Some gorgeous pictures by Audrey Malo, you can purchase prints at her Etsy. I love the sketchy quality (found via Little Lost Love):




Things I ate today:

• one and a half pieces of Lawson's Homestead Seed & Grain bread with my Nana's strawberry jam.
• one bowl of C's delicious pumpkin, parmesan, mushroom and red wine risotto (the rice was purple it had so much wine in it).
• two hot chocolates.
• half small block of Black & Green's white chocolate (my second favourite type of chocolate, the first being Aldi's brand of pear infused dark chocolate)
  
• C's 'sick soup' (stock, garlic, vegetables), even though I'm not sick.
• Hari Har Chai Ice Cream with strawberries and pashmak.
• Fuze soft drink (made from apples)
  

There was no real reason for that, I just wanted to recount what I ate today. Despite what I usually think, I eat pretty well. The ice cream and chocolate are sometimes foods, of course.

In preparation for our house inspection on Friday, C and I began a big, thorough clean up today. I mainly cleaned up our room, threw lots of stuff away and it looks so pretty and neat, it's uplifting. I wish I could take a picture of it before I start leaving clothes on the floor and putting things in lazy places. We listened to lots of Neko Case, Why?, Fiona Apple, Turin Brakes and Morrissey today. Tomorrow I will be spending the day similarly, being domestic (I really want a girly apron to wear around the house). There's probably not that much to do, but I feel like going overboard.

I've been putting off blogging lately, as there's been a bit of a major issue around lately, but not one that should probably be broadcast over the internet, and it's hard to not write something regarding it. By the weeks end it should be on the up, but currently it's stressful and taking a lot of energy. Sorry to be vague. I just wanted to put that out there.

In other news, my mum's 51st birthday is this time next week and I have no idea what to get her. How can it be August already? Jesus. I saw Sarah Von's article 'A Million Ways to Spend Your Birthday (or 12)' today and I thought it was cute. Maybe I could see if my mum wants to come climb a mountain with me for her birthday, she'd probably like that, I could like, make us a picnic or something... hmm... Am I weird?

Furthermore in more unrelated news, I am unemployed and not studying and it is grand. I have applied online for some jobs, and on Thursday I get to submit my first real DOLE FORM. Yes! I am so excited, I get to visit Centrelink every two weeks and apply for jobs I won't get! Hoorah. I had a really lovely 'phone meeting' with a lady from Centrelink the other day, and I basically told her I did want to be studying currently and I was really disappointed things didn't turn out this semester, and that I have done very little 'work' and am eager to learn some new skillz (sweet talkin', I know that's what she wanted to hear), and I think I pretty much conveyed how nervous I feel about doing 'nothing' for up to... *counts on fingers* 8 MONTHS, god. (Uni starts again in March). It's going to be interesting. I'm just imagining writing the 'Bianca gets her first job' blog now.

Margaret, a friend from high school updated her Facebook status earlier saying: Margaret cannot sleep because she can hear the rat chewing away frantically. tried to gain the courage to kill it by standing on the kitchen bench with the broom for 45 minutes. no luck... To which some people suggested some ideas - traps, ratsack and so on. So I suggested that she might like to borrow one of our cats, which she said was a great idea. C didn't seem too worried that I was going to rent out his cat, so I might. Interesting concept. I don't think Mesca would mind, and she'd get something out of it; a meal.

I'd like to get a nice drawing/collage journal sometime soon and scan pages, like these Moleskines, shame they're so spensif, about $35 a pop;



C showed me some interesting articles from Lifehacker today;

• Improve Your Sleep Posture; it says "if you sleep on your side with one leg bent and across your body, you may be contributing to—or causing— your back pain", which is exactly how I sleep. So tonight I am going to try "on your side, knees bent, pillow between the knees, and your head resting on a single pillow".
  
  
• Drop The F-Bomb To Relieve Pain; "Scientific American's Frederik Joelving writes about a new study that shows "that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain." Basically, a group of psychiatrists wondered why it is that we seem to react to pain by swearing and conducted an experiment in which they studied the pain tolerances of a group of students who were swearing and a control group who wasn't. The results, as you may have guessed, were positive for the folks with the dirty mouths".

Now I'm going to make C brush my hair and watch some Daria!

