It's only friday!

It's only Friday and it feels like Saturday! haha LOVE it!

Chris and I didn't bbq last night so we're doing chilli dogs tonight. MMM mmmm....

Oh, and the house is STILL spotless! It did take an hour this morning to get it back that way....(BEATING) but it's better than the 5 hours it took before, so I think I might try the 1 hr on Saturday thing and see how we go.

In other news, I was attacked by my previous manager at Cole's and he's offered to find me a full time job. :) Nothing's set in stone, but they have a position opening up as an "orderer" (uh..easy. I did that every day at Target.) He doesn't know I'm leaving for 4 weeks in dec/jan, but that may not matter. Then again maybe it will, meh. The cool thing is that I'd go into work at 4am and be off before lunch. AWESOME!! This job would allow me the flexibility to be involved in all the programs I want to and STILL get paid. Chris is up at 4:30 every morning anyways, so we'll just have him up an hour earlier and go to bed and hour earlier. Hopefully. Anyways, like I said, nothing's set in stone and I don't have my heart set on it or anything because I feel really at-peace about the volunteering next year but this would be a great way to pay off debts and buy new chairs and sound system for the church and lease a car and all these THINGS that cost money whether we like it or not. Please pray for guidance for the manager to make the best decision for the store! I just think of how much the church could *really* use that money right now and how awesome it would be to just pour it into sprucing the place up and I can't help but get excited!
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Bad Trend of the Day: "Paper Bag" shorts
aka Diaper Shorts or worse-than-Walking-Shorts

This is yet another style that can only (kind of) be pulled of by a 5'10" size 2 woman. If this is not you, please refrain from going anywhere near them!!

I was personally offended when a fashion mag I purchased today suggested that women with curvy thighs wear these "shorts with volume" and included a picture of a plus size (almost identical to my figure) woman wearing Paper Bag shorts WITH FRONT PLEATS as if this was a good idea. HELLOOO!! If you have curvy thighs, STAY AWAY FROM SHORTS altogether, and opt for a-line skirts and dresses in the summer instead! DUH! ::sigh:: As if adding volume to an area of your body would make it look slimmer. They should fire their stylist.

Offendors:





If you wear Paper Bag shorts, don't take offense. Just please, don't ever wear them again.
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So...I looked ALL OVER for Grenadine, or cherry syrup, or cherry cordial, or cherry essence/extract or SOMETHING so we could make cherry coke....Nothing. Nowhere. Really?? Really. Apparantly Australia does not share America's affinity for cherry flavored things. Raspberry? Sure! Strawberry? Of course! Cherry is just a bit too hard to manage in Moranbah though...ahh well. I had a moment of hope when I saw a cafe here had Grenadine syrup on their counter...alas. At least I know I can order it.

This reminds me of a Facebook status I posted the other day about fountain drinks! So...

Culture Clash of the Day

I miss drink fountains. Quik Trip's (QT) drink fountains in particular!



For the Aussies (pronounced "ozzee" not "ossee" btw ;) ) a drink fountain bev. is called "post mix." I'm not unfamiliar with this term as that's what we called it when I worked in restaurants, but most people I know refer to them as "fountain drinks" and the machine you get it from as a "drink fountain."

In America:

Any time you order a soft drink at a restaurant, it will usually cost you about $2.50 and will be served as "post-mix" or from a "fountain" on ice. You have unlimited refills at no additional charge. This is the same whether you are in a full-service restaurant or a fast-food restaurant. All gas-stations (or servos for the Aussies) have drink fountains where you can buy a 32oz of soft drink for $1.50, less at some places. QT does a promotion in the summer where any 32oz beverage (including iced coffees, frappes, slushees, etc. ) are 60 cents. In the winter you can get all 32oz warm beverages for 60 cents. Most gas-stations charge about half price for refills.

In Australia:

What you see is what you get. Any time you order a soft drink at a restaurant you will usually be offered the choice between a can or a bottle and they will pour it over ice for you. I'm not sure of the avg. price but I know I've paid 2.50 for a can at a few different places. Some full-service places will bring the drink to you in a glass bottle (which holds about the same amount as a can but costs more.) If you want another drink, you pay full price and are bought another can or bottle. The only places I've been offered a fountain drink as the "norm" is American fast food places like McDonalds or Burger King. I'm not sure if refills are free though. Aussie fast food restaurants offer you a can with "small" value meals and a 16oz bottle with "regular" and a 20oz with "large" meals.



