An apostle, a lorax, and a spider...

"You are you, now isn't that nice!" Dr. Seuss

This last week has had a bit of a Dr. Seuss theme, but I'll get to that later. First I want to start with a major event for the area here...Elder Russell M. Nelson came! The talk by the apostle was specifically for the leaders of the surrounding stakes, but as Matt and I arrived a couple of minutes late it was clear that news had spread and more than just leaders were present. We were able to squeeze into some open seats but unfortunately I could not see any of the speakers. Here's just some awesome comments Elder Nelson and his wife made:

- What we look at matters! Sis Nelson
- There are no dead, they are living! Sis Nelson
- Men are stubborn, but none are so stubborn that they can withstand the LOVE. Elder Nelson

Gideon final test for choosing his army of 300. Judges 7

The following day we had sister missionaries over for dinner and they shared some of what Elder Nelson talked about with them. Many stories in the scriptures have the seemingly impossible occur such as the virgin Mary giving birth, or Elizabeth giving birth in her old age. These occurrences are to show evidence of God, because how could it be otherwise? In Judges 7 Gideon's army is reduced to 300 to fight an army of around 135,000 men. Elder Nelson told the missionaries that this ratio 1:500 is the same ratio of members to nonmembers today! We are the minority, but just as the Lord showed Gideon and many others...great things can come to pass in small numbers. As my old institute director Brother Richardson used to say "The Lord loves ridiculous odds!"

The rest of the week seemed to fly and on Saturday I got up before Matt at 5:30 am so I could go with Cate Lynch for a run in the city commonly called the bay run. It's a beautiful 7km path around the bay and we got to be there for the sunrise. Unfortunately, we were not in any condition to run the whole way, but we hope to return frequently and improve each time. (Photos below have been instagrammed)

Later that day I met up with Cate and Racheal so we could prepare for the Young Women New Beginnings activity the next Tuesday. Since we had a Dr. Seuss theme we created some large paintings of some key characters. It's been a long time since I had sketched or painted, but between the three of us and the help of our artistic YW Alayna it all turned out really well. We just had the activity yesterday and after tying Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hear's a Who, and The Lorax to the gospel we played Family Feud! I learned later that Family Feud and Jeopardy aren't broadcast here so many people haven't heard of them :(. It was a lot of fun though and to top it all off we had some Dr. Seuss themed treats!

On Saturday Matt and I also attended a mission farewell for a girl in our ward. We will certainly miss Natalie Payze but I'm sure she will be an awesome missionary in Adelaide. Although I didn't spend all night talking to Natalie, it was really great just to get together with many of the ward members and chat. The Scott family are great hosts!

The major downside of all these activities is that I have eaten a LOT of sugar and baked goods lately! Racheal gave me a loaf of banana bread, I had made cinnamon rolls for one of the youth's birthday, and I made snicker doodles for choir on Sunday. I also still had leftover cheesecake I had bought early in the week. Once you had all of that with the eating out at uni and other catered events - I have officially gained 2-3 lbs! So much for my goal of losing weight! I made a commitment that I wouldn't let myself get over 140 lbs or 25% body fat again. Now that I have I just really need to stick to a plan.  So at the beginning of March I am going to be calorie counting again and exercising every day but Sunday.

As for some other events. We had FHE with Brock and Kaytlin as usual. They made these awesome pizza scrolls which I will definitely need to learn how to make! They are so tasty and a little healthier than pizza. After Matt's lesson we had cinnamon rolls and played XBOX Kinect Adventures game!

Another "adventure" came the following day when I was getting ready to go to uni. I noticed the cat was hanging out in the bathroom and when I went in there I found a huntsman (click here for a funny article describing the huntsman)! This particular huntsman was average sized with the body about two inches in length and 1/2 inch in width and overall with legs he is slightly smaller than a palm. He had only four legs - one side had three and the other only had one. I wasn't sure if Shade had just caught legs and eaten them, or he found the spider that way. I kind of felt bad for the non-aggressive spider because with his disability and Shade's attentiveness he had no chance. Unfortunately I had to leave and I was worried shade might eventually eat him and throw up later (they are mildly toxic and he is still a kitten). I gave Shade an opportunity when I coaxed the spider onto a towel and dropped it to the floor, but Shade hadn't seen it and just kept meowing trying to figure out where it was while walking right over it. I decided I would just spray the spider with pesticide and then I covered it with a container so Matt could see it later. Now I have officially had the huntsman experience - time to move on with other things.

