Well. Here we are on another sunny and bright Sunday afternoon. The birds are out there happily chattering away - happy that it's the second day of spring! The sky is a bright happy blue without a cloud to be seen. Not that winter down here is all that horrible (it ain't NYC that's fer sure!), but to
have such perfect weather (and over the weekend) to mark the beginning of spring is..... hooray! So, in honor of the second day of spring, have got a nice glass of a new Sauv Blanc from NZ called Two Tails - ehhh not bad, the label and cap design are better....... I guess we have our 'ol reliables for a reason tho....... The little apartment is semi-clean, the laundry is super clean (looooove having mah own washing machine!), got some cool streaming jazz tunes thanks to SkyFM - life is good!
And then there were a couple weekends in there....... Sorry for not checking in last weekend. I started to last Sunday when I realized there just wasn't much to report - chores, a couple DVDs (or rah-ther, BluRays, dahlink. And such exciting BluRays I can't even remember what they were.... oh yeah, they were crap - "Horrible Bosses" (it had such potential) and "Black Death" (again with the potential)). I didn't even take the car out for its weekend spin, the weekend was that dull. Thought I'd spare you.
And really, this weekend hasn't been that much more exciting either, with the exception that yesterday the car and I went on a mini-Adventure drive..... So, first headed out to scope out a 'hood am thinking of moving to
(Enoggera , a few 'burbs out from me, north-ish away from the city.... not bad - nice, normal, sunny, quiet, tho not walking distance to the city, hmmmm, gotta get over that little perk if I ever want to get out of this apartment....). Then, bored with that after having freaked out about three blocks of folks thinking I'm casing their 'hood for driving back and forth that many times, saw a road sign that said "Samford: 44 km's" (Samford is roughly where my friend Jan lives on her big property) and this particular road would take you to there via the D'Aguilar National Park (actually, I can see some of it from mah little apartment.....), so, kind of an adventurous, picturesque back way to her house. EXcellent! So off I drove. It's a very pretty drive with very twisty, hilly roads that motorcyclists loooove so much they go around you regardless if it's safe to or not (bless 'em - future tree ornaments). You have to be on your toes tho because the road is so twisty. I was just thinking it was the kind of 
TV commercial-perfect road that would be excellent if you had, say, a Lotus, when one zipped right past me..... In a lumbering Rav4, perhaps not so much 'exciting' or 'thriling' as 'tranquil'. Hmmm...... Either way it was a really really lovely drive - perfect weather for it. Until about 3/4 of the way through when I spotted the gas light steadily glowing in "oh shit" yellow on mah dash. Turns out a quarter of a tank isn't enough to get you around town and through a national park. So, not quite in panic-mode yet, or through the Park, I coasted as much of it as I could until I saw the sign that said "Samford: 16kms". Well. That was the longest 16 kms I've ever sat through. Eventually, after what felt like 100 miles, most of the road straightened out and leveled off, so next time I looked at the gas gauge, instead of below the "E", it was just above it. Thank the road gods for that. I wasn't going to be stranded on a
twisty forest road with nowhere safe to pull over, nor was I going to have to walk however many kms to town - I was going to make it! And did I. Just. I swear, I was never so happy to spend $74.60 in my life. And you know what the funny thing is - it's only 18.7 kms from that gas station in Samford to my driveway. Huh. So there we go - little lesson learned - if you're going on a mini-Adventure drive, even if you're in town or a National Park, check that you have more than a quarter of a tank, because that tank won't last as long as you remember it usually lasting.
Then, once home with my full gas tank and happily Adventured, sat down for a minute with a glass of wine to calm the nerves and committed that little gas tank lesson to memory then continued on with the hum-drum, non-Adventurous world of laundry. Whew!
And really, this weekend hasn't been that much more exciting either, with the exception that yesterday the car and I went on a mini-Adventure drive..... So, first headed out to scope out a 'hood am thinking of moving to
(Enoggera , a few 'burbs out from me, north-ish away from the city.... not bad - nice, normal, sunny, quiet, tho not walking distance to the city, hmmmm, gotta get over that little perk if I ever want to get out of this apartment....). Then, bored with that after having freaked out about three blocks of folks thinking I'm casing their 'hood for driving back and forth that many times, saw a road sign that said "Samford: 44 km's" (Samford is roughly where my friend Jan lives on her big property) and this particular road would take you to there via the D'Aguilar National Park (actually, I can see some of it from mah little apartment.....), so, kind of an adventurous, picturesque back way to her house. EXcellent! So off I drove. It's a very pretty drive with very twisty, hilly roads that motorcyclists loooove so much they go around you regardless if it's safe to or not (bless 'em - future tree ornaments). You have to be on your toes tho because the road is so twisty. I was just thinking it was the kind of 
TV commercial-perfect road that would be excellent if you had, say, a Lotus, when one zipped right past me..... In a lumbering Rav4, perhaps not so much 'exciting' or 'thriling' as 'tranquil'. Hmmm...... Either way it was a really really lovely drive - perfect weather for it. Until about 3/4 of the way through when I spotted the gas light steadily glowing in "oh shit" yellow on mah dash. Turns out a quarter of a tank isn't enough to get you around town and through a national park. So, not quite in panic-mode yet, or through the Park, I coasted as much of it as I could until I saw the sign that said "Samford: 16kms". Well. That was the longest 16 kms I've ever sat through. Eventually, after what felt like 100 miles, most of the road straightened out and leveled off, so next time I looked at the gas gauge, instead of below the "E", it was just above it. Thank the road gods for that. I wasn't going to be stranded on a
twisty forest road with nowhere safe to pull over, nor was I going to have to walk however many kms to town - I was going to make it! And did I. Just. I swear, I was never so happy to spend $74.60 in my life. And you know what the funny thing is - it's only 18.7 kms from that gas station in Samford to my driveway. Huh. So there we go - little lesson learned - if you're going on a mini-Adventure drive, even if you're in town or a National Park, check that you have more than a quarter of a tank, because that tank won't last as long as you remember it usually lasting. 
Then, once home with my full gas tank and happily Adventured, sat down for a minute with a glass of wine to calm the nerves and committed that little gas tank lesson to memory then continued on with the hum-drum, non-Adventurous world of laundry. Whew!And today was more laundry. I know, it's just me and yet I seem to do a thousand loads of laundry in a weekend. No, yesterday was clothes, today was sheets and towels - there's a system you see, also
means am not spending an entire day doing laundry, that would be downright depressing. And that's about it. Checking in, sitting on my freshly stained and varnished chair and watching the breeze through the palms and just being happy to be here in Australia. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! So there you have it. Hope you're all well up there. I think you've just about missed your window to come and visit because even tho it's only the second day of spring, magically spring lasts half of what winter does, so summer will be here in like two weeks. So your next window of opportunity opens around March/April and lasts until Nov/December-ish..... Happy planning!
BYE!
J!
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