A whole new year has begun. Our visa should happen sometime in the later half of the year... hope it all goes smoothly. Other than that, we have a river-rafting trip in March, which I CAN'T WAIT for. And we've got tickets to see Kelly Clarkson, also in March! What a month it's going to be!
And my work-plans... I can't really give notice (end Feb) and then take a week off in my notice-month, nor can I find a new job and start and straight away take a week off in my first month. So although I'm going to keep looking for a job, I'm not going to take a job which I'd have to start beginning of March... I'm hoping to give notice end of March and then start at a new place beginning of May.
The bonus of my having a new job is that I can then (hopefully) work until we are nearer to moving. I'd been 'holding out' for a full work period, ie 6 years, or 6.5 years (at my current company) but if I finish with them I'd still have about a year with another company, so I'd still be working (ie, no large span of 'unemployment' to explain to prospective employers in Aus), and still earning money (to go towards savings, for the move, etc).
I know things don't always work out how we'd like, but that's what I'm hoping for.
That's the plans-y things, now for 'news' etc: the past couple of weeks, I've been seeing a large, bright-green grasshopper in our garden. Then, one day, he* disappeared - I found the exoskeleton which he'd shed, but couldn't find him. I thought he'd been eaten or left our garden, until I found him again - he's now a large, brown locust.
The difference between grasshoppers and locusts, if I understand correctly, is that some species of grasshoppers have the ability to 'transform' in certain circumstances and form swarms, others do not; the 'swarming' species are called locusts. So we have a locust in our garden, but as far as I can tell, he's in a 'solitary' phase, and hopefully he won't go into the 'gregarious' stage and find swarm-mates!
We've made a step in the 'media-centre' direction by removing our TV from its cavity in the wall-unit. We've put G's computer (the same one I used for scanning all the photos) into that cavity and hooked it up to my hifi. We now have a music centre! All of our CDs are now ripped to that machine, so we have DAYS AND DAYS of music at our fingertips, ready to be enqueued in Winamp. Yeehaa!
I've also been stitching a lot, and I've been getting a very stiff shoulder. Golden Ice is coming along wonderfully and the end is in sight, sorta. I'm nearly done with the top-left quarter of the design, then all I have left is the bottom-left quarter!
Thankfully the Wedding Blessing kit is smaller than Golden Ice, so I should have it a bit easier by not having to hold up this massive Q-Snap-framed piece of work. J (in the US) reminded me that there ARE actually stitching frames out there which allow you to sit on the couch and stitch, which sounds super-blissful right about now! I'm thinking that it'll be something to pursue once we're in Aus. No point forking out $$$ to get a frame shipped out to SA only to have to cart it over with us when we move. And hopefully I'll manage the Wedding Blessing cross-stitch without it, and won't have the time to start a new cross-stitch until we're in Aus... let's see!
In other news, in Diablo 2 (LOD expansion, in case anyone is wondering) I managed (finally!) to kill Mephisto! Once I'd upped my lightning resistance kit, I was able to catch him across a canal and bash him with my psychic-hammer skill.
Then I raced through Act 4, battling with the 'fallen angel' guy (who was dreadful and super-life-powered so it took a LOT of clicking to kill him)... then I got into the 'Chaos room' where there were 5 seals to activate (to release Diablo), and 3 semi-bosses to kill. They were ok except for one, who ran so quickly I hardly stood a chance - only by running around and around the outside of a room, isolating his minions and killing them one by one, was I able to get him by himself and kill him. Then, Diablo appeared... it took a few attempts but I managed!! My assistant-chickie died about a hundred times, costing me 7200 gold coins each time to resurrect her, but in the end, I managed to kill Diablo rather easily compared to the fallen-angel-guy. I'm now in Act 5, waiting to start off on my first quest there.
Bleh, work starts on Monday. I haven't missed it. The only good thing about is that the bosses are all (apparently) on leave until the following Monday!
Anyway, let me leave y'all with a message for the new year: this one is going to be an interesting, eventful year (not even including the Soccer World Cup)! Bring it on! Here's to a fulfilling year, with everything working out how it should, or even better!
~*~
* He/she. Insects and other 'weird' critters seem to gain the male gender. Not sure why, but millipedes, grasshoppers, snakes, caterpillars, flies, etc, all seem to get the pronoun 'he'. He's quite large, about 8 or so centimetres... so he might well be a female!
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