Workshops, Work, and Fine Dining

I think it is safe to say I need to add a reminder in my phone that goes off throughout the day that reminds me to take pictures of things. Kudos to all those bloggers out there that are somehow capable of taking photos of everything that goes on in their life! I will say that I do have loads of cat photos so maybe I will just start adding lots of cat photos when my life seems particularly empty of pictures. Here is one to start....

Now that I am officially at uni often it has been a boring, fun, and slow start. My lab/office mates are awesome and it is particularly great that I have Kelly who is also doing the MRes program so we can go to things together. Not to mention she's just a blast in general. 

We had multiple workshops to go to that were long and I'm not entirely positive were useful, but I tried to make the most of it. Although the one on project planning was longer than I felt it needed to be, I was excited to check out some of the project planning software they mentioned. I was sad that all of it costs money and so I will stick with my excel spreadsheets and calendar system. For those of you that struggle to get stuff done during the day though, I will recommend the Pomodoro technique. 

Besides workshops Kelly and I spent some time working on a large yearly calendar for the lab so everyone can see when our workshops and assignment type stuff was due. It is ALWAYS worth spending the time to get yourself organised. I am glad we finished it and especially that the calendar was free from the bookshop. 

Kelly was also really helpful as I edited my literature review on tiger vocalisations. There are two really awesome types of referencing software which are SUPER useful for creating citations and bibliographies. I was taught to use a free program called Zotero in the US, but at Macquarie they use Endnote which is not free but the university has a license for us to use it. They are pretty similar, and Kelly was telling me how to add in-text citations with Endnote and so I figured out how to do the same in Zotero. In the end I cleaned up my citations and bibliography! If you look up a lot of articles and things I highly recommend using one of these programs. 

As for Matt, he has had some good and bad times recently. The good news was he got a side job painting a beautiful unit right next to the Manly Wharf. The bad news was that the woman owning the unit broke her leg about an hour after he met with the woman who owned it for the first time. Additionally, he may have received multiple tickets for running a red light (they have camera red light systems for some intersections and if you run a red light you will see a flash and later get a bill in your mailbox). The other good news was that Matt was able to finish that job in three days! The bad news was that he had to work 12 hour days to finish it and we didn't do anything for Valentine's day. Unfortunately, he also had a small accident with a parked car that he slid into due to the wet roads that damaged the front bumper and hood of our car. More good news is that he's all done and back to regular work hours (until that job's done) and we did get to have a nice dinner when he finished the job. 

Manly Wharf view from the apartment

Another major event was the beginning of a "Come Dine with Me" activity organised by our friends Erika and Mike Barnett. Basically each couple makes a fancy two course meal for the others along with an activity or conversation starter. We rotate each month until everyone has done their meal and we pick the top 3. This turned out to be really stressful because Matt and I went first and two of the girls are pregnant so I had to avoid soft cheeses and things for them, and one is also gluten intolerant. I wanted to do italian but I was stressing how to make my chicken cordon bleu, pasta, and cake roll gluten free. I had just figured out what to do when that couple dropped out. In the future I think I might try making more gluten free food so I can have those skills, but in the end I reverted back to the non-gluten free options. We had chicken cordon bleu, roasted garlic parmesan asparagus, salad, mixed steamed veggies, rolls with oil and vinegar to dip, shell pasta, and an amazing homemade garlic alfredo sauce. For dessert I made a sponge roll with homemade whip cream and candy bar bits. Sorry for the lack of pictures but you will just have to use your imagination! I think it turned out well although I was surprised the cheese wasn't melted in the chicken and I made way too much pasta - leftovers? Also, a wonderful perk was that everyone gets along so well that there was no need to plan a conversation activity since everyone had no problem contributing to various topics from tattoos, movies, books, documentaries, and church stuff. It was a fun night, but I must say I am glad my night is over and the next 4 months we can enjoy someone else's big meal!

