Concerning the Home

Chris and I have been talking a lot about home design in recent months and it's come to a point where I really have to start deciding what my style is!! I don't know how to describe what I'm looking for....maybe rustic? You know I love a good log cabin. :)

What I like:

I like old things. Call them vintage or antique or even new things made to look old, I love them. Give me peeling paint over a waxed finish any day!

I like midmod patterns for drapes, pillows and furniture.

I like a whitewash finish for furniture.

I like cozy, cluttered and lived-in vs. clean lines and minimalism.

I love bright colors. I love orange, turquoise and teal, yellow and red. Chris doesn't though...

I like crystal door knobs and cabinet/drawer pulls.

I like the contrast of rustic and modern in the same space.

I like wallpaper. A lot. Which is unfortunate since we're in a rental.



Those are the only things I know for sure. I'm going to be posting a lot more of my inspirations in coming weeks and, while it may seem a bit schizo at first, hopefully it will all be a lot more flowing and consistent by the time we're ready to make purchases.

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I could make an entire post all about kitchens but, since we're in a rental and it would only be torturous to fawn over what we can't change, I'll start in the dining room. I want a white table for sure. I noticed a lot of designers putting dark brown chairs with the whitewash tables and I like the idea of some contrast, but I think I'd really like to have turquoise chairs or something like that.










Another thing I always wanted was a window frame mirror. I want to hang one on the wall opposite the table:





I want to hang pictures and frames on the wall right next to the table. I think. Our clock is there at the moment, but I saw this at Tilman's Roadhouse on my bday and had never seen it done so randomly before. Very cool. :)




(mirror collage is cool too!)

I WILL own the Michael Aram twig cutlery set one day. Mark my words!

Crystal Renn

For those of you who aren't familiar with Crystal Renn, she is most known for being the most wanted supermodel in the Plus Size modelling and fashion industry. I think one of the greatest reasons for her fame is the fact that she started out like any other model but, after struggling and overcoming an eating disorder, she gained some weight and started working the plus-size circuit. She's been on both sides of the industry and was beautiful! A lot of people rejected the idea of her as "plus size" because I think the largest she ever wore was maybe a straight-size 14. Plus size by Australian and UK standards, but not American.

Recently she's taken the weight off again and is sitting at about 140 lbs which, considering she's the same height as me, I'd wager puts her in about a US size 8 or UK/AU size 14.


Her as a plus-size model working a bikini. Probably obvious here why a lot of true plus size ladies rejected the idea of her as plus size but still, a healthier role model than an anorexic, no?


And here's some very recent shots of her as the face of the 2011 Jimmy Choo campaign looking much slimmer. Now, I've seen what they do in photoshop to these campaign models so, based on her weight, I know there's no way her tummy is anywhere near as flat as the campaign suggests. But still, good on her for getting even healthier still! She's at the ideal weight for our height now(she's the same age as me too which is cool :) ) so I think everyone should just back off. She said she'd have to develop a binge-eating disorder to maintain the kind of size the public wanted from her as a plus size model and that, at the end of the day, that's not healthy either.

Crystal Renn is the picture of health now and has a multi-million dollar campaign to boot. She's more of a role model than she's ever been. Where I used to look to her for inspiration since she was so gorgeous as a size 12 and that's a realistic goal for me to work towards, I look to her even more now that she's proven it's possible to pull the weight off even further and maintain that and be even healthier without having to go to a gym 6 days a week. I love her. :)

My Choice

Summary

In summary, I am not a vegetarian. I'm not a vegan. I'll never follow either of these lifestyles perfectly because, at the end of the day, I do believe animals are here for our sustenance. However, I prefer to minimize the number of lives loss so that I might live. I'm currently exploring a more organic and vegan diet and am very curious about the positive impact this could have on my health and will be easing into it with a 6 week trial when I feel confident in my research. You don't have to agree with my reasons or the health impact either of these diets will have on my body, and I don't judge you for choosing differently, It's just something I've chosen for myself. If you'd like more details on why I made these choices, read further. Otherwise, you've got the gist now.

