Breathe.

February, 2008. Blue Mountains, Australia. Breathe.

Happy Earth Day Everyone!

love. and squirrels.

What is love? Is it physical? emotional? a combination of the two? Is it a pleasant surprise or a helpful gesture? Is it faith? Whatever it is, it's official, I'm in love. Daz and I got engaged on January 3rd this year. I am taking the leap and moving to the other side of the world*. What does that mean you ask? It means I will be moving away from everything I have ever known to embrace something new and wonderful. I am sad to leave and I have butterflies. On the other side of the coin, I feel alive and I am happy. Thank God for that "coin". Happy Valentine's Day world.


*When I say this, I'm not kidding. I will literally be living within a few hundred km of the opposite side of the globe. There are days I feel like an astronaut because of the sheer distance I have to travel to get there; luckily the travelling will be relatively low to the ground (airplane instead of space shuttle) and there are significantly less g forces involved, but still!)

To give you a little visual perspective, it's summer in Western Australia right now. It's not summer here. Here are the pictures to prove it...
PS - Daz and my mother did a great job of encouraging the squirrels with lots of treats at Christmas time...feel free to count them. (4 in the picture and 1 down the embankment = a total of FIVE!)


The squirrels.

The back deck. Please note that I'm standing on around a foot of snow...this little path is not on the ground... (picture taken March 3, 2009)

The porch from a squirrel's perspective. Once again, the snow is deeper than pictured because I didn't shovel all the way to the boards. (picture taken March 3, 2009)

There are three porch steps and then one more step to actually get on the deck. As you can see, I only excavated two of them...sortof :) . It is a surreal feeling to shovel frozen water... (picture taken March 3, 2009)

wonderful = love. and squirrels.

cold. hot. beautiful.

My last post waxed poetic on 70 degrees Fahrenheit balmy weather in Australia in December. This post will wax poetic on -1 degree Fahrenheit chilliness in New Hampshire in January. D arrived home safe and sound about two weeks ago. The other day he called me and said something to the effect of, "Man, it's hot here, 100 degrees!!!" I said something to the effect of, "Huh, who would think that two places on earth could have a temperature difference of 101 degrees and both be inhabitable." Yes folks, it was cold here this past weekend, very cold. In that light I would like to guide you to some amazing pictures of cold. D has his new website up. These are winter in New Hampshire. This is his main page. His photos are gorgeous, I hope you enjoy them!

wonderful= cold. hot. beautiful.

pretty stuff. tasty stuff. and Doritos.

It's lovely here today. The sun is out. There's a gentle breeze. It's around 70 degrees (that's Fahrenheit of course). It's also December. I can't get over the concept of it being summer here when it is winter in NH.

I thought it would be a good day to post a few pictures. I took the pictures of the paper daisies (pink and white) near Kalbarri when we went to check out all of the amazing wildflowers in September.



The orange poppies were given to me at church in Merredin in mid-October. They were part of a beautiful bouquet someone had picked from their garden. I loooove poppies. Ohh, and natural light...I love late afternoon natural light.




The last picture isn't flowers, but it is something to feast your eyes on. Literally. Haystacks are one of my favorite Aussie foods (errr...ok apparently this is not a strictly "Aussie" food, but I did eat it for the first time in Australia, does that count? No? ok. :)). Imagine a table full of bowls... bowls of chopped tomatoes, onions, scallions, corn, shredded carrots, lettuce, canned beets, shredded cheese, sour cream, either baked beans or chili (chili in this case) and Doritos. Yep, Doritos. Add or subtract ingredients to taste. Crush Doritos first if you wish. Pile on the toppings. Devour. Yum. :)



I hope at least one of the pics tickles your fancy. Enjoy!

wonderful = pretty stuff. tasty stuff. and Doritos.

spiders. and modems. and broadband. oh. my.

Shhhhh, don't tell the modem. Broadband is working again. At least for the time being. We still have to get a new modem because the one we have right now is working as hard as it possibly can to sync, which means no wiggle room with the signal. Apparently modems like wiggle room.

Scary Spiders 2008 - Click at your own risk!

I know it is a little past halloween, but I decided to put up the surprise anyway. There is some definite eww factor here, which is why I have turned it into a seperate blog. If you don't like spiders, I highly suggest that you don't click on the link. If you don't mind spiders, click away.

