Golden Ice so far

He's taking shape!

GI

Heremia!

The frame choice and framing board colour came out PERFECTLY!!

Golden Ice

This is the pic I took last night but never got round to posting:

Monday....

Today I'm satisfied.

Happy. Things are going well.

This weekend was busy, but good. We got Dude back on Saturday afternoon. Man, did I miss him! It was almost a whole week.

Friday evening sis, her bf, me and G went out for buffet chinese/sushi. Very yum! Saturday morning I had my lesson - there are only 4 more until my test (excluding the one the morning of the test) EEEK!!!! But I'm not really stressing. I have to memorise the pre-trip inspection... but apart from that, it's not really under my control. If I do everything perfectly but the examiner is an asshole, I will fail. If I usually do everything perfect but make a single (bad) mistake, I will fail. It's not really something that I can do myself, it depends too much on the circumstances and the examiner. I will try my best but that is all I can do. If I fail, I still have plenty of time to do a re-test. I will just have to wait and see.

We went out for lunch with G's folks and long-lost cousins of his dad! Long story there but basically long long long lost cousin of his dad retraced his family and found them here. Very nice people, the cousin and his wife. From the UK, they're visiting the country for about a month I think.

Sat evening we went to W&S's place for a braai. Muahahah that was an entertaining braai! :D I even got to see guitar hero in action - G gave it a try hehe.

Sunday afternoon we had stitchathon. G and I had gone to the mall to get medicine and brunch, and we got a scanner too (I've been meaning to get one)... I'm going to sit down for about a year :P and scan every photo from G's folks' and mom's photo albums and burn them on CD. There's no point in our making reprints of them all, just to lug them overseas when we emigrate. So we will have them burnt on CD - that way we get just a CD or 5 to take with us, and we can give G's folks and mom a CD of their photos for backup. A lot of them are already badly faded.

On the emigration note - I've added a countdown widget to the side of my blog. I figured that G's committed to his company until the end of March 2010, so we can take 1 April 2010 as our earliest emigration date. It seems so far away, but then if you think: the wedding is 200 days away, by the time the wedding day has arrived there will be 200 less days til we leave! At the moment it's 716, and it will be 516... it's just so fast!

I've started on Golden Ice. We had stitchathon yesterday, I got quite a bit done then and also later that evening. It's going to look STUNNING!!!! The bright, clear tones against the black fabric. Wow! So exciting and envigorating!

What else is news.......... not that much... I'm currently folding about 12830kgs of architectural drawings... at least I get to listen to my ipod while I'm busy. I have some filing to do upstairs, but all in all hopefully today will be nice and stress-free. Hbbm comes back tomorrow - yay!

Laterzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!

And now...

Golden Ice - by Kustom Krafts

My next project. He is HUGE... compared to the ones I've done before. I've sent Heremia away to be framed, I'll post a pic of her when she comes home (Wednesday).

I've already started to plot Golden Ice: I've glued the copied chart pages together to make one big chart, and now I'm in the process of stitching a grid on the fabric so as to accurately follow the chart. It is such a large design and it isn't entirely stitched, so there is more margin for error I think. I decided to do Golden Ice first rather than Gentle Strength because GS is bigger and the entire design is stitched.

Tonight we're fetching Dude. We were supposed to go fetch him Monday evening, but the pest control company messed up. They were supposed to be at our place at 14:00 and G went home to meet the guy, but they never pitched. I phoned in and the woman said they were running late blablabla so basically it was sorted out and done yesterday at 17:30. Our place is now 100% roach free (as far as we can gleefully tell), and we can fetch Dude! Man I have missed him like mad!

Today feels bleh. Why are Thursdays always so bleh? It's aggravated by the fact that I have to do switchboard duty on Thursdays. I'm getting the feeling that I need to be solitary now, sitting on a mountain top, looking out over the ocean... free and alone and peaceful. Quietness.

Heremia Finit!

Here Heremia is. Warpony's had his eye on her for quite some time, I have a feeling they're a match made in heaven!