The aussies on Facebook argued that "you can't beat a coke from a glass bottle" and that's fair enough. But, I'd say you can't beat the value of a fountain drink with unlimited refills and it tastes pretty darn good too. Someone else said "why would you want more than one in one sitting? they're so unhealthy. water all the way!" (as if they're the picture of perfect health. HA!) and to that I say they're just trying to stir people up. In the same way you go to a bar and expect to be able to get ice cold beer on tap, I expect the same thing when it comes to soft drinks. Sure the beer tastes great from a bottle, but it's cheaper on tap and doesn't taste half bad to boot. ;) At the local pub, coke costs even MORE on tap than it does in a can. That's just re-damn-diculous. I don't care who you are. It costs them like 25 cents (or less) for as much post-mix as one drink uses and they want more than $2.50 for it (about 12oz) . ::barf::

QT Self-Serve Soft Drink and Slushee stations



QT Self-Serve Coffee, Frappe and Latte station:




What makes QT unique is that you can add flavored carbonated syrups to your soft-drinks or creamed syrups to your coffee for no additional charge, so you can have a cherry-vanilla coke or a white-chocolate-macadamia coffee for the same price as unflavored.

I'm not going to be able to replace alllll that lovin' for a single over-priced coke in a glass bottle. Sorry!



Anyways...I must admit it's been within the past 10-15 years or so that American places have started doing the free-refills all the time thing. (Which goes without saying that Australia will join in sometime in the NEXT 15-20 years because that's just the way things have been running) I can remember when a refill at McDonalds was 25 cents and Chilli's charged per-beverage. It just goes to show how smart those shops with free refills are with marketing. I might have ordered water before since it was free, but if I have unlimited refills on a coke I might as well order one of those and make it count. Or QT's Cheap Drink Summer is AWESOME marketing because, where I might have gone to Walmart to buy gas before, I'm DEF going to QT now to get a drink and one for a friend because that deal is just too good to pass up. Where I might have bought no drinks from them all summer otherwise....I'd go in 4 times a week during their drink sale. It's sneaky because you're not really saving any money at all that way......but it's tasty either way. ;)

Today

Thanks for all the comments on my emo post!!

I don't think that middle school and high school deserve an entire post of their own. Well. High school probably does for entirely different reasons, but that's for another day and maybe isn't stuff that I want strewn across a public blog....but I digress. ;)

It took me a long time to find beauty in myself. I used to spend so much time obsessing over trying to make my hair look thin and straight like the "popular" girls and I learned as I got older that people would kill to have a mane of thick voluminous hair that does anything I tell it to (except be flat and lifeless ;) ) I used to obsess over (sorry if TMI!) why my bra cups never runneth over, or even filled out and now I see that, not only do mine make me look 20 lbs thinner, I can wear shirts as low cut as I want without it being pornographic. I am one of the heaviest girls I know, but I can slap on a pair of spanx, a cute dress and some makeup and flaunt it with the skinniest of them and still believe that I look as good as they do and wonder how well they could flaunt it at 200 lbs. I think that's what confidence as a woman is all about; accepting who you are in your own skin no matter what size or shape you are and the fact that you can be JUST AS BEAUTIFUL as someone half your size (if not moreso.)

I've come a LONG way from that sad 10 y/o girl, but I honestly think that it's all about your attitude. I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for where I'd come from so I wouldn't change a thing in that sense, for myself. But I think that the tools I've learned to find confidence in myself, or to find the light in the darkness as Nelson so eloquently put it, are things that you can learn at any age and I aim to go out there and uplift girls who need that boost. I've been thinking a lot about motivational speaking lately and how I could get started on a program for pre-teens and teens....I am looking into degree programs online (no universities 'round here) that could combine youth ministry with counseling and so on and I'm thinking of how all these things could combine to make a difference.

I just want every girl to know that they are beautiful and deserving of love and friendship and so much more. On top of that I'd like to have some kind of an education program for...would you call it bullying? I don't know that I was neccessarily bullied. I don't know. I'm going to do some reasearch into existing programs, if they're out there, and find out how to bring them to Moranbah and the surrounding rural areas and what kind of work and costs that would entail in the long run of things. Programs take years and years to build up, so if there's something out there with materials and media already set then I could easily figure out how to implement them locally.

