365 days 126-140

126/365


I was driving to Sunset Park for my usual after-work run when I saw this little rooster by the side of the road. I slowed down, curious as to what brought this tiny guy out so far away from any houses or farmland, and watched as he foraged for bugs near the ditch. I took some photos and sent them to people as a joke, like, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" and other similar queries, and someone responded back saying that the rooster had been abandoned there for days :( I immediately attempted to catch him, though unfortunately he was far too fast. After my run I drove back and attempted to catch him again to no avail. When I went back the next day he was gone - I'm hoping someone picked him up and he's living on a farm somewhere, safe and sound.



127/365


Sometimes hanging out with your roommate in the vet lab while she looks at x-rays is what makes you feel better.






128/365


Someone brought a little hummingbird that was having troubles flying into our facility, so as I waited for Second Chances to come pick him up I took some photos. HE WAS SO CUTE!!



129/365


Two words: Marshmallow. Nose.



130/365


A HUUUGE perk about having weekends off is that I was FINALLY able to go to the biannual bird mart!! It's an event where there are hundreds of bird toys, stands, cages, accessories, and even BABY BIRDS for sale!! This was one of the literal PILES of baby birds that people could fawn over - kept in a small container together for warmth.





131/365


Laura's last week in Texas :( She loves to rollerblade, though sometimes doing so with Chunk takes a dangerous turn. Especially when I excitedly call Chunk to me from down the block...



132/365


Bouquets of flowers saturated with sunlight♥



133/365


Wharf Dawg!! This is one of the shrimp boat strays who hangs out in the marina near the shrimpers, who throw his dirty pillow (featured next to him in this photo; not a euphemism for something) for him over and over again and who give him seafood scraps every night. We threw his pillow for him a couple of times before heading out.



134/365


Another night outside, drinking out of sorrow and celebration because Laura was moving onto better things, but so much sadness to see her go.



135/365


Chunk makes such a beautiful lion!



136/365


We went to Surf Club for pint night as one of our last hurrahs. Scarecrow People, a fun band that mostly covers 80s and 90s music, asked for volunteers for Don't Fear the Reaper and of course Laura gave it all she got with the cowbell.



137/365


Laura wanted a Trolls themed going away party (aka neon colors and glitter), so we obliged. Our house Flip Cup team reigned supreme one last time at our Matagorda mansion (seriously, we are unbeatable), so many people came by to say goodbye to Laura, we played Kings Cup (where we realized that both Taylor and I were WASTED because Taylor could not get the rules of the game and I had the dirtiest feet of any feral child ever), we took off our shirts in the park and streaked across it in the moonlight, we smoked cigarettes on the curb and I flashed everyone (whoops), and I woke up the next morning supremely hungover with an entire bottle of glitter and burs in my hair (from rolling around in the park). Diana very eloquently put it like this, "It's like you guys all living together was a TV show and that going away party was the series finale."




138/365


I suffered through a day of work while incredibly hungover to come home to the house just utterly trashed from our party. We ignored it, however, and went to dinner as a family before returning home to play with sparklers and do light paintings. In the end, we all worked together to clean up the remnants of our last great party.



139/365


Laura left super early, at like 5 AM, and it was hard. We were each other's people. At the time, I was mostly just tired and was able to go back to bed fairly easily. But at work I was sluggish and apathetic; if someone mentioned Laura I teared up a bit. Everyone who hates seeing anyone show any bit of emotion avoided me at all costs. When work let out, I started to cry. I sobbed, not wanting to return home to an empty house without Chunk or Laura. Sean saw me bawling in my car and immediately went into brother mode, cradling me as I cried and offering a night of video games and pizza. Which is exactly what we did, and it was super nice. But none of that was about this picture, this photo I guess is one of the bright spots that happened during the day.





