I've been slowly packing what I can over the last few months so I don't have a mad rush at the end! At this time, I'm trying to arrange a crate to ship my stuff, but the guy that does the quotes is off island. :-(

Anyway, I decided not to pack the dead gecko that I found. My roommate asked me what I had done with him. I said, "Put it in your bed!" :-) She was not amused & said she might have to hurt me! Well, OK...I gave him a proper burial. I mean, I dumped it into the trash can. I like live geckos, but not dead ones. Yuck.

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A couple weeks ago at the grocery store, I scored a great deal! General Mills cereals are typically about $5.50 per box. I hit a sale - 2/$5. I had a coupon for $1 off two. 2 boxes of cereal for $4! Woo hoo!

On the business front, I am almost finished with the paperwork to register in South Carolina. My logo is in the process of being designed. I have a Greenville phone number now as well. (It's a little early, but I needed one to fill out paperwork.)

I am working with the principals here to save money on their order for school supplies for next fall. I went over last year's order and can save them over $2400! (That is assuming they buy the same quantities of items. We're still working through and refining the order.)

I have rented an apartment in Greenville. I'm working on getting furniture.

My plane ticket has been purchased. I leave here June 28th & arrive in Chicago June 28th (I gain a day crossing the dateline.) Heather and I are going to road trip to Greenville.

I am looking into shipping a crate with my belongings instead of mailing each box separately. I decided to do this for various reasons, but it potentially could be cheaper for me in the long run vs. mailing what I can and replacing what I don't ship.

I was really tired last night & fell asleep around 6:30pm, I think! A friend called me around 8pm & I fell back asleep before she called me about 20 minutes later. I fell asleep again, then she called again another 20 minutes after that! (It's OK. She was looking for something at the store for me & I didn't expect to keep falling asleep!) I got up for awhile, then went to bed about 8:45pm.

The Amazing Race was filming on Guam in December. The episode finally aired this weekend. I had planned to watch it last night (Everything airs a day late here.) Because I was so tired, I really didn't care. I don't really like the show, but wanted to see it since they were here. My friends recorded it for me, so I'll watch it later. Some people said it wasn't very good. It basically took place on the Air Force Base, Navy Base and Fort Soledad. It didn't really show the true Guam. My next door neighbor gave directions to one couple & he thought he was going to be on TV, but they got eliminated a couple weeks ago. The racers have to keep racing even after they've been eliminated!

Recently at the store, I saw Sugar Free Peeps. I thought that was funny! If you want to see some funny Peeps experiments done by some people that had too much time on their hands, click here. My favorite is Medical Miracle!

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Wednesday afternoon I was heading to the stairs for the hike up to my office on third floor. At the bottom of the stairs a bunch of kids were lined up & all the sudden one of the kiddos comes flying at me & gives me a big hug! It was Gaby. She's 5 & we give each other big hugs whenever we see each other. She calls me Auntie Jenni.

Before church, I watched Brenna for about a half an hour, then we headed to the nursery. (She'll be 2 at the end of May.) I had nursery duty so I stayed with her in the toddler room. They ended up needing me on the baby side & asked me to switch. Brenna was playing fine, but I told them if she got upset that I was gone, they could send her over because there were only 3 babies & 11 toddlers. A little while later she figured out I was gone. I heard from the other side of the door a little voice saying "Je-NEE!". They opened the door & she ran over & fell into my lap. She had been wandering around the toddler room saying "My Je-Nee", "My Je-Nee". When the toddlers went outside she decided to go too. Soon I hear a little voice on the other side of the door, "Je-NEE!" It was so cute!

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Life is busy as usual. The other night I packed another box to move. I'm slowly packing up stuff I can live without until I get back to the States. That way I don't feel so overwhelmed with doing it all at the end.

I went to the Harvest 7-12 grade art show tonight. One of the seniors had asked me to go. We have some talented kids in our school! I was amazed! All I can draw is stick figures!

