St. Patty's Day Celebration!

It's now Wednesday afternoon, and it seems like it has been a really long time since I was able to post.

On Monday I got picked up at the house by a taxi to take me to Jan Bean's house. Jan works in financial counselling for Lutheran Community Care and was doing the training. I had heaps of stuff to bring along including a laptop, projector, 2 crates and 2 bags of food, as well as my own purse and overnight bag. The cab driver helped me get everything in and then asked which way to turn as he left. I told him I honestly didn't know and asked if he'd been given the address since I knew we'd given it when we booked the Taxi. He said yes, but then reached for me to hand it to him. He put it into his GPS and off we went. I tried to ignore that he ignored a couple of directions from the GPS before turning the volume down. We did make it safely to the correct address. I was a little disappointed that he didn't help me get any of the things out of the trunk/boot. He just popped the trunk and said to have a good day. He did get out just in time to make sure it was shut though.

I had a cup of coffee at Jan's before we headed down to Christie's Beach. Jan lives in Oaklands Park which is about half way between the city and Christie's Beach. We made it in about a 20 min drive and arrived just before 9am, which meant that we had to wait to get in to the building we were doing the training in. We walked down to the beach (about 5 min walk) to pass the time. When we got back we could get into the building and we set up the room and got ready for the people. The training was booked full and there even had to be people turned away (before hand). The room was a bit crowded, but we managed.

The training was all about helping others to budget and manage their money, but you could definitely tell that there were a couple of individuals who planned to learn for their own lives too. I don't think its a bad thing, especially since its hard to advise people and work with them when you can't even use the same idea's in your own life. The most beneficial part of Day 1 was between learning all about Centrelink and learning to do an IE (income/expenditures). Centrelink is like our Social Security /welfare. I learned enough about it that I know exactly what I need to learn about our system when I get home. It was a little confusing for me because incomes and costs are figured out fortnightly (every 2 weeks), rather than monthly like I'm used to at home. I think it might work a little better because a month can seem like a really long time sometimes. I think it could be really intimidating for a person who has a smaller income to have to think about how to budget that amount over a longer period of time. I stayed at Jan's over night to save on trying to commute me all the way back to home and then back. When we got to her home 2 of her 7 (soon to be 8) grandchildren were over. I played with them and Jan's dog for a bit before supper. After supper Ryan (the older of the two boys (4)) wanted to run races and so I ran races with him in the backyard. I got tired a long time before he did, thats for sure. I'm proud to say that I could beat him though. We must have been running on and off for almost an hour. I even won a bit of money off him (20 cents), but I didn't take it in the end. On Day two we learned how to take the information and turn it into a short term money plan. I look forward to practicing these new skills on myself when I get home. I do think that I'll be able to apply them to different work that I'll do throughout my life though. At lunch time on Day 2 I walked back down to the beach and took a couple pictures because it was really a beautiful view.

Randomly I also saw a beautiful Pontiac Firebird on the street, right side drive and everything.

At the end of the day we packed up and cleaned up and Jan drove me all the way back to our house. I gave her the tour of the Manse and then she made her way home. I went to check e-mail and such and chat with Tim outside of Helen's house. Hilary found me there and we talked about what we wanted to do for supper. I can't believe that I'd forgotten it was St. Patty's Day. At first Hilary wanted to go to the Pub, but we decided instead to make our own Pub at the house. We walked to the store to find beer and green food coloring, which eventually turned into trying to find an Irish meal. Picture this, me walking around a small grocery store doing my best (which isn't great) Irish accent, and then the clerk at the store even believed that Hilary was Irish Irish (she's Irish-American...). In the end all we could think of for a meal what potatoes, so we got a package of instant flakes and gravy. We had to walk to a liquor store where we could buy beer separate. Helen offered us some of her food coloring.

On the walk back we took some photos of buildings and such that we found interesting. The first below is the building that we'd found one of the first times we were at Helen's and had been stopped by a police officer to make sure we weren't planning on going into it. It used to be a mental ward for the hospital it is attached to.

While walking we discussed our other options for our meal and decided on a theme of green. Thus, we ended up with a meal of green eggs, green Mac & Cheese, and Mashed potatoes and gravy. (And green Irish beer of course.)
We named our pub The Brod's Pub to play off the fact that we are "broads" and actually both have family with Brod- as a part of the surname.

Green Beer thanks to Helen.

Hilary and I enjoying our Irish festivities.

Aren't we amazing?

This morning I caught the bus/train down to Calvary for another day. I spent the morning with various staff. I went along with one of the staff and a client as they picked out a Nesting Package. This is money that they are granted that goes toward purchasing things for a new home that they are moving into. About $1,660 were spent on a couple tables, a refrigerator, a washer etc, (things that one would need in their new home). I thought it was a pretty neat thing. The client seems pretty excited, and nervous, about the upcoming move into her own house.