Here is what you will notice with a blown head-gasket (I have seen a few of these)
At idle you will see compression in the radiator (bubbles constantly in time with the engine firing. You may notice some temporary ones, but those are air in the radiator getting out if you have had it running with the cap off and not completely full of water.
"Milky" oil - this is not a super-common symptom as some people believe. Seen several cars with blown headgaskets that didn't have this
Water coming from tail pipe - this usually shows in more severe cases. You may get water coming out from other sources, especially in cold weather. More severe cases you will see it shoot out
Knocking sound even though there is plenty of oil in the system - this is from coolant entering cylinder heads and causing the cylinder to miss
Car overheating, plenty of coolant in the resevior :
**radiator cap and thermostat check out to be fine
radiator cap- small cracks in the rubber around the seal under the radiator cap
thermostat - drop the thermostat into a pan of water rolling at a gentle boil and let it warm up, you will see it slowly opens as it reaches its temp (212 water boiling point) and carefully remove it with pliers or something, carful not to bend any moving parts and watch it close as it cools off (let it do this slowly at room temp), then you know thats fine
If you can get it done, just have the cooling system pressure tested, this can save alot of trouble, pressure tests out fine then probably not what your worrying about. Just a novice here but I've had experience worrying about that. Keep an eye on temps and coolant level, color of your oil and you will know soon enough.
If your getting white smoke (make sure its smoke not just steam/smog or whatever those gases contain) for just 1 second or so, and it IS smoke, then your probably burning oil somewhere as previously mentioned
