Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

Once again, life has thrown me several curveballs over the year and this blog has fallen slightly to neglect. Stuck trying to get my feet back under me and some sort of human like routine after a move and dealing with an emotionally tolling job that was very socially challenging for me, I was left with very little creative energy. Nonetheless - I always have projects going, even if I fail to share them.

I’ve got a new motivation though with a much needed job change. I now have a schedule that allows me time to work on projects and other endeavors as well as getting me out of a toxic environment that zapped me of the ability to pursue other things I value and enjoy - like creative projects!!

Over the past few months I’ve done some massive home interior work, giving our shabby run down house a great breath of fresh air. I will hope to get some pictures of my extensive painting work up soon to share, but for now I can leave you with a promise of more regular updates and a whole lot of fun new creations.

Also our house has now reached max CATpacity, so I will leave you with some adorable pictures of the fur-kids.

The Cat Saga Continues

I recognize that all too often, "cat people" (for lack of a better term), can get a little too animated and excited about their cats and the daily antics that come with them. So if you are one of those people that rolls your eyes when people start discussing their cats, maybe skip this post. I've recently had another wonderful cat join my life (yes....another). 

Working in an animal shelter comes with lots of perks (like plenty of adorable fluffy snuggles) but also has a bigger list of frustrations than most people realize. There's a long list of things that people working in animal shelters have learned to not even try to discuss with "non-shelter" folk. Not only just the difficult euthanasia decisions we occasionally need to make or the tricky process of getting to know and evaluating a new animal and determining what sort of home will set the animal up for success, but also the vast majority of interactions we have with the public. There are of course some infuriating situations with people surrendering their pets, blantant lies we are told over and over again, but less obviously, some of the most trying interactions are with people looking to adopt pets. Often times, the public is simply uninformed about how a shelter functions and that we are not a pet store but rather a place that cares deeply about every animal there we are caring for and our primary concern is not simply getting the animals into homes, but finding appropriate matches for both the animals and what the adopters are looking for in a pet to ensure that we have done our best to send that animal into what we hope will stay its forever home. Some examples of this are say, a dog with a history of snapping at children or a cat becoming very fearful in loud environments or around quick movemts, we will not send to a home with young kids. For the most part, once this is explained to people, adopters are receptive and understand that our aim is to help find the family what they are looking for in a pet. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, which often leads to people's worst sides and tempers being thrown at us (working in animal shelters is the only job I've ever been at that multiple occasions the cops have needed to be called to assist with unruley and threatening clients). This preface leads me to talk about how this new cat, Mayor McCheese, found his way into my life.

Mayor McCheese (we obviously named him at the shelter) was brought to us with his 2 sisters when they were about 9 months old. They had been born in someone's basement to a stray or feral cat. When the family discovered them, they simply let the children care for the kittens, but didn't interact with them a whole lot, allowing the 3 cats to grow up in the basement and roaming inside their walls. Once they were no longer adorable kittens and the children lost interest in feeding them, they were brought to the shelter. Sadly, had these cats been brought in as kittens, they would likely have been totally normal, very adoptable sweet kittens. Instead, we were brought 3 full grown adolescent cats who were decently scared of people and were totally overwhelmed in a shelter environment, outside of their basement walls. McCheese was by far the worst of the 3, totally petrified and shut down completely in a cage. After many weeks of working on gaining his trust and building his confidence, we decided to move him into an office space to help him get more comfortable with people, outside of a cage. Once in the office we discovered what an incredibly sweet, affectionate boy he is. He remained pretty skiddish and freaked out if you tried to pick him up, but with some patience and a handful of treats he would happily befriend you. Unfortunately, he was young and very cute at a time of year where there are few to no kittens available at shelters, which made him top choice for every kitten seeking family. When introducing him to a family we would, as always, explain to people our best guess at what he would be like in a home. We knew he liked other cats and felt that he really would do best and thrive in a home with another social cat that he could bond with and pick up on their confidence around people. He ended up being sent home to a family that, unfortunately not surprisingly, did not listen to a word we said about him or how to appropriately introduce a cat like him into a home. He was brought back within a week with the adopter loudly proclaiming as she walked through the door "this cat is EVIL". A word to the general public: announcing something like that to a staff full of people who have loved and cared for a cat that they know much better than you is NOT COOL. 

