a Beer, a Whine and The Spirit

Posted by Renae at 11:18 AM Comments

I'm so so so tired. But so very happy. We are still unpacking our new house but we have made a real dent and I really think we'll be done by the end of the weekend. And then we can just relax and really enjoy our time here. It has been pretty amazing having Mum and Dad around to help, especially since I'm still hobbling on my foot, and thankfully Hubs has been around a lot to help with the unpacking and setting up. We still have a few pieces of furniture to buy, but things are going well.

I went to mothers group today which was so great, and have volunteered to host next week at our place. Exciting!

We'll hopefully get back on line next week (I'm currently using Mum's "dongle") and hope to be back to regular blogging, with photos, very soon.

Posted by Renae at 5:50 PM Comments

On Sunday we headed to Lakes Entrance for the day, to get out of the house and to have a look around. It was quite a cool day, but the sun came out enough to keep it enjoyable.

It was just SO BUSY! We had fish and chips for lunch (when in Rome!), took a walk along one of the lakes and then hit the playground for some action. It was quite a lovely day.

Monday's weather was absolutely miserable. A cold front was coming up from Antarctica and the combination of wind and rain and low temps meant we stayed inside all day long with the heater on. (Remember, just 3 days earlier we had the air con on! Gotta LOVE Victoria!) The sun came out at about 5pm so we took Chance out for a little runaround before dinner. He did pretty well but he was going crazy by the end of the day.

Tuesday we set off around 11am to stay with more rellies in Melbourne for the night which was really lovely as well. And then we popped in to Wang on Wednesday on our way back to MB to visit Hubs and sign our lease. It was a glorious day so we had lunch in the park which Chance played in the playground. Of course it was lovely to see Hubs and give him some encouragement.

We arrived back in MB at dinnertime and were all pretty exhausted. We are really really looking forward to moving in to our new place, but it has been lovely to visit with family and friends in the mean time!

Posted by Renae at 11:10 AM Comments

I finished reading Vivian Cash's autobiography last week, and have just been pondering over it. There have been a few books that have really impacted on my life, like April Fools Day, The Mayne Inheritance, Mao's Last Dancer, and now, I Walked the Line. These books have changed the way I view things, and not just in a fleeting way. There have been permanent changes, and there are so many things about this book that have really haunted me. Johnny and Vivian met just 3 weeks before Johnny was to go to Germany for 3 years as an airforce officer in World War II, and two-thirds of the book are the letters that Vivian received from Johnny over those 3 years. They were so devoted to one another that they waited that long to be together. They just knew they were meant to be. For the last year he was away, they wrote to each other every day. EVERY DAY!!!??? The letters are just so full of love and adoration, you can't help but wonder how everything fell apart.

Posted by Renae at 1:37 PM Comments

We spent a very relaxing few days with our rellies in Sale (actually, it's Stratford, but most people have never heard of Stratford), enjoying the unpredictable weather. We spent Friday fighting the heat (30 degrees!), cleaning out the car and giving Chanbe lots of rides on his new trike:

It was seriously SO hot that day. The wind was gusty and we had the air conditioner on inside. Chanbe was getting a little too cocky on the 3 steps down from the deck to the gravel, and took a bit of a spill :-( It actually looked a bit worse than it was. After the initial shock and tears, he was unfazed. My little bruiser.



On Saturday, my great uncle had to take my great aunt (they're great in more ways than one!) to the airport in Melbourne as she was flying over to England for her mother's funeral. Her mother was 97! So it will be a great celebration of a wonderful long life. So we went in to Sale (much bigger than Stratford) to do a spot of shopping, along, it seems, with half of the town! It was crazy! We didn't do too much else, other than make delicious lamb shanks for dinner (sorry Hubs :-( I'll make you some next week).

Posted by Renae at 10:56 AM Comments

Has it really been only a week since we left our house at MB?? REALLY?? It seems like a lot longer. I'm writing this from the house in MB where we're staying to kill time before we can move into our Wang house on Monday. We left our lovely house with our magical view around lunch time Thursday last week, and started our trip down to Sale. We headed over Falls Creek, and apart from the really steep bit on the other side, (our car's lower gears don't work so there were some pretty smelly brakes!) the trip to Omeo was pretty uneventful. We stopped there for some playtime:

And went on our merry way. I was in the front with Dad, and Mum was in the back entertaining Chanbe. He was having a great old time snacking away, and I forgot to mention to Dad that he gets a little carsick on the winding roads. After about and hour of twisty-turny roads, we hit the straight stretch, and wouldn't you know it? That's when Chanbe decided to do a HUGE power spew all over the car. We were doing 110km/h at the time, so by the time Dad slowed down and pulled over, he was done. And there were chunks EVERYWHERE. This has happened before to Chance with just Hubs and I in the car, and it's normally my job to look after Chance (who always feels fine straight after) and Hubs' job to take care of the car and car seat. This time, it was MY job to do the car seat. Yeuch. Thankfully Mum was there to help while Dad entertained spewy-guts-McGee.

So on we went in our smelly car, and we arrived at the rellies house around 6:30. Just in time for a yummy dinner. More adventures to come!

Posted by Renae at 5:49 PM Comments

Hubs arrived with"the truck" on Tuesday evening, filled it up, and left yesterday morning. Here is the truck as it was when it arrived:

And here it is, mostly full. Chanbe really enjoyed carrying things down the deck to truck. He was very helpful! (And so cute!)


He even offered to help Hubs with the driving! (And was most displeased when we kindly refused his offer!)


We were still hoping to move straight into our new place, or at least over the weekend, but we got the call from the real estate yesterday afternoon to say that now the house won't be available til the 16th!
So Hubs is in Wang, locked away in the student accommodation working on his PhD while , Mum, Dad (who arrived yesterday), Chance and I go and visit our rellies in Sale, then come back here to stay with a friend for the following week. That gives Hubs some serious uninterrupted time that he needs, and gives Dad some serious Chanbe time that HE needs.

So it's only farewell to MB for now, as not only will we be back next week, but we'll be making an effort to come back a bit for Hubs to go gliding, for ME to finally go gliding, and to see the lovely friends we have made here.

Posted by Renae at 6:55 AM Comments

...and knowing that we'll be settled in to our new place 2 weeks from now. But for now, the chaos continues. We have to be out of our current place tomorrow, and we only just found out a few hours ago that we can't move in to our new place until the 13th of April. Which was the original date they told us, just before telling us that the current tenants want to leave earlier so we might be able to move in earlier. I'll admit it. I got my hopes up WAY too high on that one. I was convinced that we would get a phone call last week saying "you can move in over the weekend" and everything would work out a little too perfectly.

I know that this isn't a big deal, and we have had 3 offers to stay with people here in MB in the interim which is so generous and lovely. It's just not what I had planned in my head. But life sometimes throws us these curve balls and you've just got to roll with the punches. (anyone for a cliché sandwich?) It will just make moving in to our new home all the more sweeeeeeet.....

Posted by Renae at 2:53 PM Comments