Real Life

So momentous was my last blog with all the hubbub about Rough Skinned Newts that I thought no one would mind if I waited a while for the next blog. Okay, that's not entirely true, the truth is that I've been insanely busy with school, work (I just doubled my hours!), making wedding invitations, and volunteering. Which I have been doing a large amount of as of late.

But in the meantime I've made time for real life. Like pancakes. Whole wheat flax seed pancakes.



And birthdays! Clara had her birthday on April Fools Day and we celebrated in style. She got this totally cute felted sweater from her mother.



And flowers from a friend in Baltimore.



Joel made her a cake that was ever so delicious.



And we all made our own mini pizzas, mine was wonderful and it seemed everyone else made delicious pizzas too. I put artichoke hearts, basil, king royal mushrooms, goat cheese and mozzarella on mine.



Clara and Brady.



And I took some of the best pictures of my friends, thus far. Or at least, I think so.

Kelley.



Brady.



And the birthday girl!



A less-than-flattering-but-appropriate picture of our other roommate Glenn.



And an adorable-but-not-quite-the-best-picture of Joel.



Outcome: fantastic.



We then went out to drinks at a fancy bar down the street that had the *coolest* fish tanks I've ever seen that were not in an aquarium. I have some phone photos but those are never really that great and I'm also not sure I have the right usb cable... But at any rate, they had black clown fish and anemones, shrimp, pipe fish, fish that moved rocks from out of their lairs, and many that I don't quite know how to describe.

And speaking of animals, my beloved cat caught a squirrel that he's been lusting after for quite some time now.



I wish that it had been the invasive red squirrel instead of the native (and dwindling in population) grey squirrel.



But he did it and thats what counts. I'm so proud of him!



Last night a bunch of us (including Joel's friend from college and his girlfriend) went out for Ethiopian food which was delicious and a lot of fun. It was the busiest I've ever seen that place which is really great because they do a good job and the family that owns the place is really friendly. Clara and Aja.





And I started over on my thesis and I'm building it from scratch. This is back to fibers and intuitive creative processes. I've started making felted panels which will become the "roof" structure of a hanging tent. Today I made three panels.




Today I got ahold of the professor I want to mentor me on my thesis and I think he is going to be my mentor. I'm still a little confused how this whole thing works but its starting to feel right. Hurray!

Also today I helped set up a booth at the Portland Bike Show so that I could get free admission to the Night Bike Ride in July. And I'm hoping to get some sweet photos from that, apparently everyone decks out their bikes in glow-in-the-dark things and lights and other things that light up. And I met a deaf lady, named Pinky, who rides a tall bike and a unicycle -- not at the same time. I guess that semester of ASL wasn't wasted knowledge after all. She will also be at the NIght Bike Ride, yay! It was a good time for the most part though we did have a crotchety older couple who bickered a lot, that was less fun.

In any case, things are super busy but I'm managing to keep real life buoyant in the mean time. Just got to make it to the end!