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.

Betty Smith

To live in color.

It feels like time is going by really quickly. Ever since I graduated, things have been moving at a pretty rapid pace. Nothing in particular, I guess, just....time. I have more of it to spend on things other than studying. Maybe that's why it's going by more quickly? It seems like a long time ago that I was in school. Someone asked me today if I was a student at Mizzou and I answered that I used to be, but now I just work there. It was the first time a stranger has asked me anything about my affiliation with the university since I graduated. It was strange to say that I was not a student. Kind of fun, but also kind of weird.

I finally saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel today. A sweet movie. I enjoyed it. India is not really on my short list of places to visit, but that's mostly because the number of people that I would be around kind of intimidates me. I love watching movies that are filmed in India. I love all the colors, I love the elephants, I love a lot of the culture that I've learned about. But, I don't really like big crowds and there's just no way to get around that. When I'm in a crowd, I get pushed around and end up feeling anxious and un-fun. I can't just hang out and look around at my surroundings because I feel like I have to rush to get someplace rather than actually just enjoying the walk/ride to wherever I am going. I tend to put a lot of weight on the 'getting-to' parts of vacations as much as my actual destination. I like to enjoy everything, not just parts.

Still, I think that someday I would like to go and give India a whirl because those people know how to live in color. I think I would fall in love with the textiles and the way in which Indians seem to attract vibrant colors to their dress, furnishings, and life in general. I love that! I feel like Americans, for the most part, are kind of scared of color. Apartments are often boring white, with landlords that threaten to evict you if you dare to paint the walls. Realtors tell you neutral is best. People walk around dressed in only one color, oftentimes some sort of neutral, like they're too scared (or too bored) to make any sort of actual statement with their clothing choice, so they go with khaki pants and some boring neutral shirt. Come on! Color makes you feel things differently. I think Americans could really stand to get out of their beige habit. Beige does not make you feel anything but bored and does not project any sort of image except that you are boring. Wear bold colors and just try to not feel more alive, I dare you! Paint something bright and decorate your space with it. It will change your whole environment. I'm a huge fan of wearing colors. I'm a huge fan of color in general, but the bold color trends that are in the stores lately? Awesome. The best thing to happen to American fashion in a long time. If only more Americans would actually take the plunge and wear brighter colors, I think this entire country would get a jolt of fun energy. We could be all like, 'What recession? We're all wearing jade green pants, orange tops, and bright blue cardigans! There's no recession here, only lively human beings!' There is a reason that preschools are usually full of bright, bold colors. Human beings thrive in those sort of environments. We learn, explore, create, and have adventures in these bright, lively spaces and then we grow up and enter 'the real world' where we get stuck in beige boxes wearing tan khaki pants and white shirts and then we wonder why we're sad and bored with our lives? Hello? Color transforms your whole world. I think it's a huge part of our senses. It just makes you more alive to be around things that are bold and colorful and interesting. I think realtors, office managers, and administrators need to lighten up (and brighten up) and back off their neutral/boring stance. It's lame. Live in color and be excited about living again!

Sights to behold.

Check out some of the sights I've been seeing lately. It's been a good several days of 'Ohh, look at what somebody did?! How cooooool.' And thinking that the people who do such things make me happy and also make me wish that I knew them and could hang out with them because I bet we'd get along.

These first four dandies are from near my work. Here's the background: Once upon a time, there was a parking lot that students used that was located very near to campus. Not so long ago, unbeknownst to (mostly) everyone, folks came and tore up that parking lot and began to build a building. According to a little billboard the kind folks have posted, the new building will include condos and some sort of shoppy-shops. They've been constructing for months now. And about six weeks ago, they decided to put up a little walkway over the sidewalk, which was considerate since they might drop something on us as we wander past. Anyway, this sad little walkway just sat there for weeks and weeks, a woeful hallway of plywood and steel that we all had to wander quickly through and that kind of caused us to walk closer to each other than anybody is truly comfy with... And then, one day a music promoter decided to staple a music poster to a few of the areas of the temporary sidewalk. And we liked it. And soon others followed suit and it became a bulletin board/sidewalk combo. Then, last week, someone came and did the most awesome thing ever. They  put graffiti on the sidewalk walls with super sweet slogans. See here:

Be happy.

Let your light shine.

Think positive.

Let the love in your heart rule your life.

