ALOHA 'OE

Well... we're off! The container came this morning, was loaded in a mere 2 hours and is now on it's way to meet up with us in Maui. It goes by rail to LA and and leaves there by ship on March 3rd. Arriving in Honolulu then on to Maui on March 13th. And get this, without any planning at all, it should arrive the exact same day we do! Fingers and toes! More soon.

All lined up in the hallway.
We really lucked out with a prime parking spot right in front of the service entrance to the building... and no ticket!
The conatiner and a look back up at the apartment.
Packed to Pussy's Bow. With room to spare. And we were worried that what we had it edited down to would not fit. NICE!
And this is how it will look sailing across the Pacific. Hopefully we will not suffer a peril at sea... i.e. the container jumping ship.

GNOME-ORE COLD WEATHER

Thursday was the last day of work for John and I. We both had hysterical going away gatherings at Waikiki Wally's on the Lower East Side. Friday we rented a U-haul and unloaded the storage unit in Chelsea which was more of a nightmare than we expected. It was freezing and snow was piled everywhere. The drive from the apartment to the unit took 45 minutes each way in horrible traffic and we made 3 trip across town. In all we thought we would spend 3 hours and we ended up taking 6...YES 6 HOURS!!!! If we would of had to do that drive everyday we would killed ourselves long ago! Yeah... we made 3 trips up the freight elevator and it just goes back out on Thursday. Well we asked for it.

As I was packing today I looked out the terrace door and saw our little Garden Gnome peeking out of the snow beneath the Japanese Maple...That is how we felt yesterday... except we were buried in storage crap. What was I thinking...keeping that storage unit? I got rid of about half of what was in there. Word to the wise... if you are thinking of putting stuff in a storage unit, I say forget it. It will just be out of sight and out of mind.

The countdown is on...6 days left in NYC.

STAMP OUT CANCER

As you may be aware, the US Postal Service recently released its new "Fund the Fight. Find a Cure" stamp to help fund breast cancer research. It is important that we take a stand against this disease that affects so many of our Mothers, Sisters and Friends. Instead of the normal 39 cents for a stamp, this one costs 45 cents The additional 6 cents will go to breast cancer research A "normal" book costs $7.80. This one is only $9.00. It takes a few minutes in line at the Post Office and means so much. If all stamps are sold, it will raise an additional $35,000,000 for this vital research. Just as important as the money is our support. What a statement it would make if the stamp outsold the lottery this week. What a statement it would make that we care. I urge you to do two things TODAY:
1. Go out and purchase some of these stamps.
2. E-mail your friends to do the same.
Many of us know women and their families whose lives are turned upside-down by breast cancer. It takes so little to do so much in this drive. We can all afford the extra $1.20.

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES

Well it appears as though the fire that swept across 2,291 acres in the Kula Forest Reserve was indeed caused by a cigarette. With pockets of unburned terrain within the 16-mile fire perimeter, the area actually burned is estimated at 1,700 acres. According to the Maui News, investigators narrowed the origin of the fire to an area “the size of a desktop" then they got down on their hands and knees to look for the source. The cigarette butt “was very, very obvious,” “Everything was black and the butt was burned on one end but still white.” “Everything was black and the butt was burned on one end but still white,” he said. The cigarette butt was found on the upper Waiohuli trail about 150 feet from the access road.

THIS END UP

WOW! I cannot believe that it is February 4th already. We are in full on packing mode at the moment. ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE MOVERS ARRIVE! We are trying our best to use only recycled boxes and packing materials and so far the only thing we have had to buy is tape. There are 3 motives behind our madness for this and they are as follows.

1. This is a VERY expensive move and we are trying to save money. So far so good.

2. We really think it is a shame when boxes that are in perfectly good condition just end up on the curb.

3. We are moving to a remote island... we need to be conscious of our waste from now on. The island is only so big and we need to add as little as possible to the land fill.

We are only using recycled plastic bubble wrap for only the most delicate of objects. It's important to take the least amount of non-biodegradable materials with us. Otherwise we are using paper for all of our packing. We bought a paper shredder and that makes for graet cushioning around those fragile pieces.