Some unaffordable material objects I've been eyeing off:


^ Sharpening Necklace (red) from Victoria Mason AU$198


^ Your Toast, Speech Bubble and Paper Plane earrings from Victoria Mason (all AU$55)


^ Cardboard Buck Jr Trophy from Fred Flare, US$32


^ Composition Notebook Duffel from Fred Flare, US$24


^ Vetements Polka Dot Bow Necklace, from Paraphernalia, US$30


Vetements Bow Tie Necklace from Paraphernalia, US$30


^ Braid Back Tee, by Species By The Thousands,US$38


^ Custom Leaf Silhouette Portrait, by Jenny Lee Fowler, US$65


^ Zumreed Lime Headphones, from Fred Flare, US$65


^ Seascape Stamp Set, from Yellow Owl Workshop, US$30


^ Stripy Book Belt, from Present & Correct, £7

I've spent the last day or two watching Season 3 of Skins, which the lovely Miss Sophie sent to me this week. I was fairly critical of the plot flaws and character development in the first two seasons, but still enjoyed it, and was apprehensive how a cast of new characters would turn out, but I had a really good time watching it. I basically have a big crush on Lily Loveless (and a little on Kathryn Prescott and Ollie Barbieri):


^ Naomi (Lily Loveless) and Emily (Kathryn Prescott)


^ JJ (Ollie Barbieri)

Yesterday was the last day for the internet month and we had 7MB of interwebz left, so we had to turn it off for a whole day! It was a loooooong day, haha. I'd like to do it more often actually. C and I went for a laksa today at our favourite place to eat Al-Oi Thai in Beaumont Street. That laksa is incredible. We get the same thing every time we go there and it never disappoints. It's a good idea when you feel the onset of a cold, it frightens the germs away. Tonight C's brother came over for dinner (and desert) and as we have three computers in the loungeroom at the moment we were quite the antisocialites and spent most of the night communally internetting.

I was thinking earlier about how I don't like weekends because there's no mail. Then I thought, wow I'm weird sometimes. And obviously unemployed and not studying.

Ps. This article made me smile today; 'Cat catches same bus every day'.

These are the cats in my house:


^ This is Chorus, asleep in the in-tray. His usual sleeping spot (on top of the computer monitor with legs hanging over) has been replaced by a laptop, so he's found somewhere new. Once I almost killed him accidentally with a balloon on a string. He's not too bright, but he's very friendly. He belongs to our housemate Dave. Chorus likes finding strange places to sleep, playing with pegs and pistachio shells and annoying the other cats. (As I was writing he was crying in his sleep, I think he must be having a nightmare)


^ This is Rigby. We mind her (permanently) for a friend of C's. We think she might have cat autism. Rigby likes occasional affection and RUINING MY MACBOOK SCREEN WITH HOT CHOCOLATE. I'm starting to get to know her a bit better and I don't feel like killing her any more.


^ This is Mesca sitting on the printer, she is like C's daughter. She's the oldest and smartest cat (and Rigby's mother). Her eyes look like she knows too much and sometimes she seems like a human. She enjoys beating up Chrous, sitting in the sun, curling up under blankets in bed and eating dried fish skeleton treats.

Currently rewatching Diablo Cody/Steven Spielberg's wonderful 'United States of Tara', which is showing on ABC at 9.30 Wednesdays. If you haven't seen it, you should.



I made a rather sizeable, short term life altering decision today. I'm no longer studying this semester. This wasn't the decision I initially set out to make, but I'm going to make it work for me. I'm going to have to wrangle Centrelink and look for some mindless work and I'm going to generally use it as a creative break.

I got two Postcrossing postcards in the mail today, one from Holland and one from Finland.





I am so obsessed with this website.

Not too much to update today. Doug and I went to Bunnings this evening at the last moment so that I could steal legally acquire more paint charts and Doug could look at some wood for some bed/desk/loft contraption that he's building. Needless to say, I think it's going to be a disaster and Doug isn't a 'real man' who can build things. And because he never reads my blogs, because 'blogs are boring', I can say whatever I like. I picked up a bundle more paint charts and priced some cherry red enamel paint with which to paint the top of my desk. Here are some of my favourite paint chart colours I picked up today:




Also, Doug said "I like to touch things to see what they're made of" as he fondled a fake terracotta pot and it made me laugh.