Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

     My sister in law, Sam's sister Rachel, came to visit me over the weekend. It was a lot of fun! She arrived by train in Cambridge on Friday at 1:07pm. Prior to her arriving my friend Connie and I went to Newmarket for a job fair. The job fair was a fun experience, we met some really neat people and saw some interesting jobs. From the job fair itself I had two follow ups and two job possibilities. One within a bank and one within schools. I have been in correspondence, filled out applications, sent my CV, and even took some tests for some of these jobs, but like the other five jobs I have applied for nothing has come of it so far. No interviews, no e-mail response back, nothing but perhaps lowering my self-esteem even more by being told I am not qualified. This whole job hunting thing is extremely frustrating, being rejected or told you are unqualified after spending four and a half years studying, working hard and earning a bachelors degree well there are no words to explain how awful it can make you feel. But hey that's life and just because you pay the price, study hard and earn a college degree (or even a masters or doctorate) it doesn't mean you are guaranteed to find a job in the "real world". Add in the fact that you are moving every three to four years and living in a foreign country, connected to an American Military Base where there are major budget cuts including a hiring freeze on civilian workers, well that can make it that much more difficult to find a job post graduation. So I will continue to search, apply and be rejected until God reveals his plan. I could still be in the states, putting my degree to use, but I am much happier living abroad with my amazing husband and I am grateful that he is employed and thankful that because of his job we can live comfortably and I can continue to seek out a job that would make me happy, instead of settling for another retail position, with crazy hours, just to have a second income. In the words of my sister, working is overrated, but I do hope my job search does land me in something that makes me happy and that I will get to start blogging about a cool work experience. In the meantime, I will continue telling of our great adventurous and how awesome it is to be a stay at home wife, I mean I can honestly say I am never bored and if I could get paid for tending to household duties, working out, and watching Grey's Anatomy...well I would be rich and extremely happy.

Isn't he cute? When Sam saw him last night and said "Hi Herc! I miss you." Direct quote, I knew he would.

My reaction when Sam suggested I pause Grey's Anatomy

     As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have a great support system of fellow wives here and I had a car load of my "smallest" friends who came with me to pick Rachel up from the train station. This was not meant to be an insult, as I would never say any of my friends are "big" or "small", but we were all piling into my little British car, all four of us on the way there and five us of on the way back, once we picked up Rachel, which would be a tight squeeze so I told everyone I picked my smallest friends. Luckily, they all found it funny and said its okay, Rachel is tiny so squeezing won't be an issue! Of course, the fact that everyone who went with me doesn't have a job and enjoys tea had nothing to do with it ;). Anyway, we met at my house and thankfully my friends are patient as I was late due to the job fair.  Connie, Taryn, Meleah and I took off for Cambridge, got stuck in traffic and were about twenty minutes late picking up Rachel.(Confession- I also accidentally cut a biker off pulling into the train station, they are all over the place.) After picking up Rachel we headed for lunch/tea at Harriet's. We all ate sandwiches, drank tea and ate scones before heading back to my house where Rachel got to do her favorite thing....spread out! Well at least she says that's he favorite thing but I know her real favorite thing is seeing me and petting Hercules of course!

So glad she came!

     On Friday night we headed out to Bury Saint Edmund's to my friend Jill's house for Harry Potter night. We were on the second HP movie and we are watching the third movie this weekend. Rachel got to meet Jill and Kim, their dogs Zeus and Jack, and my friend Laura. Meleah and Taryn were also there! We ate Zen Noodle, which is a delicious Chinese restaurant in Bury, and watched the movie. Once we were home Rachel and I stayed up until about 2am having lots of girl talk, which of course by the girl code I cannot disclose to my blog readers, but it made for a long night and early morning when the alarm went off at 7:30am.

Snow at the cottage

It is pretty but I am so over it being cold

     We woke up Saturday morning to snow on the ground...what? I was told Springtime around here was sunny and fifty degrees all the time. Well, it doesn't sound like my home town in sweet home Misery (Missouri-one time my best friend from back home, Stephanie, and I wrote a song called Sweet Home Misery, its a pretty great one) has had any better weather as the Midwest has also been getting snow. Jill, Laura, Taryn, Meleah, Stephanie (another sweet friend Rachel met) Rachel and I all headed to a winery on a snowy Saturday. Rachel had found this winery, called Chilford Hall Vineyard and for 35 pounds a person you got to have tea/coffee, tour the vineyard, taste the wine, and eat a two course meal. Despite the snowy cold, we had a great time! We even got to taste extra wine because the afternoon tours canceled due to the snow. It was wonderful company, great food, and tasty wine! After Rachel and I got back to my house we both took a nap and then I made us taco soup for dinner. Saturday night consisted of us eating the soup, plus the delicious dessert Rachel made...even though she left out the flour...I wont hold it over her head for years, like my husband did to her when she didn't cook his b-day cheesecake all the way through many, many years ago, and we watched a movie.

