Jenny's Trek Down Under

Six weeks in and I'm just now finally unpacking. Prior to this week, I had mostly been living out of my backpack and using my closet and dresser as more of decorative pieces rather than allowing them to serve any real functional purpose. Something about moving into a room with barnyard animal curtains, a faded striped towel being used as a rug and a poster on the wall of the earth didn't exactly scream home sweet home to me. But alas, I finally made myself not only unpack, but put things in their places, organize my stuff and really settle in. For whatever reason these last 6 weeks I have been reluctant to fully unpack and make my room my own...maybe it was because I wasn't ready to fully own the direction my life was taking--okay enough psycho-babble...because let's be honest, I'm lazy and unpacking well is just not all that fun. Anyways, you'll be happy to note my room is painfully...I might go as far as say overly anally organized at the moment with even my damn q-tips having their proper place beside my toothbrush...seeing as how "t" follows "q" in the alphabet...okay, I'm not that bad...alright I lied I did spend a good hour the other day alphabeticalizing a 6 shelf spice cabinet.
Now quite a few people have asked me to describe the volunteer cottage. Well, let's just say I'm lucky enough to live in my very own salvation army/goodwill warehouse with couches in every shade and offbeat dated floral pattern, lazyboy chairs in turd colored brown that creak so violently when you shift in your seat and with cushions that have worn so badly that they could easily be mistaken for medieval torture devices seeing as how pieces of metal jut out from them. Oh and I musn't forget to describe the bookshelves loaded full of boardgames that have long been out of print and random electronics and books that you could've sworn only were publicized on late night infomercials--in other words Bethesda million dollar homes have nothing on this Chateau.
And finally little ol' Thames, the nearest town to the valley which has definitely grown to hold a special place in my heart these past few weeks. Walking down the streets of the city centre you feel like you are walking straight into an old western town with one dimensional storefronts that look like old movie sets and streets lined with stores like the christian bookshop, feed the children (who knew the infamous Larry Jones took shop up in my little town I call home) organic co-ops and the random gentlemans club and masonic stonecutters secret meeting houses. In other words I fit right at home here...more to come later.