A little bit about me and my life

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Originally uploaded by Tracie Milner.

This post is from an email I wrote to my mom the other day. Gary says that any time I write a nice email, I should also post it on the blog. I know it's nice for you guys back home to read the blog and see what we've been up to, but we've been so busy living life that going downtown and sitting down to post is just an hour spent indoors that we could have been outside having fun. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts.

We are having a really great time here in Perth. I love living by the ocean. Every day we go fishing or body boarding, and the weather is just getting nicer and nicer. It's starting to be in the mid to high 20's regularly and it just puts you in a good mood when you wake up and the sun is shining and you know you're only 20 minutes from the beautiful coastline.

We are making some really good friends too. Michelle and Dermot are our closest friends. They live two doors down and Michelle is a nurse and Dermot is a carpenter. They moved here 2 weeks before us, she's from New York and he's from Ireland. Dermot is the one who taught us to fish and now he thinks he's made monsters out of us. They love it here in Perth and they've decided to stay until at least January, so we're a little torn about leaving, although we do want to move along and see the country. It's exciting to travel around, but it will be sad to leave also. I also made friends with a girl from work who's from Vancouver. She moved here 2 years ago on a holiday visa and she loved it so she got permanent residency. We have also made a few friends from church, although we really just go to church activities with them.

It's strange that just a few months ago when we landed at the Perth airport, I remember thinking that I didn't know what was in store for me. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know the city, I didn't know what kind of a job I would have or where we would live. Now I work here, have an apartment and I have more of a social life after 3 months than I ever did after 3 years living in Calgary. I really feel like I live here, and I'll be very sad to leave. I'll be walking down the street and run into people I know.

I think that maybe people are interested in talking to us because of our accents. It's an ice breaker to ask us where we're from, and then the next thing you know we're exchanging phone numbers and making plans and the rest is history. We've even gotten people's numbers that we've met on the beach. It's crazy.

Anyway, that's pretty much our life in a nutshell. Gary is working a lot. He works at the restaurant most evenings of the week and at the fruit and vegetable shop 3 days a week in the day. Yesterday he worked 9-3 at the fruit and veg place and then 4-11 at the restaurant. But it will only be for a few more weeks, and we're saving some money to do a few fun things. Plus we have a lot of fun on the weekends, usually fishing or swimming or seeing the sights of the city with Michelle and Dermot.

I do miss family, and I wonder what I'm missing out on back home, but at the same time I'm really glad I'm here. I think that living somewhere else really opens your eyes to the world. I realize that there are a lot of things that we have really good in Canada that I took for granted because I didn't know they were good until I left, and there are also things that are better here. I have a new philosophy that life is too short to spend in the same place doing the same thing, and it's certainly too short to waste any days sitting around at home instead of getting out there and living life. I'll never look back on my life and wish I had just stayed in Calgary (or even Canada) at the same job in the same house. I am really excited to do more traveling.

Needless to say, we are having heaps of fun. It's about 28 degrees now, (1:30 pm wednesday) and I'm just waiting for Gary to call and tell me he's done work and I'll meet him at the beach. I'm so excited to be heading into summer instead of winter.

-Tracie

Note to Jeff Follis: I tried to comment on your blog but I couldn't because I'm not a member of your blog. I tried to email you to tell you, but the email address I have no longer works.