Autumn in Australia

Oh jeez, I just looked at the date of my last update, and we have made great strides in our transition in the past two months.  We received our sea shipment from home in mid-March.  It took almost exactly three months from the time it left Malcolm, NE and traveled by truck to New York, then on a ship to Australia, three weeks in quarantine/customs and then again by truck to our house.  We were over-whelmed with how much stuff we had, and where to put it in a house that is about one third the size of our house in NE.  This place is crammed full of furniture -- the dresser drawers touch the foot-board of the bed when fully opened, and we have to keep moving the coffee table out of the way to give the kids room to play in the living room.  A lot of things didn't even get unpacked and is in storage in the garage.  This has been a great lesson in learning what you can live without.  Why did we bring so much stuff?  We are completely comfortable without it.

Speaking of houses, we have not sold our house in NE.  We had a several showings in February and March and have two families that have their homes for sale and intend to make an offer if their houses sell.  Fingers crossed. 

It is autumn here.  We "fell back" when the US was "springing forward" so we went from being 17 hours ahead of you (central time) to 15 hours ahead of you.  Our first cold weather happened this week.  It was in the 30's when we woke up on Tuesday morning.  Our house does not have central heat (or any heat for that matter) and we were not prepared.  Matt had resorted to turning on the dryer in his outdoor laundry room/bathroom for heat and draping a blanket over his head and his plasma TV for warmth. 

It is not uncommon here to not have air or heat.  Instead, many homes have gas hook-ups, and you have to buy portable gas or electric heaters.  It has since warmed up again and it was a beautiful 75 degree day today.  The coldest months are July and August, and we hope it doesn't get any colder than it did this week.  We're already turning into cold weather nancies!  We resemble Ozzie and Harriet in our bathrobes and slippers.

Apparently the cooler temps took their toll on the slug population.  We haven't seen one in weeks.  However, they have been replaced with enormous spiders that create huge and extremely sticky webs during the night.  The webs can span the width of a driveway and hang from the branches of the trees.  The 5:00 am trek to the gym has become a frightening haunted house-style maze through webs.  I hold an open umbrella in front of me to break through them.  Have I mentioned the 3 inch flying cockroaches?  Nuff said.

The kids are thriving and adapting to their new lives like kids : )  Every time they get mopey or sad, I worry about their transition.  The other night Quinn (just turned 5) was in the bathtub and he suddenly turned sad and teary-eyed.  When I asked him what was wrong, he responded that he "wanted to get out of this place".  I prepared myself for a conversation about home-sickness and missing his cousins and grandparents and wanting to go back to America.  Then he said, "I want to get out of this bathtub and go to the couch."  Whew!  Crisis averted.

We do miss the US.  A lot.  One of the things we miss is variety and so many choices in consumer goods.  And amazing on-line shopping!  Oh, you don't know how good you have it there with so many choices and so many low-cost choices.  Enjoy your land of plenty and consumerism!

In the meantime, we will enjoy our new land of incredible beauty, sunshine and beaches.  Wonderfully friendly people, fantastic lifestyle and knowing what is really important.  If you've heard that Australians "work to live and do not live to work", we know what that means now.  Will try to be better at updating this blog more frequently.  I was not born to blog.  I think I was born to be on the beach.