Heartbroken about his return and knowing that this experience certainly did not help him, I started to think realistically about how he might fit into my life. (As a side note: our other cat, Leeroy Jenkins, went through a very similar experience with a quick return from adopters who disreguarded all the information we gave them about his fiesty behavior). Mayor McCheese needed a quiet, cat-savvy adult only home, ideally with a cat companion. We had all of that. I talked to my partner and we decided that Leeroy really could use a playmate (especially as I was unhappy about how rough he played with my cat, Sausage) and I felt like Mayor McCheese was likely to be a great match for Leeroy's energy level and play style. We decided to bring him home for a bit to see if they would bond (yes, a perk of working at a shelter). It was quickly obvious to us that he was a keeper. It took him a little while to become totally comfortable with us, at first frequently needing to be bribed out from under the bed with treats and only allowing fleeting pets, but he and Leeroy were instant buddies. He is now officially part of the family and has been an incredible addition. Leeroy loves him and it has brought peace to Sausage and Leeroy's friendship as now there is another young cat for Leeroy to chase and play with and McCheese continues to get more and more comfortable with us, now even frequently settling next to or on top of us and demanding attention and snuggles. We've even been able to start scooping him up and giving him kisses without him freaking out (he still kinda hates being picked up though...). He is sweet and appropriate with my rabbit too, another prerequisit to joining the family.  

So I hope you took heed of my cat-talk warning, as I know this post could cause lots of eye rolling from non-cat folk, but a lot of my life is cats, so I thought I'd give an update about my evolving cat clan.

Pulling it back together

So yes, it has been a long absence from the blog. Life has thrown a few big changes at me which has meant lots of travel and restructuring of my time to include everything I want to be doing.  

Primarily, I've been busy with work at an animal shelter as well as a decent amount of pet sitting work I do for families. 

As anyone who knows me is well aware, my pets are the main priority in my life. Because of this, I've been primarily concerned with integrating some new very important pets in my life: my rabbit, Garbanzo Bean, and my partner's recently adopted (and very fiesty) cat, Leeroy Jenkins. In addition to figuring out how to provide the happiest environment for all the fur babies in my life, we've also been swamped in the season of kittens at the shelter, and have been frequently hosting temporary fosters at home. 

While my life has been predominantly busy with my fur family, there have been lots of other things fitting into my life, including a recent birthday party we threw, complete with a bounce house!

So stay tuned, there have been lots of projects still happening that I'm beginning to find time to share here!

A Moment To Breathe

For those few have begun reading here, sorry for the short hiatus. Unfortunately, I recently suffered the very unexpected, sudden death of my best ferret friend, Xylophone. It was something that I did not think would happen anytime in my near future and I had imagined my life in a very different place when I would have to adjust to life without him lovingly under my feet. It's left me in more than a little shock and far from having any creative energy. 

Over the weeks, the sense of his loss has not lessened any, but life has begun to roll along yet again. I'm starting to feel like I can pretend to be a mildly productive member of society and will hopefully soon have some more fun projects and the like to be posted up here.

To help with my personal reboot, I was able to have a great birthday celebration with my close friends (I had my golden birthday this year - 30 on the 30th, yikes!). My friends pulled off a killer party, complete with plenty of dinosaur decorations, temporary tattoos, personal cup decorating, and a massive crock pot full of hot spiced whiskey cider. It was far from a rave, but sitting around with all my local friends playing hilarious rounds of Cards Against Humanity is exactly what I wanted and I had a wonderful time. Plus, my friends came through with incredible birthday gifts including some delicious drinks, books of clever crafts and tricks to do with household objects, a dinosaur onesie, and a promised trip to go tubing this winter!

So even though these weeks have been difficult to trudge through, there have been some nice breaks with friends and watching the season start to change once again is encouraging me to gear up for some fun indoor projects to do to distract me from the soon coming winter gloom. So stay tuned, I'm back and will have more fun things to read soon!!

A Word About The Cursed Child

Yes, I'm an adult and yes, I want to take a moment to briefly reflect on the newest Harry Potter book. I'm a true Harry Potter fan. While I've never dressed up for a book release and I have little interest in the world of Harry Potter fandom, I was 11 years old when the first book came out: the perfect age to get hooked. Since then, I have read the entire series multiple times (as well as listened to the audiobooks all through more than once), and within the last few years have had a full Harry Potter movie marathon with a friend. 