My Choice

A little over a year ago, I posted about my decision to start moving towards a more vegetarian lifestyle. In case you missed my original post, I'll explain a bit about my personal approach towards meat and animal by-products:

I am NOT a vegetarian. However, I do believe that all of us in the westernized world have become painfully detached from where our food comes from. I believe that if we all had to slaughter our animals before we would eat them, all of us would be a hell of a lot more conservative and thoughtful about how much meat we are eating. So I just try and be that thoughtful and conservative in my life towards meat and animal products (like eggs, dairy, leather, etc) in my day to day. Every peice of meat I eat or leather product I buy is a conscious decision. I take a moment every time to consider the life and death the animal may have had to endure to provide that product for me and I feel indebted and thankful. I'm grateful I don't have to slaughter my own meat because I don't know that I could, and the hypocrisy of that has resulted in a lot of long and deep thought for me.

Following a vegetarian lifestyle has been shockingly easy for me. Really. I have always said that could never adapt a vegan lifestyle though, because I'd have to lose all of my favorite things. I LOVE cheese and milk. I'm addicted. Literally, that's not a joke. I fully believe I have some kind of chemical addiction to the proteins in milk and cheese. I crave them! They make me happy. My heart sings for Babybel and fondue and margherita pizza. There's nothing like my morning latte to start the day. So when I started reading Skinny Bitch and they where hard-selling the vegan life-style I just sort of laughed it off. "no way!" I thought. I would never. I could never. It shocked me to say, by the end of the book, I was considering it. I mean, the book is extremely biased. There's a lot of obvious and unexplained holes and double standards in it that make me thankful I'm thoughtful and independent enough to do my own research before taking everything they say at face value. (there's quite a bit of fear-mongering in there that I don't buy into) But the thing that they got me thinking about more than anything else was the health effects of dairy on my body. The fact that I really do have a physical addiction to dairy to an unhealthy extent. They also spoke a lot about the effect that the additives and man-made ingredients can have on your system. And so I found myself considering veganism. Am I crazy?

I've started doing some of my own research to try and answer all the questions and fill some of the gaps the Skinny Bitch book created regarding levels of protien in the vegain diet, why B-12 is only in meat and where do I get iron from? I feel fully satisfied by the research I've done, and have decided to give veganism a try for purely health reasons. I have a little bit more research to do (you'd be SHOCKED how many things contain animal products, i.e. casien and gelatine) and I want to be sure I really do this right catalog the true effect this is going to have on my system so I'll start a 6 week trial when I feel confident I can do it right. Also, we have a LOT of food in the house that would be irresponsible to let go to waste on a whim so I need to reduce that stash before bringing all the vegan foods into the house.

Friend/Family and Stranger's Reactions

I'm so glad that Skinny Bitch touched on this subject because it is hard choosing to be different. The people closest to you start judging you and saying nasty things that, regardless of their intention, can be really hurtful. For some reason, everyone takes a person's choice to cut out meat or dairy extremely personally. I don't know why that is for sure. Skinny Bitch said it's because, especially when its for humanity reasons, people feel as though I'm judging them or that my calling my diet humane is also highlighting their diet as inhumane which can feel convicting to them. That makes sense to me. I have to say that it feels incredibly selfish for them to make my personal choice all about them, but whatevs. I feel better about it now that I can kind of understand why their impulse when I announce this decision is to say how they could never do it instead of saying that they're happy for me. Except that I guess no one really is happy for me.... (except Elisha. and Beebs. :) holla!) so I guess they just don't know what to say. My biggest reason for being afraid to take this step is that, if I stick with it, I'm going to have to explain myself to everyone around me for the rest of my life. So, I've decided to just not talk about it. When people try and attack me with "what about this nutrient and that nutrient and blah blah" I'm just going to tell them I don't feel comfortable talking about it. When people say "I don't think there's anything healthy about being vegan" I'll just say that I disagree and, if they try to argue with me, I'll say again that I don't feel comfortable talking about it anymore. Gosh, you'd think that I'd just come out of the closet or something! hahaha God gave people brains for a reason. If they're that curious they can research it for themselves. :)

Home Again!

