365 days 86-100

86/365

There's an old, rusted train car overgrown with ivy and covered in graffiti down the road from our rehabilitation center. One time I saw a coyote in the field nearby and followed it into the "no trespassing" territory that the train car guards. I've always meant to take photos since it's so aesthetically pleasing, so this evening after a stint at Sealab (what we call the dilapidated building that houses our rehab program) I decided to go for it.



87/365

While exploring Portland I found a tiny plant shop with a beautiful garden out front.



88/365

Laura passes out anywhere: movie theaters, couches, the floor, at random people's houses...so she and Chunk took a small nap together while we watched Gossip Girl.



89/365

A Roseate Spoonbill hanging out at Sunset Lake.



90/365

I explored a park near our house that I've never been to (I've been wandering around Portland a bit since I'll be moving back to Corpus in a couple of months); there's a pathway leading right down to the ocean and a small spit of beach. The old wooden fencing lining the pathway made me think of a song I learned in Girl Scouts so many years ago - "So I went outside and left a piece of my heart buried by the third fence post. So when tomorrow morning comes I'll be smiling, though I might be a little down - though my body's leaving, I'll still be around".



91/365

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!! I've done quite a bit of googly eye pranks in the past, but since seeing this post, I knew I wanted to put the remaining google eyes I own on one of our raptor hoods. Unfortunately, the idea to do so on one of our real birds did not fly (GET IT), so I instead outfitted Valencia our practice peregrine falcon.





92/365

I attended the Reptile Expo with Andie and Geoff since I've never been to one and I love little lizards!! I was actually INCREDIBLY TEMPTED to purchase myself a crested gecko or a day gecko, but it was all so expensive and I am not a true reptile hobbyist - I would rather spend that money on birds. But day geckos (cue heart eyes emoji). Also, fun fact, that little gecko on the spray bottle leapt right onto my face!



93/365

We made some butterbeer on Sunday afternoon and I drank mine while playing Skyward Sword (but not before composing this oh so awesome HP-afied shot) #sundaynerdysunday.



94/365

Queen Cleo needed to be caught up for her beak cope. There are few things I love in this world more than a birdrito.



95/365

Bonnie, our Golden Eagle, molted this beautiful flight feather. Due to the Migratory Bird Act, we can't keep eagle feathers since we don't have permits to do so (they are usually sent to the eagle conservatory where they're handed out to different tribes that have proper permitting), but before the feather was taken care of, I had a small photoshoot because it really was such a prime specimen.



96/365

Laura found out she got into vet school!!! Such a momentous occasion was celebrated with margaritas, chips and dip, hummus, and mini-brownies while we all played Cranium with miniature dinosaurs as our players.



97/365

We were supposed to have a Xena creature feature the next day, but SOMEONE was convinced that the creature feature was THAT DAY. Twenty minutes later, Xena would not be awoken from her nap and the certain someone finally realized that the creature feature was actually set for 24 hours from that point. Since we already had someone who was interested in the creature feature (since THAT SOMEONE told her the wrong date...), we instead brought out Kitty for her to meet.

...

Lauren. It was Lauren who was wrong. And I super rubbed it in her face.





98/365

The Earth Day Bay Day Festival in honor of Earth Day was happening at Heritage Park downtown so I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and go to a festival by myself. I did have half-baked plans to meet up with a friend and I knew I would probably end up seeing some people I know and recognize, but ultimately going by myself to things is intimidating and I'm trying to overcome this fear. It ended up being pretty fun!! I got some free swag, including an awesome new grocery bag, some sunglasses, koozies, and information about beach cleanups, I saw a free-flight bird of prey demonstration (where I sort of judged everything going on, it was bizarre and the training techniques were archaic), and I hung around the Texas Parks and Wildlife department setup to learn about seagrass since that's where my friend's husband was being forced to teach people about said seagrass. Overall, it was a good time and I'm glad I went.



