Engaged to be married...

November 18

Michael came to Canberra on Saturday November 18, took me for a lovely dinner, and then a mysterious walk at Commonwealth Place between flagpoles and walls before reaching a point overlooking the War Memorial on one side and Parliament and Old Parliament House on the other, where scattered rose petals covered the ground and he proposed.

Life as a fiancée

Everyone has been so excited about it all, yesterday at work I just kept getting emails and people coming to talk about weddings and rings. It has been kind of fun! I am not one of those girls who knows all (or anything) about diamonds, and being asked about ring details I really struggled. Michael actually wrote down the specifications of the diamond for me before he left, but I looked at the piece of paper and promptly forgot half the letters and numbers, let alone what they meant. So on Monday one of the ladies in my unit came and sat down with me and gave me a diamond lesson, going through the 4Cs, listing the different colours and clarities and all the rest and drawing diagrams of what is meant by an 'ideal cut' etc etc... So now I know a little bit more! But I think it is the guys who learn an awful lot about diamonds because they're the ones who make the big investment!

Despite my cluelessness about the technicalities, I love the ring and think it's beautiful, and from what everyone has said, Michael has made an excellent choice :)

Let the planning begin...

Similarly to the whole diamond issue, I've never put a whole lot of thought into wedding matters, other than thinking I would enjoy shopping for a dress... I still think the whole project sounds daunting. But as I intend to tell myself 100 times over the next 10 months or so, it is about a marriage moreso than a wedding.

Snow

It snowed in Canberra today!

So glad to be here II

I said this before but I'll say it again - I'm so glad to be here. Yesterday after work Kylie, Maria, Mirren and I did the bridge-to-bridge walk together. It's only about 5 kms and it was so relaxing just to walk together and chat on a Friday evening instead of the usual rush to join the queues at OPH drinks. I really love these girls - they're sweet, real, and loyal. I think often when you're in a relationship, friendships tend to suffer, purely because you have less time to spend with your friends. This year has really given me the chance to spend more time with people other than Michael, and it's been a huge wakeup call and reminder that next year when Michael moves to Canberra, we really need to do things with our own groups of friends. And I think as you do that, you become happier and have a fuller and broader perspective on things, which brings a lot to the relationship.

So anyway, after the walk we went to the Hyatt to catch the end of drinks, and then into Civic to eat and help Kylie search for a mobile phone... later on we met up with some other grads for coffee (tea) and then to Hippo Bar for awhile. I really lament my failure to take any photos for the past few months, laziness has overtaken...

Today wasn't so crash hot - I'm still struggling with the whole working & studying thing, so always scrambling to keep up with both, with having a divided mind when in the past I've always given single minded devotion to one thing.

Last weekend Yen, Ro and Craig came to Canberra from Sydney to attend a wedding. It was really nice to have Yen & Ro stay over for a night, to catch up with Yen, and get to know her fiancé.