Later tonight I worked on paperwork for starting my business. Ugh! One step forward & two back. Someone needs to write a "Starting a Business in SC for Dummies" book! I am registering as an LLC, which requires more paperwork, more steps and a "Registered Agent". Now, you're probably asking just like I did, "What in the world is that?" That is another company who you pay money to so if the state sends you registered and/or legal documents, they accept them on your behalf and forward them to you. I can't do it myself because a registered agent must be available at all times during normal business hours. Seems like a racket to me. I pay a company in case the government needs to serve me with legal papers at any time! One company I found is about $200/year! I shot off an email to the Greenville chapter of SCORE to get some help with this. Sole proprietorship is sounding much easier all the time! (There are various benefits to being an LLC, so that is why I want to go that route .)

Tonight I am staying up a little late to talk with some vendors in the States. I have called both of the ones I need to & neither one is in right now. I hate leaving voice mails because then they may try to call me back in the middle of the night! So I will stay up later and hope to catch them!

Friday night I'm going to Filipiaks' to help clean and put furniture back. They had some problems with their tile and have pulled it up & are carpeting the bedrooms. Removing the tile left a fine dust EVERYWHERE and all their bedroom furniture is currently in the living room. You can read more and see pictures on their site.

Saturday morning I am going to walk in the Harvest 5K. I'm not sure what I was thinking signing up to go walking at 6am on a Saturday! I have never done it before and decided I'd give it a try. Maybe I'll win the trip to Saipan!

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I finally am getting around to posting the pictures from our boat trip. I know, I'm a slacker. We had an awesome time. As usual, the food was delicious! Nothing beats BBQ short ribs!

Some of us enjoyed jumping off the top deck of the boat. I did it a couple times too! This is a picture of Pastor & Bryn jumping.


This video shows some of the dolphins we saw. There were probably around 2o of them total! (And yes, the water really is that blue!)

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

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Let me preface this post with a few things. First, I have occasionally been called a "geek". I take that as compliment. Second, I am starting my own business as an independent research/purchasing agent (my nickname "ertlnet" was given to me by a friend because I can find almost anything on the web). This post shows both my "geekness" and just what I can dig up when I go hunting!

My last post was about the mega yacht, the Octopus. Three days later, I got a hit on my site from a Google blog search for "Paul Allen". No big deal, right? Well... that hit came from a host name with the word "portable" in it. That got me thinking... portable? as in "on a yacht"? That led me to the ISP of the host name. Guess who owns that particular ISP? You guessed it- Paul Allen! Along the way I also discovered a connection to a fixed orbit satellite, thereby making me wonder if my blog was hit by Paul Allen himself or someone aboard his yacht! Now that would be pretty cool!

Paul, if that was you and you're reading this post also, thanks for stopping by my blog! I hope you enjoyed your time on Guam! Did you have a chance to go diving? And thanks for the adventure of tracking down all this information on who hit my blog. It was fun!

And if it wasn't Paul and didn't happen via the route I mapped out above, well, I can dream big, can't I? ;-) I did track down enough solid information to be pretty sure that it at least came from someone with a close connection to Paul Allen!

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Friday afternoon, we took 2 boats (about 45 people each) out for a BBQ and snorkeling. On our way out, we passed a HUGE yacht called the Octopus. Not the typical boat you see around here. I joked that it was probably Bill Gates' boat. I was close. It actually belongs to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.

This boat cost $200 million to build and has an annual operating budget of $20 million! (And Paul owns 3 of these big yachts!)

It has 2 helicopters, a pool, a sub, several boats & jet skis and a full time crew of 60. It was an amazing boat to see! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera handy to take a picture of it & we didn't realize whose boat this actually was until a couple days later.

You can read more about this incredible boat here. And see some additional pictures here.

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Spring Break has been great! I was hoping to go to Japan for the week, but it didn't work out. That's OK though. I've been able to rest and get a lot of things accomplished here. Right now I'm sitting at the Coffee Beanery relaxing and enjoying the change of scenery. This week I've worked on a website for my business. It's not up & running yet. I still have a lot to do, but it's coming along. This is the first time I've started a website from scratch. I'm learning Joomla! as I go. It's fairly simple.

