Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2010. For some reason I recalled a random conversation I had with a friend back when we were about to start 7th grade. We talked about how crazy it was going to be when we graduated high school in the year 2000. It has been 16 years since that conversation - how funny that it was randomly dredged up by my brain!
2009 was a year of immense change so I am looking forward to a more stable year. The year started out well with a nice raise and also the news that Brent got a great job at The Smith Family - the largest charity organisation in Australia. He will be starting on Monday and we are both very excited.
It was a very rough year for Brent having to move to a country that he had only visited once before for two weeks, leave all of his family and friends behind, get used to the crazy accent and all the even crazier words we use, the prejudice against Americans, the lack of recognition of his educational qualifications, a first job that turned out to be very bad, etc etc.
So this year already looks promising for us. We will be moving to a new place at the end of February and that is enough to keep us upbeat! Our current apartment has been trouble from the beginning - it was infested with cockroaches upon moving in, the kitchen benches began falling apart, the taps broke one after the other, the winter came and we froze then summer came and we roasted, the neighbour below smokes on his porch all the time and lucky us get all the smoke, the apartments across the parking lot are public housing - bringing with it so many fun things, the neighbour next door wakes up every morning at 8:30 with a disgusting hacking cough. Oh I can't wait to move, can you tell?! :)
I have two overarching goals this year: my physical health and my finances. I have allowed myself to get so overweight and out of shape, so I need to focus and get back on track. I want to get back to where I was just over 3 years ago - super hot!
With both of us working, I can now start to sort out all my finances and get my debts paid down. We also want to start saving for a house with a goal to be able to buy within 2 years.
We will also finally figure out when we are getting married - preferably after making considerable headway on the first two goals!
So I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. I am looking forward to this year!