Exploring West Palm

Well, my holiday is almost over. It’s been interesting in a lot of ways and I’m thinking a lot of thoughts at the moment. It’s been great to live a fairly normal sort of life here – if normal means not being able to drive and feeling like a fish out of water -  and see what things would be like if I moved here.

I went up to West Palm yesterday and looked around City Place which was fun – the weather has been lovely as it’s a pleasant sort of warm but not humid so great for site seeing. I also went to see the campus for the church that my boy goes to and that I watch online so it was fantastic to meet the Internet Pastor there and a few other key people. They made me feel like a celebrity as I’d come from so far away and everyone seem to love NZ or want to come to NZ (if they know where NZ is…. ) so that’s sort of fun.

I have to admit I don’t really like the unnatural situation that long-distance dating throws you in, the intensive time together when you normally don’t see each other at all is quite a contrast. J has been very, very busy too with work and isn’t sleeping very well, so it makes it difficult to know if he’s just going through a bad patch or whether he’s like that all the time. To be honest I’m not sure if things will survive… but I’m going to hold off making any decisions just yet and spend some time thinking and praying.

It’s been a bit depressing walking around the shops and converting prices… which I really do have to do as my budget is normally pretty tight. Firstly, because I haven’t been working so I am totally out of the habit of wearing nice clothes and also because I’m still hoping to continue going down on the scale as well so I don’t want to spend a lot of money on stuff that is hopefully going to be too big for me soon. Some things are still reasonable, even when you almost double the price… but I’m trying to be practical as well.  I love the style here – the colour and cut of things is really a lot better than we get in NZ where black is pretty much standard. If I had more funds I would definitely be going crazy stocking up.

I did get a lovely apple green trench coat that should be useful in the Auckland winter/spring with the incessant rain and a leather belt yesterday for $10 from Gap. Oh and I visited Sephora which is like my Mecca! Wow, what a cool store. Got some of my favourite mineral make up there which is about $30 cheaper than I’d pay at home and so, so worth it.

I’m off to Delray today – want to wander around the shops there and maybe sit on the beach for a bit. Looks like it will be another fab day!

Supermarket adventures

We went out today and I got to “sightsee” at the wonders of Costco and Wholefoods in Boca Raton (the largest in Florida and a great store). I’d heard a lot about Costco online from the numerous food blogs I read and I have to say it was a lot better than I expected – lots of good quality food in huge quantities and at cheap prices is all good in my book. I’m sure if I lived here I’d go there and stock up a wee bit, though I’m sure if you’re a single person the sizes are just way too large for one person to consume.

I have found the labelling to be a bit difficult here so far – nothing is in bold so I seem to spend an eternity reading everything. I started getting a bit stressed in Wholefoods actually as I was trying to be quick to choose things that I needed for the week as my boy is not the most patient man to go shopping with. I ended up buying a great looking loaf of gluten free bread there and then got home to realise one of the main ingredients is milk so I really can’t eat it as lactose is  my major food issue and not eating gluten is a choice to manage my pain. In NZ gluten free bread would almost never have dairy in it, so I wasn’t expecting to have to read so closely.

But, I am looking forward to trying the coconut based yogurt and hoping it isn’t too good so I don’t miss it too much! We also got some coconut based milk as well which will be interesting to try as I’m starting to get more aware of the dangers of too much soy in my diet. Price wise – I’m trying not to convert too much – some things are really cheap and some things are really expensive – it really does go either way. I think that when our dollar was stronger last year almost everything was better value here, now I have to be a bit careful. Though I did splash out on a pedi/mani yesterday when a certain boy was at golf and they did such a better job than at home it was worth it.

Talking of food we have lamb and veges on the bbq, so I’d better go down and pretend to be useful or something!

I made it safe and sound…

But my suitcase didn’t. Oh well – hopefully it turns up today as I don’t have any clean underwear!

The trip went so smoothly other than getting to the airport just after a large tour group of retired Americans… waited over an hour to check in which completely wiped me out after the busy day I had. So after a few tears in the loo, I pulled myself together and the rest of the trip went scarily smoothly.

