A real life update!

Since my last update was just a store review (and a chance to show off my cute new stuff) this one will be a real update on my life. :)

Cesar's Way

The best thing about being out of work right now is Eva! She is a handful and a half to be sure, but Chris and I are avid Ceaser Milan fans and have had a lot of fun trying to remain "Calm and Assertive." It's funny how much I have misunderstood Cesar's approach towards dogs until now. There are so many little nuances of his discipline that I didn't grasp until I tried to apply them to Eva and realized they weren't working for me. Here's what I've learned:

1. Remain calm and assertive towards Eva all the time.
   

What does that mean? I actually have to BE calm and assertive. I can't be pissed off and irritated and try and correct her in a calm voice because she knows I'm faking it and won't respect me. How crazy is that?? I always thought that, so long as I sounded calm (i.e. not yelling) that I was being calm, but it's so not true. I have to feel calm and assertive. The assertive part, to me, translates as a feeling of being in control of the situation. Which brings me to my next lesson Cesar taught me:

• 2. Expect the reaction you want, not the reaction you are most used to receiving.

What does that mean? For an example, say that Eva is chasing Bean and I want her to stop. I correct her by making a loud "ah!" sound. I always thought from watching Cesar's show (he uses a "tsh" sound) that it was the sound that made the dog stop. Now I know that it's not the sound at all. It's the energy you are channeling through the sound to the dog that makes the dog respond. So, if I say "ah!" or "no!" to Eva but believe that she will ignore me, that doubt transfers through my energy to Eva and she knows. I don't know *how* she knows, but she definitely does! If I approach her as if I am in control of the situation and I absolutely know she is going to stop, she does. It's like a miracle. :)

• 3. Eva is a dog, not a child.
  

This is a hard one. It's my impulse to baby Eva and so, when I've been away for a while and come home and she is SO excited, I greet her with equal excitement and pet her and want to give her a treat. Apparantly this is the WORST thing I could do. Now, every time I come home, I have to completely ignore Eva until she calms down a bit because my excited energy only feeds her hyperactivity and my petting her simply nurtures that state of mind and makes her believe that she is right to feel that way.

• 4. Do not pet Eva when she is behaving in a way I do not approve of.
  

If Eva is nervous or barking or over-excited, it was my initial instinct to have her sit down and then I would pet her and make a soothing "shhhh" sound, like you would for a child. Cesar says that all this does is positively reinforce whatever behavior she is displaying rather than discouraging it. Damn. So now, if she is nervous, I just have to correct her in the same way I would if she is chasing the cat or galloping through the house like a crazy dog.


Those are the biggest things that I think have made the difference in Eva for me. She is a VERY hyperactive dog and gets excited really easily which is why it's such a chore to be around her at times. But we learned the funniest thing on our walk today; I am the alpha of the pack. Ha! I had no idea!! Chris was always talking about how badly Eva behaves for him on walks and this confused me because she really is like the perfect dog for me about 80% of the walk. So I went walking with him and Eva today and she like, nearly chokes herself trying to pull Chris ahead when he's walk her but, when I walk her, she creates no tension on the leash and walks behind me instead of trying to pull in front. hahahaha I'm the alpha! woohoo!

This experience with Eva is going to make it so much easier with future dogs, so I'm really thankful to know her! I'm planning on buying Cesar's books and leash when I visit home next week so that I can figure out what to do in depth.

______________________

I found out the details on how this move is going to go when our lease is up. We are allowed to move a maximum of 2 weeks before our lease ends on February 28th, which happens to be Feb 14th: the day after I get back from Texas. ha! Why do we do these things to ourselves? That means that, realistically, we won't get approved to sign a lease on a new property until Feb 14 either. Kind of frustrating, because I have visions of being turned down for every house we like! They won't pay more than $1000 p/w for any house and the house must have all built in closets (the original mining houses in Moranbah didn't have closets including the house we are in now. They put in detatched wardrobes instead. "built-ins" are wardrobes that have been built into the wall. Walk-ins are just about non-existant! ::tear::) and either a refurbished kitchen or bathroom. I think this is great! It means that BMA is really pushing property owners to improve the quality of their homes rather than charging $800 p/w for a 30 year old house that hasn't been touched in as long.

