I Am Getting Old....

It is 2010 and I cannot believe it. When I was a kid all of the science fiction movies and books were set in 2010 and just above, and they had flying cars, and magical technologies. Well so much has changed but much as stayed the same, including our gravity prone cars.

I am starting to notice that every single year of my life feels shorter and shorter, like the clock of life is set on a pace that exponentially increases. I remember when I was in preschool and a half a day seemed like forever. Or in elementary school when you couldn't even comprehend the school year being over, it was an eternity. Or the wait until I was 16 was never going to end, or that high school was going to go on and on for the rest of my life. Then I went to college, and someone said to me, "enjoy it, the four years will go faster than you can imagine." I did not believe them because I had just finished 4 years of high school and it seemed painfully long. Well I think that phrase was the moment my exponential speeding of time kicked in. It is suddenly 2010, college is over, I have my degree, I am working on my next, and I can't hardly believe that 2009 is already over. It is all catching up to me and now I am old.

And here are a few examples of how I know this:

1. My little baby cousin Hailey is starting to drive....this makes me feel old.
2. There are more marriages and babies from my high school class than I can count....this makes me feel really old.
3. My Dad told me he bought a new to him pick-up but a used one. He said it was quite old a 2001, and I said, "no that is not that old, only a 2001", he responded, "it is nearly 10 years ago"....oh yeah, wow my years of reference need to be updated...I am old.
4. When I was home this summer I kept saying, "I saw some little kid driving today, I am pretty sure they were too young to be driving." I can remember my Dad saying this to me in high school and I just thought he was crazy, to me everyone seemed old enough to drive.
5. Here the drinking age is 18, and all of us girls think it is so weird to see little 18 year olds running around in bars. Most of us have changed our stances about early drinking and have decided that it is good to have it older than 18 and keep it out of the high schools, and give them more of a chance to learn to drive....wow I can put things into perspective....I am old.
6. There was a trivia question about what was Pixar's first movie (Toy Story) and to me that seemed like a new movie....but then they said that it was made 10 years ago....not a new movie...I am old.
7. When I think back to my childhood friends and their little tiny brothers running around shooting us with Nerf guns...they were so young. Now I see pictures of them and all of these little brothers are not so little anymore, they are 6 foot with booming deep voices....does that mean I look older too? Yep, I am getting old.

I am not saying it is bad, I am just saying that I am finally realizing that I am old....and it is 2010....I can't believe it, it can't be 2010 already, and that statement in itself proves that I am old.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Yep I beat you to that one too. In case you are waking up this 1st morning of 2010 with feelings of trepidation, about whether there might be a repeat of Y2k I am here to assure you that the first day of the new year has gone off without a hitch. Everything is working, the computers have not assumed that we have gone back to the stone age and all is well.

James and I opted for a more low key celebration this year celebrating instead at home with yummy seafood, movies, games, and watching the fireworks on TV (I know this is silly but you don't realize that fireworks on not flat and that they instead explode into a ball until you have seen an aerial view, also the fireworks were synced with music that you could only really hear on TV, so that was neat to see as well.) So we were spared of the New Years Day hangover. However, as I made my way home today at nearly 3pm, I got a sense that the whole city seemed to be throbbing with a giant booze induced headache. I cannot count the number of girls that I saw on the bus and through the city walking around in last nights party outfit, holding their heels. The city seemed dead and quiet, the buses were few and far between. I even saw a cockroach meandering in what appeared to be a drunken stupor of a hangover along the sidewalk.

Well whether you celebrated the new year today or tomorrow, I know it will be a good one so:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

The Night I Celebrated Christmas Eve a Day Before You.

On, and steamy summer night, the exact opposite of the weather in the Northern Hemisphere little Lacey Lee Walker joined the Lawless family for a night of sea food barbeque celebration on the deck.

It all started when I asked James' Mum if I could do anything to help. She asked me to get the crackers from the table inside and put them out on the table outside. So I set out in search of crackers. I pictured something in a big red box, and possibly a Ritz sign, logo, or title. I wandered aimlessly scouting for crackers that I assumed we would be using for some sort of dip before dinner. After a few minutes of looking around cluelessly and not finding any crackers, no ritz, no wheat, no table, no sesame, no water, no crackers of any gluten assortment. I finally asked Graham (which by the way you do not pronounce like we say the Graham cracker, it has two syllables, similar to Gray-ham), regardless I told him I was trying to find crackers, but could not. He kind of looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed to a box sitting on the table, which did indeed contain "crackers." I looked at him laughing and said, "Oh haha, I was literally looking for eating crackers...", once he understood that I had no idea what a Christmas cracker was he laughed as well and understood my confusion.

Well you might know what a Christmas Cracker is, but I did not. It is a paper tube with fancy decoration that you pull apart with the person next to you. Whoever has the larger part that pulls apart (making a cracking noise, hence the name crackers) gets the gift inside, then they put on the Christmas hat (I think more accurately it should be called a Christmas paper crown) inside and tell the joke that comes with it. The gift I won inside was a fingernail clipper, my hat was green and my joke was:

What do you call a blind dinosaur?

--A do-you-think-he-saw-us.

Not enough of a laugh, well here you can see me in my super awesome and newly renamed Christmas paper crown (recently renamed for accuracy from the more commonly known Christmas hat name.) Not only will the silliness of the hat make you laugh, but this photo captures the pure surprised and goofy essence of muah...OK actually it was me looking with awkward curiosity at the little orange light that comes before the flash of a camera and hurrying a smile, but I digress:

Well after the hats, jokes, and little gifts the feeding frenzy started. On another side note, Australia is supposed to be famous for their bbq's(need I remind anyone of the famous phrase, "throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate.") You would think that being here for nearly 6 months I would have had tons of bbqs. But nope, this was my first one (definitely not my last since my Christmas present from my Dad was a bbq, thanks Dad, and I am sure there will be many adventures involving that BBQ to come.) Well James' family knows how to do it right. First we had "angels and demons" which are either dates wrapped in bacon or oysters wrapped in bacon. Then we had some delicious skewer things that had sausage and scallops with salad. Then we had salmon cakes and a different salad:

Then we had oysters Rockefeller, and some delicious scallops:

Well like any holiday in the states it is all about over indulgence with food. And oh did we ever. There was apparently a final real meal and dessert as well but at this stage no one could manage to eat another bite. So we went in and participated in one of my personal favourite activities....board games, hooray!

It was a very different but very nice Christmas Eve in Australia.