Thursday, November 6, 2008

Halloween Fun 2008


My friend Michele had a Halloween party on Halloween this year. It was a lot of fun! Friends from all over came. I got a picture of each of them in their respective costumes (I insisted), as well as some group shots of everyone and situational poses - and some candid pics too. I am posting some of my favorites here.

I was a bird this year for Halloween. Also, I made the mask myself with a basic mask mold, lots of feathers, and hot glue. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself (and I do!).
Note the orange stockings. Pretty good, huh?
So what do you think? Could we be the next Birds of Prey? I think we look ready for the job!
(For more details on Birds of Prey, see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312098/)





The whole group:






Winners of each of the three rounds of donut-eating contests.

Winners of the Trick-or-Can competition with a total of 91 cans in an hour!
































Road kill - get it? Road kill? Oh, never mind. (Notice my tongue sticking out.)

My Apartment Pics

Okay, so I have been planning to post some pictures of my apartment on my blog for some time now. I actually took these pictures a few months ago, but my apartment is still basically the same. One really funny thing is that each time a new person comes to my apartment for the first time is that they always say a variation on the same thing, "Wow, this looks like a real apartment." - or a grown up apartment or adult or some such thing. The thing is, I felt ready for a real apartment. It was the first time that I had the opportunity to furnish an apartment myself and decorate it how I wanted. It was completely up to me since I didn't have a roommate at first, and then even when she moved in, she generally didn't mind what I did with it. So... here it is. I hope you enjoy. At least in the living room (which are really the only pictures in here), the colors are black, tan, and green with iron wrought accents.

I'm particularly proud of how this one turned out. I love the table and I think the effect of the candles and Family Proclamation is very nice.

I really like how the windows turned out too. I wanted to hang these curtains because we have so many windows and it gets cold and doesn't help with the utilities bill. It turned out lovely with the window scarf. I really, really like how it turned out.

These are the window open so you can let light in.


These are the windows closed to keep the warmth in on those cold winter nights. Who knew that black, tan, and green went together so well?


Bookcases and the picture in between of the Sacred Grove, right above the TV - used exclusively for movies and the Wii, of course.


Dining room area. There are actually curtains on these windows now too - black with a green scarf identical to the one on the curtains (shown above).

Monday, July 7, 2008

Field of Stars

Last night I went to a little creek and wooded area right by my apartment. There I saw one of the prettiest sights and I had been waiting nearly my whole life to see it. It looked like the stars had touched down close to earth and we're excitedly telling their friends about the adventure by blinking on and off. I had always wanted to see fireflies and for the first time I saw them - a whole bunch of them. They are Mother Nature's fireworks show. In fact, they really do kind of look like my favorite type of firework, the ones that are really sparkly and leave a shower of twinkling glitter behind. As I stood in the middle of the field and watched the sparkles lining the creek and the edge of the woods, I saw a little blinking light slowly pass right in front of me. The fireflies are these little beetle type of bugs and they make their abdomens glow. Ashley had told me the technical term for it - some kind of enzyme - but I don't remember right now. I do know that it was beautiful! It was one of the things that I was hoping to see during my time out on the East Coast!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Joys of Petsitting

So last week from March 2-8, I had an interesting experience. It was my first time petsitting ever. I also happened to watch the house, but the pets were the big deal. I took care of three big Pyreneese dogs. Think husky type dog, but white and much, much bigger. They are really cute and really friendly, but also very adventurous. They liked to explore, but when they would run to the other side of the creek and wouldn't return when I called - they really tried my patience! I had to walk or drive clear around to the other side and park by the side of the road and try to catch them before they molested some neighbor's dog or cat and before they got hit walking in the middle of the road. Thankfully, someone usually stopped to help me catch them. Three big dogs are quite a handful, especially if they have a mind of their own. But they were very cute and very friendly.

My other aspect of the adventure is that I discovered on my first day into the week-long job that I appear to be allergic to the dogs. So every time that I touched the dogs I had to wash my hands. I washed my hands so many times that week! It was pretty rough on my hands too. I have excema on the palms of my hands and that much soap and water was overkill for them. They were peeling a lot by the end of the week. I was so relieved when the week was over!

I also watched 50-60 peacocks and 20-30 chickens. They had enough food in their boxes that I didn't have to worry about that, but I did need to water them every day. Some days, the water dishes that weren't heated would freeze over. I had to break the ice out of those, scoop out the chunks of ice, and then pour in more water. The chickens were really cute. There were Mini Bantams and they were cute because they were small adult chickens. They also laid eggs that I gathered everyday. The other chickens were big (regular size) and fluffy. They also had feathers all the way down their legs and even covering their feet. That was pretty cute too. They also came in the most beautiful colors: Black feathers with the tips edged in gray, Brown with similar gold trimming and others.

But the peacocks... they were beautiful. I only saw them open their tails a few separate times when I took the time to stand and watch them for a bit. It is amazing, especially the ones with really long tails. He has all varieties of peacocks as well. He has several of the normal blue-green variety and a few with extremely long tails. He also has some that are all white, or white with a few grey or black spots. One of my favorite white ones had a long tail and a few black feathers that were well placed so as to be striking, not odd. There were also peacocks that were mostly brown. There were two different kinds of brown peacocks: both a dark, striped brown and a light brown mixed with white. The most interesting ones were the ones that were crosses between the white peacocks and the blue-green ones. They were generally white all over, but on their necks and other places, they had patches of the blue-green coloring. It was different, but striking and interesting to look at because of the contrast.

In Spanish, the name for peacocks literally means royal turkey. As I have had the chance to examine them more closely, I can see the similarity to turkeys, but they are much more beautiful. I secretly hoped that a peacock would drop a long tail feather while I was there and that I would get to keep it. No such luck, but that is okay. I enjoyed them while they were mine anyway.

The most adventurous day was on Wednesday when I finished the morning chores and headed out down the driveway to go to my morning class. I didn't get very far before I discovered that the driveway was blocked by a ... very large branch?... no, two small trees! I tried to pull or push or move them out of the way to no avail. I was able to untangle them and get the smallest tree out of the way. Its trunk had merely bent while the other one had snapped but not completely broken. Even though I am not a wimp by any means, I was not able to budge that tree. I couldn't believe it because I only consisted of three larger branches and a lot of smaller ones. Luckily, I had the number of the guy who plowed the driveway and I called him asking for help. He couldn't come until much later that day because he was working. So I contented myself to missing class and I spent the day doing laundry instead. To top off the day, two of the three dogs ran away later that day when I let them out of their pen to go pee and to play for a little while. It ended up being the hardest day of chasing dogs for me. I got plenty of exercise while I was there and I had no problem sleeping because I was so exhausted every night. I also got up at a reasonable time every morning since I had to take the dogs out to go pee and water the peacocks and chickens.

I wish I had taken pictures while I was there so that I could have some to post, but I kept forgetting my camera. I apparently did a good job last time because the guy wants me to petsit again the next time he needs someone. I will wait until then to break it to him that I discovered that I am allergic to his dogs and would really rather not. I also discovered that I really like my comfortable be and my comfortable apartment and that is why I made them that way - because I like to be comfortable. It is like living from your suitcase on vacation or even visiting home (like your parents' house) when you are staying at someone else's place for a week. Not entirely uncomfortable, but not entirely comfortable either.

So that is my long spiel on my first (and possibly last) petsitting experience. I'll let you know if I am ever brave enough to try again in a less demanding situation.

International Year of the Potato

Okay, so I know I have a lot to catch up on, but I found this video on a friend's blog and I had to post it here to share with everyone because it was just too randomly cool!
Please enjoy!