Happy New Year!

And just like that 2008 comes to an end. It still feels like just yesterday that I was packing up my life in Calgary to move out here. I guess that old saying "time flies when you're having fun" has some truth to it.

This year, instead of spending Chirstmas at home with my family in the dead of winter I stayed in Melbourne and spent Christmas with one of the women from my campus, Sue, and her family. It was a really nice way to spend Christmas. I took the train out to her place in Frankston, which was about an hour and half from my place and got there in time to see her grandkids open their Christmas presents. It was great to watch their reactions to all the different presents. Her grandson, Thomas, reminded me a lot of a young Patrick. The rest of the day consisted of lots of food, TV, and good conversation.

I spent the night at Sue's place and then in the morning me, Sue, and her daughter Naomi hit up the Boxing Day sales. After a day of shopping and relaxing I headed back home. It was really nice to be welcomed into Sue's home for Christmas and spend it with her family. It definitely made being away from home a lot easier.

As some of you know, my housing situaton has been a bit up in the air lately. Well our landlord has decided to up our rent, but we have a good case to fight against the increase, so that's what we're going to do. We thought about moving for awhile, but have ultimately decided that we've got a good place here, and we're not going to give it up because of our crappy landlord.

Worst case scenario is that our landlord does give us notice to vacate and we have 3 months to find a new place. The rental market has slowed down, so that's doable. And if for some reason we can't find a place in that time, we can stay with Kirsty's partner until we do find something.

I had been kind of hoping that we'd move into a new place, but when I reflected on why what I realized was that I haven't put a lot of effort into making my current place feel like home. I've had ideas and plans, but mostly they haven't gone anywhere. So today I decided to do something about that and I have started to redecorate my room. Normally when I move into a place I cover the walls with postcards from around the world. My walls here are still largely bare...and a horrible peach colour. So starting today, I guess you could say it's my new years resolution, I am turning drab into fab.