Closures?

We officially have a little over a month left in the US. The last minute preparations are in almost full force, and although it is a lot, we are managing okay. I've had to learn to not stress like crazy about everything I still need to do but just take it a day at a time - be it at work just trying to get through the day, or at home packing, calling the vet for the cats or filling out all the passport documents and all the other things on the to do list.

Chris got the same days off as me for the whole month of August, and in addition, I have a couple of vacation days I am still taking this month. I'm trying to use them because if I don't, I will just lose them when I leave. I'll be giving my two-week notice end of this month. Until then, nobody at works knows about our plans.

Moving madness starting - end of July

I sold a couple of things on Craigslist this weekend, and actually made a little bit of money.. it was some outside chairs, an office chair, lamps, a picture and the little nightstand I had painted earlier in the year. I will try to post on Craigslist again next weekend and hopefully sell a couple of more things. It helps us empty the house too when people come and get things. We've taken a lot of small things to Goodwill as well.. we just don't have the time to do a yard sale to sell all the little knick-knacks for a couple of dollars each.

Our landlord already chose the next tenants that are taking over, and in two weeks we'll be pretty much out the house. I'll just come back to clean everything so that we hopefully get most our deposit back. We are going to Chris's mom's for the rest of the time.

I've been searching tips on selling our car and hopefully that will be something we can get done in a couple of days once the time comes.

I've also filled a couple of job applications that I sent to Finland, but I'm not too worried about finding a job until we get there.. I'm pretty sure I can always find at least temporary work real quickly over there.

I guess the biggest stress that we are still dealing with, is trying to find homes for Pulla and Mikey.. Nobody in the friends or family wants them; I've asked people at work and I've posted adds on Craigslist. Nobody wants them, and it's sad because they are great cats. We have maybe a week, maybe a little more, and the final option will be to take them to the local SPCA, where they may be rehomed, or they may not...

I can't blame anybody specifically, but I gotta say that the amount of stray animals in this country is very telling on how people treat animals. Some people at work who I asked if they knew anybody who wanted a cat were downright cruel on what they said I should do with them.. it makes me mad and sad at the same time.

This may be my last posting before the move - we'll see. New adventures are definitely around the corner now. 

Rare Summer Posting

It is mid July here. What's up?

Well.. It is not easy to plan a move to the other side of the world. It' overwhelming, and I need to tell myself to just take it step by step and not think about everything that we still need to do and prepare for. I've made a list of the main stuff to take care of, and one by one I'm crossing things off of it as they get done.

That's all about the move for this post, I don't want to think about it, I get too stressed.

I actually wanted to post a couple of rare outside pictures it being summer and all. I don't spend much time outside in the summer, so tonight when the worst heat of the day was gone, I got a couple of photos in the back yard.

It was a very special occasion, I let Pulla outside for the first time in over 3 months. She was spayed a week ago so there's no fear for any more kittens. She was a happy cat that's for sure. So here's a picture of her.. she sharpened her nails on that branch at least 50 times!

I also snapped a photo of the hot peppers I started growing a couple of months back. They've been really neglected but I guess the sun and rainwater have been enough - there's a bunch of little peppers growing already. Just waiting for them to ripen now. 

 

Here's some branches I trimmed of our Crepe Myrtles. (Yep, back inside...)  Aren't they pretty!! 

That's all for now. It's my weekend, and I will need to fill out my US passport application. Chris is excited because the new Batman comes out next week. That's the main life updates I can think of right now. 

Wednesday night life update

I am tired, tired, tired, so I won't be writing that much. It's been a long day, first at work from 8am to almost 7pm, then some cleaning at the house. Thank goodness I'm off for two days after tomorrow.

Anyways, I didn't share anything about our Anniversary, which was last Friday, so here's a few pictures. Four years married, how time flies like a butterfly! We drove to St. Petersburg, which is just about a six mile bridge over the ocean away from Tampa. We drove around and after lunch at an Italian grocery, we ended up in the Salvador Dali Museum. We went in the Gallery too but they didn't let us take any photos inside. I loved the building and the art inside was pretty cool too. I like St. Pete downtown because it has a lot of culture. Outside the downtown... a lot of run down older neighborhoods.

I'm just posting the photos, too tired to write captions. Ask if you have a question.

Here's a picture of Mikey, our last kitten, 11 weeks old now. We are still tryng to find a home for him and his momma Pulla. 

He is a crazy cat, he runs all over the place and is constantly playing. i hope we find a good home for him soon.

Two more pictures.. dinner last night! It was fish, dover sole.. not sure if I've had any before. It was really really good and fast to make!! 

Now I'm done. Time for some night tea and then sleep. 

Birthday fun!

I'm on vacation this week, and yesterday it was my birthday. So we decided to have a beach day. It was the first time we went to the beach this year, and we decided to go to Vero. It's about a 2-hour drive from us. 

We stopped the car in the middle, just so I could get a picture of the middle Florida where there's just trees, fields and lonely ranches with their cows. 

The next stop was at a random little park we found when we were looking for a place to eat. 

Luckily we found a nice place.. they have great sea food. I had a grilled grouper sandwich. 