99/365

National Unicorn Day!!!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I got Kogi a tiny unicorn piñata filled with banana chips and crystallized pineapple (he hated all of it). Though he did definitely split its face open and then utterly destroy it in a wrestling match for the ages when I dared pay attention to it vs. him.



100/365

I was sick so ended up sleeping all day and drinking approximately a gallon of pomegranate tea with honey. I love this owl mug my Gramma got me.


Up to day 100!!! I want to follow through with the entirety of Project 365 on the blog vs. two years ago when I ultimately stopped posting them here since I was so behind and the year was almost over. Now I'm only twenty days behind and that's not terrible, in my opinion!! A couple of things going on in life:

♥ Attended parts of the IMATA regional conference and now I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of training sea lions...
♥ Went to a beautiful wedding for a coworker that was right on the coast, had a live band, FIREWORKS, nine different cakes, a macaroni and cheese bar, and an open bar! TWO OPEN BARS! It was magical.
♥ Went to the March for Science on Earth Day, another step outside of my comfort zone, and stuck up for something I truly believe in.
♥ Dyed easter eggs with tons of glitter.
♥ Toured the new Caribbean Wing - it looks AMAZING with all the birds in it. T-minus 11 days until Grand Opening!!
♥ Had to put down one of our beloved spoonies :( She will be greatly missed.


I keep wanting to do actual blog posts that are not just my 365 project; ONE DAY. At least the 365 makes me update semi-regularly!! For now, trying to make it through this busy month as we open the new wing at work and I prepare to move as well as see one of my best friends move away (again), BUT WE'RE NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW!!!

and I say HEYAYAYAYAYAY

WHAT'S GOING ON?



I haven't updated this blog in a loooong time. I've been struggling between bouts of busyness with life, visitors galore, and some very real depression. I've definitely realized that my blogging activity has declined in the past couple of years, ever since I graduated from college. I started keeping a physical journal that I could write in, I came out of my shell and became a vivacious, incredibly social and extroverted person, and I lived in many areas that didn't have reliable WIFI access (aka the woods). That does not mean that I no longer wish to blog, however. Some people abandon their blogs in favor of other platforms, some people go through hiatuses in order to focus more on other things; I'm in a situation where my blog is still just a public forum on which I can discuss my personal opinions, practice my writing, and post photographs. It's still important to me that I practice and post my photography as often as possible, which has definitely fallen by the wayside this year (2016 was just sort of a heaping pile of $@*%, right?) I would love to attempt getting back into the blogging game, and because I don't depend on this blog for my livelihood it never has to become a "job" and I can come and go as a please. So hopefully I'm back again and I can start posting with some more regularity.

Here are some of the things I've been up to recently!

Listening



Megan visited me for the second time this year (!!!) last week and she LOVES latin pop. I've been known to listen to it in passing, but I've never exclusively listened to it. I ADORED this song though, we listened to it as we drove over the ocean, watching osprey gazing out over the gleaming waves and great blue herons hunting in the shallows. So upbeat and happy



Now more than ever it's important for sassy ladies of all cultures and backgrounds to feel confident and fight for what they believe in. This song makes me feel that



I usually end up liking a lot of Top 40 songs just because I'm listening to the radio a lot and also I like pop A LOT okay it's FUN so I heard this at a Halloween party and really like it whenever it comes on

Other songs I'm still loving include American Girl by Bonnie Mckee (does. not. get. old.), anything Disney (I'm on a huge Disney kick right now because I want happy music in my life and singing Disney at the top of my lungs is SUPER happy), and Starboy by The Weeknd.

Reading



I STILL haven't read Radical Self Love by Gala Darling, but it's on my bookshelf waiting. I desperately need to continue my journey of self love and I think that Gala, the queen of self love and respect, could definitely help shed light on my predicament!



I'm about halfway through this book. I LOVED the first in the trilogy, A Discovery of Witches, but this one has been a bit harder to get through because there is SO much historical background to it. I've never been one to love historical fiction so I have only been reading it every so often. It's beginning to get pretty intriguing though! I do recommend the first book to see if you like it - the writing is WONDERFUL. It's like a 500x better version of Twilight with actually interesting people with their own personalities.

