carrying on

Here’s a photo re-creation of my carry on bag for my SEA to AKL flight (a 2.5 hour hop to SFO followed by a few hours waiting, and then the long haul – 13 hours across the Pacific)

I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo of this during our trip!

Here’s what I carried on:

• my koru print sarong
• a magazine, Mac Life or something
• my kindle, loaded with the “Hunger Games” Trilogy and “Discardia“
• all my chargers, cords, flash drives, gum, pen and an ink refill, lens cloth, ear buds, plug adaptors, etc arranged in a grid it
• my camera (not pictured because it took the picture!)
• my toiletries in a lightweight case and a stupid TSA required ziplock bag (btw I often put a couple of little things in a “3-1-1 bag” even if I’ve packed my toiletries in my checked luggage just so I don’t look suspicious by not having any liquids… stupid!)
• glasses case (I should get something lightweight)
• my pink retro geek chic headphones
• page per day diary/journal
• passport, keys, wallet, lip balm, tissues, iPod Touch

This stuff filled my bag comfortably but with some spare room. It weighed 8.8 pounds going to NZ and 6.4 pounds coming home. The main difference was that I packed my chargers and grid it and toiletries in my checked luggage on the way home. I figured that I would not care as much if they got delayed on the way home (if the bag went missing, which is pretty rare on international flights).

The good thing about long haul flights is that the airlines want you to be distracted and happy so they provide a massive amount of entertainment – upwards of 100 movies and TV shows available on demand on a personal screen as well as music and games and an “airshow” that tells you how fast the plane is going and where it is. At that point you realize that boredom is really just a state of mind, an attitude.

On the way to NZ I wasn’t much in the mood to watch movies – I started to watch “Bridesmaids” but I just couldn’t enjoy it. Later I did watch a delightful documentary called “Bill Cunningham New York” – highly recommended and quite inspiring. I flicked through my magazine a bit and read some of my book, and I slept quite a bit because we had 3 seats for the 2 of us – what a luxury! I also had a strange window seat which was actually between 2 windows. I think that’s why they didn’t sell the seat. It meant I had a much better surface for leaning up against while I slept. The arm rests only raised up a bit, but I managed to arrange myself into some almost-comfortable positions with my legs out on the spare seat. I used an iPod app that played rain sounds to help drown out the plane noise to help me sleep. Yes, rain sounds like safe-at-home… I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest too long!

On the way home we each had an aisle seat. The armrests came all the way up (which made it much easier to get in and out of my seat) but I was sitting next to a stranger, so I couldn’t really get comfortable enough to sleep for long. I watched a whole bunch of movies and TV on the way back – first a great kiwi film called “Boy” which was EXCELLENT! (a bit of a flashback to my childhood) then a couple of episodes of Grand Designs (a British show about people embarking on ambitious home building projects). As usual I fell asleep after about 3-4 hours. When I woke up, about half way through the sleeping part of the flight, I turned on Up in the Air, which I’ve seen before. I figured it didn’t require much attention (I was still tired) and I love watching the way the main character packs and travels. Once that was done it was time for the lights to come back on and for breakfast to be served. I had time for one more movie so I watched another kiwi film, a small production about “mothering and smothering” called “Apron Strings” – it was pretty good.

I keep my bag at my feet so I can switch out my headphones, get out and put away gadgets, grab some gum, and generally fuss with my stuff. Sometimes I use the bag as a footrest. On most of our flights we were told to put big carry-ons up above and keep small ones on the floor anyway – the overhead bins are so quickly filled. Hubby kept his laptop backpack (with my laptop in it) in the overhead – he needs the legroom much more than I do. Actually on the 777 we rode home he didn’t have a seat in front of him at all – that was wonderful for his long legs.

It was quite a shock to get on a smallish United plane to go from LAX to SEA (3 hours) after being on a nice long haul Air NZ plane. I went to plug my headphones into the arm rest and realized there was no entertainment of any kind on this flight – except perhaps the really annoying loud passengers across the way… including a badly-wigged old lady who couldn’t understand that you can’t pay cash for food on the flight… The pink retro headphones cut down a lot on the noise of the plane (yet somehow the annoying people sound louder and clearer with the phones on!) and I listened to music on my iPod for a while and spent the rest of the time reading another magazine – this time Mother Jones, which had a lot more readable content than most magazines. I can’t tolerate women’s magazines – I’ve yet to find one with any content that holds my attention for more than about 20 minutes.

It’s obvious we pack pretty light and I could’ve easily carried both my bags onto the plane based on allowable dimensions. But we’ve decided that checking in our Rick Steves’ bags is the better option. It does take a little bit of time to wait for the bags to come out and there is a small chance that our bags could be lost (less on international flights it seems) but we just don’t find it worth the trade-off of having to carry around 30+ pounds of luggage (each) through 3 airports, between terminals, and through security. We don’t need the stuff in our checked bags while we’re traveling anyway, and Asia Pacific flights are much stricter about the weight of carry on bags. Usually Air NZ weighs our carry ons and they have to be less than 7 kgs/15 pounds – so we wouldn’t be allowed to bring our check in bags onto the NZ flights. It’s partly a matter of load planning for the airlines – and I really want them to have the right amount of fuel to get us all the way across the ocean…!

