Jackie's Blog

These are the pictures of our new home With the help of a talented interior designer, Lois Dubridge, we now have it looking just the way we like it. Before 'n After website Some pictures of our house are featured.

We sold the house in Georgia for slightly less than we had hoped at the end of May, and everything was shipped out here and put in large storage unit whilst we looked for a house. We were not looking forward to emptying it! However, thanks to a wonderful friend (the wife of one of Dick's podcast buddies) and her church group, and some other friends who all turned up one Saturday morning - it was all emptied and unpacked in just one day! It took a little longer to put it all in its place, but it was a great start. Surprisingly, we actually have fit almost everything in the house. The clear outs we did before we left were worth it! The house itself is only about 3 years old, and not really what we originally had in mind, but turned out to have everything we wanted. It is 1800 sq ft (a bit larger than we thought too), has three bedrooms, and is two storys. Downstairs the floors are wood, and upstairs they are carpet- the complete opposite of Lakeshore Drive. The downstairs living ro...

We thoroughly enjoyed our Memorial Day weekend. First I dragged Dick to the annual Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras for an hour or two :-) It was originally meant for raising money for the local fire brigade, however since then it raises money for many different non-profit organizations. There are lots of vendors selling both local products or services as well as vendors selling jewelery, art and food, including mushrooms of course. We had a quick wander through them all and ended up at the regularly scheduled farmers market at the far end of the event. I was delighted to find that half of the market stall holders were the same ones that sell at the downtown San Jose Farmers market, which I enjoyed going to recently. Local cherries are in season right now and I could live on them! I'll be going there every weekend to get local produce :-) In the afternoon we put some of the superfluous boxes from the apartment back in the new storage unit and brought the motorbike over to the comp...

Yay! The week before last I flew back to Georgia to supervise the packing and shipping of all of our personal belongings. First I had to empty the storage unit and divide everything into two piles: one to go to the apartment and a second to go to another storage unit in Morgan Hill. I thought I did pretty well but since then I have been looking for some things that I should have put in the apartment pile that I did not. Anyway, I learned two lessons from this experience. I personally had packed many boxes (books etc) and had carefully labeled it all to put it in the storage unit in the first place- this part of the de-cluttering stage of trying to sell a house. I thought I had done well but I should have labeled EVERY side of any box which was fragile, as I learned that movers do not necessarily read one let alone every side of every box. So far, everything seems to have survived but we had unpacked very little... I am a bit concerned about the number of boxes that have crushed corner...

Having spent 4 hours in the emergency room last night with Dick, I am grateful that we have health insurance. It all started with a phone call from Dick saying he had fallen off his bicycle on his way home from work, and would I come and collect him as he was a 'bit banged up'? I rushed there and the first thing I saw was that I could hardly see his eyes- he was having a severe allergic reaction to something that was manifesting itself in his sinuses. All he could remember was having a huge sneezing fit after he 'woke up' having fell off his bike. 'Woke up'?? He couldn't remember hitting his head, although the scrape on the right side of his forehead showed he'd definitely banged his head. His first concern, naturally, was that the bike and his laptop were ok. However, we did not hang around to check them over, we just loaded them into the car- after he taken an anti-histamine that I always keep in my bag. For Dick to say he is hurting is unusual enough,...

Those of you who know us, know that fast vehicles are a big part of Dick's life in particular: first it was the motorbike- his baby, all cooped up still in Georgia; then came the Mustang convertible, the fun car, perfect for California; then the very swish Specialized bicycle, and now.... the razor scooter! I have done nothing but giggle since Sunday morning, when on a trip to Target to buy a new inner tube for the bicycle, Dick decided that a Razor scooter would be perfect to get about the campus at Google. So, as it was his birthday week, it came home. He loves it! The apartment complex is just perfect for scooting around, whilst I am walking Pepper- so long as no one is looking! As soon as anyone older than a child is around, Dick steps off it and pretends it isn't really his.. (although I must admit, I'd probably do the same). In case you don't believe me, I took this picture only yesterday (which he wouldn't have let me take if he'd have known what I was...

Today we hiked up 'El Toro'.... Wikipedia says.. El Toro means "The Bull" in Spanish. According to a local legend, author Bret Harte named the hill when he climbed it and discovered two bulls fighting near the summit (they subsequently chased him back down). The official name shown on USGS maps is simply El Toro. Elevation at the summit is about 427 m (1403 ft). The Annual Spring Hike up El Toro is the only time when you can officially hike up there as it is private land, so there were at least a couple of hundred people who took the chance. There are two start times, 7:45 am and 9:45 am, and we went to the later one this time. We had planned to get up earlier but as it turned out, the hill was covered in low cloud first thing this morning, so it may have been cooler, but the view would not have been as spectacular as it was later. The hike itself is about 1.5 miles to the top- all up hill. Kudos goes to a Morgan Hill Scout troop who had cut in steps and erected a ro...

