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!

Christmas Time Is Here

Merry Christmas Dear Readers,

Well, I had a whopping 5 day weekend last week, which was terrific.  The first two days were spent mainly doing laundry and napping, the perfect way to unwind after a particularly busy week at work trying to finish things off before I start my new job January 18th.

 Pat's girlfriend Beth was over for Christmas, we started the morning right with pancakes and sausages, but then Patrick could wait no longer, he wanted presents!  Here he is opening the Kindle Fire that the whole family got him, he's very excited.  He is coming with Chris and me to Cyprus so he's loading it up with plenty of reading material for the trip.

To Patrick's left is what Chris got me a, GIANT BOX OF LUSH PRODUCTS!!!  tied with a big bow.  Just what I always wanted!  It's the gift that keeps on giving, though I'm going to try to stretch it out for the whole year, we'll see.  We spent all of Christmas day in our pajamas, and played the board game version of QI that Beth got us.  If you haven't seen the show you should check it out.

 The next day, Patrick experimented with shaving the beard he's been growing for all of Beardcember, as he calls it.  Here he is sporting a trucker....

 And the bizzare cowboy look,  (Notice my Lush box in the background).  Fortunatly for all of us, he shaved off the whole thing in the end.  Phew.  I think he was taking a page out of this .

I went to work Thursday and Friday, but have been taking advantage of the pouring rain this weekend to do a bit of crafting.   I used this pattern to turn this XL t-shirt from my friend George....

 Into this super cute racer back dress.  I love how I was able to preserve the whole front motif of the shirt.


I also had another oversize shirt that I used this wrap around pattern to make up a front or back wrap dress for.  The little girl that I sew for gets so big so fast that I am trying out dresses with no waistband, on the mother's recommendation.  The racer back is sized for a two year old, and the wrap 2-3 so hopefully it will hold her for the next year or so!  We probably won't have sunny warm weather for her to wear it as a dress, but she can layer it over a top and tights, though girls that grow up in the UK seem to be able to wear little summer dresses - even in winter!

Oh well, at least we are headed to Cyprus tomorrow where the weather has been about 20 degres C (that's about 70).  It will probably feel warm enough to me to wear a dress, maybe even go to the beach!

Speaking of which, I'm headed off to Oxfordd street to do a little shopping.  After 12 weeks of P90X some of my clothes arn't fitting well and I wanted to see if I can get some stuff in the after Christmas sales to keep me looking good and show off my somewhat fitter body.

Catch you all in the new year!

Just Under the Wire

Hello Dear Readers,

Had another really great weekend (this year seems to have been full of them!).  Adding to the list of my high school friends who have made the trek out here to visit me (Jennifer, Adam and Melch, Matt, Devin, Luke, Amy) Susan sneaks in right at the end of the year!  Hoooray!  She came under the pretense of giving a talk at the Institute of Physics, but I think we can all agree that seeing me is the highlight of the visit!

 Sunday morning I took the tube out to pick her up from Heathrow.  We went up to Great Portland Street to drop her luggage off at the hotel.  Fortunately it was very close to Oxford street so we could spend the day doing a bit of shopping!

 I took her to YumChaa, my favorite tea shop in Berwick Street, then we wandered around such highlights as Liberty, where I fondled the yarn section (as usual, they have ALL the Rowan yarns!)

 And we had fancy tea in their tea room, complete with Christmas themed mini mince pies and a delicious but mysterious jelly (English jelly, Jell-o to Americans) thing with cinnamon flavor.

 We walked around Regent street to see the lights, and of course hit up UniQlo and LUSH!!  Walked to Chinatown, Leicester Square where the Hobbit grand opening was on Friday, Trafalgar Square for some truly weird carols before walking Susan back to her hotel, wet and tired but so happy.

Monday night Susan came to my house for a traditional English dinner of Bangers and Mash.  Don't get excited, that just means sausages (vegan in our case) and mashed potatoes, which I served with a side of stir fried kale.  Yum!  And mango for dessert.

Afterwards we went into the living room to try to get a nice serious photo together, unfortunately we were talking so much and laughing so hard we couldn't really get one.

It looks a bit like that strip of photos you get in a photo booth.  In the third one Susan is recreating a funny high school photo which I don't think I have an electronic copy of (Jennifer?).  I like the last one which is a classic Susan pose where she is clearly explaining something to me in a hilarious manner.  My brother came downstairs and asked what all the laughing and screaming was about but really we couldn't say, it was just funny!

 We did get a semi serious one over here by the fireplace, which is in full Christmas swing now.

