A little seasoning is all you need!

With summer well and truly upon on its way I've been in such a good mood thinking about how easy things have become for us here now. We both have solid jobs working for great companies and with awesome people, we live in a lovely little city in a downtown apartment (which is something I've always wanted to experience), we have a reliable car that is taking us all over the place, we have enough money to do all the things we want and buy anything we might need... It seems such a contrast, a complete 180 degrees to where we were 6 months or so ago. However one thing we lack is time.

In Canada employees are generally only entitled to 2 weeks vacation, and although our work schedules allow us a 3 day weekend every week together we have already seen pretty much everything around us that a weekend that long will allow in one trip. So now what do we do....? That coupled with the fact that winter is in the back of my brain and just around the corner really we need to try and fit a whole years worth of activities into 3 short months.

The rainbow after the storm in Airdrie - just like our first 6 months in Canada

I know now that during our first winter here I was suffering depression. I was crying all the time saying that I missed everyone and that I wanted to go home. There was probably also an element of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that a lot of people experience for the duration of the long, dark, cold winters. We had no money, no house, no car, no real course of direction or action and somehow in this short amount of time, like the changing of the seasons we have come into full bloom. I don't feel that way anymore and it sounds silly to say it but I feel like I've grown up a lot and become a lot more independent. We are comfortable here. We are happy here. We are familiar with our surroundings but not so much that we are bored of them. This is the life we dreamt of and although I still miss Australia it has become so much easier to be away with every day that has passed.