News flash!

I'm back and sewing again, mostly because I have a new purpose to do so. It's Christmas time, my friend has just given birth to a lovely baby boy... lots of things to sew! I've also been into the garden, and cooking a few exciting things too. Maybe I'll get some time to post some of what I've made?

But for now, I have some exciting news! A couple of weeks ago we headed over to Tasmania again. Gib only had a few days to spare because he's recently started a new job, so he only came for the weekend, but I stayed on afterwards in Launceston for some karete training. A couple of days before we left, we both came down with rotten colds. We arrived in Tassie and it was a lovely 10 degrees (we had just left Melbourne's heatwave! We're not summer people). We headed east to Binalong Bay, one of our favourite little spots. Our room where we were staying wasn't quite ready, so the guy at reception advised us to go for a drive or take a stroll along the beach.

Me, strolling along the beach. Look at those awesome storm clouds.

It was drizzling, we were sick and miserable, but having fun walking along the beach. It's one of our favourite spots. As we wandered, Gib just casually commented that we'd been together for 4 years now and wanted to know if I'd marry him? After I'd overcome the surprise and shock, I hugged him, said yes!! (there's nothing like saying yes to marrying your best friend!) and burst into tears (good tears). So now we're engaged!

He asked me right there!

Ahhh... the newly engaged couple.

Now, I'm not really one that is into jewellery. Mostly because the work I do, and the hobbies I enjoy, are not really conducive to wearing jewellery. I'm a practical, no fuss kind of gal. So we decided that I wouldn't have an engagement ring (we've decided to put it towards custom wedding rings) so instead we got an engagement painting:

The engagement painting: A lino print of a SCUBA diver swimming in kelp. Apologies for the poor photo quality.

It's a lino print by an artist, Craig Worby, who is a local at Binalong Bay. It was on the wall of the restaurant we went to, and we both liked it as soon as we spotted it. So they called him up and he popped by to wrap it up and sign it for us. It's different, but then again, we're not a typical couple.

Example:

About 5 minutes after Gib had asked the Big Question, we both spotted this dead chiton:

The dead chiton

We were pretty excited to find it. I love

Background information: Gib and I did zoology together at uni, and for our end of year exam we had to dissect sea snails. I hate snails. Nothing makes me shudder more: They are cold and slimy and gross (but I love chitons, which are close snail relatives. They are less gross and much prettier, and don't eat my strawberries). Specifically, we had to dissect the snails with bare hands, find the radula, which is the "tongue" of a snail. The radula is tiny, very thin, quite transparent and breaks easily (see photo below, you'll see how small it is). When I dissected my snail for my exam, I succesfully found my radula but then accidentally dropped it (but managed to find it again on the table, about 10 minutes before the end of the exam), and Gib had made a mess of his dissection, but managed to squish about blindly and find his by accident. Either way, we both have vivid memories of radulas.

So anyway... we were quite excited to find that this chiton must have been freshly eaten, because its radula, which is the two dark lines protruding at the lower end of the chiton with a blob of sand stickign to the the end, was still intact. We were excited enough about finding a chiton with its radula still there, we had to take a photo.

Perfect match: We get engaged, then 5 minutes later take photos of sea critters. It must be true love.

So Gib left for home, and I stayed on in Launceston for another week to do my training. The training was awesome, but I have no photos because the camera ran out of batteries and I had no way to recharge it. Oh well...!

And now we're organising the engagement party for late January and things like that. I'm currently having fun making the engagement party invites. It's going to be a while before the wedding due to the PhD and us saving for other things first. We're planning for the wedding to be some time in Autumn 2012.

Hope you're all doing well out there!