New Art!!!

Just thought I post something new up here.
I am now living in Toowoomba, Australia and am starting to get my art out in the community. I have started up a couple of art sites (links below) and am going to participate in a couple of upcoming group shows.

The Sounds of Australia

I have been reading through a book about Australia called The Little Book of Australia by David Dale. There is a section about the sounds of Australia and a lot of them I can say that I have heard since being here. I thought it was a neat and interesting mental image and I thought it might give some of you a different take on what life is like here for me.

Here is a list of some of the sounds from the list that I hear in my everyday life in Australia:

lorikeets

a didgeridoo

rain on a corrugated iron roof

cows complaining as you try to make them get off the road

a flock of galahs coming in before sunset

cicadas drumming on a summer night

a car on a gravel road

a screen door slamming

geckos chattering on the ceiling

the hiss of milk frothed by a cappuccino machine

garbos (garbage men) hurling bins around at 6am

the screech of a cockatoo before a storm

magpies warbling

the whine of a mosquito on a steamy night

kookaburras

flying foxes (fruit bats) fighting over fruit

possums bounding across your roof under a midnight moon

Lack of Lemonade

I have been craving the wonderful taste of American style old-fashioned lemonade. In Australia it is very hard to come by. "Lemonade" to Australians means something like Sprite. A lemony soft drink. I have only found two places that sell what I want and one of them has been out of it for weeks and the other one is a market only open once a week and we haven't been for a while. So, today I finally decided I would just make my own. I found a receipe and havce just poured myself a glass. It is a little too sweet for me so next time I will lesson the sugar and up the lemon juice. But over all it is wonderful!!!! What is summer without ice cold lemonade!

Meeting an Australian Celebrity

I was very excited today! I happened to have the day off for some tests at the hospital. I got done by lunch time and remembered about a book signing at Borders Bookstore. For any Australian readers you will obviously know of the TV show Master Chef. It was the top watched non-sports show in Australian ratings history. Damien and I watched every episode faithfully. For non-Australian readers, Master Chef is kind of like Top Chef. A contest reality cooking show. Anyway, one of the three judges was named Matt Preston. He is an internationally known food critic and quite a flamboyant personality. He has just come out with a new book and was here in Brisbane for a signing!!
I was the fourth person in line. I got to shake his hand and chit chat for a minute. He picked up on my accent right away and asked where I was from. It was quite a thrill!!!

Tropical Fruit World

I was really excited this past weekend to go to a place called Tropical Fruit World. As you can imagine from the name it is a world of tropical fruit. It is about 90 minutes south of Brisbane and is actually in the state of New South Wales. I live in Queensland. So I got to pick up my second Australian state (there are only about 8). The countryside down there was stunning. Tropical Fruit World is a 170 acre farm that grows more than 500 varieties of tropical fruit. I was excited to see and taste fruits that I had never seen before. We took a guided tour of the farm and got to see lots of fruit hanging from the trees. I realized how removed we are from where our fruit comes from. I had never seen avocados actually hanging in a tree!!!
We got to learn about and taste some of the fruit in season. I took a picture of my fruit plate. We had ruby grapefruit, blood orange, mango, star fruit, yellow dragon fruit, papaya, two kinds of avocado, banana, tomato, custard apple and chocolate pudding fruit. The chocolate pudding fruit (or black sapote from Mexico) didn't taste like much right from the fruit but it looked just like chocolate pudding. But for some reason when the flesh is mixed with any dairy product it tastes like chocolate! So the little drink I had was like chocolate milk. And it has no sugar in it!!
I just have to mention the custard apple. They are really prevelant in Australia and are quite possibly the most delicious fruit I have ever had. In fact, that is what Mark Twain thought about the fruit when he had it. It looks ugly but when ripe the white flesh is like a complex beautiful dessert just by itself. It is too bad they are not in Indiana! If you ever get a chance to eat one take it. Just don't eat the large black seeds because they contain arsenic.
We also bought a fruit called mamey sapote and ate it last night. It is also called the pumpkin pie fruit because it tastes like pumpkin pie. And it did!! Not quite as sweet though.
It was an interesting place to go and maybe we will go back during a different season to see what other fruits are ready.

Whale watching

While our friend Jeremy was visiting last month Damien and I took him to an island near Brisbane called Moreton Island. We spent two nights there. We saw a lot of wildlife and got to feed wild dolphins by hand. That was really cool but I have to admit it was a little intimidating. It was at night, the water was really cold (I rented a wet suit for it to stay warm), and the dolphin was really big and had a lot of teeth! We were in the water up to our waists and one of the workers told us a little about our dolphin and we each had a small dead fish. We were told to gently hold the fish and put it under the water for the dolphin to grab. But she grabbed it before it was even in the

water. Very neat experience.
We also went on a whale watching boat tour out into the ocean. The day we went was really really windy. The boat was going up and down like crazy. Damien had taken motion sickness pills and was pretty much out of it for the whole ride. After about 90 minutes I couldn't handle it any more either and I puked into a sick bag. That was the first time I had ever down that. I looked around me and there were tons of people all at the same time puking into their bags. It was so comical that I just had to laugh. The real kicker was that after 3 hours we hadn't seen a single whale! They said that was the first trip out in 3 years where they hadn't seen anything. I almost wish they hadn't told us that.
We were offered a free trip the next day to try again. Jeremy signed up for it. I almost didn't but then thought I would hate myself if Jeremy saw whales and I had decided not to brave it again. So I signed up. But Damien couldn't face another boat ride and opted out.
The next day was very nice weather and we saw lots of whales!! My first whale sighting! They were very close to the boat. Didn't see any spectacular jumps but I got more photos than I thought I would. We also saw a small hammerhead shark and a sea turtle. I had never seen those in the wild either.
All in all it was a very nice time (expect for the crappy food offerings on the island!).

Baby Pictures

Here is the first real picture we have of our baby girl. The image wasn't very clear because the baby kept moving and putting her hand in front of her face. Also the cord was going straight across her face too. But I think you can make out some of the facial features. We are certainly excited to be able to see anything in a photo!

We are having another scan in a couple of weeks and hope to have some better images. I have been very happy with the care so far at the Brisbane hospital. This week is the end of the fifth month!!

Time to go shopping!!! Yikes!