Loneliness

Loneliness has been a huge part of my life this week. On Monday the 4th Ben flew to Sydney for work, so I was left by myself until the 22nd. It was and still is a bit nerve racking being in this house on my own. Every sound was 10x louder than usual, every creak made me jump and almost every light was turned on so I didn't have to face the dark until I went to bed. I locked every door hours before I went to bed and still I did not feel safe in this house once. I have never had so little sleep in my life, hours of tossing and turning to get to sleep and then waking time and time again during my slumber only to wake early the next day.

The time difference between Perth and Sydney hasn't helped with anything. When I wake up Ben is eating his lunch, When I am having lunch Ben is getting ready to go and have dinner and when I am having dinner Ben is in Bed. It makes it quite hard to speak to one another with having to work and everything taking up the time we would have to speak. Oh well only 2 more weeks of it until he returns home, then we don't have to worry about it.

Work wasn't as exciting as it would usually be, I felt excluded most days and got frustrated easy from lack of sleep. The heat and humidity of which Melbourne usually doesn't have at this time of year has made me a little ill with constant headaches also.

Driving has been interesting, having to find my way around now is weird but exciting and I get to see more of the suburbs around me now. Only 4 months and 18 hours of my logbook until I can go for my P's. YAY!!! I will then be able to go anywhere whenever I like, as we have been looking at cars and have found 1 we like, and are half way to getting.

Karate is improving, I am getting close to my next grading (blue belt lol) and have been staying behind to get some extra coaching from my Sensei, which have helped me quite a lot. I am feeling quite confident with my Kata's and am progressing rapidly (according to my Sensei).

Today has been a wonderful day, I had Nan and Gramps (Ben's) visit me. They came in and had a coffee and a nice little chat, and a little look at the house. We then went out to the PK Tavern for lunch. I ordered the most delicious Chilli Honey Chicken (Tender pieces of chicken sautéed in a sweet chilli & honey glaze served with scented rice). Nan had the Fresh Fish of the Day (Barramundi with a side of chips). And Gramps had the Seafood Selection (A beer battered selection of prawns & fish with crumbed scallops & calamari served with chips and homemade tartare sauce). All of our meals also came with a side of salad. It was such a lovely lunch, and we are going to do something next week , Can't wait!.

'Tomorrow when the war began'

Sunday was a good day... Socialisation was a key part of that day.

Ben and I went to the movies with Kayla. We saw 'Tomorrow when the war began' - it was a good movie, Ben even thought it was good (although he was continuously saying he didn't want to go and see it coz it looked like crap). We had a good time chatting heaps before hand at KFC and enjoying many laughs.

We are going to get together more often with Kayla, which I am looking forward to (MORE female interaction and socialising).

Although there hasn't been a lot happening around here lately, I feel more comfortable with my surroundings.

My new way of life is moving forward.

CSO Graduation

This morning was Ben's Graduation... He has now finished his course and is a CSO :P. He also got The Navy Warfare Community Medallion. It was quite a good day, Ben got 96.06% average and came away from this ceremony quite pleased with himself. Mind you I came away very proud of the work he has done and the amount of time he has put into his studies. We also went to Hogs breath cafe for dinner... Mmm had a lovely dinner chatting and stuff. Afterwards we went over to the Swinging Pig for some drinks. Man that was fun I haven't had fun like that in a while, chatting away, joking, Laughing so much. But sadly it had a sad ending... One that got sorted out but will be avoided next time.

Here are a few of the photos from the Graduation:

Medallion Cert, Rate badge (patch), Medallion, Sea Readiness Badge

Liam, Brett Mayers, Jess Spencer, Ben, Bec Stanley and Rhiannan Walker

Everyone graduating

Me and ben after the Graduation

Ben receiving His Medallion and Certificate

Ben receiving his Grad certificate

Whistling Kite

Last night I went out with a couple of friends from work. We went to the whistling Kite in Secret Harbour, it is such a nice restaurant/bar. We had a few drinks and a LOT of laughs. Claire, Sarah and Tracy had me smiling the whole night, which I haven't done in a while. We talked about many different things like work, people, family, friends, marriages, why we all moved over to WA, and much more.

Tracy is leaving on Sunday to go back over to England for personal family reasons which is why we all decided to go out. It was the first time I had been out without Ben since I have been over here, Which I don't mind, but it was good to get out with the girls. We are planning many more get together's when Tracy returns and a couple of them may include the Men.

Going out with these gals makes me quite happy, not saying that being over here with ben isnt making me happy, but just that it is good to be comfortable in my new surroundings and being able to go out with friends once again (because I didn't have any to begin with :P).

So this is where my New way of life is at presently and hopefully it just keeps moving on up...

