Six Months In - We Did It!

We’ve made it here 6 months! It feels like we’ve been here two years, and also two months at the same time. We have seriously gone through SO MUCH since we started this whole thing a little over a year ago. Also, to give you all an exciting update, the condo back in Charlotte finally sold! It has been on the market since right before Thanksgiving and holy shit… what a relief for Regis!

 Sometimes I think about how easy I had it in Charlotte, and it’s both good and bad. Things were ridiculously simple (and great!), but I know we were really tired of the same bar-brewery-pool-home routine, and I was sick of being stuck in a three block radius with no car 80% of the time. I try not to only focus on stuff I miss from there because it can get me in a nostalgic mood and that’s just not productive at all for trying to be happy here.

Perspective can be a really interesting thing. I started thinking about the way I wanted to live my life shortly after we started traveling and doing fun things. About 2 years ago was the first time in my life I could afford to do things I wanted to do (and actually have time off work!) and it made me a much happier person. I got asked by people fairly often how I am such a positive, upbeat person, and I really didn’t know what to say. I’ve thought about it a bit more though, and I think the way most people think about their yearly vacations should slightly change their perspectives and they would be a lot happier. What if you lived your life in a way that you didn’t spend all year waiting for your one week break from it? I think that’s basically what we are trying to do here – not to say I don’t still count down the minutes on Friday afternoons at work, but I definitely get a lot of value in my life by living somewhere I want to be and looking forward to simple things (see ya, Ohio!).

We also have some visitors lined up, which is super exciting! My sister Colleen will be here from the last week of November for a couple of weeks, and Regis’ parents are coming for Christmas! I am definitely looking forward to a warm holiday season – I usually dread Christmas, so it’s going to be a nice change. My mom has also mentioned wanting to visit, and has been checking out flights here in February - so basically we need to start getting furniture for our patio and the other bedroom! Also a note to anyone wanting to visit, you better get up on your slang! Here’s some help:

A funny note to add here is that I hear most of these on a fairly regular basis – usually you can tell what someone is saying based on context, but some of these are so random it’s hard to guess. The first time I heard someone say they were “crook”, I was so confused! It means sick, apparently, haha. The “C” word is also thrown around  a bit here, which was kind of shocking at first!

As for any other updates, we haven’t been up to too much. We went to Regis’ Mid-Winter ball hosted by his footy team last weekend, and we saw one of my favorite DJs, RL Grime over the weekend. I’ve recently applied to be a promoter for a company that puts on electronic shows because I think it’d be a good way to make friends, and I think I am going to start my hula hoop classes back up! Our Christmas in July beer we brewed turned out excellently and in a not-surprising-at-all way, Regis drilled a hole in the front of our fridge so we can keep our home brew on tap! Fun picture updates are below, see ya soon!

The home brew tap!

Our Christmas in July beer

The new view - we couldn't have picked a cooler new home city!

When you actually realize you made the right decision.

Going to keep this short and sweet,  and unfortunately I don't have any photos to add. I have been traveling for work the past week. I'm up in singleton, a small town in NSW about 90 minutes west of Newcastle. It's basically a mining town, the sign says 25000 people but I'm calling bullshit. This place is only slightly larger than my hometown of Strasburg which had a population of 2500. I'm assuming that they included everyone within a 25km radius.  The town only takes 20 min to walk across the long way, has 3 pubs, and a handful of restaurants. There is basically fuck all to do except get piss drunk at the pub, which is a hard pass when you have to get 0.000 on a breathalyzer at 6am the next morning.

The point of this is, I miss Melbourne.  I traveled a decent amount when I worked in Charlotte and I never missed Charlotte. I missed people and my stuff but not the city.  I still miss laci and my friends, my stuff (don't have much) but now I also miss the city.  I miss my coffee shop, the quirky trams, my footy training sessions, the city skyline, Albert park, Chapel street and all its weirdness.  I'm really looking forward to flying home tomorrow afternoon and being home.  I think I can truly say Melbourne is home.  That is until laci and I get board of this city and decide to move to either Mcmudo station or Tristan da Cunha.
















Ps.  Mom don't worry, that last bit was a joke.  Mcmudo station is a science outpost in mcmudo sound Antarctica and Tristan da cunha is the most remote inhabited island in the world.  We are not moving there.