The Goat Rescue Story
For those who haven't seen my story on Facebook...

One cold and rainy winter morning, the horses in the paddock next door were racing around playfully.


From the middle of the horse stampede came the cries of a little lost goat named Penelope. She could not find her mama and was very sad.


Our hero jumped the fence and carried her through the paddock back to the herd.


We like to think Penelope's mama was very grateful that we sacrificed getting to work on time in order to save her kid. The End.

Live and Learn
So next time we go away for two months, I'm going to throw away all the food in the pantry BEFORE we leave. That will save me the trouble of doing so when I get home. Mmm, yeah. We had some uninvited housesitters. Nasty.

Welcome to the Neighbourhood
We have some new neighbours. I'll give you a cute, little hint.


Not just one. No, more like 13 and possibly more. Here's a small sampling:






I kinda love these stinky little goats. One was extremely pregnant, so I expect we'll be seeing a little one soon. Frida seemed a bit skeptical. She was ready to defend our jasmine with a peck on the nose if need be.



(P.S. Feel better, Tash!)

The Mystery Mystery
I have probably mentioned "our" horse before. She lives in the paddock next to us, and we feed her apples and carrots and bread. We call her Mystery even though that's not her name, and the lady across the street corrects me every time she hears me say it.

So the other morning I got called outside to see quite a surprise.




Three!

We've named the other ones too. (Suck it, Across-the-Street Lady!) So in the top photo, it goes Sugarplum(p), Gossamer, and Mystery. We're gonna need more apples.

Since Last Time...
... my Tash has been here;
... we got a new tv and Lego: Batman, which consumes us;
... one or both of us has been sick almost every day;
... I have barely looked at websites not news or weather related, except Facebook. There's always time for Facebook, yeah?

I'm Excited About...
... Coles Online: this is going to change my LIFE! Shopping for groceries FROM MY COUCH, and then they will magically appear at my door at any time I desire??!! I love you, Coles. If only you stocked Method, I would never go anywhere else again.

... our new chook pen. Frida is completely too big for the cage set-up we had on the veranda, so we bought her the super-deluxe, A-frame chicken tractor. She is spoiled.

... but she is LAYING EGGS. Did I mention this before? We've got eggs coming literally and figuratively out the wazoo. So if you're in the Brisbane area and want some yummy eggs from a happy chicken, let me know. We can work out some sort of drop off action. EGGS!

My New Greenery


My new plant from my thoughtful husband.

Last Tuesday I had a really bad day. It was my day off. I had a phone-date with my parents planned. It was going to be lovely.

Instead, I woke up to find fleas. ON MY BED. Fleas. I love my cat, but I wanted to kill him. Perhaps there was a lack of prevention on my part, but I know he's been cavorting around with the neighborhood cat-hos lately too.

So I was going to wash all the bedding, including the gigantic king-sized bedspread that barely fits in our washer. I went downstairs thinking it was about time to move the bedspread to the dryer only to find it soaking in a washer filled with water. Hmm, washer is broken. Won't even spin my blanket dry.

Call the repair place who fixed our gas tanks. Lady treats me like a stupid person just because none of the words I can find on the entire machine match any of the apparently well-known brands of washing machines in this country. Sometimes I just hate people here.

It all ends well. I was able to drag my water-logged bedding over to the in-laws and used their machine to finish the cleansing. Repair people, from a different company out of pure principle, are coming on Monday.

And then I called my folks. Dad said that he just fixed my mom's washer -- he bought her a new one. I told him he needed to teach my husband how to fix washing machines!

It's My Turn
Since I lived the greater portion of my life without a valentine, dang-it, I am milking it for all it's worth now! I am so excited about the little gift I ordered for Hans today. I know the 14th is tomorrow, but we're celebrating in March. He got tickets for Phantom the last week of March, so hopefully his gift will be here by then.

Ants in My Pants
Being in the house all day long over Christmas break, I had to face what I feared most. The ants don't only come out on the weekends, and in fact, spend all day every day trekking through my house in search of a moth carcass or a lost crumb. It was when they started coming in through the BEDROOM window, going down the wall, under the bed, and out into the hallway that I really lost my shizz.