AQWA

On Friday we went to AQWA (Aquarium of WA). There were so many beautiful fish, sharks and gorgeous Turtles :D. I even got to touch a Stingray, starfish, fish, and Port Jackson shark. It was a good day, and we took loads of photos, Dad took a video of us touching the stingray.

Benny With his head in a crocodile's mouth

Stingray

Some ray

Stone Fish

I thought this was quite interesting how they were all huddled

Poor turtle had 1 leg missing.. But was still so cute (I want 1)

Eels

This is just beautiful

I love this photo I took of the baby crocodile

Weedy Dragon

Lobster's I thought this look so facisinating

Puffer Fish

This Eel thing just stays like that to catch fish

Gorgeous baby crocodile

Nurse Shark

Massive Beautiful turtle (best photo I got)

Shark.. Need I say more

Benny checking out the Nurse shark that was just sitting there not moving at all just staring at everyone

Overall, it was a fantastic day...

INK ART

Monday we went to the licensing centre in Rockingham and I got my phase 1 learners permit. which means I have to do a practical driving assessment before I can get my logbook, then I have to accumulate 25 hours in a minimum period of 6 months. And only after all of that am I able to complete a Hazard perception test, and when I pass that I will have my P's. There licensing system is so weird over here :P. On Tuesday we went to TNT in Rocky (a tattoo shop), where Jonno got a tatt done...

Jonno's Tatt

While Jonno was getting his tatt done mum, dad and I went and got fish and chips for lunch... Man they were the worst fish and chips ever. The chips weren't cooked enough and were all soggy, the potato cakes were over cooked and the fried dimsims were steamed the battered. We are not going back there again thats for sure. On wednesday I had work from 10-6.30pm, so while I was working Mum, Dad and Jonno went to Mandurah to take Benny's Bike for a service and shopped around a little. In the afternoon Dad got a tatt done also...

Dad's Tatt

On thursday mum and I went and got a tatt done, I went first because I had to have it finished by 12, as I had a driving lesson that day. Whilst getting it done I flinched a few times at the start (I couldn't help it). But after a while it was fine and I could barely feel it, and that part of my body wasn't even numb... It was the rest of my body that was numb. I had to get up and walk a bit 3/4 of the way through coz My leg was completely numb and If I didnt get up when I did I dont know how my legs would have been. When Tony (tattoo artist) was doing the tail part of the tatt I felt tingles in my arse and right leg but it was only when he hit a certain spot...

My tatt

When my tatt was finished I went and did a driving lesson. During we went over how to pass a practical driving assesment and went cruising around rockingham. He then took me into a carpark and I performed a reverse bay park a couple of times. At the end he said I went well but that I just need to indicate when leaving a roundabout. Then he went on this spool about the other drivers entering the roundabout will think I was turning right or something if I didnt indicate to leave. I was thinking but wouldn't they see my indicator if i was turning right. but no He said no if they dont see your indicator to leave they would think your turning blah blah blah blah blah hahaha... Nah it's all good I will do it next time haha. Whilst I was driving mum was getting her tatt done, she was so nervous the day before and I was sure she was gonna pull out haha...

Mums Tatt

Harbour town

Mum, dad and Jonno arrived on Saturday night. I was, still am, excited that they are here. Hugs went around, and we all had a lovely catch up chat. On Sunday we all went into Harbour town in Perth west and had a good day shopping. There were so much stuff I wanted to buy, I just thought no you don't need it save your money. After leaving harbour town we took a scenic route through Fremantle and went and looked off some rocks at the ocean. It was so nice apart from the cold wind.

It is so good to have family and friends here, I missed them so much and I am a very happy woman at the moment :). This week is going to be an exciting one

BRING IT ON!!!!

Busy Bees...

Man the time between my blog updates lately have been getting longer and longer. I am so sorry guys for making it weeks and weeks but I have been very busy. I have been working a lot of shifts over the last couple of weeks, not that I am complaining, and have had many things scheduled with the house. We had the house valued because the owners are selling the place and therefore everything is happening to do that, plus we have had the house's annual termite inspection. 

Work is very fun and I have been getting more and more confident in my duties and how to move around the centre, in other words I don't have to ask as much anymore, plus the children are so adorable and I love working here so much. I have ben given shifts every week, so more money YAY, and I received my first pay on wednesday $$$.$$

I am working 3 days next week and am looking forward to every minute.

Not a long one this time but thought i would update you all on how the new life is going considering it has been 2 weeks since my last post.

Working Class Gal !!!

After waiting weeks for my bank statement to arrive, I finally went and did my Working with Children's Check and took it to Julie at the childcare centre. I then got a call from her to see if I could work on the 27th and 28th (May)... Of course I said yes. which then brings me to my first day of work.

