^ BY ANNA RUSAKOVA.

I have been quite fascinated by the 1001 Journals Project lately. I have joined up to receive a few of these travelling journals and thought it would be fun to start one up with a 'mail' theme and see if you'd like to play :) Basically you fill in one two-page spread with anything you like within the theme of 'mail'. I've given it an open sign up list and up to 11 people can join at the moment, though I can increase the number if more people are interested. I'd love it if you'd like to participate :) Of course, by signing up you commit to filling in your two pages when the journal comes to you and sending it on to the next participant when you're finished. Postage shouldn't be enormous as the book isn't very heavy, though it will get slightly heavier as each person adds to it.

Within this theme you could choose to use some of the following: postage stamps, airmail stickers, envelopes, writing paper, drawings, rubber stamps, handwriting, typewriters, date stamps, stickers, old letters, etc.

Here is the link to the journal.
Eeeee! I'm quite excited :)

^ unknown >:(

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
- ERICH FROMM

Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?
- RICHARD DAWKINS

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- ALBERT SCHWEITZER

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and it has been getting in the way of my doing anything lately. In all honesty I feel depressed, with great highs and lows, I have difficulty verbalising these feelings or doing anything aside from them and feel that it is inappropriate to display them in a public forum. I have decided I am just going to do things that make me feel good, and I'll keep doing those things until they don't. I suppose blogging is one of the things under consideration.

On a entirely different note... I just submitted a drawing of a giraffe to OneMillionGiraffes.com. This guy needs one million hand-drawn pictures of giraffes by 2011 so he can prove his friend wrong that collecting one million drawings of giraffes is impossible. Here is the drawing I did. I kind of screwed up the legs, so I decided he/she was an awkward ballet-dancing scarf-wearing giraffe instead ;




And here is the drawing I made C do;



I wholeheartedly encourage you to submit your own giraffe :)

Remember that site I was desperately trying to find last week? Well the lovely miss Robyn (which is also my middle name) from Robayre commented me and told me what it was! I am so so grateful and have spent the whole evening on the blog; The Scribble Project. Robyn if there is any way I can repay you let me know :)

The day before yesterday my sister and her friend Rokia came to stay and we went to the Hamilton markets and looked around for a while. I bought a letter "B" badge and um-ed and ah-ed over a red striped hugely ruffled shirt that I decided to get without trying on and which ended up being ridiculous looking and over the top. I'm deciding what to do with it at the moment and unhappily trying and retrying it on thinking I might eventually like the ridiculous ruffles.

Tonight I went for a trip to Dungog with my friends Manneh and Dan for a few hours. They had a footy game to play (all but two of their team is made up of soccer players who are learning how to play football in their soccer off-season) and I thought I'd go visit la famiglia. I got to (re)meet my little sister's boyfriend. He seems lovely and appears to endure a great deal of (good humoured) abuse and violence from my sister, though I can't say it is too much removed from the way that I lovingly treat C :P After their game the boys came to pick me up and we went to the 'top pub' and had non-alcoholic fire engines and later the power went out and there was green lightning and a whole lot of wind and we had to head home quickly before the hail hit. Driving over the hills home through the lightening was a pretty amazing show. Along the way home we stopped at a bridge where there were a lot of cars and lights and noise and the sad news that a seventeen year old boy had jumped off the bridge into the water, likely hit something on the descent and still hadn't been found. We had seen that same group of boys jumping off into the river when we drove past earlier. So sad.

I'm thinking of making the trip to Dungog with the boys every Monday afternoon when they go, hopefully without the ridiculous weather and sad accident along the way.

C wasn't expecting me home tonight as I had said I would stay at my parents, but decided to come home, and when I got in I started making myself a sandwich, then I heard him coming through the gate, so I left my sandwich on the kitchen bench and hid in the cupboard for him to open the back door. He saw the sandwich, looked puzzled and then I jumped out and scared him and he looked very frightened. I don't think I've ever scared him before, so it was very satisfying.