The group of us at the winery. From the back: Me, Stephanie, Meleah, Jill and Laura. Rachel and Taryn are in the front. This is an amazing group of ladies!

We drank a lot of wine ;)

Jill and I trying to stay warm and dry

Taryn, Rachel and I being weird

Taryn Rachel and I being normal...if there is such a thing as normal

Inside the winery, learning how it is made...cool!

Our tasting table

     Sunday brought on even more new experiences for Rachel and I. For me it was the first time I can ever remember attending church in the snow on Palm Sunday. For Rachel it was her first experience in a protestant service and I don't think we scared her too much ;). She said that she enjoyed the service and I enjoyed having her company, I don't really like to go to church by myself. I know that is not a reason to skip church, so I do go alone, but I enjoy having someone to sit with. We headed to La Hogue for lunch, we decided to try their Sunday roast.....which was amazing! So far, since Sam has left, I have kept our weekly tradition of eating there...once a week for the past three weeks, we shall see if I make it sometime this weekend, I don't want to break the trend you know. After lunch we came back to the cottage for about an hour before it was time for me to take her back to the train station in Cambridge. After I got back from taking her to the train station the house felt quiet and empty again, it was sad, but I am so glad she was able to come visit me and meet some of my wonderful friends, I had a great time!

He is my partner in crime...He runs all my errands with me

My deployment friend/hubby Meleah and I had a date for dinner with the girls followed by popcorn and ice cream at the movies...without the movies! It was the best and I am so glad that I have her and so many amazing ladies to go through this with.

    
     I have spent the majority of this week revamping my resume and applying for more jobs, yes I am starting to get tired of the process, but we shall see what happens. Hercules and I experienced "the heath" for the first time yesterday, which is a big hill in the town called Newmarket where they run the race horses everyday, in the afternoon they open it up to the public. I have also decided to start a secret project in our house, I have no idea what I am getting myself into, and no idea what I am doing, but I am excited and I hope it turns out well. I have also started watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, I didn't get into that show until the third season or so, and it has been fun to watch everything happen from the beginning, plus it passes time very quickly, though now I'm wondering why I didn't go to school to be a surgeon...they make it look fun!

Hercules at the Heath...maybe he will be a good doggy and learn to be able to go off lead. He has to learn to listen to me first

Hercules was pooped after our walk

      Today is Maundy Thursday, the day that we, as Christians, remember Jesus being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and in fulfillment of scriptures being taken to be crucified for our sins, pierced for our transgressions. The church that I grew up in always does a candlelight Lord's Supper Service on Maundy Thursday, the base that we were at last year did one at the chapel, but unfortunately the chapel and some churches here don't do it, which is unfortunate because it is one of my favorite things to do on Maundy Thursday, take the Lord's Supper and reflect on the events that took place the entire Holy week and especially Thursday thru Sunday. So I will miss that and of course I will miss having my husband here for these celebrations as we enjoy doing them together. However, I will not forget Christ and what he did for me, dieing on the cross, even though I don't have a specific service to attend I will still be reflecting. As I have gotten older Easter has become one of my favorite holidays. Sometimes I think Christmas gets too secular and too revolved around the gifts, but Easter is all about the resurrection and it is great to get together with family for Easter lunch, but the main focus of the holiday has stayed in place, though the world tries to replace it with the Easter bunny and egg hunts, it just doesn't seem like one of those holidays you celebrate unless you are a believer, because that is the point of Easter, remembering that Christ died for our sins and rose three days later....Without Easter there would be no point to Christmas, no significance to Christs birth, but God did send his one and only son...sent him to die for us, and that is something that I, as a sinner, don't deserve, but I am so very thankful for. So I wish you all a very Happy Easter and I hope that you feel God's infinite love for you this weekend as we come together as families, as Christians, reflecting and celebrating Christ's death and resurrection! Happy Easter....HE has risen indeed!




Thanks for reading,

Amanda




While I was driving around today I remembered most of the song two young girls wrote many years ago so enjoy:

Sweet Home Misery 

(Written by two eleven year old girls, Stephanie Spickard and Amanda Henson, on our way back from Windemere, Church camp. Meant to be sung with a hickish southern accent)

Sweet home misery

(okay so I don't remember this line...but it was something about cows)

Can't drive till your eighteen 

Get hit by a semi or two

Where you drive on the curvy bad roads

and maybe hit some toads

Sweet home misery

Home of SMSU...SMS....DA BEARS!