A-B-C's

You might think that Juliette is too young at 4 months old for learning her "A-B-C's" but I beg to differ. I sing all sorts of songs to her and she mimics me to the best of her limited abilities of speech. 

Regardless of singing the a-b-c's to her in the way I learned while growing up I am still open to new ideas, so when my sister Jae (who writes "Stinky Angels") suggested the "Sesame Street - African Alphabet Song" version, I played it for Juliette...

 FYI - this song can hush a fussy baby in less than 30 seconds (it is 1 minute 52 seconds long and quietly mesmerizing; after playing it about 10 times in a row so she and I could learn the words and sing along, she finally ate her liquid lunch and fell asleep)

... *singing quietly* Amazing, Beautiful, Creatures Dancing, Excitement, Forest Glade, in my, Heartfelt, I do, Jump like the, Kudu, Listening to the Music so Nicely Organ Played, Quietly, Rests the, Sleepy Tiger, Under the Vine tree at the, Waterside, and X marks the place neath the, Yellow moon where the, Zulu chief and i did hide....

... The Party Dress ...

I remember being young and loving to dress up in a pretty dress. I remember being young and dressing my dolls in pretty dresses.

I remember being in highschool and dressing up for proms...

No matter who you are or what your dreams are/were, nothing ever prepares you for the exhilaration of being able to dress up your daughter and show her off at a party with lots of other moms and dads who brought their children too... As expected, my daughter was a hit at her friend's birthday party.

Q: So as a little 4 month old, what do you wear to your 1 year old friend's birthday party?
A: A pretty rose colored frock of course!!

Excellent Thanksgiving.

If you are American you probably look forward to Thanksgiving, either because you plan to spend it with friends and family, or possibly because it gets you out of one or two days of work.

This is the first year I have ever spent Thanksgiving outside of the USA (with my husband and his extended family). It is completely odd for me to be around a bunch of people who aren't talking about or preparing for a full day of cooking more food than you can eat just to indulge a bunch of people who want to chew the fat or watch football of the 'grid iron' variety all day. Sure there are a few family games and maybe some 'Black Friday' shopping frenzies, but basically it is an excuse to get the kids and grandkids together to see one another.

That said... my mother-in-law made an especially huge effort to make a Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday after she worked all day (*snickers*, take that you Americans who need to be at home all day to cook a proper turkey). Then on Thursday we ate the obligatory leftovers (I prepared these, 'cuz Australians are not used to "Thanksgiving leftovers"). And on Friday night we celebrated again with my sister-in-law and her husband (yes, with more turkey - what are you laughing at, you probably have 1/2 your turkey in the freezer right now just so you can eat it later).

It is hard to be away from the family that you know and love, but it is wonderful to have a new set of friends and family who want to include you and continuously do their best to make you feel at home - even when by doing so, they are acknowledging or participating in something that is completely foreign to them.

One of the things we did at dinner on Friday night, was to tell everyone what we are thankful for this year. In my American family, years past, I remember this round of conversation spurring a lot of "I am thankful for you..." kinds of chatter. This year it was a collective "we are thankful for family, children and grandchildren". Afterall what else is there if you don't have family?

Now that isn't so very different until you understand that some of us had resigned ourselves to never have children, and others spent years trying but were afraid we could never have them. So it is a kind of silent miracle that this Australian family of mine is experiencing such a great influx of babies and a bit ironic that they are celebrating that miracle on a holiday that is completely American.

Related, and yet not related... I follow my mother's blog "cuppa Chai" and the following sentiment is straight from her post on November 13, "Thought for the day":

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.

--Michael Gartner

This is the perfect thought for the holiday season (Thanksgiving - Christmas - New Year) and it is one that I live by daily. So thank you to my friends and family who are there with me no matter what! Being 1/2 way around the world is not lonely when you can still connect via internet or telephone especially when your extended family reaches out to you at times when they are not accustomed to celebrating, just to make you feel more at home.

Only one follower???

Ok, I know I am dull and dry and I have no flavor to my posts... (this is your cue to all chime in and let me know you love reading what I have to say, yes I need an ego boost just now) ...but really, I've been in OZ since April 1 (quite a bizarre turn of events that I arrived in the land down under on April fools day - please no comment from the peanut gallery on what this might mean for my future) and I only have one, count them "one", follower of my blog to show for it. You know how disheartening that is?

Then I realized, I only have a very few friends (roughly 200) and most of them are in facebook... who has time for blogs?

So hey, if you want me to blog more often, give me a shout out so I know you are there!!!

Here I sit...

It's so funny, I said I wasn't going to make my daughter the center of all my posts and yet, here I am thinking about what to write and seeing only her. It amazes me that a well schooled adult can change their whole world with one tiny priority (in my case, it's a wiggly opinionated baby girl... who, despite being well fed, thinks I need to feed her rather than blog to all of you).

