Photos from leaving do

Hiya, sorry I haven't been able to post anything for a while. Things have been hectic with the move as I'm sure you'd expect. I have a lot of postings to do when I get the time, from my work leaving do, John Martin's birthday party, a write up on the London leaving do, the bbq with my Basingstoke friends on my last day, the move over, and things I've done since. But until I have time for that here are pics from Jon Salmon from the leaving do in London. Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you Limies!! ;-)

Spot the difference

Is it Abbey or Tiggs? Tiggs or Abbey?

Apartment news

I'm very happy to report that we have found an apartment to lease in Indy! Actually, it's in Zionsville which is where we think we will want to buy a house. The apartment is called Williams Glen, and it seems to be really lovely. We liked what we saw on the internet, and my mom drove up to see it and said it was really nice. We both have heard great things about Zionsville but have not spent time there, and part of the appeal of the area is that it's brand new to both of us so we can explore and discover it together. We are planning to buy something this year once John moves over and we've had a chance to find something we love, and having this six month lease in the area will set us up nicely for getting acquainted with the area to determine which parts we like and if it's even the place for us in general.

We nearly couldn't get into the complex at all, as they didn't have a 2 bedroom unit available until a couple of weeks after I arrive. We really need a 2 bedroom unit because I have read in a cat behavior book about this thing called reintroduction to help strength cats' relationships with each other. Our cats don't get along all that well and we thought straight after the move into a new place would be a good time to work to improve their relationship. This reintroduction requires two rooms, plus the less space cats have to roam the more stressful it is for them to share living space. So anyway, they didn't have a 2 bedroom available at the right time so I had been applying to another place in a different part of town (Eagle Creek), when suddenly on Friday I got news that a 2 bedroom had become available. So my mom and I jumped on it, paid the deposit, and we're all set! Woo hoo!

So I've got my leaving date set as 26th June, and the cats are coming with me. It's weird having a date and a one-way flight. Hopefully John will be only about a month behind me. He's going to close things up here while I start things up there. Our house is still on the market, and he's still deciding what he wants to do about jobs. I was asking him on Friday what he was going to do when we leave, as the house will be so empty since there won't even be any cats or anything (and our stuff is getting shipped out next week), and he said he would be sad but at least the world cup will keep him occupied. The cheek of it! I'm easily replaced I tell you! ;-)

Friend news

There are lots of exciting things happening with some of my friends at the moment.

Faith is having a girl! She found out last week. She felt like it was a girl, and the images they got from the ultrasound were quite clear so they were able to confirm her suspicions. They are going to call her Avery, which I love. It's quite funny actually because when Faith and I lived together we got a kitten, and when we were trying to decide what to name it the first name I suggested was Avery. She didn't really like it then, which is why Jilly is Jilly and not Avery. I reminded her of that conversation when she was telling me her baby names a while ago, but she didn't remember it very well. I remember it quite clearly (that was my favorite girl name for a year or two) and am glad to have the connection with her and the name. :-)

Gemma got a promotion! She's been duly rewarded for all her hard work and long hours she's put into her product launch, and in addition to the standard promotion stuff she gets a BMW and apparently a Blackberry! (She hasn't told me about the Blackberry thing but while she was on holiday I got a birthday email from her Blackberry. I don't see her going out and buying one so I can only assume this is another perk!) Well done Gems!

Emily's wedding photographer sent her a 'teaser' of her photos over email. They are beautiful! As Faith rightly commented, they look more like photos from a J Crew catalog than traditional wedding photos. Click the picture to link to all the photos from the teaser. (Also, you are reading correctly. The writing beneath each photo does say 'I shot the bride'. That's the name of the photography company. Hilarious!)

Reena's boyfriend Such has graduated from Harvard Business School and accepted a job with J Crew in their corporate headquarters in New York. I believe he is going to be a buyer, and I'm positive that (whatever his title) he is assigned to mens' shirts and ties. He's gotten the opportunity of his dreams!

Caroline has gotten herself a new job at Cummins Engines. She's had some challenging times at her current job and was fortunate to find something fairly quickly that is a great fit with her work experience, degree, and career goals. Funnily enough, Cummins has their global headquarters in Columbus, IN, although obviously Caroline will be working in their UK site. But I am very hopeful that she will get some international travel opportunities, specifically to Indiana!

Marianne is due any day now. She and Jon are having a little girl. It's due next week but you never know how these things will go! Although don't they say the first one is usually late? I really hope not because she's due not too long before I leave and I am really hoping I will get to hold her before I go. Maz, load up on hot curries, take long walks, and do whatever else is supposed to get labor started! DO IT.