Some observations I’ve made over the last couple of days are:

• when you are watching something funny on a plane you need to remember that others can hear you laughing out loud and you sound like a crazy person. And you keep people awake around you, even with the combination of earplugs and noise cancelling headphones on.
• that it is really scary to have Immigration officials – who are not normally known for their people skills – basically flirt with you when they are stamping your passport. Very disconcerting and I wasn’t sure at all how to respond to his comment that “it must be a lucky guy that I’m coming to visit”… how did he know and why did he repeat it twice… I gave away nothing, by they way.
• I need to pronounce my Rs a lot stronger here. Asking for water got confusing on the plane yesterday.
• American Airlines planes are not a nice way to end the trip
• That you should not take your bachelor boyfriend’s word for it when he says that the opened drinks in the fridge are fresh. Did NOT appreciated the mouthful of mould I almost swallowed last night!
• That I do not look cute, or remotely glamorous in my boyfriend’s clothes as I don’t have any clean ones of my own.

On that note I’d better go do some washing so I can be seen in public – just as well I packed well with my carry on and even though I don’t have my toiletries I have make up!

The longest Wednesday ever

Wednesday for me this week is going to be about 40 hours long (time difference means I leave on a Wednesday and arrive on a Wednesday but fly for about 17 hours) and I woke up early this morning just to make it more obvious to me. Though the early wake-ups this week probably will help my body clock adjust a little to East Coast time. If my poor body knows which way is up of course come Thursday!

I slept really well and I feel quite fresh for my neuro psyche assessment. I didn’t get nervous at all so hopefully that will help my brain function better!

Oh and I reached my goal today of what weight I wanted to be before the trip – down to 80.8kgs and can fit in my jeans again. Now, I just need to avoid the huge portions that I know are waiting for me in the US and get some exercise while I’m away so I don’t put it all back on again. I really want to get under 80 in the next few weeks as I’ve struggled with that since the accident. I’m not really following any sort of diet – just not eating sugar, watching my portion sizes and eating tons of veges and legumes and beans. Feels like an easy lifestyle choice and it’s working so I’m going to keep it up!

Ok, well I’d better get started on this extra long day – think of me tonight when you’re tucked up in your bed and I’m getting neck cramp trying to sleep in economy class.

Trying to relax…

Happy St Patricks day - have a pint of Guinness for me will you!

Deep breath…… I’m doing ok actually and have been having a nice morning plodding around cleaning my ensuite and vacuuming and stuff. Yes, I really am turning into my mother – I was packed a week in advance and I’m really determined to come home to a clean house. Yeah, need to read riot act to flatmates, but boy flatmates mum is coming from India (and staying in my room for a few nights) so  hoping she’ll feel compelled to clean a little when she gets her. Aren’t Indian mums good at taking care of people?

Anyway, so I was having a lovely morning until I got a phone call from my contents Insurance company who were sorry to advise me that I wasn’t covered for items lost outside the house.

What?

I burst into tears, partly because I don’t have the money to replace everything and probably mostly because I spent days filling in the stupid claim form and it totally exhausted me. So after a few expletives and tears I was starting to pull myself together when the phone rang again – same guy from said Insurance company who opened with the question “how are you?” because it seems it wasn’t obvious how I was when I hung up the phone in tears five minutes earlier. Anyway, he had a look at my policy again and realised that I am covered. So what would have happened if he hadn’t realised? Now he will be working on the claim for me (finally) and hopefully it won’t take too much work. I was thinking I was a complete moron for a bit there as I think the main reason I would have taken out an insurance policy would have been for loss of items outside the home anyway.

I’m so glad it turns out I’m not completely dumb!

The boy and I haven’t been getting along that wonderfully in the last few days. I’m not really sure why. He’s under enormous stress at the moment and not sleeping so I think his fuse is pretty short. And I’ve been really, really tired with all the preparation for the trip so I’m probably a bit more brain injury effected than usual.  I’m praying that I can cope emotionally with the trip more than anything as it’s sort of nice hiding away here and not having to really interact with people too closely, much easier for my energy levels… though possibly not good for my emotional maturity.

Ok well I’m off to get a few unmentionable places covered in hot wax and do my nails… and try to relax.