Monday - I went for a walk at Asan Beach for some exercise & fresh air. Later I went to dinner with a Bob & his brother who is here visiting for the week. We tried a new pizza place. I thought the pizza was good, but the service & atmosphere were lousy. We won't be going back.
Tuesday - hung out with Filipiaks late afternoon, then we all went to McKinzie's to watch Facing the Giants. It was a great movie!
Wednesday - Jeremy's 12th birthday. We went bowling with the Colliers, then to the Food Court at the mall for lunch. In the evening was Watchcare Group at Paulins. Then the Paulins & I went to Subway to grab dinner. I stayed at their house for awhile, then stopped off at Filipiak's to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake since I wasn't able to be there when they had it. Chocolate cake with chocolate chips & chocolate frosting. Jeremy knows how to pick a good cake!
Thursday - got some things done at home in the morning, then headed to Coffee Beanery to work on my website. I not sure what I'm doing tonight. Probably making cookies for tomorrow.
Friday - I'm going on a boat trip in the afternoon. We have 90 people going on 2 boats! We'll have dinner on the boat, go snorkeling, etc.

I have had to put in some time in at work this week, but I've been able to do it all remotely from home! I think I'm going to like having a 2 second commute! I can do laundry while I'm working & if I need a break, I can stop and do housework for a change of pace!

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Friday morning I opened the door to leave for work & was greeted with the unpleasant smell of rotten eggs. Yuck! A volcano about 200 miles north of us is emitting gas. The wind is blowing this way, so we can smell it.

Since I'm moving in a few months, I am trying to use up some of my non-perishable food in the cupboards. Last night I made granola in my crock-pot using stuff I had on hand. It is really good! I'll definitely be making it again!

A few weeks ago I made spaghetti sauce. It was really good! I've been looking for a recipe for a tomato cream sauce & found one the other day, so I thought I'd try it. It wasn't so good. I think I'll dump the rest in the jungle behind my apartment!

Today I went for a walk on the beach at "War in the Pacific National Historical Park". I've been there a few times, but hadn't stopped to read all the informational signs around the park. In the late 1800's, the area housed a leper colony. After it was destroyed by a typhoon, it became a prison camp, then a Marine camp. In 1931, the US military left Guam. Ten years later, Japan took over the island. In 1944, US troops invaded to take it from the Japanese. 55,000 troops landed on the island and about 1747 (or 2124 according to another source) died. It was sobering to walk around the park and think of all the men who gave their lives to free Guam. Thank you to all the servicemen and women serving around the world today to protect our freedoms! You can read more about the park and the liberation of Guam here and here.

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Temperatures here on Guam are about 85 degrees year round. Typically it is pretty humid too unless there are tradewinds. The last several days have been very unusual with the temps aroudn 75-78. I've had the windows open and the air con off for 4 days now and it's colder in the apartment than we normally keep it! It's been very rainy too. Reminds me of a warm fall or spring day in the States! However, because the temperatures are down about 10 degrees from what our thin blood is used to, we are donning jackets, socks and warmer clothes! Who would have thought?!

Yesterday I went for some x-rays at the clinic. My hip has been bothering me for quite some time - walking up stairs, sitting, sleeping... and it just didn't seem to be getting better. Last week my chiropractor ordered some picts. I'm not a doctor, but I could immediately see what was wrong! Just above my hips, my spine starts to curve. (I think the last time I had a full spine x-ray was about 10 years ago & it apparently didn't show up then.) I went to the chiropractor today and he looked at the x-rays and confirmed my findings. (And my hips are out by about 6mm too!) He's not worried about the curve and is pretty sure he can correct it & get me back to normal! Hooray!

Monday we had the day off for Discovery Day. Thank you Magellan for discovering Guam! I slept in and that was great! I did some cooking for a party later in the evening. Went to get x-rays taken. Came back home & collected the stuff I needed to take to the party & headed out. We had a great time. Chad smoked a beef brisket. We had SO much food! John entertained us with stories from his recent trip to a convention in the States. It was good to relax and hang out with friends.

Kelly is sick today. I hope I don't catch it from her. I dropped Luke off after school and went in to check on her & she was sleeping. Probably a good thing!

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It's been hazy here the last few days. Today I couldn't see the ocean from my office and the nearby mountain was very hazy as well. Normally that only happens when it's rainy. What was the cause of all this gloominess? It depends on your news source! The newspaper says it is smog from Russia, China and Japan. The TV news says it is dust from the Gobi Desert in China. Funny thing - they both site the National Weather Service (NWS) as their source!

