Here in My Car I Feel Safest of All
It's New Car Day! Hooray! We have the day off, and I thought we would sleep in and then go later in the afternoon. But no, I think I was awake by 7:30 and raring to go. It's so exciting. Our CAR is parked underneath me as I type. We went and got groceries in OUR CAR. I went through three roundabouts in OUR CAR. I'm ready to take a roadtrip in OUR CAR!

We're a little split on the name. I wanted it to be sort of "Man from Snowy River" themed, since it is a Colt. The thing is that I can't remember any of the horses' names from the movie. Bess was the one who died at the beginning, right? And then I'm not sure any of the other ones had names. Just "the Brumbies", I think.

But we've got it narrowed down to either Clancy or JESSICA!. Not Jessica. You have to say it like you've just spent the night looking for her in the rain. JESSICA! Maybe the car can have two names. Clancy for when it's behaving well, and JESSICA! when it's giving me grief.

In Other News...
* It's fricking FREEZING.

* Hans's tante and oom from Holland are in town this weekend. I can pick up only the slightest bit of their Dutch, but they are such a hoot. We're arranging a visit with them in 2010 when we go for Sail Amsterdam.

* As a thank-you for watching my in-laws' pets last week, I was given some Soul Food Kitchen Cajun Spices. So last night we made red beans and rice. With the Cajun blends that I've found here, I usually put in two Tablespoons to get it to my heat level. So I did the same with my new stuff. OMG. We nearly died. I thought my lips were going to swell shut. I think Hans was hallucinating. I'm scared to try it again. It definitely is NOT the Australian version of spicy; it's legit.

Linky Links
♥ Dutch Word of the Day -- I'm newly recommitted to learning the Dutch that I abandoned quite a while ago.

♥ CraftGossip -- lots of crafty ideas, and from there I found Jon's Thread Escapades, a blog about tatting. I started learning to tat from my Grandma years and years ago. That's another thing I feel like I should consider taking up again.

♥ Vinyl Record Headbands -- here's a craft for Alyda!

♥ Cake Wrecks -- I can't remember where I found this one, but it shows when cake decorating goes wrong, all wrong.

♥ Basic Instructions -- Another one I've had open for a few days, so I can't remember where it came from. But it's a pretty funny webcomic. (Even though I hate them for not having their top banner return to the home page. Who doesn't do that?)

And Just Like That, Things Change
♥ Forget that drought I mentioned. It's been raining nearly non-stop for the past three days. It's the perfect excuse to get some cute wellies. (Why, oh why can't we have real Target??)

♥ I had scallops for the first time last weekend. Maybe I don't hate all shellfish after all. Or maybe I just love things smothered in lemon grass. It remains to be seen.

Site to Peruse Later
Mainstream Isn't So Bad... Is It?. Mostly you should go there for this post and listen to the songs. "Bathe in the River" was playing almost every morning while we were eating breakfast at the hotel on our honeymoon in New Zealand, so it has a special meaning for me. But it's an amazing song aside from that.

Brrr
I know I can't seem to do anything but complain about the heat here... but dang it's cold. Record cold for the area, in fact. It translates to around 40 degrees (F) with wind chill.

Sidebar Updates
I've added a few more Americans in Australia over to the right. Audra is a Californian (I think) in Sydney. The Briddles are New Englanders in Perth (my city of choice if I had to move somewhere else in oz). And Outback Dobbs has been linked to before, but they're in Melbourne. It's somewhat therapeutic to read the thoughts of people in similar situations.

Good Golly -- Galahs!
I snapped a photo of the galahs this morning on our walk to the train. I cut out one of them that was facing the camera, and I know it's a bad photo... but I'm still amazed by the wildlife that I'm surrounded by here.