Only a month away!

20 August 2008

One month to my birthday. Woohoo!

Thought I'd make a post about wants and needs... care package options :)

I put up a list back on 22 June, so I'm reprising some of the stuff
here, but I've also already received a couple of things on my wish
list.

Instant drink packets (preferably single-serving ones)

letters! (as always!)

Essential oils!!!!

Phase 10

Tea
In addition to packets of tea, I forgot to bring one of those lovely
little mesh ball loose-leaf tea strainers over with me, oops!

Yummy trail mix

CDs of music/dvds/pictures

Magazines
Due to budget cuts we may no longer be getting Newsweek. Grr. If anyone wants to buy me a subscription to Time or the Economist or some other interesting newsy mag, I would be ridiculously appreciative.

Hair things
I've decided to grow out my hair while I'm here for various reasons. I may end up cutting it all off after two years and donating it, which
would be cool.
I do not have ANY hair ties with me. Please help!

Knitting stuff
Didn't bring my knitting needles with me. Why not? you ask (those of
you who have seen me knitting compulsively for months on end. Yeah, that's a good question. Just one of those things I forgot. I've seen
some yarn around, but if there's a cool bit of eyelash or something, I
always love the crazy stuff for knitting my kittens!

Tweezers
I brought a pair of tweezers. They have absolutely no grip whatsoever.
Grr.

Dice
6-sided, 10-sided, 20-sided. Whatever. The prettier the better :)

Thumb drives
I really need some extra space for saving pictures and stuff. I'm very
quickly running out of space on my computer due to the inundation of
photos. (and my slight tendency to horde things) If you send me two
thumb drives, I'll send you one back full of pictures and interesting
tidbits :) Promise.

Blank CDs
I found some here but they are ridiculously expensive, so i'd love to
receive a couple of blank CDs every so often so that I can make hard
copies of all my fantastic photos. :)

Rechargeable batteries
I use a lot more AAAs than I'd expected. I really need a second set of them to charge while I use the other set. Preferably the kind that are
designed for powering electronic devices; they last much longer.

Cigarette lighter adapter
For my phone. My solar panel has a female car adapter plug, but I
don't have the male adapter to use with my phone. My phone is a Sony Ericsson W800i so something like this http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/8660.htm?referer=AFF_MOBILES-NOT_SET-MISCELLANEOUS-P-8660 would work although the three-in-one thing is a bit overkill.

THE BIG (AND EXPENSIVE) PRESENT
***EDIT*** I've decided to look into buying a generator for power needs rather than asking for a solar panel*** This is an option that I would really really appreciate, but I hope
would be a joint gift from a bunch of people. Because I do not have electricity, I will need to go to another city in order to charge up my laptop. This means that I will only be able to use my laptop for about 5 hours in between visits to a power supply. I have a solar charger, but it is not strong enough to charge up my computer (it does fine for charging my rechargeable batteries). So as a big gift that would be very useful, I would love to get a second solar charger that has a higher capacity and a power pack to charge up and use on cloudy days.
The power pack would probably be heavy and prohibitively expensive to
mail over, so if anyone's visiting?...

This is one example of a set:
http://www.earthtechproducts.com/p2580.html

Or with individual components put together:
http://store.altenergystore.com/Portable-Power/Xantrex-XPower-
PowerPack-400-Backup/p2618/

http://store.altenergystore.com/Portable-Power/Sunlinq-12Watt-12V-
Portable-Power-Pack/p572/?nav=detail-addon

Or, the easiest one to ship is:
http://ascscientific.stores.yahoo.net/solarroll14.html

picture is of my host sister making a complet at home (this one's not
for me)