I don't want to get too much into my feelings about Harry Potter in general as I know that people have some very strong feelings related to the books vs the movies. All I will say is that regardless of how you feel about Harry Potter, the book series provided something very important to a huge number of children and young adults. While I was always a big reader and had a few series I loved and related to, I don't know how common that is for all kids and I think it is really valuable to learn how to read a book with such intensity that you are absorbed in the world and can extrapolate personality traits of the characters and can easily imagine yourself transported into their world. The Harry Potter series provided that to a generation in need of something a little more updated than the Redwall series. I imagine too that there must be a benefit to a child being able to conquer reading a 700 page book on their own.  I hoped that Harry Potter would continue to be that door into the literary world for kids, but unfortunately I'm not sure how true that is. More and more I hear of people younger than I that have never actually read a Harry Potter book and have only seen the movies. I enjoy the movies, sure, but they are not particularly great as stand alone movies - they are much better in my opinion to be viewed as supplements to the book series. A movie is a great option when you need a fix of that magical world without the time commitment of reading a book, but it is certainly no substitute.

And so here is where my opinion on the most recent book comes in (or should I say script?). For those who are unfamiliar, the newest book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is actually a script for a play (yes, a play not a movie, which I will get to...). It is in the same Harry Potter world, but it picks up where the final book leaves off: 19 years later with adult versions of Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione along with their now Hogwarts aged children. 

A major concern for me and other Harry Potter fans I've talked with was how the newest book would fit into the already well established magical world of the series. Well, it certainly fit in, but I will argue that it is simply because nothing new was created. I feel like the story fell back on magic we had already been introduced to as a way of not only avoiding thinking of an equally incredible NEW magical phenomenon but also as a way of not needing to actually explain anything. The script largely focuses on past events we are familiar with from the series (the Triwizard Tournament for example) and chooses to make a time-turner the magical focus, something all Harry Potter fans became very familiar with during the third book. In this way, much of the Cursed Child felt like it was just pulling bits and pieces from different books and somehow poorly summarizing the entire series into this one odd stage show. 

So about this stage show....I don't really get it. The script is written for the stage. In fact, there are even credits listed in the back of the book for what I assume is the cast and crew of the London play. I briefly looked at the play's website and it's even stranger than I thought - it is actually split into 2 plays intended to be seen on the same day or consecutive evenings. I had originally thought that perhaps a Harry Potter play would start to become a staple in elementary schools, but there is no way that this play was ever intended to actually be accessible for people to preform. They must have an extraordinary budget to be able to follow the absurd stage directions in the script. There is an entire scene which consists of nothing but stage directions of multiple moving staircases, and many times magic is written into the stage directions, such as a green beam shooting out of a wand and someone flying backwards.

Not only is it an impractical play, but while reading the script, all I could think about was how it did not read like a play at all, but rather a movie. The more I thought about it, the more I noticed how many of the scenes mimicked scenes from the Harry Potter movies. At first this annoyed me as I felt like I was reading scenes I had already seen in the movies, but then I started to think of that as a benefit of the book. Maybe this is the bridge that kids need between the movies that they love and the magical book series. While I dislike that the script format doesn't allow for too much elaborate description, I imagine that many people have never read a script. Perhaps reading this script, which pulls so much on visual discriptives we all have from the movie series, will prompt kids to try out the book series next and let their imaginations do a little more work. 

So overall, the book is nothing special. There is a mildly interesting Harry Potter type adventure that pulls the story together, but it is far less exciting or developed than the missions I've come to expect from Harry Potter. While this is technically being referred to as the 8th book in the series, I think true Harry Potter fans might be better off thinking of this book fitting in more with the other books related to the series, such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Certainly Harry Potter and The Cursed Child is worth reading as it won't take you much more than a lazy afternoon to get through it. While I was definitely a little disappointed with the story itself, I still have high hopes that it might help bring a little love back to the original book series.

A Golden 28th

I didn't grow up knowing the term "golden birthday" referring to the year in which turn the age of your birthdate. I heard about this excuse for a celebration through a friend in college, luckily in plenty of time for me to help her celebrate her 23rd on the 23rd. I just recently helped my roommate celebrate her 28th on the 28th, and I absolutely expect these friends to reciprocate the fun for me this year when I have my 30th on the 30th. 

It's obvious to most at this point I think that I love any and all opportunities to come up with an excuse to create something - birthdays fall high on that list. I had been mulling over ideas for my roommate's golden birthday for a while. When I pulled together a 23rd golden birthday, I had fun finding 23 different gifts each with 23 items (I believe there were 23 bags each with 23 pieces of candy or paper clips etc). 28 presented a slightly new challenge however. I had a few small gifts I wanted to give my roommate that I knew she needed, but I did not have the budget to buy 28 small gifts. Solution? A SCAVENGER HUNT OF COURSE!

