kareina

After having such a productive day yesterday in terms of packing and moving, I had had good intentions for today to be another such day. Alas, clovis_t and I got to bed rather late, and then couldn't fall asleep. I was somewhat sore from all of the furniture and box moving, and would have liked a hot shower to help me relax. Alas, the shower here shares a wall with his parent's bedroom, and his mother had already gone to sleep, so I didn't really wish to disturb her. There is another shower at the other end of the house, but it has been used as storage space, and I wasn't motivated enough to go look to see if it was still storage or if it were usable. After a couple of hours of not really sleeping I finally got up around 04:00 and spent 30 minutes doing some cleaning in the kitchen before returning to bed and actually sleeping till after 09:00.

Woke up still tired, and somewhat sore (no surprises there, really) and moving kind of slow. Went into uni and got more moving boxes and then up the hill to the old house. Had plans to pack everything in the kitchen. Instead I loaded the food into bags and put them in the car and baked a birthday cake and passed on some of the furniture we aren't keeping to someone from FreeCycle. By the time I'd done all of that, and <lj user="clovis_t" finished packing our paperback books and emptying his bookshelf & recycling the various uni papers he no longer needs it was time to head to dance practice. It was the last dance practice of the year, since the 22nd the room is booked for a private party, so some of us attended in costume, and we took a mid-dance break for birthday cake. There were enough of us present that we had 12 dancers for most dances, and a couple of extra watching. Much fun! I'm liking this week night dance practice stuff much better than the old Saturday afternoon one. So tomorrow we plan to actually get up early enough to go finishing packing everything and haul it all away so that I can spend my birthday scrubbing walls, ceilings and cupboards so that we can give the keys back on Thursday so that all I have to worry about on Friday is the citizenship ceremony and party. Next week: Uni work and getting settled in here, and more uni work, followed by more uni work. I hope.

This time my charmed life came through for me in terms of first rate moving help. A friend of mine in Alaska e-mailed me recently to say that one of her friends was visiting Tasmania, and should she send him to me. I said "of course", and boy, am I glad I did. In the couple of days he stayed with us he took down the blinds and repaired them so that they would open and close, did some pruning and cleaning up in the garden, helped us carry many boxes to the vehicles, took apart our bed so we could move it, took down our shower head and installed the one the house came with, and then, finally, helped up load the heavy furniture onto the truck and filled his rental car with a load of boxes and brought them to the new house for us, where he helped us get everything safely into the room!

The bedroom Crian grew up with is huge! We've put the queen sized bed, his huge desk, my recliner and computer table (which slides over my lap whilst I recline), and several book cases (well, two of them are on the desk!) in there, and it looks like there might, just, be enough room left over for yoga. Alas, I am not reclined in my comfy chair typing on my own computer. We don't yet have internet set up to reach that part of the house, so I'm typing on one of those weird split keyboards (which has the "b" key on the wrong side of the split, in my opinion), and noting that the finger which got bruised in the course of moving furniture hurts when I use it to press keys.

We are now largely "moved in". Tonight I still need to clear off some stuff from the bed so that I can make it, and empty the closets in that room so that when we bring our clothes over tomorrow there will be some place to put them. Tomorrow we need to get more boxes, finish packing the books, start packing the kitchen, and start cleaning the house itself. We will also need to advertize the fridge, washer and dryer. The lady who had said a couple of days ago that she wanted them and would pick them up today called to say today that she doesn't want them after all. :-( I wish she'd have said that on Friday, I think that Saturda's newspaper would have been the best place to put such an ad, and we need to have everything out of the house by Thursday.

I can't access my SCA e-mail account from here, because I can't find the web mail on the new SCA web page, so if you need to reach me use my uni address until I get internet in our bedroom (might not be for a few days). If anyone knows a way to access the SCA web mail (if it still exists) please let me know.