And there's just a few more things I thought I should add.....

like the view from my run one Saturday,

Matt super happy playing a Lego game with Brock,

And the centipede Matt found one day that the cat REALLY wanted to eat,

In the Nick of Time

As usual I have waited too long for posting. My goal this year was to post weekly and of course when we fail we don't give up...we keep trying!

Last week was incredibly "church" eventful starting with a fun jar making activity with Young Women, getting visited by home teachers (they do exist!), setting up a youth dance with a Chinese New Year theme, and heart attacking one of our Young Women for her birthday.

During this week, Matt and I had the upcoming doom with his last day being Friday at work. Not to mention he hadn't been paid in a while and I still hadn't received my financial aid. We had an upcoming energy bill that I wasn't sure when it was going to charge and our rent bill. My account got down to a low $70 and we were just praying that we were going to get money in time for the next bill.

I had a couple of interesting issues where I went to lunch for my supervisor's birthday with other lab members but I forgot my credit card and someone had to pay for my lunch. Although I didn't intentionally do this, it was fortuitous since I found out I had less money than I thought.

For a while I have been using Sheer Cover mineral makeup and they send auto-ship orders which means it wasn't too long till I had too much makeup. Months ago I called and I thought I cancelled my membership but when another shipment appeared it turns out I had only put a hold for six months. This made me really upset because I got charged for it without any e-mail notification that I was getting anything sent to me and of course to send it back I lose $12 in shipping. Through a lot of arguing on the phone I was able to get them to pay for shipping to return the products and cancelled my account. Somehow I got the product back and had to resend it again. By the time they got the product I had already been charged for the second payment! Needless to say I was extremely upset with the company and their customer service is atrocious! DON'T BUY SHEER COVER PRODUCTS!

Hanging on the edge of having absolutely no money Matt's employer finally paid him half of what he was owed. We wanted to put the money in my account since that's where the bills come from and I panicked as I rushed to the bank minutes before they closed. When I got there the teller was closed, but an employee showed me how to use the ATM deposit system that not only counts your money right there but it shows up instantly on your account! As I checked my bank account at home it turned out that I had also received my large financial aid deposit!

It all happened in the nick of time before our bills were due and Matt was out of work. Not to mention we were nearly out of food and cat litter. We celebrated by finally going to TGIF's as we had planned for my birthday. I must say that they have terrible service here but at least the food is good and this time it wasn't a three hour dining experience.

Matt and I also went rock-climbing where Matt managed to break upon the same blister from the last time we went as well as create new ones. It was a short trip since Matt lost so much skin, but I was proud of myself for trying harder and finally getting to the top of more than one bouldering route. I'm still at the lowest level, but hopefully I can build up the strength to do harder routes.

On Sunday I had the joyful experience of being the chorister for sacrament meeting. I messed up a lot and it didn't help that the first song actually changes the count multiple times in the song. It's amazing how bad I am at that, but having someone there is better than nothing. Additionally I held a meeting after church to start our ward choir! I'm no choir director but I'm hoping that we can all work together and come up with some good songs to add to our sacrament meetings. We have a wonderful ward!

This week Matt and I switched places where I went to uni every day and he stayed at home and slept in. He now has his ABN (tax number for businesses) which allows him to do painting work on his own. Through friends he has also had little opportunities to make money. Mike from our ward has a business doing deliveries with his van and invited Matt to help deliver pianos and things. A friend from the painting job he was at got him signed up with his wife's casting agency and he went to a casting call (basically they just call the agency if he fits the bill for an extra in their movie). Also, the builder of that same job hired Matt for a few odds and ends for the last two days. We have been very blessed with spectacular friends!

As for me, I now have a desk with my other lab members! This means that I will go to uni regularly to work on my project, read articles, etc. I'm working with Tasmanian Devil girl Kelly, Dingo girl Eloise, and Bat guy Time. I'm excited to be tiger girl and I am excited to get started!

Unfortunately, we are still waiting on Taronga Zoo paperwork before starting research and this week was mostly filled with workshops. The Masters of Research program is filled with many workshops and checkpoints, so to speak, to help us complete this large thesis. It's mostly really boring, but I'm trying to get as much out of it as I can.

I also got a fun late birthday package from my family! The best thing was the cat toy which Shade destroyed the first day and yet still plays with the mangled remains. He's a goofball!