Let me point out that I KNOW ants, okay? It's not like Iowa or Michigan or Indiana or Tennessee were somehow ant-free zones, and this is a totally new experience for me. (Not like when I moved to Michigan and faced cockroaches for the first time in my life... I mean, eww!) I realize that ants are everywhere, but it is the sheer number of ants that we have here that is absolutely mind-boggling. It's not even one KIND of ant... I can at any given moment stand outside and point out at least four different varieties traipsing around.

(I was trying to find a link for you to show all the different kinds, but it was giving me the heebie-jeebies. Google it for yourself.)

What was worse was that people trying to console me were just feeding me lies.

LIE #1 - They're harmless.
If the only reason I notice that there are ants on the floor in the living room is because I'm sitting on the couch and have just got bitten in the sensitive area between my toes, then I'm sorry, but they're NOT harmless.

LIE #2 - At least they're not dirty.
What? Seriously? They're bugs. I don't care if they just took a bath. If they are carving their way through MY FOOD, they are DIRTY.

LIE #3 - This is Queensland. There's not much you can do about ants.
Wrong-o. That's why they invented exterminators.

So after some tears and wailing that I could never open my home to another guest ever, we made a booking with Elders. (Super easy to do, book right online.)

The guy came on Tuesday, and I am feeling much better about life.

The Spider That Nearly Ate Me
Interestingly, the same morning that the pest-control guy came was the same morning that I saw my first huntsman inside the house in ages. I couldn't have just spotted it from afar. No, this one was hiding in the little jar of kitchen utensils I have on my kitchen counter. So when I picked up the tongs to get my chicken out of the oven, it came RUNNING UP MY ARM before I shook it off in mild convulsions. It ran under the dishwasher and was later found gasping for breath after the Elders guy sprayed under there. Sorry, buddy. MY house. Don't forget it.

And More on the Ants
So Wednesday we were walking home from the train, eagerly looking forward to spending some time in the ant-free zone. We were walking through a semi-wooded area, when I felt the bite of a meat ant through my stocking. We made the mistake of stopping to try and remove it, not realizing a nest nearby must have been recently disrupted. Soon there were twenty or more on me and twice as many on Hans -- all madly trying to gnaw through the leather of our shoes or the flesh on our bodies. It was absolutely disgusting, and once we had kicked them all off, it took all my strength to make it the rest of the way home without vomiting. A mistake that will not be made again soon, to be sure.

Linky Links
♥ My household found this very funny: The Downfall of HD-DVD (via The Copydesk).

Viva Italia!
Last night we had Italian night. I don't know what drives me to do it, but sometimes I feel compelled to go completely overboard. For example, when making chalupas, I pull out the cactus...es... (cacti?) and put candles in sand and call the place EL GATO'S complete with little menus with a blue cat on them.

Right, so for Italian night, it was a bit disappointing to learn that "cat" is also "gato"... but it is "il gato's" instead. Fine.

After getting some inspiration from eHow's How to Host an Italian Night, we picked up some decorations from the cheap shop. A little ivy and grapes...

A $5 work of art and flowers from the market...

I also got a plastic red-checkered table cloth and an oil jar from the cheap shop. I got to use my little canapé plates for the first time. We had mini dishes with Italian seasoning, salt & cracked pepper at each setting and added olive oil just before the bread came out.

I managed to hunt down a chianti in the wicker-bottomed bottle on Friday to my delight. I really just wanted it for the look, never having tasted it before. It was a nice compliment to the food.

After the olive bread and olives/sundried tomatoes/artichokes, we whipped up the main dish -- my mom's simple yet spectacular fettuccine alfredo dusted with nutmeg and steamed asparagus. (Yes, that's butter. And no, it's not exactly a low-fat meal... but delish!)

We finished off with tiramisu cupcakes from the markets and a lovely Italian moscato d'asti recommended by the friendly man at the bottle shop. (Speaking of whom, I believe he even gave us the chianti for free after looking at our receipt later.)