Happy Birthday to both gurdymonkey and tafelspitz! As I type there are 30 minutes left of your natal day in my time zone, but oodles left of it in yours. I celebrated by attending an SCA event where I made progress on the case for my new hammer dulcimer, enjoyed good food, good conversation, and the happy sound of armoured combat and field heralds in the background. Then I came home and kept packing. Had to stop because not only was it getting late, but we've used up the boxes we'd brought home, so we need to pick up more. I hope you both truly enjoy your birthdays, may your next year in life bring you much joy and interesting things to learn.

And an additional Happy Birthday to the_cheese_lady, which starts here in about 30 minutes, but not for a fair bit longer in your time zone. I'll celebrate by moving house, but I hope you celebrate with something even more entertaining! May your day bring you joy, and your next year bring adventures of the positive sort!


(Yes, for those of you keeping track--that is three days in a row with no thesis progress. Good thing I *like* moving...)

The closest thing to "uni work" I accomplished today was 45 minutes this evening spent checking the various positions to which I might wish to apply to find those who's initial application deadline has already past. Those I sent a quick e-mail stating that I'd seen their ad and are they still seeking applicants? I included a link to my CV and let them know that if they were still seeking applicants I'd be happy to submit a formal packet. I've also made note of the one with a 15 December deadline, and the fact that the others are all in early January. The quest for something interesting to do once I finish this degree continues!

The rest of the day was spent in various tasks towards the goal of moving this weekend. In the morning clovis_t and I went in to uni and picked up more empty boxes from the "box store room" in the geology department. A useful place, largely full of boxes computer paper arrives in, and a few other sorts. Even found one large enough to pack my big cookie sheets! From there we when out to Allens Rivulet to finish preparing the room to move into. Of course, in order to get it empty, I first had to do some re-arranging of the boxes of things in the rumpus room. Thanks to some organizing and stacking of boxes the stuff that was already there, plus the stuff from what is about to become our room (again) now takes up less floor space than did just the one pile yesterday. Have I mentioned recently that I enjoy organizing and packing things in a space efficient manner? We didn't have much time available out there, because we needed to be back at this house by 13:30 to meet a lady interested in purchasing our refrigerator, washer and dryer. She decided she wants it, so will meet us here late in the day Sunday to pick them up. Yay! One more set of large items dealt with!

After that it was packing, organizing, dealing with FreeCycle e-mails connecting with other people who will come take away the stuff we no longer need, and meeting our houseguest. He is a friend of a friend in Alaska who has come to Tasmania to spend five weeks doing a bicycle tour of the state. He's got a rental car for the first few days and is using our house as a home base while he gets his bearings and finds a bicycle he can use for his adventure, be it purchased or borrowed (so if anyone local has a working mountain bike they'd let him use, let me know). He's already offered to help us with moving, which is sweet, but I hope that he spends more time checking out this beautiful island than he does being useful with the great moving project.

In other news, darttn is one of the world's best moms. The Hammer Dulcimer e-mail list recently recommended a book, but when I checked the ordering page, they stated that they don't process payments over the internet, that it is necessary to actually call them over the phone to give them credit card details. Not wishing to place an international call, I asked mom to call them for me, and told her to withdraw the cash from my Alaskan Bank account (of which she is a joint account member, for just this sort of purpose). Today she tells me that the book is in the mail, and Merry Christmas, *and* she says that she's put additional cash into my account so that we can go shopping for new luggage, since she figures that it will come in handy when we do travelling/moving next year. She is so wonderful! Thoughtful too!

I've just taken an entire day off of uni work. My first since May. Well, I did read my 1000 words of geologic literature, but while interesting and informative, and certainly uni related, it does not progress the thesis (though one could argue that doing this reading every day does improve the overall quality of the thesis).

So, what did I do? See the subject line! I've said it before, I love moving! Call me weird, if you must, but it is true. It was actually fun to work on areas of the house, clean them out, decide what to get rid of and what to keep, pack some stuff, and set others up to make packing easier later (since we are moving into a fully equipped home, I am *not* going to pack my kitchen until after Sunday, when we move our selves, such furniture as we are keeping (the bed, our computer desks and chairs, my file cabinet, and the small night stand thing we keep our toiletries in, and which is an important part of my computer work station (as is the file cabinet, which holds my second monitor)).

