Day 7.090: Empty rooms, full hearts

So this was it, our last day as residents of New York. We said a lot of goodbyes - starting with some of the neighbors before the kids got on the school bus. Most of the day was spent running errands (a car-load to the "transfer station" i.e. town dump), a form to fill in at the Middle School, a box to drop off at the post office; and cleaning the house. Look how lovely (and empty) we left it:

At the end of the day, we met Exile #3 from her bus and went down to the elementary school to meet Exile #4 and E5N1 and get on the road. More goodbyes, including for Exile #3 who went off down the hallways to find her 3rd and 5th grade teachers.

And with that, this chapter closes...and another begins.

Day 7.089: Truck!

Many of our worldly goods are now in here:

(just look at the size of it!) including some it would be useful to still have in circulation, but so it goes!

The house is rather empty and echoey, but we have beds still, so one last night in this house awaits.

Day 7.085: Partly party

The first half of the day included some chores related to the move, but then our friends started arriving.

It's probably a good sign that this was the only photo I took from the moment the first person arrived until after everyone had gone:

In between, there were lots of great conversations, kids charging around inside and out, food, drink and general merriment.

I had a blast - but of course it's a reminder of all that we are leaving behind this week.

Day 7.063: A cycle in the winter

This is a graph of my monthly running miles since...well, since I started running.

That's July 2011 at the left. The two big bumps peaking in the late summer months are my two previous marathon training cycles - and yes I am in the middle of a third cycle.

It's the first time I've tried to do serious training in the winter and it's definitely a different experience. Working the runs around winter storms, running on snow and ice and through slushy puddles and having to bundle up in enough layers to go out when it's sub-zero Fahrenheit but still be able to run are all challenges that just don't come up in the summer.

My current peak should end up looking almost exactly the same as the previous one since I'm following the same training plan. Hopefully I will have another good race in May. At times it's nice to have something to focus on that isn't to do with new houses, schools, jobs and cities, but all that needs to be factored in too. Hopefully I can continue to fit everything in.

Day 7.055: Getting here

Today was a normal run, work, eat, Skype day but tomorrow has all sorts of excitement.

We have just one last hurdle to cross in the sale of our home, and tomorrow, the big one in the purchase of the new one happens. I will be spending a couple of hours at the house with a home inspector hoping to find everything that is wrong with it (and hoping that that is very little!).

After that, I'm heading home to work out what we need to do with the last few weekends I have to sort things out there for the move.  See you on the other side!

Day 6.311: Cross-country run

After starting the day at home with the family in New York, I am ending it at home alone in Maine. I had a pretty uneventful non-stop drive so that's good.

Earlier today, I glanced at my "lifetime" running stats (since July 2011) and saw this:

Exile #2 asked me where I could have got to.  The answer is that 2813 miles is longer than any as the crow flies distance between cities in the 48 contiguous states, but if I'd started from our house in NY and run all my runs the same length I did, but end to end, I'd be just about arriving in Seattle WA now.

Day 6.297: Arrived...

... in Maine and started to get moved into my temporary accommodation.  New job starts tomorrow!

Day 6.287: All new levels of tidiness!

I took this over a week ago:

Pretty amazing right?  It was actually even tidier today when the photos were taken for the listing.

This is real!

Day 6.286: She's a-getting ready to be-a for sale

This ole house:

Day 6.285: E5N1's map of his life right now

Here's another page from E5N1's mind-dump.

On one side was a pretty good freehand map of the USA. On the other, the details that matter:

New York, with our town called out, and - with an arrow (perhaps beckoning us there?): Maine (if you don't get the relevance, you'll want to read this).  Why Utah features there, I have no idea.  Also, I have no idea why the top of the page is labelled as follows:

This Book Has Wild Animals!

No - really - I have no idea.

Day 6.160: Middle school...here she comes!

Exile #2 went down to school to witness the fifth graders' send-off at the end of their last (half) day of elementary school.  Here is Exile #3 accepting applause and high-fives from the rest of the school.

After this, she had a victory lap of the parking-lot with several of her friends in a convertible Mini Cooper thanks to one of the other Moms.

It sounds and looks like a great send-off and I hear that many (kids and adults alike) had a tear or two in their eyes.

Day 5.278: Friends far and near

I've never been very good at keeping in touch with people. I have great friendships and value them hugely but I've just never been very good at correspondence of any sort. It's not even that I don't think about people when they're not around - I do - I just don't do anything about it.

