New season

My wonderful Korean housemate moved out yesterday after eight weeks. Kind of sad but happy same time. She was by far the best housemate I've ever lived with - she was clean, quiet, always turned lights off, filled up the kettle after using it, cleaned up after herself, took care of her room, kept all her things and my things in order, pushed chairs in, cleaned the shower drain, loved my cooking, was always respectful, never made noise despite staying up late at night, etc... seriously, could not have asked for a better housemate. It's like God sent her as a blessing to me to pay my rates and get me through a hard time financially.

PRAISE the Lord.

1 Samuel 1

Have spent the last hour reading online sermons about 1 Samuel 1 - going through crises, how to stay encouraged, studying David's response to having psycho Saul trying to kill him, people he was leading wanting to stone him, and facing some hardcore battles like when returned home, only to find home had been destroyed and his family kidnapped. The key to his many victories was always making time for God, worshipping Him and reading his Word, enquiring His advice and will.

I discovered that every time I feel flat and discouraged, the best thing is to pick up a scripture and do a search on it to read as many sermons I can on the topic until I feel my inner man getting stronger and the heaviness lifting off. The devil is such a liar. The bigger the battle, the bigger the victory. The higher the devil, the higher the level of spiritual maturity we climb too once we pass through that trial. God is awesome. He is a God of restoration. No demon from the pit of hell can prevent His amazing plans rolling out before me and my feet following :-)

My favourite meal so far

So here we have teriyaki marinated pork and croutons, served with steamed veggies and rice. Topped with cheese :-) Presentation looks pretty bad, but taste was delicious.

Lunch today - noodles, shitake mushrooms, egg, parsley and lime

Dinner last night - apricot chicken

A sample lunch box for my student

Bills bills bills

Oh my goodness, I just got the council rates for my house. $1,400!!! Wow, that's a huge lot to pay. Then on top of that, I got the water bill - another $300. Ouch .... I'm not liking this home ownership responsibility thing. It's a bit stressful :-(

Asics Gel Nimbus 14

Thanks to my housemate's payment in advance, I was able to buy a very decent pair of these gorgeous shoes. My German housemate earlier this year bought a rainbow-coloured pair of these shoes. I didn't really want pink, but that was the cheapest shoe in the closest location, which was Singapore! I didn't want to buy from USA and wait forever for it to arrive.

Teriyaki chicken

Cooked this tonight .... bit disappointed at my lack of presentation skills, but my housemate assured me that it was delicious! haha It comprises chicken, red capsicum, onion, snow peas and rice with the teriyaki sauce / soy sauce combo.

Bathroom fan that got replaced today

Kitchen fan that got replaced today - yuck

So totally revolting. Covered in thick brown grease. Urrrgh, yucko

Homestay

So last week I thought I had arranged for my dear friend June to take over my housemate's accommodation after her one month was up. I emailed Letitia, the homestay coordinator. Strangely, I got no reply. Not like her at all. So then on Friday I rang the school. It turns out that Letitia has resigned and some very abrupt guy has taken over her duties temporarily. He said to me that was fine for my student to move into June's house and told me he would talk to her.

Well Friday arvo, I get a very distraught message from my student in broken English saying she was a mistake (haha) and would pay me when I get home. I tried to explain that June would accommodate her and as she knew, June had a much nicer house and it was only one road away and she had a TV and nicer room and better food, etc... well my student just insisted she stay with me! I was so baffled. She then handed me all the cash for one month. Actually more than what the school pays because i worked out that the school takes $20 commission.

How can i refuse her now? I just really wanted time out from having to race home every day and feed her and not being able to stay longer at work. It's a little bit annoying how I can no longer do an extra 30 to 60 minutes and then build up to a day off, simply because I have to go home at a reasonable time to feed her.

I guess on the positive side, it is good training for my future marriage and I have never eaten so well in my life before. My housemate is amazingly clean, neat and sensitive in that she always refills the kettle, turns off lights, pushes chairs in and just minds her own business every day. All she does every day is studies. She is not interested in anything else. Haha ... she even goes to bed at a reasonable time, never wakes me up and never gets in my way. She obviously really appreciates my cooking and eats anything. Totally amazing!!!