Anyway, my intention was to give you some things to look forward to in the upcoming days. I still have lots of photos from events that I haven't blogged yet, but I still plan to post, even though the information may be out of date.

Included in that are:

• Juliette's birthday at King Edward hospital in Perth (July 26, 2009)
• Our first family vacation to Pemberton (September 2009)
• Oscar's first birthday (November 2009)
• Our new DubLi business (November - December 2009)
  

Look for these new posts coming soon... (hopefully this week)

Where did I go???

For those of you who aren't in facebook... my little wiggle worm (Juliette Gentian) was born on July 26th (a whopping 10 days late). She scared us with her immediate transfer, after delivery, to the baby ICU for her first night.

So, i have been learning how to be a stay at home mom. I just wanted to let you know i'll be posting more fun stuff soon.

Language Barriers

Ok -- so you can enjoy in my confusion... here is another interesting thing I experienced just today.

"Arvo"

I saw a note that said " Will return this arvo..." and I thought I was misreading the note, or possibly the letters I was seeing weren't real. This moment of confusion and wonderment actually made me ask my in-laws what in the heck was an "Arvo".

So here I stealed myself to ask, got up the gumption to say something to Jill and very innocently said "Um, this may sound stupid, but what is an arvo?" To which she giggled quietly and said, "arvo is a very Australian word... it means afternoon." Then she turns to Alan (who as of yet hadn't heard my question) and said, "Alan, Gen want's to know what an arvo is." And of course he also chuckled and said, "afternoon of course".

Here I am learning a whole new language, and I thought we all spoke English, silly me.

FYI - with a quick search online you can find the history and definition of "arvo".
__________________________________________________________________

ar⋅vo /ˈɑrvoʊ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ahr-voh]

–noun Australian Slang.

afternoon.

---

Origin:
1930–35; af(ternoon) + -o, with voicing of -f-; ar is r-less speaker's representation of low back vowel

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

Differences...

So a friend of mine asked for my opinion on culture differences between America and Australia. Oddly the biggest difference I have noticed may not even qualify as a culture difference, regardless here was the answer I gave...

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As for Australia... Culture here is sometimes very odd but they are much more like Americans than they would admit, and you will probably laugh but this is the biggest thing I noticed since coming here:

In America if you are shopping and you are walking in a mall or a store, you typically find that people stay to the right and make room to pass, or at least say excuse me when you are blocking their way, or they are blocking yours... Here there is no such automatic courtesy -- Americans walk like they drive, Australians walk wherever they damn well please and if they bump you in the process they seldom even say sorry or excuse me, it is weird. It's like it is your fault if you weren't getting out of the way fast enough for someone that is moving faster.

The funniest thing about this phenomenon is that all the grocery carts have wheels that allow the cart to move in any direction -- sideways, slant ways, etc. It's like they made the cart (which by the way they call a trolley) to fit the way people walk all over the place.

Logically I keep thinking, you drive to the left, you should walk to the left... but if you tried to walk to the left people would still run into you because they just don't think "Oh I should make sure to walk to the left, because I will avoid running into this other person who is walking at me" It's like that thought process does not exist.
=========================

Now don't get me wrong, Australians are generally very polite people...

I think, however, when they are shopping it is a matter of focus and they tend to be more focused on what they want than who they are walking through to get it. There is nothing wrong with that, it is just not logical to me because I tend to move out of people's way and sadly I can't anticipate here which way someone will choose to walk around me the way I can guess in the states. Sure you still get bumped by people in the states, but usually they feel remorse, here they look at you like "why didn't you know where I was heading?" as if the bee line they were making should be the line I avoid. I am not a mind reader...

Sultana -- Food or Foe?

There are some things in the Aussie vocabulary that still make me double take and think about what I just heard. One such word is "sultana". So, here I am in the Yogurt Shoppe looking at different flavors of freshly made yogurt with fruit toppings and one of the signs reads, "Apples, Sultanas and Cinnamon". I am staring at the concoction in the refrigerated case trying to figure out what exactly are sultanas. In the midst of my confusion I quietly ask my mother-in-law and she explains that they are dried grapes. I thought how silly to have a name that means nothing like dried grape, and then I remembered that in the USA we call them raisins or currents - two more names that have nothing apparent to do with grapes. Out of my curiosity I looked it up (good 'ole wikipedia)...

Sultana (grape)
The sultana (also called the sultanina or sultaninini) is a type of white, seedless grape of Turkish, Greek or Iranian origin. It is also the name given to the raisin made from it; such sultana raisins are often called simply sultanas or sultanis. These are typically larger than the currants made from Zante grapes, but smaller than "normal" raisins.