Because the market here is so liquid, the properties that are up for rent today most likely won't be the same properties up for rent 3 weeks from now but you can't blame a girl for looking! The office does pre-approve some properties, but the most they would approve us for if we applied through the pre-approved properties is a 3 bed/1bath. I know this may sound fair to you, but all the new homes are at least 3 bed/2 bath and we really want to move into a newer house (maybe one that actually has a foundation and sealed floors?) so we are choosing to look independantly.

ha! So remember how I said the market is liquid? The house I was going to show you that was on the market this afternoon is already leased. haha! Here are a couple other ones I'm looking at though:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-moranbah-403736255




-This is a new house! I like that it has a real garage instead of just a car-port and the interior pictures look really fresh. The colorbond fence would be really good for Eva! I don't like that there's absolutely no landscaping to speak of other than a green lawn (which is nothing to wink at in this climate) It's listed at 1200 p/w but the office said not to go by listed prices and that, if we tell people that we're only approved for 1000 p/w and will move in immediately if they drop the rent, most people will move it down. The trick *then* becomes whether the office thinks the house is worth $1000 p/w becaue they'll only approve homes they believe are at a fair market value.


http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-moranbah-404984337



-this is an older property in town but the renovations are unbelievable. This is my favorite house but it's really expensive!


http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-moranbah-404990756



I looooooooove this house!! It has the garage and colorbond fence but, in addition to that, it has a HUUGE kitchen! I love the open-plan set up. This is the most expensive house on the market at the moment though and I don't like our chances of talking them down from $1350 p/w to $1000. I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming. ;)

Soo those are the houses on the market that I like. Don't you love how they're ALL over $1000 p/w? The thing is that the house we are in now is just as good and better in some ways than all the houses on the market for less than $1000 p/w. I really don't want to move again after we find this house so I wish there were more new houses up. There used to be TONS when we were looking 2 years ago, so hopefully some more will pop up over the next couple weeks. If we don't see anything we like, then I'm thinking we'll try to negotiate an at-will or 4 month contract to try again in a few months time or, if we can get an at-will contract, then we'll just stay until we find the perfect house.

Evans.co.uk Review

My Curvy Revelation

I never thought I'd identify as a "curvy girl" because, to this day, my bra cups don't exactly runneth over! But, whether I like it or not, my hips and booty most likely make up for what I'm lacking on top thus defining me as a "curvy girl."

I've lamented several times over the difficulty I've had finding clothes that fit me in Australia. I'll remind everyone that a size 12 U.S. is equivalent to a 16 AU meaning that, by Australian standards, all women size 12 (16) and over are "plus size." This means that (excluding a short window of time from 2005-2007) I have been "plus size" by the Australian standard for 10 years, even though I only recently broke into the plus size market in the U.S. in the last year.

This new plus-size territory, has left me feeling more lost than I ever have when it comes to finding a good fit. My measurements at the moment are 41-35.5-47. (I've lost 2 inches in my waist and 2 in my hips since June so I am EXCITED to share this news!!) According to the Lane Bryant size-chart, my bust and waist measure right smack dab in the middle of a 14 & 16. HOWEVER, my hips measure right smack in the middle of a 18 & 20. Do you know what the bust measurement of a 16-18 is? 45 inches. When I measure at 41 (on a good day.) This is the equivalent of a women with a size 2 bust having to buy a size 10 dress in order to accommodate her hips. Admittedly, the woman with the size 2 bust would also have a size 8 waist based on my proportions but I digress.

Buying clothing that fits me all over just doesn't happen. Clinton and Stacey would say "So see a tailor!!" but, hello, so much easier said than done in this town. This is not such a big deal when I buy shirts. I can still buy t-shirts in most shops in Australia, but tailored shirts are always out of the question because my arms are so large. I had the same problem with my arms when I was a size 10 though, they're just big. What can I say? Dresses are a whole different ball game. I can usually get away with finding something that fits okay if it has an a-line skirt and the lining isn't too fitted. But if I ever want to pick up something more figure hugging that doesn't also have a lot of stretch? Never. Gonna. Happen. Nothing will fit me, ever. Anything that fits my hips is absolutely gaping in my shoulders.

