Lots of big news to announce soon, which somewhat explains the lack of Wednesday Wonderful and This Week in Links posts. Wednesday Wonderful will be back tomorrow.
Until then, enjoy this pic from the Mountain Winery ampitheatre. Some friends and I went up there for a wine tasting after Easter Brunch on that gorgeous day.
And yes, I have caved to Instagram now that I have a phone with a good camera. I am but a sheep.
It’s been six months since we made the big move from Florida to California. What have I been spending my time doing?
Obviously, the big event in August was the actual move: the challenge of finding a place, of getting Elphie out here, the missing home.
We did some exploring: up into the mountains and down to the coast, a quick jaunt to Santa Cruz for dinner, our first trip into the city as California residents rather than tourists. We had a kind stranger take this lovely picture of us and used it on postcards to tell friends about our new address.
In September, we started enjoying all the events that the Bay Area has to offer. We went to a Stanford game and I was shocked at their tiny stadium. We saw Fiona Apple in San Jose. We watched an Opera at AT&T Park. We caught Azure Ray in San Francisco (but arrived too late to see Soko). I checked out the Pier 39 seals with my mom and nephew.
We got a sneak preview of the Winchester House’s Fright Night (but saved the house for later). We went to a Salsa Festival in Redwood City one day and heard Alanis Morissette in Golden Gate Park while chilling in a playground with my sister-in-law and nephew the next. I discovered Meetups and rediscovered my love of the library.
In October, I ventured into the City on CalTrain to experience some art and attend a book reading by Gretchen Rubin. We went to beautiful Capitola to cheer on some friends doing the Mermaid Triathalon. I got my feet wet in the job marketing with a part time consulting gig. We saw Joshua Radin and A Fine Frenzy in San Francisco and due to a seat mix-up, got moved to the front row. We took a road trip to Huntington Beach to see some good friends and when we got home from that, my best friend was visiting the city so good times were had with her.
In November, I reconnected with old co-workers who were in town for the AAMC conference and it was great to see them. A morning doing the Mermaid Run 5K with friends turned into an all day SF outing as we headed to the Red Bull Flugtag afterwards to check out the festivities. My parents came out for Thanksgiving and I hosted dinner for my family. I took my first trip to Muir Woods with them and was awed at the massive trees. On Black Friday, we saw Andrea Bocelli in San Jose and were awed at his talent.
December brought the cold to the Bay Area and brought us back to the Winchester House to tour the place. It was actually really sad in a strange way. I also got to attend another NASASocial (previous NASASocial coverage) for the AGU 2012 Conference where I met some great people and attended great panels, including one with James Cameron. After an early morning meetup in the city, I spent the day sightseeing one day, finally finding the famous Painted Ladies.
We went to the Fantasy of Lights in Los Gatos, where, after a 45 minute wait to get in, we saw some delightful lights displays. I got to attend another cool event: LinkedIn ConnectYou session at the LinkedIn HQ where I listened to some recruiters talk about what they look for on LinkedIn profiles and got to work with other job seekers and LinkedIn employees sprucing up my profile. I also got a new profile picture taken which you can see on most of my social media sites (and on my About and Resume pages). After that, it was off to England for a lovely Christmas with the in-laws.
In January, we managed to snag some of the last tickets to one of Eddie Izzard’s Work In Progress, workshopping material for his upcoming tour. Another ticketing snafu led to us getting moved up to fifth row, center. Ticketing snafus have almost become my friend. We experienced a bit of how the other half lives thanks to my husband’s company’s Holiday Party, held at the swanky Terra Gallery in downtown San Francisco. The place looked wonderful, the food was delicious, and the cake pops for dessert were amazing. On a weekend, we took a trip out to the Blackhawk Automobile Museum in Danville and found one of the most legendary car collections imaginable. My husband was like a kid in a candy store. Who am I kidding? I kinda liked it, too… especially this lovely lavender car:
The fun that we’ve been having doesn’t end there. On the concerts side, we’re seeing comedy music team Garfunkel and Oates this weekend and I’ve got tickets to The Package Tour to have a girls’ night out with my sister-in-law for July. Spurring on my job search even more are all the amazing concerts that are coming up in the area that I haven’t gotten tickets yet for: Lisa Loeb this month, Kate Nash and Marina and the Diamonds in May and BEYONCE in July. And those are only the ones that I need tickets for like I need air.
In activities, I’m already signed up for the Gladiator Rock N Run in June and want to commit to the Mermaid Triathlon (or at least the Duathlon) soon. There’s also a duathlon in Napa that my husband is thinking of doing with me, but we haven’t committed to that yet, either.
We still have so much to explore: husband hasn’t been to Muir Woods yet. We want to head out to Redwood park near Oakland. And we’ve got to find those trees you can drive through. Friends and family want to visit and I can’t wait to show them around places. I’m making really great progress on the job front, finally getting comfortable “selling” myself and being pushy enough to get my name to the top of the pile, so I know something great will happen there soon.