I have been watching some videos about what people bring in their carry on bags and I have to admit that I don’t want to be a person who needs everything just-so to be OK on a flight. I don’t want to carry an emergency pharmacy bag everywhere I go, I don’t worry about sanitizing anything, I can eat most airline food (and airport food) without ill effects, and I can sit in an aisle, window or middle seat without too much trouble (sitting in the middle is less than ideal, but hubby gets an aisle seat for his long legs, so as often as not that means I’m in a middle seat next to him). I’m lucky that I’m short and fairly small, so I fit quite well in coach seats. Sure, I’d enjoy flying in the front of the plane with ottomans, legrests, extra space… but I think I’d rather spend my money on other things. And I don’t think I could easily go back to cattle class after flying premium or business class.

I won’t go into a rant about people carrying way too much stuff onto planes today. I won’t complain that American airlines barely enforce the carry-on plus SMALL personal item rule (while most of the world are expected to have only one bag, which means ONLY ONE BAG!) But I will refer you back to my bag theory…

Well, I’ve written much more than I planned to! So much for the quick list of things in my carry on bag…

More on our travels later this week.

Jo:)

inside the fridge

In honor of my cleaning of the fridge shelves this morning, I present a photo I took of the inside of my fridge. I took the photo for an art house co-op free project in March. We seem to have a lot of condiments!

and this is what it looks like today (clean and mostly empty the day before shopping day):

Don’t you love to look inside other people’s fridges, pantries, closets and cupboards?! I do. I used to read a blog that did “other people’s pantries” every Saturday. So interesting…

Jo:)

the dresses I carried…

I thought after my talk of packing planning and travel obsessions you might be interested to know some of what I carried with me on my recent trip.

I hope you’re interested! If not, I understand. I’ll be back with wanderings and photos and crafty stuff soon. See you then.

For those of you who care, these are the dresses I carried:

There are 2 made from slippery knit fabric, unnatural but very packable and cute. 3 are black and simple, 2 of which double as cotton underlayers when wearing other dresses. one is a floral wrap dress. Another is a blue floral. Yet another is an indigo and lime green African dress known around here as a Kate dress, which had a previous life in someone else’s luggage, but now makes my wardrobe a happy place.

The red and black koru print is a sarong which doubled as a blankie on the plane and a wrap in the airports along the way and also works very well as a skirt. There was also a dark grey acrylic knit dress with long sleeves that served me very well as a travel dress, warm enough for the snowy wet weather we left behind and comfy enough to sleep in. The final two items are cotton cardigans, very useful for cool mornings and evenings.

I am happy to say that every single item here got worn at least once – often several times. We had a couple of laundry days on our trip – easily achieved since we were staying with family.

And this is most of the rest of it. A pair of short shorts, a pair of capri shorts, 2 tees, a tank, and a swimsuit. (The swimsuit was the only thing I brought that I never got to use. It wasn’t quite warm enough on the days when we had time to go to the beach – a fact I would have ignored if we had been just a little more convenient to the beach.)

Of course I also brought underthings, in moderate quantities, knowing that we would be able to do laundry. And a couple of lightweight carry bags – a foldable backpack, a little purse. A furoshiki. I always miss my stock of bags and furoshiki when I’m traveling. I brought a top and capri pajama pants too, for lounging and to appear decent in company.

I, perhaps extravagantly, brought 4 pairs of shoes with me. Two pairs were flip flops, rotated day by day so I didn’t get sore feet. One pair were primarily for wearing on the plane – slip ons. And one pair were old sneakers specifically for hiking up my favorite volcano, Rangitoto. (yes, we did see a couple of people do it in flip flops, but they were foolish!) As much as they were bulky, they were well worth bringing. I could’ve worn the old sneakers on the plane, but I was trying to look reasonably cute, and sneakers did nothing for my grey dress and stripey sock ensemble…

So that’s about it. One large mesh cube, two small, one ultra lightweight toiletry bag, inside a Rick Steves brand backpack. Weighing in under 20 pounds (18 pounds check in on the way, 22.5 pounds on the way home) I felt good about what I chose to carry. I always second guess myself, wish that I had smaller, lighter clothes like that skinny little lululemon yoga girl I saw in Hawaii, but in the end I brought what I’m comfortable in, I looked nice every day and I was able to do the things I enjoy doing while feeling like myself (not an anorexic yoga bikini surfer chick!) Reviewing my wardrobe I might have chosen a different travel dress, something a little lighter and cottony, with maybe one less pair of shoes. But it’s never easy dressing for late winter early spring in one country, early autumn in another, and airport/airline climates in between. I think I did well.

If you will permit me I will talk about my carry on bag in a future post.

Jo:)

window self portraits

window self portraits, a set on Flickr.