My visit with my family in DFW has come to an end and now I'm finally back home again and it feels great!

It's gotten to the stage where I feel more out of place in DFW than I do in Moranbah! lol I never thought I'd be able to say that, but it's true. I use the "wrong" words for everything and people get confused. I feel completely lost and overwhelmed in the grocery store because it's so HUGE and there's so much to choose from! And the traffic...I don't get upset by traffic anymore. It's whatevs for me. But my family! It's so intense! I'm just like "it's ok, deep breaths!"

The weather did not stay nice for me unfortunately. It snowed and iced almost the entire time I was there and the air was frigid. So disappointing! Growing up in DFW, we would get maybe one day off from school a year due to sleet icing over all the roads, and there was maybe three to five times in my entire life I can remember snow falling from the sky (it NEVER stuck!) We would try to make snowmen out of sleet! No joke! So, the first time I saw real snow was in March 2008 actually. Chris was visiting the USA with me for the first time, and it was so unreal that it actually snowed for him! The roads were drivable though and the snow melted after a day. It's done something similar to that every year since then, but this year took the cake! FIVE DAYS of snow and icy roads. I'm sorry, but us Texans are just not cut out for that kind of miserable weather. We were stuck in the house every day for most of my trip because of it. :( I am never, I repeat NEVER, moving any further north than North Texas!! Snow is disgusting. I'm not a fan.

I got to do a lot of shopping, which is always fun. I'll do a separate post about my favorite purchases! I came home with about 15 new books as well. Crayzay! My suitcase was so heavy on the way back that all the wheels broke. Oops. hahaha

So, one of my biggest reasons for visiting home was to spend some time with my grandparents. They've both been in and out of the hospital in recent months and everyone had been really worried about them. I only got to see them about 5 out of the 16 days I was in town, which isn't as much as I'd like but I felt a lot better after getting to talk to them and see for myself what state they're in. Nothing in this life is sure, so I feel good that I got to see them as much as I did. :)

You know, visiting my parents in the house I grew up in is one of the most surreal experiences for me. I remember one day in particular, everyone but me was already asleep and it gave me a moment to just soak everything in. I try to explain what it's like to people and I've come up with a lot of different metaphors, but the best I can liken it to is as if I'm stepping inside a memory, or to time travel. My life in the USA has ceased to exist at this moment, it's dead. I've gone through all the steps of grief over its death and have finally come into my element and accepted my new life here in Moranbah and I'm HAPPY! So, when I visit my family, it feels incredibly unreal. Like visiting a ghost...ah. Every way I say it sounds weird! haha It's definitely a good feeling, but also hard to accept that I'm in reality. That drive home with Chris yesterday definitely felt a lot more like coming home than when I visited my family and it used to be the opposite. I love that. I've come so far. :)

Coffee Culture

The coffee culture in Australia is above and beyond that of anywhere I've been in the U.S. I mean, initially, the lack of Starbucks and other drive-thru style cafes in this region really bothered me. I'm an American after all and I'm very used to my convenience! As far as convenient coffee goes, the gas stations here in town (and also Subway) have these automatic espresso machines that, for $3.50 and a push of a button, will make you a short black, long black, flat white, latte, cappucino or mocha! And you know, the coffees not really all that bad. It's not even instant coffee! Alas, being American, the cup size of these coffees is painfully small for me and I'd have to buy 3 or 4 to equal one venti Starbucks and I just don't think coffee from a machine is worth $10/$12!

So, the lack of convenience out here is, well, inconvenient! But I must say that you can buy an espresso or latte just about anywhere. Even the hairdresser! I do just pine for a brewed coffee every now and again (automatic drip machine style) and the closest I can get to it is a cafe Americano (or long black) which brings me to the final realization of why the long black was called the Americano in the first place: we like our watered down coffee. lol It is really nice though knowing that absolutely any restaurant you go to will have given all their staff barista training and can make you a fresh cappuccino or latte without batting an eyelash. Even steak houses and Mexican restaurants have an espresso machine behind the counter. This is real coffee they make!

