have problems getting here if that's the case. Not much point worrying about it yet, I guess. The thing is, he's only coming for 9 nights - if his flight does end up being cancelled, it could end up being days until he can get another, and at what point does he end up not coming because it's not worth it? (remember when he could have come for the wedding, Wednesday to Sunday, and "it wasn't worth it"? I mean, it is a long way and all, it's like a 10 and a half hour flight). It's not like he can move his holiday by a week or anything, because he's back at work a few days after he gets home as it is.

All this reminds me of all the problems I had getting here when I was coming to visit my hubby (before we were married, of course!). Last Christmas I was booked to fly with BA and they were going to go on strike for 12 days when I was due to fly, so I ended up cancelling my flight with them and rebooking with US Airways. Then the weather was really bad and I was lucky to get here, the plane had to be jump-started because it was so cold and the visibility was virtually zero - I still don't know how we made it from Manchester to Philadelphia, actually! Then, when I was supposed to visit in April, 2 days before my flight that stupid volcano in Iceland erupted and all flights in and out of the UK were grounded! I could not believe that at all! I had to rebook for the following week, but luckily I was able to move my vacation time at work forward by a week so I didn't end up losing any time here with my beloved!

I really quite like flying, but I'm glad I'm not having to do it for a long while now. What with all the security checks, which seem to go a little over the top sometimes, I don't exactly miss it!

Oh, I finally got an email from my friend who didn't show up on Skype on Tuesday - it's very apologetic! I haven't replied yet, because I'm not quite sure what to say, but I will do soon. As I've said before, I do get that people are busy, but it is quite rude to not let someone know when you can't make it for something, even if it is "only" a chat on Skype. She said she kept meaning to let me know she couldn't make it but never got around to it. Hmmm. I mean, it's Saturday and the whole thing happened on Tuesday, so it has taken her a very long time to get in touch! I'm not going to hold it against her, but I might let her hang for a day or 2. She did keep me waiting ages, after all.

My Dad still hasn't called; he was supposed to call sometime mid-week. I can't say I'm really surprised, though. My Mom will call me tomorrow (she's way more reliable - she calls me one Sunday, I call her the next Sunday, and so on). I still haven't heard from my cousin, but I've pretty much given up any hope of him ever responding to my email! I could just call him, but I'm not going to out of principle. Also, as I said, I never know when he's working, so that's the reason I wanted him to let me know when would be a good time for me to call. All he had to do was reply to my email and say, "Call on Tuesday or Wednesday, but not Thursday or Friday" - something like that. Now would that really be so bloody difficult to do? It would take all of 30 seconds! Whatever. Also, his wife's parents have a house in Florida so they have a phone package which lets them call the US for free, so he could just pick up the phone and call me. The whole thing sucks.

Anyway, in an hour we're heading over to my brother-in-law's house for dinner. It'll be the first time I've been there since I looked at the place with my mother-in-law all the way back in January, before my brother-in-law even saw it himself (she was on a mission to find him a house to buy, lol). We should have a nice evening! :)