American Adventures
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Aussie Expats Update – Our Expat Australia Day & Other Tales
Friday again—where does the week go? We’re off to yet another ball tonight, since James’s Brigade decided that celebrating St Barbara’s Day when it’s meant to be celebrated (in December), is lame, and we’re much better off doing it in late January. The big upside is that I’m going to paint my toenails red and James’s sister, Amy, will be coming with us: so hopefully we will all get out of it alive! I can’t, however, promise that I won’t eat other people’s desserts. I’ll try to restrict myself to just two or three. We’re greatly looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing this weekend (though we’ve got…
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Aussie Expats Update – Uni Break and another 2017 Bulletin!
Happy Friday everyone! Well, James and I are currently hoofing (great word, right?) our way from Lawton up to OKC. We’re collecting his eldest sister, Amy, tonight and then James has a 20km race tomorrow. Yuck! Well, I mean, he’s looking forward to it, so I guess that’s all that matters. Ahem. I can’t believe I’m in love with a man who likes to run 20km races for fun. Good god. Anyway, I’m on uni break. Finally! Despite a bit of a kerfuffle on my way to Oklahoma City Community College on Tuesday—our debit cards have been scammed, which is just awesome—I managed to get in and smash out my 120…
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Aussie Expats Update – The Risks of A Break in the Juggle of Life
Well, here we are starting the second week of January. Yeeeeesh. I’m sure there are a lot of people getting ramped back up again for work, or university, or the countless other things that require our energy and attention. I wish you all luck, but for me, the end of the tunnel is in sight. Well, this immediate tunnel, at least. After my psychology exam next week I’m due for a blissful month off from lectures and assessments, during which I will theoretically achieve monumental goals—like splitting the atom or starting (and finishing) my next manuscript, or becoming a world-famous blogger—and in all likelihood won’t achieve much at all… Other…
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Aussie Expats Update – Getting Ahead of the Curve & Preparing for the Storm
HAPPY FIRST 2017 Friday!! I’m thrilled, because having James go back to work this week means that I’m over-ready to spend some time curled up with him this weekend. Like everyone, I’m looking ahead at 2017 and feeling a little weak at the knees about what’s in store. Don’t get wrong: I’m excited!! But it’s also a big year, and we have a lot planned, and like I said earlier in the week, it’s easy to let things slip away in that scenario. In early February, James and I are taking full advantage of his leave and heading off on a six-week adventure through Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina,…
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Aussie Expats – A 2016 Recap and The Year Ahead
HELLO EVERYONE!! Well, it wouldn’t be the end of the year without an obligatory ‘look at everything we did’ kind of post, so I’m going to do one, mostly because it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that 2016 was a big year. Mammoth actually. Those always seem to happen when you’re getting ready to put up your feet and tell everyone that ‘last year was huge, we’ll take it down a notch for this one’… Actually, as you go along in life (it seems to me), there’s nothing but big years. And they speed up, until they’re flying past and slipping through your outstretched hands. At least that’s how…
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Aussie Expats Update – Some Pre-Christmas Adventures!
Hello world! It’s TWO sleeps until Christmas: TWO! How time flies and how crazy it is to think that soon the jolly fat man will be bringing joy and gifts to everyone. Exciting times. It’s been some time since I posted; I decided last week that there hadn’t been enough happening to write an update post, especially as I was also trying (and failing, it turned out) to get ahead with uni so I’d have less to do this week while James is off work. Yet, despite our silence, we actually have been doing things (yes, I’m proud). Last week was mostly focused on trying to get through uni and…
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Aussie Expats Update – The Long Slide into Holidays!
Happy Friday people everywhere! As we slowly slip and slide our way down the final path into the break (James is off from the 17th), it seems that the days are far too long, and the mornings far too cold, for continuing to do anything more than hibernate, drink eggnog and eat fatty meals like oxtail stew and braised beef short ribs. Sadly, until the break, we’re stuck with early morning PT sessions for James… Though I really can’t complain because my brain has been creating some strange and fascinating things in my early morning free-writing sessions. For those of you who’ve been waiting and chewing their fingernails to the…
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Aussie Expats Update – Writing Wins & December Socialising
Friiiiiiday! AND December, the month of Santa, chocolate, eggnog, presents, a brief stint of holidays for both James and I (which is a serious change from Aus, where our long break is over Christmas) and maybe a white Christmas (come on Oklahoma, you can do it!). Needless to say, I’m excited. Part of that could be to do with the fact that I’ve submitted my Ancient History assignment (after a real struggle!) and I’m feeling a little more on top of my study—I had to pay the piper this week after our frivolities in Kansas last week—and we put up our tree together yesterday. Okay, okay, it doesn’t sound like…
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Aussie Expats Update – Seeing some more of the USA!
Happy Friday everyone! I hope Thanksgiving (for the Americans amongst us) was a day of family, friends and food for all concerned: we were lucky enough to get invited over to a friend’s house for the afternoon/evening and thoroughly enjoyed both the excellent company and some amazing food (thank you Anne and Paul!). I feel that I’ve been remiss in not posting regularly over the past two weeks, but I’ve been feeling a little flat and uninspired from a writing point of view. We were also travelling this week and the time just seemed to vanish, so hopefully I’ll be able to find my groove again next week. While I…
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Aussie Expats Update – Archery Adventures, Food Bank & Fantastic Beasts
Everybody, How, on earth, is it Friday again?? Don’t get me wrong, Fridays are awesome (although, one might argue, somewhat less so if you’re not actually working and therefore you don’t deserve to celebrate Fridays as much—and thus you also probably should be continuing to write/study over the weekend anyway), but right now it feels like the year is disappearing. Days and weeks and even months are vanishing like delicious, multicoloured gobstopper rings, and soon it’ll be Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then NYE… and then 2016 will end. I’m looking forward to doing a ‘2016 Recap’ post prior to that point, because this one has been a bit of a doozy…
