Florida!!!!

Just got back from my vacay in Clearwater Beach, Florida. It was just lovely. I was ready to just move there and start anew. I would. I could do that 60 degree winter. Apparently it was just miserable all week in St. Louis. I hate winter here. Speaking of winter, we saw Winter the dolphin, of Dolphin Tale fame, at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. They are cashing in on that movie. Everywhere you look you see a sign that says, "This scene was shot here," and then a little clip of it playing on a television. It's a little annoying if you've never seen the movie but I think it's a good thing. It supports an aquarium, for one, and for two, this particular aquarium is dedicated to rehabilitating animals and returning them to the wild. They had a river otter there, who has partial paralysis and can't walk on land properly but he swims just fine. River otters are adorable.

We also went to two other aquariums, one in Tarpon Springs and the other in Tampa. Tarpon Springs is a little Greek community where they dive for sponges. I bought a sponge and some homemade soap to go with it. Plus, we had the BEST Greek food at Hellas.

The aquarium there was tiny but enjoyable. One of the people who ran the aquarium put on her SCUBA gear and dove into a large tank they had in the middle and fed the sharks and fish that were in there, while her counterpart told us all about the fish in the tank. He talked about each of their personalities, it was neat.

The aquarium in Tampa was pretty big and very nice. They had birds as well as all kinds of marine life.

They had a really neat tank demonstrating the school of fish dynamic. Loved it!

We went to a couple museums in St. Petersburg. One of them was the Salvador Dali Museum. It was a really great exhibit, and the building was really neat too.

While in St. Petersburg, we ate at a place called Taco Bus... literally a bus that served tacos. Best fish tacos I've ever had!

I think my favorite part of the trip was the boat ride we took. It was an hour long tour of the Clearwater area, plus you might get to see dolphins. Well, we saw them within the first 5 minutes and the captain actually got them to jump in the wake of our boat. It was pretty magical.

And on our last night we walked to the beach and watched the sunset. It was a lovely end to a lovely time.

27

This is me NOT apologizing for not posting more often!

Now that we have that out of the way, hey, how are you? I'm doing well. Getting over my post-holiday blues... although, I cheated... because I have something amazing to look forward to! VACATION! HELL YES! On Monday, Brandon and I are flying to Tampa, Florida and then heading to Clearwater Beach. My parents are already down there for an art show and are going to meet us in Clearwater at a house they rented within spitting distance of the beach! I'm so excited. Don't worry, I'll take the obligatory picture of my toes on the beach. I know that was your first concern.

Another exciting post-holiday blues buster just arrived in the mail yesterday. I purchased a recumbent stationary (is that redundant?) exercise bike. Even though it wasn't that expensive, it still felt like an "adult" purchase. Besides the fact that it represents me taking responsibility for my health, I don't think you can call yourself an adult until you've bought some sort of exercise machine. Speaking of becoming an adult, I recently had a birthday which made me 27. There's nothing too awfully special about turning 27 but when I was a child, I had this idea in my head that 27 was when you became an adult officially. I'm not sure where that came from but I remember it was very important to me. When playing "house" with my friends, if I played the mom, I was 27 years old. However, I can't imagine being a mom right now. It makes my brain melt a little to think that my brother was already 2 years old by the time my mom turned 27. Isn't it strange to think about that? I see real-life examples of how I've grown and matured and changed over the years, but I still feel pretty much the same in my brain. There's no big epiphany that flips a switch to adulthood... at least not so far anyway. TANGENT! WHEW! Anyway, so even though this purchase seems like it was made with the intention of being a responsible adult, I bought it with the intention to play video games while I cycle. Because, I cannot bring myself to exercise for exercise's sake. Did I mention I'm 27 years old?