You can read the official release from NWS here. Homeland Security also issued an advisory. One of the symptoms is general lack of energy. I think I'll call in "haze sick" tomorrow! In fact, I think I have a permanent case of haze! :-)

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Several years ago, my best friend talked me into buying a down pillow (no feathers, just down!). They're kind of expensive, but I have decided it is well worth it! Well, it was time for a new pillow. The only place here on island I've seen them is Macy's. They start around $140 and go up to $280! I figured I wouldn't be buying my pillow at Macy's! Last week they ran a sale - Buy one, get one for $1 (I had a friend that maybe wanted one & we could split the cost, but that was still too expensive!) Friday night I stopped in and the pillows were all 40% off. Still too expensive. Then I spied the clearance bin. It was full of pillows! However, there were no clearance stickers on them & they were $220. Ouch! I figured they were just using the bin to hold their extra stock & they probably weren't on clearance. I decided to check anyway, but didn't get my hopes up. It rang up at $55! That was 75% off! Hooray! I am now the happy owner of a new pillow & got a good night's sleep last night!

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I got my taxes filed last night. It only took about 30 minutes. I am getting back about 1/2 of what I did last year. Bummer. But on Guam, it is years before you see your refund anyway, so I guess it's not a huge deal! :-)

While we're on the subject of money, here are some local prices for you:
8 oz block of cheese $3.50
gallon of gas $2.93
gallon of milk $7.10
yogurt $0.99 (I only buy this on clearance when it's 25 to 50 cents!)
12 cans Diet Coke $4.29 (this is at KMart. the grocery store is $5.15!)
pound of bacon $4.89
box of Jell-o (4 serving size) $0.89
8 oz cream cheese $1.99 (on sale. I think regularly it's around $2.45)

Things are expensive here & you learn to bite the bullet and pay it or watch for good sales & stock up! Sales here aren't quite like they are in the States. Some things never go on sale. :-(

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I grew up in Iowa - the tall corn state. When I lived in Wisconsin my mom would sometimes find a way to send fresh corn up for me. I LOVE Iowa corn! (Wisconsin corn is nasty. But their cheese is good!) Well, due to customs restrictions and the time it takes to get packages here, I resigned myself to the fact I wouldn't get any good corn unless I was back in Iowa. Guam is not known for their produce. It's pretty difficult to grow crops here. However, there is a local guy that grows corn & it is in season now. I bit the bullet & bought some today. $5 for a 1/2 dozen. It is really pretty good for not coming from the tall corn state! :-)

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This morning at 5:30am, it felt like a large dog jumped out of my bed. Then I remembered I didn't have a dog! I realized it was an earthquake! It was a 5.2 about 40 miles NE of us. You can see the stats here.

I didn't feel the one to the east of Saipan. It was too far away.

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Last night I couldn't function & went to bed at 9:15 pm. (I forced myself to stay up that late!)

Tonight I decided I was going to work on my taxes. It doesn't take long. My taxes are easy, so it's just a matter of setting aside the time to do it. (Next year will be another story!) I got my paperwork, booted up the computer, headed to the Guam Rev & Tax website... the website is down! Oh well, I guess they'll wait for another day. Do I at least get points for trying?

I guess I'll go to bed early again! :-)

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The last one and a half years of my life have taken place on a small island of Guam in the South Pacific. It has been an awesome experience- scuba diving, traveling internationally, learning about different cultures, driving along the beach while running errands, 85 degree weather year round, eating new foods (including beef tongue and squid), meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones…

This June, I will be moving to Greenville, South Carolina to start my own business. It is still unnamed, but the best way to describe what I will be doing would be “independent research/purchasing agent”. For many years, I have enjoyed researching products and prices in order to get the best pricing available for a product. Clients will contract with me to do research and find the lowest price for the items they need. In many cases, the amount of money saved will more than make up for the fees I charge. For example, I saved over $800 on a project that I would have charged a client about $40. That’s a savings of $760 they wouldn’t have saved otherwise. (And three very busy people had already spent a good chunk of time trying to find this product at a better price & I did it in a fraction of the time it took them. So there will be a time savings as well!) Depending on the product I can sometimes save 50% or more off the list price!