To Cream, to Whiten

Coffee creamer--or whitener as they call it here--is not very common. When I explain to Aussies what we put in our coffee, and then the extent to which it is available and the flavor choices, they are more than intrigued. I can find Coffee-mate here, but only in those tiny little cups and it is EXPENSIVE. Not worth it. The powdered version is really easy to come by and, when I first moved here, the powdered Coffee-mate (available only in the original flavor) is what I used to whiten my coffee. Most people just use milk in their coffee, and now I do too. I used to look forward to visiting home and have my creamer again but, honestly, I'm not really a fan of it anymore. When I do have it, I miss the taste of the coffee that gets lost in the French Vanilla or White Chocolate Macadamia nonsense. I like a splash of whole milk, plain and simple, these days. It's an Australianism I think will stick with me for life, right up there with the ketchup on my eggs. lol

Aussie Coffee-isms At Home

• Instant
  

Aussies love their instant coffee. I remember the first time I came to visit Chris and we stayed at the family beach house and I asked where their coffee pot was only to be told there wasn't one. REALLY?? Then he pulled out a jar of little black granules: instant coffee. Now, I'm not really a stranger to instant coffee. My grandmother calls it "sissy coffee" in the form of those General Foods International coffee mixes which were a dorm-room staple for me, and I always had some instant Folgers in my locker at work for those Saturday night shifts that would push into the wee hours of the morning. But I always saw instant coffee as something a person drinks out of necessity, i.e. when there is no other option due to space or time constrictions. Not so in Australia! I actually have a few friends who prefer instant to absolutely anything else. God bless them. ;) Auto-drip machines are not unheard of, but really are few and far between. Nescafe is an Aussie staple and, while I appreciate it for what it is, I still can only see it as a backup for when I run out of coffee and the shop is shut. Sorry Nescafe!

• Plunger

French Press, or "plunger" coffee as the call it here, is actually really incredible in its own right. This was my first go-to coffee brewing method. Now, you may be asking why I didn't just buy an auto-drip machine. Well, I did actually! But the coffee is ground differently here and it just doesn't taste right from the machine, it's always full of grounds. So then I bought my own coffee grinder, but the coffee still just doesn't taste right. I think it might be our machine, it gives a bit of a plastic-y after taste...I've given up either way. Plunger coffee is beautiful. On particularly sleepy mornings, I love being able to just dump 3 or 4 T of coffee into the plunger, cover it in boiled water and then slump on the couch while it brews on the table next to me. No additional effort required! Just push the plunger down after about 4/5 minutes and you're good to go. This is also nice when I have a friend over because I can just set the coffee on the table while we chat and have my little cup of milk and bowl of sugar ready and waiting. There's something intimate about a plunger brew, I actually quite prefer it to drip coffee now. :) You will be far more likely to come across a plunger in an Aussies home as their way of preparing brewed coffee (vs. instant) before you'll find a drip machine.

• Espresso

The cultured Aussies have espresso machines in their homes and they know how to use them. I'm joking about the cultured part, but really, it's not unusual for people to own an espresso machine here and use it regularly. I love going to a friend's place and, when they offer me a coffee, it comes out as this cafe-worthy creation complete with a dusting of chocolate powder across the micro-foam. I LOVE that! This is by far my favorite at-home brewing method because the result is something worth savoring. It feels special and expensive even though it costs the same to make as a regular coffee with milk, it's a really beautiful thing.

The Art of Espresso

I was considering why espresso machines aren't as common back home and I've come to the conclusion that it's because Americans do value their convenience so much. We want things as fast as possible with as little effort as possible. I also think there's this misconception that you have to spend thousands of dollars on a machine to make a good espresso or, worse, that all espresso machines actually cost thousands of dollars. (false, btw ;) ) So, in the mind of my fellow Americans, it must take more effort to brew a latte or cappucino than it does to fill the machine with water and walk away. Plus, it's got to be expensive.