My mother and sister sent boxes with gifts, so they are piled up, PLUS the huge mystery present from Chris to me.  No idea.  Also, if you look closely to the right of the American flag is a sweet handmade hand painted Nativity scene Susan's mother, avid reader of this blog (Hello Mrs. Clark!!Thanks for the gift, I love it!) made and sent to me.  It's fantastic!  I'm sure I took a close up photo, but I think it might have been on Susan's camera, which is very similar to mine.

Well, Christmas will be a let down now after Susan's visit, but what can we do? Just get along until the next visit comes around, which I hope will be sooner, rather than later.  Miss you already Susan.

We are spending a quiet Christmas at home, I have Monday through Wednesday off (the day after Christmas, called Boxing Day, is also a national holiday here) so I plan to do ALL the laundry in the house, sheets, towels, heck, maybe even curtains!!  We'll see.  It would just be nice to know that everything was clean starting in the new year.

Hope everyone has a good Christmas, I'll report back soon.

Cheers

Full of Christmas Cheer

Hello Dear Readers,

This weekned we went to our favorite getaway spot in the UK, Cambridge at the house of our good friends Molly and George (and now Katelyn!).  We packed a ton of Christmas stuff into the weekend, spending a good part of the day Sunday making, baking and decorating (and eating!) Christmas cookies. Totally blowing our P90X diet but hey, it's just one weekend!  I've been very good at all my other parties, but I can't resist the holiday feel of a weekend in Cambridge.  We exchanged cookie traditions, me with the dying of the dough before you roll and bake it, Molly with decorating with colored icing.  It's funny you don't think too much about those traditions you have, you think that's juts the way it always is until someone else shakes up your world view for you.

Saturday of course, was devoted to picking out the tree.  Well first I did Pilates with Molly, helped them help a friend move from a 2nd story apartment, had a big lunch and a walk to the Co-op, THEN Chris had woken up enough (they have an amazing guest bed - or ours is just that bad) to go with us to get the tree.

 Katelyn is a lot bigger than the last time I saw her, and knows a lot more words, Christmas Tree being one of them.  George was a man on a mission, and picked out the PERFECT Nordman spruce for them.

He and Chris set it up while Katelyn and I picked up pine needles from the Carpet.  Yes kiddo, cleaning is FUN.  By the way, this is Chris's first real Christmas tree ever, first time picking it out from the Christmas Tree place etc, we even tied it to the roof of the car!!

Molly and George's family had brought their old ornaments, including lots of child friendly ones which Katelyn helped to hang up.  Or rather, smashed onto the lowest branches. 

That's one good looking tree!


In other exciting news, last week I was offered a PERMANENT position at Kew as editor of the IPNI website.  I will be working on wrapping up the job I'm currently doing and then my first day will be the 21st of January.

Truly the year of me, best year ever!


Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season as much as I am.


Cheers!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving dear readers!!

I was planning to post last weekend but I spent all of Saturday in the ER and was pooped on Sunday.  No it wasn't me or EVEN my brother, but my poor housemate Monica who broke her arm while running.  She's a real trooper though, and went to work all this week and is doing fine, just a fracture on her distal radius.

 But of course it's Thanksgiving today so I have to post a little something about what I'm thankful for. It's been a pretty awesome year (The Year of Me, if you recall).  Had a great month off in the Spring, found a job, met lots of new friends at Kew and old friends, and of course I still get to live with my boyfriend and brother AT THE SAME TIME.  And we also all took today and tomorrow off so that it's like a REAL Thanksgiving for us, for the first time in a while (I just took a half day last year and no time off the year before).

 I'm also thankful that this year I was able to get my Tofurkey for Thanksgiving dinner with a minimum of fuss (There is Patrick above carving it with the traditional Tofurkey Bread Knife).  I ended up going to Whole Foods and getting two (one for Christmas) only after going to the local whole foods store at Kew and finding they didn't have it in their order book though they emailed me and told me they had!!

Anyway we had Tofurkey roast with vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, carrots and onion with a soy and orange glaze), giblet gravy, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, fresh home-made whole wheat rolls and vegan pumpkin pie for dessert.  Yum!  Nice and small for just the three of us (though Cat and Jeff joined us on the computer you can see there) and still managed to stay within my P90X requirements - just.

Tomorrow I have a full day planned to spend time with friends, visiting the Natural History Museum for lunch, seeing the Hollywood costume exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum and going to a concert there in the evening.

Right now I'm hanging out with Chris and listening to Alice's Restaurant as is my Thanksgiving Tradition.

Hope you all are enjoying the day, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not!