Jill's White Rose Garden

My mother-in-law has a gorgeous layout of gardens around her house, a couple weeks ago the light was perfect for taking pictures of the white roses.


Her 'rosewalk' as I like to call it, is all white rose bushes that look more like the trees out of Alice in Wonderland. You know, the ones that the card guards were painting red for the queen of hearts.

Busy Being Pregnant?

Here's me at week 30... (I got an e-mail from babycenter.com to remind me how big I was getting and how much bigger I should expect.. good news is, my weight has stayed pretty much the same since day 1 and that means, baby is growing, but I am not adding any more to my fat storage, yay!).

You know... they say enjoy your pregnancy cuz it only lasts a little while. They also say be sure to be ready for the baby (as if you could be ready for any contingency). so what have I been doing? Beading. Not so much a contingency plan, but it keeps my mind busy when I am not reading blogs. So in it's best form it's a relaxing hobby and it tests not only your creativity, but your patience. I keep thinking, "how can i continue beading after the baby is born". Not all mommies to be (or mommies in general) enjoy beading... my sister decided to bake cookies (take a look at her blog - especially the article "accidental housewifery").

So I have made a bunch of items, just for fun... and a few that I have given as gifts. Here are a couple examples of my latest work.

Australian Money

I'm a pretty smart girl, at least I think I can count money properly. So since I arrived here in Australia, I have been effectively counting cash and finding it much more difficult than counting American money. You might wonder why this is such a hard phenomenon for an accountant, so I will give you the brief version of my view on the American Dollar vs. the Australian Dollar.

First, if you are American like me, consider the moment when you began to recognize American money. It was probably as early as kindergarten or first grade. Then, if you were lucky your parents likely gave you a weekly allowance for doing chores and you were also given a piggy bank or somewhere you could store it.

Now consider how many times in your life you might have counted, recounted, added, divided, used or otherwise handled your cash money. I am sure it has been hundreds of thousands of times, and for me, I also handled other people's money as well as my own. Working in any form of retail as a cashier or working in a bank (both jobs I have done before) means you are counting money more times in a day than most other people.

I bet you are wondering why I went to great length to discuss this mentality... well, thinking about how I was "so experienced" at counting money, I thought the transition from an American Dollar to an Aussie Dollar would be simple. I mean, I can count from 1 to 100 and that is the basis of one dollar in america, right?

What I forgot was that counting money is not just about counting from 1 to 100, it is all about understanding the denominations that you are given and recognizing what the coins and dollars look like. The faster you recognize the size, shape and color of the denominations, the faster and more accurately you can count money in any country.

So here is a short version of the differences between American Money and Australian Money (from 1 cent to 100 dollars). In America there are coins penny (1 cent), nickle (5 cents), dime (10 cents), quarter (25 cents), half dollar (50 cents) and a Susan B Anthony dollar or a gold dollar (1 dollar). American dollar denominations are 1, 2 (if you are lucky enough to find one), 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100.

In Australia you have silver coins, gold coins, and colored money. The bills are seriously different colors for different denominations, the silver coins are denominations less than a dollar and the gold coins are 1 dollar or more.

So here goes... Australian coins are 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents, 50 cents, 1 dollar and 2 dollars. Australian bills are 5 dollars (purple), 10 dollars (blue), 20 dollars (red), 50 dollars (yellow) and 100 dollars (green).

Did you notice the lack of a 1 or 2 dollar bill... and whatever happened to the penny and the half penny? Looks like the Aussies like to count by 5's when it comes to their coins. Why round down when you can round up?

Checking out the Land in Bustleton

So this past Sunday we took a trip to see the land that Daniel's mum and dad recently purchased and are planning to build their retirement home...

Here are a few photos that show the excellent view of the adjoining water way. This estuary does connect to the ocean, however it is blocked so you can't just boat out into the ocean from your personal dock.







Although this land is still only about 6 acres of undeveloped land, it is gorgeous and you can easily see why someone would want to retire here. All the neighbors (not sooo close together as to annoy one another) are aware of the people who should and should not be in the area. Definitely a lovely place to live.











It seems the bees also agree - Daniel's dad pointed out this beehive inside a tree near where they are planning their new house.

Bushfire - Kelmscott, 12 April, 2009

So... have you ever wondered what sort of determination it takes to fight a bushfire? I do.


In fact... I did my best to help during this fire which was quite close to the house. We helped to catch and move the horses that were in the greatest danger. The fire started Sunday morning near the house, but we didn't even know it was there until you could see the billowing smoke overhead and the helicopters that started buzzing the house. The woman who came to the house looked a bit frantic, and said her horses were in danger and they were spooked by the helicopters. Now if I were a horse running around my happy paddock and all of a sudden there is fire in the field next door and 6 or so helicopters flying low overhead dropping water on the houses and brushfire I think I might be spooked too.