I love scavenger hunts. SO MUCH. So I decided to make 28 item tags, all of which were either tagging small gifts or were coupons for redeemable [free] gifts.

I totally nailed the planning process of the golden birthday party. It did not take me long at all to do all the prep work, and then I was SUPER lucky to have my best friend (a mutual friend of my roommate's and helped me a lot with all of the party planning) able to join me for most of the day to pull everything together. My friend brought along her stepdaughter, so between the 3 of us, we were able to quickly buy balloons and decorations and rush back to the house where we made delicious golden cupcakes and golden sangria and I delegated decorating item tags to a creative child.

Our timing worked out perfectly - we had everything wrapped in golden tissue paper and golden ribbon and tucked away in my bedroom when she got home. Later in the day, at the start of the party, we had everything prepared enough that we simply had my roommate socialize with other guests in her room for 28 minutes while we quickly got all the gifts and tags hidden throughout the house (which is not easy in a small space) complete with  a wall of 28 balloons outside her bedroom door with a "28 Balloons!" tag hanging at eye level to kick off the scavenger hunt. 

Well to say the least, it went well. I knew my roommate would be excited to hunt out all the tags and to discover all of her gifts. And, as expected, a few of the prime gift coupons were promptly redeemed, so we had a 28 minute dance party along with a fun 28-photo photo shoot. I'm so happy with how it all turned out. It was a great gift and party with very little time and money needed - just some creativity!

Songs Of My Adolescence

Erik Peterson just died recently. I doubt he's known to many who may read this, but he was a great musician, most well known for Mischief Brew, and died earlier this month at age 38. I very rarely feel any personal loss with the knowledge of a performers death, but Erik Peterson and his music played such a role in my teen years, that as I've been non-stop listening to Mischief Brew for the past week, I'm reminded of how important it was to me at that time.

I'm not sure if I've ever related to music as much as I did as a teenager - maybe that's true for everyone? I used to listen to what can be loosely described as the folk-punk genre (a lot of Mischief Brew). But once I started working and cohabitation with people with different music preferences and started primarily using mainstream streaming programs for music, I realized that I never listen to what I used to love so much. Sure, I still blast World Inferno Friendship Society into my ears as I run and can't help but smile when an Against Me! song pops it's way into a shuffled lineup, but those aren't the tunes that I'm listening to regularly, they're saved for nostalgic purposes.

Since hearing the news of Erik Peterson's death I haven't been able to stop listening to those old lyrics that still so often seem to read my mind. I'm instantly brought back to a summer night in Boston, in a local folk-activist musician's backyard. Surrounded by people holding hands and smiling, we watched Erik Peterson play his guitar and sing, sitting on an old picnic table. I remember sitting on the ground playing with his pugs as a tin went around collecting what money we could offer him to help get him back to Philadelphia.

I can't say for sure if I would relate to this style of music so strongly if I hadn't connected with it at such a formative time in my life, but it is nice to go back to it now and still get the same sense of comfort in knowing that I am not alone in a lot of my frustration. It's a nice reminder of why every once in a while I come across a silk-screened "folk the system" patch that I just can't get myself to part with.

To Squat Or Not: The Female Urination Device

I just got back from a super fun camping trip, and it reminded me how much I love peeing outside. I’m the opposite of pee shy. I will pee anywhere (within socially acceptable limits) - on the side of  the road next to the car, next to a trail while on skis, I will most definitely opt to jump behind a building rather than wait in a long restroom line, and yes….I’ve even successfully peed in a bottle WHILE DRIVING. Peeing without a nearby restroom has never been an issue for me. I spent my childhood taking long hiking trips and have spent periods of my life living in a tent. I’ve traveled in many different areas of the world, where the expectations for restrooms vary greatly - often nothing more than a whole in the ground. I think my favorite bathroom I ever frequented was while doing fieldwork in Madagascar and our camp had a path leading to a very large hole in the ground covered by logs with approximately a 12” gap open in the middle. This was only intimidating during rain when the logs would be especially slick.

Because none of these options for relieving myself have ever seemed unacceptable to me, I sort of scoffed at the idea of female urination devices. Then I remembered one horrible day many years ago when I was spending the day rock climbing, several hours into a full day’s climb and suddenly while dangling off a cliff, all harnessed up - I had to pee. I eventually reached a spot safe enough to relieve myself, but in that moment, a FUD would certainly have been a welcomed friend.