When I found Torrid, I breathed a sigh of relief. While I found a few essentials that I liked in Lane-Bryant and Avenue, they are so obviously geared at a market more along the lines of women aged 35-55. However, the fit and quality of products at Torrid left me wanting in a bad bad way. The embellishments on several products in my past orders with this shop have been already falling off upon reciept requiring me to pull out the needle and thread. The stitching on a dress started coming unravel after a single wear. And, the most dissapointing thing: the shoes fit horribly. I own two pairs of Torrid shoes; a size 12W and 11W. The size 12s I've never actually worn in public because they are so HUGE. They feel at least 2-3 sizes too big. I wore the size 11W pair once to a cocktail event, and I think the only reason they worked is because they are a cuffed sandal so the cuff prevented my foot from slipping out of the shoe. Regardless of my ability to wear them without them falling off, the fit was just awful and my foot slides all around in the shoe giving me the feeling that I will fall off of the shoe even if they aren't falling off me! I'd liken the quality to anything you'd find at Payless even though they cost about twice as much. So, with great regret--because so many of their clothes and shoes are so HOT--I've decided the only thing I'll allow myself to buy from Torrid in the future is jeans. I do love my Torrid jeans and the quality is not bad. :)

And then I found Evans.

I am so completely blown away by this shop, I cannot express it enough! Evans is a plus size retailer based in the UK who offers women's clothing in sizes UK 14-32 which would be US 12-30 or AU 16-34. They also offer shoes in sizes UK 4-11/US 6-13 in wide and double wide widths and boots with extended calf sizes. As much as I liked the younger vibe of the products at Torrid, it's owned by Hot Topic and that shows in the collection. Sooo much of the Evans collection is exactly my taste, especially in the shoe department. I was initially drawn to the store because the shoe collection is so incredibly on-trend, and not in a watered-down-for-the-masses way, but a I'll-hold-my-own-on-the-runway way. But then, when I started looking at the clothing, I realized that these guys really know their stuff! I'm a person that LOVES trying new trends the first season they're introduced which can be tough when a lot of shops won't commit to offering new trends in larger sizes until the trend becomes more of a mainstream expectation: skinny jeans, ankle booties and "power" shoulders are all case-in-point. (I'm still struggling to find a nice power blazer in my size!) So, I made an order.

I have NEVER been able to wear tailored shirts. This has been a problem all my life, even in skinnier days, but I took a risk and decided to order two shirts from Evans. I also ordered a sweater coat and a pair of interesting brogue/oxford/boot hybrid shoes. The package arrived on my doorstep today, the 8th business day from when it shipped, which is incredibly fast especially considering shipping was only $15 or somewhere around there.

First, and the thing I was most nervous wouldn't fit: my brogue/boot/oxford thingees (can you tell I don't know how to define these shoes?)

After my shoe experience with Torrid, and also with Avenue's Cloudwalker line, I don't have a lot of faith when it comes to integrity of fit in shoes from plus-size stores. My first impression was how soft the leather is and, with a hint of panic, that they looked a bit small. See, I had to order a size 10 UK based off a size chart and --since every Aussie size chart says a US 12 is an AU 11 which I KNOW is not true-- I was afraid these would not fit. So...I slipped my foot in...and.....TADA!! They fit! and They fit great! They feel great, not stiff, not too big, no slippage, just overall incredibly excitingly perfect. For only $80, I know these shoes will be by my side for years. I'm ecstatic.

So then I start unwrapping my other purchases from their protective plastic. First, a tailored plaid shirt:


I took a risk on this shirt because I knew that the way they've sewn the pattern on an angle would be very flattering. This is the first button-down tailored shirt that has fit my arms without pulling and has buttoned at my hips without gaping. It's also the first shirt like this that hasn't made me look 2 sizes bigger than I am. I'm so relieved! The quality of the fabric is great. It's been doubled over at the button panel to be nice and thick, I really think this one will withstand the test of time. I only took a risk on this top because it was on clearance for $15 and I'm so glad I did because I won't be shy ordering similar cut tops from them in the future. Gotta love that!

