You guys give up, or you thirsty for more??

In regards to the post below this one, I don't know what I'm doing and I struggle!!! I took the pic with my iPad but to upload pics from iPad to blogger you have to do it via picasa and I decided to skip that and copy paste instead hence the giant pic. In the near future i am getting the new "broadband" internet which I'm pretty sure the rest of the world got in 2003 and it's just getting here. But I need it to go with my new flash smart tv that I got for Xmas (and gave for Xmas, it was a split present) :-)

Anyway, that's not important. What is important is those cookies.  You might recognise them as samoas and you would be correct because they are samoas but homemade.  Let me just say those cookies are a pain in the ass to make!  They almost 3 hours!!! But worth it as I got about 40 cookies out of the batch.  Jason had to work Xmas (48 hours straight, he's still there) so I brought these and some fresh baked choc chip cookies for all the poor suckers stuck there with no fam or xmas dinner. I am happy I saved about 10 cookies for myself because I can't tell you how good they are!  The most delicious part about it is I made the caramel sauce from scratch (1st time) but keeping in step with the hot trends changed it to salted caramel sauce and dipped it in dark Cadbury chocolate for the grown and sexy vibe, no kiddie shit.  So far I've eaten 4 and just froze the rest to deter me from eating them. I didn't really follow a recipe but email me if you want to know how to make these and I can describe.

Christmas was quiet. I took Christmas Eve off work so we could have our little celebration a day early.  It's been pouring in darwin which is good because it's not as sweltering hot.  Other than that work as usual and just after New Years we go to melbourne for 4 days and then to Canberra for a week to see Jason's family.

But the biggest news of all is my roommate is GONE!!!! peace out and most of all good riddance!! I can't remember anything that has made me as happy as this. Towards the end I was really starting to lose my shit with this dude.  The last 2 months was living with him, his gf and her 1 year old baby all in an apt and me totally going nuts. Esp after I learned that the gf got drunk one night and fought the neighbor at 2am at the pool and peeps called police! Then police came to my house for an assault investigation! That on top of his consistent racist/homophobic remarks, I reached breaking point. And it was taking a strain on my relationship with Jason so in all seriousness good fucking riddance!!  We are both so happy!

Work is good. I now have a permanent government job (no more contracts) which is great job security, they can't fire me!  I am very excited about that.  Feels good to settle for a while after all the craziness of constant job changing the last few years. I'm coming to MA in march but unfortunately it's a wicked short trip.  I am planning a much longer trip home in jan 2015 -- yes I like to come in winter to get out of this heat!!!! Then maybe moving back the year after that??? Maybe? I hope?! 

Ouchie

$10 for canned pumpkin!! Same store, all the specialties! Only place you can get this though so I bought it!! Pumpkin choc chip cookies for Halloween :-) 

The heat is on!!

It's probs a million degrees in darwin these days.  This is no joke.  The air is so thick it almost hurts to breathe it in.  Ok that's exaggerating but the humidity is about 85% and it's around 100 degrees in the afternoons. Love the tropics!! Love even more when my dumb ass ford fiesta shits itself on the side of the highway on sat and jason and I had to push it home in this ridic weather! The silver bullet is out of commission! Tomorrow it gets towed to be fixed.  Ugh, always something with cars around here!

Today I am complaining about student loans and how paying them is like throwing my money away! I have a pretty decent job here and I actually apply stuff I learned in grad school to my work.  However, the degree didn't help me to get the job and it prolly won't do much for me in the future either as long as I am in Australia.  See, you don't need a degree to work in the public service in aus.  In fact, for most positions, they aren't even allowed to require a 4 year degree in the job description.  Even for management positions!! You don't even need a planning degree to be a town planner!  It's crazy to me, but it's the way it is... And I am the only sucker at my work paying off student loans while everyone else is buying cars that don't break down!

It's not just the public service though, you can have great career  without needing an advanced degree (and all the debt that comes with it) in aus.  Even law school only costs about $20k here!  Basically the crappy jobs that us Americans take when we're fresh out of college go to peeps fresh out of high school here.  Then they just work their way up.  You can easily be making serious money by the time you're 30 without a cent of student debt.  Of course, then you missed out on college life, but at least you have money!  Many Aussies will put large amounts of money towards travelling as you get about 2 months a year off here between vacation days and the many public holidays. Ugh, if I had only known... 

This seems like a reasonable price...

Yes, that would be Bush's black beans for the amazing price of $5.50 a can. BEANS! Black beans are  very hard to come by in Darwin. I bought a bag of dried black beans at a store once (the only other time I have ever seen them) and I soaked them over night then cooked them for 12 hours in the slow cooker and...they were still hard. How is that even possible?

The beans in the pic are from the gourmet food store. Last week I bought sliced turkey there for $25 a pound.  This place is not cheap. But it's next to my work, so I'm in that piece like everyday. And they have some really nice things in there, but you certainly are going to pay for it! I still haven't brought myself to buy the beans yet, even though I look at them like everyday.  I miss America!

I've started wearing my pedometer again.  I find it's a really good motivator.  The only thing is it's hard to conceal with a dress. Last year I wore one for a month straight and it helps to keep me on track. Also if I feel like I was really lazy that day, the proof is right there in the pedometer. It's crazy hot here, so I am not inclined to move often, lol. 

The lunch time gym session

I personally don't get how the lunch time gym session is physically possible, especially for women! I've heard that the gym I go to is apparently packed at lunch time. And in the one of the offices I worked at here, some chicks used to go to the gym during their lunch... But these bitches used to take the 1.5 hour lunch break because no one gave an f in there. Even still, I don't get it. I work out in the mornings. Work starts at 8 so that means I'm up at 5:45 to throw on clothes and proceed immediately to the gym. There's no time for mucking around, if I even have to attend to a bathroom situation there is potential to throw off the schedule. I drive 5 mins to the gym, do my thing and am back by 7 to get ready for work. The entire process takes 2 hours 15 mins! How can you get all this done on a lunch break?! What about hair and makeup for us girls?? Do you go back to work with sweat hair?

Mind boggling. Even further, then when the hell do you eat lunch?! There's no way you can work out, shower, and eat lunch in an hour. Nevermind the time to get to the gym.  If this was possible I would be all over it, because you know waking up at 545 is not my thing!

21st century issues

Since the introduction of Napster, iTunes, limewire etc I must have downloaded a bagillion songs. Only recently am I noticing how many key songs have not made it though all the transfers of devices from different laptops to computers to iPods and iPads and iThis and iThat. Well you can imagine my I immense disappointed when I had the urge to listen to Eddie Murphy's "party all the time" today only to discover it didn't make it though the last transfer! Not only no song, but I had the video downloaded! Also missing, "big pimpin" spending cheese. How is this possible?!

In other 21st century news, a few days before Miley Cyrus did her thing on the vma's, I asked Jason, because I am old and out of touch, if he knew what twerking was. I kept seeing it and I figured he is younger so he should know. His response was, and he was dead serious, "that is what they call going on twitter while you're at work, you know, tweeting at work, twerk." Lmao!