Heremia, last night

Stuck

I'm uninspired right now. I have a lot on my mind, a lot of ideas and things I want to do. Things to organise, things that are only to be organised in the future and things that I want to finish.

Heremia is one thing I want to finish. It is time now. I want to try this evening, and hopefully by tomorrow she'll be done.

Some things are reaching breaking point. I don't know what the outcome will be. I can't see... I don't know where it's going. I'm almost afraid, scared of the outcome. It might tip too far over.

I'm stuck at work right now. My boss left at about midday, he's on leave until the 15th - a skiing holiday. I have work to do but I don't feel like doing it. It's a Friday afternoon... who feels like doing any work? It's not urgent work either, but I cannot go home. That's all I want to do. As I type this I'm starting to feel sleepy - a nap would be good.

I think I have found my wedding ring. I've printed a pic off the net - want to have it made up because you don't find this style in the shops at the moment - it's not in style right now. It's a nice simple ring, but it matches my engagement ring. G has to find his now, hopefully we can get them made up soon... we still have a lot of time but if we get things done sooner rather than later we have more time to enjoy ourselves closer to the time.

OH YAY so he PHONES IN and DICTATES MINUTES!!!!!!! It's 16:30 for fuck's sake!

And a proper blog post this time

I was online earlier, wanted to blog while G was still asleep. It was a beautiful, quiet morning and I'd just come back from my driving lesson - did parking and cos I hadn't done any parking for about a month I was rather rusty.

I got sidetracked, however, and by the time I'd finished reading all my addictions (livejournal, facebook, the pond, etc) G was awake and it was time to head off to his parents' place to fetch Dude. So I quickly posted the pic of Heremia and shut down.

Dude was at "the grandparents" from Thursday evening until this morning. For the AWESOMEST reason EVER: Rentokil came yesterday to DE-COCKROACH our place! ♥ I had previously arranged for pest control to come, but as detailed in a previous blog-post, they arrived 1hr late and it didn't actually happen. Rentokil was fantastic. The technician arrived on time, he was professional and friendly and did a very thorough job. He worked for about an hour and a half... we weren't gassed out, and he explained quite a bit to us. We currently have the entire kitchen unpacked in the lounge. It is quite cluttered and of course "disruptive" having everything out of place, but I'M SO HAPPY!! The disgusting offensive revolting UGH things are DYING! The guy sprayed stuff almost everywhere, and put dots of gel in special places that they'd go and munch it. Apparently it's delicious to them and kills them very quickly. Hell, while the guy was still busy there were already some dying! I'm so elated!! It's like a dream come true - I can see one now, and point at it and go MUAHAHAHAHA, safe in the knowledge that it's going to die very very soon :) ok so I'm evil... WHATEVER! :D

G and I went out for supper last night - to give the place a bit of time to "settle" (although there was hardly any smell at all). This morning was my driving lesson (as mentioned above), and then we headed off to G's folks to fetch the Dude. Stayed for tea and biscuits and enjoyed the chattering from both Dude, his uncle Pookie and the finches. Dude and Pookie even jointly made a wolf-whistle (can't remember which one but one of them did the up-note and the other did the down-note!)

Dude is happily back in his place in the lounge, tinkling his bell like usual.

Despite being a 4-day week, this week has been BUSY. Quite productive though - we managed to meet up with a decor/florist company (on Wednesday after work) which was great. I think we have found our people for the wedding! The other company hasn't got back to us, and it's already been 3 weeks. Their loss, I say.

We also went to the doc on Thursday - my feet have been itching like mad which seems to be a mad-outbreak of chilblains. Afterwards we dropped Dude off. And then Friday we had Rentokil over. YAY quite a good week.

As you can see from the previous post, Heremia is Coming Along. I really cannot wait until she's finished and I can take her to be framed. I'm really eager to start something new now - she's taken under a year - roughly 10months (if I finish soon). I really can't wait, I think I'll start on Gentle Strength next - the colours are totally different to both Warpony and Heremia (both mostly orange/brown) as Gentle Strength is 99% greys. I guess after all the grey on white fabric of Gentle Strength, the orange (and blue) on black of Golden Ice will be a good change, and then there's Motion which is mostly grey/cream on blue...

