Catching up

Once again, I am sadly behind in the blogging department. So much going on, and I keep saying I am going to update, but one day leads to another - you all know how that goes.

We had a lovely Easter weekend, 4 days off work and some good times with friends. I think it was officially the last weekend of summer though, because it has really cooled off and started to feel like fall. My brain is a bit wacked by the reversal of seasons. I am having trouble with Easter bunnies and fall leaves at the same time. It is definitely Autumn though, and we are enjoying the cooler temps, I guess. While I was secretly hoping it would just stay summer year round, I am sure my body will appreciate the time to recover from many recent sunburns.

We spent Easter Saturday in Wollongong (about 1 hour south of Sydney) with some new friends we met on a website for Yanks in Oz. Mike, Jenifer and their two boys Liam and Nevin. They are also expecting son #3 in about a month. Mike is Aussie and Jenifer is from California. They are good fun and whomped us soundly at 2 rounds of Cranium. We had a bbq and enjoyed the company. (This is after the men/boys assembled the bbq and bought charcoal, only to find that there is no lighter fluid to be found in Oz, so they got "creative" in lighting the coals. Oy.) We have lots in common and had a great time.

We have discovered an outlet mall not too far from here and finally did some shopping for shoes and clothes that fit. Jonathan has lost some serious weight here, and all of those new pants we bought back in November, yeah, they don't fit anymore. Oh well. I have also been losing weight, while not as quickly as Jon. (It might have something to do with the fact that I eat chocolate and he doesn't.)

Anyway, we were psyched to find an outlet store with a good selection of shoes at normal prices, and ended up buying 6 pairs between us. We own more shoes now than anyone ever really should have. But when you have an opportunity here to buy 6 pairs of shoes for $200... you jump on it, because ONE pair here is usually $100. Crazy.

The price of stuff here is completely outrageous. Seriously... that is a blog all on it's own, so I'll just leave it at that. It's bloody expensive to buy anything here.

Jonathan has been travelling for work quite a bit lately. In the next 3 weeks he will be in Parkes, Tweed, Bega, Nowra, and East Maitland... in case you wanted to look those up on a map. He generally flies to these places and stays a day or two. But he's always home on the weekends, which is nice. He's been working on a lot of court projects, so he's generally flying to a remote city to work in their courthouse. Good way for him to see the country AND earn frequent flier miles.

My job is going well. I had a meeting with my boss a week ago, in which I complained that I feel underutilized. I think I may live to regret that. We'll see how it goes. I have accepted the fact that I am not meant to work in a boring job. Call me a stress-aholic if you will, but it's far worse to sit around with nothing to do. Anyway, I work closely with a 21 year old girl with no work experience, which is a challenge for me. Mom would call it "an opportunity to learn patience."

We have been having some issues with our proprty management company (the people who work for our landlord to maintain our apartment.) Our AC hasn't worked in over 4 months. And the dishwasher broke over a month ago. Neither of which is fixed yet. I have had to get a bit cranky with them. If we don't get some service soon, we may not be renewing our lease next month... which means moving. Ugh. Not my fave. We'll have to see how it goes. We would like to have a balcony and a second bedroom (for an office) but we are so close to my work right now... it's going to be hard to find something we like enough to move. More to come on that, I suppose.

I am under the weather today and have been taking it easy. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour thing so that our weekend isn't totally wasted. This Wednesday is our FOUR year wedding anniversary... crazy to think it was that long ago already. Seems like just the other day.