Knock, knock...

...Who's there? It's Me! Is it safe to come out yet? Well here we are the new year is here. It's all about 2009 now. 2008 is history as they say and that is exactly the way I want to keep it. When you think about it I really don't have a choice as to rather I can keep 2008 history or not because any way you look at it history it is and to it I say good riddance.

So now here we are 5 days into 2009 and all is well. I am not even going to venture as to what the year may or may not bring. I'm not even going to say I want it to be a good year or a great year or a year without pain, trouble and heartache. I'm just going to let come what may and go with the flow because in most if not all cases you don't usually have a choice as to what happens anyway. Sure you can try to plan for certain things to happen and set goals for things and that's all fine and well but in the end things happen for a reason and they will happen rather I've planned for them or not so I think I will just go with the flow and as the circumstances change then so shall I so as to accommodate the changes that life hands me.

This plan may or may not work and if it doesn't well then as I said I'll go with the flow and change my life accordingly. Now as for the rest of you I'm not sure I'd follow my lead so I suggest that you stick to what ever your plan is for 2009 and I hope that what ever you have planned it works for you. So onward and upward we go and lets just see what the future holds.

Until the next post take care and stay well. I'll see you in a day or so.

Ready, steady, go....

...on to Christmas that is. The tree is trimmed. The presents, what there are of them, have been bought. Some need to be wrapped but that is an easy chore and one that I have fun doing. The flights were booked a few weeks ago. We leave for Sydney on Sunday and we will be there until Christmas Day. We have to fly back in the afternoon because hubby has to work Christmas night. We have a pre-Christmas BBQ to go to before we leave on Sunday and other than that we are ready for Christmas or as ready as we will ever be. Doesn't it sound funny to have a BBQ at Christmas? Then again when the temperatures are in the 70's why not have a BBQ?  Hubby has to work the next few nights and then as I said we'll be off to Sydney.

Anyway, if I don't post again before we head to Sydney, I probably will but just in case, I want to wish each and everyone one of you, along with your families and partners the best that the season can provide. I hope you are able to take a little time and spend that time with those that mean the most to you in your life. I hope and wish for each of you a phantasmagorical New Year! May you move forward and hopefully may some of the woes of the past year that have affected many of us start to ease. Take care, be safe and hugs all around. Enjoy...

Thanks for the help...

This won't be a long post but I just wanted to take this moment to thank those of you that took the time to respond to the last post. The dilemma that faces James and I us not insurmountable but I suppose it's always nice when you can share it with others and then have those people be kind enough to actually give you feedback. We won't be making an hasty decisions and as I believe I stated before we are at least afforded the luxury of being able to pick and choose as to when and where what may or may not happen. With that all said eventually something will happen and when it does I'm sure that whatever decisions we make we will have thought them through and along with the help from friends both near, far and cyber we will move forward and continue to allow our life to evolve and grow into whatever it may become. All with just a little help from our friends...

(Update: I changed the title of this post only because another blogger used the same title and I'm not sure who came up with their title first but to forgo any I did it first issues I thought changing would be easier. Sometimes it can so difficult being a day a head of the world when it comes to the blogs I read which are mainly US based. Anyway new title same content Enjoy...)

What to do???

We have a small problem in the Gardner-Sullivan household. What might that small problem be you might ask? Well I'll tell you what the small problem might be. The small problem is actually a huge problem in so much that James and I are being faced with a hard decision as to where we should live. Ever since my little hospital stay up in Sydney we have realised that living in our quaint, quiet, beautiful home may not be sustainable at this point in time.

We moved to Tasmania a little over three years ago after spending six years in the buzzing metropolis called Sydney. James lived in and around Sydney all of his life and that is of course where I met him. We stayed in Sydney during the time in which I was awaiting the outcome of my application for permanent residency in Australia. Once approval was received on the application we felt like we could finally move forward, as we didn't feel like we were able to do such up to that point, because if the application had not been approved I would have had to go straight back to the US within 28 days of the applications rejection. We lived with that fear for quite some time and because of that fear we never felt like we could make plans. We dreamed a lot but never made any solid plans.

Shortly after the application was approved we started looking at our options. A few months before the application was approved we took a short trip down to Tasmania. I had never been and James had not been there in over ten years. I don't know what it was about this place but as soon as we started over the bridge that you have to cross over to drive into Hobart, I knew this was a good place. It just felt right. The more we looked around and during the time that we spent in Hobart the more we knew that this was the place that we needed to be.

