Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
Today is T’s 13th birthday. She asked for a video from the time she was born. I wasn’t really sure why, but M remembered and we both took videos today at the time that corresponded to when she was born in New York, accounting for the five-hour time difference.
I am not at all ready to be the parent of a teenager. Over the weekend T baked chocolate chip cookies, and as a small reward for making it through the first morning of having a teenager in the house, I had one with my coffee.
Yesterday I forgot to write. 5 years and a day ago we arrived in the UK. We did a day flight so we stayed in a hotel and aimed to start settling in.
5 years ago today we collected the keys to the house we were letting. Then went to IKEA for beds and other essentials since our container would take another month and 2 days to arrive.
As i write this about the same time 5 years ago we were battling our boiler since it wasn’t actually heating. Luckily we had a hotel room for an extra night so fled the cold back there to fix the boiler the next day.
Today was a bit easier than 5 years ago. I took T to the cinema while A went to a birthday party. It was a nice holiday day off.
Hard to believe that was a half a decade ago. I would write more however I need to go study for my life in the UK test!
It does not really feel like a long time until you really start to think about it. Then it does start feeling like a long time. It is so misleading thinking 4 years is not a lot if you are in your 40’s. Looking at the photos of us getting ready to move and I realise how little the girls were compared to now. The cliche is true. So much has changed and yet so much is the same.
4 years ago we were scared and excited. We had so much to do. So much to explore even beyond the physically just getting here. Today there is still so much to explore. We are still excited to be living here. So much so that this year we bought the house we were renting. M called it perfectly 4 years ago when we were looking at houses on our Thanksgiving week scouting trip in 2017. Of the 12-15 we looked at she flagged what became ours as the one she was most interested in. In the end it was down to this house and one other. The location and school options on our house won out. It is why we initially inquired with the former owners to purchase it right around a year ago near our 3rd anniversary here. We were delighted they were interested in selling. We looked around our neighbourhood for other options earlier this year. There were a few possibilities however when it became clear we could have the house we were in we knew our choice.
Lockdown’s and pandemic’s have slowed our exploring. Just not our desire to continue to explore this new country and continent. We are still excited for 4 more and many more years to come…
A small story about the luggage cart pictured that can almost summarize a big difference between NY & London.
Those carts in JFK are like $5 a piece to rent. They are for going from the car drop off to the check in counter. A trip that is maybe 2 minutes.
At Gatwick or Heathrow (in this story we arrived in Gatwick) the same carts are free. On top of that there are little kid carts throughout arrivals for one or even two kids for you to put your kids in for the very long walk to customs. Once you get through customs to get your luggage you can get a free cart for the much longer walk than in JFK for your luggage.
It does not feel like it was that long ago that my kids were in enrolling in school after we moved to London. My oldest was in Reception and youngest was in Nursery. They were both in the same Infants school.
This week marks the end of the school year. It also marks the end of an era. Both kids now have moved on from the Infant school to the Junior school.
When the oldest moved on last year it felt different yes, however not that different. The younger one was still in the was still in the infants school. Now both girls out of the infants school it forces me to address the fact that they are getting older. The alternative is for me to irrationally ignore that fact that they are getting older. Of course I am going to go for irrationally ignore that and enjoy they are still adorable even thought not in that Nursery or even year 2 kind of way.
With the girls out of school since Wednsday I took 2 days off. We went to a museum they really like, their favorate ice cream place as well as a play date. I feel very accomplished.
What feels like several lifetimes ago I started this blog. In reality it was 18 years ago today. It is so weird to think how much my life has changed in those 18 years. There may have been dry spells where I did not write for a while (a year or so now and again) I have continuously journaled in that 18 years. For someone who used to get claustrophobic in 2 year mobile phone contracts I am impressed that I kept at it.
With a long list of post ideas here is hoping for another 18.
Today mark’s the milestone of our family’s arrival to London. As with most anniversary in some ways it is feels that so much time has passed. Yet another is it feels like it was so recent. I have many vivid memories of the day we travelled. Actually I remember vividly parts of the day before and the few days after our trip. So much to remember that I hope I journaled enough of it.
So much has changed in the three years we’ve been here. And as cliché as it is to say much has not. One thing is for certain I am still enjoying living in London as much as I was excited to be moving here on this day three years ago.
I sometimes cannot believe that I’m living in another country. It happens every so often when I take a step back from the day-to-day. I realise wow I’m living in a completely different culture. Usually that is followed by “cool” in my head.
There is likely so much more I could write however I want to keep this post brief. I think what sum’s everything up isthree years in and were still happy to be here and look forward to the next three or however many more…
Time really does play tricks on you. On one hand it feels like forever since we got to London. On the other hand sometimes it feels like we just got here. Today marks a year since we arrived in London. A year ago we were leaving the freezing cold to the great unknown of another country. We said goodbye to family for our great adventure. Today my sister and family are here visiting for the holidays. Both M’s parents and my mom have visited at least once. The girls are adjusted and thriving in their new schools and making new friends.
Overall its been an amazing journey. It hasn’t been easy all the time. As of now it has been totally worth it! Here is to year 2 in the United Kingdom.
Last year for our anniversary we had a baby sitter and went to a Michelle star restaurant for dinner. It was pretty dam good evening. Tonight we went in a different direction. I had to be home to pick up the girls since M had an appointment to get her NIS number. The girls were a bit punch drunk probably from lack of napping and still adjusting to the time zone differences so we were not up for taking them out for dinner. We did want to do something to celebrate our anniversary so we opted for Pizza take away.
We have decided to go through the list of all 22 or so places in the pizza category of the take away app we started using. This was our 2nd pick. Papa John’s was our first pick. Neither were great. I thought this was ok, however T decalared several times she did not like it. Once she even said she wanted NY pizza with a crust. Not sure why since she barely eats crust when pizza has any but i digress.
