And today I acquired boxes

We are leaving Oz in 34 days. 10 of those days we will be on holiday. I am trying to keep it all together and not get too flustered with the huge amount of items that need to be sold or given away. With only one proper closet, our house seems a bit cluttered an it's starting to make me antsy. But I would like for our house to remain homey and not sell too much stuff too soon.
In an attempt to enjoy my last few weeks of living abroad, I joined a 30 day yoga program. I am 12 days into it and have done yoga 10 of those days. It is helping me get out of the house, stay active, eat better and calm the fuck down.
In class the other day, I had a thought pass through my mind: I need boxes. I said to myself, "Yes, that is a good idea. I will organize that today. Now, shut up."
Later I went to Safeway and asked for boxes. They were more than happy to provide me this service. They keep banana boxes for people. You ask for them, they save them after the nightly unpacking and you pick them up in the morning. Easy.
This morning, I knew I had to pick up the boxes. I realized that having this one simple item would put my mind at ease. What I did not realize was I would have to put them somewhere until I really needed them. Fortunately, we are borrowing our friends' car whilst they are traveling on holiday. It's an SUV. Now it has become the perfect mobile storage unit. Awesome.
I stated thinking more about this banana box thing. My Dad always said to get banana boxes for moving. They are very sturdy and have lids. No need to tape the bottoms or do the funky one flap-in, other-flap-out tapeless style and they are stackable. He would always acquire an embarrassing amount of boxes for me before I moved. I bet if I was to ask my Mom, right this very moment, if they have any banana boxes, they would probably have one or two empty ones laying in the garage, for just in case.
So it seems, now I have these boxes and just knowing they are there is comforting.

More Lingo

In The States, sometimes you are know by your job. He's a plumber or she's an electrician. As a group, they can all be know as tradesmen/people. However, that sounds a bit stuffy. So in true Australian custom, they have nicknamed these people "tradies." As in, "ladies love the tradies." By the way, an electrician is called a sparky. This is a favorite of mine, isn't it brilliant!
So now you know about tradies. The next thing, is their apparel. We thought it was strange to walk down the street and see an entire shop dedicated to neon orange and yellow clothing. Apparently it's like a law or something for tradies to wear highly noticeable apparel. You know, for safety. So the clothes are referred to as "hi vis gear". You know, for high visibility.

Here is my mate, Patrick, sporting the outfit he wears for his new job. The matching socks are a new requirement. Hats off to Pat; he just secured an apprenticeship for a glazing and aluminium company. It is so refreshing to see someone really excited about their job. He is psyched. He is making custom windows with aluminium frames. And, NO, I didn't spell it wrong! They say allu mini um here. It's British.

Cat Sitting

Our German friends planned a long holiday away. To our pleasure, they took us up on our offer to house their cat for 4.5 weeks while they tour various countries.

Buster is a Manx cat. Essentially, this means he doesn't have a tail. He kind of has a "nubbin". It is a bit weird, as it moves around, like a normal tail wagging. Coincidentally, Jim has taken to calling him "Nubbins."

As of today, his new fave lounge spot is some prime real estate on the counter. I think maybe he feels camouflaged there.

Getting used to having a borrowed animal takes some getting used to. We loved the idea of having a furry little beast running around. We assumed that he would sleep with us and love to be pet. To the contrary, Buster likes being pet for a while. At 9pm he turns into a demon, running all over the place. He has an internal alarm clock that didn't get the message about Daylight Savings Time. He was waking and mewing at our door (demon mode prohibits allowance into the bedroom) 5 am instead of 6. We had a little chat about it. It seems to be sorted out now.

The calm before the storm

After two weeks, we now have all grown accustom to, and acceptant of one another. Buster is up in my bidness all day. He sleeps on the desk, curled up right in front of my laptop. If I am in the kitchen, he is standing right there, curiously waiting to see what I am doing or if I will put a round object on the counter for him to knock off. He has created a running track from one end of our lounge room to the other. It goes right through my keyboard.

Desk Kitteh

I have accepted that I can't control him. If our house was bigger, I would see him less. But our house is tiny. If he isn't near me, I know he is under the bed. (This is me turning into a big softy) Buster is waiting in the middle of the room when I come in the front door. He greets me with his special dolphin speak, as he doesn't meow in the normal sense. He is so cute and soft and makes me laugh. When he does make me mad, I have to remember that he doesn't know any better. Sometimes though, I wonder if that's just what he wants me think.

An unflattering rear shot of a skillful escape. Mr Kitteh No Tail.

Lisa explains it all...Sydney Wedding

Sorry ya'll...photo release SOON!

Many of you may be wondering how this wedding business all came about. I will share now.
We had been planning a wedding something for back in the US of A. However, sometime around the end of Feb and beginning of March, the plan changed. We miss CO and in order for us to return there, Jim needed to accept a recently opened position at his old office. Reluctantly, we decided that one year was good enough for living away, instead of our intended 18 months. During March, I looked into getting married in Sydney, but had shelved the idea. You needed to lodge your notice 28days in advance with your celebrant. I missed that window.
Meanwhile, Lahna and Kevin Ward had booked their trip to AU. They were coming to Melbourne, going up to the Great Barrier Reef, then to going to Sydney. Since our time here was shortened, we pushed our Sydney trip up to April; coordinating it with the Ward's holiday plan. During March, I looked into getting married in Sydney, but had shelved the idea. You needed to lodge your notice 28days in advance with your celebrant. I missed that window.