We started to look for a house in earnest and we had many to choose from. We also were being very picky. As I said there are a lot of beautiful old homes in Hobart, many of which date back to the 1800's. The houses exude old world charm and add to the quaint atmosphere that surrounds the city and for the matter in every town in Tasmania. One of the key selling points along with the homes was the slow and even pace in Hobart compared to the constant buzz found in Sydney. It is only natural that there be a difference between the to cities seeing that Sydney has over 4 million people compared to Tasmania in which the entire state only has roughly a tenth of the population at around 400,000 people. Nearly half of those people live in and around Hobart proper at a population of 200,525. Based on those numbers I think you can start to get a picture of the differences between the buzz of Sydney and the slow quiet pace that is Hobart.

After four months of looking through real estate guides and making a few more trips back to Hobart merely to search for and to look at houses we found this one. James had flown down to Hobart on a Thursday and I stayed in Sydney with friends from out of town. There were a few houses James had arranged to look at while he was there, and they all looked promising. I got a call from James around lunch time and during that call he told me that none of the houses had been right for one reason or another. He was going to see one more in the afternoon and if that wasn't right he would be back in the morning. I had in the meantime been looking some more on the internet real estate sites and had found one more house that we had not previously seen. This house was just listed with the agent James happened to be using while he was in Hobart. I said why not ask if you can see the place and sure enough the agent said no problem. The house had only been on the market for a week and she hadn't even thought about showing it to James as it was such a new listing she had basically overlooked it. Anyway, long story short I get a call back from James after he sees the house and he says book a flight and get down here first thing in the morning so we can look at the house together. I did, we did and by 7:00 pm that next night we owned our new house.

Moving to Hobart was a huge move for us on so many levels. It was a really big move for James as it would be the first big move for him from Sydney. James easily found a job and we settled in quite nicely. This was our first foray into suburbia and we had no idea what to expect. The last three years we have grown into this house and we have made it a home. We know a few neighbors but we didn't really come here to make neighborly connections. I mean it's fine if we do but I don't need to be best friend with the people next door to make my life complete. We made a few new friends who became very close friends over the next few years. Going out to dinner never found us in a situation where the staff at the restaurant were trying to rush you out so that they could seat the next table. We never have trouble finding a table when we go out for breakfast and once again we don't have people staring over our shoulders waiting to take our table. The local produce, food and wines are some of the best in the world. The air is clean as is the water. All in all this place is pretty damn near perfect, and that is where the needle scratches across the surface of this story.

The problem is there are not enough if no services avaiable to handle the growing population. The biggest area to lack services is in the area of medicaine, doctors, hospitals, etc. The hospital James works at is the largest one on the island but is it is grossly understaffed and unable to cope with its burden. As for it's ability to offer James a challenging work place the only challenge is dealing with the shortcoming and lack of resources. Now you may be starting to see where I'm heading with this drawn out post. You see with the fact that I am and have been HIV+ for the past 21+ years I occasionally need to be able to access appropriate medical services when needed and in some cases that may mean almost immediately. During our recent experience with regards to the treatment of my peripheral neuropathy we discovered that the medical field here in Tasmania is unable to accommodate my needs either through service availability, rapid response time and or a combination of both. Living in Sydney that was never an issue.

Our problem as for what to do is just that, what are we going to do. We love this house/home. We love the quaint gentle approach that we are able to take in everyday life. We love that changes of seasons, along with the temperate weather it brings. Basically we love living unhurried. So now we are in a dilemma as to where we might live and how to go about this transition wth out losing the kind gentle life we have created and at the same time move back into the sprawling landscape which is Sydney.

We do have a few things that work in our favour and those being that we own this home mortgage free and we still own out apartment in Sydney also mortgage free. Let me state from the start we have no intention of moving back into our old apartment. That will not happen! We don't plan on selling either place. We also don't want a new mortgage even though the rentals from both places could easily pay the mortgage on a new house. We just don't want to be saddled again with debt. We could at least rent some a nice big place and pay the rental with the rents that we receive. So again you say what's the problem well in the end the only real problem is we love this home and having to leave it is turning our world upside down.

Suggestions???

...and we're back

We actually got back Wednesday night, but I've been lazy with posting as usual. Anyway, we had a very nice time visiting an old friend. The weather was on our side until we got to Brisbane for the last night and it started to rain. We won't complain because that area of the country, along with a lot of Australia needs rain desperately. As mentioned in previous post we did stay at the Conrad Treasury hotel & Casino. The room was gorgeous. As for the casino we didn't do so well, but we always go into the casino with the understanding that we will probably loose and if we do win that's just extra. We don't go out a lot any more, preferring to be homebodies so we like to go to the casinos every so often for a bit of bells, lights colour and movement. Those of you that have played the machines will know what I mean.

So, back at home and we have already been busy. I had my second set of acupuncture and this time it did not hurt half as bad as last time. I still don't know if it is actually helping but will give it a few more weeks and then decide. on that same note I have a neurologist appointment at the end of November to review the neuropathy situation in my feet especially because I think it's spread which is not uncommon. I'm just afraid that at some point I'm going to have to start walking with a cane. Not that walking with a cane is a bad thing, apologies to those that do. I just know that if I have to start using a cane it will me that the neuropathy is getting the best of me.

