Fork This 39 - Cooper VS The Bug

This weeks episode of Fork This Cooper makes friends with a beetle he finds on the deck. We kept calling him back inside and then when we weren't looking he'd sneak back out the doggy door to find/torment his buddy.

   

xx
Smorgy Pin It

2 Weeks To The Day

Today is exactly two weeks till we get our keys and move into our house. By this time two weeks from now we'll be getting ready to have our first meal together in our new home.

I am excited about it but got a lot of other things going on that are preventing me from getting as excited as I'd like to be right now.

Today i packed up a heap of boxes and moved things out of my room. I've living in this room of mine for about 13 years and have no space for anything anymore. Trying to pack 25 years of stuff up into boxes is hard work.

On top of the stuff i already had in there I've accumulated other household items since we bought the house. So I've been boxing up kitchenware and stuff as well.

This whole house thing has come up super fast and it's very scary and daunting. I still have soo much to do to get us ready for it.

Cooper has noticed that something is going on and he's behaving like a total jerk. I think he suspects BJ and I are going on a holiday or something because i keep packing things. Little does he know that he'll be packed in a box soon enough and will be coming with us :)

In two more sleeps it's New Years Eve and we currently have no plans. I don't know what will happen for us New Years Eve but i do know that i will be washing my hands of 2010 that night.

I think the hardest part for me this year has been that i haven't had someone that i could comfortable open up and talk to.... And I've really needed that. I've got a couple of great friends in The States who i have confined in but it's soo hard to D&M with them when the back and forth could stretch over days.

So on top of the goals I've already set for 2012..

-Enjoy life
-Less go of my worries
-Remove everything that brings me down
-Be more positive
-Create a lovely home with BJ
-Smile more
-Create more
-Not be afraid of saying what i think
-Eat less junk food
-Exercise regularly

I'm going to try and make more friends. Friends with people who actually care about me and how I'm feeling. Friends with people willing to lend an ear. Friends who want to try and organise something with me and not have it always be me making the plans.

That's what I want from 2012.

xx
Smorgy Pin It

Fork This - Episode 22 - Midweek Purchase

WATCH THIS!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Fork This 22 - A Midweek Purchase from BJ Carter on Vimeo.

Incase you couldn't figure it out from our little episode... BJ and I bought a house this week :)

We are soo excited to FINALLY be moving in together, into our own place... Which has a backyard perfect for gatherings and Cooper.

We move in January 2012 so it's not long at all.

The process of us buying a house happens super quickly. We started looking online and then decided to sit down with our finance guy and see where we were at. He told us we could be looking seriously now and so two weeks ago we decided to spend a Saturday looking at open houses. The first one we went to was the one we bought. Only went to two others that weekend. Discussed it all and put an offer in on the weekend. Kept everything top secret so we didn't jinx it and Monday night we recieved the call.

Agent: 'It's Yours!!!!'. 

Me: Makes the    *'We bought a house!!!!'*    face at BJ while he was driving

BJ: 'Shit! I have to pull over!'

We rang the parents and told them the news. But because we wanted to wait till we had the contracts in our hands we kept the secret a little bit longer. Tuesday i went and picked up the contracts and we decided this episode was the best way to share with the world our exciting news.

This was something i've been looking forward to for such a long time and to finally been able to do it.... Well, i couldn't be happier. But on top of that i got to share the process with BJ. It was just the two of us. We found the house, we agreed, we made the decisions, we put in the offer (with some advice for parents), we did it all.

It was something i felt was just for the two of us. No one else needed to know until we had something to share and i'm soo happy we didn't tell. I didn't want anyone putting any negativity on it, or have put it out there too much and have too many people wanting to know what's going on with it.... The questions from other people stressed me out more then buying a house ever could. 

Congratulations for my wonderful partner BJ for achieving such an amazing thing. We have just taken a GIANT leap forward and i know we will both be super happy with it. 

I also want to thank both mine and BJ's mum's for coming and checking out the property and giving us sooo much support during this time. You are both fantastic and we are sooo lucky.