I guess God wants her to stay in my house for whatever reason.

Her cash in advance was handy for paying the electrician today and the Holy Spirit led me to give $400 to Leonard. Then I bought a pair of totally amazing high quality gel runners and went grocery shopping and bought a couple of cheap tops. What an unexpected blessing.

Replacement remote car key

Can't believe I could come so close to being fooled into parting with money simply for the reason of making some greedy person rich! My remote car key broke a few years ago and so I put it aside and used the spare non-remote key. Well, this week gone by I rang up a toyota dealer to enquire about getting another key - they quoted me $400 for a new remote copy that has to be programmed to my car! ... well then the guy said that if I bought the broken key pieces in, he could salvage the inside components and give me a replacement key for $200. Another guy told me he could get a new shell for about $100 but then I would have to bring it in to get programmed and that would cost $70.

Well, I went ahead and asked him to order a shell .... but then out of curiosity, I looked up the shells on eBay. It turns out they cost simply $4.50!!! AND I examined my key pieces. It turns out the remote and metal parts are totally intact and working well - it is just simply the case that doesn't work, but if I simply get a new case shell and put my pieces in, it will work! Gosh, I cannot believe I was so stupid to almost part with my hard-earned money.

I'm not going to collect that ridiculously expensive shell I got the guy to order. No way. I have now ordered a shell off eBay for $4.50.

Volunteering for Kathmandu Urban

Discovering how much I love cooking!

So here we have some pretty random, yet delicious dishes made in my kitchen ... miraculously by me!!! Haha, who ever thought that being a homestay provider would turn me into a chef and bring out passion for cooking!

So the first dish is honey soy chicken wings served with rice and sesame seeds wrapped in seaweed and some salad. The second is probably my favourite dish of all time - it's bbq marinated chicken cooked in a slow cooker with chicken stock, chinese veggies and served on rice with salad. The third is the chicken curry I made tonight in the slow cooker. It has chicken, sweet potatoes, onion, orange capsicum and is served with rice and coriander. Praise the Lord for quality food :-)

Tour of the the food-tasting places in Swan valley

I had so much fun today. June and I took our beloved homestay students out to Swan Valley to have a bit of free food tasting. We had chocolate, honey, lavender products and coffee. It was great. Japanese Yoko, Korean Inhye and I had fun posing in some coffee lounge while June read some tourist brochure. Then we all had some of the curry I cooked in the slow cooker all day. They all thought it was delicious. I didn't really like it. Not really into curry! haha I am so grateful for June's friendship and all the new friends God is bringing into my life. Hallelujah!

New friends just for one day in my life

New friends - Fabien from the Carribean and a French chick, also volunteering at the Kathmandu Urban challenge yesterday in the City :-)

Tonight's dinner

My housemate totally makes my day every day with her facial expressions and emotive sounds she makes when I make dinner :-) Hahaha ... i guess when you barely speak any English, that's the best you can do to describe your feelings about a meal you like :-) lol

A typical dinner for an extremely appreciative korean homestay student :-)

Homestay

Well it turns out that my two students from Brazil cancelled, so they gave me a student from South Korea! What an hilarious change in plans. So suddenly all my food preparation plans changed to an Asian theme. Haha

Well i am so grateful to God for the change because I just love my korean student and couldn't think of a better one to have. She is the sweetest, purest, most respectful girl. She is gentle and really quiet because she speaks almost no English. That's ok, we have learnt to communicate with very minimal words and drama, which is kind of fun. I am re-learning the Korean phrases I used so frequently in South Korea.

Yesterday, my friend June who has two homestay students from Columbia and Japan and only lives one road away, decided to combine our students for an outing. We took them to Hillarys for coffee and then to Pinneroo to see the kangaroos and then to June's house for a yummy dinner. It was so nice.

Getting involved with hosting a student has resulted in new found joy. I am just so thankful to God. He is so worthy to be praised. Hallelujah!