Slowly but surely we’re finding our places and making new friends. I’m hosting my first brunch soon, something I loved doing in Florida. Sometimes it still doesn’t quite feel like home, but that’s to be expected after living in Gainesville for most of my life. It’s getting there, though. Having family nearby helps, especially when your three year old nephew likes to tell you, out of the blue, that he loves you. The drive up to the city on 280, through gorgeous mountains and past the shock of blue Crystal Springs Reservoir, is always a moment of serenity to me; a feeling that this is right, I belong here, things are going the right direction.
I can’t wait to see what the next six months bring.
Actual thing that happened to me in the city today:
As I was perusing maps in the visitor’s center, a man came up to me and said “Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful.” I blushed and thanked him, ready to point out my left hand, but he just nodes and walked away. I think he came into the center just to say that.
This whole post probably sounds narcissistic and braggy, but I really don’t get compliments like that often at all. And there really is something wonderful about a true, pure compliment. No agenda, nothing wanted in return. Just something said out of truth and to brighten someone’s day. There’s not enough of those in the world.
That big news that’s been coming for a few weeks… the offer letter is received, a start date is set, and we can officially announce it and be estatic about it.
WE’RE MOVING TO CALIFORNIA!!!!
It’s been a really long journey, but we’re finally doing it and it’s still kind of unreal.
At the end of last year, my husband’s job (his entire team, really) was outsourced to the company’s main HQ. At first, I was actually kind of glad. We’d been wanting to make a move out of Gainesville, and hopefully to the west coast, for a couple of years. Having a steady job in this economy isn’t something you just drop on a whim, though, so while we looked occasionally, there was never any real push to do it. This job loss would be just the push we needed. And the prospects seemed great at first; my husband was getting flown all over the country for interviews. Unfortunately, he was always edged out by someone with just a bit more specific technical experience. He did such an amazing job at staying motivated and positive throughout so much of this. But it eventually started to wear down on him. This trip to the UK was going to mark the six month point, and when we got back, we’d look at where to go next. About a week and a half before we left, he got the phone call: he’d be getting an offer with a company in Mountain View, California.
The past few weeks have been a blur of thinking about moving out, waiting to hear numbers, counter offering, waiting to hear back from that, seeing family and having to share (conditional) good news before it’s all set and done and hoping that it doesn’t all fall through.
The relief we feel right now is indescribable.
And bittersweet.
One thing that’s become clear (that we took for granted before) this year is what an amazing group of friends we’ve been able to surround ourselves with here in Gainesville. Friends who supported us while Chris was looking, sent us links to every job posting they saw (trying to keep us in town), who pointed him towards part-time gigs while we were waiting for something to come through. We can’t thank them enough for their support during this (although, we’ll start with a big going away/30th Birthday bash before we go).
I’m so sad to be leaving them.
Even new friends like my book club crew… I never imagined that a book club could be so much fun, so open, so full of amazing women from all walks of life that I only got to meet with a few times. I’d finally found a great yoga studio that was affordable and amazing. Even things like the doggie daycare crew at Camp Marlin and Elphie’s groomer Heather at Nature Pets… they can’t be replaced, but I don’t know how I’m even going to begin filling the gaps they’ll leave in our lives. Not to mention my great coworkers… how will I find an office full of people I can laugh with all day again?
Being surrounded by my in-laws this week, I’ve started to think about family, too. We’ll be even farther away (both phone and flight time) from the UK contingent and my parents’ house won’t be a ten minute drive away. I like to think of myself as a nomad, independent, not in need of anybody. The truth is, I can’t imagine not being able to pop by my parents’ house just because I’m in that part of town. On the bright side, we’ll be joining my brother and his family, who paved the way with a similar move about nine months ago. I suspect my nephew will be on the receiving end of some transferred homesickness cuddles.
The overwhelming feeling right now is just excitement. Excitement about the move, about discovering a new place, finding new people and jobs, and starting this amazing new chapter in our lives that we’ve striven to start for so very long.
As cliché as it is to say… California, here we come!
My husband and I during our 2008 trip to San Francisco
I finally went through all my California pics from a few years ago, touched them up, played with some of them a little, and uploaded them to Flickr. You can view the whole set there. This picture of an Egg Yolk Jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium came out really neat when I was editing it in Snapseed. All the bokeh-type effects are from the natural particles in the water that didn’t come out until the exposure was played with a little. Compare to the slightly color corrected, but not crazy edited original version:
I’m a fan of post-editing for artistic purposes, but I know a lot of photographers who are set against it. Where do you fall on this debate?
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Take a guy's old t-shirt and refashion it like this... so many shirt ideas!