I hadn't mentioned anything Jim about checking on a Sydney wedding. Then, about March 25th, he comes home from work and asks, "what about getting married in Sydney?" That pretty much sealed the deal. All we had to do was a lot of leg work.
Lahna & Kevin arrived on Monday the 31st. We shared our plans with them, Lahna agreed to be a witness. Tuesday, I contacted celebrant Helen Wyld. She was SO flexible, encouraging and helpful. We had to lodge the paperwork with her. Did I mention Easter was coming? Australian have holiday on Good Friday and the following Monday. On Tuesday, we had to go to the Marriage Registry of Victoria and plead our case to have a shortening of time on our the lodgement of our paperwork. We provided the woman with our witness' airline itinerary, an email from Jim's boss about moving early, and Jim's plane ticket. She granted approval.

Yay!! Here is what the rest of the week looked like.ta dah!

Tuesday: Marriage Registry approval. Found $80 dress.

Wednesday: Shopped with Susi, but didn't buy anything. Didn't find green shoes, but found fab pink one. Had to have a think about it. Later, succumbed to the pink shoes. Started looking for pink accessories.

This is Susi...she's a goddess.

Thursday: Returned to the factory outlets with Susi. Bought pink shoes. Bought shirt, tie, pants, belt and shoes for Jim. Based on some stuff Helen had sent, Jim and I wrote our wedding ceremony.

Really, how could I not?

Friday: Off to Sydney. Met with Helen. Had dinner and sightseeing with Kev and Lahna.

Tripod proved useful!

Saturday: Purchased bridal bouquet on the fly at a florist by our hotel. Bought Jim better pants. Walked around The Rocks area of Sydney. Toured the street market. Got Lahna a dress and found perfect wedding jewelry. Early dinner and then Bridge Climb! Late dinner.

Take away bridal bouquet, coming right up.

Just having a pash on the largest single arch span bridge in the world, no big whoop.

Sunday: Check out of hotel and head to Kev and Lahna's hotel. Dress. From Darling Harbor, catch a ferry to McMahon's Point. Meet up with Mel, Gus and Helen. Get married! Take lots of photos. Go back to Darling Harbor and eat the best steak ever! Take the shoes off and go back to Kev and Lahna's. Change clothes and watch TV for an hour before going to the airport to head home.

You know, just got hitched, now waiting for the train.

So, there it is. Yes, I am amazing. I only went crazy one time, right before we left for Sydney. And it was over the dishes not being done.
Of course, I am SO appreciative: Susi dedicated her 2 days off to my cause! She was helpful, pragmatic, patient and at all times, genuinely excited and enthusiastic. Lahna and Kevin took excellent care of us, as only family can. Kevin recorded our ceremony. Gus took fancy photos. Lahna and Melissa were great emotional support and provided pretty signatures as our witnesses. Helen was amazing with her "fly by the seat of your pants," yet very organized approach...exactly what I needed! Jim was amazing. Thank you for wearing pink and red for the day! Oh, and marrying me :)
Although we couldn't share our day with everyone, we had the best time! Lots of laughs, emotion and love. A truly perfect day.This post is brought to you by Coffee.

The Magical French Island Park Tour Day

Some things I can not make up. There have been a few occasions when stuff is happening and I say to myself "what the fuck is going on?" or "is this for real?" Last weekend was one of those times.

Kind of on the fly we decided to go to French Island National Park. We had made this attempt before. It involved a 2hr train ride with a negative outcome. We went to purchase tickets for the ferry to cross over to the island. Due to a possible afternoon storm, they couldn't guarantee us a return trip back to the mainland. This was a serious disappointment as you could see the island just across the channel. It was only a 15min boat ride. However, for this attempt we had a car and a positive forecast, so we decided to go for it.

All went smoothly except, upon arrival we realized we might have made a mistake by not booking some sort of tour. The island was small, but the general store was 3k from the docks and all the other stuff was passed that so...we were in for a long day of walking in a short period of time. We only had about 4hrs to tour. As we made our way to the general store, van passed. We got a little further and the van was coming back our way. We joked about getting a lift. Miraculously, the van stopped. A small, weather-worn, oldish woman jumped out.

Mumbling and barely audible, she said she could take us to her farm. She promised koalas (koalas!!) and a tour. She never looked us in the eye; she just organized the back seat of her van and gave us the gesture to get in. We all looked at each other with bewilderment. What do we do? Considering the population of the island in approximately 60. We figured it was safe to proceed with her plans for us. We hopped in and buckled up. Lois, was 4th generation islander and lived on the family farm, which housed a chicory kiln.

We drove by the general store. She took us by the school for primary aged children. It has 3 students. She stopped and dropped us off for a short nature hike that ended at her farm. There, we stopped for lunch. We saw heaps of chickens, a few sheep, 2 horses, cows, a pretty rainbow colored bird, and a ferret.Jim and Kevin performed some minor manual labor, like moving a log and relocating a huge saw. Lois showed us the koalas on the trees around her farm. She gave us the lowdown on the chicory kiln (Chicory was a coffee substitute. You can still find it in some coffees and teas). She recommended we head down the road and see more koalas and offered to give us a lift back to the docks in time for our boat. You see, a camper that she was picking up, missed our 12pm boat and was now coming on the 4pm boat. Thank you for missing your boat, Miss!

Once we left the farm on pursuit of koalas, we looked at the park flier and realized that our Lois, was actually the Lois Airs, who pretty much is the voice of the island. Her name was all over this piece of paper. If you have and questions, it's her mobile number that is listed. Lois is one of 3 people to do island tours. If Lois hadn't picked us up, we wouldn't have seen anything worth while that day. We totally lucked out. a short ferry/boat ride

The Historic Chicory Kiln Farm

The rainbow, fruit eating bird

Lois schooling us on what chicory is all about

a horse

a sign

a tense moment. we thought he was going to jump on Jim's face

trying to hurry and get a photo before he gets to aggravated