Here are some letters I'm sending out early this week. I feel like I'm forever behind in the letter writing stakes;

(via you will never waste my time)

The past two days have consisted mostly of honey on bread, too many games of Facebook Scrabble with strangers, "Oh No" by Andrew Bird, catch up conversation, fish and chips, considering and reconsidering my own mortality, a game called "Plants Vs Zombies" (you need it), scratching my head, pizza, poking a baby and a toothache.

I met my newborn niece yesterday and she is the epitome of all things beautiful and perfect. Meeting her made me think a lot about life and death and humanity and the miracles and mundanities of life. I hope to visit her again soon. It was a delight spending the day with my brother and his wife and little Rose Alex Wade.

5 Bits:

♡ Mark Jenkins (it's a sculpture);


♡ Long Live Analogue / Collages by Chad Kouri;


♡ Kate Doodles;


♡ Alastair Levy - This reminds me of one time when I was a kid, my brother had come to stay for Christmas and he found a dirty shrivelled old carrot in the bottom of our fridge shaped perfectly like two legs and a penis and intended to send it through the post to a friend, but a few days later it was missing and we can only assume it was cooked and eaten.


♡ Keri Smith - I'm fairly certain I love everything this woman has ever done.


My friend Jackson came over after C went off to work this afternoon and we sat out on the couch on my verandah and watched traffic, quite pleasant. Tomorrow I'm thinking about going to the zine library cataloguing session at the Octapod and then heading to the Cambridge later to see some of my best friends make mewsick, for their EP launch; Caleb Skips Chemistry.

A very lovely postcard arrived today from Rachel Greig. At first I wasn't sure if it was an envelope or a postcard as it's quite thick and textured. C said it's one of his favourite postcards I've received. I think it's gorgeous. I shall reply asap!;



I also received a lovely little note in a Suessy envelope from Madam Ilona;


I received this cute envelope from Singapore from a Swap-botter;


I thought I'd post some of my all time favourite stamps I have received on mail, both from Postcrossers, the former from Lithuania and the latter from Finland. I envy countries that offer such beautiful stamps, Australia seems to be so limited in it's varieties!;





And a very meagre outgoing today, a make-shift postcard I made out of a scrap of cardboard and unearthed my paints from their hiding places;


If you've emailed me lately requesting mail I will be getting right onto that over the weekend :) Of course, you're always welcome to write me and request mail. C laughed at me today when we were walking home from the shops and I saw an envelope on the footpath outside somebody's house that had been all trodden on and weather damaged and I made a whimpery sad noise at it.

^ So sad, from Learn Something Every Day.

Listening to: Three Wishes by The Pierces.
Eating: Peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
Drinking: Five fruits juice.

Don't you hate it when you're trying to remember something you found on the internet, but you didn't bookmark it, you have no key words you can Google, or they're too broad, and you have no idea how you came across it? Arghhh. I just want to plug my brain into the internet and make it find it. I can barely even describe it. I'm basically looking for a website I saw some time ago, wherein you download and print out a black and white template of a drawing and you fill it in and decorate the different sections, all I can remember is that on one particular sheet there was a section for what you'd been listening to lately and it had the shape of a tape cassette, and then you scanned it back in and submitted it to the website. That's not a very good description of it I'll admit. I can't even begin to think what I should Google to find it. It's driving me crazy, I have to find it now, I think I shall cry if I don't! Haha. Any clues? If you can find this phantom website I promise you a medium-sized reward in return!


^ Frank Chimero.

Today C took me to Office Works with the aim that he would "buy me a new pen", ha. I got two pens, three big yellow pads, printer ink, Frankie, post it notes shaped like speech bubbles, green staples and a new very pretty folder for containing my mail. I have filled it up with the received mail that was previously stored in drawers that I am now cleaning out for uni work, and it is already full. Hmpf. Tomorrow I'm going to visit my brother for the first time in several months (he lives about 2km from my house) and meet his month old baby. I'm nervous and excited.

Strangely, I have been getting an influx of cat-related postcards of late. Four have arrived in the past three days;




Speaking of cats, one of our cats, Mesca, has been quite sick lately and it sitting beside me, with her back to me looking very solemn. I'm feeling a bit the same way tonight.