What do you do when your husband is in the rainforest of PNG, for a whole week with no communication?

1) Eat chocolate cake at stupid times

2) Go to your knitting group and watch someone with their new spinning wheel

3) Buy very adult books

4) Drink a glass of wine at night because it's cold without another person in the house and it's the only thing that warms you up

5) Get a job (woohoo!!)

6) Finish all the paperwork of the second stage of your visa (how do you describe your commitment to one another without sounding like a total sap?)

7) Go to homeware sales and buy new pillows and sheets that aren't beige (god I'm sick of beige!!)

8) Get in your cats face

9) Knit

10) Do loads of laundry but ignore the dishes

Fingers crossed

This is the remains of my breakfast:

Yes, I had chocolate mudcake for breakfast. I'm currently overexcited about an opportunity that *fingers crossed* turns out well. But I can't say what it is as I don't want to jinx it.

It's still early, as we had to get up at 4am for The A to get to the airport in time. Thankfully he's only away until Friday. And that's it, all my news in three small paragraphs!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday!

Awkward:

- a cold sore that isn't a cold sore. Just my body being awkward.

- singing along with my music in the bus (well at least I'm not sharing bad rap music on speakers *coughstupidteenagerscough*)

- explaining to the bank teller lady why I need to pay the Australian Federal Police money. No I am not a criminal!

- realising that I was looking at the wrong side of my tape measure. Black is inches, RED is cm! IDIOT!

- having dishes to do

Awesome:

- The A came back on Tuesday night, and even though he had to go to a meeting in Brigadoon (no Gene Kelly in this one) at 7:30am on Wednesday morning. He's still here and that is just fine by me!

- making tomato, apple and chilli chutney. Chilies thanks to our chilli bush/tree (?)

- sorting through yarn and fabric stash. I have a lot of yellow fabric...

- watching the video for the new iOS5 for iPhone, iPad etc can't wait.

The budget and saving

This January, The A changed jobs. He had previously been paid monthly, but with this new one he is now paid weekly. This threw me through a loop as in Europe and with all my jobs I had been paid monthly. Trying to wrap my head around the whole weekly thing has been hard, and as a result we have had to change the way we budget, especially as I am still out of work!

Talking about money is hard and in the past used to stress me out. But we sat down and honestly went through what we thought we spent on different things for the year. We then tried out an accruement style of budget. For example we put $60 for buying books every month, on a 31 day month we accrued $1.93 a day to go towards books, only buying something once we had accrued the amount we wanted to spend. It seemed like a great system (originally from That Wife Blog) but it just didn't work for us.

We want to save money every month so we ended up streamlining our budget to the bare essentials.

We reduced the amount spent on groceries only by a little, with the added lifestyle change of eating out less and cooking more at home, as well as reducing our meat intake. Added to that we decided to buy our meat from a butcher (just up the road... convenient!), and not shopping at Woolworths but at the local Veg shop and IGA. Changing venue has actually made our shopping cheaper! Toiletries and house cleaning supplies are included in this.

This system has actually made me think more about what we have for dinner, making me plan and look through all the cookbooks that The A and everyone else has given me over the years. Our vow not to eat out as much as before has made it necessary to make dinners and other meals that bit more exciting. It also means we are BOTH less likely to put stuff into the trolley that we don't need or are not on the list!

Our 'other' sections have been smooshed into a 'weekend' section. We each get $50 to get whatever we want, including anything I eat or drink at knitting, books, make-up and clothing etc. We also have included a $20 that we can spend with each other, usually a bottle of wine!

So far it's worked but it took a while to find something that does. Do you have a budget, and how sis you decide upon it?

Skin in the land of eternal sun

Having moved to a country that has almost constant and harsher sun, I had to change the products I used on my skin. More spf and in the winter, being better about moisturising as it gets quite dry.

I suffered from acne for most of my teenage years and after going on Accutane and possibly buying enough Proactive to entitle me to shares, it's finally under control. I now end up having to use various types of face wash and face creams to keep my face balanced and though I do get spots still, they aren't as bad as they used to be.

