study

These are strange times…

| poppypeach

It has been a while since I wrote anything here but the weeks have flown by as I managed to fall behind in my University studies and everything else has been unpredictable with coronavirus. I had work meetings, professional development for work, webinars for my high schooler, online doctors appointments and my last hair appointment for a long time! Lists of readings for uni to do, where it is so hard to focus with the whole household at home as the new normal. There is zero opportunity to disappear to a cafe for timeout with my computer and a coffee. Thank goodness for headphones I say! Exercise has been inside with body combat or some other Les Mills class every day if I can fit it in. Plus I have managed to make dates for drinks online with a couple of friends which gives me something to look forward to!

Times sure are strange but it is something we have to get used to here in Melbourne with our stage 4 lockdown restrictions of no work unless you are a permitted or essential worker, 1 hour of exercise outside per day, 1 person designated to go to the shops per day and 8pm to 5am curfew plus no moving outside of our 5km radius unless we need to go to a medical appointment. It feels intense to write this, but it has to be like this as it is important to curb the spread of this nasty virus. I am really missing so much now, but I feel once we are allowed to live “normally” again we will appreciate everything a lot more.

This is where I spend most of my time these days in my little study zone which is the converted lounge room with its massive windows covered in bubble wrap to keep the warmth inside. I am sitting here covered in blankets and wearing a beanie. I just keep saying not long now but every day is so uncomfortable living in a house that is uninsulated in a city that gets very cold in winter and really hot in summer. For these pics, I had to do a clear out of my desk to do a presentation for Health and Physical Education for Uni which is why the area looks void of anything as everything was put on the floor so I could film my 5 minute presentation. It looks very fancy and neat but I like to have my bits and pieces surrounding me so it is back to the way it was in the pic on the left now – cos sometimes I just feel like playing around with some craft – as most of the time I am studying. Last week I wrote a 2000 word report for the value of science in early childhood education, which I loved as I am a huge fan of science. Here is a little chemistry experiment I made for the little ones for work. I was on the tail end of my report and then stage 4 happened and we had to get into remote learning mode for the kiddos at kinder. Just breathe, I said and I got there in the end with a 48 hour extension!

Each day is another day closer to living in our new home, here are the pics before they get to sanding the floors tomorrow. The kitchen is looking amazing and I am so looking forward to cooking up some delicious dinners there. Not long now as it is wonderful to see things moving along – the construction fence is down and we will have a new fence in place soon. I am so happy to see this and it is definitely something to look forward to, just in time at the end of lockdown but who knows? The coronavirus numbers have been up and down for the last week and a half so we will see. We will have to have a zoom house warming party, until we can be together again!

Life balance

| poppypeach

Being on break I have taken the opportunity to finally go to the hairdresser and cut all my hair off and get a new hairdo! I found this fabulous stylist Chloe at Cherry Bomb hair in Collingwood. I said that I wanted to cut it all off as I have been eyeing off the lovely short styles on women around Melbourne. In my minds eye I saw a pixie cut but as I do have thick and curly hair, Chloe created this lovely hair style and incredible colour. I like to share the before and after pics as it was time for a change. I am loving it as it is so easy to style in the morning and on my travels to the gym and on my bike.

I have been studying for a maths test which is taking up most of my time and it is interesting the amount of stuff I do not use, that kids still learn in Year 9 maths! Lucky for me, the real world including financial maths and ratios is something I do not have to revise. My revision book is getting quite full with all my reminder notes of various formulas I have not used in forever but I will get there. When I am studying, I see how kids these days can call upon Google for all their knowledge and the greatest saviour for me with maths is Khan academy, as I love the videos and explanations to help me with my mathematical understanding.

Over the weekend I enjoyed this wonderful networking event at Swinburne University in Hawthorn which was an hour away by tram and train from home. It started at 10am so I was gone most of the day and the rest of the fam hung out at home and did errands. It was the first time the online contingent of my University got together and we got to meet fellow students and chat to industry professionals. The highlight was the inspiring keynote presentation by Emma Murray who made us all feel the energy to focus on what matters most in our lives and most of all, how to focus on our studies. I left the day with renewed optimism to study and get through my course and see the finish line!