After the success of the first two products, there's no way I could be disappointed by this next shirt:

I bought it because I loved the cut and color. I knew that, if the first shirt didn't work out, this one would definitely because of the room in the hips. I didn't know it had a tie in the back but it's good it does because it allowed me to adjust the fit to my taste. What you can't see in the pic is that there's a very slight shimmer to the fabric giving it a bit more of a smart-casual feel than I expected so that was a nice surprise. It fits beautifully and is unbelievably light and comfortable. It's the perfect weight to wear under a sweater because it's so light. I couldn't be happier! This top was $47.50 and, because I think it's light enough to wear in almost any season, it was worth it.

Last but not least, my ivory sweater coat:


I loved the vintage feel to this sweater. It reminds me of a sweater I used to have as a kid with the little bobbles on it. I liked that it doesn't have buttons because I purchased it specifically to belt over long tops and the buttons would distract from the effect of my belt! The sleeves are long enough which is a relief because I have issues with that on sweaters and the knit feels very soft and expensive to me. I bought this sweater because I thought it would work really well with alot of the tops I already own and help my light Queensland wardrobe translate into the cold Texas winter next week. I think I'll have this one on the plane with me, it's so cuddly! At $80 this was more than I'd usually pay for something like this but I've been wearing my $20 Old Navy cream cardigan for 5 years now and it's starting to show so I think it's worth investing in a worthy replacement and maybe I'll have it for the next 10. :)


_____________________

In summary, Evans is my new go-to shop. You may have noticed I didn't order any bottoms from them, so I can only hope that my skirt and trouser experience is as nice as my top, sweater and shoe experience was with them. :) If you fit in their size-chart, I'd highly recommend giving them a go. Their stock is so different than anything you can get in a plus-size shop here in oz so I can't wait to deepen my relationship with this company. Even though I'm losing weight, I doubt I'll ever be smaller than a size 12 again, so hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful life-long relationship between Evans and me. :):):)

I can't wait to order some boots with the extended calf!!

Neighborly love

Our next door neighbors have six kids, several cockatoos, chickens, dogs, cats and other various wildlife. I'm not exaggerating. Every morning at about oh, say, 4 am, the cockatoos start squawking. If a wild cockatoo's squawk wasn't bad enough, these cockatoos have been raised in a chicken coop so they sqwak-a-cluck. Like a bee-awk-a-squawk. A cockachicken. A pain in the ass.

It's still summer vacation for kids in queensland, so all of their kids make as much noise as possible during the day. Running back and forth through their house (echoes across and sounds like people are running in our house. it's weird) Screaming.

They like to find any excuse to use a chainsaw, woodchipper, leaf-blower or any other kind of loud power tool spontaneously at 8am on a Saturday, or 8pm at times (which is almost as bad.)

Every other night their dogs woof-woof-woof and bark-bark-bark and woof-bark-woof for hours.

To add insult to injury, as soon as they moved in they proceeded to hack and cut back at all the vines, trees and foliage that would have created any kind of noise barrier or privacy screen between their yard and ours.

I have come to conclude that our neighbors must be deaf.

Happy

Looking back on my previous posts, it's unbelievable to see what a negative change occurred over the past 5 months. It's obvious even in my blog how emotionally shattered I was by the pressures of that job and I'm so glad to be out of that environment! I feel like I'm getting back to me now. :)

Chris had 10 days off for Christmas so today was my first day at home by myself since I left work. It's so nice to not be stressed any longer! I have SO much to do around the house that it's overwhelming (it's gotten in such a state!) but I'm just going to have to chip away at it a bit at a time. I have about 12 baskets of dirty laundry to wash (it's already sorted so at least there's that) a mountain of dishes and our bedroom looks like a bomb hit it. ahh! Boy do I miss the days where, when you let your mess get bad enough, your mom came in and cleaned it all up for you. ha!

