7/15/2015

4 days till I go to America and I am very excited. I spent a while talking to my sisters today and planning out my trip for Boston. It is going to be great fun. Plus I start a new job when I get back so today I shamelessly daydreamed about being home. It will be great to see everyone. The list of American foods to eat is on my phone and ready to go. The last thing I need is a few gifts. I'm shopping on Friday so if you'd like something please put requests in now :) 

7/12/2015

This was a Cann Valley week. Damien came up with me. We had a bit of a lazy trip. On Thursday evening we decided to stop in Traralgon for dinner. I knew that there was an all you can eat pizza place there. As we drove into town Damien decided that he wasn't hungry enough for pizza so we picked some place slightly nicer. We went to a restraunt called little prince. It was lovely. Tiny bite size meals of the Spanish/asian/australian variety. We got wings, a tiny burger, chicken wraps, and tostidas. For dessert we had a macaron but instead of icing in the middle there was ice cream! It was great! We also had salted caramel popcorn ice cream(which is apparently the new thing this season, everyone is adding popcorn to their desserts...not sure I approve). Anyway great dinner 

I had a pretty busy day at work. I always find it so fun. As I was working I got a call  from the bank that my loan application was approved...which means car this week! Damien got a call too that his new job that he starts on Monday was having contract issues. So after work I went for a run and Damien sorted out his contract. Then we went to the cafe for dinner because the pub looks scary. 

Saturday morning we headed for melbourne. The first stop was Nowa Nowa where there was a turn off to see a gorge. (It was very sunny)

We kept driving to Bruthen where there is a tasty brewery. We tasted a few and looked out over the scenery. (Again very sunny, note the squinty face) 

I liked the stout but Damien said it tasted like coffee. 

We did actually stop for coffee in Bainsdale at little Alice cafe, for a delicious chai late, for me and a fish pie for Damien. We also stopped at picnic point orchard which is quickly becoming my favourite.  We got 2km of apples, 2L of apple juice and 1L of Apple raspberry vinegar. They are all amazing. 

We kept going through to Traralgon where we stopped at little prince for a second time in 1 trip. It was once again delicious. 

We got the rental car back 15 minutes early for a change. Then we had a very lazy evening. 

Sunday at home was very wet. It bucketed down rain all day. It was raining when I walked to the market and when I went to the supermarket. When Damien went to find a barber and when he sent me to get a copy of his passport. It would have been lovely if we didn't need to commute by bike. Damien spent most of the day getting ready for his first day of work tomorrow and I made an apple pie. :)

7/1/2015

Back to being lazy with the Blog. Here's what happened this week:

I bought a car. Well kind of. I want to finance my new car in order to build credit however no one wants to give me a lone even a tiny one. So I am a couple bucks short on actually getting the car. Not to worry. I'm persisting and should be driving down the road in the next week. The car that I "got" is an Alpha Romeo Guilletta. It is black and shiny. 

So I am having a few problems getting finance, the first being that I am not a permanent resident, the second that Damien doesn't have a long enough employment history and the third that I am starting a new job in 2 weeks. I am not allowed to give you any details about that until Saturday so if you are dying to know send me a message. 

In other exciting news, just after signing the papers to lock myself in for the car, I bought a slow cooker. It has been great. We have had soup and cannollenini and much more to come I'm sure. 

6/24/2015

Over the weekend I did a dry needling course. That's like acupuncture but much easier because you treat problems locally instead of in different parts of the body. The course I took was a mixture of traditional and western acupuncture. The course was in Frankston which is where the bike starts for the ironman, 50km from my house. Saturday morning I biked into the city, took the train and then biked the 3km to the hospital where the course was held. On Sunday the course started before the first train arrived so I biked the whole way, plus I added on a bit to make it a prettier ride. We learned all sorts of things. From bottom to top. I found the worst place to be the shoulders. It really hurt for hours afterward. 

This week I have been needling like crazy. I try to talk everyone into it. So far I have been successful with 3patients. :) mostly to save my hands but also because it's very effective in some conditions. 

