The Good and The Bad

Sorry to you all that it's been so long since either of us have posted anything! It seems like the days are flying past and without even realizing it, it's been ages since posting.

So, The Good and The Bad---it seems like for various reasons we've had a rough couple of weeks. Nothing too horrendous, but one super annoying thing after another. First however, I will start with the GOOD things that have been happening.

Matt has been full on with his role as Senior Residential Tutor here at the college. So far we already care about and love the RT's (Residential Tutors) that he is overseeing. They are a great group of college kids who love the Lord and want to serve God and their community this year. Both of us (Matt and Annie) were able to go up to the Blue Mountains for a couple day retreat with the RT's. It was so fun to get to know them better. We played games, cooked good food, shared testimonies, had Bible studies, and they went on a very long and strenuous bush walk. With many LEECHES latching onto everyone's ankles. They all came home a bleeding mess. All this to say, we feel blessed to be living in this community are are excited about this year with them!

Last Thursday was Matt's 28th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Unfortunately we weren't quite able to take the whole day and go out and celebrate because he had a huge presentation the very next day. This big presentation was to be confirmed as a PhD student at UTC (United Theological College), so it was kind of important that he do well. We went out to dinner with some friends we know from UTC to a wonderful Italian restaurant and  had a great evening. Good food, wine, company, and a very happy birthday celebration.

For those of you wondering, Matt's presentation went very well!! Praise the Lord. I wasn't there, I thought it might be kind of awkward to be the only non-scholar sitting in a room with lecturers, professors, doctoral students, etc. "Hi, I'm Annie---I'm Matt's wife and just came to watch." While it would have been a very supportive gesture, I decided it probably wasn't appropriate! However, apparently they really liked his researcher and had very little to criticize him on. Great news, considering we've moved here so he can get his PhD.

On Saturday morning, before I had to work at 2 PM we went with our friend, Tom Swanton to the beach. It seems like 9.5 out of every 10 days we have had here have been RAINING! This was a beautiful, sunny, warm, gorgeous summer's day! We had coffee, banana bread, pear and raspberry bread at a little shop by the beach. Then we walked up and down the beach and up some cliffs for a beautiful view. It could not have been more perfect, except I had to be to work soon, so we couldn't stay as long as we would have liked! We keep hoping for more beautiful days so we can finally go and explore this Australia that we live in, but alas it keeps raining on all my days off.

This begins the---BAD--- portion of this post. The rain! While it does keep the summer heat at bay (which is nice because we don't have AC), it greatly impairs our ability to go do things on my days off. It's been quite frustrating for me the past few days. I'm working on my attitude. But, we really want to go to the ZOO and go on a Harbour Cruise!!!! We've been waiting for weeks to do these things, and it keeps RAINING!

Onto other not so great stuff. I will list it as briefly as possible. Please bare with me, I don't want to seem all negative. Which is why I listed all the GOOD stuff first!

-Our shipment from America. It's still not to us yet!! :( It arrived to Sydney on Feb 19th and had been sitting there waiting to clear customs. We got an email last night saying that it has cleared customs, except for our bike! Which Matt spent hours upon hours and a lot of money fixing up this bike before we moved. We only have one car, so we thought having a bike would be a good idea. Our options----pay $380 to have it steam cleaned OR $231 to have it destroyed!!! Are you kidding me?!?!?! It's maddening. I'm sure the bike really isn't worth that much. It was a birthday present I got when I turned 12 I think. hahaha. However, it's a great quality bike and I loved it for years! I don't want to destroy it, but on the other hand I'm not sure it's worth almost $400. Plus, we don't have that kind of money to throw around right now anyway! We have to make a decision soon though, or we will not get our shipment delivered to us.

-Our car---we purchased a decent, older car, from some friends. Of course there are risks in buying an older car. However, we don't have money for a more expensive car, so we are content to drive an older one. It just needs to work! It broke down on my way to work on Saturday. OH NO!!! Thankfully I was able to ride with someone to work and borrow a car. However, $1100 later---and now our car is in working order again. :( More money spent that we really don't have at the moment.

-Our mobile (cell) phones! By now all the kinks are pretty well worked out. However, Matt spent countless hours trying to get an account through a couple different good cell providers down here. And for various reasons we weren't passing the credit checks. Basically, it boiled down to they wanted 3 months work of pay check stubs!!!! Are you kidding me?? We need phones now! Can't really wait 3 months! So, now we have Vodaphone and I think it's going to work out fine. Matt has a new iphone 4s. I am using my iphone 4 we purchased in the States. It was just one mess after another for about a week, until we finally got Vodaphone to accept us.

