Unpacking the boxes

Great news, all of my stuff has finally arrived here from the USA! Now comes the monumental task of unpacking it all. I've gotten through a significant amount of boxes and there are some that are going to stay packed. They have things like stuffed animals and tea sets and what not that I want to give to my kids when they get older, stuffed animals for the boys and tea sets and dolls for the girl of course. It's been nice not to have to worry about my limited supply of clothes and now I have all my favorite long sleeve shirts with me. It makes me so happy. I was a little worried that I would have to take all my winter clothes and put them away, again, after the nice weather we had last week. However, some nasty weather has returned so I won't have to worry about that for a bit. We've also been able to hang-up a lot of the art I brought with me so the home is starting to come together. I know that it may sound a bit selfish of me but it really didn't feel like my place until I had some of my things out and about in the house. I'm a lot more comfortable in here and, even though we probably won't stay in this house forever, it feel like home.

Two boxes got lost in transit and some things were broken. It could have been a lot worse and I was so overjoyed that all of my big snowglobes survived the trip. There's no bookcase in the house right now to put them up anywhere but we'll get that one day. We've been able to get a couple of floating shelves to put stuff on and 4 storage cubes to put all my yarn in. Now I just have to get knitting and making some things, maybe sell them to make a little money. I was able to put a good selection of my books into the living room and all my DVDs fit into the low bookcase we have right now. I was able to write down a bunch of recipes on my little recipe cards and put it into my cookbooks for use later on. We've cleared up some space in the kitchen with having a shelf in there so that my cookbooks can be at my height to reach. We also got a desk, an early Christmas present courtesy of my Mom, for the guest room that has really cleared up a lot of space for us. Its the perfect height for my drawing and scrapbooking and what not. Gordon has moved the huge L-shaped workbench that was in there to the garage for his own benefit. We may just leave the car outside and keep stuff in the garage.

The only bad thing that really happened is that my gamecube is fried. The converter I had wasn't able to convert the currency so it blew out the fuse. When we tried to do it again the game wouldn't turn on. I wonder if it would work if we did get a proper converter that took care of the voltage as well. I've tried researching the compatibility between my US game and the gamecubes they have out here. It looks like the gamecube games out here will only be compatible with UK or PAL systems. America has a different region that they use or something. So either, I need to find someone to buy all my gamecube games in America or find a gamecube in America that I can get shipped out here. Any suggestions?

The sprouts in the punnets that I planted have come along marvelously. We just transplanted some butter beans, cucumbers, and zucchini to the garden. I'm not entirely convinced that the ground was ready for seedlings but they seem to be doing fine. What I would like to do is take all the clumpy bits of decomp that won't decomp anymore and just leave the grass clippings to do the job. I tried to put some lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower into the punnets to see if they will get bigger, so far no luck but I'm going to give it a couple of days before giving up and retrying. All in all, our veggie garden excursion hasn't been too bad all around. I'm still waiting for my flower bed to be prepped and ready, my seedlings are starting to get antsy. I may have to wait until next year or so to make pretty flowers.

I've finally gotten all my paperwork done for my refund from Air New Zealand. It will now take them six weeks to process my order. The only obstacle now is getting the credit card company to refund me since that will mean that they owe me money. USAA is usually a very good company to work with and very understanding. They are one of the few banks that I don't end-up feeling frustrated by the end of my telephone call. I've also applied for a couple of jobs. I just turned in the application and I'll be contacting them in a couple of days to show them I'm still interested. Finding a job has really proven difficult and it doesn't help that there is an expected downturn in the economy with losses of job for NZ. I'm trying to stay positive still and hoping that these people will take a chance on this American. Guess its not as easy to find a job as I was led to believe.

Gordon and I have ordered our pictures from the wedding picture website. We also received our DVD of all of our pictures. I immediately went to Dick Smiths to get them printed. They still look wonderful despite being from a quick-print place. I'm going to have lots of fun doing our scrapbook for our special day. However, I can't quite seem to remember where I placed all of my wedding mementos like my invitations, they're probably with all of my scrapbooking things that have yet to be unpacked. Sometimes I think that since I do have free time on my hands I should devote entire days to scrapbooking to get all of my projects done. I got a fantastic idea about Christmas gifts for my family using the wedding pictures. I hope that everyone enjoys them when they receive them. Oh, I am making headway with all of our thank you's. I still have to write some of them out but we are well on our way to sending them out.

Gordon should be home in about a half hour to hour. He's on night shift this week which is why I forgot to post my blog this afternoon. So I get to take a break from cooking in the evenings this week. It's nice to have him home in the mornings during some weeks. The Christmas function for work is this Friday so maybe I'll get to meet some interesting people. Gordon arranged for us to take the shuttle to venue so we don't have to drive that night. We do have to make it an early night though because we have to drive to Tirau then Auckland the next day. It's cousin James' 21st birthday party. Gordon forgot the dates would clash but we are going to make the effort to attend. His aunt and uncle have been so nice to us, letting us park cars in their yard when they came out for the wedding and when me and Gordon went to Queenstown. They also helped out his parents a lot during the party on Labour day. The least we could do is attend their sons party.

Its true that Gordon and I will probably be very tired by the time we make our way to Tirau on Saturday and then home on Sunday but we think that it is worth it. So please forgive me if I don't post anything for you guys until Tuesday. His family wants to make a day out of us going to Auckland. We're supposed to be picking up a pair of rabbits for Kylie as well. I don't know how thrilled I will be to have rabbits in the car and I'm a little concerned for their safety and comfort being in the car for such a long time. And we all know that rabbits head the call of Mother Nature just like humans do. I'm probably just being fussy. We'll probably take our car because it has the most room and great gas mileage. I don't know what else we'll be doing that day but we're supposed to make a day of it and the party doesn't start until 7pm. I'll probably be in my party clothes when we leave Tirau so I don't know what we can do. Gordon and I will probably be asleep on the way home from the party. I just hope that we leave at a reasonable hour to get some sleep that night. I feel like an old lady saying that. I'll leave off on that note. Hope everyone is going to have a good week and eat something yummy and American for me!