Happy Solstice!

So I'm a day late with the Solstice wishes, but that's because I was extremely busy yesterday. It was the longest day of the year and I made the most of it! I met up with my co-worker Carolyn and her roommate Lisa for the Mystic Aquarium's Animal Rescue Kayak event. It was a beautiful day: clear blue skies, warm but not muggy, slightly breezey to keep you from roasting out on the water. It was one of those days where I would have been perfectly happy to paddle around all day and flop into bed tired but satisfied. However, that was not to be. Why, you may ask? Because last night was also the Westerly Pops Concert in Wilcox Park! Aaron, Dan, Julie and I enjoyed yummy munchies, great music and cool fireworks all in one night. While I'm used to Wilcox Park being a quite haven in my busy world, last night it was transformed into a bustling, filled-to-the-brim, concert experience.

The music was great and included a neat version of Indiana Jones' theme. The finale, as always, is a wonderful fireworks display that inevitable ends with Pumpkin hiding under the couch for at least an hour!

One of the things I love about Wilcox Park is that they have so many fun things that go on there. Ian and I strolled around through the Virtu Art Festival, which happens every Memorial Day Weekend. There was a great turnout of artists and I felt the familar longing to spend more time creating. Of course, it's always a double edged sword: I see great ideas of things I would like to try, but can't ever find the time to do it all. While we were waiting for a college art student to finish our Manga portrait (Manga is the still life version of Anime) we had a Thai Pepper picnic by the fish pond.

My Field Day Birthday Party was a lot of fun as well. There are plenty of trees to provide shade on a hot summer day and we all took advantage. The park has a wonderfully flat center which makes it ideal for things like Frisbee and kickball. Lots of friends stopped by, chatted and shared food, played with the kids and just had a relaxing time. The squirrels, which can be very demanding and sometimes intimidating, were respectful of our boundaries and only came when called and tempted with trail mix. It was really my favorite kind of birthday party, mainly because the focuswas on having a good time...and not directly on me!

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the other big summer event that has occurred: Mick graduated high school! Congratulations! She's still working out the details of her Visa, but should be on her way to England soon.

What did you do on your birthday?

I think it's very interesting to hear people's plans for their birthday. On my actual birthday I went to see a production of "You Can't Take It With You." Jill directed and several folks I knew were in it. During the final curtain call, Chris proposed to Laura and got a standing ovation when she said "Yes." Afterward Ian and I went out to dinner with the cast and had a great time. For my birthday party I had a bunch of friends get together in beautiful Wilcox Park for games, food and laughs. It was wonderful.

Ian, on the other hand, took a slightly more exciting approach to celebrating his birthday. He went skydiving. I have to say I was more than slightly envious...and a bit nervous waiting for him to call when he was back on terra firma! Click here to view his jump video. Jeez, he's always trying to one-up me...

Pumpkin: Questions that bother me

Mommy finally let me have a go at the blog, and I thought I would spend some time between naps posing a few questions to you.

Why is it that you human peoples assume just because I'm "cute" that I'm also sweet and friendly? I'm sure there are plenty of human peoples who are attractive, in your own non-furry-walk-on-two-legs kinda way, but are mean or unpleasant or just don't like to be touched when they are resting peacefully in the middle of the floor.

While I'm on the subject of human peoples, why do you think it's fun and amusing to taunt me with dangly, wiggly, shakey toys? I mean, it's really just taking advantage of my primal hunting skills for your own entertainment. That's just not right.



As I was lying in bed the other night contemplating some of these questions, an even bigger question came to me: Where the heck is my belly button? I stared for what seemed like hours, but couldn't find it...

It's my birthday!

I never really understood the concept of worrying about your age. It's not something over which you have any control. The days, weeks and years go marching by whether you like it or not. So why not just accept it and enjoy it? As Norman Vincent Peale said, "Live your life and forget your age."