Anyways, long story short is that I've lived an awesome life. I have a better relationship with my parents than absolutely anyone I know and I cherish that even more now that they're so far away. I have a charming, handsome, gentleman of a husband the likes of which they write Romantic Comedies about and dear friends for whom I would give my life in a heartbeat. I couldn't ask for more in life and, even though it's hard being far away, I'm genuinely happy with the way things have panned out so don't feel sorry for me. ;)
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I went to play Mahjong with Debra and some of her friends today. It was a fun game, I'd never played before! It's nice to get out of the house and have conversations with people, although I do wish I could meet more people round my own age. All anyone my age seems interested in doing per extracurricular activities is going to the pub and getting drunk. They feel like that's "all there is to do" and they're mostly right, but I'm just not interested in that kind of lifestyle at all. It's SO hard on your body when all you do is get drunk on the weekends and most of the time all I want to do is hang out and catch up anyways. Sure it's not a big deal to do it over a bottle of wine or even two, throw a board game into the mix and you've got a party. ;) But I'm really just not into pubs with heaps and heaps of "old guys" gawking at you and it's so LOUD....Moranbah tends to be a bit cliquey as well, and I'm just not interested in bowing down to the "queens" of Moranbah. Get OVER yourselves ladies, how sad that your goal in life is still to be "coolest." ::barf:: I honestly don't know how to distinguish them much from the Mean Girls in 5th grade, go figure.

What do y'all think about me starting an Ellen fan club? I think it could be cool. :) I just watch Ellen everyday by myself and it would be so much fun to have anyone over for coffee and just watch together and laugh and cry together....I just don't know if that seems like something anyone would want to do. I guess it would be weird having perfect strangers in my house....maybe I'll see if my friends like Ellen and if they want to watch with me. :) They all have babies/small children though so I am always afraid to invite them over because I don't know how hard it is to pile your kids in the car and go to visit a house where there isn't also other kids and toys and things. Any thoughts are welcome!

That's all I have to say for now. Beebs is home soon and we're having a bit of a date night tonight. We're thinking grilling up some meat and having a few drinks sounds nice and relaxing. :) He's had a big week so it'd be nice for him to be able to kick back.

Love y'all tons! Start a blog please, I really will read and comment every day. You can ask the people whose blogs I already follow. :)

Lighter Note

My posts have been decidedly darker than usual. I thought I should add a random post about dryers.

So, I'm in the market for a dryer... the ones I see in tv commercials when I'm in Texas look like this:

But the only ones I can find here look like this:



I did find one that looks like the ones I thought dryers looked like these days but it was like $2000. ::groan:: Maybe we will just have to have an ugly dryer. But most of them are SUPER tiny too...and I know that when we get a dryer we will run it into the ground before we buy a new one and so I'd like for it to be a large capacity in case we have the same one when we have kids (and things like a load of whites is large capacity anyways.) The biggest I can find is like 7kg. I would also like it to be a steam dryer....but those seem to be really expensive here. ::sigh::

Just for once, just one time, I would like to have something I assume to be "the norm" and "totally accessible" to actually BE "the norm" and "totally accessible." That's all I have to say. That and also if you can find a dryer that meets my specs I'd love you foreva! ;)

Growth

Helloo!!

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween. :) Ours didn't turn out quite like I'd planned, but it wasn't bad. I wanted to watch this marathon of Halloween tv shows, make Halloween cookies and just hang out with Beebs...but we ended up going to Graham and Deb's place and having dinner....which took a lot longer than I expected and we didn't get a chance to do anything remotely Halloweeny. :( Oh well.

In other news, the house is completely spotless! I did some garge sale-ing with Debra on Saturday morning and got some really pretty bowls and plates and things that suit our neutral theme in the living room, so I've displayed them on the shelves in there and it looks really nice. It's just nice to be in a clean house! Chris and I are naturally extremely disorganized and messy people (a blessing actually because I'd drive him insane otherwise) so who knows how long the house will stay this way. It will be nice while it lasts though!

Amelia sent Bean a new collar in the mail!! He's never had a collar with a bell on it before and was freaking out trying to figure out where the ringing was coming from! Click on the first picture in my Flickr Stream on the left to watch a video of him doing back-flips across the living room trying to catch sight of the bell, or click here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43479003@N03/4063020647/

Bean can now not only play "fetch" but "catch" as well. If we throw the ball down the hall, he'll chase it, bring it back and place it in our hand. Now if you throw the ball directly at him, he'll jump 18 inches off the ground and catch the ball between his paws every time. He's awesome!! Coolest cat I've ever had, hands down he just takes the cake. :) It's too bad most of y'all haven't been able to meet him yet!!

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We've also planted some new shrubs in the garden. We've had them for almost a month now but only just decided to plant them in the pots we've gotten. They actually look really really nice and make a big difference to the side of the house! We've thrown Miracle Gro all over the lawn in front of the picket fence and on the left side of the yard. The lawn in front of the fence is responding nicely, but the lawn on the left side of the backyard is still grey and dead. :( I hope it comes up!! It's REALLY hard to have a green lawn here though with all the water restrictions (sprinkling M & F between the hours of 5-9 pm ONLY. Hand watering Tues. Wed....something like that) and I don't know if we'll ever manage to have a completely patch-free yard but we're going to try!!