Weather and what to wear…

I just checked the weather in West Palm and it’s 81 degrees, with 58% humidity… that sounds really perfect! Woo hoo. Especially considering we’ve been up around 90% humidity recently, though most people probably find it strange for someone to be pleased about less humidity in Florida compared to their home? Now I just gotta figure out exactly how warm 81 farenheit is. When, oh when are you going to joing the 20th Century America? It’s just too confusing….

And I’ve got to do a check of my suitcase as the disadvantage of being so organised is that you end up packing way too much stuff!

I’m leaving on a jetplane…

I’m off on Wednesday to Florida and am currently in preparation mode so I was interested to see this article today about the world’s coolest airports. I somehow don’t think that LAX, which is where I will be spending most of my time while I’m travelling falls into the category of ‘cool’, describing it as efficient perhaps might even be stretching it. As I’m a Kiwi, long haul flights are part and parcel of our lives – ironic as that sounds considering Kiwis are a flightless bird…. aren’t they cute?

But unless you want to stay in NZ forever, you have to get used to the fact that  to get anywhere interesting (sorry Australia…) you have to fly at least 9 hours. At least. The trip to Europe is more like 24 hours of flying alone. Showers in airports and decent areas to relax if there is a delay would really help. Lucky a lot of us are decendent from hardy souls who had to brave horrible months at sea to get here (Maori and European alike). One good thing is that Auckland Airport is actually really nice to arrive back to – they have this area that you walk through with native bird sounds and it feels like being in the bush – very relaxing after a long flight!

I’m not looking forward at all to how my back and neck will feel after all that time sitting and I know I will be making good use of J’s Jacuzzi (and hopefully his massage skills to get the knots out of my neck) but I am looking forward to movies on demand and the excuse to buy a few magazines to read.

I’ve stocked up on snacks as I’m not sure that I’ll be able to eat/afford anything at LAX for the domestic flight.  I got mostly savoury snacks as I usually find that is what I crave and the options in airports are usually chips, chips or nuts. I got: wasabi peas, rice crackers, raw cashew, pecan and gogi berry mix, raw macadamia nuts, gluten free fruit bar thingys and this tin made by the French company St Dalfour of ready to eat chicken with vegetables (they make fantastic jam so I thought it was worth a go). This will probably be lunch in the air over the States. Will let other allergy/gluten free travellers know what it tasted like as I’m sure if it’s in shops here you can get it anywhere.

 

On Qantas I get a dairy free meal as my major issue is lactose intolerance and try not to eat the rolls and stuff. You can’t combine food issues to get say a gluten free/dairy free meal so I just go with the lesser of two evils as I just try to avoid gluten for pain management at the advice of my specialist and I’m not cealiac or anything. The cumulitive effects if I’m bad for a long time, say on a holiday are not nice though.

Oh and just to show what a geek I am – here are my suitcases almost ready to go… and it’s only Saturday and I leave on Wednesday. They’ve been pretty much packed for days!  Yeah, I do have too much time on my hands but I did make my mother proud at least. But also I really needed to be organised in advance and manage my energy levels.

I’m a bit tired today so I’m off to the hairdresser and will take the rest of the day pretty quiet I think as I haven’t been coping that well with my level of activity in the last few days and have been crashing.  I really don’t want to be exhausted before my trip as it will take me that much longer to recover and also I have my neuro-psyche assessment in the morning on the 18th so I need to be as fresh as I can be for that.

Oh and to end this post I want to share what happened to my favourite pair of shoes:

Lucky it broke as I stepped out of my car at home!

Frugal Friday

My tip for the week is going to sound very old-fashioned to some people and to be honest I’m not even sure it saves all that much money – but for the last five months or so I have been cleaning the house mostly with home made mixes. 

For a few years I’ve heard earth mother types extolling the virtues of baking soda and white wine vinegar for cleaning and never really believed they could be a valid alternative. Well, you know what? They are BETTER than anything else I have tried! Truly!

I use the mix in my bathroom and it is so much easier to clean – you have to use a little elbow grease to get things clean – but the results are worth it. And I love that I can breathe in while I’m cleaning without feeling like I am damaging my body. Oh and if you get stuff on your clothes you don’t get holes like from commercial cleaning products – I hate that! 