NOW all our overseas friends can start saving for their trips to Australia as we have a bed with ALL of your names on it.... Travelling orgy!!!

Thanks for reading my exciting babbles about this awesomeness.

xx

Smorgy

PS: IF you happen to have any furniture or other household items you'd be looking at getting rid of... PLEASE keep BJ and I in mind.

As we haven't rented before buying, we have accumilated much for our house as yet so we are seeking quiet a bit of stuff :)

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12 months ago - Part 2

Week to of our USA trip in 2010 was to St Augustine, Florida.
An awesome little town where some friends of ours lived.

Ronald, Lisa and Linc hosted us for the week and we went on some advertures. We went to the Alligator Farm which was awesome fun (But bloody hot). We got to experience Steak 'n' Shake. We did a heap of shopping and we went to see the Dolphin's. AND BJ drove for the first time in the States, which was scary/exciting.

Here are some photos of my memories:

That statue's penis is HUGE

Hahahaha this photo still makes me laugh. I told BJ to pose with the statue but Linc joined in as well.

Turtle Face!!

Turtle Face!!

Naturally if there is a giant animal statue, we get to climb on it's back for photos. 

Aligator Farm

Albino Aligator!!

Here is BJ driving for the first time in the States

 Here is BJ driving for the first time in the States

Steak 'n' Shake - Delicious!!

I LOVE WALMART!!!! Found season 1-4 of The Pretender on DVD... HAD to buy them!

Happiest girly in the world

We took Linc swimming which was a lot of fun. Shame the pool didn't really have any shade from the sun so we couldn't stay there for too long.

BJ showing off his guns to Linc

Here are some photos of the dolphin's. They are such show ponies.

Peek-a-boo!

I love the look on Linc's face

One of my AWESOME tshirt purchases :)

GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!!

We had soo much fun seeing Ronald, Lisa and Linc again. It'd been 2 years since we last visited and Linc had grown soo much.

St Augustine is such a nice place to go to. It's the oldest town in the States and has heaps of ghost history.
The main street of shops is lovely to walk with lot's of yummy candy stores and restuarants.

We miss you St Augustine.

xx
Smorgy Pin It

Fork This - Episode 16

In this episode of Fork This Kaia decided to make BJ a "Friends Day" present fir Father's Day.
BJ got very spoilt


Fork This - 016 from BJ Carter on Vimeo.

xx
Smorgy Pin It

25 in a month

So I looked at my calendar and realised that in one month i will be 25. Meaning my birthday will have gone and i'll just be 25.

I've never been big on celebrating my birthday. I don't have a lot of great birthday memories because things always seem to go wrong on that day.

Some amazing birthday i've had have been thanks to my beautiful partner BJ who always tries to make the day as amazing for me as possible.

The BEST birthday that comes to mind is when i turned 22 in 2008. BJ and I were travelling for 5 months and my birthday was celebrated on the Dawn and Drew farm in West Bend Wisconsin for 3 days with people from near and far who we'd never physically met, coming to party in the barn.

Drew Domkus, Dawn Meceli, Megan Newman and BJ Carter

I can remember the countdown to midnight. Everyone decided to climb up to the loft and i have this great group photo taken just after they all screamed

'5... 4... 3... 2... 1.......Happy Birthday!!!!'

It was an amazing experience and truely is my most favourite birthday memory ever.

Generally i prefer to spend my birthday with BJ and Cooper and just forget about the rest of the world for the day. Forget about how much junk food I've eaten or that i'm still in my PJ's at 3pm... Just be happy with the two most important people in my life.

Cooper and I 2009

But people keep asking me what i'm doing for this birthday. 25 seems to be a big thing in everyone elses mind so now i'm trying to decide if i can be bothered organising something for it.

I don't have a great success rate with birthday parties and I don't know that people would actually want to come if i did organise something. I don't want to set myself up for failure, planning something, getting excited about it and then being let down because people have their own lives to live and couldn't come to my little party. The last thing i want is to put in all that effort and only have 3 people turn up (And that includes BJ and I in the 3).

So what should i do?!

Should i organise a small gathering at my house?

A dinner out with some friends?