After dinner we were able to do FaceTime’s with both sets of grandparents then the kids went to bed. Next up a nice glass of the only alcohol I drink in our house Jack Daniels.
Times Square can be a challenging place to work. It is crowded with tourists most of the year. The tour bus people always harass you to buy tickets even when I feel like it is pretty obvious i am not a tourist. Then there are the off brand cartoon characters trying to get you to give them money to take photos with them. 30 Rock was totally on the money about them. With all of that I still love working in Times Square.
When describing were i worked i had to be more detailed than just i work in times square. Especially for those from out of town.People would ask oh where in Times Square? And I would say right in time square… If you look up from my window you see the ball. I would also tell the story about the 10 stories high red Walgreens sign flashing at my window annoying the crap out of me for about two years. I get the blinds closed pretty much the entire time.
I do remember many days over the years I would grab my coffee and start walking to the office and enter time square with all the activity even at 7:50 in the morning you get kind of excited. It may be a New York centric thing to say however time square is arguably one of the centers of the world. Even with all the negatives it was has been cool working here.
Friday however was my last day working out of Times Square. My group is relocating to an office in Hoboken. I found out about the Hoboken move after my London relocation was already pretty much done. The move wasn’t really going to impact me much since the overlap of me going to Hoboken before London would be for only a short period of time. It works out to about six weeks between when the move happened and when I will relocate. During that time. I’m glad i am relocating to another country since this move adds about 20 to 30 minutes to my commute. Not the end of the world however it pushes the commute to Borderline challenging especially when I need to get home to pick up the girls,
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Hoboken. We toured the office about a week ago and it looks really nice. The lunch room has a gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline. It looks like there’s plenty of things to do around the office for food. Maybe not as much is Times Square however how many places have that much stuff to do like times square? It’s just that it’s further from my house and it’s not time square. Sorry Hoboken. I’m just being honest. You’ll never have a place in my heart like the Times Square office did.
I’m also going to miss a lot of my old group. I might have moved organizations in May however I still sat near people I worked with for several years. We would still go to lunch and grab drinks after work. I know all of that would change when I move overseas however this brings that date up by six weeks that I was not originally planning on.
I still hope to grab drinks now again before I leave. I have to pass right by the Times Square office on my way home from the Hoboken office anyway. It’s not really that far out-of-the-way to meet up with people. I wonder how many times actually will do it. It is still my intention to make the effort while I am still in NY.
I don’t think I’ll find another office when at 8:15AM you will hear cheering in the background because some crowd of people is yelling at the TV morning show being filmed a block or two away.
It was a nice long run. Since the beginning of 2017 through the middle of September I might have logged onto Facebook all of a handful of times. During that time I might not have posted anything. I don’t count blog posting since I write them and it auto magically gets posted to my twitter and Facebook feeds without me logging in.
This week all that changed. I started wading back into what sometimes feels like the cesspool of Facebook. Why after calling it “sometimes cesspool” like would I return? I did not really want to. My not using Facebook has taught me a few things. For one sharing photos to a limited number of people is challenging. I have an iPhone. My wife has an iPhone. My parents have an iPhone. My in-laws do not. If I want to share photo and use iCloud, I have to call them and let them know they should turn on their iPad to look for an update. That is a technology fail. Finding a tool or service that a large number of people use is hard. Getting people to start using the tool because you want to share information is challenging. Especially if that’s the only reason they’re going to use it is for you. Using Facebook I lower the barrier to use significantly since many people are using it already.
Facebook’s not quite secure however. Photos on Facebook aren’t out on the Internet for everyone to see however they are also not securely locked away that virtually no one sees. That basically became my trade-off. For the past nine months or so I haven’t really shared what’s going on and I was ok with that. I am not self-centered enough to assume that everyone that is a friend of mine on Facebook is missing photographs and updates about what’s going on in my life. There are some family and friends that are interested and are not set up technologically to connect in other ways. Those people I do miss the connection.
That brings us to why I’m back. During roughly the same time I was radio silent on Facebook a lot is been going on in the “real world”. When not posting on social media I could relatively easily meet up with someone for dinner or an afternoon to hang out to catch up. I could talk to someone in the family who talks to someone to pass on details of whats going on, etc. In the near future that will change a lot. Starting on or around new year we will be moving. There will be significantly more distance between close friends and family and where were going.
We are moving to London. Yes I said it correctly, London England. If you have read five paragraphs in to this blog post you earn the right to be one of the first (ok maybe twelveth) to know that were moving overseas.
I plan to write a lot more about our planning, reasons why were going, and the experience in the future. This post really is about my return to Facebook. Why I returned is directly related to our move overseas. The way I’ve been updating friends and family limited who got photos of my kids and what was going on in the world with us. Becoming more “normal and oversharing on Facebook will be away for those close to us to know what’s going on since will be thousands of miles further away.
I still have issues with Facebook’s facial recognition of photographs. Especially of my kids. On the other hand my wife does post photos so the exposure is already there. Commenting about what we are doing goes to my blog that is completely open on the Internet. I do that deliberately however I know I need to be mindful of what goes up there since there is no restrictions.
The other aspect reading about what other people are up to and having quick discussions with soon to be faraway people. The challenge is doing that while weeding through all the other stuff on Facebook. The other stuff being political commentary, news articles, etc. That’s what drove me away in the first place.
In the end that’s the price I I am willing to pay to have some more level of connection with those friends and family. Because of that Facebook wins. I am back. I might not be happy about it however I’m glad to have a medium where I can share what’s going on in our lives while we are 5000 or so miles away.