In high school, someone once told me I had “Australian Eyes.” Though, initially, I didn’t exactly know how to accept that observation as it came from the same girl who also told me I never breathed through my nose, I did eventually decide to take it as a compliment.

I liked the compliment largely because of my boyhood hero, Jim Craig, in the movie, “The Man from Snowy River.” He was Australian and if I looked like him perhaps there was hope for me yet to tame a wild brumby mountain horse.

In college, I did have the opportunity to visit Australia and New Zealand for a summer and found that not only did the Australians have cool accents but also great sarcastic senses of humor. I learned to play Cricket and also became enlightened of the specifics of Rugby.

All of this perhaps has led to the point that I now have a new favorite show that KB cares less and less about. HGTV’s new Outdoor Rooms with Jamie Durie (who happens to be an Australian) is moving up the ranks of my favorite shows on HGTV. KB gets annoyed by the drama between Jamie’s employees as they attempt to digest a vision of the outdoor room that Jamie’s always spews out in his Australian accent. Thankfully the sarcastic Australian sense of humor always pulls through for me and eases any annoying drama and tension and usually results in some amazing outdoor rooms being created on that show.

My favorite part of the show actually comes in the beginning parts of the design creation where Jamie Durie travels to a variety of exotic places with a camera and makes  photographs of all sorts of amazing plants, colors, and textures.

With all of that being said, today I spent the early evening pretending to be Jamie Durie searching for inspiration for an upcoming project. Unfortunately, my travel destinations are a little less colorful but no less textured and interesting. Check it out: