^ A set I've titled; 'The cats think I'm creepy'. They both scratched me considerably, haha.

Chorus (our house mate's cat who is surprisingly unphotogenic) was just fighting with the door snake. I'm going to miss that little guy :( Our housemate is moving out this week, and I seriously considered how much money I could raise to purchase his cat, but I decided that I wouldn't be able to raise enough money to afford him, he's kind of priceless. I'm going to walk down to the Hunter Animal Watch Op Shop sometime in the next few weeks and check to see if there are any notices for giveaway or cheap kittens. If it were more socially acceptable, I'd have HEAPS of cats. I'd be the crazy cat woman. But three is probably the maximum before I turn crazy, so I can probably get one more. I think I'd like to call my cat 'Morrissey' or name it after a Morrissey song, but I guess I'll have to see the cat first to decide.

I unearthed one of my old lady dresses circa 2006 and my favourite green jacket and wore it out today. It's one of my favourite pieces of clothing. I love the collar and buttons. Macbook photobooth camera shots aren't entirely flattering.


^ Weird hand.

C and I went to the op shop near our house on the way out today and I picked up an awesome abacus and C bought a cork board made out of real bottle corks. Some people must drink A LOT of wine. The guy at the op shop is very nice, but he makes lots of funny conversation faux pas. He told me I was a bit old for the abacus, and I told him I was going to put it on display, as a sculpture. Here is the abacus and yours truly:


^ I had a mouthful of chocolate bullets at the time.

I must have checked the mail box like three times today before the mail came, and when it did it was bills anyway. C likened me to the crazy woman in Donnie Darko who sits on her verandah all day and repeatedly checks the mail. I am definitely that woman. Wow, I'm all about being crazy today aren't I?

Today I went to post six postcards and bought a pack of 100 gorgeous world stamps for $4 at the post office. I thought that they must be replicas but the packet says they're 'all genuine'. I was tempted to go back and buy more packs, but I'm sure they'll still be there when I get paid. C and I went to Raj's for some food and I tipped the packet out on the table and looked at each stamp one by one (and then noticed people watching me but had to continue). They're so pretty, all different shapes and sizes and colours and from all over the world. I guess I'm easily amused.



Here are some of the postcards I sent today (mostly handmade because I've run out of the fancy kind and am poooooor):




I'm considering taking C out to see Harry Potter tonight. I still haven't seen it and I've been meaning to, but I am poor and I'm sure I'll regret the decision once I have bills to pay. I might just stay in and watch Buffy Season 7 instead, yeah that's probably a better idea.

Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up - Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' vs Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up';

I got four postcards in the mail today (and my Centrelink form, woo):


Left to right; from Louisville, Kentucky USA; from Northern Germany; from Keelung, Taiwan; from Dresden, Germany.

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!