Christmas



How was my Christmas? As good as could be expected. The only way I could get through it without being completely depressed was to pretend that it wasn't actually Christmas and we were just at Chris's family reunion-- silly, I know, but it is what it is. Since this is a public blog I'll keep the rest of my potential whinge-fest to myself and just say that I'm glad it's over. I was really glad to be able to talk to my sisters heaps and my parents for a little bit. The best thing that happened was when a package arrived the morning of Christmas Eve and it had all the presents from my mom and dad in it. Chris made us coffee and breakfast and we opened the package and it was like our own little Christmas morning. Next time I think what we'll do is go spend Christmas eve and Christmas morning with Chris's family and then leave to spend that evening of Christmas day as just the two of us and have the morning of Boxing Day be like our Christmas morning at home. That's when we'd open any gifts from my family and exchange the gifts we gave to each other and just pretend it was Christmas. Because why not? I wish we'd done that this year, but I hadn't fully though through how everything was going to work yet. Our next Aussie xmas is going to be infinitely better, guaranteed. Life is too short to be miserable over the holidays. :)

Fashion

I am SO excited to be able to bust out some cold-weather fashion in a few weeks. I haven't had an excuse to really fix my hair, let alone plan a real outfit in a loooooong time, so color me ecstatic. :) I've started a style file on my desktop (it lives next to my hair file. They're bffs.) and have started to accumulate a lot of cool looks I'd love to try. I made two day time and night time looks just for fun. I got the idea from the Polyvore website and just dragged each clothing item into photoshop and pasted it all together. It's really cool how easily you can fit a picture of a sweater from one designer onto jeans from an entirely different website because all the mannequins are the same size. It was fun! Here they are:


I'm in love with this look! I've seen a few different version of it now with the denim style shirt and ivory cardigan but this one I've put together is my favorite. I need to find a Chambray shirt, stat! And oxfords in my size. Wish I could have the green Balenciaga too but I don't think that's happening in this lifetime. :-D



I'm also loving the top-knot hair right now. I started seeing it two years ago in Brisbane (I swear Australians are more up on fashion trends than Americans on average, they're always two years ahead!) mostly on teenage girls, and I thought it was so cute. I called it the "brisbane bun" because it was literally everywhere. And now it was one just about every runway this fall and so I've been trying to rock it out lately. My hair is kind of short to make it as pretty as I'd like, but I still think it's working for me. I'm so relieved that something so incredibly easy to style is on-trend at the moment. You don't have to straighten or blow dry your hair for this one!

I love this look equally as much as the first one even though they're so different. :) This look is kind of technology/ space inspired. Definitely a modern 80's vibe. I think those hinged rings are so cool, they would make me feel like a robot. In a good way. I hope I can rock out something similar to this when we go out for my bday drinks next month. :)


Wii



We bought a Wii back in November and it's our first gaming system. I love it! My fave game is Epic Mickey. ^^ I play it all the time now when I'm avoiding cleaning the house. I think maybe I'll buy one of those Wii fit things or those personal trainer game things tomorrow to see how I like it because they're supposed to be really good. I need to get back into the swing of exercising again now that my job isn't going to be so active and I think using the Wii could be a fun addition to the gym. What do you think?

Movies


Tomorrow When The War Began (Theatrical Trailer)


I saw the movie "Tomorrow When the War Began" a couple days ago with beebs and it's REALLY good. I'm shocked at how well executed it was because, frankly, most Australian films I've seen have a painfully low-budget vibe and are full of bad acting. This movie was so good though! It's based on a book from one of Chris's favorite child-hood series by John Marsden so I'm really excited to read the series now.

I think Inception is my favorite movie of the moment though. If you haven't seen it, go rent it now! It reminds me of the Matrix in some ways (so of course I love it) but it's executed in a new way. It brings to life the fantasy of "what if I could control my dreams" or, if you've ever had a particularly fantastic dream, "what if I could make this last forever?" I really hope there's going to be a sequel because the way it ends would be INFURIATING without a sequel! Such a good ending, but I don't want it to be over yet.