So it was a really fun night. There was lots of laughter and good conversation. We were serenaded by Josh Groban and Pavarotti and good ol' Dean Martin. Good times.

A Series of Unfortunate Events
1. Due to circumstances somewhat beyond my control, I have deleted all but a very few MSN contacts. Oops. Come back!

2. I bent my fingernail almost completely backwards yesterday resulting in much ouchiness. I used duct tape to try get it to reattach. No word yet on whether it is working, because I'm afraid the peeling of the tape will also cause another repeeling of the skin.

3. You grow up in a small town, and suddenly after you've left they make the USA Today. I could have written about this yesterday, because my sister was giving me up-to-the-minute reports on the latest happenings. My brother was evacuated. My dad was at the scene. So much excitement.

Today I've been going to all the news outlets I can find. It's weird to see my old neighbor (now fire chief) on television. One of my favourite teachers was on there too.

I particularly liked this article, and more specifically, this quote:

Four and a half hours after the blast, the firefighters put the flames down. Another two hours, and they stopped the rail tanker's leak. The firefighters - SiouxlCenter residents with regular jobs who volunteer to protect their community.

"It's very courageous when you have volunteer firefighters willing to go down and do these sort of of things," Schipper said.

Yeah.

Geekery at its Finest
I got a mobile yesterday. I am finding it hard to believe, but at the same time, I think it will give me a little more peace of mind when out and about on my own.

The one I got, after tons of review reading, is the HTC Touch. So far it is great. Yes, I know it's like the iPhone. But as I'm telling the Mac snobs at work, I'm just going to go ahead and enjoy this phone until your little iPhone gets released here in 2009.

I haven't really had a chance to mess with it much. And I certainly don't have many people to call. And I have no idea what my number is.

But I can say that all the reviews that complain about needing to use the stylus for typing and stuff must come from idiots who have never used a pda phone before. If you wanted a dang number pad, go back to your stupid teenie-bopper Razr and leave the pda's for the adults.

It runs Windows Mobile 6.0... and my, it's PRETTY.

More Geekiness
It's my brother-in-law's birthday, and tonight we're going to High Octane. I'm really nervous in case we're racing against some really hard-core people. But I figure someone has to lose, may as well be me. (I just don't want to crash into people and have them get all mad.) Eeep. But I'm totally excited.

Live Earth Worked!
Brisbane is experiencing record low temps. Awesome. Sort of. I'm freezing but am hesitant to complain... the hellish hot heat gets far too much time during the year!

In other tree-hugging news, we've come up with a new energy-saving solution. We're not using incandescent. We're not even using halogen. We've apparently decided not to replace bulbs at all when they burn out. (Neither of us have attempted the multiple chair-stacking routine required to change the smoke-detector battery.) Now at night, we use the ambient lighting of the computer screen. (I know... I know...)

The Pain in My Elbow is Worth It
Pardon me, I'm too busy giving myself an RSI playing Zendoku to talk. (I've never been a Sodoku fanatic, but I've been playing this for two solid days and still haven't managed to beat what I think is the final level with any of my characters.) I must go.

Fall Television
OH MY GOSH... I just found out about Nashville... no, not the city I left my heart in -- I'm talking about the new docu-drama by the makers of Laguna Beach. Ridiculous. And AWESOME! We're so downloadinglthat getting someone to tape that for us.

Therapy Weekend
Friday night we went out with some friends of Hans's who I just met a week ago. They actually live in the States, but snowy weather prevented us from hooking up while we were there. It was so nice to sit and chat with the wife, because she and I had such similar experiences with culture shock and dealing with getting thrust into a new culture. I feel a little less crazy now. And her reassurance that it took her a good two years to get over it makes my "bad moments" feel less like a relapse and more like a progression.

Retail Therapy
Yesterday morning we went to Officeworks so I could get some files to put in my shiny new filing cabinet. I opted for the recycled inner files, because they were cheap and Earth-friendly... but for my hanging folders, I got the super cute ones. Though I must add that they were almost the cheapest. Oh, and I got the baby blue and the light green ones, not the pink pictured. I was quite proud of the store for even having them. (Sorry, Australia, but if you ever want to live up to American Target, you're going to have to start offering a cute option for everything.)

