...and me?

All good! The first call I made the Monday after we arrived on the Saturday into Melbourne was to Weight Watchers. I've waited a long time to be able to attend meetings and do it properly. Online was good, but not the same. And the day before, Sunday, we'd gone to a big shopping centre near here to organise our mobile phones and I was really shocked how big people are. My fear is that could be me. I have to work hard. So if I can go, every Tuesday night there's WW meetings.

In that first week a lot happened. We checked out schools and MK got a taste of what the commute between here and Moorabbin was like. Yes, it's long (minimum 1hr 5mins, usually between 1hr 15min ad 1hr 30min) but he thought it was do-able and agreed that we could start looking for houses in this area. Yipppeeee! So we did - we looked at our first houses a week after we arrived. Haven't found anything yet, but I know our home is out there and when the time is right it will be ours.

At the moment my energy and focus is on house-hunting, settling the girls, running our (temporary) household and re-establishing our lives here (currently that means organising private health insurance, but it's included heaps of different things). But I've also made time to do some courses. Last Sunday I did the Senior First Aid Course down in Melbourne (to the day, 3 mths after we arrived back in Australia and amazingly the first time I've been into Melbourne...doesn't really count though as I spent the whole day, 9-5, in an office building) and at the moment I'm halfway through a Food Safety Handling/Responsible Serving of Alcohol course (every Tues night for 4 weeks, WW had to be bumped). And supposedly I am learning to swim - had my first private lesson last Friday morning, but cancelled this morning's lesson as I don't feel so good. And I'm doing 2 Thai cooking classes which are one-off morning lessons.

I have to be honest (because this story is a bit...unusual) and say that the momentum for all this started the first day Lily started school, Feb 1st. I went to a tea and tissues coffee morning hosted by the one of the parents at their house for new prep parents. Met some of the parents, and at the end of the morning met the husband of the woman hosting the morning. Long story short, he works for Qantas as a flight attendant manager, we chatted, he said some interesting things and I scuttled home all revved up about putting in a job application to be a flight attendant. And two of the requirments were the Responsible Serving of Alcohol certificate (I'd already thought about doing the Food Safety Handling part of the course) and Senior First Aid certificate. Oh yeah, and being able to swim 50metres fully clothed. And I've been meaning to take swimming lessons for a long time.

So, this conversation provided a catalyst for me to do these courses, track down my CV (well, MK did that) and contact my previous Social Work referees and really think about what I want to do. And I realise that even if the flight attendant thing goes nowhere (and I've not even submitted the online application yet, especially after MK and I chatted about the fact that two shift-workers just won't work in one family) I have achieved a lot.

My priorties are finding a house and getting us properly settled. It's enough for the time being and I'm happy doing these things.