I also had really bad white water mark looking things all over my shower door and a mix of meths with white vinegar and a lot of scrubbing with an old stocking helped sort it out. I also use the vinegar and baking soda (or bicarbonate of soda) in the kitchen and it works amazing on stainless steel appliances – I would never buy special stainless steel cleaner again now. 

Is it cheaper? I’m not totally sure as I haven’t found a good source of bulk ingredients yet. But it is safer, better for the environment and it TOTALLY works better than any commercial cleaners I have tried.  Try it!

Random thoughts and the start of another week

It’s already the second week in March and autumn should arrive sometime soon in my part of the world, though the humidity is sticking around and annoying me for now. The seasons in Auckland tend have a pretty wishy-washy transition and about now I’m sort of longing for some crisp autumn days with turning leaves. Time is flying by though, I can’t believe that it’s been six months since I ended work and over nine months since my accident. Every week I seem to get to Thursday and wonder what the hell happened to the week!

Talking of humid weather – I leave for Florida on the 18th (nine more sleeps I believe) and I’m looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time. I am pretty sure I’ll cope fairly well with the flight and 20 hours of travel, as well as anyone does and I’m praying for an upgrade as this is the one time I could really do with it! But, mostly I’m just looking forward to hanging out with J, hopefully having a bit of ‘normality’ – I use that term extremely loosely as there is nothing normal about us – and looking around the West Palm area a bit more. I’ll be quite pleased that he’s working and I get to amuse myself too as I’m really aware that this could be the case for quite some time if and when I move out there.

If anyone has some good tips of where to go shopping, food I must try etc – pass them on! I could be trying to amuse myself a LOT! I’m actually looking forward to being able to watch American daytime TV too. Is that incredibly sad? I no longer have satellite TV myself and it was sort of fun to watch things like Oprah and The View live! Yeah, I’m a geek!

On the weight loss front, I might just get down to 80kg before I leave and hopefully not load it all back on again when I’m there… luckily we’re both on diets and are meant to be competing against each other to lose so that should curb my urges to go for seconds, or simply try to conquer the mammoth US portion sizes. I measured my waist today and I think I’ve lost about 6 cms since the end of January! My boobs haven’t shrunk at all which is funny as I have been joking that I’m going to be smaller chested again to J if I lose weight, but it doesn’t seem to be happening this time. I’ll just need to repeat the mantra – “I am not an ex-footballer who is 6″3, I can’t match his eating” whenever we’re out for dinner! I’m also planning to try to be a cool girlfriend and take care of him a bit and even let him play golf, once, for a morning… while I’m there! I need to get in practise for being a golf widow anyway so I’d better start now.

I’m not sure if I mentioned earlier – but I have my nueropsyche assessment on the 18th of March (well if they send me a letter to confirm) so they’ll be checking to see how much I have improved since the accident. I’m looking forward to it, but it means I have to be really, really organised as I will be totally fried afterwards and then I will come home, have lunch and go to the airport. Hopefully it’ll help me sleep really well on the 11 hour plane journey to LAX. If not, there will be plenty of movies to catch up on.

Did it

Yep, I finally called mymum and had the chat with her. It went ok and I didn’t cry too much. She just took a long time to figure out what was going on, which is probably 90% her fault as she just didn’t talk to me enough and act like a mother should. I think I have to learn to live with this. I also will not be making the first move with my siblings, I’m sort of scared of them and if they can’t see I’m in a position of need then I’m not sure it’s worth putting a lot of effort in to be honest.

I just went for a walk at Cornwall Park, took a lot of deep breaths and prayed. I truly have to give this to God, trust that He’ll work in the situation and take away my need to scream “no fair” over and over! He’s encouraged me so much lately that I am woman of worth and value and that He has purpose for me (another story for another day) that I am going to continue on the path He is calling me on, try to be the best version of me that I can be and hope that my family figure that out along the way.

I’m also praying for mum regarding dad and his issues. Its so tough and I wouldn’t swap places with her. I need to be mindful that he doesn’t understand things like he used to.

On a positive note it’s 10 more sleeps til I fly out! Woo hoo!