140/365


As a part of his "make Autumn happy again" campaign, Sean mentioned that he and his girlfriend had extra tickets to Move Live in San Antonio on Saturday. I was PSYCHED - I adore Julianne and Derek Hough (Julianne is my main bitch, though), and was so ready to see them dance onstage! We got to San Antonio early enough to walk along the riverwalk for a bit, go to Dick's Last Resort for some drinks and rudeness, and then cram Subway sandwiches before finding our seats. The performances were AMAZING, I'm so glad I was able to go! They are both so talented, and my favorite dance was definitely the giant fan dance by Julianne to "The Greatest" by SIA. The original plan was to all share a hotel room that night and hang out in San Antonio before heading home the next day, however it turned out I had switched weekends with someone so had to actually work on Sunday. Thus, Stacey and I headed home at 11 PM and arrived in Corpus around 1 AM, six short hours before I had to wake up. I had sweet dreams of dancing and singing and was still brimming with smiles the next day at work.

365 113-125

I'm basically just doing dump posts of my 365 project until I catch up!! I don't want the same thing to happen this year that did in 2015! (This is especially tragic because my images were being hosted on a 365 website, which was helpful for organizing them, but it also deleted them after a year of inactivity so now those posts are filled with grey frames of IMAGE CANNOT BE FOUND - so irritating)


113/365

We all have those situations where we've decided to do an intensive artistic project but you're out to dinner with friends and too busy drinking and laughing and eating queso to take any photos and so you must hurriedly snap something on the way out of the restaurant because it's dark outside and you're too drunk to care, right? No, is that a bit specific?



114/365

There was a point in my life (aka when I took this photo) where I second guessed how many photos of Kogi I wanted in my 365 project. But then I realized that, if I felt like it, the entire YEAR could just be filled with photos of Kogi! And I adore this animal, so why shouldn't he be featured prominently? Here he is being a stunna!





115/365

Wow, I finally got my hands on a Unicorn Frappuccino! I waited in line for hours to snag this magical beverage and I was not disappointed - the mango syrup and iridescent sour powder made it taste just like a sweet tart, and its gorgeous color palette made for an excellent photo.

...

jk, I called all of the Starbucks in my area and every single one of them was already out. I was BITTER, but then read a bunch of reviews about how terrible it tasted and felt better (and then made one of my own!).



116/365

Xena being cute during one of her last stage sessions before her move to the new Caribbean exhibit.



117/365

Googly eyes will never get old.



118/365

A Nautilus! They literally levitate through the water motionlessly with the help of jet propulsion; it's pretty amazing.






119/365

50 Shades of African Grey





120/365

I saw Turkey Vultures chowing down on a squirrel carcass at the park across the street and decided to take a bunch of pictures because I love vultures and the sight of them eating a dead, skinned fluffy animal at a park meant for children was an interesting juxtaposition (I love the photo of them perching on the swingset, it was a bit blurry but I still wanted to include it because it was so cool).



121/365

Someone accidentally left their zombie in the car at Target.



122/365

Taylor was on a wand-making kick in his makeshift garage shop (sawdust. EVERYWHERE). He's pretty good AND wants to get an Easy shop up and running at some point, featuring some product photography by moi!



123/365

I had been sick for a couple of days, so the past couple of photos were really a struggle to achieve (AKA I went to Target for juice and cold medicine and took a full thirty steps to get to the garage for the 122nd day's photo). I finally felt okay enough to take a shower and, reveling in the unknotted state of my hair, took a photo in the park. PSA: there is not a wad of chewing gum in my hair, that's a tiny flower. It symbolizes me feeling better and being a child of the Earth or whatever.



124/365

Laura and I went out with some of her classmates and got wasted. Oh glorious weekends off!



125/365

I occasionally help Andie with her animal training business, specifically with classes on the weekends. This was a recall class aimed at helping dogs who weren't the best at coming when called. We practiced a lot of recall exercises and gave owners and handlers tips on how to problem solve when a dog isn't listening to you. The end of class sort of morphed into a puppy pool party, which is honestly usually what ends up happening. I'm not mad about it, look how adorable!!