An evening at a bar for drinks?

Or just plan nothing and do what i normally do on my birthday?

I think the main issue i have is, I'm the organiser... I organise everything, and this is the one thing i really don't want to have to organise. It's not that i don't want to do anything, more that i'd just prefer someone else felt it important enough that they decide to plan something special for my birthday.

Any suggestions, ideas or comments? I'm be happy to hear them.

xx

Smorgy

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LA Memories Creeping into my Head

So i did part 1 a couple of days ago but sooo many things are popping into my head that i didn't put in that blog.
All these memories flooding back.

Little jokes we had... Things that happened which i don't have photographic evidence of... Such great moments.

One of my memories is from when we went to Disneyland to see the World of Color show we got in a line we believe to be ours. This show is sooo HUGE that there are 5 or 6 different lines depending on which ticket you had.

There were 12 of us in our group. We should have had a line of our own.

Group Shot - Taken just after the show

We were in line for about 10 minutes and then i made a friend.
This strange kid (look around 16 but acting around 8) turned to me in the line started talking to me.
He asked me where i was from because i had a funny accent and i said Australia... He looked at me confused.

Then he noticed i was wearing a Disneyland badge which said 'I'm Celebrating'. Nataly got one each for BJ and I from the reception desk because we love free shit.

"I'm Celebrating!"

He read it and said 'What are you celebrating?' looking at my badge. For a minute i was confused and then remembered i was wearing the badge and replied 'Being awesome of course'.

The confused boy then replied 'I dont know what awesome is, but you can't celebrate it!!'

And i burst into laughter.

Not long after we realised that we were in the wrong line. The kid had turned to face the front of the line and before he could turn back around we were gone.

For the rest of the trip I was constantly being told that i couldn't celebrate being awesome.

The World of Color was incredible as i said in my previous blog. Half of our group decided to go into the 'Wet Zone'. It was closer to the water and not like a splash zone, more just a mist zone. It was quiet refreshing and awesome to being soo close to the front.

Photo during the show

BJ and I loved every second of the show. As this photo will show you. (Check out the weird guy in the background)

And here is a photo of the wet zone group.

Such an amazing night filled with friends, laughter, food, music and water... What more could you ask for?!

I wish everyone could see this show.

xx
Smorgy

PS: I may do more of these as the memories come floating back. It's fun. Pin It

12 months ago - Part 1

I decided to do handful of blogs about what BJ and I were up to this time last year.

It dawned on my this morning that it's been 12 months since we were over in America visiting all our wonderful friends.

We first went to the United States in July 2008. Were we spend 2 and 1/2 months travelling around the country before heading off to Europe for another 2 months and then a week in Tokyo and a week in Phuket to finish the adventure.

While in the States we ment soo many wonderful, amazing people and we knew we'd have to get back there so we promised that in 2 years we would. And we kept that promise. August 2010 we flew back over. This time only for a month and four stops to catch up with our friends all over the country and also to meet up with new friends along the way.

So Part 1 is about LA... One of our more favourite places to be. We arrived on Sunday morning from memory and was greet by Sal and Nat at the airport with a homemade welcome sign. Covered with memories from our last visit as well as some that we were going to make this time around.

 

So the plan for our week in LA was a busy one. Sooo much to do. We had a three day park hopper pass to Disneyland (again) AND we were going to go to Medieval Times (Finally). On top of that we had a heap of other fun stuff planned including: Umami Burger, In n Out, Pinkberry, Hooters AND Bowling night, Flea Market, Kid Robot, Japan LA, Buca Di Beppo, Downtown Disney and much more.

The day we arrived Sunset Junction was on which is a massive street fair right around the corner from where we were saying at Sal and Nat's. We walked up there (after a nap on the couch of course) and wandered the street for the afternoon. 

BJ was super excited about purchasing Roasted corn on the street.

BJ - Super excited about Roasted corn on the street

 Our first meal one arriving in LA was at Nataly's parents place. A delicious home cooked feast. That evening we went to Umami Burger. This trip was a total burger fest and Umami was where we had our first dinner of our trip and our last... Good times.

