What I've been up to:

1. Pack everything I want to take with me.
2. Throw or give away the rest.
3. Find a store in Tallinn that sells ziploc plastic bags.
   Mom found them. Why do the stores put them with tin foil instead of trash bags?
4. Get more boxes to cram more stuff in.
   The boxes have taken over all free floor space, leaving narrow passages to navigate through. I think I've got enough. ;)
5. Visit tax people and get my income tax declaration sorted out.
6. Finish a website for a client by 1st of February.
   It is progressing nicely.
7. Take out braids and get a haircut or new braids.
   I have an appointment with hairdresser on Monday.
8. Meet with friends to say goodbye.
9. Help a friend to shop fabric for a medieval dress.
10. Give back things I have borrowed.
11. Get back things people have borrowed from me.
12. Empty the cupboard at work and clean out the PC.
    The latter is stalled until I'll receive a computer that works.
13. Get a new computer.
14. Get the residence permit stamp in my passport.
15. Go to a dentist for a checkup.

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Yesterday my home computer gave up the ghost. Nothing was lost, the hard drive is intact (whew!) but the motherboard is dead. I got an USB Flash memory stick from the office so I could transport the work when necessary. The stick worked fine in the office computer, so I loaded it up to take my files home.

After I had done all the important stuff, I decided to empty the memory stick. Plugged in the cable, everything works. Plugged in the stick, Windows is looking for the driver. Fine, fine. Blue screen of death, begin physical memory dump... What! This is not how it's supposed to go!

So I waited until it had dumped it's memory (wonder where?) and tried to boot it up again. Nope, it says, gimme a boot disk. Silly machine you've already got one, but I'll humor you. After some rummaging I found an old DOS floppy. Let's see now. Nope, it says, gimme a boot disk. Hmmm. Something's fishy. Booted it up again and peeked into BIOS* setup. Well, well, well, if you don't even know that you've got two hard drives, CD-ROM and a floppy drive, no wonder you are asking for a boot disk. There was nothing left to do but shut it down and go to bed.

The moral of the story: don't plug new cutting edge devices into your old and crappy motherboard.

It's not a tragedy because I was thinking of upgrading the PC soonish anyway. But it hinders my work on the client's website and it's an unexpected expense. Oh well, there's time for everything and apparently it's time to upgrade now. Luckily I don't need to buy an entire system, only a box, motherboard, processor and memory.

Due to circumstances beyond me, the departure date has been pushed to 17th of February instead of 6th. More time to pack and get everything sorted out.

* BIOS is where all the lowest level data is about the hardware. Without it nothing works.

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In two and half weeks I must accomplish:

1. Pack everything I want to take with me.
2. Throw or give away the rest.
3. Find a store in Tallinn that sells ziploc plastic bags.
4. Get more boxes to cram more stuff in.
5. Visit tax people and get my income tax declaration sorted out.
6. Finish a website for a client by 1st of February.
7. Take out braids and get a haircut or new braids.
8. Meet with friends to say goodbye.
9. Help a friend to shop fabric for a medieval dress.
10. Give back things I have borrowed.
11. Get back things people have borrowed from me.
12. Empty the cupboard at work and clean out the PC.

Good thing is that I get to keep a part (web designer) of my job because it can be done anywhere with Internet connection. I will give up being an information systems analyst for the time being. The transfer from permanent contract to project-based contract is taken care of, I just need to finish the projects I'm working on now before the permanent contract ends on 31st of January.

Packing is going fine, except I can't find ziploc bags for my yarn. I don't want to throw all the skeins and balls into one big box or two, I'm not sure I could untangle the mess in Stockholm.

As always, there doesn't seem to be enough boxes to fit everything in. I should have enough for the china and books, but I don't think I have enough left over for small items after all the books have been packed. It's been suggested I check out discount stores and see if I can find good boxes there. It's a good idea, but I don't have a car and dragging boxes through snow is not good idea. I'll figure out something.

So far I intend to pack soft stuff like fabrics and yarn into plastic trash bags instead of boxes. Different color from the bags intended for trash, of course. Imageine the horror should I lose all my stash! Perish the thought! :)

I'll be busy moving out of Tallinn apartment and moving into the Stockholm apartment for a good while, but I'll try to post here more often than I have so far this year.

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Wow! I can publish again!

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I got the residence permit! It's for a year, 6 months more than I had hoped for. Whee! I'm so exited!

We plan to move me over in the second week of February. Three weeks should be enough for packing and finishing all the job matters.

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R had his interview today. It was over in five minutes, the interviwer looked at the papers we provided, asked when we had met first and noted that it is good that I retain my job when I move.

She didn't give a definitive answer, though. She will decide, hopefully, this week and then send the results to us. R will get his letter first because mine will go to Swedish Embassy and then they probably will call me.

This means more waiting. Oh well, I should be used to it by now. But not knowing is hard...

On knitting. I have finished R's future SIL hat and knit a short scarf with leftovers. Pictures to follow tomorrow. Today I started a pair of gloves. The winter has finally arrived and I'm in dire need of wool gloves.

I'm planning to buy a digital camera so I could post pictures of entire items, instead of partial scans. I'm not sure what the minimum requirements should be. Could anybody help me out here? Please send me because Blogger and Hot.ee still don't see eye-to-eye.

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Whew! So much happened in such a short time.

Christmas was cozy and quiet; we ate, played games, watched TV and I knit R a cap. I met R's future sister-in-law for the first time. She's fun, lovely and we get along well.

She liked the cap I knit for R so much that she wanted one herself. Once we were back in town we went to a yarnstore, she picked the yarn and I finished cap version 1.3 the same day. It is destined to be ripped out and reknit as version 2.0, because it is too wide and too short now.

R's mom liked the Glove cuff socks very much and has asked for a pair, future SIL will choose yarn herself and gets a pair too. It is very nice to have found another family who appreciates handknits as much as my own does. I was a bit afraid of what their reaction would be, but the oohing and aahing was beyond my boldest dreams.

When R and I were semi-recovered from Christmas, we got guests staying over the new year's celebration. Time just disappeared after that and days became a blur of doing things, going out, watching DVDs and partying. I came back to Estonia on Sunday more tired than I was when I left for vacation. I slept 12 hours last night and I'm back to normal now.

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