Back when it wasn't in the triple digits and I had weekends off!! Now it's so hot that garbage cans are melting in Arizona (and my face is melting off here in Texas) and I work weekends again. I meant to have a sendoff brunch on a Sunday as a final goodbye, but instead ended up sleeping in because of who I am as a person. However, sleeping in is also a wonderful weekend activity so I think that I still did it justice.

365 101-112

101/365

National Pet Day!! These two baby birds are my favorites, even though one is terrified of the world around him and the other has a ridiculous amount of pin feathers on her head right now and is a queen bitch. I love them so much.







102/365

I have a hard time deciding which pictures I like best when it involves glowing lights. If you know me, you know I ADORE fluorescent, neon lights and therefore am automatically attracted to carnivals like a moth drawn to the flame. Sometimes a small roadside carnival pops up on the side of the highway in the mall parking lot. I noticed it from down the way after a dinner of fajitas and margaritas and, just like the year before when I won a goldfish named Scully and played ringtoss with friends, I went to take photos of the rides lit up in the darkness. Carnivals remind me of summer - of long days, fried food, and rattling roller coaster carts on tiny tracks that are barely up to code.



103/365

A little pink house, abandoned across the road from one of my downtown watering holes.



104/365

Rex, our Silkie chicken with the cross-beak who we weren't sure would survive to adulthood, is now performing in shows as the partner to Echo, our Barred Rock hen who lost her own partner - Charlie - a couple of months ago. One of my goals is to take more photos of training sessions so that we have more action shots, and I have more concrete memories of these moments.



105/365

Our first beach bonfire of the season. I love a good bonfire - the gritty feel of sand, the smell of smoke permeating layers of clothing, and the sound of waves crashing in the distance. It's pure love.



106/365

Easter Sunday!! Usually Easter is spent eating a decadent meal with family (involving ham of some sort), or setting up Easter Eggs hunts in our house, or decorating Easter Eggs. This year I decided that I wanted to decorate eggs, having missed out the previous year, so I bought a tie-dye kit for coloring, a carton of eggs, and a six-pack. My eggs turned out beautiful, and as a final touch I poured iridescent glitter on top of them while wet. They sparkled and shone.



107/365

Laura's friend came for a visit so we went to Harrison's Landing for din dins.



108/365

DOG. IN A DINOSAUR COSTUME. I REPEAT - DOG IN A DINOSAUR COSTUME.


!!!!



109/365

An amaretto sour in honor of National Amaretto Day!



110/365

A tiny jellyfish in a sea of blue.





111/365

Andie was doing a board and train with this cute little shih tzu named Sergio, but Laura REFUSED to let me take a photo of him. Every time I whipped out my camera to get a shot, she blocked me. Finally, I was able to get some cute shots of his tootsies!!




112/365

On Earth Day, I was able to participate in the National March for Science. At first I didn't know if we were even going to have one, considering the size of our town and the culture of slacktivism or even straight-up denial or ignorance. Luckily, I got word that a march was scheduled to walk along the seawall in the morning, so I went. I didn't end up making a sign, which I sort of regret, but I did show up and got some great photos of other people's amazing signs. We all marched down the seawall together, chanting and brandishing signs (while I snapped photos), and ended at the science museum, where we listened to inspiring speeches by local scientists. I finished out the day by attending a BEAUTIFUL wedding on the coast where we danced, indulged in the open bar, and ate our weight in mac 'n cheese. Best Earth Day ever!

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Oh, I'm behind. I was doing so well and suddenly BAM life happened. Isn't it always the way?

The good news is that I'm moved into my new apartment!! I'm living on my own for the first time EVER and so far it's been exhilarating, cozy, scary, and sometimes lonely. The birds and I love our new home, though, and being near so many fun things has been AWESOME!! Time to live it up this summer, despite the heat!!