That's all the blog I have for now! Hopefully it was enjoyable. :)

Ready to end so I can begin!

I work all. the. time. About 50 hrs/wk every week (or 7 days as it were) and I am SO burnt out. I can't do this anymore! So I quit. ;) I can't believe I only just started this job 3 months ago, this is like the shortest I've ever been in a job but it feels as if I've aged 3 years in this 3 months. No amount of money is worth how I've felt lately. I gave them 6 weeks notice which means my last day is the 29th of December. It's crazy how a job that I initially loved turned out to be something that took sooo much out of me, isn't it?

I don't feel like re-hashing all the things I didn't like about the job because what it all boils down to is that I don't like being a manager. I like someone telling me what to do every day. I think I could be a great supervisor or department head or something...but I don't like being in charge of everything. It's just not for me! Also, since I don't plan on having a career in retail, there's not a lot of purpose in me putting so much time and energy into this job. We can afford for me to take some time off and re-think what's important to me. I'm traveling to DFW 26 Jan - 12 of Feb so I get to see my family which I've realized is REALLY important for me to do about every 6 months. I don't know that we'll always be able to afford to do that and, you know, i'd rather pay $1500 and spend time with the people I care about most than drop that money on the kitchen table or hair extensions or something equally silly that I don't really need.

The only sad thing about this is that my heart is in two places now. I'll be spending my bday in DFW now which means I won't have Beebs or Shlee or Chica with me, and that's sad too. I'm amazed at how much love one heart can hold! I feel so thankful that God has given me such dear friends here now because I'm sure you all remember a time when I felt all but alone here if not for Beebs. My bday won't be the same without my Aussie family, but it wouldn't be the same without my Texas family either. Always torn in two. Two home sweet homes. :)

On the work front, I only just found out that we have extended hours for the last 3 weeks of December. We're open until 6 pm on Christmas Eve!!!! That's later than usual and here I thought we'd be closing early. GRRRR! We're supposed to be driving out to Sarina beach to spend Christmas with Chris's family but I just don't see how that's possible. It's a 2 hour drive there and back which means that, by the time I close the store, take a shower, and drive to the beach it would already be like 10pm. Only to have to drive all the way back the next day to open the shop at 9am on Boxing Day. I have to play Devil's advocate here though because, if it was my family at Sarina, it would be worth it to me to drive out and back just to spend part of Christmas with them....so even though I could care less and it's a HUGE inconvenience....if Chris wants to go, I will go. And I won't mention the inconvenient part. lol I would want him to do it for me. Either way it won't be much of a Christmas this year, I think having it just the 2 of us would feel kind of sad/lonely. I don't know. We'd make it special I'm sure. Change is hard!

Back to the extended store hours....I think I'll have to be going into work late most days in order to not be over on my hours. Especially when we're open until 9, there's no way I can do 13 hour shifts every day! But there's no assistant manager....so what do we do? hrrmph.

Okay, just felt like I needed to blog update. There's TONS that's happened that I haven't updated on but I just can't be bothered. I'm too tired. I'm sorry!

Runaway home

Usually this is my favorite time of year. Usually I'm buzzing with excitement, planning christmas gifts and sipping pumpkin spice lattes all the way with Christmas music blasting from the speakers in the car.

Usually I'm happy.

this year I'm not. This year I'm stressed every waking moment of every day. I'm at work now and I'm fighting that all too familiar (if increasingly rare) feeling to runaway home. I just want to go home... But not the home down the street, the home that is so far away I couldnt run there if I tried.

I miss my family today. I miss the familiarity of the birds and trees and grass today. I'm missing sitting in traffic and singing to the radio today. The christmas music is sounding through the shop, but I'm missing my Christmas spirit today. I don't want to live here today. Today I want to be in the arms of those who know me like no one else can because they are the ones who made me who I am. Today I want to runaway home.

But tomorrow is a new day.

AWOL

I've been AWOL. I need to blog more. I know....

meh.