I've got a dream

Hello Dear Readers,

If you haven't seen Disney's relatively new film Tangled, you should.  It's hilarious, Disney at its best, the villains are so very evil, the good guy is very handsome, and the anthropomorphized animals steal the show.  It also has a great song called "I've got a dream" which if you haven't seen, you should check out this video for it.
 
 I've got three dreams really, have for a while.  One of these dreams began my second year of my undergraduate at William and Mary, taking Plant Systematics.  That was to work at Kew Gardens.  Well as you know I got a job there when I first moved to the UK, but the economy being what it is, my jobs were all temporary.  This week marks what I hope will be many hundreds of weeks to come of my PERMANENT JOB AT KEW as editor of IPNI.  Here is a screen shot of some of the work I did on my first day (hopefully you can click to make bigger?).

Yup. I put those in there. Me.  So far my job consists of trolling through recent publications looking for new species names or combinations and putting them on the website for the whole world (ok, the whole world of botany) to see and know they are there.  It's kind of coming full circle for me because the first real science job I ever had was at the Smithsonian, trolling through Paleobotanical journals putting collection information into the paleodb.org website...... ah nostalgia.

My second dream has been to travel to Asia, specifically either China, Japan or Korea, but other countries would suit.  I applied for a few teaching posts in Japan and Thailand when I was finishing my undergrad, but they didn't come to anything.  I do have, however, two good friends there, one living in Beijing and one in Seoul, so I'm making plans to go visit them either this year or next, so I'm getting closer to filling this one!

Lastly, but in some ways firstly, ever since I started earning money in High School I've been putting money away, at first in a piggy bank, bank account, and eventually mutual funds etc for the one thing I really want.  Many girls I suppose dream of a fairytale wedding or having a family but for me the ultimate dream is having a place of my own (see another Disney reference here).  Maybe it comes from being an Army brat and then struggling botanist, always shifting from one crappy rental to another, but this is my one big dream.  Doesn't have to be fancy, no big old gingerbread house with a white picket fence for me, it just has to be (more or less) mine.  A place to put nails in the wall, hang pictures, paint whatever color I want.  Invest in, plant a garden, buy furniture.  Well this weekend we got some news that our landlord is selling the house this summer.  That means we will be on tenterhooks waiting to hear if we are kicked out or not, that's the bad news.  The GOOD news is that Chris is on the case, and he is looking as only he can into our options for buying - a place of our own.  Nothing big or fancy, just a tiny two bedroom in or near Putney where he, Patrick and I can live.  And hang pictures (I have two in mind specifically).  And maybe paint a wall or two something other than Rental White (robins egg blue?).  And have a big futon in the living room for guests!!  We'll see, I don't want to get my hopes up just yet as this is England and things like this fall through all the time, but keep your fingers crossed for us and I'll keep you posted.

In knitting news, I've been doing a TON but unfortunatly it's all for people who read the blog, and it's all a secret.  I thought of jumbling up the pile of it and taking a photo - letting people who are getting the knitting try to guess what it is and if it's for them, but ultimatly it's just easier to show you this whale fail :

They are very comfy legwarmers, in an exquisite shade of bluey-purpley heather marl, but the gauge was a little loose, they were a little too slouchy, and frankly I needed the yarn for another more important project.  Ah well, legwarmers were always a short lived fad, weren't' they, and the weather has warmed up considerably here (it was 8 C today).  Anyway, I'll be showing the finished objects soon, very soon, so just hang tight.  In the meantime I've discovered the amazing blog for Hoxton Handmade and her Electric Sheep podcast, check it out if you don't already listen.  (And Steph, I know you've been a fan for years, I just had to get around to it eventually, now that Sticks and Strings is over and Brenda is less frequent).

Cheers!!

Dickensian London?

Hello Dear Readers,

What an exciting weekend, full of one of my favorite things - aside from raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens- I love SNOW!

 And we've had plenty of it here, starting on Friday morning, and continuing today and scheduled to go on throughout the week.  We spent a lovely hour over our lunch break at Kew on Friday playing in the snow, and enjoyed a warm cozy evening at the pub with mulled apple cider (alcoholic) and good friends as the snow continued to fall outside.  It was my last day working on the Reflora project on Friday, and I'm looking forward to starting my new post on Monday!!

I also I enjoyed the snow today on my way home from teaching knitting and shopping.