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I talked to Debra about how I've been feeling about next year. I really want to do a hairdresser apprenticeship...but I just couldn't feel "at peace" about it. I know that God needs me in Moranbah and I feel like I could make a big difference here as far as the programs for youth are concerned which is why I feel like I'm supposed to be here, like the youth are my purpose....I just feel like locking myself into a 3 year apprenticeship would mean giving up any opportunities to work with youth during that period. I'd be too tied down and I think I need flexibility right now. I'm also having a hard time playing "the game" in Moranbah which is sooo "not what you know but who you know" that it makes me want to scream. No one wants to hire you for the 9-5 type jobs if you're not "a local" or if they're not familiar with your family or your husband, etc. etc. It doesn't matter how hard you work, if someone else comes in who's best friends with the boss's wife or has a good reference with the manager's golf buddy they'll get the job over you every time. I'm not used to that....but I know that I need to get my face in the community if I'm going to gain the trust of the community. SO Debra and I decided that I should go on like, a volunteering spree next year and forget about the job for now. I'm going to volunteer at the Salvation Army, MDSS, HS "tuck shop", RE program, Lifeline and whatever else I can find. I'm just going to dive in and tell them I have absolutely nothing to do and would love to help whenever and however they need me. I would LOVE to just be involved and meet people and make a difference. :)

There's also some high school aged girls at church (maybe 3?) and I'd really like to get to know them and see if they'd like to start a girls youth group of some kind. I'd provide food and fun and they just show up. I wouldn't want it to be like a bible study or anything, just a place where they can come with their friends and know that no one will judge them, there's no "in" group and they're all just friends hanging out. I'm excited about it. :) I think it'd be cool to do a craft each week like jewelry or something.....I dunno. I'll talk to them and see if we should set up a meeting with their parents to get something started.

There was 22 people at church on Sunday, btw!!!! This is HUUGE compared to the 3 people in September. In a population of 6000, that is a really big deal. Percentage-wise, if we were in Fort Worth with a pop. of 720k (not counting surrounding cities that some churches attract attendance from) it would be as if 2600 people came to your church when your avg. attendance is 360 people. I just had to be excited with you!!

Gotta go to bed now, but I love y'all and can't wait til the next update. YOU should start a blog if you don't have one. I would read all the time. Promise. ;)

No Regrets

In response to a post on the blog "I Am Ashley's Smirking Revenge:" Click Here to read it.



I hold onto the mantra "Carpe Diem" like my life depends on it. I think the unusual way my life has panned out compared to the norm is a testament to the fact that I really do try to sieze every opportunity and really strive to make every moment and every breath count. I never want to be that person that looks back on my life and wonders "what if." I want to know "what if," because I DID "if."

We don't get to choose when it's our time to go. So many of us assume that we will have the luxury of dying in our sleep at a ripe old age surrounded by those we love. Unfortunately the truth is that every 5 minutes, someone dies of an accidental death. These are perfectly healthy people minding their own business who wake up one morning, go about their routine, and never wake up to another day again. Even more people are given death sentences in the form of incurable illnesses. These people thought it could never happen to them. They thought they had all the time in the world. They never saw it coming.

We don't get to choose when it's our time to go but we can choose to seize the day. We can choose to do today what we've been putting off until tomorrow. We can choose to spend time instead of money. We can choose to smile instead of frown and laugh instead of cry. We can choose to volunteer and choose to make a difference when there's nothing in it for us. We can choose to love instead of hate and build up instead of tear down. We can choose not to judge those we don't understand and we can choose to stand up for what we know is right in the face of adversity. We can choose to say, "I love you" every day and we can choose whether we mean it or not.

We can choose not to have regrets. There are so many arguments we can choose not to have. So many hurtful things we can choose not to say. So many people we can choose to uplift. So many ways you could choose to make a difference. So many ways you could make your life bigger than yourself. So many ways.

What would you do if you had 24 hours left to live? Would you have regrets? What changes could you make to your every day life to ensure you have none? More importantly, what would you do if your spouse only had 24 hours left to live? Dying is easy, but losing your spouse isn't so much...would you have regrets regarding your attitude or the time you spend together? What changes could you make to your life to ensure these regrets were no longer an issue?