Unfortunately, to accomplish all of this I had to clean up some of the belongings that the tall apprentice *still* hasn't taken away. He was given the deadline of 1 November to move out and have his stuff gone and everything clean and spotless. However, the lad doesn't drive, so he has been coming up the hill at random intervals, usually with his mother, who does drive, and packing and loading a small amount and then going away again. While I've told him that it would be kind to the drivers if he'd do prep work in advance of their arrival and have everything packed and ready to go, he never did organize anything, just left his messes wherever they happened to be for the rest of us to stumble over. Sigh. The lad has a heart of gold, but... He simply doesn't understand why I consider his mess to be undesirable, I don't have to be out of the house for a week, why should I care if he still has things here? Nor do I think he will understand how much easier my life is now that his shelves in the pantry have been emptied (all bagged up and waiting for him to collect) and the contents of the fabric chest of drawers stacked neatly there, awaiting the great kitchen packing. (Why use paper for packing when one has a fabric stash? The fabric has to be shipped, the kitchen toys have to be shipped, why not do it together?)

So I've put in many hours of work, advertised a few more things for sale, and even more were posted to FreeCycle (thank you etfb for your post the other day alerting me to the fact that it exists in Australia--I'd checked for a Hobart Craig's list years ago and didn't find one, and never thought to look for any such thing again, figuring that they simply hadn't made it here). So the day involved work a bit, check the computer, reply to the folk wanting stuff, back to work, check back in, send more replies, go clean or organize, or pack something else. I'm very satisfied with the progress, particularly as clovis_t was just as busy packing and cleaning other stuff. Once we were finally done for the day, around 19:30, we decided to go for a bit of a jog, which felt *really* good--it has been raining lots lately, so the air was fresh and clean. And my exercise log for the month is looking good--clovis_t pointed out that all of the hard work I'm doing with the cleaning/packing/etc. must count as exercise, so I decided to credit it at 25% of the time is exercise. Funny, that puts my total for the past couple of days up where I want it! (You don't think that is "cheating", do you?)

I haven't yet played with the Hammer Dulcimer today, because I'd told myself that it would be a reward for doing uni work, but I did give it the final polish Harry recommended with very fine grade steel wool and oil (I used almond oil, which I had in the kitchen, rather than the suggested linseed oil, which would have required shopping). I should have taken a photo, but didn't get the camera, so you will have to wait another day.

Plan for tomorrow:

Check the various job listings which sounded interesting to see if I've missed any deadlines, and if any deadlines are looming, and if appropriate, apply.

Do some uni work.

Play the Hammer Dulcimer.

Work on the case for the Hammer Dulcimer.

Get some exercise.

Pass on some more of the stuff I'm getting rid of to their new people.

and, if there is still any time or energy left, pack some more.

Here's hoping I can manage it all!

Time has been zipping along, doing is normal trick of disappearing much faster than I think it ought. On Saturday I was busy all day, but only managed 3.5 hours of uni work. And I can't blame e-mail, because sca.org e-mail addresses were down that day, so I had no new messages needing replies. Went to a "Heritage Bush Dance" on Saturday evening, and had much fun dancing.

Today I managed even less uni work--not quite an hour all up :-(

However, I went for a ride on my trike for the first time in ages, and we've done some packing, and found a number of items we need to be rid of before moving, and I've advertised the stuff for sale to the geology department and local SCA e-mail lists, and have posted a variety of miscellaneous stuff to FreeCycle, many of which have found homes already.

In the evening I was still restless and not working, so I went down the hill to baronsnorri's new home and got to meet his sweet new kitten, Fleur, and the amazingly friendly young rooster he's gotten (there are advantages to renting a house on 5 acres of land from sensible landlords who approve of animals). He got the rooster because his hens keep going "clucky" and trying to sit on their eggs (and then they quit laying any new ones), and he thinks that if they are that determined to sit the eggs, he may as well arrange things so that there will be a purpose to the exercise. However, this rooster is still too young for that, but he will grow. In the mean time he is friendly enough that he lept out of the pen and into baronsnorri's arms, and then settled happily down and quit making the sad lonely noises (the hens aren't yet being nice to him).