Before I start on Gentle Strength though I am going to do Damask Rose (purse), which is a kit G's mom gave me for Christmas. It shouldn't take long at all to do, and I've asked her to help me stitch it all together when I'm done.

What else is news in our world. Not much. The wedding plans are coming along. All that seems left to arrange is the cake, catering (and drinks), we have to find rings, and then the outfits have to be made/hired. Oh and transport to/from the wedding, and of course, the honeymoon.

The neighbour has been away for a while - we are so glad!!

G's parcels arrived from the online shop we use. Awesome! He'd ordered the Nemi book for me (it came back in stock at a time that I couldn't make a purchase). It is FUNKY... really love Nemi!

Ok I think I'm gonna post this and then GET STITCHING!!!!

Heremia

Nom Nom Nom

This just cracks me up EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Melancholy

For some reason I feel very melancholy this evening. I found this pic somewhere online, and it made me feel so sad for the past.

My grampa used to have a car like this, a maroon, automatic merc: right-hand drive, towbar, wood-panelled dashboard etc.

This pic takes me back to when I was small and pretty much in awe of the car. I must have been about 4 or so, maybe even 3. My cousin wasn't born yet so I was probably between 3 and 4. I remember how spotlessly Grampa would keep the car. It was polished and pampered and so well kept. It was really beautiful. The pic makes me remember it so clearly. The colours and textures, all the small details of the interior.

Then, after he died (when I was about 9 or 10), Gran moved in with my uncle and cousins. The car was left out in the garden, and my cousins played in the car and the sun destroyed the paint on the bonnet.

Uncle decided to move about 6 hours away, and he sold the car. After letting it fall into disrepair, it was probably sold for virtually nothing. It could have been sold years before, to someone who would have kept it and maintained it like it should have been. It could have been sold or given to my parents, although mom's thought is that they wouldn't have had the money to keep it and fix it if something went wrong.

I feel such sadness and regret about this car. I have dreamt of driving a similar (if not the same) car. It would have been great, to drive the car, to own the car, keep it like Grampa kept it. I would have cherished it. But it was wasted. Thrown away as if nothing, worthless.

I doubt I could buy a car like it, or one like the one my parents had... it just wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be that particular car, and I would never be happy. I guess I will (one day) buy a normal car - but what cars these days are any good? Well made, quality and worthwhile? Everything is plasticky and junky and not made to last. I couldn't feel dedicated to something like that.

The Cardigans - For What It's Worth

One, two, three, four

Hey baby come round
Keep holding me down
And I'll be keeping you up tonight.

The four letter word got stuck in my head
The dirtiest word that I've ever said
It's making me feel alright.

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do
Oh what is worse I'm gonna run run run
'Till the sweetness gets to you
And what is worse I love you!

Hey please baby come back
There'll be no more loving attack
And I'll be keeping it cool tonight.

The four letter word is out of my head
Come on around get back in my bed
Keep making me feel alright.

For what it's worth I like you
And what is worse I really do
Things have been worse
And we had fun fun fun
'Till I said I love you
And what is worse I really do!

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do.
Oh

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do.
Oh

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do....

Impatience...

There is too much I really badly want to do.

I haven't blogged in ages - things have been busy :D

I happened upon this funky webpage- a supermarket in Aus (Woolworths)... it's so exciting to think of the stuff we'll buy there, like breakfast, coke, pet food! EEEEEEEEK now I'm uber impatient to go there already!!!!!!!

I'm waiting (impatiently hehe) for stuff to arrive from the online shop I buy music and stuff from. Deluxe (2cd) Best of The Cardigans, Millennium Fever by Apollo 440, Try This and Can't Take Me Home by Pink, Hits and Rarities and Detours by Sheryl Crow, as well as D-D-Don't Stop The Beat by Junior Senior. CAN'T WAIT!