Perhaps I'm okay with the concept of aging because I've always felt older than my years. I get along well with people of all ages, and see the value of experience that my "older" friends have gained through a life well lived. I'm actually rather excited to be almost 30. There seems to me to be something innately immature about being a "twenty-something." It is almost as if that is a blanket excuse for mistakes, bad behaviour and selfishness. Of course, that could just be modern society on a whole and I'm associating it with twenty-somethings because those are the people I am around most...

Anyway, I decided to celebrate my birthday this year I wanted to have a Field Day! Tomorrow I'm getting together with friends and playing tug-o-war, Frisbee, three-legged races, sack races and lots of other fun stuff! The best way to age gracefully is to stay young at heart!

Coming to term with my limits

I have finally just had to accept the fact that I have neither the time nor the inclination to maintain an actual "website." Hence, I am transitioning to a blog. Hopefully taking a few moments now and again to jot a note, post a picture or pose a question will be more manageable and less seemingly daunting than feeling like I need to completely update a website. That's the plan anyway...

So, to start, here are a few things I've been up to recently (or not so recently as I just downloaded my camera and found pictures from January...)!

My friend Zajac asked me to take on another craft project (I never did get a photo of her in the elf costume I made). She had this old lambskin coat that her mother-in-law had given her ages ago. The mother-in-law was going to be having some surgery and Zajac wondered if I could cut up the coat and make it into a teddy bear to give the old lady. Although it was slightly disturbing and reminded me of "Silence of the Lambs" I was able to produce an incredibly adorable bear! This was not my first attempt at bear-making. In college I made Eric a Thank-You bear for driving my somewhat crumpled car through a blizzard. But working with an antique material proved somewhat tricky. I had to get some leather lotion to treat the material so it wouldn't be brittle and break at the seams. Long story short, the old lady loved the bear and cried tears of joy when she received it. My work there was done, so I moved on to synthetic material and proceeded to make another bear and then adapted the pattern to make a bunny friend for my bear. They all three sport faux-leather noses that are oh-so-cute!

I've also recently revived my interest in knitting. I made several comfy, wool socks as Christmas gifts and had a few other projects lined up. I soon found, however, that I was continually thwarted in my knitting plans by lacking the right needles. After researching a few options, I decided to buy several sets of bamboo needles from EBay! I now have two complete sets of circular needles and a set each of 7" and 9" double points. Of course I needed somewhere to store all these wonderful new needles, so I took some of the canvas and calico that I made tote bags with two years ago (yes, I saved it that long...) and made some handy needle holders!

Now that I had all these great needles, I needed some more knitting projects! I started working on a pattern that uses two circular needles to knit two socks at one time (thus avoiding the dreaded "Second-Sock Syndrome!" They are coming along nicely, though rather slower than I expected since I'm using a lighter weight yarn. I also wanted to experiment with dyeing and felting wool. Luckily Mom was willing to give me several skeins of Lopi she had lying around so I didn't have to buy a bunch. I decided to just use Kool-Aid because I didn't feel like buying a lot of expensive dyes if I wasn't sure I was going to like it. The Kool-Aid dyeing was quicker than I expected and a lot of fun! I'm now working on knitting the wool into a tote bag and will try felting it soon. As if that isn't enough, I just signed up for a felted clog slipper class at my local yarn shop! I'll get to use the wool I bought in Maine over Christmas and hopefully meet some interesting knitters!

During all this crafting I found out that two of my friends were expecting baby boys. While I usually make baby quilts for gifts, both these ladies live in rather hot areas of the country. I decided to expand my skills a bit and knitted Mary-Jane style booties and sewed sun hats. I just love the look of bumble bees, and thought these two gifts paired well. And my old Yeller bear (which Mom made when I was probably about 8 or 9 years old) made a willing model, since I wouldn't actually get to meet the new babies soon.

Of course I have several other projects in the works: finishing up a pottery class, finishing a wedding quilt gift (better hurry, the wedding is only 23 days away!), gardening, fundraising for the Animal Rescue Kayak event (more details at http://www.mysticaquarium.com/ or to donate go to www.firstgiving.com/skyebyrd), and planning a Field Day birthday party! Stay tuned and I'll keep you updated (hopefully...).