 

 Aww, our house all snowy, so lovely! Last night Chris and I walked back from Hammersmith in the snow, a quiet evening with beautiful snowy woods, it really makes the dark winter something special.  It also makes me start knitting furiously, I finished up a lot of projects when I got back from Cyprus, and promptly started a few more.  Mostly socks for Patrick when he rows, but I finished this sweater for me:

Doesn't it look great in the snow?  It's out of camel wool a friend got me from her trip to China, in exchange for two weeks of cat sitting.  I have four cakes of it and this sweater only took two (it helps that I'm nice and svelte from my P90X and Insanity work outs, not to mention eating the healthy goodies from the Oh she glows website.).  I just might do another since this is so nice, and warm!

I'm also doing some LEGWARMERS to wear when cycling in the snow and in my new office, since it's supposed to be a bit cooler than my old one.

Ah, really enjoying it while it lasts, I'm making a walnut loaf with roast new potatoes and brocolli for dinner, just the sort of thing for a snowy winter evening.

Hope you are all enjoying this winter wonderland if you are in the UK, and if not, nah nah na nahhhh!!!!

Cheers!

Cyprus Detox

Hello Dear Readers,

Phew, had a loooong break in Cyprus, 10 days.  It was pretty nice and warm when we got there, warmer than London anyway, but by the last day it actually snowed a little bit in the morning, extremely rare for Paphos.  I spent most of my time relaxing, though I did keep up (mostly) my P90X to the very last day.  The hardest part was continuing to eat right.  I did ok at the start of the trip, forgoing my usual pre flight Full English Breakfast for granola and fruit, but envied Patrick chugging his Eggs Benedict and Latte.....

I think my mother in law doesn't believe there is any food worth eating in London and tries to fatten me up to tide me over till my next visit.  In the end though I did manage to lose almost a stone (that's 14 pounds) and dropped a bra size, hooray!  Still can't do a pull-up, but I've definitely improved my upper body strength.  As a bonus, the ache in my right hip is also a lot less, pretty much the physical therapy I needed to get over the worst of it.

We tried to make the most of the good weather by doing a little bit of sight seeing, taking a hike in the Akamas nature region and checking out an archeological sight.

 Here we are at the north east corner of the island, not quite as high as it looks, but a good hike.

Patrick even got in a little bit of yoga at the top, though I don't thing jeans were made for the crow pose.

And after all that hiking we had to indulge in some Frappe's by the seaside.  It's great going in the off season, the service is spectacular, and this place served the best bread I ever tasted.

 At least we weren't as cold as these guys, who are preparing to jump into the sea after the cross on the epiphany.  Greek Orthodox celebrate the 6th of January as the day of Christ's baptism (they will all swear they are Greek Orthodox, but I wonder how many actually know that's why they throw the cross?)  We actually got there early this year and had a front row seat at one of the cafe's.

We also met up with our friends Georg and Margharita, and their two kids.  It was getting pretty late when we got to see them, and Andreas decided he wanted to take a nap in his bathtub.  Of course then little George wanted to get in too, so Dad had to intervene and break them up, which HE did by getting into the bathtub!! Good times.

 We had a spectacular sunset over some 2nd century AD ruins, though this was near the end of our trip and getting pretty chilly, I had to pull my snood over my head.
 

We also, on Patrick's suggestion, spent a day at the neighboring city of Limassos.  We had been there once or twice, but never really to explore the city.  I was plesently surprised by the lovely seaside walk, quaint historical shopping area and sites of interest.  I think we'll definatly put this on our list of places to explore in Cyprus.

Overall not a bat trip, it helped a lot to have someone else to talk to in English!  But I'm glad to be home.  I've put myself on a Cyprus Detox Diet, mainly eating stuff from this amazing website that I just can't get enough of.  Really, I haven't tried anything from here that I didn't like, give it a go! 

I'm also working on my New Years Plans, this year it is to work my way through the enormous Lush box Chris gave me, paying lots of attention to pampering my body now that I'm past the 30 mark.  I also will be spicing up my cooking by working my way through the recipes on the Oh She Glows blog as linked to above.  Sometimes you just get tired of making the same things, or at least Chris gets tired of what I make, so I'm going to really make an effort this year to cook some brand new things every week.  Of course the biggest New Years Plan is to learn eveyrthing I need to for my amazing new job!

But first, I have to go change my bike tire, I've only been putting it off since October.......

Cheers and Happy New Year!