This is an extract from some of the emails I have been sending friends since I arrived on the West Coast at the end of February. Since we arrived in Morgan Hill, I have explored all the shops in the small high street- they are very eclectic shops; there is everything from a knitting shop, to jewelery, one of a kind clothing shops, nick-nac shops and a large independent book store (with an in-store book-club!) There are also several restaurants (fish, Mexican, Italian, BBQ, a breakfast bar, coffee shop and a couple of bars). There is also a small local newspaper which is published twice a week, and a regular Saturday farmers market, and a fish and meat store- all locally run. Obviously there are the chain stores, a Safeway supermarket, and even a new Trader Joes (yay!) but they are a little further away, but within a mile or two. Just to help those of you who are not geographically inclined, Morgan Hill is about 20 miles south of San Jose, and 70 miles south of San Francisco. We are als...

Well we are finally here! The last day turned out to be an eventful one- the driving was very different and so was the weather at the end. Its strange to think that we arrived the day before we were supposed to leave :-) So from the beginning... We left Needles CA back on I40 into the Mojave Desert. Picture some sand but largely rolling hills and miles of desert plants- low lying due to the wind, some cacti and Joshua trees. We found at later that Joshua trees only grow in the Mojave desert- (they look like large Yucca plants!!) As you can imagine there is nothing but desert for as far as you can see- very beautiful and calm, with just one road running through it and the occasional pullover area. Amazingly, we had cell phone coverage the whole way, and a local radio station that told us of the conditions for both road and weather too. Talking of cell phones, I have a Sprint phone and I think I've had coverage just about all the way- one or two small dead spots- I know because the ...

Yayyyyy!!! We are in California! Admittedly, only just inside, in a place call Needles- the first town across the state line on I40. We are still a long way south of where we will end up -about 450 miles north of here, but it feels good to be here, and in the same time zone as Dick. He has had a very bureaucratic weekend in terms of the new apartment, so he'll be glad to see us too. We've now done 2050 miles, and I can truthfully say that its been fun and not hard at all- the first day was definitely the hardest, but largely because of the early start after a very late night and the stress and sadness of leaving the house. It was also the longest day in terms of distance. However, today was almost 550 miles too, and didn't feel anywhere near as long. Maybe we are just getting used to it! We left Albuquerque early this morning- we haven't really caught up with all the changes in time zones and so we are still tired early and awake early. As I said before, the car is fil...

Firstly let me explain to those of you who don't know, why we left earlier than originally planned (we were not supposed to be going until next Tuesday 27th). We planned our trip last weekend and made most of the final arrangements and suddenly realized that all we were waiting for was for Tuesday 27th to arrive, so it seemed logical to leave early, and be with Dick sooner. As you can imagine, he wholeheartedly agreed. Besides, Mary kept wanting to go shopping, and I knew if she did, we'd never fit it all in the car ;-) So she is now eagerly waiting to explore and shop in California instead. She is also addicted to Wal-Mart, and is getting slightly worried as we only saw 2 Wal-Mart trucks today! Obviously we made it through the tornado watch last night- it barely rained even. However.... we left to bright sunshine and headed back on Interstate 40. It's funny because we have started to recognize some of the trucks and even cars who are doing a long trip. There seems to be v...

This is a copy of the email that I sent whilst traveling across the USA from Berkeley Lake GA to San Jose CA... Just thought I'd tell you a little of what we've seen and experienced on our travels so far :-) In case you don't know, we (Mary- Dick's mum and I) are traveling in a Honda Accord Wagon (estate) with a very full back seat (largely clothes and bedding vacuum packed in Space bags) and Pepper, our 13-14 year old collie-lab. We left Berkeley Lake on Thursday 22nd February about 5.45 am in order to beat the rush hour traffic. Luckily we got on Interstate 20 very easily and headed towards Birmingham, Alabama. The roads were very busy to start with but the traffic thinned out the further away we got away from the big cities. As you can imagine, a lot of the traffic is huge trucks- especially the big parcel companies like UPS and FedEx, however, much to our amusement we've also been counting WalMart trucks and saw 12 alone yesterday! We also saw 5 trailer (mobile...