I forgot to share this little adventure/experiment with you back when it happened (or maybe I needed a little time to sit with the images…)
Photos taken in windows around Pioneer Square, Seattle WA on January 30th 2012.

decorated shoes

One of my lovely coworkers came up with a grand idea for our “step into spring” display for April – staff could decorate shoes and show off our crafty talents. Last year’s staff craft display was a hit with our patrons. People are often surprised to find out what librarians do in the spare time – hint, we don’t sit at home with our cats and shush people – not all the time anyway!

Here’s what I came up with…

I had a pair of slip on shoes that I bought for a muddy waterfall trail we hiked in Hawaii – a whopping $3 investment that I have more than gotten my money’s worth from. They are my back yard shoes now, but they had potential… and I had the white and silver paint pens already. With a little doodle inspiration:

I was willing to invest another couple of dollars into this project so I headed out to the thrift shop and found exactly what I needed  - a child sized pair of blue jelly-ish shoes with holes all over them (reef shoes perhaps?) and a bunch of fake flowers in brightest yellow. Ten minutes later I had these:

As a little bit of a filler, I offered up my pink Thai silk slippers, encrusted with beads. (Another friend chipped in with her own ones, a silver pair)

And then finally, with the anonymous assistance of another friend, I created a monstrosity of crafting silliness – a pair of legwarmers fashioned from the cut off sleeves of a Cosby-esque sweater (sacrificed from the thrift shop) attached to platform flip flops (quite unwearable) – a kind of winter pedicure boot gone wrong. An awful sight:

Not my finest work. But apparently I have no shame. As it turned out these didn’t make it into the display (there were technical difficulties) which is probably a good thing! It looks great without them. Several other people “stepped up” with their own crazy and wonderful designs and our display queen pulled it all together on a shoestring. woo hoo!

Jo:)

absence

Forgive me my silence.

I had good intentions of writing a couple of blog posts while we were away on holiday that came to nothing. My wifi connection was good enough for most things but wordpress takes a special effort to load for some reason and I decided it just wasn’t worth the frustration.
(I love the way this blog looks but on the best of days I have plenty of frustrations with the site itself and the process of getting photos on here… not all wordpress’s fault perhaps – iPhoto seems to kick in it’s share of complications…)
Anyway, we got home a week ago and once again I planned to share all manner of wonderful things with you here… but wifi got in the way again! My home connection is glitchy (to say the least) so I am brought to the library in search of a signal. That’s cool (yay, libraries rock!) except that I work here, and blogging is not exactly what I want to do before (or after) work most days.
Oh yeah, and then I caught one of the colds that’s been going around. So I’ve been sitting on the couch watching Lark Rise to Candleford (a BBC show) or sleeping for the last 4 days, rejoicing when my iPod loads a webpage and trying not to grind my teeth when my laptop says it’s connected but won’t load a thing. (Oh I exaggerate – it would load a page or two, give me hope, and then it would refuse)
I decided I needed to make a decision – to continue with this digital life and all it’s torments and joys, or give it up. And I decided that the internet not working shows me how useful it is when it is working…
So please forgive this complaining post that I am barely going to reread or edit.
And please forgive me if I throw some fairly random and unrelated posts up here in the coming days or weeks. I’m going to try to get caught up and share some of the things I wanted to show you about our trip and the weeks before and after. Decorated shoes. The dresses I took with me to NZ. A weta. Villas, and baches. Marmaggedon perhaps. Maybe even a quiz where you can test your knowledge and learn a little bit about NZ….

We’ll see…

Jo:)

(a little happier now that I see that iPhoto is showing ALL of my events when I go to upload media here – that was part of what was holding me back from posting last month!)

our new old fence

I’m so pleased with our new old fence – we saved a bunch of money and we avoided throwing something away. Sometimes that means making do with something ugly or a little sad but this time I think the make-do solution is better than the expensive new retail product.

In the backyard we have a wooden fence that hubby built and a chain link fence that the neighbors had built. We added split bamboo panels to the chain link fence when we moved in to screen our yard from the neighbors and the alley that runs behind the house. The bamboo aged pretty nicely, lasting about 5 years, but the wind was starting to rip the panels off the fence and the wire that held the bamboo together was rusting and breaking.

Hubby and I talked about our options. We looked at reed fences and new bamboo panels. I was getting ready to buy a new set of panels that would cost $150 or so and hubby was making plans to attach them to the fence with a million zip ties. We thought about the plastic strips that some people get – they weave right into the fence links, but they are plastic, they weather poorly, and they cost a fortune (I think our neighbor was quoted in the thousands of dollars!). Then I wondered aloud if we could use the old bamboo strips instead of plastic strips…. but I was sure it would be too much work….

Have I told you that hubby is a tad bit obsessive? Maybe I should be positive and use the words “determined” and “focused” instead. Once he gets going on an idea he can work on it for hours. I showed him what I was thinking of and he ran with it.

It’s great that we were able to re-use the old fence. I was planning to chop it up and send it out as yard waste to be chipped and composted, but the bamboo really wasn’t in bad shape. It was just the wire that was decomposing. The new fence can’t blow around because it’s woven securely through all of the links and the effect is quite cool. It looks the same on our neighbor’s side so they actually have a nicer fence now too.

I’m really glad that this worked out so well!

Jo:)