 The next 3 hours were spent at the beach. The waves were pretty big and the water super salty. We both put on sun screen but I guess we should have added more since we both burnt our backs and I burnt my nose.

On our way back we stopped at the mall and as we were driving back saw some thunder and lightning in the distance. When we got to our house it was raining. 

What a fun day! I don't mind getting older at all!

I did it!

Today i became American! The oath ceremony was nice, lasted about an hour, and we got to wave the little flags and sing songs about America. There was about 80 people there doing the oath. I think I was the only one from Finland, most people were from the Latin American countries. For once the immigration officers were pretty nice and friendly. 

So happy that's all been taken care of! 

End of May

I haven't posted that much lately, and I probably won't be posting that much this summer.

Life here is slowly but surely coming to an end. It is of course sad in a way, but more than anything I'm excited to go back home finally.

I passed my citizenship exam last week. It was easy since I knew all the answers to the 100 questions and they only asked me six. They asked who the governor of Florida is, what Martin Luther King Jr was known for etc. I was nervous more than anything. The lady interviewing me was very official and after every question she asked me she stared at me looking very serious and intimidating. Before the whole thing started I had to lift up my hand and swear I would only tell the truth, so yeah, it was super official. They went through my whole application which was several pages long. It had all my previous residency and employment history, tax papers for the last three years and things like that. All in all it actually took less than 15 minutes though, which I was surprised because my letter said it would take two hours. I mentioned that to the interview lady on my way out and she said that it sometimes takes two hours when the applicant has criminal records they need to look into. :O

I was told I will receive a letter about the time of my oath ceremony next month. The letter arrived on Thursday and said my ceremony is on the 29th... that's Tuesday in like a few days! The good thing is that I'm already off on Tuesdays since it would be an awfully short notice to try to get the day off. So after Tuesday, looks I will officially be Finnish-American.

Last week I started looking for flights to Finland in the fall, just to get an idea on what price range we should be looking at. I found a supergood deal, one way tickets to Finland with only one layover for $550 per person. That is like half of what I was expecting to pay. I discussed it with Chris and we decided to get them. We'll be flying on September 18th. The cats Neko and Sammy will be flying too and their flights are almost as expensive than ours.. well not exactly, $175 per cat, but with all the official paperwork and vet bills and buying them airline approved carriers, I am sure their travel will cost at least as much as ours!

So there is a lot of planning and stressing going on about the move. We extended our house lease till the end of August, and from the beginning on September we'll be staying with family until it's time to leave. The packing will start soon, and the hard part is of course deciding what to leave behind. We've already done a few rounds to Goodwill this year. It's a store where they take your old stuff and sell it. I know we could try to sell some stuff ourselves, but most of it is not really worth anything, and we need to get rid of it sooner rather than later. I think the only thing we'll end up selling is our car, and I don't even want to think about how to do that just yet.

All that to say, my project for the summer is packing and getting rid off stuff, and I don't know if I'll be blogging that much about it. We'll see. There is a lot to do and I'm working hard and so is Chris. Allthough I am actually taking a whole week off in two weeks! It's my first vacation since I started in my job over a year ago... a much needed break for sure! I hope to get a lot done in the house during that week.

The kittens are growing and they are very, very playfull. They'll be eight weeks on Monday, and I think the first one may be leaving us already on Tuesday.. we'll see if we have time though. The other two I'm not so sure about. I've had people tell me they want one and then when I try to talk to them more about it they never get back with me. :/ But I'm sure they will find homes, they are so cute and adorable.

Gonna get going now. Time for some more coffee!

Through the car window

I've wanted to make a little post about our neighborhood, especially for the people in Finland reading this, since it's not that interesting for local people. I don't have good pictures, because they've all been taken through the car window. I'm planning on getting some more pictures soon, maybe even step out the air conditioned car for a few shots. :P I'd like to get some pictures of random people's yards that are looking really pretty this time of the year.

Chris said it the best: "Florida is a really beautiful place, but only to look at from behind a glass window". So here we go, photos through the window. .. ... And no, it's not all super pretty, it's just random photos of our neighborhood.

To start with I have a few photos taken from the road that we drive from our house toward downtown. We live 5-10 minutes from downtown, depends on traffic.

This is a pretty typical looking road away from city centers. Nothing to look at really. 

The same road a minute later, getting more toward downtown of our central Florida town. 

This is a little closer dowtown again. Taken on a weekend morning. Usually  traffic would be a lot worse. 

I don't have photos of the dowtown right now. It's mostly banks anyway. A few restaurants and art galleries etc. 

The next photos are of some houses that are around the lake we live close to. They all have a nice lakeview and I bet some pretty rich people live there. Not the best photos because they were taken from the moving car. 

The next photos are of the closest little shopping center to us. It has a Publix supermarket and some other businesses we never go to. The cool thing is that it's the shopping center that was used in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". 

And to end with, toward the south side of our town, my work place and some cow pastures. I see a lot more of them than I ever see the beach. :P

My office. Sorry for the bad picture. 

Bunch of nothingness. It's a rather new road and I have a feeling the fields will be gone in ten years. 

So that's it for now.. oh, wait.. what's this picture doing here?!

:D