Cha-cha real smooth.

I'm still in a creative mood. I've been in it for quite a few weeks now and have continued painting things around the house. My holiday weekend included the sanding down of a pair of dressers that I inherited as a kid. They were originally my grandmother's and were your average wood-stained dressers. I'm still working on one of the dressers, but one is done. I hope to be able to put some of my clothes back in the drawers and close them all the way in a day or so. I love the color a lot. It's a really nice teal color. High gloss in a bold color + new drawer pulls will change your entire room.

And then, in my case, make you feel that now you have to re-do everything else in the room to try to match the coolness factor of your newly revamped pieces. I've decided to go with a sort of Indian meets Bohemian Gypsy vibe. I already had a sari floor pillow. I found a new lampshade for a lamp that actually already has a sort of Middle Eastern kind of feel to it. I tried to paint one of the frames of a mirror I had, but it's turned in to a bit of a disaster and I think I might just look for a new mirror entirely. I'm looking for a rug and a bedspread. Both of which I have a lead on at Urban Outfitters, so it's all looking up.

Speaking of looking up, I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree today at lunch. It fell into a bunch of hostas, which must have broken its fall. It kind of wandered around for a bit but seemed to be a-okay. I'd never seen a squirrel fall out of a tree before. It kind of takes you aback. Tree climbing can be fun. A few weekends ago when I was in St. Louis I went to visit my mom's grave and she's buried under a really fantastic tree. Perfect for climbing. One of the few in the whole cemetery that looks like it's grown itself expressly for people to sit, rest, and climb on. It's great. I'm not a very good tree climber, but I did hop up the trunk and look around a little. There's a place in St. Louis that offers tree climbing classes. For a pretty reasonable price, they'll take you to Shaw's Garden and you'll climb trees with ropes and things for half a day. They teach you how to do it without hurting yourself or the tree and they use the same techniques as the botanists who study the canopies in the Rainforest use. They've got swings and hammocks and things up in the canopy of the trees. It sounds pretty awesome as long as you're not afraid of heights.

Last night was the kick-off of the Summer Special Olympics here in Missouri! It's on Mizzou's campus, but this is the first year I've really been around it. It's so much fun! They have a thing called the Victory Village in the afternoon today and they'll have it tomorrow (hopefully the rain will let up for it) and I went out for a walk in the afternoon and the DJ was playing Macarena and I had to run back inside and get my co-worker to come out and go with me down to the party. The Macarena was over, but we sat down there and it was such a fun atmosphere. I might volunteer for that event next year. It looked like a lot of fun. I danced a little of the Cha-Cha Slide before coming back to work.

Everybody clap your hands.

Plus, in breaking news: I accepted a new job today! Same place, different duties (including some photo collection duties! Yay!). More permanent. We'll see how it goes, yes? I am hopeful that it is wonderful. I really like where I am and the co-workers I have, but this is a better opportunity for me. Plus, they want to change that section of the workplace into a more positive and fun place and feel that moving me over there will help in that goal. I'll be taking some of my bright origami cranes over, for sure. A future blog entry might be about how I'm re-decorating the research room with bright colors and fun prints. As I'll be in a more public area, I'm not sure just how to do this, but insight will be had and fun will ensue. I hope.