On Sunday, we enjoyed an afternoon of family time and we went into the city to check out a Mexican festival at Flagstaff gardens. It turned out to be long lines for the food trucks and we were not drinking so we were not keen for the crazy margaritas. So we decided to check out the Queen Vic market and it was so good! We basically went there to scout out some food and I found this Sri Lankan street food vendor who made a Kotthu roti, right there in front of me with this incredible array of ingredients including curry leaves and egg, yummo. They added cheese on top which was probably a bit much for me but the yoghurt mint sauce was the absolute best. It was quite a feast, so I shared it with Ash and my hubby. Making the roti was very noisy indeed but well worth it for the food theatre. These guys are part of the restaurant Drums and are a franchise of 5 locations around Melbourne. They are also at the Preston market (just around the corner from our place by bus) where they are open on the weekend serving string hoppers and hoppers, so I have a date in the future to visit them there, yummo!

And the excitement in our house is that the steel has been fabricated and is getting in place. I visited over the weekend and found that a lot of action had happened including a brick wall. We are so happy it is moving along and today I chatted to a guy welding away and he told me there was some steel to be put in the front of the house as well. Its so good to see the structure taking shape as I have memorised the whole build 😀

Our House Build begins

| poppypeach

This week the demolition began on our house. We met with our architect and builder on Monday and then our builder got his spray can out all over the house! Today (Saturday) we went to check out the progress, as the demolishers were at the house on Wednesday. So now you just see the frame of the front of the house (this is taken from the alleyway out the back) with a little bit of roof. There is still some more demo work to come next week, and it is very exciting. We will drop by again next weekend, and peek through the back fence to see what is going on as it is not safe for us to be at the site.

The rest of my time this week has been here at my desk studying away writing two papers. A 2500 word essay on socialisation and another 1500 unit plan for English. Man there has been no escape and now I am behind one week in my readings but I will have next week to catch up! I got this great screen to keep me hidden from distractions but still it is really noisy as I am right near the kitchen. The bonus is that I have the fridge right in front of me, which is great! I have had to do hand sewing or knitting. after dinner, as I have been hammered with too much time on the computer – researching, writing and editing. Every morning I have been going to the gym for a bit of stress relief and it really helps with sitting down most of the day – I do not think I could ever do an office job again in my life. Still I am enjoying myself with this B. Ed as it is so comprehensive, as a lot of the theoretical components I can totally relate to. My plants have been keeping me happy at home while I have had to keep my brain focussed with my fave store in Coburg is the health store with their collection of bush flower essences – aaaah, just breathe…

What I have been doing when I have not been studying? My Saturday morning is looking after the chickens at my sons High School. They are so fun as they have a friend, a big black pig called Gigi who always wants to eat everything!! The family enjoyed the antics today when I was feeding the pig, as I was trying not to step in big mud puddles and get some treats to the chickens. I have to plan some strategic moves with distracting the pig, with her treats, when I give some treats to the chickens! And of course, in the evenings making dinner is a little creative outlet where I have been enjoying the tortillas from La Tortilleria – where I found some great videos from them this week. This fish taco is a baked Hoki taco with a zucchini slaw, topped with BBQ sauce – tasty!

So I had better get back to business as my assignments are due Monday and I need to get busy tomorrow!

Tough times

| poppypeach

Well what can I say about last week is that all I got to do was get into my little routine of going to the gym every day except Saturday and study every day! That was the plan but as it turned out the weekend was no study time as we had to run errands on Sunday to get stuff for Missy’s camp at the Yarra Valley and eat ramen in the city. Saturday I had to talk to a builder and get a couch delivered, so good to have a couch that I have borrowed from my friend.

Life has been very boring of late as I have two very heavy subjects and lots of reading. I have assignments due – one this week and one next week and I am trying to get it all done so I can go away for our little Easter break at the Dandenong Ranges to see Rone and play in the forest for a while! I really have to have some goals at the moment as the solo parenting is taking its toll on my mind and time. Lucky for the gym as that really helps with getting out and doing something otherwise the week flies by with study and if I am lucky a bit of crafting at night as it is hard to focus on reading, let along writing something sensible. I went to the craft store on the weekend to get some yarn and supplies so I can craft on a whim.