After that I came home, replied to all of the e-mails asking after the things I'd advertised on FreeCycle, and then did a tiny bit more uni work. Alas, tomorrow isn't looking great for uni work either, as we will be heading to clovis_t's parent's house to clear out the room into which we will be moving at the end of the week, and then from there I'll go pick up my new Hammer Dulicemer from the talented artist who made it. I am *really* excited about that part of my plans! I can't wait to see what he's done with it, and will post photos tomorrow evening...

Today's useful task involved finishing cleaning 30 Million (ok, so I exaggerate some) bottles my tall apprentice left behind when he moved out. The boy is a coffee addict and, it turns out, he has gone through a fair bit of peanut butter over the past couple of years. I know this because when he left he left his shelves in the pantry largely full of empty containers of peanut butter and coffee. I think he'd been saving them because he knows that I like to use empty glass or plastic jars to hold my various nuts, grains, and seeds, which I buy in bulk, to keep them from being a temptation for any rodents or insects who happen to check out the house to see if it would make a good home. However, in his months of jar collecting, it never occurred to him to wash them, so I started the process last night, and finished it up this morning, and I now am the happy owner of many jars in a variety of useful shapes and sizes, labels removed and ready to fill with food. Fortunately, I managed to get this largely accomplished, and was in the stage of re-matching lids to clean jars when the rental agency arrived to show some prospective tenants the house.

This afternoon's task involved sending in an application letter and CV for that post-doc position I mentioned yesterday (yes, mom, I e-mailed you the final draft of the cover letter so you can see how it turned out in the expanded version).

In between and after all of that I managed to write another 654 words for the thesis, and add 8 new figures and tables.

And my personal e-mail in-box is still empty. However, in this case I don't think it is a good thing. My SCA e-mail address hasn't had any new mail all day, and I don't think it is because everyone has been enjoying Thanksgiving. I think there is something wrong with the SCA e-mail system again, because I can't send mail out and none is coming in via Eudora, and when I tried logging into webmail instead, the log in page wasn't there, instead I wound up at the SCA stock clerk's page. But I don't want to order publications, I wish to send an e-mail! Hopefully they will have noticed and solved whatever the problem is by the time I wake up in the morning, but in the meantime, if you need to reach me, use my uni e-mail address--I won't see comment notifications here unless I go looking for them, because the e-mail notices all go to the address which isn't working at the moment.

This morning's task was incorporating the edits suggested by my advisor to chapter five. I foolishly didn't do a word-count after completing that task, but there much have been far more edits involving deletions than additions, because this evening I started adding information on a couple of samples, and when I stopped the net change was an additional 57 words and three figures.

Just at the moment I'm a bit frustrated, because I have vivid memories of an ArcMap file which shows the locations of one of my microprobe sessions, and I need to consult it to complete the writing on the sample I'm doing, but I can't find that particular file anywhere. I can find all of the others for the other samples, but this one is missing. Sigh. Must be a sign that I'm done for the day. Perhaps tomorrow it will be where I expect it to be.

It has been a rainy few days, which is good, because it needs it, but it has complicated things--this is the weekend baronsnorri is moving into his new place, and he's had to find times it wasn't coming down to transport his boxes of books. I will miss having him around, but it will be easier to pack our stuff over the next couple of weeks when his stuff is gone.

I spent the morning and afternoon trying some more calculations which, as it turns out, simply didn't work. Sigh. Therefore of the 6 1/2 hours of Uni work I did today, 4 hours, 40 minutes turned out to be a waste of time. However, after I gave up on that attempt and went for a walk I suddenly started being productive--this evening I managed to write an additional 759 words and completed another 6 figures and tables for the thesis, and there was much rejoicing!

