Everyday Occurrence

I have never seen so many interesting things on the backs of semis before. One day on the way to work there was a house precariously balanced on the bed of the trailer. Not 1/2 a house that has just come from the factory like track homes, but a full blown house barely kept on the back of the trailer by flimsy straps and people running before and behind to keep it balanced. We had to drive onto the curb to get out of the way. Pretty amazing.

Here is another wide load that I spotted this morning coming back from the gym. A huge moxie sitting on the back of the truck blocking off all traffic. Yup, just another day in Dalby... :)

Unwelcome friends

So I've just been out in the field and these little buggers are out in full force! I have never seen such ballsy little suckers. They don't fly, they swarm. Hopefully it means more rain is coming!
Our handy soil tester Sam posed for this picture :)

Getting your pen license

Yes you heard me right, pen license. Sometimes Australia jut shocks me with their old-school, commonwealth-ish traditions and this one is now close to the top of my list. When a young lad or lass starts grade 5 ( second to last year of primary school), they get the option of buying pens. Before this there was only pencils on their book list. I can only imagine how exciting that must have been. I LOVE stationery shops and to be deprived of a whole row of supplies until grade five; the summer before must have been like Christmas and Hannukah all rolled into one!
Back to the facts; in grade five, you would continue to write in pencil until the teacher said you were neat enough for your pen license. Then you would be written down in a special book and the wonders of writing in pen would be open to you. So the reason this all came about is because Todd still does not have his pen license. He used the pen training wheels but to no avail. What are pen training wheels you ask? Those rubber triangles that force you to write correctly. I know, I know. Too cute.
In any case, Todd was never neat enough to get his pen license and he still says he is worried he might still get a smack on the knuckles for bad penmanship. The thing is, I think Todd's penmanship is pretty darn neat. I can't imagine how many people I know that would never have gotten their pen license...

Emu!!

Sitting in the office eating my lunch and I thought I would share a quick picture I took earlier today! I was out with Wally (one of Todd's new employees) showing him the ropes and this walked across the road! I have never seen one of these in the wild before and especially not on our site! Pretty crazy, ey?! I will try to snap a picture of the kangaroos I see on our site. We used to see the same family every morning but they have moved on. We still see one four times a week or so. Pretty nuts :) it's a jungle out there!

New start

Hope everyone had an easy fast today as we start the new year. I have just downloaded a blogger app on my phone to help me blog more. It is so hard to find time to blog with my hectic schedule. I have even started working in the car to and from work. Upside is that Todd and I are taking Thursday/ Friday off this week. First two day stint off since I was in America. Soo looking forward to this. In any case, long story short, with this new app I should be able to blog once a week now. As soon as I see something I want to share I will! Expect some pictures from Brissie tomorrow!

What It's Like to be Todd

Last Tuesday Todd and Russell drove into Brisbane to look at some surveying gear from another project. It is pretty crazy because all these projects are under the same company but each operates as their own little business. This means that at the end of the job, the job tries to sell off all their gear instead of transferring it to a project that is lacking. In any case, they were headed to Brisbane to look at some of this gear and I went to work by myself. HOLY MOLEY I have not been that busy since a Tuesday at uni (when I had classes all day and RA meeting till 11pm, ah those were the days...). Back on topic, wow busy. I sit next to Todd in the office and he usually passes tasks, plans, surveys onto me because he gets interrupted all the time by someone wanting something. Todd's surveying mantra (it seems) is "don't give the engineers what they want but what they need." Basically someone always wants something but the wanter could often figure it out for themselves through a ruler or these amazing tools called eyes. The real ones, no synonyms here. 

Consequently, being myself and Todd all wrapped into one was exhausting! I was trying to get as much work done as possible but also constantly got interrupted by this or that. Even though I sit next to him and always see the interruptions, this was a whole different ball game and I think I am perfectly happy most days to just sit on deck. 

Families without borders

Back in the grind of work (more words to follow on that) but still thinking fondly of my time back home. From my last dinner out on the patio with dad and kt to my time in Connecticut, my time home reminded me how blessed I am to have such an incredible support system. I know that without the support of my friends and family I could not do what i am doing (not speaking for jan but I bet she feels the same way...).

Sometimes I freak out about being in this tiny little town of Dalby but then I remember that through it all (on the other side of the world) I have friends at home who are supportive of all my crazy moves, job switches, etc. Thank goodness for technology!

One of the points when this reverberated the most was when I was in Connecticut taking pictures with my Sherry family. Someone mentioned that there was lots of people missing from our "family" and so we held up pictures of Todd, Jan, my cousins, etc so they were apart of the picture. Super cute illustration of my amazing foundation. Couldn't do it without y'all!

ps. Apologize for the short/ fairly poorly written blog. I clunked this out between showering and cooking dinner and I want to be in bed in an hour! I need days that are at least 48 hours long here. More on work nonsense later :)