I think that last one is my favorite. So nice! That has made us a lot more comfortable going through the temporary sidewalk, let me tell you. Suddenly we're all kind of happy to be walking through it, uncomfortably smooshed together or not.

So, there was that last week. And then over the weekend while chilling out in St. Louis, I saw this super fantastic sight!:

Benton Park neighborhood has their own free little library on the sidewalk!
Aside from assorted other cool features of this 'hood, I think this is reason enough to live here, pronto. 

The weekend was really nice because there was no special event going on. Nothing to have to pack for,  nothing to have to make it in time for, nothing to do but relax and explore and visit with good people. It was probably one of the most relaxing trips to St. Louis I've ever had. It was great. I returned home on Sunday, not feeling exhausted and like I didn't get a weekend at all, but rather like I had a great weekend and spent it fantastically and was as ready to face the work week as I would have been had I stayed at home in my jammies all weekend watching Gilmore Girls re-runs...which I have been doing on the evenings of this week. Good show. I still miss it. And feel more certain than ever that Rory's best boyfriend was Jess and that Dean and Logan were both total putzes. 

Happy Odd Compliment Day!

I thought we could begin this week with some odd compliments, courtesy of the tumblr blog by the same name.  It's Monday and I hope you don't have a case of the blah Mondays, but if you do and you need a pick-me-up (and the Calming Manatee isn't working), try these. Because, although I might not know you in real life, when I find out that people are stumbling across this blog, I feel happy to have virtually met you.

Oh, you.

Aw, beanbags.

Buzz was kind of a buzzkill, actually.

Truth. I would enjoy this a lot.

*I would try my best not to slap your head* makes me giggle.

(Quite possibly the best pickup line ever.)

Stephen Chbosky

Hey birdy!?

Hello Friday afternoon! I got a jump on the weekend today after working extra long earlier in the week. It's been nice. Relaxing. I have begun my thirty dollar clothing project in which I will not spend over $30 on any piece of clothing, pair of shoes, or accessory for a year. I'm going to keep my receipts so that a) I can keep myself honest and b) at the end of the 12 months, I hope to add up what I've bought and see how much the damage was. I have noticed that I tend to think a lot more about what I'm buying when I have a project like this. Kind of a double take, because everything I buy will probably be considered a bargain, so it cuts down on the impulse purchasing in the clearance aisle. Or, at least, that's my initial hypothesis.

(Hey! I don't think I've used the word 'hypothesis' since a high school science class! And never in terms of fashion! That's a thousand dollar word right there...ka-ching!)

I don't think the birds have yet figured out the birdbath scenario. They seem to be a little slow in this neck of the woods. I'm anxious to see them use it and am probably hovering too much at the window next to it. I'm not quite to the point of shouting 'HEY! BIRDY! GET IN THE BATH! SPLISH SPLASH?!?', but I'm probably not too far from that cliff. I have seen some robins getting nearer and nearer to it, so it might not be much longer before they're in it. I'll probably stop stalking them soon...ish.

If you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan, you probably already know about the team's tendency to dress up in wacky ways on road trips. This week they were in Los Angeles and all dressed up in tuxedos or various other fancy-pants outfits. The team shot is making its way 'round the web and it's pretty fun. They are a fun team. I'm not sure who the instigator of it all is, but I have a hunch it might be Lance Berkman, because I don't remember hearing much about these sorts of things until he came on board. They did a lot of this kind of thing last year, too.

I don't know if I'm a little late to the game or not when it comes to this band, but I've been hearing Of Monsters and Men on the radio the lately and I really like it. The song is "Little Talks" and it's pretty catchy, I think. If you like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, they sound a lot like that. It's nice driving music.

I've been trolling Dear Photograph lately. The book is finally out in stores. It's a really interesting site, I think. Everything is constantly changing, but some things really do stay exactly the same as they were when we were younger. And sometimes the photographs we have from those times can be relate-able entirely because some things don't change at all, like a certain building or a landmark of some sort. It's nice. It's a cool project. The ones about the pets are the ones that get me weepy. Sniffle.

I'm kind of in a rambling mood, blog-wise. Not much to mention, I guess. It's the lazy days of not-quite-summer. More to come after the weekend, perhaps.

Calming Manatee

I ran across the website Calming Manatee this morning on my routine twitter run-down. It's so great! If you're having a tough day, go talk it out with a virtual manatee. They don't judge. They just float there, all caring and stuff.

www.calmingmanatee.com