Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Hello from Australia!

(This blog is about Wednesday the 25th. Also known as Ash Wednesday.)

I woke up and had a very slow start to the morning. I did some blogging and then Ellie and I were off to mail her package to Tim. We caught the bus from HH to the post office which is about a mile-ish away from HH. After dealing with the Post, we scurried next door to the Morialta Bakehouse where we purchased our lunch for the day. I got a pastie and this apple & raspberry drink that turns out to be disgusting. It tastes like your grandmother’s old perfume. The lady at the bakehouse asked us what our opinions were on Barack Obama and the new government. We told her that we really couldn’t give her a substantial amount of information since we were only there for 6 days after he was inaugurated. She knew we were Americans because of the way we were looking at the money, etc. Seriously, the coins here are harder to deal with than the ones back home, but the paper money is a hell of a lot prettier than our ugly green money. I like the purple ones. :)

We then journeyed to the Magill office where Morgan was freaking out because she didn’t know where we were. She had gone off to playgroup at Glynde in the morning without letting either of us know where she was going. She just assumed that we knew. Remember that assuming makes an ass out of both you AND me. That was just for future reference to anyone else who assumes anything. Anyway I ate my lunch and decided not to worry about her. Then I helped set up for the training that we were having in the afternoon. I helped arrange the tables, set up the chairs, get the power projector going and other things. Wayne Maddox was the facilitator of the Safe Place Training. It also was his birthday today – which we celebrated later with chocolate cake. The training was supposed to have about 14 people in it, but only 8 showed up. One of them we already knew: Tanya (pronounced TAN ya. Make the A shorter and like you’re going to go get a tan) and she was also in our Child Safe Environment training. She also works at Ingle Farm two days of the week as the receptionist. So we’ve gotten to see her around and it was nice to see a friendly face. The training lasted two hours and I once again had a difficult time staying awake. I like Wayne, but it’s so hard to stay awake when he talks in a monotone voice the entire time. Plus the heater was accidentally on instead of the air conditioner, which made the room a lot hotter and me more tired.

The training was over the Lutheran Church of Australia’s policies and procedures in regard to Sexual Abuse and Sexual Harassment. Needless to say, I feel that the US covers this stuff at a younger age or something because I knew all of what the training was over already. I am not Lutheran, but the policies and procedures are the same in work places and in other contexts as well. It was a nice refresher though.

After the training Helene dropped us off back home and I took a nap before it was time to get up for the Ash Wednesday service at Glynde. The service was very good, but very solemn. There were a lot of older people at the service than younger people, which Helene said to expect. We did the ashes on the forehead ritual, but thankfully it wasn’t chalky because Glynde was using olive oil in the mixture this year to make it less chalky. I think it worked since my ash cross was on my forehead all night long. The pastor said my name as I went up and then he said the mumbo jumbo that goes a long with it that I’ve heard every year since I can remember. We also communed and then there was time for chit chat. After the service Morgan went to the café with the small group people while Jeremy dropped us (as in El and I) off at his house with Helene. We were going to catch the bus back from Helene’s since we were really tired and had to get up early the next day to catch the train to Noarlunga to get to Calvary.

Our plan didn’t work out quite as well as we thought since we ended up having some tea and then playing Helene in a few rounds of table tennis. She’s ridiculously good too! I now know where Jeremy gets it. At least she didn't hit me with the bat. I played for a bit, but then decided that Helene and El could have a rather good go at the game. I watched for a bit before Simon and I played lawn bowling, only it’s actually called carpet bowling since we were inside the house and that’s what the box said. I am neither very good at carpet bowling or table tennis. Carpet bowling is similar to lawn bowling, which is huge here in Australia. I see plenty of lawn bowling clubs when I’m in the city and on my way back to HH. Morgan showed up later with Jeremy and then she played Helene in a few rounds while I still tried to make a decent attempt at carpet bowling. Simon kicked my butt a lot. For every 10 minutes it took me to bowl all the balls, it took him about 30 seconds to get rid of all of them during his turn. I chalked this up to growing up with carpet/lawn bowling versus where I had never heard of such a thing. Did you know that they call regular bowling here ten-pin bowling? I mean you have to have some way to separate all the different kinds of bowling you can do while you’re here.

After playing a quick round of kings corner, we headed back to HH. On the way back to HH, I ruptured an ovarian cyst. We hit a bump in the road and then it was all over from there. I arrived back at HH and called my mother to inform her of what was going on. She took my symptoms and then called my doctor back in the States. Ellie and Morgan kept checking in on me and trying to cheer me up. I am thankful for their efforts even if I wasn’t in the mood for some jokes. After some phone tag from my mother with the doctor’s orders, I was finally able to sleep with the help of medications to ease the pain.

Connie (my doctor) concluded that my diet was not very nutritious (since all I eat is really rice and more rice and then some veggies along with peanut butter sandwiches for lunch) which led to my cyst not getting the nutrients it needs to not burst. Along with exhaustion (which stems from not having a good diet and the fact that I feel like I am on the go all the dang time), a bit of dehydration (from my sunburn that I had acquired over the weekend) and that it all really stems down to the fact that I am not getting what I need food wise. Thank God we’re moving so now I can make my own lunches, buy my own groceries and make sure that I am eating the right amounts of foods. Now where did I put that food pyramid?

I was kind of worried about what the next few days would look like since I am supposed to be going to Renmark for the weekend and off to Noarlunga tomorrow. I guess I will find out in the morning. I want to still go, but I know that my health comes before anything else.

Cheers.