A Texan in Oz

Another week half gone and nothing much to show for it. Ah well. :)

I cleaned the front part of the house and the bathrooms this weekend and it's nice to bask in the glow of spray-n-wipe. We have an inspection coming up next week and, while they don't particularly care if your house is spotless, they probably care if it's as bad as ours was.... So the only non-spotless rooms at the moment are Chris's office and the spare bedroom....we are pretty good at keeping our room clean but somehow the mess managed to travel into the spare room. I don't think any of our clothes are on hangers or in drawers at the moment which is pretty pitiful. We don't really have a "closet" persay, just too tiny wardrobes which, when combined, form an even smaller closet than your average hotel room. We just need to suck it up and buy a bedroom suite I suppose, maybe after Christmas.

It has been RAINING in Moranbah. They have an el Nino or whatever that's been keeping the rain at bay for months but now we're predicted to have scattered showers for the rest of the week. Hopefully they scatter themselves over our lawn, that would be more than convenient. Typically this region has a monsoon season where it rains every afternoon for a period of time, but something's changed in the past few years that's put the region in a massive drought.....not sure what caused it. I hear that it hasn't really STOPPED raining back in good ole F Dub, send some of that rain over here!

I finally figure out that it's not pictures that are sucking up all the memory on my laptop, it's my tv shows! I've been downloading Gossip Girl, Bones, America's Next Top Model, House and Medium every single week....and apparently they suck up a lot of disk space. So I moved a whole heap of them that I haven't watched since last year and freed up 24 Gigs of space. Woot! How convenient. :) They do show all of these shows in Australia, but most of them are a whole season behind which doesn't do me a lot of good and is why I've continued downloading them on iTunes. Yes, it costs money but no more than what a couple lattes a week would cost and so we'll just say I've traded pleasures for the time being.

P.S. I've found a KILLER otc sleep aid; Doxylamine succinate. It is apparantly the antihistamine in Nyquil that makes it so sedative. I must have worked up a tolerance to Benadryl over the years because it does NOTHING for me, but this stuff really knocks me out. Better than Ambien even. I wonder if you can get it in a pill form in America? And I wonder why, if it's so much stronger than diphenhydramine, it's not more widely known? Anyways, this is a very helpful discovery for yours truly and put me to sleep by 11pm last night. Very impressive!


I called the consulate today. I lost my passport and the Mackay police mailed it to the consulate. They are now holding my passport hostage until I change my name.....wow. I didn't even think I could change my name here legally, but apparently I can and I have to or else they won't give the passport back. Oh well, I was kind of depressed about having to stay Melissa White anyways when all I want is to be a Wood! So I just have to figure out how to do that....I'm meant to go to the department of births, deaths, and marriages now and they'll have our thingee and I'll change my name. I have to pay $100 for a new passport though, how inconvenient. At least I get to keep the old one though, and at least they actually FOUND it because it would have been a lot more complicated if they hadn't. I'm watching that thing like a hawk from now on.


Horrible Trend of the Moment

I would like to take this opportunity to address a horrible trend of the moment: The RaRa Skirt. Now, if you have fallen victim to this trend, please do not take my criticism personally; just do not ever wear the skirt again. Thanks. ;)

Offenders:







Now, the RaRa skirt is not really all that bad on its own, what makes it bad is how everyone who wears one insists on pairing it with a tucked-in tank or spaghetti strap shirt. SO unflattering!

There is about 2% of the population that can wear a spaghetti-strap shirt tucked into a RaRa skirt and actually pull it off. Why? Because they are like a size 2 and 5'10". If you have anything remotely resembling hips, a butt, or a set of boobs this trend DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU. Maybe if you threw on a cute shrug or cropped jacket....but you just cannot tuck your shirt into your skirt and make it look good on its own. Sorry for ya, but the muffin-top will never be "in." Next time, just say no and please give this outfit to your 15 y/o sister whom it was most likely proportioned for.