Oh what a day it was too!! I was rostered on to be in the Kindy room from 8am - 4.30pm. The staff were so welcoming and friendly and helped me get used to the way things were in the centre. The children were so cute, even the 3 boys that continuously called me manja, panda, mandarin, and more. They also insistent that I was many of the children's mum (no matter how many times I told them I wasn't :P). I was also told numerous times that I had a baby in my tummy - I have no idea where they got that idea from but you couldn't help but laugh. Especially when one of them turns around and calls a tiny ball of playdough sexy. I then went into the toddler's room as they needed help as staff were going for lunch/home. This room was louder than the kindy room and one of the children came straight out, as I was clearing the table from afternoon tea, with "I don't like you. I don't like you. Your not my friend. I don't like you." I cleaned some floors and tables and had my lunch and stuff and came back into the room and he began talking to me, so I said to him "do you like me now?" he nodded so I went on with "Am I your friend?" he said yes. I then went on to do the home time nappy changes and he said to Liz (the other staff member in the room) "I don't like her, She's not my friend."

Kids they are so cute...

But overall A FANTASTIC DAY!!!!

And then was my second day... Not as humorous but just as fun.

I sang songs, played games, supervised and even cured a few children (from a case of sand in their eyes....lots) I was asked by one of the kindy boys "Are you a good person? I'm a good person." And even had an attachment of one of the kindy girls for majority of the day. Overall another great day, although I did come home with paint all over the bottom of my jumper.

I really like working in this centre! The staff are so nice and helpful. The children are adorable. And the centre overall is so inviting and comfortable. (Yes I know I will soon come to dislike having to wake up early, there for dislike work some days, but I don't see that happening any day soon).

Visitor's YAY!!!

On Wednesday this week we had our first visitor... Yay!!! Although this visitor was not the type of visitor you would have expected.

It was a gorgeous ginger cat.. He had no collar or tag so I didn't know where abouts it lived or its name. So I just stood around watching it because I was majorly bored and loved the company. He was so affectionate and was continuously trying to get in the door but I wouldn't let him inside :(. He was constantly meowing and sticking its head through the security door, was so adorable. We decided to call him Muppet.

Muppet trying to get through the security door.

This was one of the nights that Ben didn't come home at all this week (Wednesday and Thursday) because his bike got hit on Tuesday night. but it is all fixed now with my help so now he is able to come home every night again woohoo.

Saturday we had Bec, Jess, Rhiannon, Liam, Aaron, Brett and Nick (Navy Peeps) over for lunch. We cooked up a lovely chicken pasta bake with Garlic bread and Salad sides.. We also had pretzels, S&V chips, cheese, crackers and salami out when they arrived. It was quite a good day, Ben and I were pretty organised in the morning preparing everything, so the day just flowed on. We tossed the footy round out the back and played the Wii for a while, all the time just chatting away. The best part yet was that there wasn't much to clean up YAY!!!

Ben stirring the pasta.

Table set up (we had doily's as makeshift place mats :P)

All the dishes we had after having 7 people over.

(Not much ha?)

THE house...

We start on thursday when I came to the house to meet with the agent. We went through all the details of what we need to keep in order and about damages, etc. We then went through the house and completed the condition report - I was also looking at the layout of the house. Ben was supposed to be there at 3 also but he was unable to get off work, so the agent faxed all the paperwork for him to sign and fax back. but he faxed back the same page twice Oops. So ben had to come down after he finished work to sign the paper's otherwise we wouldn't be able to get the keys. Everything worked out he came, signed looked at the house and we got the keys.

Saturday- Move in day.

I had to get a taxi at 7.45am just so I could be at the house before 8.30am so that I could let the removalist' (david and trent) in. I directed them around and had a good old conversation with Trent. They were both quite nice, and I enjoyed myself whilst they unpacked my stuff hehe. Once the removalist' were finished I started putting our stuff away, until I got a call form dha saying that we havent checked out of the hotel yet and if we didn't check out asap we would be charged for an extra night. (we had an email stating we weren't supposed to check out until 1/5/09). I called a taxi to take me back to the hotel. Ben rang and said it didnt matter coz it was 12 and checkout closed at 12 so we just stayed there an extra night, even though we were suposed to stay there that night anyway.

Sunday- Hotel Checkout day.

Being prepared I packed everything the night before, except our food. So we called a taxi and took our stuff down to the front of the hotel. Ben made a few trips to bring all our stuff down, which took up the whole boot and backseat (and floor) of the taxi. Ben then went to check out as I headed towards the house. At the house we unpacked the food and started to set up each room. First was the Lounge room (it took us a while to sort out how we wanted it haha.)

