Living for the weekend.

This last weekend was the first spent in the new house, meaning that it is almost compulsory to go for a quick trip to IKEA in search of a couple bargain items. This is exactly what happened on Saturday, but before we get onto that, I have a little rant that's been aching to get out since Friday...
Friday evening was supposed to be spent with John and Jeff, who somehow miraculously broke up and were back together within 48 hours this week. (It might have been more like 24 hours actually...) About 30 minutes before they were supposed to arrive for dinner, I received a message saying "Jeff just told me that we are double booked can we make it for another time?" Apart from the fact that I struggle to think of anything that is more rude than canceling dinner at such short notice, I know that John and Jeff would have realized they were "double booked" much further in advance. I suspect (on good authority) that Jeff and John didn't actually have anything on that night, and were just snobbing us to stay at home. I really think that's poor form. It will be a while before John and Jeff are invited around to dinner again.
So as you can guess from the events described above, Friday night turned out to be a non-event, which sucked quite a bit. During the night on Friday, I awoke with a chill, then pulled on more doona for some extra warmth. When I awoke on Saturday morning, I had the beginnings of a head cold! (YUCK) I must have caught a cold during the night. I had hoped that I would get better throughout the day, but no such luck. I just ended up getting worse and worse during our trek through IKEA and Kmart.
We arrived at IKEA around 11.30 in the morning, after Chris had worked at ballooning in the morning. We slowly made our way through the showroom, which drove Chris nuts. I opened all the drawers and cupboards, just checking out the place properly, which Chris thought was useless, because we aren't in the market for new cupboards or drawers. We stopped for lunch at the little cafe that is half way through IKEA. I had meatballs, and Chris had some pastry thing...
Following lunch, we headed down to "market hall", to do what Chris called the "real shopping". We found some cool stuff, like a lamp for the bedroom (check out the video of me trying to assemble it), some coasters, a new grater, a water jug, and some rugs for the hallway. I didn't enjoy this "real shopping" part as much as the window shopping that was encouraged in the showroom upstairs.
When we left IKEA, we then went on to Kmart, to pick up a few things like hot mitts, a larger frying pan and some non-stick & non-scratch cooking utensils.
Saturday night was the church bush dance. It was hosted at the Boronia scout hall, with quite a few people there from Ferntree Gully, Scoresby and Bayswater churches. It was nice to see Barbara there too, and we had some fun dancing around like there wasn't anyone watching. We even tried to do the dance "strip the willow", but I think the music might have been a bit too fast for us to do it properly.
On Sunday morning, Kelly's baby (who's name escapes me right now) was baptized. There were lots of visitors at church to see the baptism. It was really nice to see that so many people made a special effort for Kelly and Ed. Following church, there was an afternoon tea. I didn't see much of the food, because I got stuck talking to Mr Grey, the father of Doug Grey, my boss at Subway.
When I finally made my getaway from the afternoon tea, I headed over to Mum and Dad's place to say hello, and have some lunch. Mum had invited me to come for lunch when I saw her at church. Lunch was really good (as it usually is) and was a great chance to catch up with the happenings of the Wheatland household.
I feel like it's getting easier to talk to my parents, Mum especially. I feel like moving out was a tough step that I had to take. I'm still taking that step now, with our house not fully unpacked yet! Life goes on I guess.
Sunday night I was feeling the effects of my head cold, so I skipped church to have an early night. I spent the evening tossing and turning in bed, and didn't feel like I got a good night's sleep at all. I was surprised at how rested I felt on Monday though.
Monday presented a whole new set of dramas, with Cheyne bringing news that he has been kicked out of home, and owes the landlord about a month's wages (well, what I would earn in a month). I really want to help Cheyne, but I don't really know how. He needs stability in his life, but how can you give that to a person? We can't put him up for a month, can we? It's enough to just be supporting ourselves, let alone an extra person.... It's times like this that I wish I had the strength and the means to do what Jesus would have done.
Monday night was Oscars night. We had 18 plus at Kat and Jason's place, and watched the awards ceremony while eating chocolate. Ooh, how we all love that chocolate fountain....
PS: Congrats to everyone who worked on "Happy Feet" while it was in production with Animal Logic here in Melbourne. (Good work Neil...)