T.I.A.

Josh and I have subscribed to WebFlicks which is the Australian equivalent of Netflix. We have made our way through 6 movies already and number 7 and 8 are sitting on our kitchen table right now. One of the earlier movies that we received was 'Blood Diamond' and one of the underlying themes throughout the movie is T.I.A. which stands for 'This is Africa'. Josh and I have decided to adopt the saying for our year abroad which a slight variation for the 'A'. Basically whenever anything out of the ordinary happens or we see something odd or a person says something funny, one of us inevitably says 'TIA'.

This morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table working when I heard kids talking and laughing outside. I figured that they were probably just paying out in the street (it's a cul-de-sac and it was seriously only like 9:30 this morning), but then I heard them really close to the house. Since the house is built up on stilts, I *thought* that they had found one of the doors that allows access to underneath the house and they had decided that this was going to be their clubhouse. I thought that it was pretty funny though a bit annoying about how loud they were (our walls aren't that thick) and I wrote Josh and signed off with 'TIA'. He, being the more responsible one, wrote back and told me that we really don't want little kids getting hurt on our property and that I really need to chase them off.

I didn't want to be that woman who yells at the little neighborhood kids so I took care of the situation by starting a load of laundry....which kicks the water pump under the house on....which I'm sure scared them since they began scattering right after that. I watched them through the blinds. And it turns out that they weren't underneath the house (the door is only accessible through the gated area of our yard), but were camping out in between the house and water tank.

Also, I have started back running this week. When we were golfing Sunday, it was getting pretty windy. When Monday blew it, it brought all kinds of nice fall-ish weather. Gray skies, cooler temps (highs in 60's instead of 70's) and a nice crisp breeze. Perfect running weather. Of course, by today (Thursday) it was back to typical Australian fickleness (40 in the morning and high 70's in the afternoon). Josh has reported that our bikes should be getting delivered sometime soon and one of the girls I met last week has already talked about us getting together for a ride so I'm looking forward to that delivery.