DQ

This picture has two of my favorite things in it, can you guess?? Ice-cream and Jurassic Park, of course. We had a pretty eventful Sunday, and I binged pretty hard on food. Limiting oneself to cottage cheese and tiny cucumbers during the week is great and all, but I still gotta live. 

We made it out to Elevation Burger and I was in cheesy/saucy/spicy/savory heaven with a side of fries. Afterwards we headed to our local Dairy Queen, it was pleasantly not busy, surprising for a sunny Sunday. I wolfed down one of DQ's new flavors, brownie cookie dough. If there is a place in the sky where one goes after ingesting copious amounts of sugar then I was definitely headed there. Totally worth it. Did I mention that the DQ cups were Jurassic World themed?? Only 18 more days!

We scooted ourselves to the big Cinemagic in Westbrook after and caught the 6:50pm showing of Mad Max: Fury Road. I heard good things about this movie, and I can happily say it definitely lived up to the expectations. Grunge, lots of explosion, a bald Charlize Theron, and a little feminism mixed with comic-book like effects. Although I'm still not sure why it's named after Max (I know there are older originals of the movie so maybe that has something to do with it), considering the main characters were for the most part gun-wielding women who drove post-apocalyptic rigs.

Speaking of remakes, the new Poltergeist is out, I'm pretty sure that's next on our list. After that will be none other than Jurassic World. I will probably be unreachable on premier night because I will be standing outside the movie theater the second it opens.

Heat

Feel the heat! Well, almost. Spring is in full bloom but we've been having some chilly days here and there. I find it's warm enough to shut the rinnai heater off, the squeeze not so much. I also like to sleep with the window cracked these days, again, the squeeze not so much. The squeeze's rents, Birdman and Mrs.Birdman (is that kosher??) finally got their fire pit in! 

We trekked up there late one night after I escaped from work, made some grilled shrimp and veggie skewers, and relaxed by the lava rocks and jumping flames. For a while I had the view to myself, I watched with wide eyes as the large June bugs flew themselves violently into the fire. Upon landing they would sizzle, after a couple seconds you would hear a loud pop. The image I picture is something similar to that of a popcorn kernel bursting, but much less appetizing. They continued to to this the entire night, buzzzzzz pop.

I do love fire pits though. Ones fueled by wood are the best for one thing; s'mores. I could eat s'mores every day. S'mores season is coming, I can almost taste it!

Graduation

The USM Class of 2015 is graduating today, congrats guys! Since the Art Department is relatively small, most of us had classes together up until the very end. Many of us graduated last year, the rest of the art crew are snagging their degrees today. My dad and grandparents waited patiently and gleefully, for what seemed like an eternity, for me to run up and grab my degree. 

I had taken a couple years off from college, not necessarily to 'find myself' but more or less to take a break. You go to school for 12 years in a row, and then are expected to throw yourself into college for another four, seems crazy not to take a little break. In reality, my break was only supposed to be one semester... which turned in to two years. I don't regret it though, after two years I was genuinely excited to go back. Plus, had I not taken my little leave of absence I would have graduated prior to meeting the Squeeze!

My family was always on my case about going back to school, my grandmother especially. Every time I would visit it was "school this... school that." I think it brought a lot of relief to everyone when graduation came around. To honor our artistic achievements, a bunch of fellow soon-to-be-graduates and myself got together and painted our caps. Obviously this was the theme I went with, I thought it was pretty clever *insert grin here*.

You're next, Squeeze!

Wildlife

We took advantage of the beautiful day yesterday, low 70's! last summer I took the squeeze to the Maine Wildlife Park over in Gray, he said he'd never been before so I made it my duty to bring him. We had so much fun, despite the fact that we (per usual) got there kinda late in the day and certain things were closed. Last summer they were in the midst of building the new Lynx exhibit, and a bunch of other animals were on hiatus. This time though we got there early in the day! We managed to go to the snack shack and nature store that we missed last time, and I spent way too much money on a MWP t-shirt. Anyway, here are a couple Lynx in said new habitat! They look like large house-cats in person, but their paws are massive. Like huge saucers. These guys eventually hauled themselves to the back of the enclosure, where people couldn't go, of course. But I managed to snap this picture before they fled. I love cats, no matter how big.

These two were hilarious. The big brown bear bullies the little black bear, but they were both equally adorable. There are food dispensaries around the park to feed certain animals, corn for the deer, some sort of grain for the terrifying local Canadian Geese that were hanging around (one actually attacked the squeeze), and then the bears had what looked like cat food. A mix between Cheerios and cat food to be exact. Despite the fact that it seemed silly to feed tiny Cheerio cat food pellets to these bears, they would vacuum them right up off the ground. They would even sit and beg! I tried to snap a picture as these two massive teddy bears sat up side by side with their paws up, but I didn't grab my phone in time and the brown one plopped back down. I felt bad for the lame size of the food, despite the fact that the first sign you see when you drive into the park is 'please don't feed the animals' (aside from silly Cheerio cat food pellets) I grabbed the apple I had in my purse, split it in two, and chucked it into their enclosure. I regret nothing!

This little guy was probably our favorite, he's an albino Raccoon! At first we couldn't see anything inside his dwellings, but the second he heard the crunching of a plastic bag he came running out full force. Such a curious sight to behold! I've never seen an albino Raccoon, or anything albino at that matter. A group of small girls threw him a french fry which missed the fence by inches, he stretched out his tiny little human-like hands and managed to grab the fry and devoured it. Again, my empathy for anything small and furry got the best of me and I threw him part of a cheese stick. I still regret nothing! The squeeze got very, very close to take a video, the whole time this little guy was pressed against the fence with his tiny hands stretched out trying to grab the phone. So cute!