Alright, enough complaining. We have honestly both felt a little stressed by the continual unforeseen expensive expenses that have happening on a weekly basis. It's been frustrating. I keep reminding myself (although it doesn't totally negate the frustration) that our money is not really ours---it's the Lord's! He knows what's happening, even when we don't. We made the move to Australia not knowing how we were going to pay for everything----and it still kind of feels like that. But, we have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, I have a job that I love---so why am I complaining???

Right, I don't really know, except it feels good to get the complaints off of my chest.

Now, onto living life, loving Australia (rain and all), and serving our eternal King who has given us the gift of salvation even though we are rotten sinners who don't deserve it!

The End. (of my post)

Who'll Stop the Rain?

It has been a dreadfully long time since we updated our blog. Please accept our apologies. Part of the reason is certainly that we haven't done too much that is of mass interest in the last couple of weeks. There are two reasons for this:

First, we have been imprisoned by the continuing torrential onslaught. We have just survived the wettest and coldest January in Sydney in over thirty years. Further, we have apparently moved to Sydney in what is the wettest two-year period on record. Unfortunately, the rain shows no sign of abatement. My typing is this very moment drown out by the collision of raindrops with the plastic roof of our patio. Keep in mind, we live in the southern hemisphere, so a January with 26-27 days of rain is equivalent to a July with this much rain in the northern hemisphere!

Second, we have been busy with work and, especially, moving to our new place. Speaking of our new place, that is something to write home about. We are now residents at Robert Menzies College (RMC), an Anglican residential college affiliated with Macquarie University. This is where I (Matt) am working as a Sr. Residential Tutor (a part-time pastoral/residential role). The college consists of four "blocks" (soon to be five), a common building replete with a recreation hall, large dining room, and administration offices, a house for the master, and a chapel. We live on the first floor at the corner of "C block". We have a two bedroom, one bath apartment, with a fairly generous "walled garden" (read: backyard). There is not a lot of natural lighting and the rooms are pretty small--especially the kitchen! We were at first a bit worried about our capacity to make the place comfortable. After a little bit of effort, it is really starting to come together quite nicely. We're pretty much done until our personal goods arrive in a few weeks.

If it ever stops raining, I'll take and post some pictures all around the college. For now, here is a quick tour of the inside of the apartment. (I hope Annie won't mind too much that I made absolutely no effort to clean things up!)

The living room. The sofa to the right has a pull-out bed and will eventually end up in the study/guest room (below). Thanks to our friend Tom for helping me pick it up. The red coffee table is something we found on the side of the road and painted. The black sofa was a find on "Gumtree" (Aussie craigslist), thankfully the owner was willing to deliver. You'll notice the window seats; Annie is responsible for sprucing these up so nicely. The small desk against the wall, will eventually give way to our dining table (which is currently at sea). We'll also put a light-colored rug down when it arrives.

Here is a view to our patio and part of our backyard. As you can see, it's very lush. As you will also notice, it is raining!

View of the hallway and the door out which you just looked.

The study/guest room, which awaits its sofa and the arrival of my books (They won't all fit in here, obviously. This may prove to be a problem. We'll see.) The dresser is another thing we found and painted. It's really nice, other than that the drawers stick quite a bit.

My desk. You can see this blogpost in incipient form if you look closely at the computer screen. I got the desk and chair at Costco--they're great. Also, you can see that I have plenty of reading light, which is essential for staying up late at night.

Here's our kitchen--it's a bit messy at the moment (and what's up with the trashcan lid being left up like that?), but you get the idea. It's pretty tiny. But when you consider the fact that we can eat meals in the dining hall, it's more than enough space for us. You'll notice the large cupboard on the right side of the picture. That is another piece we found on "Gumtree"; thanks to our friend Dean for helping us pick it up!

The view out our bedroom window to the common grass area. As far as I gather, no one ever really goes out on this grass. It looks nice, though.


Our bathroom. Epic.


Little side table/dresser that we found and painted up. This salvage piece came out the best, by far. The red is darker than it looks in this picture.


Our bedroom. I told you I didn't clean up. This will all look quite different when our belongings (including our own bed) arrive in a few weeks. But you get the idea.