I think I might have mentioned this one already, but Helen and Wyn got a kitten a few weeks ago. He's called Tiggs and he looks like Abbey! So obviously he is incredibly, incredibly beautiful. He's even got a little white splotch in his fur on the back like she does. He's very sweet and playful, and they seem to be really enjoying 'parenthood'.

So as you can see, I'm not the only one who is quite busy at the moment! It's an exciting time for a lot of people in my life and I'm so happy to share in their fun and happiness!

Car boot, Florence, Steve and Ruth's

As per usual, life has gotten the better of me and kept me busy enough that I've fallen behind in my blog updates.

There was a UK bank holiday two weekends ago. John and I used to the time to relax a little. After returning from Florida there was lots of catching up to do which kept us busy, so when the weekend arrived we tried to make the most of the time. On the Sunday we had a 'car boot' sale. For my American friends, this is like a garage sale, but instead of selling your garage you sell the trunk of your car. Ha! Oh dear, where do I come up with them?! Ok, seriously though it is similar to a garage sale but instead of selling things out of your garage you pack them all up in your car and take them to a place where lots of other people are trying to hack off their junk.

Madeline and Michelle had kindly agreed to help us, so they came up the day before (which was a good decision considering we had to get up at 5 am to make the opening!). They are both seasoned in the car boot domain so we tried to give them free reign in set-up and pricing. It was a nice idea, but any time someone asked Madeline how much something was she would look at John, ask him how much he wanted for it, and then when he thought of a price she would give him a wide-eyed look and tell him in a whisper that it was too low and she would buy it herself for 'x' amount of pounds! :-D Quite funny really. In the end we grossed around £80, which is quite good considering it was all stuff we would have just tossed out in one of our quarterly charity runs otherwise. We still had loads of stuff we didn't sell that we had to take back with us, but luckily Mich and Mad found some stuff they were happy to adopt so they lightened our load a bit as well.

Last Wednesday and Thursday I was in Florence (Italy) for work. I kind of kept forgetting that the trip was coming up, what with everything else going on. The few times I thought about the trip I only focused on the work bits so I was completely unprepared for just how beautiful a place Florence is.

I arrived about lunchtime and went straight into the office. I grabbed a spot of lunch in the company cafeteria (even the cafeteria pasta was al dente!) and spent the afternoon in a web conference leading the design meeting. I had time in the evening to explore in the city. The hotel was in the heart of Florence, next to the river. The hotel room itself was very nice, with the suite part downstairs and the bed, wardrobe, and a second TV in an open upstairs area of the room. I'd not been in a hotel room like that before.

They had told me the next day that I didn't need to be in until about 11:30 because my presentation wasn't scheduled until noon. Even though I've resigned I still didn't have the cheek to come into the office that late. But I did get up early and take an hour in the morning to walk around the city again. I told the woman at the hotel front desk that I had one hour before I had to be in the office and asked if she could tell me the best must-see things to do that were nearby. She took out a map and drew me a little map with the sites. It's really an unbelieveable place. The statues, fountains, architecture, cathedrals, squares... Rome is my favorite European city, and Florence shared a lot of characteristics with Rome apart from the ruins. I guess that should be obvious but I didn't expect it.

So I got into the office about 9:30 or so. I gave a presentation to the HR lead team, which went really well. So a successful trip indeed!

Last weekend we went to Steve (best man) and Ruth's in Thorpe. The have a lovely new house. The weather was gorgeous so we sat outside for a while before heading into Windsor for lunch and again for dinner. It was great to see them and they both seem really well.

Ok those are pretty much the highlights. The World Cup is starting tomorrow (not to be overshadowed by a much bigger event happening tomorrow, ehm) and I think everything pretty much stops for it. All I hear everywhere I go is football, football, football. I hope the weather's nice so people who don't care about the world cup (hand raised) have something to distract them! :-)

I finally made up my mind!

I accepted IBM's offer last night. Following on from my previous post, I informally accepted SAP's offer last week. They were kind of pressuring me for a decision and IBM hadn't made their offer yet, so I accepted because I thought IBM's offer might be a little more but it would be negligible. Then I did get their offer two days later (I think they sent it shortly after my acceptance with SAP, but I didn't see it until then because I was in Florence and couldn't get to my email), and there was a big difference in the offers so I had a lot of thinking to do. I talked to my friend Shawn who works for IBM (he had given me the employee referral) and told him all my doubts and thoughts, and he was able to reassure me and in the end I felt both companies were quite good and the cultures are similar so I decided to go with the better offer. The position with IBM is also a little higher with opportunities for management, so that also swayed my decision.

I'm so happy to have this decision made! I start on July 10, which funnily enough is my Lilly anniversary.