Daniel and I walked quite a way across the field and through the pony club paddocks to get to the property where the horses were. there were 5 other people there trying to catch the last 2 horses and I looked over to see how close the fire was... less than 100 feet away the field was ablaze and the firefighters were working to get it out. Above us there was a big helicopter dumping water on the fields and houses nearby. Each time they dropped a load of water close, we felt the spray.


Although we didn't do a lot of work in the volunteer spectrum, we did make ourselves available to help out as much as possible. And from a volunteer prospective, it was quite an interesting process. Watching people suddenly all involved in making sure the residents and animals were safely moved out of the danger zone was like being backstage at a concert.

Long story short... the horses are safe, the people are safe, and the blaze is down to a dull roar - they were still watching and containing it at 10 pm. As for property damage, that is still questionable and probably unknown until sometime tomorrow. Night night... sleep tight.

The Beach(es)

Yesterday we walked on the beach, white sand running through my toes was the most relaxing feeling I think I have ever truly experienced (aside from a really good massage which put me to sleep in the first 10 minutes of the hour session I had purchased).

I said relaxing, yes... but have you ever really walked in sand? I mean really walked in sand, the kind of sand that you sink into because if you are like me, pregnant, heavy, and have tiny feet, your feet disappear into the sand as if you only have legs from the ankles up.

So here I am, enjoying the feel of the sand all over my bare feet, and it takes me three times as long to walk 5 feet in the sand as it would any other person. Sure I guess if I wasn't pregnant and off balance already or if I had bigger feet to spread out the surface area of my weight or perhaps if I was the correct weight for my size none of this would have even been an idea in my head.

But despite all the fuss I just made, I still made Daniel promise to take me to the beach more often... if nothing else but so I can enjoy the feel of the warm sand between my toes. ;-)

Do you know this business?

I am sure this sign looks familiar... I did a double take when I saw it.

I bet if you think about it you will know who it is too. Oddly they even have a nearly identical menu to their US identity, and the foods I have tried taste the same in the US as they do here in Australia. And that's saying a lot.

Some other places I have eaten in Australia that are also in the states are McDonalds and KFC. And although I haven't eaten there yet, Subway has a big footprint here too (nearly every other block).

..Birdies..

This was the very first wildlife I saw in Australia. A cheeky finch in the Melbourne airport... he was begging food from the people sitting nearby.




This Magpie was showing off in the tree at the parking lot at South Dandalup Dam.




I guess he was making himself pretty for pictures...





Another Magpie was showing off on the barbeque at the parking lot at South Dandalup Dam. This one actually watched us park the car and get out before he made his presence apparent.

Photos, Photos, Photos

So, I am posting today regardless of having pictures ready to upload. In fact... I have a couple hundred pictures that I took all within the first 3 days (I am thinking OMG what am I going to do with all these photos).

I spent most of yesterday reviewing, separating by day, deleting really bad photos, and naming the good ones for the places we went. I think it is quite possible that you can do too much in a couple short days, however I wouldn't change a thing because I am finally on a normal schedule ( I say finally... but it took lots of convincing on the first day and not so much convincing everyday thereafter).

I figure once I get the hang of blogging, and as long as I am not completely wrapped up in taking care of the baby once she is born, I might actually get some good things posted.

Point is... Photos are coming... I am planning a countryside section, wildlife section, and a new post for each location I have seen. Sooo perhaps I should think about taking pictures at the "office" today since Daniel and I stopped in to see his mum and dad at their business.

The Album Cover Art Game

Totally not about Australia... but it was fun none the less.

Instructions for creating your own Album Cover Art...

1 - Go to wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/special:random
The first article that comes up when you click the link is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations: www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr: www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop (or whatever app you prefer) to make an album cover!

Enjoy your Art.

Heading to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"

On March 30, 2009, I left my home in small town, Ohio, USA to take on a whirlwind adventure in a new place. The trip via plane(s), was very comfortable for economy class. I hopped from Akron, Ohio to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, California. There I changed airlines and hopped from Los Angeles, California to Auckland, New Zealand to Melborne, Australia and finally arrived in Perth, Australia. Arriving in Perth my husband, Daniel (who had been here for 6 weeks already), and his parents were waiting for me to debark the last plane and meet them just before the baggage claim. Alan (my father-in-law) was videoing the entire event as I took the escalator down to give Daniel a huge hug and a kiss before I turned to greet him and Jill.

Exhausted as I was when I arrived... I hoped that the 2 day trip across the ocean would help me adjust easier to the 12 hour time difference between Ohio and Australia.