There are so many people who devote the majority of their lives to getting ahead in their career, to making money, to being "successful." I wonder if these people have ever stopped to realize there is more to life than money and status. I wonder what these people will regret.

You don't get to choose which day is your last, so live each day like there's no tomorrow. You never know.

Nanny 911

Any time I think I want a baby, I just watch Nanny 911 and I remember how much I cherish our "Just the Two of Us" time at the moment sans tantrums and potty training. :) I think I'm too selfish to have babies right now. I like having my days to myself, sleeping in, reading a book and having Beebs all to myself in the evenings when he's home from work. I like being able to pick up and leave town on a whim every weekend if I want to and I like being able to catch up for coffee with friends without having to consider a babysitter or what to do with The Kids. I know, some day, I will want to give all that up and for my whole being to revolve around someone else's needs and wants.....but for the time being I'm really happy just being concerned with myself and my marriage. I think if we added a baby to the mix, it would be like building a foundation on sand and would be really difficult to find stability in our relationship again once the attention shifted from us and our needs to the needs of someone else.

All that considered... (and now that I've made it obvious I'm not pregant. lol) I do think about baby names a lot. :) (Doesn't every girl?)

My fave girl's name of the moment is Wrenalee. How pretty is "Wrenalee Wood?"I thought I'd made it up, but I did find one instance of it on the internet so there's at least one baby out there with it as a name. lol

Thoughts:

I've had people tell me that it's going to be a nightmare when she's in school because of how it's spelled and most people won't know how to pronounce it and la la la. It makes me wish Amelia was here because SHE of all people could appreciate the beauty in a name like Wrenalee. Even if I can't appreciate the beauty in some of her baby name choices. lol

I can safely say that I have had my name misspelled my entire life and it is one of the most common names in the country. I at least changed the spelling from "Leigh" to "Lee..." So there's that argument dead. I agree that people may not know how to pronounce it initially; pronounced wren-uh-lee, like Natalie but with Wren instead of Nat. But, I think that if we keep her within the same school system that most classmates will be used to her name and it will only be the teachers that have to pronounce it at the beginning of the school year. I think it's a beautiful name and it's rarity makes it a special gift in my eyes. Maybe I want such a unique name because of how common mine is. I could never go through school without another Melissa or 5 in my class, even with another Melissa White in my high school and yet ANOTHER Melissa White in my dorm at UNT. Something else people have said is "You could call her 'Wren' for short" Yeah...no. She would be Wrenalee. Maybe Wrena for short, but not Wren....hellllooo "Ren and Stimpy" anyone? She'd always be Wrenalee to me.

Anyways, I'm just speculating on a beautiful name for my hypothetical daughter that hopefully will remain hypothetical until at least 2016.

One more thing...

I've got some steaks on the "barby" hahahahahaha and a little bit of free time while things heat up so I thought I'd post some things I forgot to earlier.

I booked my return flight today, so I'll be in Watauga from the 21st December - 20th January. Chris is going to be visiting from the 23rd December - 2nd January. He did get some more time off, yay!! But not as much as would have been ideal. :( Booooo. But he did get the WHOLE week of my birthday off! YAY!! The Taylor Swift concert is that Monday in Newcastle, so hopefully we can spend Tuesday (my bday) in Sydney! Swanky. ;) So far I only have my flights booked through to LosAngeles, so I still need to book the flights to DFW. I'm hoping to find a deal....lots of deals in Jan. but, of course, everybody and their bro. wants to fly the same date as me. It has really paid to wait to book until closer to the date in the past so, at this point, that's what I'm going to do.

Someone came to our church on Sunday to try to recruit "RE" Teachers or "Religious Education" teachers for the high school. Apparently, once a week, all the kids split off into their declared religions for 30 minutes of "Religious Education." Most people are too scared to volunteer for the high school kids, but I'd really love to do that! I'm also interested in applying for the chaplaincy next year but I'm not really sure how all that works. I just think I could really relate to the kids and become, hopefully, a positive Christian role model in their lives where there wouldn't be one otherwise. So far the only strong Christian role models I've seen in town are more like mother/father figures and I can speak from experience to what a difference it can make in kids lives to have someone younger in that mentor role, someone who they feel "gets it" when mom and dad don't. I'm not sure how these things would affect my ability to do an apprenticeship next year, but I know God didn't put me in Moranbah to cut hair. That was more a "me" thing because it would be a fun way to work hard and pass the time. I'd be happy to give it up to try and make an impact in the lives of the youth here since that's why I feel like I'm here in the first place. Every little bit makes a difference, hey?

Chris came home from work today with flowers in hand. :) I just had to brag on him again.