This week I have been much better on the cooking front. I made brownies and gnocchi on the weekend and haloumi for dinner last night. Damien found a recipe where you marinate haloumi in honey blueberries and hazelnuts. Then you fry all of it together. It's delicious. 

I had an altercation with the transport police on Monday night. I had run for the train and hadn't touched on. I was very nervous but somehow I snuck through and didn't get caught. They did however catch 2 other people in my carriage and they questioned a woman for 10stations. 

I have received my pre-reading packet for the Lymphoedema course that I am taking in August and have started working. There is 72hours of pretending material. I have spent at least 5 on it already but am still on the 2nd lesson. It's very interesting! 

The only other focus of my week has been practicing for the ticket to ride championships on Sunday.

Also I am totally going to buy a car this weekend. This is it. No excuses, car by Monday!  

6/17/2015

We are coming up on the longest day of the year over here and man does it feel like it. Sunday was nice and I started the morning out going to the market but nothing at the market inspired me. I bought brusselsprouts but still need to cook them. Possibly tonight.

Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday have all been overcast and rainy. Which makes both me and all my patients want to stay in bed. 

Damien bought a new power grid board over the weekend so we played one on Sunday and one on Monday. He won one and I won one so it worked out well. Tuesday I went rock climbing with Sylvie. I fell off my bike on my way to the gym so I was a tad out of sorts but it was still great fun, nothing too hard this week though. I have a quiet day coming up so perhaps I will make more plans for coming to America

6/13/2015

This was a Cann Valley week. I started the week with the queen's birthday (the opposite of Independence Day) on Monday and then went out to East gippsland on Friday so realistically I only had a 3 day work week, which was great. To make things even better I did the escape room on Tuesday with Damo and 2 other friends. If you are unfamiliar the escape room is a thing where you get "locked" in a room for an hour and have to solve a series of clues in order to escape. There was a 70 minute time limit and we finished in 50 because we're awesome! 

It wasn't a long trip out to Cann river because I have a birthday party in Saturday night in Melbourne for my friend Dan. 

I took the train up on Thursday night and did my weird car rental thing. I convinced Damien to come with me because he is very nice. Before our trip he bought the ticket to ride expansion pack. After we got out of the city we were able to spread out and play ticket to ride on the floor of the train. So awesome! The drive into Cann river was quick compared to normal. 

I had 6 patients on Friday so we were done by 2pm. I took Damien to point hicks lighthouse because he has never been before. 

We also did the Thurra river sand dunes that are even more beautiful in person. 

On our jog out to the dunes we got inches away from a kookaburra that was happy to fly along with us for a few feet. 

We spent longer than we had meant to playing on the dunes and the sun was setting as we ran back. 

Back at the bush nursing centre we spent the evening eating pasta and playing ticket to ride. 

Saturday morning we were up early to get the car back to bairnsdale. We made it back early enough to stop at the orchard before dropping the car off. Then we grabbed breakfast at little Alice cafe(my favourite) before just barely making our train back to the party. We were going to play another ticket to ride game but the train filled up quickly so we stuck to iPad version, blogging, and napping for the trip back.  

6/10/2015

I have a new phone! Finally. It should make blogging much easier since I can do it on the train again. I also got ticket to ride for my iPad which will definitely be distracting. I think that I have been homesick recently, I've been on a bit of a Mexican kick. It all started at the market on Sunday when we came up to a stall selling chillies and tomatillos. I was super impressed but the grower us no idea what they were or what to do with them. She said there was a guy who owned a Mexican restraunt who had hired her to grow them. She couldn't remeber the name of the restraunt but with enough clues and a few wrong directions Damien and I figured out where the restraunt was. It is about 12km from home so we biked 10km and ran 10km to get there with empty stomachs. The $72 bill didn't impress me but everything else was amazing. Since I had of course bought some tomatillos as well I also made stuffed chillies and tortilla soup and since I was cooking a cocoflan.