The new pad!

Here are some photos of the new pad! Now i'm off to Boston, then Juneau early in the AM tomorrow. I'll be updating my work blog - http://alaskacorals.blogspot.com/ - if you want to keep in touch while i'm in Alaska! Otherwise, i'm back in 2 weeks!

My dining room, complete with elegant furniture!

Kitchen

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Basement/living area

Other side of the basement

House moving weekend!

Moved into my duplex this weekend, with the fabulous help of Kathy, Rod and Niko! It went faster than expected, and was way more overwhelming than expected too. To the point that i'm actually staying in the farmhouse at the DMC tonight, I needed the bed, internet and space without boxes. I leave tuesday for Boston to catch the early flight out to Juneau on wednesday, so there is really no hope of unpacking anyway (least of all because I have no furniture!). I didn't take many photos of the new place, here are some of cutie Niko though...:0)

Niko versus the lobster! I bought this for Barkley just before she was supposed to arrive. At the moment the plan is to try again for June for Barkley to become a Maine pup. 

Niko loves the snow!

Romping at Pemequid point - it was super chilly today!

Niko at the new pad!

Weekend goings on

Saturday morning the empty POD was picked up - yay! That's closure on that end. Now if only I had somewhere to put all the boxes! 

Saturday Christian and I went over to Boothbay Harbor to take a look and have a late lunch. Was really pretty! 

Sunday morning saw snow!!

...and palm trees! 

Off to Maine!

Doing the big drive today, and luckily it's decided not to snow today - yay! I think i'm ready, collected some boxes from WHOI, did some shopping yesterday for some essentials and have a packed lunch, all should be well. I'm back down here in a few weeks to load for the Antarctic cruise, and potentially to pick my dog, so it won't be long before I see everyone again (and catch those I missed).

Yes, I did say dog. It didn't take long, in fact I adopted one before I even left Hawaii. One of Jenny and Doug's pups (Barkley) is coming to Maine! With a second kiddo on the way, a house needing repair and a yard in a state, 2 dogs is getting too much, so rather than be pound bound, Barkley is coming over to check out the snow. She's a sweet 10yr old just looking for the quiet life, so Maine will hopefully suit her well, and i'm really looking forward to the company. Probably one of my best Christmas presents yet! So I have a few weeks to get settled, potentially find somewhere to live (though i'm thinking that might be a stretch) and then Doug is delivering Barkley whilst on his way to a conference. The details aren't yet squared away, but I can't wait!

Okay, need to get up and get going, Maine is calling!

Christmas on the Cape

Well, i'm on Cape Cod - I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I arrived on Wednesday afternoon to this....

Snow! And lots of it! And of course, my little car, safe and sound (and with new, beefier, Maine resistant battery......apparently Hawaiian batteries just don't cut it for 20F....).

It's been a wonderful few days. As soon as I arrived at Kathy and Rods we had a few visitors to say hello and goodbye, in particular my friend Laura left for the UK the day after I arrived. Sad i've missed her, but we get to be stuck on a boat in the middle of the Drake Passage in May for 40 days, so we'll get to catch up!

Thursday and friday I did some wandering around, finishing up Christmas shopping and catching up with folks, was super nice. I love Cape Cod, I had a great time here and miss so many people. I'm so happy to be closer to my Cape family.

Falmouth Beach, with just a little snow left on friday.

Then of course there was Christmas at the Catanachs. Was wonderful, such awesome friends.

The tree! It was a few feet taller when it started, but Rod made it fit! First Christmas tree in a few years, was super nice!

Christmas morning breakfast - french toast, buns, juice, coffee - yum! This was after i'd skyped with the whole family back in the UK.

Tammy giving the presents a poke.....just to check they weren't alive.....

Kathy and I compare our presents from Rod....socks! After all the opening of presents we headed off cape to Kathy's brother's house, where I was treated to a Scanlon family Christmas - a wonderful affair that didn't end until close to midnight.