I listened to a great episode on FUDs on the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast. They brought up some great topics of situations in which I had never considered an FUD to be beneficial. Such as women working in construction or farm work, where I’m sure many already feel targeted in a largely male workplace. Most people are not as pee-confident as I am, so I see huge benefits of a device in those settings. They also discussed that there is an entirely separate large market of more realistic FUDs for trans men.

There are a LOT of different designs out there, but essentially, they are all variations on a funnel. I checked out a Backpacker review of several devices. There is a big range of malleability and size to choose from. As an expert urinator, I think it primarily comes down to knowing your anatomy well. For any viewers of Orange Is The New Black, we know that unfortunately, not everyone is aware that there is “a whole other hole”. This is a pretty necessary bit of knowledge I think to be a successful, tidy, alternative pee-er. However, I don’t think we can expect FUDs making an appearance in modern western restrooms anytime soon. I think our culture has made a pretty big impact on how we view our bodily functions. Check out this BuzzFeed video of woman trying to pee standing up for the first time.

In a way I think it’s great that this device is available as an option for women, but I wish we instead could just be living in a world where it is safe and acceptable for a woman to pop a squat in any situation in which a man could turn his back and relieve himself.

No Shame: I'm a Binge-Watcher

I am a binge-watcher and I am not alone. One day recently, hard at work on a crafting project, I noticed that over 4 hours had passed. I had steadily been enjoying the background entertainment of one of my go-to binging while working shows (you know, the shows you have seen 4 times through and can recite every line of). I realized that I had been completely unaware of the theme song or credits ever playing and that’s when I realized that they hadn’t played at all. In fact, Netflix has changed it’s playback model (at least through my Ps3) to play each episode back to back, conveniently starting each episode after the openings and recaps, so my 22 minute episode, 9 season TV series was essentially becoming one epic movie. It was at this point that I realized binge-watching has become a completely acceptable way to consume TV.  

I started looking at all the other features out there facilitating us binge-watchers. Hulu has a new “obsession” playback feature, and my YouTube Playstation app continually plays videos in a playlist. Even when Netflix pauses occasionally to prompt whether you would like to continue watching, it places the prompt several minutes into an episode, rather than a convenient place to stop watching. Netflix seems to be especially capitalizing on this new viewing style as it releases full seasons and has even gone so far as to make the browsing category “binge worthy TV shows”.

My binge media-consumption comes in lots of forms, I think part of it is just the way our culture is changing in terms of media consumption, and I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing. At my past job, I binged on podcasts, but I bet there are people who spend a huge amount of their day binging on media on tumblr or facebook, and I’ve certainly had days where I have “binged” on candy crush. Is it really at all surprising that we consume our television entertainment in the same way? I realize that TV is a much bigger time commitment usually than other media consumption, but I have yet to come across a study that says people are on a whole watching more TV programming than before, just that the style in which we consume it has changed.

A Huffington post article I read a while ago stated that binge watching requires a person to be able to sit down and watch a program for a long period of time, and thus binge watchers were most likely to be adolescents or younger adults with fewer life commitments. Not only do I think it’s a little bit absurd to think that younger people have more time to sit in front of a TV, as most young people I know are insanely busy, however, they are also multi-tasking pros. I have a feeling that this is much more likely to have an impact on the demographic of binge-watchers. Netflix is definitely one of the top places people do their binge watching. I know a large number of people my age who opt not to have any cable TV service and instead simply pay for a Netflix and/or Hulu account.  I know that there have been big changes happening in the way cable companies “bundle” channels in response to these new streaming options and people’s preference in how they view and pay for their TV. The younger demographic I would imagine is much more likely to already own a gaming system, making it very cost efficient to simply stream your online viewing to your television.

Additionally, I think the younger generations are generally better at (or at least do more) multitasking. I know that I am frequently working on multiple things while I binge watch TV, and at least among my group of friends, I am not alone. People are binge watching on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. To me, this indicates that there is very likely some multi-tasking happening during these marathon TV sessions.

This new style of media consumption also has implications to how companies advertise. If there is indeed a shift in younger audiences to not watch broadcast television, there are lots of companies targeting that market that now need to advertise in different ways. I find YouTube particularly interesting as a model for advertising. So many YouTube personalities and channels have an audience of millions, many of which are young. Plus, YouTube has the unique setup in that they are completely self-selected groups, so advertisers can target specific channels to reach out to endorse their products directly to an enormous group of target audience. Obviously this is very similar to what google already does with all of its targeted advertising, but I feel like much of that feels a little sneaky and very much in the background. YouTube advertising at least feels much more real, direct, and somewhat shameless (in the best way...why lie about advertising?). Yes, YouTube is a different thing entirely than Netflix and Hulu versus
TV broadcasting, but it’s interesting to watch advertising changing to adapt to the new media habits of their consumers. It makes no sense for companies marketing products for younger consumers to advertise on TV if no one is watching there. 

