The high school formerly known as MAA

I was not only the only person from the class of 1986 at Modesto Adventist Academy's Alumni Weekend, I was the only one from the years between 1984 and 1987. How sad is that! I wasn't able to make it to my 20 year reunion two years ago but I was hoping SOMEONE else would turn up this year. On the plus side I did see a lot of people my parents' age who I hadn't seen in some years so that was very nice. I'll try very hard to make it to my 25th in 2011 and hopefully there will be a few people my age.

It's a little disturbing to think that it's been 22 years since I finished high school and that I have a daughter who will be graduating in two months. I'm not quite ready for that yet!

34 Kids sponsored! (and my first radio appearance)

We managed to get 34 children sponsors in a day and a half. Well, less than that really because at the end of Thursday we only had five or six sponsors. We got no new sponsors for the first two hours of Friday but we got more than 25 sponsors in the last couple of hours of Friday! I'd been wanting to sponsor a child but was finding it difficult to find $30 in our budget (everything is costing more than we'd thought here) so I arranged to volunteer two hours a month at work and the station would sponsor the child for me, and as a result Monika sat me down in the studio and interviewed me for a couple of minutes to show people that they could be creative with their giving. I should be getting the information about my little girl shortly - I let the Mission of Mercy guy choose a child for me because he knew which were the most needy. I do know she's from one of the countries in Africa most badly hit by the Aids epidemic. I'll keep you posted.

Lovin' my job

I think I've finally got my head around all the things I need to do and have started to relax into the whole thing and enjoy it. I love being able to listen to music while I work and I'm starting to have favourites I listen for as I work. There is an absolutely gorgeous version of "Amazing Grace" which plays at least every couple of hours. I've put a link in at the left for anyone who wants to see our website and listen to the music. It is wonderful to have a job which I feel makes a difference to the world in some small way.

Next week we are going to be doing some fundraising for "Mission of Mercy" which sponsors children at risk in third world countries - there is a link from The Candle's homepage or you can visit it here. It is only $30 a month to change a child's life.

Among the employed

Well, I've got myself a job. Starting next Monday I will be the Office Manager for KNDL (The Candle) the radio station here in Angwin. It's half time and church wages but it's just enough money to cover our budget and as I only have to work four hours a day I'll have time each day to do some studying and work on hobbies. I will go in on Thursday and Friday to do some handover work with the lady I'm replacing (also called Wendy) and she may come in once or twice next week if needed. It sounds like the job will be interesting and I get to listen to the radio while I work!

David is in Washington DC this week filming some more spots for "Faith and Freedom" so Evie and I drove him to the airport in Sacramento last night and then drove down to my parents'. David got a GPS system for Christmas and it has been SO helpful - especially driving somewhere new in the dark - you don't have to worry about trying to read maps by passing streetlight. Evie is sick with a sinus infection so I took her out of school and she has an appointment at Mom & Dad's doctor tomorrow.

So, that's where we are at the moment. I'll keep you all updated as to how the new job goes.

Snow!

We woke up to this view this morning. After several weeks of weather almost warm enough to wear Tshirts in (at least for those used to UK weather) it has turned and bitten us. Normally I get really excited by snow but now we live in the mountains I thought twice about driving down to Napa (I was supposed to be signing up with temp agencies today). Sadly the white didn't last although it stayed cold and we had snowflakes most of the day.

I can't put off finding a job any longer so I have appointments first thing tomorrow and Thursday morning at Napa temp agencies. I hate having to take their tests to prove how fast I can type and that I know how to use Word and Excel. And I'll have to do it over again at every agency I sign up with! Blech. Anyway, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Finally here!

Well, it has been an enormous effort (and has cost a heck of a lot more than we'd foreseen) but we are finally settling in. We've moved into a tiny but fairly comfortable apartment on the hill across from the college and after several days of chasing our shipment by phone all over California it arrived this afternoon and I've made a start on unpacking it. We've also finally got internet set up in the apartment so I am going to try to be better at keeping in touch with everyone. I haven't found a job yet but I haven't been looking too hard so far. I did apply for a part-time job in a bookstore but they already had some interviews set up so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it - which is too bad because it would have been perfect. I'll go into Napa early next week and sign up at job agencies and do some temping for a while.

It really is beautiful up here, even in January. The weather is mild and sunny now (after a bad winter storm that left us without power for a day!). I'll try and get some pictures up as soon as I can and keep this thing updated regularly.