...I've not been reading a lot lately, unfortunately


Watching




Black Mirror: Season 3 is just as good as the previous two seasons. I've only seen the first three episodes, which I thought was the entire season. HOWEVER I guess Netflix realized how popular it was becoming and added three other episodes as well!! I've really enjoyed them all so far, though I did get a little depressed/stressed out because some of that technology-based fear mongering is PRETTY ACCURATE.



In a similar vein, I've also been watching Law and Order: SVU because although I'm horrified by most of the content, I LOVE that show and I LOVE Mariska Hargitay! I think my affinity for such shows comes from my mother, who also loves horror movies and dateline-esque shows.


Playing



I've been playing A LOT of Stardew Valley, an Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon/Minecraft game that is incredibly addicting. You can farm, flirt, socialize, forage, slay monsters, mine, raise animals, fish, and complete quests. I'm on year two - I have a full coop with chickens (including one random demon chicken named Voodo), ducks, and a tiny dinosaur, two chocolate milk cows and a goat, I'm married to a writer with luxurious long hair who used to live by the sea and greets me with poetry and coffee every morning, and I'm almost done renovating the community center by completing magical bundle quests! Like I said, addicting. I bought it on Steam, if anyone is interested!!


Other Events

-Megan visited, as stated above! In fact, she visited me TWICE! The first time this year was when my amazing roommates flew her in as a surprise for my birthday! I seriously was in shock, I couldn't even think. They told me I had a present in the park and I cautiously approached a dilapidated box in the middle of the field, feeling anxious and excited simultaneously. People helicoptered around me with their cell phones, filming the process as I opened the top and Megan popped out, essentially tackling me. IT WAS CRAZY, I definitely cried after I got over my shock haha. She came down for a conference this time, but we still had time for nights out to the bars, a beach bonfire, a "bring your BFFL to work day", tacos, Redox and wine nights, and something else...

-WE GOT TATTOOS!!! Mine is still healing so I will definitely post a photo when it looks prettier, but I love it so much. Megan and I got matching ones; mine is on my wrist and Megan's is on her ribs (ouch, but at least they were small tattoos!) It hurt, but not like I expected. I thought I would be crying and in agony the whole time, but it was actually very easy to simply not focus on the pain (it does feel like someone is cutting into you with razors) and instead chat about mundane topics to take your mind off the process. Now that I know I can do it, I want more!

-I'm getting more responsibility at work! Lots of new animals, training goals, and supervisory roles. It's been very stressful and tough at times, but it's also rewarding. But there are days where I just want to come home and drink wine.

-My roommates adopted a chocolate lab puppy. Like a puppy puppy, one who is smol and floppy and smells kinda like rancid coffee, you know that puppy smell, and who has needle sharp teeth and wants to chew on everything. Her name is Riley and (now that she doesn't cry AS MUCH during the night) she's super adorable!

-I get to go home for Christmas this year! My December is actually pretty awesome - I go to a training workshop in Florida for a week, have another couple of days off, and then work maybe one week before I go home to Salt Lake. So ready for a break!


It was good to catch up here. Hopefully I'll get some photography on here soon!

weekend updates

Oh hey Internet world, what's going on? It's been a week since I last (sort of) updated, and even though I don't really have any new pictures to share or anything, I still have been living it up in the world of south Texas!

My training with Nacho, our Red-Legged Seriema, is going really well! Aside from some particular errors (don't get me started), she is going into her crate immediately upon opening the door (her cue), and she stays in there calmly. She is having issues leaving immediately because she thinks, "Hey, I'm being reinforced in the crate!", but we're working on that. Next up is to try carrying her. SO EXCITING (this is my dream).



I learned one of my favorite people in my department is leaving for a different position :( She's going to still be at the aquarium, which I'm happy about, but it will still be different without her. A little harder (again, don't get me started). But I'll make it. This is what I want to do, I won't be run off so easily. Anyway, because she's leaving I might be able to start working with her animal she was training, Mr. Wendel the Southern Tamandua!



