Journal Entry #5

Well Monday afternoon it hit me...that sickness you get when you are far, far from home and you miss everyone so much. By Tuesday I was a basket case and as I did my morning walk (did not feel like running) the tears continued to flow from underneath my sunglasses. I wondered if anyone noticed. Did they know that I was an American missing my family? It's a school holiday here - since the 17th of September until the 3rd of October, so the park was filled with families, children laughing, people talking and lots of grandparents with their grands. Tears flowed again and then the guilt came-what a beautiful place, what a wonderful opportunity, how could you be so homesick in such a place?

Norman picked up on it. He really hated to be leaving for the week but he did leave me his car. And my mom - she knew right away and said "I hate you are homesick but it won't last", and she was right. It didn't.

Word must have gotten out (although no one is admitting it) because I heard from 3 out of the 4 children (I know the other one was thinking about me too, but he was working hard to make some money so he can come see his Mama) plus the grands. I am better although the news from home today was not good - my dear Aunt Sarah has cancer in her spine. Please pray for her and my dad is having some test done, as well. My family has had quite a year but God has been faithful and He will see us through-every step of the way. Thank you, Jesus!!!

On a brighter note...I have a new best friend. His name is Tom. He is officially known as Tom Tom, but since the Aussie"s tend to shorten everything, we will just call him Tom. He travels with me in the car every where I go. He tells me when to turn right, when to turn left, where to go on the gazillion round a bouts and he even makes a trumpet sound when I exceed the speed limit. He speaks in a calm voice. He never tells me that I am scaring him to death when I tend to veer to much to the left and he never fusses at me for using the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. I think I will keep him around while I am here.

I have taken some random pictures of our quint little Paradise Point. It is made up of two streets with one street facing the beautiful park I am always talking about. It has all kinds of places to eat, a post (short for post office), a fish and meat market, a chemist (drug store) a few doctor's offices, and a Golden Casket - it's like a convenience store. It even has a Baskin Robins but we have been going to the Gelato Store - less fat you know. The picture of the syringe deposal box was taken in the bathroom at the park-not sure why it is there but ...

The money is very neat - each denomination of paper money is a different color and a different length, with the fifty being the longest (that I have seen so far) The small gold coin is two dollars. The large gold coin is one dollar. The silver coins are from largest to smallest - 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents. Sorry, Ma, no quarters. They round up or down depending on the amount of your purchase because of the lack of a one cent coin. It has been easy to use but very costly!!!!!

Yesterday I bought some plants to replace the plastic ones on the patio. Today I potted them in the containers. They look very nice-now if they will just live. Not sure what the tall plant in our back garden is called but it grows like a sunflower, straight up. I took a picture of one that is just coming up so you can see the contrast in size.