Things have been so busy lately, I'm so glad this weekend is a long weekend. Sat morning we're going to try go to the traffic dept to get G's address changed with them. We still have to sort out this damn security gate - I need to email the owners of our place to find out whether they are/were able to get a quote or whether we should just get our own quote. I'm also desperate to get pest control in to treat the cockroaches. I'm SO SICK of those disgusting things, I really can't take them anymore. They really are everywhere now. There was even one on our bedroom wall (upstairs!!) a few mornings ago. *hurl*

What else is news...

I need to go make tea asap - need tea!

We're waiting on quotes from a decor/florist company for the wedding. It's been 2 weeks.

Friday night past G and I met up with W&S, L&X and R&N for supper at a burger restaurant. Exotic kinds of burgers. Very yum, lovely place, except my food was wrong at first and then took AGES to be replaced! I was eating my meal while everyone was already done with their desserts. And the atmosphere at the place (between staff) isn't too hot. They're very impatient and disrespectful of each other, for eg they all work at the till for their own orders, and someone must have left his slip on the machine and the next dude tapped him impatiently on the shoulder and waved the slip in his face and the guy snatched it and chucked it on the counter (he was busy with something else at the time). Just not a great attitude towards each other, and strangely I find that that kinda thing affects how I perceive the place. It affects my dining-experience. I am left to wonder what it is that causes them to be so unhappy, is the pay bad? Are they overworked? What is wrong there?

Anyway, enough deep-philosophy stuff for now. Saturday we pretty much bummed and slept late (after I got back from my driving lesson). It was so nice - the neighbour and her evil satan-spawn were not at home, so we actually got to enjoy our place with peace and clean air. It was lovely, and it lasted all the way to Sunday evening - we got to sleep late on Sunday too! Bliss!!!!

Sat afternoon G and I went to different shops - I bought 4 snails and some plants for the fishtank. My other snails had died and the algae completely covered the front panel of the fishtank. The new snails have cleaned off almost the entire pane already! Yay for apple snails ♥

We also popped by a shop and I bought 2 boxes of Need for Speed Carbon - collectors' edition (PC DVD). Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, it won't play on my laptop. But luckily X lent me his copy of NFS Underground 2. It ROCKS... Ok I'm starting with a pretty cruddy car (a Nissan something blah), and I'm dying to get back into my bright yellow Mitsubish Lancer, but it's still fun! Just is weird (after playing NFS Carbon on the PSP and being completely immortal) that you can 'total' your car and lose a race because of it!

Sunday afternoon we popped over to L&X's place for stitchathon. G took his guitar and stuff with - X was having a guitar lesson. L, S and I stitched. Heremia is looking good, I just feel so impatient to start something else now and to have her framed up on the wall. L gave me charts that she's got lined up to do, a series of Zen ideas: balance, longevity, prosperity and wisdom. She has ordered the book so I can keep the charts. I've placed an order for the book too - then when I do eventually get round to doing designs from the book, I will most likely be in Aus by then, and we can do a kinda simultaneous stitching thing - showing each other our progress online. For now though I'm just eager to finish Heremia.

Hmm what else is news. There are rumours that 2nd May (Friday) will be given as a 2nd public holiday. 1st May is a holiday, and this Friday is both Good Friday and Human Rights' Day. So in order to compensate everyone, we *might* get the 2nd May off too. Rumours rumours, heard it on the radio this morning so might well happen!!!! Everyone at the office has already put in leave for the 29th and 30 April, and the bosses were going to make us take compulsory leave on the 2nd (which I'm annoyed about cos I'm saving my leave for the honeymoon!)... but hopefully we will get that day as a holiday - problem solved. I'm just not looking forward to being receptionist on the 29th and 30th April - YAYYYYYYYYY.............

That is all I can think of for now... will post again when the need arises.

Heremia!

Here's a pic of Heremia:

Day after my birthday :)

Lots to blog about.

First off: Pinkleaf has popped out an arm!