Southern Tamanduas have HUGE claws on their front paws for ripping open the earth to find ants and other social insects, but also to protect themselves if they feel threatened. Sooo I need him to get used to my scent first before I really start working with him, so he won't try to attack me, but so far it's been good. I've been taking him on walks with his trainer and feeding him juice to associate my smell with something positive, and he's never acted defensively when I've been near him, even when I touch his little nose! So cuuuuteeeee!!!

My other training DREAMS are to train our Eurasian Eagle Owl to be in shows again (he wads in shows ONCE), so I can handle him and basically be in love because I have always wanted to work with a Eurasian. Also to work with our Crested Cara-Cara because he is beautiful and adorable and makes little grunts.

I'm FINALLY done petsitting for my coworker so it's been nice to just hang out at my own house with my own birds instead of another couple of slightly crazy animals. Though I did get to have some fun times, like going on birding walks (where I saw Scissor-Tailed Flycatchers and Purple Gallinules!) with Argos and cuddling the cats.





So that was fun, but I know that having a dog at this point in time is definitely not for me. An important lesson to learn.

In the past week, I've been to an amazing 80s cover band called The Spazmatics which was SO FUN! Like, SO FUN. I went with my friend Roxie and we stood right up front, swooned when the singers looked at us, and I sang and danced to EVERY. SONG.



Since we were so close, we made eye contact with the band OFTEN and sometimes they sang to us!

I went to trivia night at one of my favorite bars and we advanced from 11th place to 7th! YAY!! One of the categories was all about rabbits in honor of Easter and we KILLED IT. Get several animal people together and their intensity is overwhelming as soon as trivia stops talking about geography and starts asking the important questions, like, "what is the word for an animal that is active at dawn and dusk?" We all FREAKED. OUT. Also when answers were being read, we basically barked and howled for every correct answer we got.

We went to Whiskey River again and some guys taught me how to dance! With the twirls and everything! I'll become a two-stepper, yet. My favorite part of Whiskey River is learning line dances. I've learned a couple and I feel almost like a real Texan now. Whiskey River, while semi-weird, is still pretty great due to its cheap drinks. Actually, most of Corpus has cheap drinks!

Tonight I had movie night with Elise and Laura, which was super nice. I love going out, but it's also amazing to be able to just chill with peeps in comfy clothes and eat candy in front of the TV.

Tomorrow we are throwing an ORPHAN EASTER party!! A bunch of us who don't have family here are bringing food items to Stewie's house and are going to feast, chill in the hot tub, play volleyball, and have an awesome Easter Sunday.

Now time for bed; I'm supes tired. Nighty night, fireflies.

i'm back

Hello! I've missed you, blog. So many things have happened since I bought a hard-drive, and thought that it didn't work, and then my dad helped me reformat it, and then I felt inspired to start taking pictures again!

-My parents and Alibus visited me, and we all had tons of adventures
-I helped tap Maple trees for syruping season (I tapped them HARD)
-Working on a lot of work and school related projects and being super productive
-Made an adorable tiny perch for my owl (USING POWERTOOLS!)

And so much more.

Posts coming soon!

in words

My dad helped me reformat my new hard-drive (yay!), so I can actually use it now. I'm excited to be able to share the photos I've been taking recently, I am starting to experiment with manual and aperture priority mode on my camera, so we'll see where this goes.

But meanwhile

drinking lots of hot chocolate, now that I've bought a tin of it from the grocery store.

appreciating my life and family here in Minnesota.

watching season six of The Simpsons, my brother sent it to me and it gives me the warm fuzzies.

laughing at Poppy as she nudges my arm, tugs at my keys, and leaps onto my keyboard. She's begging for attention.

eating like a beast. Working hard in the cold, snowy weather makes you hungry.

willing my cold to go away.

waiting to go explore Banning State Park with Alibus.

prepping for our busy teaching months.

opening my heart to people.

sleeping underneath my purple tie-dye down comforter.

remembering all of the little adventures I've had.