There are a lot of pop culture articles out there about how binge watching is linked to depression, but I have not found anything that actually substantiates that claim. If binge-watching culture interests you, I’ve added a few links below to some good articles I found. And if you have any thoughts on binge-watching, I’d love to hear them!

Binge Viewing Behaviour

Networks Are Trying to Deal With Your Love for Binge-Watching

Binge-Watching TV Shows

The Art of Practical Jokes

I have never considered myself a “jokester” or a particularly comedic person. I do however have a good sense of humor and like to have some creative fun. I’ve always enjoyed the trend of flash mobs and admire the work of groups like Improv Everywhere. I recently watched an episode of This American Life, a TV series based off the radio program, narrated by Ira Glass, that examines the recipients view of an Improv Everywhere “mission”. The Ghosts of Pasha, a little known band that got surprised by an unexpected rock band experience on their first tour, had much more negative feelings than the good-meaning “pranksters” intended.

I have created and participated in numerous scavenger hunts with various groups of friends and readily take the opportunity to participate in absurd endeavors (like the time my friend and I made a documentary while we stayed awake for 72 hours to see if we would go crazy). I’ve also at times set up what some people would consider a “practical joke”. Whether it’s spurred by my intense awkwardness at meeting new people or simply because I’m bored and need a creative outlet, I’m not sure. For years my best friend and I would bring up the fun fact that our friendship really started when I mysteriously left her a picture of my nipple (disguised as a gift from a secret admirer obviously).

Looking back, it’s clear that there is a very VERY fine line between a fun practical joke and a very creepy move. So I thought I’d take a quick look back at some of my best (?) pranks. You can decide for yourself if I’m super creepy or super hilarious, and either way, you may want to use some of these ideas for your own pranks!

1. Past scavenger hunt items: braid a stranger's hair, use a makeshift bathroom, get the entire team in a strangers car.

2. While living in the middle of the South African bush, my friend and I hid all of the silverware and made an elaborate treasure hunt necessary to retrieve it.

3. As a new college freshman, I befriended another freshman living down the hall through a series of acts performed by a secret admirer. This included: breaking in to clean her half of the room, leaving a suggestive mix tape, and several overly blatant and often sexual secret admirer notes and pictures. Having gone back to read some of those old notes saved on my computer, I admit that it could have been extremely creepy if I had not taken care to chose a very good natured, equally fun spirited recipient.

4. Mannequins - full ones are ideal, but miscellaneous body parts work too. I've also made occasional scarecrow style mannequins, but realism is key. These are then ideal for leaving around places in various positions for people to find. Some of my favorite spots are showers and behind doors. 

5. I went through a long phase of turning unattended items into monsters....

I thought that perhaps looking back I’d realize that I had taken it too far, but in fact, this really has just sparked my mischievousness again. I think that as long as no one is physically or emotionally hurt from a prank, it’s all in good fun. While I am always very conscious of what the effects of my tricks may be on people, it’s certainly important to remember people may not react in the way that you expect or intend. Leave some comments, let me know if you’ve participated in either side of a practical joke, and if it was hilarious or maybe crossed the line over to a little bit creepy or even damaging.

My Documentary Addiction

Winter has finally decided to make an appearance in Maine. I spent one very snowy day tucked in under the covers with my cat watching documentary after documentary. Very frequently in conversations I find myself suppressing the source of my information, otherwise I'm constantly saying “I saw in a documentary….”. It’s not that I don’t also watch sitcoms and dramas and fictional movies etc. But I realize that I have a similar trend in the way I consume a lot of media - I read non-fiction much more than fiction, and listen to science and news based podcasts far more often than pop culture discussion or comedy. My go-to favorite past time though has to be watching documentaries.

My media preferences clearly show that I like when something is able to be summed up with one object statement and then is backed up with lots of supportive evidence. Obviously in any collection of information there will be a bias and certain information will be purposefully omitted. What I like about documentaries is that it adds one more dimension than just text - when you get to watch an interview and be given information through the primary source (obviously taking into account it being a planned interview for a documentary with a camera crew) it allows you to make some further conclusions yourself based on the air of confidence and mannerisms etc.