G's mom gave me 2 violet leaves in a pot a couple of weeks ago. One of them (a white violet) was 100% fine, the other (called pinkleaf - a pink violet) looked really damaged - dried out and the top half had gone crinkled and brown. I picked the dead bits off pinkleaf, and have waited in anticipation for the day that they'd put out some new leaves. The white violet almost straight away started putting out new leaves, but pinkleaf was hanging on, a half-leaf, soldiering on trying not to die. It's been like that for a good while now. The half-leaf never wilted, it stayed thick and strong. On Tuesday, I poked around in the soil around it, hoping to see signs of life. There was something there... it looked a bit like something that might grow into a leaf, but I wasn't sure. I covered it up again and left it to its own devices. This morning, pinkleaf has an arm! It popped out an arm! I'm so glad. It means both of them are going to be 100%. Once a few more leaves pop out (from pinkleaf) I'll transplant them separately in their own larger pots. YAY I'm so thrilled! I've been keeping G's mom in the loop with their progress, and we've both been rooting (!) for pinkleaf.

I have meeting minutes to type now. I really don't feel like doing them right now. I feel like blogging. I guess I should get started soon but I'm sure it's alright.

Things are carrying on, with X and Y. This whole erupted/erupting mess is still going on.

On Sunday we went to G's folks' place for tea. It was lovely seeing his gran again. His mom also gave us a whole stack of photo-albums for us to look through - I've been dying to see baby pics of G for AGES now and finally I got to see them. :D SO DAMN CUTE!!! It's so funky seeing everyone back then. G was such a blondy!

I worked on Heremia a few nights back. She's coming along so well, I really can't wait! I will stitch a bit more (maybe tonight) and take a pic.

Tuesday G and I left work early, to meet up with a florist/decor company. It was very tricky getting into their place off the road but we managed! It was nice though, had a very brief but intense chat. The main woman seems very visionary, "we can use this, and this, and this". Her office has a glass pane on the one side and while she was talking it seemed to me as if she was looking at different decor items in the next room. Only after a while of looking in the direction trying to see what she was looking at did I realise that she's not actually looking at these things, she's picturing things!!!! I felt a bit of a moron, it seemed so comically set up I felt as if she (or her assistant) were inwardly amused at my expense! But anyway, they're going to send their quote sometime (hopefully soon - we have no idea how much decor+flowers would cost).

Yesterday was my birthday. It was a good birthday, I think :D Didn't feel like going to work. We got up extra early to go buy cakes for the office before work, else I'd have had to go sometime during the morning.

Got a box of chocolates and a card from a colleague... Today she gave me 2 koala keyrings and a Sydney calendar - she said another colleague complained that she was giving gifts away ie it's bad manners, but she said she would rather give it to someone else who would want it/need it than throw it away wastefully. It's a lovely calendar and the koalas are cute. Just the sort of thing to get us started with Australiana! ;) I was looking at houses for sale in the Sydney area yesterday, and there are some pretty funky places out there! Makes me wish time would go quickly (next year etc). This year is going fast enough thank you very much!

G gave me a box of chocs and a packet of choccie sweets - my favourite! There's something else though which was delayed which is sposed to come today... Can't wait!!

G said he was planning something for my birthday supper, but it was a secret. I honestly had NO CLUE where we were going. He wouldn't give me any clues at all. So we got ready yesterday evening, and G drove us to the Waterfront. We walked through the whole waterfront (justabout!), and arrived at the gangplank/steps going onto a boat. It was a 5 course, 2 hour cruise around the whole waterfront. It was so nice in there and the weather was PERFECT! It couldn't have been better if we'd planned the weather system ourselves! We sat at a window, and the whole night we watched everything go by as we gently sailed around while having supper. It was so nice seeing the whole place lit up at night, the lights like stars. The food was delicious! As always with a buffet, there's too much to eat if you took a bit of everything that you liked! But I got a good YUM plateful of food and enjoyed it a lot. A really special, romantic evening :D

Ok, now on a totally different note - I REALLY HAVE to get started with these minutes... :(

I can't think of a clever or expressive post title...

Things are progressing... I have a lot of clarity on the issue now, but everything is still frustrated. It's almost like it is partly cloudy - clear with occasional clouding over.