And today we have a snowstorm coming through! I headed into WHOI for a while to pack boxes for the Antarctic cruise (the cruise isn't until May, but we have to send boxes by the end of January, and much of my "stuff" arrived here at WHOI ready to ship. 

The view from Kathy and Rod's back deck - snow!

Their dog Nikko enjoys the snow!

Okay, I haven't seen much snow recently okay, and I LOVE snow! So far we've had about 4 inches, it's still snowing, and much of the cape now has a power out, so we're waiting, and i'm typing fast!

The pond behind the house with their pontoon. There was a lot of ice on the pond too, apparently for the first time this year. It's definitely cold! The worst of the storm is supposed to hit tonight, and relative to other parts of the Northeast, we're getting off lightly, or so we hope!

Pre Christmas Christmas Dinner!

I'm sat in Chicago and still have another hour before boarding so thought i'd update. On the weekend I had a lovely pre-christmas christmas dinner with the family i've been living with this past 7 weeks, and my British friend Laura. We treated the Americans to some British traditions - mince pies, a good roast complete with Yorkshire puddings, Christmas Crackers and even some Christmas pudding to finish. It was glorious!

The meal - roast chicken for us, roast Tofurkey for Laura!

Dinner complete with Christmas crackers!

The lighting of the pudding - Hannah was captivated!

For all of those interested too, I feel completely recovered from the marathon, my legs and feet are great this year! My only niggle is my shoulder from packing the container over a month ago, I really must have pulled something! Thanks again to all who sponsored me, I made it over my target amount which was awesome!

Leaving Hawaii was a little sad this morning, i'll miss my friends here, particularly the family i've been staying with. Little Hannah is so adorable, as I don't get to see my own niece too often (who is the same age and lives in the UK) i've adopted Hannah as my substitute niece. She has adopted me as her Mimi, and was quite happily pointing out all my possessions as I packed them this morning, as well as unloading a few in the process (i'm a little scared as to what she might have added to my bags too......I found a jar from the fridge in my duffel just before closing it...). I go back in April so it's not too long before I visit, but kids change so fast. I showed them all skype before I left, so i'm hoping we can get that set up.

Well, I'm off to add another layer, and hopefully get on a plane in an hour. Just a few hours away from Cape Cod, they got ten inches of snow yesterday, so i'm hoping it's held off so the roads are clear!

I'm back!

And oh i've been enjoying the week of quiet time and not being bugged, sometimes it's just nice to be off the radar, but I guess that has to end sometime. Life has been going well, but I totally fooled myself into thinking it would be quieter once the container left, work was basically on hold there for a few weeks, so that all hit me and a week and a half on and i'm still playing catch-up! 

Here's the update in photos.....

Week before last  - Tuesday I spent the day cleaning my little Grodnick house and making sure there was nothing I forgot that needed to go into the container, doing some final packing and repacking of the container.

Week before last - Wednesday - the container was picked up and headed out on it's way. It won't arrive in Maine until the 27th December, just a few days before I do! Right at the moment it's somewhere getting close to California, it should be there on the 30th.

Last weekend - a little Aloha in the Park, getting my leaving party done and dusted - a little early, but with impending holidays and some major marine conferences, this was the best time to catch everyone. Last weekend all saw me start running again, it's been 2 weeks of very sporadic training, and now i'm pretty worried about the marathon.

Last weekend - sweet friends, presented me with a dive computer as a leaving gift, alongside a dancing hula girl for Beach Belle. I'll be thinking fondly of my friends here in Hawaii while I dive in Maine in January!

Last weekend - the end of the Aloha in the Park - a great moonrise, was beautiful!

This week - it's been all about catching up with work, running, and of course Thanksgiving holiday! I love this photo of Hannah and her Dadda!

Jenny and Doug did the first hosting of Thanksgiving in their new kitchen! I cooked the turkey for the day, came out pretty well I think!

This week - Todd and Doug give the turkey some serious carving...

This week - and of course there was plenty of dessert to go around too....:0)

Yesterday - here it was Furlough Friday (that's an enforced unpaid day off work, and a non-teaching day - woo hoo!) and the first one I actually didn't go into work for. I did a little work at home, but mostly hung out with Jenny and Hannah, which was really fun!

