You might be familiar with the Sydney Opera House? Well, this is what it looks like today.

So, I'm staying put today. The whole house is full of dust, which makes breathing a bit tough. The dust is so sticky and I never realised how bad dust smells until now. Stupidly I tried sweeping some of it up and it made it worse. Even the cats are having trouble breathing. I found my asthma puffer, and its helping out. Apparently the wind is meant to ease off by tonight, so I might catch a train to Dungog tomorrow. If we get some more rain at least the dust will stay on the ground. My sister says it's just as bad in Dungog as it is here. So, for the rest of the day I'm going to write letters, look up more "NSW Dust Storm" photos on Flickr, bake biscuits and wait out the storm. Here are some more pictures;


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The night before last I stayed up until 7am watching the 3rd season of Dexter (it's so hard to stop when you have the whole series) and then had to get up three hours later to go to a job helper meeting. I had a sneezing fit before I went in and workmen who were outside were laughing at me and kept saying "Bless you" for every sneeze. When I got in I had this woman help me rewrite my resume, which basically consisted of really slowly cutting and pasting everything from my existing resume into the exact same headings on another page and then adding some adjectives, eg. EXCELLENT customer service skills, EXTENSIVE cash handling experience. Anyway, that took a really long time and after I got out I waited around Darby Street for my friend Manneh to get out of work and when I tracked him down we walked to his new place, which I hadn't been to before (Manneh has a HUGE mailbox shaped like a house) and we watched really awful television. I haven't watched TV in so long, when did TV turn so bad? I can't wait to watch 'World's Strictest Parents' on Wednesday nights. Manneh and I ended up watching some Animal Rescue show and waited for Manneh's friend Noltron and his Swedish friend to come get us to take us out for dinner which Manneh so kindly shouted me. We stayed out until about 10 and by then I was pretty deliriously tired, came home, Skyped C and then fell in bed with the cats.

I woke up this morning with a cat on my pillow next to my face and a huge expanse of bright orange sky out the window. Yesterday almost the entire state had a massive dust storm, wind blowing dust across drought affected remote NSW - so today it's kind of overcast, incredibly windy (the cats are shaking and crying) to the point where it feels like the house might collapse and the sky is this amazing shade of orange. Later today Manneh, my mum and I are catching the train back to Dungog, I don't know if I can even make it to the train station without being blown away.

Today was a very good mail day. I looked out at the mailbox when I got up and saw that it's lid was up and it was getting rained on, so I ran out, just as the parcel post lady was at my gate to give me a very cute parcel from C. There was too much mail for the lid to close which was pretty funny. I got the loveliest envelope and letter from the lovely Chandlerguera. I wish I could photograph the contents of the envelope because there were some gorgeous things in there. She basically packed it full of red ephemera. It's probably one of my favourite envelopes I've ever seen, made out of a page from a calendar, featuring Frida Kahlo;





Also in my tiny mail box today was a lovely long letter from a girl from Poland, a package containing the lovely Chronicle Books Wonder Woman stationery, three Postcrossing postcards and 3 postcards from C. Apparently he is sending my one postcard for every day he's been away, so by the time he gets back I will have received 18 postcards from him. Woah.

Before going to Dungog I have to bake biscuits, clean the house, wash up, wash/hang out/bring in washing, pack, feed the cats, etc. I haven't even gotten to read all of the mail yet.

I hope your Tuesday/Wednesday is very pleasant :)

PS. I thought that all the windows in the house were shut, but there was one in my bedroom that I'd left open a crack, and the bathroom window was opened and now literally EVERYTHING in my whole house is coated with a thin layer of dust. All my friends' Facebook status' are about the dust storm. There is dust in my eyes, in my mouth and in my braaaaaain. Thankfully, my mum missed the train today and drove instead, so she's coming to pick me up at 5. Now off I go to try to remove dust from everything. The floor looks the worst and it's all over my bed :(

^ I'd like to wear this and go out in the rain. Another uncredited Tumblr finding.

I finally willed myself to hang up all of the clothes piled on my bedroom floor today. I decided I would only pick up red clothes, then I hung them all up. Then I decided I would only pick up black clothes, and then I hung them all up. Most of my clothes are red or black. Then I hung up the whites, greys, greens and so on. So now all of my clothes are hung up and sorted by their colours. Then I watered the garden, washed the dishes, swept, cleaned the bathroom and now I'm validating it all by writing about it on my blog :) I am eating overcooked garlic bread. Garlic bread is usually one of my favourite comfort foods, but today it's not very comforting. I am about to go to the shops to buy cornflour and lemons to make my favourite biscuits;



Last night I went to the Newcastle Uni Womens' Soccer Club 'Soccer Ball' on C's behalf, him being in Tasmania and all. He emailed me his speech a few days prior and I had to read it out, it was pretty funny and I spent the rest of the night dancing with the absolutely lovely girls from his team and with T-Bone. The bar was entirely free, but I kind of forgot to drink anything. 'T-Bone' gave me $20 for a cab home, which was very nice of him. Film Society tonight and then watching Dexter until I fall asleep. Ahh, I have an interesting life.

C comes home in one whole week!

In other news, I am making a huge zine mind-map. I hope to have a zine all made up within the next month. I'll probably post all of the pages here for you to see and then put it in Bird In The Hand distro to sell.

I hope you've had a lovely weekend so far :)

Also, I am running a swap @ Swap-bot that requires you to make a postcard out of an old record cover. Wanna join in?

Here is a postcard I made from some cardboard and a page from an old childrens' book I decorated. I am sending it to the makers of Good Mail Day in thanks;

^ of course, this reminded me of C.

Today I'm writing a 'boring list' featuring a whole lot of things I've been putting off, like... the ever increasing pile of clothes on my bedroom floor, paying bills, more washing, mopping the kitchen floor, doing the dishes, figuring out if and what I want to apply for at Tafe, applying for Tafe and doing the necessary post and prior application information finding, ticking off some of the things on my 'employment action plan' (depressingggg), calling ear nose and throat specialists to get exorbitant quotes for single consultations, calling an old teacher to see if she still has photos of my art major work to put in my design portfolio, trying to track down where on earth my art major work is, etc, etc. So, I really don't feel like doing any of those things. Instead, I'm going opshopping with Doug. Doug has to find material for his fibres assignment, so he's going to cut up old dresses. I would like to find interesting paper ephemera for making into post related things. Will report back.

Last night I went on a little band bus to Sydney to the UNSW Roundhouse to see my friends Caleb Skips Chemistry play, to their dismay (and mine) they didn't win, but the bus trip down and the bands were fun.


^ I liked this, unfortunately like most things on Tumblr it's uncredited.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

"Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating."
(via Something Changed)

Today I had a laugh at Tweeting Too Hard, thought Japanese Cat Cafes are bizarre and kind of wished we had them in Australia (via Meet Me At Mikes' post) and joined this site called We Heart It (after seeing Lick My Cupcakes' account).

Ps. Here are postcards I have received so far from C while he's been away;





Some cute postcards I received today;




^ lovely Taiwanese stamps.



And an envelope I'm sending out to a friend of my sisters;