Sunday, July 31, 2011

This post is for the birds.



I may or may not have recently or not so recently become obsessed with birds.

10 VIBRANT commercial and personal use digital images.

It may have something to do with the bridal blog I enjoy reading (don't ask) where many of the latest themes seem to revolve around vingate, chic, delicate, rustic... which obvi (inside joke with some old roommates, again, don't ask) leads to bird cages, nests, and the like.

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It's funny how you can play with the shapes and colors... some of the birds below don't look like any bird I've ever seen (okay, yes, none of them actually do), but it still works.  And it's still adorable.



This one is favorite:



Is it because they're so strangely proportioned and often awkward looking and at the same time beautiful and endearing?



This one speaks to me in so many ways.  It screams of love and romance, but at the same time is vague, anonymous, and leaves so much to the imagination.



I think owls are the most vintage of all birds, probably because they always make me think back to the old Tootsie pop owl.  And... I want that pin cushion.  I don't even sew, but I don't care.  It's amazing.




ANYWAY.  I haven't had this kind of obsession in a long time.  However, I think I've had it for longer than I even recognized.  I bought these two little guys at Tai Pan Trading in the mall back in Provo almost a year ago...  (Please note my photography skills are lacking.  They're much prettier in real life).


And speaking of real life... I took this picture with one of my first cell phones (I'm trying to justify the terrible quality and small size of the photo) years ago, in Tennessee.  There were these little sparrow-like birds that insisted on building quite intense nests in the little alcove near our front door.  The parents would occasionally try to dive-bomb us as we went outside to get the paper, but other than those few near-death experiences the chicks provided us with much entertainment.  At one time there were five or six little guys, all lined up along the edge of the nest because they were too big to fit inside.   


And this should have been my final clue:  this was a needlepoint I made for my grandma for Christmas last year.  They love to watch the birds in their backyard (a genetic predisposition for my obsession, perhaps?), so I thought she'd enjoy a homemade gift.  I'm pretty sure it was a hit, but then again what isn't with grandparents?   



Well, that's all I have to say about this.  I'm sure I'm not alone, but that doesn't make me feel any less crazy every time I see some bird craft/accessory/jewelry and desperately want to add it to my collection that I don't actually have.

The end.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Goober

For all of those people who were dying to know the answer the last question of my first-ever blog post... I've named my guinea pig... (drumroll please)...

Goober.  Aka Goobie-poobie, Goobie-doobie-doo, and occasionally Peanut.

goo·ber

[goo-ber] Show IPA
–noun South Midland and Southern U.S.
the peanut.

(thank you, dictionary.com)

I called him a different name every day for about two weeks.  Nothing seemed to fit.  I tried normal human names, like Charles or Harold (the royal wedding got to me a little, can you tell?), I tried names that were seemingly invented solely for our cuddly furry four-legged friends (not to be confused with two-legged friends who happen to be furry, who I personally find quite un-cuddleable)... Sparky, Rufus... It wasn't until one day, almost by pure inspiration, I was walking through the grocery store and spied the name on one of those disgusting sounding peanut butter/jelly pre-mixed concoctions. 

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Don't ask me why the concept of alternating stripes of peanut butter and jelly in a convenient and only-one-knife-needed way sounds so utterly repulsive, considering a homemade-no-frills PB&J is one of the undeniable simple pleasures in life, but in my mind it's akin to... gross.  I can't even think of anything.  I take it back.  Wait... nope, nothing.  Ew.

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(shudder).

Tanget much?  Anyway.  I saw the name, plastered across that horrible perversion of childhood memories and college-induced poverty, and immediately just knew. 