So what now. Well, i'm typing this lying in bed trying to stuff down some food at 5.30am so I can run my last long run of marathon training, 20 miles. I'm just hoping it doesn't rain, it's been wet and windy last few days. I'm still $100 from my goal of raising $1 per training mile for Sophie and the SADS Foundation - so if you haven't donated to charity recently now's a good chance to do so! Today's 20 miler is dedicated to my Dad and Sanchia - thanks for sponsoring me guys!

Other than that it's teaching (=exhausting!), catching up with work and trying to get myself organized to actually leave in less than 4 weeks. Yikes that's creeping up! I'll post more often from now.

Update

Packing went well, container loaded - check out the work blog for an update there. Taking a breather, taking the day off tomorrow to clean up my house and hand the keys back, gives me a chance to check over in case anything is missing before the container leaves on Weds. Hoping to get back to running tomorrow, it's been basically 2 weeks off regular runs, and to be perfectly honest, if I wasn't doing this for charity, and hadn't had such motivating sponsors, I would can this marathon, it's going to be a long one! So thank you thank you to all those keeping me motivated!

So a brief break - when I get my head back in a few days i'll be back with a better update, responses to emails and life in general. Until then i'm practicing my best monkey impression while hanging out at the Engels-Holdt's......

Packing....

The container POD arrived today........

....and not a moment too soon, we're all going a little nuts!

This week has been nutso, and the last few days even more so. Needless to say I have only run 5 miles this week, and am beginning to seriously doubt i'm going to be able to make my long run this weekend. Going to have to have some serious make up miles next week! Why again did I decide to tackle the marathon again? It's really going to hurt. Better sponsor me for those miles if you haven't already....:0)

Hope everyone has a way more relaxing weekend than I will!

Moanday....

The above picture is to remind me that this weekend was fun, really, it was a lot of fun. I got to pack, relax, run and spend time with friends, you can't get too much better than that. Had dinner with Jenny, Doug and friends on Halloween night, the photo is Hannah playing peek-a-boo with Doug and me while out waiting for Trick or Treaters!

Today however, I need to moan. Nothing seemed to go right. So today i'm going to list out my moans. Tomorrow, after a state holiday day that I might actually take off (or at least just work at home and mix it up with packing) i'll put up a happy list. Today it's moan list time.

1. A parcel of lab supplies that I ordered 3 weeks ago is still not here. Last week they "lost" it and couldn't find it on the tracking (but knew it left on the 18th October). Today I walked into my office to a phone message saying they know where it is, it's on the boat, but they don't know when it's going to get here. Not only have I had to buy supplies from a more expensive place on island to see us through till these supplies arrive, now it doesn't even look like they'll get here before the container leaves! Ak!

2. A paper I sent out the revisions for came back to me asking for 2 revisions that were already made! Not sure what went on there, but everything they've asked for is already done in the files that are already uploaded. Headquarters for the journal is in Europe, so it'll be a while before they figure it out i'm sure. This is an accepted paper that just needs to GO and stop BUGGING me! (long story....)

3. Last week I had a hard-drive conk out. So I bought a new 2TB one from the University store - Lacie (good brand), good price, good to get it there to get it immediately to save the data from this other drive. That one didn't work (made crunchy noises). Got a replacement on friday, worked, set it up to transfer files (would take 12hrs), walked away. Went into work saturday and it still had 6hrs to go. Hmmm. Didn't have time to deal with it. Walked in today, still had 6hrs to go. Ug. It had corrupted, after some playing around it decided to die completely. I'm now on the third one.......sigh. That one "seemed" to work. Guess i'll find out tomorrow if it did.....

