This is a kitty. A mischevious little imp of a kitty. Despite not having a kitty since I was living at home in my teens, I have always been a Cat Lady. I display all the characteristics of a Cat Lady, I have just been lacking the cat. Well no more! Beardie and I have discussed it many a time and have always taken the sensible route, i.e. "What if we travel?" "What will the real estate say?" "We should wait until we buy our own house" etc. etc.

Apparently our brains simultaneously revolted with a "Sense be damned!" and we are now kittified.

Here is what the kitty did to me, about three seconds after picking it up for the first time. This is a sign of things to come.

Kitty currently goes by the name "Kitty", though any suggestions are welcome. With the names that we keep coming up with, he might be Kitty for quite a while.

Frubears. You can find Frubears in the health food/dried fruit bit of your supermarket. They are little bears that are made of dried apricot, dried peach and mysterious "fruit fibre". They are healthy and pretty tasty and having a couple is just lovely.

Eating an entire packet is NOT LOVELY.

Beardie and I had a movie date tonight to see Transformers 2 (Review: Fox is extremely hot, robots are pretty cool, movie was ok overall but not superawesomecool like the first one) and in an attempt to be healthy, I purchased some things to eat in place of the usual salty popcorn and choc top loveliness.

Frubears seemed like a great option due to the health factor, however I made the deadly mistake of forgetting all about the fibre content.

I JUST ATE 20 GRAMS OF DIETARY FIBRE IN 15 MINUTES.

Imagine if somebody cut open your stomach, dropped a large stone inside and sewed you back up. My digestive system is really pissed off with me.

I really shouldn't be making these kind of mistakes at this age.

I joined Twitter last week. I joined it so I could follow Peter Serafinowicz, with no intent of ever using it, and then while I was out drinking with workfolk the discussion moved to Twitter, and I started using it.

(Also, have arrived home to discover that Miss Audrey Apple has already posted a similar (though much better worded) confession. Quite freaky.)

I am not game enough to link it, because it is all Real Name-ish, and Real Photo-ish, and for the first time ever I am doing something on the internet without my anonymity to back me up. Can you believe it!

But, this post is supposed to be small, because all I'm saying is that I joined it, and am therefore officially NOT the last person on the bandwagon, for once in my life.

Or maybe I am.

Either way, you are permitted to punch me in the face now.

Bleurgh. What a weekend!

Grade 7 Poetry:

Ode to a Little Green Shitbox

With your crumply front plate
And your unroadworthy state
I was ripped off when I bought you

But your smells and your squeals
And your crooked front wheels
Meant that slowly, I came to adore you

Then I bought a new car
Which was better, by far
For economics, I had to sell you

I put you up on Carsales
Excluding some minor details
Within a day it was time to farewell you

Now I see and hear you around
(I know your unique clicking sound)
And your new ginger owner dotes on you

And while I am cashed up and glad
My heart feels a bit sad
For my Little Green Shitbox; I loved you

Sniff.

And briefly:

• I turned 26 on Wednesday. Beardie and I both had the day off work and went shopping, followed by a big mother of a steak. I am all about the steak lately. 26 seems to be going ok. I am in my late twenties. Apparently I am lover of steak in my late twenties. All is well.

• I organised a night of bowling for my team on Friday night, which was super fun, though every time I stay out for drinks with work people I regret it. I mostly regret all the shit that I spout which is really not making that great an impression when you have to go back to work and be in charge of these people. BUT THEN, I also went out last night for an engagement party. Plus, we had an enormous dinner beforehand (including a rocky road sundae, which we completely inhaled in seconds, much to the disgust of the other patrons and amazement of the waitress). So basically I am feeling seedy and porky today and as a result am going to detox this week.

• There's some whispers on the job front that could see me putting in an application for the department that brutally rejected me the last time. The only difference between now and then is that next month I am going on an awesome training course which will actually give me some of the skills that they were asking for the last time I applied. They are only rumours at this stage, but I still get a little excited skippety-skip in my tummy.

What's the best thing to do when you are seedy and porky? Clean the house from top to bottom for an inspection this week. Fricking awesome. Hope you've had a good weekend, lovely people.

I have come to a realisation. Nobody can read my face. My face is unreadable. I often find myself in scenarios like the following:

[Scene: a management meeting, Director present, discussing boring crap about boring work and the like]

Manager: Well what I would like to propose is [insert proposal here]
Me: [listening, however thinking dreamily about having leftover Mum's Stew for lunch]
Manager: Oh, well just look at RAT's face, she doesn't like it!

[All turn to look at me]

Me: Oh, um, not at all?

[Conversation continues]

Manager: So I guess the main idea is [insert main idea here]
Me: [listening, however contemplating how many pieces of Hubba Bubba are required to blow a bubble the size of my torso]
Manager: Look at RAT's face, she obviously has something to say about that!

And so on. The most common one is receiving comments that I look as though I don't like something, when in fact I do actually like it, or don't really care about it much, but am definitely not opposed to it. Maybe I just have a disagreeable face and look like a miserable git all of the time? Very possible.

