Today, I flew the airplane from the left seat, for the very first time.  

I also have the very best husband ever.

Without my knowing, he went to the airport and filmed me taxiing and taking off on my first flight.  He actually stood at the gate and waited patiently for me to (finally) start moving and then moved to a closer gate to film the rest.  I am pretty chuffed that this is on record and that he was so sweet to do so!  Best idea ever :)

He also gave the puppy a bath in my absence which rates pretty high on my list of things-husbands-can-do-to-be-awesome.  

And today I flew the airplane from the left seat, I didn't kill anyone, and the airplane was reusable afterwards, so all is good in the land of Kate tonight.

PS Lily is soooooooo fluffy!!!

It's been a long day.  Lily is quite a little snuggle muffin... when she's not causing trouble (like peeing all over the floor).

This is it, folks.  Today is the big day, which means I am going to the sim for my command check.  For those of you who don't know, I have spent the last week in Auckland doing simulator sessions for my command upgrade.  Now with all 5 training sessions completed, today is check day, where it all matters.  

And even though the last week has gone well, I still find myself extremely apprehensive of today.  It's not that I don't think I can do it, it's just the unknowns and the what-ifs that get me every single time.

The fact that I don't actually know which questions the checkie is going to ask.

The fact that I can't prepare for actually flying the aircraft - not that I had any problems before.

The fact that it's not black and white.

And presuming it all goes well - there is no reason why it wouldn't - I get to go home tomorrow.  And I don't know why I freak out and worry so much beforehand, I just do!  It would be so much more pleasant if I didn't.

In 9 hours' time, it will be over.

And until the sim... i will review... and fret... and in general quietly spaz out in my hotel room :)

PS I never claimed my mind to be logical.

i'm in Auckland, I'm here for the simulator, and my brain is working at a million miles per hour.  Mind you, it's not working very hard on relevant things such as studying, but it just won't stop thinking.  Mainly the "what ifs".  The things that it has absolutely no control over, which obviously aren't useful things to think about and definitely won't help as far as the sim is concerned.

For instance, what if Lily (the puppy) does shed?  We're not guaranteed a non-shedding coat and I look again and again at the pictures thinking - is her coat too straight?  Does she look more like a Cavalier than a Poodle?  And of course I know perfectly well that she is coming to us next Wednesday and her coat will be exactly how it is - and there is nothing I can do about that.  

And that's not even remotely aviation related!  It is 1400 now and we are meeting at 1915 to go to the sim - the session is 2100 - 0100 NZ time.  There are things I can study - for instance I have run through every scenario that we will cover today in my head - and manuals I can read - I still want to review Chapter 7 again - but most of today is about flying from the left hand seat - and I can't learn that from a book.

And so although I know I've never struggled with aircraft handling in the past, my mind automatically goes into freakout Ican'tprepareforthissoI'mgoingotodie mode.

Which of course is very very useful.

However I do have 6 Cadbury's creme eggs so the week shouldn't be altogether bad.

I walked the 20 minutes to Woollies - which they call Countdown over here - to buy some basic supplies, and am feeling the lack of a desk in my room.  I have 2 double beds - should I sleep in a different one each night?  But no desk to sit at... Bed it is ! 

There is a fridge for my supplies though :). 

When I was a child, Easter wasn't a thing.  Chocolate, however, was, and I dreamed and hoped and begged (mostly begged) for Easter goodies, which, let's face it, hardly ever worked.

I do remember one year, however, when we spent Easter in Shannon, staying in an apartment belonging to Dad's company.  We went to visit some caves, which just happened to have an Easter Egg hunt.  I don't recollect us paying for this - in fact I don't think we even ended up going in the caves - but Sarah and I did do the egg hunt.  (The Only Easter Egg Hunt)

These were no ordinary eggs, these were the best type - Cadbury's Creme Eggs.  They also had a few hard boiled eggs hidden in the grass, or trees, etc. and if you found one, you got to choose between a baseball hat or 5 creme eggs...  and having found a green hard-boiled egg, I obviously chose the chocolate.  I ended up scavenging over 30 eggs - I'm not sure how long this took me.

What is more...  I then managed to eat almost the whole 30 in the course of the weekend.

Perhaps knowing if we took them home I would be forced to 'share' ?

I also recollect there being an awful lot of very small children - I was a little older, maybe eight or nine? - and obviously I was a lot quicker and more talented at grabbing all of the eggs before the smaller children :P

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!!!