brainstorming a new curriculum.

wearing sparkly golashes.

considering going on a night-time woodland adventure tonight.

making charm necklaces.

feeling a little bit down.

getting bullied by a bunny.

loving that Alibus is here visiting.

having weird, creepy dreams.

listening to the running water of the aquariums.

crying during the last two minutes of Safe Haven with Megan.

turning over a new leaf.

acknowledging that I'm my own person and have my own awesome stories to tell.

enjoying Poppy's ridiculousness.

thankful for this beautiful life.

quick update

Now that November is here, all of us can take a breath of fresh air and relax a little. No more turnovers in the middle of the week, leaping from fifth graders to high schoolers and realizing that I need to change my tone of voice from high pitched and helpful to normal and "cool teacher style" in the middle of a climbing wall session. We have a lot of project time that I'm using to work on our new artifact cabinet, which actually fulfills a fantasy of mine where I am the diorama creator for a natural history museum. It's not a full-fledged diorama with the fake, glassy water I've always been so enamored with, but it still involves posing dead things so I still consider it a similar task.

We took a class this past weekend (well, not this weekend but the weekend before this one) where we explored prairies, woods with forest ponies in them, sandstone quarries, and Blueberry Falls (arguably one of my favorite places in the world). I also saw a beaver! I took a ton of pictures, I'm excited to post them.

I stabbed myself with a dead goshawk beak today. It takes a certain amount of skill to do that.

I'm getting better at handling bird bates (where a bird launches itself off the glove due to fear/mischeviousness/nervous pervousness).

Salt Lake got 14 inches of snow a couple of days ago. Here it's just freezing (19 tonight), but no snow yet.

I bought The Daily Coyote off Amazon for 15 cents after deciding that I needed it in my life.

Speaking of buying things, we went to Duluth yesterday for both a Target run and a Fitger's outing (always required when one goes to Duluth), and I ended up buying not just the hairbrush I needed, but The Last Unicorn, a thermal shirt with birds on it, face wash, and a "Support Your Local Brewery" sticker. It was an impulsive night.

I fall more in love with wild rice everyday I live here (though only when it's in other stuff, still don't really like it plain).

I learned why tamaracks and alders grow from singular clumps

I'm intrigued by this project. It seems like a good idea to kick-off photo-journaling, which I want to start doing because I like physical items. I love things that remind me of other things, probably obvious due to my adoration of nostalgia. I have six packets of childhood photos I want to scan into digital form somehow, but now I also want to print out photos or use photos I have along with other items I obtain but don't know what to do with to make mini semi-scrapbooks. It might be one of those things where I'm really interested in it today or for this week and then it will wane, though. For instance, like when I was a child and would check out a book about a different type of pet from the school library each week and obsess over it. There was a very specific brand of books where each item the author stated was necessary for whatever pet they were endorsing was a primary color. It's a really vivid memory I have.

The other night while putting Dakota away after a program, I was forced to acclimate to the darkness in a way that I haven't before, since I usually always have a headlamp on me or someone to guide me. I had to rely completely on my feet and partially the hand that Dakota's leash was wrapped around to figure out where to go. I was able to take her swivel and leash off in a surprisingly graceful manner considering my usual clumsiness, and once I stepped outside I noticed the stars. I haven't taken the time to look at the stars since September, when it was warmer and we spent almost every night on the pontoon. They were breathtaking, especially when viewed through the empty limbs of trees. It was like the branches were gnarled with starlight.

curse this week

I have been SO BUSY, holy shit. I have the National Conference of Undergraduate Research to go to this weekend that I'm presenting a poster at this Thursday, which required a majority of last week's input and hard work. Now it's getting printed (though my special pigeon drawing got a little bit pixelated when it was blown up, but I'll worry about that later). This week I had two tests (behavioral ecology on Monday and biochem on Tuesday), so I have gotten about eight hours of sleep in the past three days (which is as much as I require each night, since I become an infant when I don't sleep). As such, I bawled during an episode of 20/20 tonight while watching it with my mom. Also this week we have our IACUC inspections for our pigeon rooms, so we need to scour and scrub every inch and surface of those rooms, which is what's up for tomorrow. Tomorrow night is book club, even though I most definitely have not read the book for this month (even though I totally had spring break to do it...which I still need to make a post about).