Maybe this is to do with turning 26 next week? And my rapidly ageing face is handing out mixed messages to everyone?

Also very possible.

Well I guess it is better than everyone and their mother being able to work out exactly what I'm thinking just by looking at me. Yes? Hmm.

For people who enjoy the full use of their arms, shoulders and upper back, might I suggest that you do not go canoeing for seven hours? Just a tip.

Alas, I am only able to give myself this tip in retrospect.

OW.

Cue mental imagery of Beardie and I lazily paddling along a calm, clear lake, with the sun shining and birds twittering. Then replace it with me screeching "go RIGHT, go RIGHT!!!" and us drifting head-first into an overhanging tree. And the lake was brown, but most likely from tannin and not actually from poo (as I kept claiming), and there were definitely birds about but they were vastly outnumbered by the mosquitoes. By about twenty billion to one.

Our party also ended up lost at one point, and frantically trying to escape from a rapidly dwindling inlet before we ended up completely bogged.

However! I did not fall out, or capsize the boat, or even get wet a little bit. In fact I did more damage to myself at lunch by dropping tuna all over my pants, and therefore smelling delightful for the rest of the day.

It was actually pretty good fun, with good company and lovely scenery and all of that. And the pain isn't too bad this morning, though Beardie tells me that it might be that kind of deeply burrowed muscular pain that will come out the day after the day after.

Other ridiculous things I have signed myself up for:

• My piano teacher, who is as quiet as a mouse (I am a very quiet person, and she makes me seem like a big, loudmouthed git), asked me if I wanted to participate in an upcoming concert that they were holding. Given that the rest of the participants were aged 10 and under, I declined, not wanting to be the only Giant Person on stage. She said that they were considering having a concert just for their adult students and would I like to participate in that one instead? I said that if she gives me plenty of notice, I would do it. That's right. Performing on a stage. In front of strangers. This is only just an idea at this stage and I already need a change of underwear.
  
  
• Beardie suggested that we partake in the Bridge to Brisbane Fun Run this year, and because I want one of those t-shirts that says "I completed Bridge to Brisbane", I said yes. Then I realised what I had just done, and said "ah, shit." It coincides pretty well with the running program that we're doing and I figure we can always just walk/hobble/crawl along if we need to. And can I just point out that the idea of me EVER partaking in something like this is just freaking crazy; I never thought I would. It's got to be a good thing, I guess.
  
  
• We've accepted an invite to go a popular American-style restaurant which is famous for house-sized portions of ribs, wings, pork belly and other meals primarily based around gigantic slabs of meat. As somebody who has always been a small eater, and a lover of all things vegetable, I am already quite frightened by this concept. They don't have a menu online so I can't even make a plan beforehand and can foresee an evening of clutching my stomach, my pants exploding, groaning with a trail of hickory-smoked, porky BBQ sauce running down my chin.
  

Today I have a whole range of crappy girly movies to watch (as Beardie is working, I am sparing him the pain best time of his life) and I will probably try and finish reading The English Patient. For those indulging in public holiday awesomeness today, I hope you have a shiny, tip top day.

You know, there's probably better things I could be doing than watching *NSYNC videos on Youtube.*

For example:

I could be out scaring children with my experimental fingernails. I have seen not one but TWO people with nails like this, so I am thinking that looking as though I have dipped my fingertips into a tin of paint is The In Thing.

I could be eating yet another serve of my Mum's Stew. My Mum's Stew, made by me. So, um, my stew. You know what I mean. Every winter since moving out of home at the age of 18 has been spent whining that I missed my mum's stew. On Saturday, I started to feel those familiar pangs and dug out the hand-written recipe book that I carefully transcribed when I was 12 (in my neatest handwriting, actually) and flicked through the battered pages until I found it. And my GOD, I cannot believe I waited seven years to make it. I had one bowl yesterday, and then today I had the only thing better than Mum's Stew - SECOND DAY MUM'S STEW. For real. You need to come over to my house and try it, STAT. I made enough for eight people.

I could be out spending even more money that I don't have. For somebody who is completely skint, I sure do buy a lot of shit. I put this down to forcing myself to not spend any money at all for ten weeks and then lifting this ban when I had Zero Dollars in my bank account after buying a car. Clever much. But Wednesday is payday, hoorah!

Or, you know, if I got bored of those things I could try:

• becoming an accomplished pianist
• fulfilling my lifelong dreams
• um, figuring out what my lifelong dreams are
• and, you know, stuff
  

Sigh. I wish I was in a boy band.

*But that song is just so catchy! And look at wee JT bobbing about on the bed, trying to get his sex on. Awwwww.

Lately, I am on a baking frenzy. I have made muffins two weekends in a row (and I'm wondering if it's just the way they make the house smell that I am addicted to) and am fully getting into the whole "make loads of food and then freeze it for lunches" concept. I even bought a gigantic cookbook from one of those discount book places, and it's not as dodgy as you would expect.