There will be various facets to my business: research only, price research and purchasing and combinations of all of them and probably a few other things as well. Churches, ministries and other non-profits will be my target market, but not necessarily my sole clients. I have worked in ministries for 9 years and understand the staffing and budget problems most of them face and have a burden to help. My goal is to save them as much money as I can on anything from as small as office supplies to purchasing furniture and equipment.

I have done this “officially” for several years already and it is now time to go out on my own and make this available to others. Unofficially, I have tried to get the best deal for as long as I can remember! I HATE spending more money than I have to!

It is a bittersweet time for me. I am excited about the new adventures ahead, but sad to be leaving Guam. I did consider starting the business on Guam because I love it here, but the cost of living and the time difference between here and the States would make it too difficult. To talk with vendors, I have to stay up really late or get up really early. I guess I’ll just have to come back for vacation occasionally! :-)

Harvest is 100% behind me in this move and excited they will have a permanent contact in the States to help them coordinate research, purchasing and shipping. When I approached my boss about this, he thought it was a great idea and a wonderful use of my gifts and talents.

Stay tuned for more information and updates as I proceed in this new endeavor!

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I finally got to go diving again today! Andrew, Crystal, Chad, Luke, Lee (Lee has over 3000 dive hours!) and I went diving today. It was great! We did two dives. (Andrew & Luke didn't go on the second one, they kayaked instead.) Crystal's parents are here visiting and they walked the beach and collected shells.

We got to our destination and as we were unloading our gear, I dropped 6 pounds of weights on my toes. That HURT!!! We suited up & headed out. I scraped my knee on the coral a little in the shallow water. I had troubles going down and they added more weights. I ended up with a total of 12 extra pounds!

Once I got down and was able to stay there, I did well and had a great time. I did fall on the reef a few times and get scraped up. It stings!

Crystal's parents left early and went to our apartment and started dinner. We had ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls. Andrew, Matt & Megan came over for dinner as well. I told them if they keep cooking like this for us, they can stay longer than two weeks! :-)

I was so wiped that I took a 30 minute power nap after dinner while the others played games.

Click here for pictures of our dive. Click on each of the pictures for a larger view.

p.s. Mom, I didn't see any sharks. (But Lee said we might see some little black or white tipped reef sharks, but they're harmless.)

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A tan! :-) I spent Christmas Day on the beach with friends. We ate, talked & I played in the water with Brenna (she's 1 1/2). At first she didn't want to have anything to do with the water, but by the end of the day, she was putting her face in and having a great time! (you can see pictures of Christmas Eve & Christmas Day on Chad's photo page. In case you were going to ask, I can swim. The floaty I'm using in one of the pictures is to make it easier to just float around with Brenna!) At the end of the day, we watched the sun set over the ocean. Pictures do NOT do it justice! They are so much more beautiful in person.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Collier's house for dinner & gift exchange. We played games and I even got to try out their Nintendo Wii. That was a lot of fun! The adults played baseball, bowling, and even tennis doubles. After that, I went to Filipiak's to see what was in our stockings and we exchanged our gifts for each other.

On Christmas Day, I slept in, packed my stuff for the beach and headed to Filipiak's. I hooked up my computer & webcammed with my family so we could see each other open gifts. After that we headed to the beach & spent the day there. I tried something new with my burger. It was good! I marinated it in a teriyaki type sauce and added grilled pineapple, cheese & mayo. MMmmmm...

Today I slept in again, webcammed with my family again since the extended family was over, went to work for awhile & now I'm just being a bum because it's Christmas break! :-)

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This post is for Jamie P. She was hollering at me today because I haven't updated my blog in quite awhile. True. I have been incredibly busy lately getting my Christmas shopping done, packages shipped out, working, Christmas cantata, Jeremy & Luke's Christmas concerts, Christmas parties...

We had an 4.5 earthquake yesterday afternoon. Just a baby one.

Speaking of baby, I saw Aayla on the webcam yesterday. She's getting big! And she smiled at Aunt Jenni! She's such a cutie! If you want to see recent pictures of her, check them out here: ertls.blogspot.com

It's Christmas break now - hooray!

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