It's been awhile, folks, and I can't say I've missed you all that much. 

I'm that sort of friend.

The one who says hi once in awhile - especially if you say hello first.  Have you missed me?  I didn't think so. 

My lovely husband came home from Japan, and that was 2 weeks ago.  Since then has been a crazy mess of life, working lots, studying lots (although not as much as I should be), seeing my husband not as much as I'd like to...  and wishing that it was possible to eat ALL the chocolate and not put on ANY of the weight, but wishing doesn't make pigs fly, folks.

Kurt has officially started shift work.  This means that he is not predictable like he used to be.  He used to always be off at weekends, and I'd always get to see him, except for if I was working, and that was okay because it was me who was leaving and so I wasn't being left behind, was I?  And now he is working all sorts of stupid hours - he hasn't started their actual night shift, but he's doing all the others - and I'm home alone a lot more than I'm used to.

Sometimes it's nice.  I can cook and leave a mess and not have to clean it up.  (I did that in Japan, a lot - although I did make an attempt to clean up once a day before going to bed!).  My parents did not do a very good job of raising me - despite their best attempts I am inherently lazy and so dishes smishes, I'll do them five minutes before Kurt comes home... or at least stack them so that they don't look quite so colossal.

PS, folks, I'm failing at this too as I think Kurt has realised that I'm not much of a housewife!

Sometimes, I really miss him.  For instance, I miss being able to go shopping with him in the afternoon when he gets home from work, because he's still at work and why isn't he home yet?  Etc.

Tomorrow (Monday), through to Friday, I'm going to be working nine to five, doing my command groundschool.  I'm not quite sure what is involved - the instructor said he only has about a day and a half's worth of coursework so I don't think he's quite sure how he's going to fill the remaining time either!

I got through all of my command assessments this past week successfully, so that's the first thing ticked off the list.  Tomorrow I'll get my training file to see what is actually involved in this process, but I do know that I'll be heading off to New Zealand on April 7 to go to the simulator - 5 training sessions and 1 check later, I'll be winging my way back to Aus to meet our baby girl!

This is she:

 Isn't she oh so very cute?  I can hardly wait to snuggle her, and it is the best thing to look forward to after the next two and a half weeks of hard work!

I get four days off when she arrives before starting my line training, so I'm really looking forward to spending time with her and Kurt!

And now I really should get back to reading one of the many manuals with which I am trying to saturate my brain!

TTFN!

My lovely husband arrives home in the morning, and I'm pretty excited.  He flies into the Gold Coast which is about an hour away, so I'll be up bright and early (it will be bright, because it gets light insanely early here) to drive down to pick him and a couple more guys up.  He's the only one I'll be bringing home, though!

He's been gone for 11 nights (including tonight) and it's been surprisingly busy while he's been gone.  I've had lots of work, lots of overnights, and lots of chores to do.  I did a fair bit of studying towards a possible promotion, and then that faded out, dwindling to nothing in the last couple of days.  It is hard to stay focused when you don't have a goal to work towards. 

Now Kurt's flight is delayed 1h35 (so far) so I get a bit more sleep in the morning... but I am really hoping he isn't any later because a) I want to see him and b) we will hit rush hour traffic on the way home!

Bring on tomorrow morning!!!

Our gorgeous baby girl aged 14 days - mid April seems so far away!

An air traffic controller lied to me today,which  was rude, and I had thought better of him because of my husband.  I guess you can no more tar all ATCs with the same brush than you can with pilots.

He lied by omission, by the way.  In that, the weather broadcast told us there were a few clouds at 3500' and 10km visibility, and on the approach we had to go around due to cloud below our minima (550' above ground level).

On the go around, the tower controller, somewhat sheepishly explained that the 'fog bank just rolled back in' (we could see it from 30 miles out, obscuring the aerodrome) and the 'visibility has reduced to 2000m'.

Thanks.

So we spent the next 30 minutes getting dizzy turning in circles.  (This was after delaying our departure from Brisbane for 30 minutes due to the fog.). A different company's aircraft circled above us, shadowing our every movement.  When asked by tower if we wanted to make an approach ('the weather is exactly the same') we said no.  The tower asked the other aircraft, who in a surprised tone suggested that if we didn't want to, they didn't have much interest either.

And so it went on.

Interestingly, we had asked at 30 miles out (when I commented that the aerodrome appeared obscured) whether any other aircraft had got in that morning.  The answer was no, with no further information on the weather (the ATIS merrily playing its story of FEW030 9999 - I explained that above, you only get one explanation, scroll up) so we shrugged and said 'the cloud must be higher than it appears'.

It wasn't.

Anyway, second time round, 30 minutes later, we landed with 200' to spare.  Interesting, the second time in as many days to spend 30 minutes holding over my destination - for completely different reasons.  Not exactly the norm for Australia!

Yesterday it was due to only 2 bays being available, both being occupied, and no where to go once on the ground - the only option being to stay in the air.

.

Day 3 without my husband.

You'd think I'd have more time on my hands, but strangely enough, I still make dishes to wash without him. (for example)

Seeing that I am attempting to study for this promotion that probably won't happen any more, I've found my motivation for doing odd jobs around the house much higher.

For instance, we now have a plastic drawers set in the bathroom so that the puppy doesn't chew up all the toilet rolls and my hairdryer.  Instead, I guess she will just eat the plastic.

Tomorrow morning I must get up super duper early to head off on an overnight.  

Oh and I have achieved my 10,000 steps a day so far although my Fitbit ran out of battery at 8,000 steps and I didn't realise - so after charging it, I had to do extra!

And Kurt, you can come home now if you like! :)

Today, I'm home alone.

My lovely husband has deserted me by going to Japan for 10 days on a snowboarding trip with a couple of his colleagues.  I drove him to M's house this morning leaving here at 0600 as we were told we had to be there by 0630... and then his friend with the hire car didn't turn up until 0700 which was extremely annoying for all involved!

I got home and went back to bed for a couple of hours, waking up to do my 12wbt workout and then feeling unmotivated and not doing it.  I then attempted to study and managed about 20 minutes, after which I actually managed to complete my logbook - it being something that needed to be done, and was better than just going back on Facebook.  By mid afternoon I managed to motivate myself sufficiently to do the workout (phew) and then settled down to watch a couple of movies.

Coles (supermarket) has an activity tracker challenge on at the moment, that if you link up your device and complete at least 10,000 steps a day for the month of March, you win a $100 voucher to spend in store.  Having forgotten to wear my Fitbit yesterday when I went to work (Kurt wore two, to make up for it!) I actually remembered today - and then found I was still about 500 steps short when I was getting ready to unwind... so decided that despite being highly un-inclined to do so, I would clean up the kitchen. 

So much for deciding to relax about the housework (that I don't do much of anyway because I am not a great housewife!)...

That's the kitchen cleaned and 2 loads of laundry done since Kurt left this morning.  I'm sure I would feel much better about it if I had studied instead!

I must remind myself that tomorrow is another day... 

And here is a picture of our baby girl to make up for it...