Goober is actually quite the character.  This may bore some of you who weren't denied the opportunity to care for a small rodent in your younger years... but I really am fond of the little guy.  He's a nibbler, not a chomper, so when he thinks my fingers are carrots on a daily basis (you think he'd realize after a while) it's not so bad.  Once, he thought my cheek looked tasty... I wonder what he was thinking then... anyway.  He's my live alarm clock... if I'm not up when my alarm goes off, his squeaking is a good back-up.  It's adorable until the squeak turns into a squawk (It took me about 3 minutes just now to figure out how to spell that word, for some reason.  Strange.) which is not as attractive a sound coming from such a little guy.  All he wants is his carrot, so can you really blame him?  He's a cuddler, too, which makes for a nice replacement when Nate isn't around. 

Just kidding. 

Maybe.

I like him.  He's my little friend since the tragic death of our betta fish (I accidentally murdered him.  It involved a garbage disposal.  Not a good story.) a few months ago.  In all honesty he probably couldn't care less who I am as long as he gets fed, but he does recognize me, and makes me smile every time he "rearranges his furniture"... a.k.a. headbutts his plastic igloo house and throws his food dish like a frisbee across his cage.  What a fiesty, adorable, ridiculous little guy! 

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Col-uh-RAH-do

I have been living in Fort Collins for about nine months now.  It's a college town, so it obviously has all the things any respectable college town does:  excessive amounts of fast food, dirty Mexican burrito joints and grungy discount liquor stores.  Unlike Provo, however, the town's existence isn't entirely dependent on students.  This allows for a slightly more mature community feeling.  It turns out people who make real money have standards for things like food and activities.  Once you get outside of the immediate mile-or-so-radius of campus, things get classier.  Well, classier, but with more cows, if that makes any sense.

It doesn't.

Welcome to Colorado (which I now have to pronounce Col-uh-RAH-do, not the correct way of Col-o-raw-do, or I am mocked). Initially, I thought moving here would be pretty similar to Provo.  There are giant mountains on one side (although they're on the wrong side... it took me four years to internalize the "mountains mean east" mantra and now it's all backwards.  I do still find a small comfort knowing I can see the other side of what I used to look at every day from campus, but my near-nonexistant internal compass is so confused).  It's dry, and flat, up until the base of the mountain range.  It's in the west, and compared to the forests of Connecticut pretty barren.  However, there is a key difference between here and "Happy Valley"... I don't live in a small, crowded, valley anymore.  To the east, instead of another range of mountains, there is................ (get it?  Nothing.  It's flat.)  Endless open space.  Which obviously (in the west) means endless farms and ranches.  So, the composition of the population is not quite the same as college-student-packed Provo.  You have the (mostly) young students, and scattered in that age group are those of us living the dream of working full-time and reminiscing about the "good old days."  Then there are the regular suburban homeowners, the 9-to-5 dads and power-walking-stroller-pushing moms.  Then, there are the ranchers and the shirtless-pickup-drivers and the cowboys.  And don't forget the sign dancers.

Funny thing is, everyone, no matter their job or life status or hair color or state of dress or undress, goes to the bank.  I've met a wide variety of people merely by being the person that is in charge of the money.  Just yesterday I helped someone, and as I watched him walk out, I noticed he wasn't wearing any shoes.  I'm not the person to diss the awesomeness off being free to wiggle your toes as you please, but what happened to the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy?  More on this later.  Anyway, many people that come into the bank are the exact opposite of me: they love to chat with strangers.  I'm a get-in-do-business-get-out kind of person.  I'm polite, but never go out of my way to make conversation with someone I'll probably never see again.  On the other side of the teller line, however, I have no choice in the matter.  More often than not, I am pushed out of my comfort zone as I find myself in the middle of a conversation with a complete stranger, and often by the end of the exchange am glad I learned something about that person. 

Moral of the story:  moving here has been more of a shock than I imagined it would be.  There are two LDS singles wards for the entire town, and although I grew up in a ward that encompassed five towns and the most Mormon kids to ever go to my high school at one time was 5... my last four years in Provo made me forget how the real world really is.  But, I have been blessed with the opportunity to try myself in new ways, strengthen my beliefs and essentially build a new life from the ground up.            

I take it one day at a time.

So far, so good.