And my advisor has finally returned the chapter he looking at, so as soon as I get this one done (soon, I hope!) I've got plenty to do for the next.


I have also determined that we control freaks don't like letting others do for us. With the date of our move starting to loom closer clovis_t has started the process of packing our books. My did I have a reaction to that--I am *not* accustomed to anyone other than me packing my books, and whilst he is keeping an inventory of which books are going into which box, still I'm a twitching for not doing it myself. I so need to learn to delegate! And since I *can* let him do the books, and he can't do my thesis, I'll learn to cope, but still! And knowing that I won't be unpacking them when we move in with his parents doesn't help. I am normally a unpack everything and have all the books on the shelves and everything else put away within two weeks of moving into a place, but we don't know how long we will be here or how much notice we will have before moving, and there isn't much room in the one room we will have at their house, so it *does* make more sense to pack things well enough to ship them, and leave them packed while we stay there. But darn it, those are my books, I love them. Even when I don't have time to read them, I still want to be able to gaze upon their spines and marvel upon them...

Today (24 June 2018) I asked Khevron if he could remember which month it was that I first moved in with him, so he checked some really old files on his computer and found the below letter and sent it to me, so I am posting it here, with the original date as the posting date.

I finally found a place to move to!

I had been worried because May is rapidly approaching, and I need to get out of the Student Apartment complex by early May. We had been looking in the paper for a three bedroom place (for Ron, Khevron and I), preferably a house. I didn’t want to be in an apartment. We did look at a couple which we liked, but lost out to whomever saw it just before we did.

Due to the lack of reasonably priced (or any-at-all for that matter) three bedroom houses in the paper I finally broke down and started calling the apartment complexes and condos advertised for rent. That must have been good enough for my karma, because after getting back from a Friday morning appointment to look at an apartment (good location, nice enough rooms, but most bedroom-closets are larger than the kitchen there) we checked the paper again, and found a 3/4 bedroom advertised.

Calling the number, the guy was surprised to hear from us--he didn’t expect the ad to show up until Sunday! At last--we were the first callers! So we went straight out to look at it. It is located between North Pole and Fairbanks--about 13 miles from campus. One minus. The neighborhood didn’t look very promising--lots of _small_ run-down houses and a couple of trailers--all fairly close together. Another minus. The house is red and mostly fills its lot--which is completely bare of trees. A third minus.

But wait--as you open the front door you see coat hooks. One small plus. The house used to be a duplex, and was re-molded into a single-family dwelling. _Two_ completely separate living rooms--with a coat closet in each in addition to the previously mentioned coat hooks. Another plus. A big kitchen. With a PANTRY!!!!!!! Two very big pluses! A large, cool crawl space under the house for more storage. One bedroom and bathroom on the north side of the house. View out the back of the neighbor’s trees (this will be my room). More pluses. Two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a tile-floor room open to the living-room on the other side of the house. Putting up shelves as walls will make that a fourth bedroom, so we can add a fourth to our number and make rent cheaper. There are even two washer-dryer hook-ups to chose from. And did I mention the pantry?! I haven’t had a pantry since 1986, I miss having one. They are in the process of re-painting the whole place and putting in all new tile on the floors. The carpet looks new too. I’m convinced.

Joe, the owner can see how excited I am about the house. By this time I have forgotten all of the minuses on the drive in. He explains that he owns the place and is looking for someone who will take care if it. He lives in California with his CPA wife, and can’t make it back up here that often, so he wants responsible tenants. If it were up to him, he would rent to me on the spot, but we need to get rental applications from his wife--do we have a fax? Yes, we do have access to one. We got home, got the fax, sent her back the applications and called Bryan, one of Khevron’s friends--did he want to move in with us if we get the place? He goes to look at it and decides, that yes, he’d be happy living there. While he is there Joe tells him that his wife says it’s a go. So I head back out there to give him a deposit.

Finally, a home selected--and still eleven days to spare until the first of the Month!