After I made my first post, I realized I really should have done a proper introduction. :)
I left the US at the beginning of November and flew to Australia to live in Canberra. Canberra is the capital of Australia, so all the embassies and the prime minister and all the "pollies" aka politicians are here. I arrived here on the 7th. It's been about 5 weeks now. We arrived in Sydney, rented a car, and drove to Canberra straight to the kids. Mick has two children, Emily (8) and Eddie (6). They are awesome. They were so so so happy to see him again. Mick's ex's name is Claire and she has been super nice to both of us since we got here.
We stayed at Claire's house for a couple of weeks while we found a rental house. The housing market here is on a bubble, they say. Houses are insanely expensive, nearing LA prices. Because it is so crazy mad expensive to own a house, the rental market is almost completely saturated. Houses get rented in days here. Our house, being on the lower rungs of the Canberra housing market, we got the day after it was listed and we had to beat out three other interested parties. It's a cutthroat market. Our landlord plans to tear this house down in a couple of months and has applied to the city to put apartments on the land. So, this has its ups and downs. The downs are that he doesn't care at all that it hadn't been remodeled or updated in 40 years. He also doesn't have much motivation to fix anything that goes wrong. The ups are that we can do pretty much anything we want to the house and yard. So we painted the lounge, the kitchen, and the master bedroom. We've covered the rest of the walls with framed pictures and pics we cut out of magazines. Ed's room has car wallpaper so we left that and added lots more pictures of cars and motorbikes and spaceships. Em's room has floral wallpaper that's not too offensive so she's added pictures of music artists and a few astronomy pictures. We have a nice yard for the kids to play, and a 2nd floor porch that's partially covered so we can sit outside and enjoy the weather. So the house has come along really well.
Mick has a job as an Australian Post worker. He rides his little motorbike around all day and delivers mail. He has a really big run, one of the biggest in his division, so he ends up working 10-14 hour days. He's especially busy right now since there are so many packages and Christmas cards. The mail works a bit differently here. Your letterbox can only receive mail. To mail letters, you have to find a mailbox at a shopping center or go to the post office. Packages sent through the Post are delivered to your local post office and you get a notice in your letterbox that you have a package waiting for you. So posties (postal workers) drive around on their motorbikes and try to find your letterbox. There are no standards for where your letterbox should be or how big or anything. For example, our letterbox is not on the sidewalk where it should be but is about a third of the way down our driveway. I'm sure our postie isn't a fan of its location. Also, government workers have strict health and safety regulations so the uniforms of all the gov't workers are day-glo colors. Mick's shirt is florescent yellow. He has a matching "cape" that attaches to his helmet and protects his neck from sunburn. Sun safety is another big thing in Australia, but I'll talk about that later.
I just heard back from the Australian Psychological Society and can now apply for a provisional registration as a psychologist. This means I will have supervision for 1 to 2 years, but can do therapy and assessments and after my supervision I can register as a psychologist. So that is great news for me! I'm working on my registration and then will start job hunting.
Mick and I have the kids 50% of the time and we've worked out a schedule with Claire and routinely revisit the schedule to make sure it works or adjust if needed. Today is the kids' last day of school so they'll get a few weeks vacation with me and Mick and also with Claire. They don't go back until February, so this is their summer vacation. The school and all things connected to it is something else I will do a post about. :)
See? I told you I had tons to talk about! That's a good overview of how things stand right now for me and for Mick. I'll try to do a topic or two a day, plus sprinkling in personal stories as well.
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