The Bunks

The squeeze and I took a day trip out to Kennebunkport yesterday, opting for some adventure versus household chores. That's not 100% true... I still cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, but fit it into our schedule for the day. How can I relax when the rug desperately needs to be vacuumed??

Anyways. I couldn't remember the last time I came down this way. What a quaint little spot The Bunks are! Unfortunately for us we got there a little late in the day and didn't stop to think that all the tiny shops closed at dinner time. We should have known better considering all of the stores in the Old Port close at 5pm or earlier. Oops. We managed to check out a few of them before the doors closed for the evening, all housing little Maine trinkets and handmade items. A coffee shop was open, but the fudge store next to it was closed. coffee with fudge would have been nice.

A shop called Compliments was having a large 50% off sale, the gentleman curiously advised me towards the gold rings... not sure what he was suggesting. He claimed they ran this huge sale once every four years so our timing was great. Right. The shop itself had a bizarre collection of items ranging from enormous kaleidoscopes to crazy 80's lamps to bars of handmade soap. Oh, and of course gold jewelry.

We made our way over the bridge that separates The Bunks, out of curiosity we trekked into the wine shop that was sitting to the right. I shyly asked the guy at the register if they had any inexpensive sweet white wines, he could sense my embarrassment and told me to never be worry about what anyone thinks and to drink what I like. "F*** 'em!" he exclaimed, "I drink chardonnay while my wife drinks Jack and Coke." So I proudly left with a $9 bottle of Moscato. My name is Yelena, and I like cheap sweet white wine.

We ended our trip with dinner at Federal Jack's, a decent lunch/dinner spot with a pretty view. A successful night for sure, the squeeze and I agreed we really should take more day trips. Where to next?

Rainy Day

My cat's mannerisms are an exact portrayal of my inner emotions. It's rainy and cold out and I would rather pay to stay in my sweatpants all day than get paid to sit at work all afternoon. Yesterday we were blessed with (or possibly the victims of a cruel joke) beautiful weather. Low 60s! Out of habit I threw on my jacket only to be made fun of because it was so warm outside.

Then today we woke up to 46 degrees (it feels like 30 so I'm not sure what's up with that) and rain. Oh the humanity! April, please be kind to us. Looking at this photo makes me want to crawl into bed so badly. Agh.

Today is more of a means for me to vent about the cold.

Spring

Or at least the calender says yesterday was the first day of spring. It's actually snowing right now. Surprise, surprise. Honestly, at this point I feel as though I've forgotten what summer even looks/feels like, I'm so used to the cold air hitting my face and the snow smudging my eyeliner that if it were nice out I don't think I could handle it.

On an uplifting note, look at the beautiful flowers we have at home! These guys scream spring despite what's going on outdoors. A little color goes a long way this time of year.

Bring on the Spring

Since it's officially the month of Spring, I felt inclined to post about something that reminds me of anything other than snow and the freezing cold. Since TX was the theme last time, I'll stick to it for now. Remember how that resort was nestled atop a mountain surrounded by forests overlooking a lake? Here's a view of that from their pool. I'd never been to a place like this, let alone travel much, so I needed to snap a photo so the memory could stay alive. I grew up in a family where your work ethic took precedence over everything; if you didn't have three jobs, you weren't doing it right. If you weren't always tired, you weren't doing it right. If you had time to take a vacation, you weren't doing it right.

These days my dad does travel a lot. He's worked very hard his whole life and now takes 1-2 vacations a year to travel overseas. Granted he still puts in 60 hour work weeks and has two jobs which allow him only Sundays off, but he does that so he can take those trips to France, Egypt, and Cyprus. This is all still very recent though, within the past five years or so.

Surrounded by people who never took a break made me nervous to ever take a break. I felt as though I was lazy if I had too much free time, I was concerned that spending money on a vacation was considered frivolous. But now I see my dad enjoying himself, even my sister who is also a workaholic traveled to Jamaica before starting her new job as a probation officer recently. 

Basically the moral of the story is that I need to take a damn vacation. We are going to make this move down south EPIC. I can't wait to travel down the east coast, stopping at major cities and sites, visiting attractions like the zoo (I've never been to a zoo so bear with my lame excitement). Maybe even Disney?? My mind literally can't handle the excitement of seeing so many new things. Cheers to that.

Poppies

This is a painting my former boss commissioned me to do as a gift for his wife, she was graduating from Maine Law and he wanted to give her something she wasn't going to expect. I had to give him credit, thinking outside the box and such. The Mrs was thrilled about it which made me very happy, it's always nerve-wracking when you create something for someone else, the fear of them not liking it always lingers in the back of my head.

I painted this last spring. Sadly, I haven't painted a single thing since then. An artist with an art degree not making art? What would happen if butterflies stopped being butterflies? There would be fewer poppies in the world to paint. These days I'm simply too busy for my hobbies and interests. Even monarch butterflies make the time to pollinate before traveling to Mexico for the winter. The squeeze gets on my case about letting my beautiful easel he purchased for me collect dust. He's completely right.

My goal since the new year has been to pull my paints and brushes out from the cobwebs, I haven't been very good about this goal but perhaps this is the opportunity to start.