So much has happened since the last time I updated this. I finished at PwC at the end of February and temped for a couple of weeks in March. Then Genevieve and I spent a week with our good friends Stacy, Claire & James Mitchell and Alveen Thoresen at Stacy’s house in Normandy. It was very cold and actually snowed a couple of days but we chilled out in front of the fire and got a lot of reading done. We also saw the Bayeux Tapestry, which is incredibly well preserved for something made of fabric that’s 1000 years old! The colours were still vibrant and there was such a sense of movement and immediacy about it. Amazing!

I started temping at Reading Borough Council in the Child Protection department at the end of March and absolutely loved it. I really felt like I was making a difference, in my small way, which I’ve never had in any of my previous jobs. I was really sad to have to leave it last month. I’m now just temping till the end of November.

Genevieve finished her GCSEs in June and left straight away to spend the summer with my folks in California and she is now in her senior year at Rio Lindo Academy and has settled in well.

David and I have been spending the last few months getting things prepared for our move to the States – if we had known just how much work and hassle was going to be involved we might have thought twice about doing this, so it’s probably just as well we didn’t.

We had to have our dog, Willoughby, put to sleep last month which was very sad for us, but he was old, arthritic, blind, deaf and increasingly incontinent due to dog dementia and his quality of life was declining so we decided it was the for the best. We found him at the dog rescue four years ago and he has brightened our lives and we like to think we gave him a really good home in his declining years.

I may not have time to update this before we leave but I will try very hard to update regularly when we are in the States so you can see what we are getting up to there.

Major Update

OK - I join the long list of people who start a blog and never update. However, I have big news and thought this would be a good way to share it.

1) I've quit my job. Well, actually, they were making noises about cutting back in my department so I pre-empted them and said that if voluntary redundancy was on the cards I'd be interested. So, here I am two weeks later about to finish on a job I've been at for over seven years. Fortunately, the package was good enough I can pay off some debts and have enough left over as a buffer in case I have periods where there is no temp work and enough to cover December so I can go to California early.

2) Which leads me to major news item number two - we are moving to California for the year 2008. David has accepted a year-long research position at Pacific Union College. We will only be 2-2 1/2 hours from Mom & Dad and Lauren, Fin and the girls. I'm so excited I'm beside myself! Of course I already have a list as long as my arm of things we have to do before we go... David and I are getting UK citizenship so we don't have any problems when we want to come back (Genevieve of course is already a citizen by birth); David has to sort out work permits; we have to find tenants to rent the house while we are away; we have to do a major cull of junk and decide what goes, what stays and what will come with us; get quotes for shipping our stuff; I've got to get the house in a fit state to be rented out; we have to decide what to do with the pets - one frail, elderly dog, one middle aged cat and a budgie (parakeet). Arghhhh!

So, we will be looking forward to seeing all our friends on the other side of the pond and getting to know my nieces better.

I'll try and keep this updated with our progress as we get ready to go.

Links

I'm having a little trouble getting the links up to my favourite sites - bear with me and eventually I'll figure it out!

In the meantime I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. As soon as I get the (few) pictures I took downloaded I'll post them here.

Early garb attempts

This is my first attempt at a blog. It's really just to give the folks at home a chance to see what I'm up to.

These are pictures of some of my first attempts at garb for the SCA.





So far I've made four linen shifts, the green linen dress Gen is wearing, my purple linen dress, two wool dresses (one for each of us) and a couple of linen dresses for my friend Stacy (see above) and her daughter Claire.

Gen's is from a pattern she found (Simplicity if I remember rightly) - it's not entirely 12th century but she liked it and it works as a first attempt. It started out terracotta and cream (dyed from plain white linen) but she decided she'd rather have green so I used some dye remover on it and re-dyed it dark green and it has turned out really lovely. My purple dress is a basic T-tunic pattern and it looks a little bag-like because I didn't have a belt on. Stacy's is a t-tunic underneath and on top is a linen dress she already had which didn't quite fit so I took the sides out and put eyelets in so she could lace it up. We are both quite happy with the way it turned out.

I'll try and get a picture of up the wool dresses I made as well. I made them from plaid wool I found at our local "hole in the wall" fabric shop for 99p a metre! They are also basically modified T-tunics. When I made mine I was thinking I'd have a 13th century persona so I made it with Magyar sleeves but I've decided since to go for 1400 but it will be OK - I'm actually going to eventually try to have an outfit for every period because I can't decide which I like best!

I love the feeling of linen and wool, I love wearing it and I love working with it. Just gorgeous! I've just brought home a stack of fabric and things from my mom (more on that later) so I'm well stocked for the moment.