Reading: I've read a few books lately, In Cold Blood (which was quite good), Musicophilia (a non-fiction book about the different ways music impacts the brain, which was quite interesting) and I'm currently reading American Psycho, which has so far made me feel physically queasy only the once, though I still have half the book left to go. It is so very graphic (with both violence and sex) that I can't even act all cavalier on the bus, flaunting my banned book in front of everyone's face, because I find that I need to burrow into a corner so that nobody reads about what Patrick Bateman is doing with two girls over my shoulder.

Watching: He's Just Not That Into You. I saw this last night, and Beardie pretended to watch it with me while he actually surfed the net on his iPhone and read through a JB Hi Fi catalogue. It did have me pondering how anyone can possibly live that kind of lifestyle, going out with a different guy every week and obsessing over whether he is The One (do people really do that? Really??), while my "dating" experience has been to go out with the one guy until we are Boyfriend And Girlfriend without going out with anyone else during that time, which is apparently not the norm. I spent the rest of the movie marvelling at Scarlett Johannson's body - are her boobs actually bigger now than they were before? These are the important questions.

Working: On developing a pre-crazy Britney back:

(Actually, that looks like some pretty frightening spine cleavage.)

And a Jessica Biel arse:

It can be done, surely? Maybe I shouldn't be baking muffins.

Weight loss and fitness: THE JOURNEY*.

[cues Shannon Noll music]

Actually, not all that impressive really. Ten weeks ago, I started wearing a pedometer constantly** and writing down every little bit of exercise I did. I also started exercising, which in itself was a Big Deal for the girl who likes to sit around in fat pants feeling lardy.

I joined up with a website and started recording what I was eating. I stopped buying lunches and social club chocolates and energy drinks and iced tea and lattes and butterscotch hot chocolate with marshmallows and buttery raisin toast for breakfast. This was A Change, and all of a sudden I had shitloads more cash. Funny that.

I cleared all of the crap food out of the house and replaced it all with super healthy goodness. Beardie gave me two Easter eggs this year, and I have eaten one so far, except it took me a month to get through. Yes, a month. I became so jam-packed with fruit and vegetables that I would probably make a hearty addition to your winter stew.

Sigh. And all this because Thailand made me feel podgy.

The Outcome:

• My stamina is up and upper. I can jump around all over the place and my face is only 50% tomato-coloured, instead of 800%.
• I have muscle tone in place of jiggle. Well, there's still a bit of jiggle, but a bit of muscle tone, too.
• I lost weight. Based on BMI, I picked a target of 56kg. As of today, I am 56kg. After Thailand, when I started this thing, I was 63.5. It is kind of freaky that this whole thing has worked out exactly within the ten weeks of the work fitness challenge, but hey, I am down with it.
• I'm back to the weight I was before I started my binge drinking Journey at 18. It's pretty cool, but I'm a bit peeved that a lot of weight seemed to come off my rack. I liked my boobs, but oh well. They're still there, but a bit smaller.
• Not many of my clothes fit me properly anymore, and my jeans are all saggy around the arse.
  

The Lessons We Learn:

• I could, in theory, go onto a diet of pies right now. However I am kind of unsure how to function like a normal human anymore, and will have to keep recording everything I eat, at least for a little while.
• I could, in theory, sit around like a lazy git and watch my newly-developed stamina go to shit. However I'm kind of keen to keep it up for a while longer, and I'm starting a 9-week running program next week which will most likely kill me.
• Most of the snacks I used to eat and consider healthy are actually really shitty for my health. If I become one of those preachy nazi health nuts, can you please punch me in the face.
  

*The extreme overuse of the word 'journey' on Biggest Loser-y type shows makes me cringe, big time.
**Cannot wait to take the bitch off.

Yesterday, Beardie and I celebrated our anniversary. Because we are big, childish nerds, we did the following:

• Went to Underwater World
• Went to a Ginger Factory

Yeah!

Underwater World is pretty similar to how it was the last time I was there (15 years ago). I was still too scared to touch any of the slimy things in the hands-on tank and still very confused by the private parts of rays and sharks. It was pretty darn cool.

I have an unhealthy obsession with ginger. Sometimes people become obsessed with ginger, when they're elderly and wear cardigans all the time. I am 25 and I want to marry ginger. While I'm at it, I also love cardigans. I ran around the ginger shop like it was Willy Wonka's ginger factory, waving my arms and leaving a trail of drool. Damn this healthy eating bullshit; I could only leave with some ginger bears and a solitary gingerbread man. But they have an online shop, and I will be back. Oh yes.


In brief:

• I emptied my entire savings account today, to pay for the car. My tiny bank balance makes me sad.
• Only a week and a half of my fitness thing left! I will do a full wrap-up next week, but it's been a pretty interesting run (and for reasons I cannot fathom, pretty darn successful).
• I bought some new glasses and prescription sunglasses today. Because apparently I am not content leaving any money in my account, at all. But these things must be done as I progressively become more decrepit and blind.

Adios!