Oh, and then we went back to Freedom and bought two baskets, a rug, and two sets of dishes... and a chocolate brown leather sofa which will be delivered next week... and my apothecary cabinet and matching coffee table which will be delivered two weeks after that. I'm THRILLED. I love my living room already, and most of it isn't here. I'm really just happy to have a couch that doesn't make my back hurt constantly.

As soon as we got home, I put the new dishes in the dishwasher and immediately packed up the hand-me-down dishes that came with the house. I took a photo of the process.


They are fine for some people, but anyone who knows me would understand that I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that I die a little bit each time I use them. The grape ones I can almost tolerate for being slightly arty, but the flower ones... gah!

The new ones are plain white, which is fine... until I can get my set from back home over here. The set that I painstakingly collected one plate at a time from ebay. The set that is the same pattern my parents had when they first got married in the '70s. I ♥ those dishes.

Currently Reading
Straight Dope: as seen on JoshuaBlankenship.com. It answers the world's most important questions like "Is 'baby corn' really baby corn?" and "What does 'Mrs.' stand for?" and "What is the origin for the expression 'Sleep tight'?"

Furnishings for Sanity
I have been going mental for the last couple of weeks, because there are items that I know made it back here from the States that have seemingly vanished into thin air. Items like all the paperwork for my new bank account, the decoration from The Iron Gate, and in particular, all the wedding photos I had printed over there.

The ultimate problem is that we live in this cute little house that has no storage whatsoever. No closets. No cupboards except in the kitchen. No nothing. It's driving me crazy. (Bear in mind, in my last townhouse, I even put my dresser INSIDE my closet; it was so big.)

We've done as best we can, but I'm going crazy with the clutter and lack of anything to do with that clutter.

So yesterday, I declared that if Hans is spending the whole weekend with his mistress (read: his video clip), then I want a filing cabinet so I can put some order back into my life. And last night we bought one. Just like that.

We had gone to IKEA last Sunday, and as much as I wanted it to fulfill all of my furniture dreams, it just didn't. The sheer number of people in there made me never to want to ever buy anything from there again. Ever. It made me feel all dirty and trendy.

Last night we went to Freedom, and I fell in love. I want to say it is as close to West Elm as Australia is ever going to get. (As we were jumping from couch to couch, Hans said, "This place makes IKEA look like a cheap whore." So true, my dear. So true.) Not only did we buy a three-drawer filing cabinet on the spot, but we also found the white apothecary cabinet of my dreams. (I'd link to it, but no stores in this country seem to grasp the idea of putting their inventory online, much less making it available to order from this here interweb thing.)

So suddenly we're furnishing our home with real furniture that WE are picking out. It's kind of exciting.

Linky Links
Now Look What You Did: Two great motion graphics pieces that address two of my greatest pet-peeves.

Boomshine: Flash game addiction. Set off chain reactions. I've completed Level 12 twice, but I've never had a boomshine (where you get all the dots).

An Early Conversation
Him: Come ooooon. Geeeeet up. Your coffee is by the bed getting cold.
Me: It's already cold.
Him: I'll even go put it in the microwave. (from the kitchen) But don't think that this is a reward for sleeping in.

I think I'm officially over jetlag, and now this early morning business is getting increasingly difficult.

The Wii vs. PS3 Debate Continues
Hans and his brother have these wacky notions that we're all going to go in together and buy the latest gaming systems to "share". Sure. That's fine. They can plan all they want.

I was a real skeptic when it came to the Wii. I wasn't interested in having to work for my gaming pleasure. Isn't the whole reason you play games so that you can sit around and be lazy? I don't know. But then when I heard about the price difference and after hearing some people get really excited about the Wii, then I have to admit that I got on board and would have supported a Wii purchase.

Then America happened (and we almost bought the Wii accessories there to save money)... and then we sort of fell in love with our DSs and didn't really need another new toy right away.

Then I saw the demo for LittleBigPlanet. Now I'm back in the PS3 camp.