It was the strangest thing to drop Jen off at the airport today. Probably more strange for her since she knows where she is going, and by that I mean she controls her destiny. From an airport she could be going anywhere, so when I drop her off there, that is where she has disappeared to. This probably doesn’t make any sense, but that’s why it is surreal. The reality part is that now the house is quiet and empty. The closet is only half full, the bathroom counter isn’t …

in Phoenix. But it wasn’t easy. We “called ahead” to California Pizza Kitchen only to get there, have them “lose” our call ahead info and then make us wait 45+ minutes for a table while every single other person was seated as well as those who came in 20 minutes later. (They couldn’t figure out how to push some tables together.) So we turned to leave and magically our table was “almost ready.” Forget the details, but know it was a pretty crappy experience for overpriced mediocre cuisine. We still …

Well it looks like this is actually going to happen. I have a flight scheduled for tomorrow evening at 7:30pm. The best part is that it is a direct flight from here to Heathrow in London. THAT is good news. I start on Monday, but only for a few hours, then it is off to hunt for a house. In 18 hours, I’ll be leaving….. I’m going to miss the dogs, our friends and family, but most of all, Michael. But, he will join me in a few weeks, so …

Jen and I have been talking about this all for some time now. How to do a gap year without making it a financial and professional setback. How to make it last more than a year. We were envious of all of the stories we would read about couples and friends and even individuals who would throw caution into the wind and set off into the world. I was sold. In fact, I was ready to go, but there was a problem. Jen is a smart and reasonable woman. She …

Finally. Finally. Finally. Got the entry clearance today. What an ordeal (for an extremely impatient person). Hopefully I leave on Saturday, but even if I don’t, I AM leaving at some point soon. It still doesn’t seem real, but I’m guessing that reality will hit me once I have been trapped on a steel tube hurtling over the ocean for 10 hours.

So I got an e-mail from London saying that it appears that my visa has been approved!!! It isn’t in my hand yet, so I don’t believe it, but supposedly they are overnighting it for delivery tomorrow! That means I will be in London in a few days, with Michael behind me a few weeks later.

Well it has been a long haul, but it looks like for better or worse, everything should be decided in the next day or two.
This blog will be commemorative of our (hopefully) pending move from Phoenix, AZ to London UK. So this first post is going to be all about how I got to today.
The middle of last year brought rumblings of “rightsizing” all through the mortgage company at which I work. Being the exceptional superstar employee that I am, I wasn’t particularly worried about this until the day …