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Aussie Expats Update – Hiking, Swimming, The Perseid Meteor Show and THE ARMADILLO
Another update and a big Happy Friday everyone! Well, this week has been another rollercoaster ride of adventures, weird animals, ice cream, burritos and training. We went for a hike up Elk Mountain last Saturday with Kim and Frankie and, as you can see from the view below, it was worth it.Though reaching the summit was an effort, and we were soaked by the time we got there, the view was incredible. Frankie had the best approach: with the sun was out in force and the climb feeling like hard work, she sussed out any possible shade and had a lie down whenever she could. We went and had delicious…
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Aussie Expat Update – An Unforeseen Injury, Stranger Things and Homemade Nachos
Hello again world! Welcome back to the thrilling weekly recount of what your favourite Aussie expats have been getting up to in the sweaty state of Oklahoma. I know this one is a bit late today: I got distracted by an online quiz for psychology and finally getting back into our home gym for a barbell rehab session. James suffered an unforeseen injury on Tuesday afternoon at the gym when he pulled a rib while training. It’s not serious, but relatively incapacitating, so we’ve had the past few days off. Unfortunately, taking a few days off tends to make my back hurt (weird, right?), so I got back in there today…
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How I Tackled the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge
Happy Monday everyone! As I mentioned last week, I wanted to do a post on how I approached Challenge 1 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. With only 48 hours to put together a 1000 word short story and three specific constraints (genre, location and object) on what I created, anyone who has done this challenge can assure you… it’s harder than it looks. For a start, 1000 words? Not a lot of words to work with. Creating relatable characters and having them undergo a story/journey in that number is very challenging. Sometimes it’s easier to hide away in the bulk of words we write, rather than pare them…
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Aussie Expats Update – Just Another Day in Our (American!) Life
Well everyone (American everyones), It’s Friday again, and despite some considerable challenges, here is my weekly update. The reason I’m late off the mark today? I have done a lot of writing recently. I spent the vast majority of last weekend writing (and rewriting and rewriting), my entry to the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, Round 1. I was allocated to Group 45, and having been assigned Genre: Romance, Location: Nursing Home, Item: Locket as of 11:59, 22 July 2016, I set to work. I plan to do a post early next week detailing how I set about creating an entry for the challenge, but suffice to say, despite cracking out a…
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Aussie Expats Update – Curtains, Kohl’s and Burritos
Here we are again everyone! Happy Friday America (and welcome to the weekend Australia). I know that your anticipation over the results of our DIY attempts last weekend must have been simply destroying people throughout the week… But wait no longer! I’m happy to report that, for the most part, our efforts were not in vain. Having gone out for Kim’s birthday dinner on Friday night after a huge home gym training session in the heat, we were pretty wrecked. Despite sleeping in until 10am the next morning (I did some reading, James did the sleeping), we managed to bestir ourselves to get to Home Depot later on to purchase…
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Aussie Expats Update – Prairie Dogs, Gym Equipment and Lasagna
Well fellow humanoids (and any who identify with other species and still use technology to read this blog), Welcome back again to our American Life! This week has been the first one where James has really been teaching American Army students as part of his new position, so we’ve been busy. Luckily, we haven’t been tooooo busy to have some adventures! [Disclaimer: what normal people call ‘everyday living’, I tend to call adventures. I make no apologies for this fact, but I want to ensure I’m not practicing false advertising.] James’s mum and brother we were with us over the weekend, leaving on Tuesday evening, so we wanted to make the most of…
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Aussie Expats Update – Fourth of July and Visitors
Welcome back to the weekly update! I’ve been busy studying this week in an attempt to wrap my head around some new ideas and forty-page readings for uni, and have to admit that it’s a lot of work! I’m studying two writing subjects, a political ideology subject and an introductory psychology subject; there’s a bit of variety and some interesting stuff to learn every week. I can only hope that I will get more effective and efficient at the whole business! I’ve also managed to do some work on my novel this week, which is really exciting. I’ve decided to write for at least thirty minutes every day from now…
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Aussie Expats Update – Hiking, Buffalo, Wings and Sonic
Ladies and gentlemen! Well, here we are again for the weekly Friday ‘It’s Your American Life!’ update. I know… The title needs some more work still (it’s on my list of things to do), but I’m not on top of my game today. We were up until 3 am last night (babysitting, not even partying!) and I am consequently worn out and late in getting this post up. I also haven’t done any uni at all today. Oops. But anyway, have a pinch and a punch for the first of the month! It seems crazy to think that it’s already July, especially when we realised that Monday, 4th of July, marks our…
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Aussie Expats Update – Our Adventurous Life!
Helllooooooo everyone! Welcome back to our most recent edition of ‘I left my job and we moved to America and now we’re having adventures’! Not a very catchy title, but I’m sure I’ll eventually come up with something. Highlights of this week’s update include: wanting to buy a cat, making pavlova, a Friday night party, (almost) winning a new car and an expedition to Bed, Bath and Beyond. So last Friday night, our Aussie neighbours, Dave and Lee, held a party to celebrate our arrival. It jointly celebrated Australia Day too; since the weather over here is too terrible to have an Australia Day celebration in January, they moved it…
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Aussie Expats Update – The Harrowing Search for a Car in OK
Ladies and Gentlemen, Life is crazy. This mostly applies when you’re trying to buy a car in America, but I mean craaaaaaaaa-zy. We’ve got a hire car at the moment which has been tiding us over, but being posted here for two+ years means we need our own car. Especially since this hire car… it’s a joke. It was ‘cleaned’ with a dirty cloth before we collected it (so the dirt has just been smeared everywhere), the tyres squeal on the highway, the windscreen wipers smudge over the driver’s side when it’s raining and it veers to the right when you’re driving. All in all, I won’t be sorry to…
