Monthly personal update

As frequently as I say that I'm going to try to update this blog more often, you'd think that I would!  However, real life is getting in the way.  When I was married to the most anti-social person in the world, I had plenty of time to blog, but now that I'm doing things with friends and still trying to keep up with the parrots, as well as holding down a much more demanding job, this is something that has fallen by the wayside.  Which makes me sad, as I'd love to have a more complete picture of the past couple years of my life!

But here is a snapshot of the things I did during the month of July:

I went to a baseball game.  I am sponsored by a local running store, and am friends with many of the employees, so they invited me along on their employee outing, which was rather odd, since I was the only non-employee, but they were so welcoming and I have been invited back for next year!

This one was June, but a local street festival was held to celebrate the solstice.  I went with a good friend and her husband.  We met the father of the lead singer of a popular local band (on the verge of signing a national record contract) which meant we met the lead singer and had a memorable evening.

 Supermoon!!!

 Front-row tickets to see three bands from my youth!!!!!

 Boyz II Men (my favorite, and I will get a rhinestone-emblazoned Phillies hat someday):

 Not sure why they look other-worldly, but I love this picture of them singing!

98 Degrees (I am actually a bit too old for them, and I didn't know many of their songs, but they were energetic and fun):

New Kids on the Block -- yes, I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I was there!  And when they went into the crowd for one of their songs, they all brushed past me!  Again, I wasn't huge fans of them, but I knew most of the songs they sang, and they put on a great show.

My sister and I went to a minor-league game that was one of the most exciting games I have ever seen. S he won a pair of VIP tickets.

The celebration after they came from behind in the bottom of the 9th inning with 2 outs, when they hadn't had the lead for the entire game:

I went to dinner with my friend J.  We split a pizza, which meant room for dessert.  This was one of the best things I have ever eaten.  That's caramel sea salt ice cream on top of the brownies.  And candied nuts.  YUM!!!  I showed my friend at work this picture, she made me show a bunch of other people, and quite a few made it over to this restaurant for this piece of deliciousness:

Celebrating Bastille Days (you can see French flags spread out along the street of this very American city.) 

On a date, I went bowling for the first time in over a decade -- and scored over 100 points (that's me on the top row.)

Same guy, different date.  French toast.  With ice cream.  Amazing concept, and one I'm ashamed to have not thought of myself.  This really was made for two to share, so I only ate half of the French toast, but I did eat all of the ice cream (caramel sea salt again.  Delicious!!!)

My parents and I go to a craft brew fest on an annual basis.  This year, four of my friends (two couples) joined us, and we ran into my cousin there.  What a fun time!  After, we walked to a different street festival, then we walked home, and my parents spent the night.  That part will continue to be a tradition, though I'm hoping to pick up a couple of used bikes for people to use when they visit as biking home will be quicker than walking!

It's still very early days, but I am dating an amazing man.  I was abused (verbally and emotionally) for so long, I rather forgot what it was like to be with someone who treats me as nicely as I treat him.  I'm glad I took many months away from dating to work on myself and figure out what I really want, as I'm in a good place to welcome a good man into my life.

He's met the parrots and finds them amusing and interesting.  Being prey animals, they are a little wary, but he'll win them over.  His middle name is Andres, which is usually what I'd use as his pseudonym, but since it's so close to Andreas's name, I'll have to think of something different to avoid confusion.  Though hopefully no one would think that I am dating my lizard!

Anyway, things are good, life is fabulous, and I need to blog more frequently!

Foraging fun

This video isn't the best; to really show what she is capable of, I'd have to tape for about 10 minutes and splice together, but my editing skills are non-existent, so this is what you're getting! She'll go over to the tower and say "want some!" as she fools with the levers, hoping I'll stick a cashew in there for her. Since she is so adorable, I frequently will.

In this case, it was empty, but she was trying her best to be cute enough for a nut to be placed inside:

Instead, I just took pictures.

 Just kidding!  When she gets the nut, she'll always walk over and stand on the edge of the counter to eat it.

She only did this once, but in my head, she climbed the tower to victory:

I think I may need to find some more challenging puzzles for her!

And so does Max!

Max, the bird who is clearly my best flyer, loves our new house! The parrots' cages are in the living room, on the first floor, but Max loves flying up to the second floor to explore.  One of her favorite perches is on the staircase, as shown:

She also likes to fly up to the top of my large stained glass window, seen in the background of this picture.  However, this is not allowed, so I'm not even willing to take a picture of it, for fear it will encourage her.  The first time she flew to the second floor by herself I was so excited and proud of her; now I wish she'd stay on the first level as she is not trustworthy enough to be up there unsupervised!

Her other favorite place to be is the kitchen.  She'll hang out and stare at me through the crack in the door.  She decided to chip at the door hinge once she saw the camera, and I wasn't risking my ancient hardware for a good picture, so this will have to suffice:

Beeps explores the house

The parrots and I are so happy in our new house! We've been here about 7 weeks now, but we're settled in and things are great! They love to fly around and explore different parts of the house. At least Max and Beeps do. Calypso walks around to explore, even though he can fly. Strange guy, that.

The other day, Beeps was flying around, and he landed on one of my front windows.  He was pacing and saying "Babycakes" in his demonic voice; unfortunately, his behavior changed once he knew I was filming him, but if you listen closely, you can hear him say it once at the very beginning of this video:

If you watched the video, you can understand why we named him "Beeps"!!!

Here is a still picture.  He loves looking outside at what's going on.

A different day, he'd flown around the house and it took me a little while to find him.  Just a little while, though, as his ubiquitous beeping gave him away!