spend, spend, spend

I'm very pleased to report that we were successful with our rental application, and moved into our new home on Saturday. It's a lovely place, it feels very us, spacious and homely. It's going to be a joy to come home to in the evening, and that back deck will be great for entertaining (when we make some friends!)

I've started posting photos from our new home on fatcat.

It'll still be a few weeks until my first pay packet comes in, but undeterred by that we've been spending money like it's going out of fashion :) The house is entirely unfurnished, right down to white goods, so we've been shopping whenever we can for however long we can manage. Late night shopping last thursday, we bought a factory second huge Fisher and Paykel fridge freezer (cool feature - the freezer section is at the bottom!) and a 32 inch LCD TV :) As if that wasn't enough cash burnt, on the morning that we moved in we bought a queen size bed and mattress, glass-topped cane table with cane chairs and an electric space heater second hand off a client of Nat's. Still not content with our outgoings, we upped the ante by ordering a new L-shaped leather sofa on Sunday (roll on the 6-8 week delivery period!), followed by a grocery shop to stock up on cupboard items.

Phew! And there are plenty more requirements - bedside tables, computer desk, bookshelves, TV stand, barbecue, microwave, washing machine, wardrobes... the list goes on.

I'm having a little fun researching the ISP situation here, but there's pressure to get a connection in quickly, rather than the pleasure of looking into it in detail for a couple of weeks. There is some ADSL2+ being rolled out in Brisbane, but unfortunately not to our local exchange (yet....). Internode look like a good bet for DSL, or we might end up with Telstra or Optus for cable. I don't want to go with the incumbent if I can at all help it :)

Came across this very useful website full off forums, news and advice about choosing as ISP in Oz. Very much like the old adslguide.org back in the UK.