4. And the big one. My car. :0( It is in California. Yay. It's not going any further for a while. Boo. The car shipping is being paid for through the university through invoice. I got the quote, organized the invoice and submitted it to UMaine. Told the car company. They had said originally they wouldn't take it until the invoice was paid. So I waited. The next day (after i'd submitted the paperwork to Maine) they called me up to organize the shipping. I asked if the invoice had been paid, they said no, but it didn't matter they'd take it. What they didn't tell me until friday was that though they would take it, they wouldn't deliver it until the invoice was paid. This is the first I had heard of this, and my car is now in California. So now, unless the invoice is paid by this friday (as I haven't dealt with this in Maine before, I have no idea if this is reasonable - here in Hawaii, that would NEVER happen in time), they want to store it, and they want to charge me for storage. Nice huh. No, it was nowhere in all the paperwork I signed either, I would have noticed and I checked today.

I think the thing that pisses me off about #4 on there is the attitude of the company (Transporter Auto Services - do not use them), they actually said to me today "well if you'd told us how long it would take to get the invoice we wouldn't have taken the car". Well duh, if you'd either asked, or mentioned you wouldn't have delivered it without it, I wouldn't have dropped off the car with you until it was! They've admitted they didn't tell me about that gem, but still want to turn this around to be my fault?!? Yeah, cause i'm knowingly going to give you the most expensive item I (half) own knowing it 'aint going to be delivered.....

Only time will see if this one pans out, until my car is in MA, i'm just not going to stop stressing about it......and I have a feeling it's going to be many more hours of phone calls and emails....

Well....

So I finally sat down and worked out my distance for yesterdays run (long story, but I didn't have my Nike pod in my shoe as i'd put them in my new shoes to try out and forgot to change them back), and as suspected, I lied, I didn't do 18, I did 14.2. I thought it was a tad short......:0)

Oh well, this week was supposed to be a 14 anyway, with next week an 18, but as i'm doing a half marathon race next weekend i'd switched them over. I'm moving into Jenny and Dougs next weekend too (did I mention TIME FLIES!), which will actually work out great for the race, as they live about 2 miles from the start - so i'll run to the start and run back, thereby making it up to pretty darn close to 18 miles next weekend. I'm not sure i'll feel like that was such a good idea next weekend on the way back, but ah well, at least i'll have done the miles, all be it a little broken up!

Hope you're all having a good one, on the cards for today is....you guessed it....packing! And we're moving my large plant pots to Laura's house, as she's going to take them over. First, it must be nap time! I'm already a big fan of midday napping (really need to land a job in Spain!), but with all this running, I seem to need the naps more, especially since my schedule has been so crazy it's been 5-6hrs max at night for me for the last couple of weeks.

Damariscotta Webcam

Check out the webcam from the village in Maine the Darling Marine Center is just down the road from - http://www.mainecoastbookshop.com/webcam2.html

There's a rumor on the loose that just up the coast there is snow......already.....31st October! As I sit here tucked up in my blankets at 74F, I know i'm pretty much in for it......!

Packing....

My office, half packed......also a storage area for boxes, because....

....there is literally no room for any packing boxes in the lab right now. It is packed to the gills down there, both with "stuff" and with people. At the moment we have 7 people vying for time in there. In 1.5 weeks i'm closing the lab, as in 2 weeks, the container arrives and we need time to clean equipment, turn it off, and pack it! 

I thought sending all the samples would free up some room down there, however it looks like all the shelves are just being filled up once again. Good thing i'm going to be getting nearly treble the amount of lab space in Maine, I need it! 

Where's Belle?

There she is! My little car is just 24hrs out of LA onboard the MV Mahimahi (that's tuna in Hawaiian!). After this i'm not going to be able to track her though, so i'm a little scared. I think i'm a little too attached to my car.....

Bye bye Beach Belle

Maybe I should re-name you to Snow Belle when we get to Maine!

Little helper!

Had a fun few hours late this afternoon with little H. Hung around work for a bit, then went back to my place for me to change quickly, but someone got into the packing supplies and was having a ball so we hung around at my place before heading home to see mamma and dadda for pizza! 

Nice duck tape....though it'd be better purple! 

"up up", the new word of the day! 

Still a little climber. My giant white chair was a hit! 

Especially since it meant she could reach the key rack. 

Keys are still a huge favorite! 

Bubble wrap isn't bad either!