Down Under

Dear Diary (Leon made me say it--it's true, but I digress)

So when Life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  My Hawaii trip was cancelled (although no return of my deposit yet--good thing I'm a lawyer).  So here I was with a budget burning a hole in my pocket.  Adam had been in Australia for 81 days, so I tooled around on the travel sites and sure enough for the same budget that was going to take me to Kona, I could go to Brisbane.  That button I clicked.  I sent in my passport that is about to expire and it will take three weeks to get it back.  The trip is planned in five weeks--what could go wrong..

Really--make me a list.  I want to be prepared.

So in planning a trip, I started to look around to see what I would wear.  I only have work clothes.  My weight over the last several years has changed a lot both ways.  The tip in lose weight forever was to get rid of all your big clothes--a kind of do or die mentality to scare me into keeping the weight off--like that would actually scare me--Ha.  Apparently I would rather have cake then worry about going out in public wearing sweat pants, because none of my jeans fit anymore, but I digress.  I had some nice clothes, but I got rid of everything over a size 12--everything.  I am way over size 12 now.  I have stocked up on clothes for work in my new much bigger size, but have been pretty slow to stock up on regular clothes. 

So one of the fellows at toastmasters gave a speech about Walmart.  Here's what I've always liked about Walmart--they carry my favorite plastic canvas yarn.  Every Walmart I ever been in has a great plastic canvas section.  I'm weird.  So I passed a Walmart and thought, what the heck, let's see what they have in vacation apparel.  Wow.  I had to search pretty hard to find my size (I'm wide and long, but not too wide and not too long), but after trying on about 600 things, I found 20 that were just right.  I have a favorite blouse that I've purchased for over $50 each at Nordstroms for years.  Lately it costs over $65 and they don't have my size anymore.  Walmart had the same blouse for $16 in my size and in lots of colors.  I would only allow myself to buy one of each color, but I'm already salivating to go back for more.  I know, more work clothes, but if I have so many extra, I'll wear them over a tee shirt.  Speaking of tees, they had a very comfortable polo shirt, just my style, $8 each in lots of colors.  I stocked up.  Jeans--that was tough to find in my size, but I scored a few.  So I have my air, my hotel, some clothes, my passport should be back in time, now all I need is a visa. 

The plane ride is going to be 14 hours long.  14 hours.  I'm picturing the air travel from the movie where Cameran Diaz travels to London and the girl from Titanic travels to Los Angeles.  Cameran Diaz had a sleeper bunk.  I want that.  The other girl had a middle seat and cried the whole way.  I'm very worried that I'll have that.  My airfare was really really cheap.  I'm surprised that they can afford the gas, so I'm not expecting anything fancy, but 14 hours is a very long time.  And then I have to do it again at the end.  I'm hoping that I'll be so happy to see Adam, I'll forget all about it.

Did I mention that my house is for sale.  I don't have a new place to move to.  Adrienne might.  We'll see.  We had a big garage sale--lots and lots of stuff and after it was over, most everything left was hauled away to the Salvation Army in a truck--just like on "Clean House" except that when I looked back in the house, it looks just as full and cluttered as ever--not "clean" at all.  This is not going to be pretty.   So a vacation in the middle of all this is either really stupid or genius.  I'll take genius for $200, Alex.