We have also had two landscapers out to give us a quote on fixing up our back yard. We have a third one coming out on Monday and from there we will decide if it is doable. On the same note we have a builder in looking at removing some old doors and windows at the back of our house and replacing them as well as rearranging our kitchen area a bit and replacing the old deck with a new one. So it's all happening around here. That's what Spring will do for you. And yes I said Spring as the official start of Spring was the first of September here in the land down under. Also, since it's Spring and all of this remodelling is occurring I guess I'll change the feel of the blog to reflect a more colourful mood. So look forward to that coming soon

Happy New Year 2007!

It is January 1 2007 and a new year has officially started here in the land down under. I posted the picture from Sydney even though we now live in Tasmania. Our fireworks weren't as spectacular as the ones in Sydney but none the less they were quite good. We went out with friends last night to a Greek restaurant and had a really good meal with lots of singing, hand clapping and plenty of laughs. We then went out to watch the fireworks. I have to admit we have not gone out to watch fireworks in the past few years especially when we lived in Sydney. I think the last time we went out there was in 2002. It was just such a huge effort to fight through the crowds of thousands and in reality James usually had to work at the hospital. But this year after we decided lets venture out in little Hobart town and we ended up having a great time.

Anyway, I just want to wish every one once more a Happy New Year! I hope that you will be able to start the New Year with a clean slate. Remember as Auntie Mame said "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving. You got to Live, Live Live! James and I plan to do just that...

Out with the Old , In with the New...

Year that is... Well it's finally here and I for one could not be any happier to see the end of 2006. As you will remember it has been one heck of a year, especially the last six months. All in all we have much to be grateful for and most of all that James and I have each other, and for that alone I am eternally grateful.

So, what do we have to look forward too? Well, starting with the New Year weekend we will be going to TASTE today, which is one of the best food and wine festivals I've ever been to. We will be able to pick up a bit of wine, for the house, from local vineyards here in Tassie and have some of the locally produced foods. I know I sound like I am tooting the proverbial horn but I really believe that we have some of the best fresh foods and wines in the world. All because we have such clean air and water down here. Maybe I'm prejudiced or just plain deluded but that's how I see it.

Next, we will head over to Constitution Dock to have a look at the boats that have finished the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Some of the boats are huge and others are not so huge. Either way you wouldn't catch me dead trying to cross the Bass Strait in any of them. It was bad enough having to take the Spirit over when we first moved here.

To end the year we will be meeting friends at our favourite local Greek Restaurant for some good food and plate smashing.; then we will end up walking over to the harbour to watch a bit of fireworks.

As for the beginning of the New Year, we will be celebrating James' B-day with friends on the 5th and then he and I will head up to Melbourne for a couple of days. When we come back we have a few things to tend to around the house like painting the bathroom and other odds and ends. All leading up to a visit from friends in February, and that is as far as we have planned for now.

So, I'll let you know if we come up with anything more exciting but until then keep watching this space.

I wish for all of you a very Happy New Year!

The week before Christmas...

Well, it's the week before Christmas and I'm as ready as I'll ever be. All of my shopping is done including the food shopping for a little soiree we are having next Saturday night before we leave for Sydney on Sunday, Christmas Eve. The weather is holding out so once again we will have moderate temperatures, which is one of the reasons we moved down here. I just couldn't put up with the heat and humidity in Sydney. The little soiree is just a few close friends that we had over last year with some drinks and lovely nibbly bits. I am making lots of my old favorites including, deviled eggs, vegetable dip and prawn and crab dip. I'm also going to attempt to make a few new surprises. We shall see...

It's also only two more weeks until the end of 2006 and I have never been so ready to see the back side of a year as I am this one. I'm sure that if you've been keeping up you are aware of what a crappy year it has been for us both and at this point enough is enough. We just want to move forward and get on with it!

So what is in store for the new year?

1. I am taking James to Melbourne for his birthday to see one of his favourite comedian/variety acts Dame Edna.
2. Some friends are coming out for a visit starting in February and will be staying through the end of March. We will be going up to Cradle Mountain and also making a short trip to Sydney with them.
3. James goes to Sydney for a week to do the residential part of his college distance course. He has been working on this course which is an add-on to his degree for over a year and will finish it in June this year.
4. After James finishes his course we plan to start our travelling around Australia. So many people live in a country and only travel outside of their own country, never seeing any of where they live. So, we are going to do just that and head up to Darwin, Perth, and Uluru to name a few. We are going to rent a camper van and take our time to see what there is to see. I'll be taking our laptop so I can post pictures and updates

That's about all we have planned for the moment but a week before Christmas and all through the house all is calm and it is starting to look like a good year ahead!