COOL things that have happened though (besides spring break, which is what's up next) include Alice being home for all of last week! We did a ton of cool things, including:

-dressing up as people from the capitol (aka ridiculous) and going to the midnight premier of HUNGER GAMES!!! Review to come soon...maybe.
-"studying" at Nostalgia
-going to the Festival of Colors, which is the largest celebration of Holi in the western hemisphere, apparently. It was beautiful, and I loved the thought that we were welcoming spring by throwing the colors. We all looked hilarious by the end of it, since we attended for two throwings and then were targets for people tossing their colored powder about with gay abandon (good thing it was fragranced, everything smelled so good). It was tons of fun. Maybe next time I'll try to take more pictures
-went to JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS concert in Wendover! We basically drove two hours south, turned back after a couple of hours there, showered for an hour (and SCRUBBED), and then drove in the opposite direction for another two hours
-drank strawberry daiquiris, danced to loud rock music in the front row (my ears just barely recovered yesterday), caught a Joan Jett guitar pick that was thrown into the crowd, was taught gambling by a sage old woman and won $5, and finally transferred Seamus to Alice (who we renamed Seamus Gnolland O'Leary). Don't worry, we also took his picture gambling in Wendover and we're going to photoshop him into pictures from the concert.

Basically this past weekend was EPIC and I'm super glad I got to see Alibus :D

Some eye phone pictures



So cooool. I really liked it. I think two hours is a good amount of time, especially in the morning before it gets TOO swamped with people. When we started trying to exit, we found out the line was HUGE to get out, so we just jumped a fence (HARDCORE! In fact, people cheered us on as we did it). Then as we walked back, we got spanked by some guys riding a vespa along the road and, since we had like five more miles to walk, we hitchhiked and rode in the back of a truck to our car. SO MUCH FUN. Plus I hugged like one thousand strangers (aka 20) and everyone was super friendly. It was just nice.



The llama farm that was right next door to the temple. We kept gravitating towards it after we got tired of our burning eyes and noses and dancing and chanting since it was like ten degrees cooler out of the bodies of people and the llamas were all jerks and I loved them. We would feed them grass and hay and try to sneak pet them when they were distracted. Some people didn't wipe their hands before petting them, so a lot of them had splotches of random color on them. I didn't want them to feel left out, so I threw grass at them so they felt included (since I was throwing color at everyone else and sprinkling it onto every little kid's head I passed).



Springtime weather! Less so now, as it's a bit cold, but then it was delightfully warm and I went outside with my blanket, dog, and iced tea (and biochem, blech) and intended to nap in the sun (I only brought the biochem to assuage myself). Yummmmm. The rest of that day was spent eating a burrito at Costa Vida, drinking Cordina Mar-GO-ritas and Daiq-GO-ris (which doesn't super work...) in Claire's backyard and then watching Fright Night (which is so gooood). Then it was off to the Hunger Games premiere!



THIS. IS. WENDOVERRRR. So many drunk peeps. Some guy asked me where the pisser was because his friend had to take a leak (so charming) and then some lady in the bathroom started stroking my hair and saying I was so cute. She took quite the interest in what I'd been up to this evening and when I told her I'd been at the Joan Jett concert she was ecstatic. She told me to live it up and have fun. Thank you drunk bathroom lady!



JOAN JETTTT! So good. I really enjoyed her entire set, the guitar was amazing, and she was seriously DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF US. It was also FREE because Alice's grandma is a high roller and won the tickets and then just gave them to us. Sweet.

So that has been my past weekend/week sort. I have journaled my spring break (cool, right?) and will scan it in soon (hopefully). Also I want to update my blog layout because I'm getting bored of it.

Time to draw and watch How I Met Your Mother, toodle pip!