After chatting to mom a lot over the past few days, I have insight into the issue, and yet, I am unable to do anything to sort it out. It is not something that *I* have to sort out. Can't go into details, but it is not for me to fix, this problem. There have to be consequences for actions which affect people close to you. You can't expect them not to react accordingly if you do something which hurts them. It doesn't work like that. Commit the crime, do the time, in a way. You have to face the music.. and what's frustrating is that she's not willing to. Argh!!!!!!!

Had a driving lesson today (none last week, none Saturday coming). It seems to be going alright... I don't know how well I'll do in the test, I guess at least I'm getting experience enough.

Need for Speed IS SO AWESOME! I defeated the 2nd boss and won a 2nd territory - defeated a crew. I was able to upgrade parts in my car - like NO2 and the turbo etc... and BOY OH BOY I can tell! Gotta get used to the handling now. I have to get the hang of hand-brake turns too, it's becoming more crucial than in the previous 2 levels. Still wanna get a nice sig/avatar of my car though....

What else is news. Dude is cute. G is sweet and special.

G's gran has come down from upcountry for my birthday. I feel very touched - she is very eager to "make it" to our wedding - she's 83 and seems to feel very time-limited I suppose. So I'm very honoured that she is coming down for my birthday. She really is sweet :)

G and I mowed the lawn earlier. I found a HUGE cricket in the gutter but it got away - it went under the fence between our places so hopefully it will find its way into the neighbours' place and keep them awake. I am getting more and more tired of waking up to this woman sharing her high-heel shoes with us through their tiled floor. Lady, if you're going to take an hour getting ready, walking all over your place, LEAVE THE HIGH-HEELS TIL LAST!!!! FOR PITY'S SAKE!

I dunno... it wouldn't seem so annoying if they didn't do other ANNOYING things - like scream, smoke, slam the doors, etc etc. It is baffling... why do they HAVE to SLAM their front door every time they go out? Ok if she's carrying the brat on her hip and her hands are full ok.. but he's 2, lady, he can walk! Surely he can manage the steps since you yourself live in a 2storey place? Nope, you HAVE to slam the door. And what's so dumb is that because a) I'd feel like an idiot and b) they're out whenever we go out/come home, I wouldn't actually slam OUR door to give her a bit of her own medicine... I'm more and more tempted though!

Heremia is paused. For now - I wanted to stitch a bit tonight but I was so tired after supper+washing up. S, L and I are going to meet up on the 16th to have a stitchathon/wedding chat... they're going to be my bridesmaids and we're going to chat plans and ideas! Can't wait!

It's X's party on Saturday this weekend coming. He's back from Sweden - it'll be good to see him again.

N is back from (UAE? Dubai?) - we met up with him for lunch and he came by our place for a short visit.

What else is news... not sure - will have to blog again if I think of things ;)

Ongoing shit

It is just getting worse and worse, more complicated and more shit.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

New projects

I tried out some demo cross-stitch charting programs, and found that out of DMC Pattern Designer, Pattern Maker, PC Stitch, Stitchcraft and X-Stitch Studio, Pattern Maker is the best. You only get 4 days to use the demo, but it is the full version and you can save and print the charts you've made. DMC Pattern Designer and one of the others are basically the same, just different splashscreens, and they have horrible colour reduction and if you are using a photo to make a design, it doesn't work well at all. The other two were alright, but Pattern Maker's handling, rendering and functionality put it WAY above the rest. Definitely worthwhile trying out, if not buying! I'm pretty much overloaded with designs I have waiting to be done (Heremia in progress, Damask Rose purse, Gentle Strength, Golden Ice, Motion already), so I doubt I'd make use of it often enough to warrant buying it... but I've charted two pics already, so now my list of "to-dos" has grown. I doubt I'd even finish half of them before we move to Aus, but hopefully I will have finished all of them before we become Aus citizens...

It's Saturday night... we've just spent a relaxing day at home (after sorting out stuff at the traffic dept and meeting up with G's folks for brunch).

And I've just been looking at baby budgies - googled them. Awwwwwwwwwww they are TOO CUTE! I so wish we could take Dude with us to Aus... then we could let him start a family... :( but for the time being they don't allow most animals into Aus.

That's all for now.