The kids are doing well at school though they say they are bored so I feel that it could have been better for them if we stayed over in the States, especially at our wonderful elementary school. Thing is if you are used to a progressive approach to education it is a hard to compare it to anything else. As the kids are at public schools here which look good to me but I am not at school everyday so maybe they just need more challenge? It could be that one is a tween and the other is a teen and all they want to do is be on the screen – aaargh my greatest enemy/friend. I use my machine to study each day so it hard for me to model good screen time behaviours but these two are on them as soon as they come home from school and until I turn the wi-fi off at 8pm. I have had to unplug the wi-fi but I need more strategies to get these kids to do something else! They get their chores done but then what? We had a great time when we first moved in to our house and we played Exploding Kittens everyday after dinner until they got sick of it but I think we will have to start again just to have some quality family time.

I still am looking for my peeps and I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Repatriating is tough and I had read about how it feels in books but it is not until you are in the situation you realise that you have to start all over again from scratch. Well at least I have some family and friends here I can call upon, but now that school is happening again the weekends for a lot of them are playing sports. It has been 3 months since I left California and I would like to get out more but I really don’t have time to spare with having to study at every moment I can find. I need to make more goals of hanging with friends for study break times and just get out an about. The kids don’t help as everything I suggest to day trip to they say, “oh that’s boring!” Maybe I was like that when I was young and just wanted to play Nintendo all the time?

At least this weekend we have a plan to go to Fitzroy for Mexican food at Hotel Jesus for Missy’s 11th birthday and go out for some ice cream at Gelato Messina and then to the music shop to get the birthday prezzie of a bass guitar case – good times here we come, now that is a great goal to work towards!

Settling into our new life

| poppypeach

Our first week back was extremely productive unlike Mouse the cat (my sister in laws cat) here who is having a great little nap! We decided that we would move back into our yellow house until we get the OK for the builders, this is good in itself as I am gathering paperwork e.g. bills in my name for when we finally go and find a rental property.

Our house is so cute and it was so funny when I walked through thinking – hey this is like looking through a rental property, so why am I looking for a place when this is vacant! It was thanks to my sister in law to help me get my head around it all and relieve the stress of not having to find a rental property in 20 days! Anyway, the kids are pretty bored as I am having to study in between catching up with friends (they play with my friends’ kids) so they are screening it up either on Netflix, the small screens or the computers but I have an essay due on the 16th January so I gotta get into gear!

Last week I arranged to turn on the gas, power and water, bought a new fridge and washing machine and many other household items, organised the insurance for the house, got hooked up to the internet and did a huge grocery shop. There’s still a fair amount to do but I am staying at my friend’s place house sitting while they are in NZ and they have stuff in their house to use until I get back to our house. Starting all over again is huge and the next big ticket item is a car but that requires a fair amount of research and time which I do not have at the moment with my Uni deadline fast approaching.

We stayed at my sister in laws place for a few days before heading on over to my friends house and Missy did a bit of pasta making. She made linguine with my sister in law and it was just delicious with prawns and asparagus in a creamy sauce – yummo! The meat eaters ate a bolognaise mince sauce. The Kitchen Aid Artisan to make fresh pasta is $800 here so we will hold off for a while until all the other outgoing finances to set up are out of the way!

And along came the hottest day we have ever felt in ages! On Friday it went up to 42 degrees and man it was brutal. I found it really hard to focus as it was so hot and could not do my studies as I was wanting to hang out in the air conditioning and do nothing then towards the end of the day the temperature dropped 20 degrees and it was thundering and raining. Since that day the weather has been gorgeous mid-20s and a cool breeze. It has been so fun to hang outside on the deck with friends and drink tea or study.

As I am house sitting for a friend I am checking out a new part of Melbourne and it is great as I have found a library and an excellent Sri Lankan cafe selling pan rolls and many other delicacies – so that was our treat over the weekend. Missy found a meat pie at the amazing grocery market La Manna and we found a cray cray down at the park. This graphic novel Trish Trash is so fun and I could not resist when I found it at the library, hilarious!! I will have to read it once I get a study break.

It has been quiet here but I like it for a change as my mind has been so full of lists and getting organised to leave a country and start a new life. I am enjoying some time out and I feel like my body and mind needs a bit of a rest. Even though I am still studying and organising house stuff the Australians make it so much easier with their relaxed demeanour and their proactive attitude to get shit done that I really miss! Time to get back to business and catch up on my studies as I have a trip to the city tomorrow to meet a friend at the National Gallery of Victoria for a bit of play – yay!