I realise that this blog has meant that my friends are very much in touch with what we're doing, but it is - to a close approximation - the only way anyone hears from me.

So it is all the more joyful when we see our friends and find that they are still friends even when we've barely been in touch for so long.

D, often referred to as "Exile #3's godmother" - mostly because it's an easy nameless epithet that fits with the anonymity that I value here - was probably our first friend when we moved house (across the UK) in late 2000. We met her at a church homegroup meeting and she immediately made the place feel more like it could be home for us.  She is flying back to the UK now, I drove her to the Amtrak station after she posed for this picture.

This evening J and T were over for dinner as we mark the end of our crazy little church.  Much like the way we met D, we met them (properly at least) at a church homegroup meeting when we had recently arrived here.  Now, we will move on as friends, but no longer as co-leaders of our church to see what the future holds for us and our families.  After five years it's a strange feeling, but we have gained much and learned much and shared much and will move on positively, not looking back and wondering about the what-ifs.

Day 5.045: Can you can-can?

We were surprised at breakfast time today to hear E5N1 singing the can-can music.

At dinner time it was revealed that fresh from that triumph, his sisters had taught him the dance too.

Well, sort-of.



To be fair, Exile #3's rendition was a little closer to the real one, but nowhere near as funny as his.

Day 4.331: Shovels ready?

We have snow moving in tonight and to celebrate I have brought up the shovels from the basement.  It's not entirely clear whether we will need them in the morning, but it's definitely possible.

Of course, snow isn't the only thing that shovels are useful for - the picture is from the end of the session we attended at the Lego KidsFest (you can read the full report including leaving our mark on behalf of the Capital Region and see the crazy video).  This was the way they were reassembling the big brick pile ready for the afternoon/evening shift.

Day 4.328: The second only makes you wonder

For the second year, we went to Majestic Tree Farm to cut our Christmas tree today. Once again, the tree-shaker was a big hit!



We also managed to get a wreath on the door and the lights up so I guess we are now doing our bit to share some midwinter cheer.

Day 4.269: Time unlapsed

I was forced to replace my much-loved Canon point-and-shoot, so naturally I replaced it with a new Canon point-and-shoot. It's tiny and has some cool features. One is the capability of shooting at high frame-rates to capture slow-motion video. Since I have posted so many sped-up time-lapse videos over the years, it seems appropriate to do the opposite.

The subject matter isn't super-exciting, but here's my first experiment in slow-motion video!



EDIT: I tried out YouTube's new video editing feature to steady out my slow motion camera-shake. Quite effective I think - compare and contrast!

Day 4.262: Healthy enough?

This morning we had our physical examinations - the last step in a process to get a federally-approved doctor to approve our application for 'green cards' so that we can, hopefully, eventually, be free from the cycle of visa renewals and the spectre of being thrown out of the country at short notice.

The rest of the application is also coming together - including a new set of attractively cheerful photographs.

One of my colleagues pointed out that we are going through the successor of the immigration formalities at Ellis Island a hundred years ago. Of course in those days, the process took between two and five hours. Let's just say it's a bit slower than that these days (we started the process in October - and ours is going quickly!)  However, many things are the same. The main aims being to ensure we have money (by landing a medical bill for $2500 on us and seeing if we flinch) and do not have any communicable diseases (syphilis and TB seem to be top of the list these days).

It could be argued that if we had any of these diseases we would have been a threat to the fabric of American society for the last four and half years too - but what place does logic have in these processes?

Day 4.005: Making movies

There was fresh snow this afternoon as predicted. Not much compared to what was already on the ground but enough to keep us inside this afternoon.

This is the fruit of our indoor-time.  Storyline by Exile #3, camera operation by E5N1 and Exile #4, animation and voices by Exile #3 and me. Enjoy!



I made the film using my Pentax K200D and the tethering software: PK_Tether which worked a treat.

Day 2.244: Friday Haikus #5

Rhythm and tassels
Defending a proud culture:
Indian dancing

Lines merge and tangle
Moment of celebration:
A movement captured.

Apologies for the poems which are neither good nor funny tonight. I liked the pictures though - I hope you do too!

Day 2.212: Size of a bear

No - he's not demonstrating how big a bear is - he's demonstrating that he is the size of a (teddy-)bear! That flamboyant little top he is showing off in this picture from Saturday's opening celebration for our church facility is an outfit from Build-a-Bear. He also sported a graduation gown for a while. They were both a strangely good fit.