I didn't plan on talking about myself for three paragraphs but I realized I had more to say than I thought... it may turn into an all-about-me post instead of the reviews I planned. Maybe you'll get two posts! Like you didn't have enough to read on the internet already! I just wanted to say about how thrilled I am about how our book club is going. It just seems like I found another puzzle piece to my life. I am constantly listening to podcasts or watching shows on the internet starring charismatic hosts who talk about their opinions on stuff and things. And I always felt like something was missing from that equation. I wanted to be one of those charismatic hosts talking about how I love or hate stuff and things! And now, I sort of am! Even if we only have a handful of people who watch us and participate, it's still really rewarding. When Megan first suggested live-streaming our meeting, I was SO excited about it, but I didn't want to let on, because I didn't want to seem overly passionate or insane... but now I realize that that's how those cool shows that I love and have millions of viewers are born... A couple of insanely passionate people, doing it out of love for the medium/genre. And the fact that Brittany and Whitney have joined us, and are loving it as well is extremely encouraging. If you haven't already, please check us out. Our next book pick is "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn. I'm already 100 pages in and I'm loving it.

While reading "Gone Girl," I had an epiphany. The narrator was talking about her house in vivid detail and how much she loved it, and since I've been out of college all I can think about is having my very own house and loving it. And so, it struck me, since I can't have my own house yet and we're probably going to be in this rental for at least another 3 years, I need to take steps to make it my home. I have so much leftover hand-me-down furniture from college, and my brother and sis-in-law are simultaneously "storing" and letting us use their furniture that they can't fit into their Brooklyn apartment. So it feels like I'm living in someone else's house... which technically I am... but you know what I mean. The layout of each room is determined by how best to cram as much shit in them as possible, and not functionality or presentation. I aim to change that... as cheaply as possible. When this epiphany hit me, it was the middle of the night, and I shot up in bed and immediately started making a list. And then another epiphany hit me... I really like making lists... So yeah, that's what's swimming around in my brain currently. Another adulty thing. BORING!

But I guess that's what this blog is all about. [cue Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror"]

The year I owned Christmas

It seems like I always open my posts with an apology and a reason for the length of time between posts. I'm going to quit apologizing for not posting sooner. Sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes I'm lazy, sometimes there's no reason. It just so happens that the holidays were in between then and now... no big deal. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I did, although, it seems as though they get shorter every year. That's probably because Brandon and I didn't get the time off that we got last year. We only got to spend a few hours in Sedalia, but I think we made the most of it. The weeks preceding Christmas, I was a creativity machine. I made 13 gifts and sent out Christmas cards. I felt like a real adult sending and receiving Christmas cards. I even designed them all myself.

I had a lot of time during the last show we did to make gifts for everyone. Some of them I didn't get pictures of and a couple of them I'll post later because I haven't given them to their recipient yet.

I made a cushion for my Mom's desk chair.

 Potholders matching my mom's kitchen. I based it off of this tutorial.

Made some dead mice for my kitty and my brother's kitty. I filled them with dried catnip from my garden.

 Some chew toys for my grandparent's dog.

Guitar strap out of a tie for Brandon.

And now my favorite gift:

 The first three are after I cut all the individual pieces and the last one is after a couple panels were fired.

My mom helped me with the glass part and my grandfather made the frame and put in the light. It's a lamp for Brandon modeled after Piet Mondrain's red, yellow and blue compositions. He loved it.

Like I said, though, there are some things I didn't get pictures of. I made another set of potholders for my grandma, a set of decorative Christmas pillows for my mom's couch and some non-Christmas-y pillow cases for the same pillows. I also fashioned some hand towels into towels that you can hook over the oven handle to match my mom's kitchen. I made another guitar strap out of a tie for Corey, Brandon's younger brother, who received his first guitar for Christmas from Brandon and their uncle Leonard. So yeah, that was a lot, but it was fun.

New Years was great. We went over to a friend's house and played games and imbibed lots of different types of alcohol. Good times. I have a few resolutions this year, chief among them being LOSING MORE WEIGHT!!!!! I've managed to more or less maintain the weight I was before Christmas, which is awesome, and I need to kick it back into gear. I also want to buy an exercise bike, so I can watch movies or play video games while exercising. I think that's the only way I'll ever do it. I hate exercising. And maybe I can post here more... maybe... MAYBE. Happy 2013 everyone!