While D and I were in the wheat belt a few weeks ago, I encountered some wildlife I had previously only seen in a zoo. Shingleback Lizards, Stink Bugs, and Thorny Devils (a reallllly prickly lizard) were all on the list. There were birds that I had only seen in cages before, and they were Gorgeous, and in some cases quite cheeky. In the past two months I have also seen some amazing plant life, some that doesn't grow anywhere else in the world. With that said, some of the most interesting of the flora and fauna of the area is the spider. They can be huge and some can be quite dangerous, even aggressive, depending which species it is. The following is link is to a picture journal of some of the spiders I saw while in the wheat belt. Enjoy!

wonderful = spiders. and modems. and broadband.

growling. foot stamping. technical difficulties.

grrrr...
Imagine the following scenario. D arrives home after a month away and says, "Right, time to get back into it." He goes into the office and turns on the computer, walks into the kitchen makes a Vegemite and tomahto sandwich (with margareen of course), walks back in and says to himself "click Internet Explorer, check e-mail...hmmm this is odd...why isn't it connecting? It connected before I left. Click connect. Click connect twice. Turn computer off and then on again and click connect again. Growl at keyboard. Pray for keyboard's safety in the imminent future. Growl at keyboard and pray at same time. Jump up and down in front of computer deliberately so it knows how frustrated you are. Stalk out of room, growl again, and then stalk back in again. Jenn and D call service provider. Between the two of them they talk to three different people and one machine for several hours over a period of two days, regarding how to fix this. Growl again. Meet with three different phone guys four times over the next week and a half, only to have them tell us that the service provider sold D broadband on the fringe of the area that broadband is available. They admit it's their fault; and then say in order to continue service you have to go buy a more expensive modem. Hehe, it's April Fool's day right? No? WHAT! Shake head in disbelief. Growl again and stamp foot for good measure.

Yep, that's right folks. We are in the middle of a love, hate relationship with the internet at the moment. For the sake of simplicity we will refer to this relationship as "Technical Difficulties". Luckily, the service provider does provide back-up dial-up in cases such as ours. Unfortunately this means that it takes approximately 3 point 2 days to access a website, let alone upload and save information, hence the reason there are no pictures in this post. Thanks for bearing with us, I should be back online with broadband in the next few days...hopefully before the 31st. Halloween is coming and I have a surprise post for that, keep your fingers crossed!

PS - I have to say for the record that it is our frustration with the situation which caused me to type such a longwinded account of our experience. The customer service reps for the service provider were extremely kind, as were the phone guys. The growling and foot stamping were in no way directed at them.

PPS - Hi Tiff! How's the new apartment??? Hope you are loving it!

wonderful = growling. foot stamping. technical difficulties.

hot water. sweaters. hard work. big rewards.

One chapter in the epic adventure is over.

After spending time in the coastal town of Kalbarri, we drove through a winding trail of wildflowers and spent a night in a convent. It had been turned into a bed and breakfast and while not fancy, it was adequate. We eventually made it to Perth, where we stayed with some of D's friends for the night. We spent the next morning in King's park and then travelled east to the Shire of Tammin on the Great Eastern Highway. Darren has spent the last several weeks working in the Shire of Kellerberrin next door, working on several bathrooms at an old Catholic boarding school that has been turned into another bed and breakfast type accomodation. The couple he has worked for have been absolutely lovely, they are wonderful people and quite Aussie! As for the chapter being over, we will be driving to Bunbury tomorrow to head back to the daily grind as they say. Rumor has it that we may even get to stop in a yarn store on the way through Perth! My fingers are firmly crossed. We also plan on stopping at IKEA, which should prove to be interesting. I just had my first IKEA trip in Massachusetts a few weeks before leaving for Aus and will therefore be able to do a comparison of the two. What an amazing store IKEA is! So many things to look at and so many decorating ideas come to mind...

Of course, what would a post be without pictures?

Ok, Americans...take a good look at this picture. Please note the location of the driver in the pickup. Now note his position on the road and the way the lines are painted. BTW (by the way) if you're in Aus it's not a pickup, its a ute.

Speaking of vehicles, how 'bout the cost of gas? $1.86 a liter not bad, huh? Well since a liter is roughly one quarter of a gallon, you are looking at around $7.56 a gallon. Oh and if you're fueling up I wouldn't suggest calling it gas...you'll get natural gas or propane instead of gasoline. It's petrol here.

Here is the beginning of a new scarf/shawl. Clapotis. If you're an internet Knitter I'm sure you are quite familiar with this pattern. I've chosen a fingering weight yarn instead of a worsted and am just doing straight rows until I run out of yarn, but other than that everything else is to pattern. The yarn is from NH Knitting Mama. The colourway is Purple Lilac (I love that because it is the NH state flower) and it is merino 2 ply, sock weight.

Last, because I like to save the best for last... THE CORDIAL SWEATER!!!!! Isn't the colourway gorgeous? It fits like a dream...big and roomy and comfy...and my new go to sweater! I LOVE IT! Thanks so much for dying the yarn for me Amanda! BTW - I'm making a fire here. Quite domestic of me huh? The farm we are staying at has wood powered hot water. Working hard for something really makes it that much more enjoyable. (and not just with hot water and sweaters!)

wonderful = hot water. sweaters. hard work. big rewards.

P.S. - Hi Aunt Jane! I'm so glad you came to read the blog!