I have always loved documentaries. I used to do a fair amount of video editing for fun. I remember documenting my high school jazz band’s competition trip to the Bahamas and doing reaction interviews with people attending my grandfather’s sculpture show. I definitely played a bit with it early in college, filming my friends and occasionally putting together finished video projects. The filming aspect was never my real interest, and I gravitated towards primary research in the biological and social sciences. Luckily, I went to a school heavy in the visual and performing arts so got to benefit from talented people around me creating things that I get to enjoy!

photo by Amanda Plunkett

One of my closest friends is very talented behind a video camera and has done a variety of mini-documentaries. She used to make great compilations of our friends and our antics and great school video projects, but now I get to enjoy watching the much more informative, interesting stuff she has been producing more recently. If you’re like me and can’t get enough of documentaries, check out some of Amanda's videos! 

The Brightside of Unemployment

I recently heard from a good friend of mine, a previous coworker, that she had been fired from my past workplace. Even thinking about this, a situation I was 100% removed from, makes me so angry. This particular workplace represents everything I dislike about our society. People were inconsiderate, disrespectful, arrogant, power hungry; basically everything that is distasteful in someone's personality was part of almost every employee’s personality and behavior. It was a lot like being back in middle school, but the “mean girls” had grown up, become economically powerful, and learned how to be even more manipulative and hurtful. I kept a smile on my face the whole time I worked there, keeping my mouth shut with a polite smile and nod as I watched a business fall apart with immature gossip and poor business practices. It was awful to say the least.

I’m am so grateful to be able to have the skills and experience and support to risk trying something different from the same old underpaid, under-appreciated, emotionally tolling workplace. Hearing about my friend going through this change and needing to find a next step I so hope she can find something that she’s happy at and helps her figure out what she wants to be doing long-term. Unfortunately I think sometimes it takes a horrible experience to be the push that forces you to either rethink what you want to be doing or discover something that you are happy to get out of bed in the morning to do. I think the real challenge sometimes is not only finding a JOB you want to be doing, but a staff of people that you want to be doing that job with. Therein lies the challenge, but luckily for my friend I can’t imagine any worse workplace environment, so she really has nowhere to go but up!

Pigeon PDA

As eerie as I find the constant evidence of global climate change, I have to admit that I’ve really been enjoying Maine in December frequently having temperatures in the 50s. I’ve been so appreciative of this mild start to winter as a gentle “welcome back” to New England. I’ve been taking advantage of the unseasonable balminess and taking lots of beautiful walks over the bridge into Portsmouth, NH and along the waterfront.

On one such day I wandered into the park for some contemplative sitting and water gazing and had to smile as I watched these two pigeon friends enjoying the day. I snapped a quick picture and texted it to my friend, personifying our relationship through the pigeons. Soon after, I started laughing hysterically by myself on a dock as I watched the pigeons kiss!! And yes, I know that this “kiss” is in fact a weird pidgeon mutual feeding pre-mating ritual, but after a while of gazing at the pair adoringly, I couldn’t help but think they were putting on a show for me.

I'm sure this incredible weather won't continue for much longer, but I'm glad I've been able to get in as many walks as I have, and hopefully there are still some more warm days left for pigeon kissing in the park!

First Craft Show: Mission Accomplished

Alright folks, let's see if I can get this blog on a roll. I have MOSTLY completely moved into the new place (minus a few household projects that will someday get done). These last few weeks have been full of multi-tasking projects, having lots of nice gatherings between celebrating my birthday and Thanksgiving, and I just successfully participated in my first craft show!

I’ve been steadily in the process of trying to start a pet sitting and dog walking business in hopes of once again having something that resembles an income, and have had to put much of my crafting on the back burner during my move and trying get my business going. Luckily for me, I recently moved back into the area where a former roommate reached out to me about a small craft bizarre going on at the local theater. This was such a fun opportunity for my first craft fair - very small with not a ton of foot traffic, but I received a lot of positive feedback and got some business cards out there (even made a handful of sales!).

It also gave me an excuse to take a break from other things and get my crafting fix in. I made a giant new batch of journals with my original designs printed on both fabric and paper covers. For this most recent batch of fabric covered journals I tried something new - hand dyed muslin. There is definitely a learning curve to it, learning how much dye to use and how long to soak it, and judging how much the color fades in the rinsing process. Because of this, many of the colors I made are quite similar, but all usable and I think I know how to improve on it for next time. There is another craft show on Sunday, but I will post all of the remaining items over in my shop as soon as it is over!