In reality, I can make a latte faster than I could wait for a plunger or drip machine to brew a cup of coffee. It takes 20 seconds to pull a shot of espresso. It takes a further 30 seconds to steam the milk. So, really, it takes me less than a minute to have a latte in my hands. Cost-wise, per cup, my latte is exactly the same as my coffee with milk. The milk expands when you steam it so it feels like there's more milk there than there really is, but it's no more than you'd use to whiten a typical brew and, if you're someone who uses creamer, the milk is even cheaper than that stuff.

Effort-wise? It does take more effort to brew an espresso-based coffee. It may take less time, but, if you have a cheap machine without automatic shut-off like I do, you have to turn the dial off to stop from over-steaming the grounds and then you have to hand-steam the milk which does take practice. I used to think making espresso makes a mess, but if I clean the milk jug and wipe down the steam wand straight away, it doesn't really. I know I can't dream of converting everyone to a latte or two every morning, but I myself am really thankful that I've expanded my horizons and am able to partake in some beautiful espresso every morning. If I hadn't moved here, I'd still be drinking auto-drip Folgers with a splash of French Vanilla w/Splenda creamer every morning. I think I've come out on the better side of things. :)

Fun fun fun

It just occurred to me why I booked my flight from Mackay to Brisbane in the middle of the week! I'd been sitting here thinking I was an idiot, and wracking my brain trying to figure out what the HELL I was thinking! When it dawned on me: Wednesday is Australia Day. A public holiday. A day Chris has off from work! So, he can drive me to the airport and all of the previous stress and drama surrounding how and when I'd be able to get to Mackay are forgotten. That is such a relief, I can't say it enough!

So, I'm on the third day of Operation: Defy Jetlag. The way this works is that each day, for the week leading up to my flight, I slowly flip my body clock so that I'm on Texas time. It's been tough because, unlike if I was resetting in Texas, it's still daylight here while I'm trying to sleep at the moment. So I keep waking up after 4 hours sleep wide awake and ready to go, not so good. I've had 8 hours sleep in the last 48 and feel fine! Crayzay. lol So, I've been awake since 4:30pm yesterday and it's now 10:30am. I'd like to make it to noon (8pm CST) before I go to sleep and hopefully I'll be able to stay asleep until 6 or 7 tonight (2/3am CST.) I know, 8pm-3am are still weird hours to be sleeping, but it's better than my usual schedule which would be 8am-6pm!

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On a random note,on date night a few weeks back, Beebs surprised me with a gift certificate to the spa for a neck, back and shoulder massage! So I'm going to cash that in on Monday and I also booked to get gel nails and toes! I haven't had a pedicure since October, so I'm REALLY looking forward to it. :-D Just had to share that cause I'm so excited!

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I went to the pub for the first time in 3 months last night and, you know, I think that I've officially had my fill of the Moranbah pub scene. All the things that I used to hate about bars are bugging me again. Mostly the loud music, the smoke and the creepy men. Add to it that they serve approximately ZERO of my favorite drinks (can't even make a martini) and going there is just a waste of my money. Next time a friend wants to go to the pub, I'm just going to invite them over here or maybe to a restaurant instead. The only reason I started going to the pub in the first place was to meet new people and try to get some social time in, but I have good friends now that I get to spend a lot of time with outside of the pub and I feel like I've met just about everyone I care to at this stage....so my pub days have come to a close. I'm just a little bit over it, and that's ok. :)

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Only 4 days til I visit home!

Astrological Signs

So, based on all the Facebook status...statii? Anyways. ;) Based on all of the updates by my friends, they have apparantly decided to officially update the astrology calendar thing to reflect the actual constellations of today. Why am I the only one for whom this is not news??? I've been reading/hearing for years that the current calendar was outdated by something like thousands of years which means that anyone who actually believes in their horoscope is most likely reading the wrong one. That said, if you believe in astrology, your sign has ALWAYS been whatever the new calendar says it is. Nothing has changed, you've just been educated. If you feel like your previous outdated sign really described you spot on, I think that's just further proof how little stock you should place in star signs. I'm just sayin.