This post is for the birds.

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



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.



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.

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

   /ˈgubər/ Show Spelled[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. 



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.



(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! 

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.

Sign Dancing

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Fort Collins was the abnormal amount of sign dancers.  You know, those poor teenage/college kids that wave around an unwieldy and obnoxiously hard-to-read sign at the corner of some large intersection, attempting to influence you to visit the huge mattress sale or thrift shop or have your house painted?  Well, this town seems to almost not have enough corners to hold all of these minimum-wage, rain-snow-hailstorm-or-shine America's next best dancers, who offer more entertainment during my daily commute than any iPod playlist ever could.  

My current list of favorite sign dancers is as widely varied as the commitment level of the sign dancers (well, I suppose it's more of a ratio of commitment to the job versus public embarrassment potential).  There's the curly haired kid at Harmony and Lemay who does nothing but headbang.  I have seen him standing there on the corner, every day, during lunch hour, after work...  headbanging.  And trying to invite you to the bike sale.  My favorite part?  He rides a skateboard.

Then there is the dancing dog (at least i think it's a dog), who is a guy who wears ears glued to a headband and some sort of tail.  And holds a sign for something completely unrelated to him dressing, however poorly, as a canine.  The mysterious giant strawberry (only sighted once)... it may have been a mirage.  It was just an exceptionally large dancing strawberry.  I can't even remember if he/she/it was holding a sign.   It did look delicious.  One day, I saw an older guy, who, if he lets his dreams fly as high as his masterful (way too experienced) sign throwing, will go far in life.  He turned sign dancing into an art form, let me tell you.  You couldn't read what it said, you didn't care what it said.  He must have been a baton twirler in his childhood, or something.  It was mesmerizing.   And I won't ever be able to forget the crazy Santa-bearded bicycle-shorts-wearing too-large-for-those-shorts old man during the local elections.  He was everywhere.  I'm serious.  At the time, I would drive different ways to work depending on the traffic flow, but never failed to allow him to awkwardly wave and shout at me as I attempted to innocently passed unnoticed.  He reeeeally cared about the person who was running for the school board, or whatever it was he was campaigning for.  I forgave him for his stalkerish nature and ill-fitting attire because of his commitment to his cause.

If only I could be humble enough to walk out there with costume/sign in hand and wave it for all the world to see and dance like a buffoon.  One day, maybe.  I'm also exceptionally pleased to report that, just now, when i typed "sign dancing" into google, although I was a little sad I wasn't the first person to ever call them that, not only do people know what sign dancers are, there is a website.  With videos.  LOVE IT.

Need to laugh?

YouTube was a wonderful invention.  Not only can you find "how to" videos on EVERYTHING you'd ever dreamed of (including several on how to tie off a knitted scarf, which is perfect since I can't make that detail stick in my brain)... it also offers a general ridiculousness that just can't even be described.  That being said, I never go onto the website just because... I instead wait for everyone else to slum through the garbage and then post the true video clip treasures to facebook.  There are some true winners.  For example, this is a chuppycuppycake dream.  His eyebrows at the end... I can't watch this video enough times.

My mother, who only in the past few years has warmed up to the internet and e-mail and social media showed me this true gem.  THIS is what you need to watch first.  And then... THIS.  Surprising, on so many levels.  Mostly because it was my mother that showed it to me.

But you have to be careful with her recommendations, because she also tricked me into watching this video called "People of Walmart."  I refuse to put a link for it on here because you really need a strong stomach to get through it... it's a catchy tune about how... er... diverse the customers of walmart truly are, especially in reference to their choice of apparel (or lack thereof) in public.  If you can stand seeing a few hundred snapshots of ill-fitting or ill-conceived style choices, go look for it yourself.  But don't say I didn't warn you.

Sometimes, when you have nothing else to keep you going, just think... is this real life?  Terrible segue, I know, but I couldn't help myself.  Please say you've seen this.  Sometimes you can't get through the day without pushing up out of your seat and screaming like a jungle animal.  Just saying.

Best. Job. Ever.

And I quote, from an actual job posting for an actual job that I am actually applying for:

"WORK ENVIRONMENT: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is exposed to fumes or airborne particles and toxic or caustic chemicals.  The employee is frequently exposed to moving mechanical parts and explosive materials.  The employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions, outside weather conditions, extreme cold, extreme heat, risk of electrical shock, and vibration.  The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate." 

Who wouldn't want to be a chemist after reading this job description?

I am probably the most worried about the moderate noise level.  Or... maybe the vibration.  I'm most excited about the frequent exposure to explosive materials.  I thought I was applying for a "Water Treatment and Operations" position.  You never know... it makes you wonder how this job came to be open in the first place!

I don't want to seem completely self-obsessed and narcissistic... but I feel like part of the point of a blog is to know about its author.  This entry will be all about me.  So... here is my current life-status report.

I live in Fort Collins, Colorado in a 2-bedroom apartment with a hippie-waitress-EXTREMELY-talkative 24-year-old named Whitney.  Her jobless-super-friendly-until-he's-drunk-then-he's-just-LOUD boyfriend occasionally stays over.  And by occasionally I mean 90% of the time.  They're both friendly and generous people and I appreciate that she lets me use her extra bed, since apartments in good old FC come unfurnished.  Thus my recent acquisition of a small dresser from IKEA and a bookshelf from craigslist.  I feel like more of a real person now that I own furniture.
 
I am a bank teller.  I have been for three months, for lack of a better job opportunity and after three months of unemployment (not counting two weeks at Dunkin Donuts around Christmastime).  Just the other day I held a check for 1.3 MILLION dollars in my hands.  No big deal.  Every day I handle more cash than I'll ever have, ever.  It's a little bit saddening.

I want to be a chemist again.  Someday.  I truly miss it.

My current (revived) love is swimming.  I've really enjoyed going to the local pool lately and swimming my laps... swimming hard offers an all-over exhaustion that just feels so much better than any other type of exercise!

I have a boyfriend.  His name is Nathan, and we've been dating for... 14 months now?  He is working toward his PhD in organic chemistry.  He has been at CSU for almost a year now...  only 5 to go.  He works for a guy named Bob, who is known as a cranky old man who wears short shorts.  No joke.

He is currently in California visiting his family for two weeks.  Thus the true reason this blog was born... sheer boredom.  And when I say he, I mean Nathan, not Bob.  That'd be awkward.

My most awesome new news is that I adopted a coworker's guinea pig today.  I'm still figuring out what to call him.  I should post a picture... but here is an idea of what he looks like:



...

WOAH just kidding.  I wouldn't want a pet with hair longer than mine!  This is a little more accurate:



What should I call him?