I also had a fun time coming up with a display table. I did not have time (or resources) to get or make anything specific for a display, so I multipurposed a lot of things from around the house. I pulled together a cute sign which I mounted using painted bottles I once built a bookshelf with. Our house has an abundance of crates used to store most things and even make a lot of my furniture, so I dismantled the kitchen cat feeding station to make use of those crates. Then I haphazardly dumped small containers of my clothes into a pile on my bed and grabbed my desk organizer to finish up the table display. If I end up doing craft fairs more regularly in the future, perhaps I’ll take the time to create containers better suited to display my items, but I think this worked out just fine for now.

Overall, it was a great first craft fair experience - low pressure and relaxed. I also really enjoyed seeing the handful of other craft vendors there. There were lots of great products ranging from knit and sewn pieces to jewelry and art pieces. It was nice to be back amongst such a small community packed full of creative people and those who appreciate the arts. What a nice reinforcement that moving back was a good choice.

Whirlwind of Life

For the few who may have begun reading here...sorry for the break in posts! Life has been a little bit hectic. I just accomplished the move from North Carolina to Maine. I hate moving so much. I’ve done it countless times and I’ve parred down my belongings time and time again. I’ve very happily lived out of nothing but a backpack for an extended period of time, so I get so frustrated with myself and society and everything by having all of these THINGS. It’s a hard balance to find in being comfortable in a home and surrounded by things that are important to you and meaningful to you but not becoming overwhelmed with stuff. Moving always floods me with all of that which inevitably makes me wish that I were simply able to live with nothing but a tent and a back pack again.

But instead, I spent a sweltering hot day moving furniture up and down stairs and packing a sizable truck full of way too much stuff. I packed up the animals and all of their things (of which there is also a lot of) and took off on the 13+ hour drive to Boston to stop for the night and leave the pets in the care of my mom for a few days while I settled in and ferret-proofed the Maine home, which is only slightly over an hour north of Boston.

My cat Sausage and ferret Xylophone have now joined me and are both getting along great with my roommate's small dog. I've been spending the last week or so frantically assembling furniture, building shelves, and sewing curtains in hopes to settle in quickly and finally for the first time in AGES settle in to some sort of routine and get down to some business endeavors.

My computer has recently decided that it can no longer handle all that I ask it to do which at least has conveniently happened around my birthday and I was lucky enough to get help in purchasing a new computer. In theory, among other things, this will allow me to start getting into the swing of regular posting here. I have a growing list of great DIY projects to share and even some ideas of new products to sell!

Entering The Blogosphere

It's quite common to casually ask children what they want to be when they grow up. I remember then, as I do now, thinking that was a very confusing question. The only answer I could ever come up with as a child was that I wanted to grow up to be a hermit. It was always laughed at, but I'm not sure I've ever felt more sure of anything.

I eventually learned that was no longer an appropriate answer, so I stopped telling anyone that all I wanted to do was live alone in the woods with a bunch of animals. I wrote stories about isolated, animal-filled utopias, and imagined fantasy worlds for myself.

Once out of high school, I got as close to being a hermit as I could at that point in my life. I lived in the middle of the South African bush in a dilapidated tent, rehabilitating baboons. I returned to the states eventually to attend Bennington college, an extremely small liberal arts school in the middle of the mountains of Vermont. Luckily during that time I was able to several times escape back to tents and non-human primates. Now in my late 20s, while a huge part of me wants to be back isolated in a tent with some monkeys, I'm trying really hard to find a balance of that lifestyle with the things that make me happy here (mostly my pets....).

Through my years in the mainstream workforce, I've found that the stress in a full time, emotionally exhausting job doesn't leave me with enough energy after staying sane and positive around people at work all day to then enjoy my time outside of work.

So I'm trying to find a way to fall back on some of my other talents in an effort to find a way to support myself that is sustainable to my happiness. As a science and music student through college, and then working in the animal care field, people were frequently surprised to find out that my first job was as an art teacher at a children's theater camp. But in truth, art and creativity have been as big a part of my life as animal sciences.

In an attempt to find a way to support myself through alternate means and begin selling my crafts, I've been beginning to discover the enormous world of social media and blogging. I have never been a heavy user of these outlets for personal social use, so this has been an interesting journey, and I'm still trying to find the niche on the internet that I can relate to (and I welcome suggestions!).

My hope is to post a variety of content here (book and movie reviews, DIY projects, and whatever else I'm doing/working on). I love coming up with new ideas of crafts and designs, so make sure to check out my shop where you can purchase my work directly through me. I also love a challenge and new ideas to try out, so I would love comments or suggestions on anything you would like to see me create or write about!