Long time no post...

So my goal of posting every few days has fallen tragically short of expectations. Really, though, there isn't that much interesting to report.

In the past two weeks, I've met some folks for coffee that I met through the book club, I've gone to a couple of girls' nights out with some girls that DH works with, and I've finally visited the famous Betty's Tea Room in Harrogate, just yesterday with the girl I worked with at NOAA. Throw in the couple Monday night Quiz nights at The New Inn, and I've been at least as social as I was in DC.

The main challenges in the past couple weeks have been establishing routines and getting stuff set up to support daily life. At home, DH and I had joint and separate bank accounts to support house and individual purchases respectively. Moreover, since we were paid in dollars, and stuff was priced in dollars, and we'd had our accounts established for a significant period of time, and we knew about how much our monthly "must pays", groceries, and miscellaneous averaged out to be. Here, we've not yet had enough experience with all of us living here together to know how much the "must pays" are going to end up being, the fact that we have to pay our expenses in pounds sterling rather than dollars means that we have to allow at least a week or so for transfers from dollar accounts into our pounds account, which pretty much eliminates any casual or unplanned spending until we've got a solid handle on our "must pays" and have established a regular dollars-pounds transfer with reliable exchange results. Not that I'm a total shopaholic, but there are lots of little things that I'd like to get for the house (crock-pot, hand blender, etc) that I'm planning on putting off until things are more stable.

Another routine we've not really established well is our grocery routine. We've got several possible shopping places, and I like them all for different reasons. Shopping on base is good for staples, but not - in my humble opinion - the best option for fresh foods. We like our local Waitrose for meats and some veggies, and some local staples, but I like our local Morrisons for their wine, cheese, some veggies, and seafood. We went to our local Sainsburys this weekend, and it was okay, but nothing different from the other two, and two friends I've made here have recommended local farm delivery services that will bring local seasonal produce and dairy items right to the house. Since we have all these shopping places that we like for different reasons, it has been impossible to just say "we'll do all our shopping on Saturday morning", which leads to us running out of stuff midweek, forgetting critical items, or just feeling disorganized. In addition, I don't think that the fridge that we have here is very reliably cold, so I'm nervous about keeping things like meat and cheese in the fridge for more than 3-4 days. So that all it is frustrating.

Thankfully, the cats still seem to be adjusting well. And since this Thursday is Thanksgiving, I guess it's appropriate that I be thankful for something.