 

After Umami (Which was AMAZING!) We went to the movies. This cute little theatre just up the road. Where BJ and I fell asleep during the film... Jetlag caught up with us, but it was only Scott Pilgrim vs The World so we didn't miss much. 

New Toys - Bargain Box

We had so much fun in LA (like we always do).Caught up with lot's of old friends and met some new ones.

Group shot in line for Toy Story 3D ride

Glorious In n Out Burger

Hooters

Bowling dance

Medival Times!!!!

Everyone doing the 'BJ Face' on Tower of Terror

 BJ had this stupid face he constantly pulls in photos and it became a thing to pull that face for the ride cameras.

Love this photo - Wet Zone before World of Color

World of Color

The most amazing creation I've ever seen. I can't even explain it to you. If you go here you can see some videos i took during the show.

Group Shot

Hidden Mickey

I was on a mission to find hidden Mickey's this time around and I got quiet a few photos of ones i found. This one i thought was very clever. In the painted whore carpark (That's Daisy Duck for those of your playing at home)

Does it get any better than LED fairy floss??

The Pope Room

For those of you who don't know there is a resturant in the States called Buca Di Beppo which serves Italian food, Family style. It's delicious and each resturant has a 'Pope room' which is a statue of the pop in a glass box on a lazy susan in the middle of the table... It's FANTASTIC!! Our first time over we went and vowed that next time we would get enough people there to be able to book the pope room.

Next time we go i want to sit at the table that's in the kitchen... It'll be loud but awesome. 

Thanks to Sal, Nataly, Jenae, Chris, Ryan, Lani, Nate, Duncan and of course Shultzman for making our trip back to LA one we'll never forget.

Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane. Part 2 will be in St Augustine, Florida. 

xx

Smorgy

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Making Friends

I never use to have a problem making friends (I dont think) but these days, it's just work, work, work and since I'm in a small office with few staff i dont really have the opportunity to meet a lot of people my age and create new friends.

One of my goals for this month is to make a new friend and I'm trying to figure out how i can achieve this.

I want this to be a real friend, not just someone i meet one night and add on facebook and that's really all it is, I want someone that i can friends with for years to come. A true friend.

I find myself looking at my facebook feeds and see all the people adding new friends weekly... But i havent added anyone new for a few months.
I get myself in a train of thought.. What are they doing that I'm not? Am i just not a friendly enough person? Why do they make friends so easily?

Then i start to wonder further... These people have over 300 'friends' on there facebook. Are they really friends? Have they physically met these people? Are they people that they went to high school with and was never friends with then but decided to add them anyway? Friends of friends of friends who you met one night out drinking but don't really know? People who they met whilst traveling years ago but have not spoken to since?

If you were to sit down and go through your entire list of friends, How many 'friends' are there who you could remove without making any difference to your facebook life? How many would not be missed from your feeds? How many who probably remove you if they bothered to go through there list?

Even if i went through my list i know i would find people that i know of school but haven't seen for 6+ years and having spoken to for almost as long, People who i dont ever hang out with, People that don't make a difference to my life by being my facebook friend.

I see people add new friends on a daily basis... It seems soo excessive to me, but maybe it's just because i don't do that myself. I don't accept everyone who asks me to be their 'friend'.

I want my list to be of actual friends... People that i plan to be friends with for a very long time.. I want people who I enjoy hearing from and reading updates about.

I've been told I should just bug people until they like me.
But that's not me... Bugging someone until they become my friend. If i have to bug them into it, then obviously it's not something they want and why should i put in so much of an effort?

I feel like to make more friends i need to change the person i am... But i don't want to do that either. There are plenty of people who like me for me so why be someone else to make friends who probably won't be real.

I've tried to organise group dinners and meetups in the past but they always seem to fail so I've given up on organising things. And I find when my partner and I do hang out with a group, they are more interested in talking to my partner and I'm on the side lines just watching.

So what do i need to do?
Do I need to be a different person?
Do I need to join a group of some kind?
Or do I just have to continue to be myself and accept that I have a small group of great friends and that's better than a huge number of facebook 'friends'? Pin It