Lounge room.

We then moved onto putting the bed together, man that took a while because for some reason one side just wouldn't match up. But after much frustration from both parties the bed was finally together (Ben got it in the end). We then moved the bedside tables in place and put the suitcases and portarobe in the closet (out of the way temporarily).

Bedroom

Ben then decided he would sit and play wow (He deserved it, He worked hard). So while he was doing that I put all the kitchen utensils, crockery, etc away and I also set up the washing machine by myself (ben had to help with the hose, getting it out of the back of the machine :P). I also put all the cds, dvds and Wii stuff in the enertainment unit (also setting up the stereo, tv and dvd player).

Kitchen (dont look at the dirty frypan)

Dinning room

I then moved onto putting all my books on the bookshelf in the study, and looking what to do with some of the stuff that was layed out in the spare bedroom. But other than that we are pretty much all set.

Study (well until we get a desk)

The spare room (at the moment)

I cooked our first HOME cooked meal (Mash, peas, corn and Fish fingers haha). We had to makeshift placemats with folded up paper but it was a good first day and the night was great. I was able to go straight to sleep, no struggling to get to sleep tossing and turning. I woke up refreshed with a weird dream that I told mum on the phone. Which I had to end so that I could go get dressed, etc and go grocery shopping (only small). I came back put everything away and put on our first load of washing on in our new washing machine and vaccumed because the removalist put dirt everywhere. I cleaned our filthy glass entertainment unit, hung the washing out then put my feet up and watch a movie (I couldn't watch tv because we don't have an antenna cable yet :P).

ANZAC Weekend

So our weekend started out with shopping again... We bought a new printer and the INTERNET yay! So we went with Bigpond, and spent most of the morning trying to get it set up. We had it installed, on and connected but... we couldnt access the net on it for some reason. After many many many minutes of Ben cracking it majorly, I found and gave him the technical support number to call. So he got on the phone to someone who told him he needs to activate it and gave him another number to call to get it activated. About half an hour later we had it activated and he was ecstatic because he finally got it working and he set up his first internet connection. We then went down the street to do a little grocery shopping and got Subway for lunch. AS we ordered our chicken fillet six inch and footlong sandwhiches we got to the cheese and we asked for tasty. She went to put chedder on our bread and we said "umm, could we have tasty cheese please not chedder" (whilst pointing to the orange cheese) and she looked at us and said I have never heard of it called that, we looked at each other then back to her and asked her what they called it- she said "Old english cheese". Well there's something different to Vic along with the bus zone and ticket system.

After a long saturday, going from phone call to phone call setting everything up, we decided we would have a quiet night in watching movies AND an early night for the ANZAC day march in rockingham sunday morning.

So sunday morning I went down to the street the march off was in and met up with benny and his group, we stood around talking for a while until he had to fall in. I then walked up to the end of the street as they organised themselves. As I stood on a corner waiting for the march to start, I got involved in a conversation with a little old lady, her daughter (a pre-school teacher) and her daughter-in-law. The lady's husband was in the march with her father and her young grandaughter (Lulu). She was originally from NSW and moved here when her daughter was 10 (which was about 15 years ago). They were so nice and welcoming. After all of the groups marched passed I headed over to the oval where the speeches were being held.

Ben before he had to fall in.

Ben Marching

The lollipop express with march participants

The guy in the Yellow Jacket (his group) is the family of the old lady I was standing with

There were so many different groups in the march I decided to just put up certain ones instead of having all these photos.

After the ANZAC service was finished Ben and I got some subway for lunch then headed back to the hotel, where ben spent almost 2 hours with Bigpond technical support trying to fix our net AGAIN... they endeed up having to put him through to some American guy. BUT it is all fixed now and our net is finally fully working YAY!!!.

Ben after coming back from Subway

Ben and I after Subway

We were going to go to the movies and see clash of the titans that night but instead we stayed in and went to bed early, after calling mum seeing what was wrong and having a good old laugh. We are so worried about her, but we love her and know that she will get through it. We actually ended up playing Heroes of might and magic before actually going to bed haha.

Monday morning came with Bacon and Egg toasted sandwhiches in bed ( I made them of course and Ben had them in bed...I joined hehe). He left an hour or so after to go for duty and when he got back we hired some Blockbuster movies. We then sat and watched 'Green Street Hooligans' it was quite a good movie. Has alot of action in it and is a little sad at the end.... But there is a sequal so I am going to watch that tomorrow as ben had to leave to go back to base.

So now I'm on my own again and there is only 4 days or 3 and a bit days until we are finally in our house YAY!!! It will be so good, we will have all of our stuff and Ben will be able to stay home. I'M LOVING IT!!!!