So I thought I would share the products I use and why! (not all are pictured)

1. St Ives Moisturising Olive Cleanser: This is great, I use this about 3 times a week in the morning. It can dry out my skin though so it's actually better in the summer months as it's so hot that I need a little dryness!

2. St Ives Apricot scrub: I think this is a staple for most people. It's a great replacement for the Proactive scrub (The A also uses it. But I didn't tell you that, it would be too metrosexual)

2. Cetaphil: I use this every night. Fantastic for when I run out of make-up remover wipes as it gets EVERYTHING off. Doesn't dry out my skin. And it's cheap!

3. Olay Complete All Day SPF 15: My everyday moisturiser. Light and effective, you can't really ask for more than that can you?

4. Burt's Bees Naturally ageless night cream: Why wrinkle cream? Well I definitely hadn't thought that I would be using it already before 30, but since moving to Australia I figured why not? Constant sun and almost no humidity means that prevention is best way to fight it off. This stuff smells awesome too. The A says that I smell like a berry crumble, which is a good thing I think!

5. Proactive: I still have some in the cupboard for emergencies. The face wash, toner and cream. Last time I used it was last week for a breakout on my chin. So if you are an acne sufferer I would never get rid of whatever works for you, keep some hidden, it may come in use.

Awkward and awesome Thursday

Awkward:

- thinking that we overdosed George on some catnip snacks
- realizing that the wall calendar is still on April
- wearing a t-shirt with jeans and a hat when everyone else on the train is wearing jackets and gloves (wha??)
- The A's flight being so early that the alarm was set for 3:30

Awesome:

- that even though we had to wake up at 3:30 we still did the 15 min 'cuddle time' alarm
- sour cream
- Most Haunted Live on You Tube. Apparently I like scaring myself silly when The A is away (but also reading blogs at the same time)
- finding that the sure fire way to get a good nights sleep these days lies in hot chocolate. The A even reminds me to make it before bed
- winning at game night!

Catchup ketchup

I'm knitting again. The cold weather helps flex my knitting mojo.


This is the Hooray Cardi knit with Bendigo Rustic in Elm. I'm a 40 inch bust and the sizes have big gaps. Even though there is meant to be some positive ease I was scared that it would look too stretched; so I've gone up a needle size. So far so good. I'm also addicted to Pinterest. It's fantastic so you need to go and start pinning!

Missing

To catch you up here's a summary:

1. We've acquired a cat. His name is George it used to be something really crap so we changed it, but he also goes by Pookie, Pooks, Pookie bum, Pookie face and Pig.

2) We've bought a car. It's old and beat up but totally blends in with all the other beat up cars in Fremantle. I'm learning to drive in it (automatic) and it's actually really fun which I wasn't expecting at all! We took a trip down to Augusta one weekend with it and it did well. Augusta was fun but not much there that can cover more than 1 weekend.

I found my dream house and Ross took millions of pictures of the above as 'practice' with his camera.

3) Really in the TMI sector but the Landlady replaced our water heater to a gas one and OMG it's amazing. I just stand in the shower groaning, it's so good. Plus the dishes get EXTRA clean, and I need to wear gloves otherwise I can't put my hands in the water.

4) Related to the above but in the AWESOME section is that the Body Shop have brought back their banana shampoo and conditioner, so I'm stockpiling it.

5) Started another design related blog, I have lots of drafts and free downloads to put in it but haven't published much. I'll post the link when it's more substantial.

6) My laptop died its final death so we got a new house computer...

TADAA!!!

7) I finished school and currently looking for work. It's not fun and sometimes it's downright depressing but you've got to keep smiling.

8) I lost my knitting mojo but it has recently reappeared but I've decided not pot post any WIPs to avoid disappointment from certain areas. So they will be photographed only after completion.

9) After more than 6 months of endless HOT summer it has finally cooled down. My regular rotation of t-shirts is thankful for the break.

AND most importantly.....

10) The A and I celebrated our 1st anniversary at a wonderful restaurant called Star Anise. We had the degustation meal with the wines. We ended up staying there for 4 hours and it was the best meal and company ever. I wanted to take pictures of the food but it was quite dark so you wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway.