Living in America 2015

[rootypig]

New thread. In honour of:

1. allegedly Irish bangers discovered I saw in Trader Joe's today, which made me think of you lot and especially you Want2b, you pork fanatic - I will report back; and

2. taxes bloody argh! do I have to do this? NOW??? My green card was granted in August last year and I didn't earn a bloody penny. What am I supposed to put on a tax return

How else is everyone's American odyssey going?

yours chaotically, as ever,

rooty

I get my Tetley's in my local Walmart. I use a French press for coffee as my counter space is laughable and coffee is properly hot this way.

We are supposed to have storms tonight here too, MrsF, but nothing like yours. I hope you'll be safe.

The National Weather Service in Norman has just downgraded central Oklahoma's tornado risk to "low" for tonight, and the severe storm risk has been lowered too. The south of the state and North Texas could still be in trouble though.

Twinings tea bags are quite widely available here, thank goodness!

Glad to hear things are calming down over there, MrsF. It's still cloudy and chilly in socal, and I'm enjoying it very much.

I like Yorkshire Gold and Sainsbury's earl grey hence the mass import with every visitor

I have found now I've been here 8 months, one of the few things I still miss is a chocolate digestive every now and then. However, I've discovered to my detriment that TJ's mini chocolate pretzels taste very similar.

The remaining unsolved problems are probably bread and bacon. sigh.

MrsFrumble I forgot to add to my post yesterday about the storms. Glad to hear you guys are well. Rooty it was bone dry in LA when I was there so I would assume any rain would result in a mud slide.

rooty what bacon are you looking for. This is very close to English bacon and sold in Costco. If you are looking for the proper back bacon with the huge circle of meat look for Canadian bacon and have them slice it for you. It comes as a whole loin so easy to slice if it's a butcher doing it. A lot of supermarkets are still cutting their own meats. DH said the expensive supermarkets are all cutting still.

Rooty, am I right in thinking you're in LA? World Market sell chocolate digestives as one of my Brit friends buys them there. Alternatively, you can just have them delivered from Amazon. We get them in our local A&P as they're in the "Irish" aisle.

Good luck with the storms, Mrs F!

Storms are all over for tonight. Just some heavy rain and thunder; everything else has passed south of us.

Mr Frumble went missing during the worst of it. He'd promised to leave the office by 6, and turned up at 7.30 looking sheepish after apparently being so engrossed in a project that he lost track of time. I'd been fielding anxious questions from the 4 year old about whether daddy had been washed away in the storm while envisaging horrendous car accidents. If he wasn't so handsome I'd kick his arse.

I'd love some chocolate digestives from Amazon! But I'll resist, because the fact that I haven't found a biscuit ("cookie") here that I love as much is probably the only thing keeping from developing a more Oklahoman physique (Oklahoma being among the fattest states).

Want thank you so much! we are not big Costco shoppers but do have membership, I will get over there and check it out.

Like I cannot bring myself to pay Cost Plus prices! maybe I will when I've been here longer and forgotten that digestives cost 99p

Mrsf perhaps Oklahomans feel they need to weight themselves down - on the current evidence, I wouldn't blame them! Mr Frumble has shaved about ten years off your life this year, hasn't he?!

*weigh themselves down

The idea of obesity as a tornado safety strategy made me laugh

Much needed after another day of torrential rain and a fairly excruciating Skype call with my Inlaws where my FIL went on and on about how pleased he is that the Tories are back in full control of parliament, while DH and I sat grimacing in polite silence.

I 'm about to brave the rain and go buy cupcakes for everyone. Got to work on our ground-anchoring waistlines...

You guys are cracking me up. So my parents once separated because my dad got little piggies that started to oink when you opened the cupboard. It was the best diet aid ever and my dad knew right away if one of us opened a cupboard between feeding times. My mother was horrified and walked out because after moving from Canada to the U.S. she gained 20lbs. I've never seen the pigs in shops again but man I need them.

I could use some diet piggies here . Four of the DCs have birthdays between the end of April and the end of May so it's non-stop cake here for a month. I once persuaded the last B-day DD to just have a nice ripe watermelon with candles stuck in it on her big day, but the next year she wanted a proper cake like everyone else. I did once make a cake from Pinterest with piggies wallowing in chocolate mud on top for one DD but that is the opposite of the kind of pigs I really need.

I have also gained huge amounts of weight, and I was hardly svelte beforehand. (Want2be, I could never survive corporate New York) sadly, it's because of health issues and I just cannot lose weight. I want some kind of subliminal sign which says, "I'm not just a fat American cos I'm lazy, it's my glands, honest". Still, I'm alive, and without meds I wouldn't be, so I'll settle for fat and breathing.

I think if DH bought diet piggies he would swiftly find them excavating various parts of his insides after forceful manual insertion.

Happy Mother's Day everyone

Quite. At ikea and it's lovely and quiet. Almost ready to leave!

I hate that it's so important to be skinny and the current trend is to do the mud runs. It's so stupid.

Haha! I'm doing the Spartan Race at the end of the month! It wasn't to be trendy though. My teenage sons bet me that I couldn't do it. We're doing it together although I'm pretty sure that I'll get left in their dust.

Happy Mother's Day! I'm spending it pretty much just lying on my deckchair. I may get DC1 to make me a cocktail in a minute and really push the boat out!

That's different. These guys wear it like a badge of honour. My partner was asking why I was the only one who wasn't taking part in the race the other team members were running in. I told him straight that I have 2 Dc and a FT working DH while the others have no kids/ one kid plus SAHP. He went rather quiet.

What's a mud run? I don't think Oklahoma has them, although we have the perfect conditions after a week of torrential rain.

It's the postpartum-mother-with-abs "no excuses" memes that fuck me off. Eating well and being active are important to me, but I don't need an excuse not to have a six-pack. Just like I don't need an excuse for not having a PhDs or whatever.

Mud runs are obstacle races through mud. They are meant to be super specially hard coz the mud adds weight and holds you back and they are reminiscent of army training.

I used to enjoy the kind of extreme sports that make you stupidly over exert yourself, such as boxing training. However, these days I am overweight and have arthritis and a ridiculous range of injuries that limit my exercise. So DD is playing tennis while I am on MN looking at the exercise equipment (I will go and do an hour of exercise, just not feeling the mojo yet)

I could do one along the sidewalk outside my house right now!

Passive exercise was always enough to keep me trim in the UK, but the combination of an American diet and hitting my mid-30s has made me realise that walking and cycling probably won't cut it for much longer.

I've just been to the store. I've lived in the US for several years and I still can't get over randoms wishing me a Happy Mothers Day. As nice as it is, it's just so un British!

Mrs Frumble, this is the race I'm doing. It's supposed to be quite tough but the thought of my teenage boys winning the bet will be the one thing that gets me through! www.spartan.com/?c3api=5985,59905320017,spartan%20race&gclid=COWSzeeXuMUCFQwLaQodEK8ARg

Sorry! Bad link! www.spartan.com/

Yes, I was taken aback to be wished happy Mother's Day today by random people!