A kitty, a vintage dress and a tarantula, oh my!

I woke naturally early and rested this morning, which was really great. The first few hours of my morning were spent drinking coffee and reading blogs, which was nice. Then I got a solid chunk of homework done before going to supper at my parents'. I've been doing really well this semester, keeping well ahead of due dates and handing in assignments weeks before they need to be done. It's really liberating and lets me relax much more easily.



My cat Caramel seems to think he is helping me by laying on my book. His handsome catness notwithstanding, I did manage to finish an assignment I'd really wanted to complete this weekend so I'm very happy about that.



I have a strange fixation with my cat's nose close up. It's just so gosh darned adorable, and I love it when he sniffs at my eyes and I get a close up view of his sniffer. The new camera I just purchased myself is great, but I really need to learn all its details so I can take full advantage of it - and not just take weird closeups of my cat's nose!

This is far from being a great photo of myself or my outfit but I haven't worn this dress in over a year, since the zipper broke. My mother replaced the zip for me, but I discovered upon wearing it that the hem was coming undone - hence the weird hemline - and then I jabbed a hole through the fabric with my thumb. Oops! Both those things will be easy to mend at least.


This is Pumpkin, my mature male Pamphobeteus sp. platyomma. He's almost 5 years old now, but he hasn't much longer to go. Eight months ago he achieved his ultimate molt and reached sexual maturity. Male spiders very rarely survive past this molt since they grow large bulbs at the ends of their pedipals that impeed any further possible molts.



Now he's completely stopped eating, which is why his abdomen is so small. That compounded with his excessive silk production to create his elaborate sperm web, and he's exhausted most of his energy. I don't expect he'll survive more than another month. I've watched him grow from a wee thing, barely an inch in size and now he's this big seven inch fella. I'll be sad to see him go... Goodnight <3