Summer Project #3: "Are You My Mother?" Edition

When I was little, this was one of my very favorite books.

If you're not familiar with the story, here's a brief summary.


A baby bird hatches while his mother is away. Setting out in search of her, he falls from the tree. He encounters several different animals...


A kitten...

A hen...

As well as a dog and a cow, asking each in turn, "Are you my mother?"


When they each answer, "No," he continues his quest, calling out to a car, a boat, a plane, and eventually an enormous digging machine.

"I WANT MY MOTHER!!!"

Right as he begins to cry for his mother, the machine lifts him up and dumps him back in his nest, just as the mother returns with food. 

And they live happily ever after.

Cute story, huh? Well, about a month ago, my family got to deal with a real-life version.


As Jace was loading the dishwasher, he happened to look out the window and notice a bald baby dove sitting underneath our huge tree.


Ugly little thing... 

Old enough to have a chance at survival, young enough to still need a mother. And guess who ended up in that position. Yep! Yours truly. 


When I was little, we had a few baby mocking birds end up in our yard. My dad would care for them for a few weeks, teach them to fly with the upset, territorial mommy watching in the tree, and off they'd go, never to return. Simple, right?


Not quite. Baby bird needed feeding every 3 hours, and when he chirped hungrily at 6 in the morning, I got to get up and syringe-feed him. We found some baby bird food mix at the local pet store, and things were working. He lived in a shoe box nailed to the tree he fell from and only got held when I fed him. 

After a few days, we began to notice heavy breathing and "clicking." A quick internet search diagnosed "aspiration pneumonia," a disease that occurs from hand-feeding when food gets in a bird's lungs. It's usually fatal.


Not gonna lie, I was afraid. Despite the fact that I was not yet attached to the fluffy thing, I was traumatized by the memory of the baby bird I tried to save when I was twelve. It only lived a few hours, and I was devastated.


So in addition to the scheduled feedings, Baby Bird started daily dosages of amoxicillin. Yup, the pink bubble-gum medicine (I LOVE that stuff) already sitting in the fridge from a prescription. And miraculously, he started getting better. During this time of illness, Baby Bird was christened Winky, and the shoe box moved to the kitchen counter (gross, I know. Don't worry, it got sanitized several times a day). In other words, he became a pet of sorts.


Soon, he was eating double what he started out eating, he was gaining weight every day, and his feathers started coming in. We took him outside everyday so he could get the "real bird" experience and hopefully connect with those of his kind, but he just followed me around the yard. I'd put him down in one place, and he'd hop over to me and huddle under my knee. He perk up and look around at the sound of my voice and fluffed his feathers excitedly when I picked him up to feed him. In other words, "Are you my mother?"

fluffing feathers in excitement, pecking at the food, smelling his fresh clean box

The time came to wean him off the mush and onto the seed mix. Well, Winky wasn't too excited about that. He likes his mushy stuff just fine and wouldn't even touch the new stuff unless we jammed it down his throat for him. Kinda like weaning a human baby.


Well, the time came to return to college, and Winky stayed behind. Mom took over the feeding (which wasn't as rigorous since he was bigger and ate more in one feeding), and Winky had no problem attaching himself to her. So he continues eating his mush and living in a box (a much bigger one now) in the kitchen. He knows how to fly, but will only fly across the room to my mom. He'll stay in his box if the lights are off. He likes being held and played with.


Poor thing doesn't know he's a bird. Mom's going to borrow a cage from someone so he'll at least stay in there. So now my family has a pet. Kind of.

scraggly, teenager bird

No, Winky, I was not your mother, and neither is she.

Summer Project #2: Inner graffiti artist unleashed

quick story. 2 years ago, while I was living at my aunt and uncle's house, they asked me to paint a mural. Yes, a real 6'x20' mural across the wall surrounding their pool. After talking with my uncle, it was decided that the middle 2 sections of the wall would depict the sun setting behind a very specific range of mountains in San Carlos, Mexico. You can see a picture of it here (It's called Tetas de Cabra, and yes, I know that means "goat boobs." I didn't name it.). The section to the right of the sunset would be the beach condos that my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (just never my family) stay in every Spring Break. And the section on the left would be some sort of cute dolphin scene since it's common for the dolphins to swim up next to the speed boat when they take it out.

Let's get this straight. I don't paint. I've never painted any sort of real picture in my life except the little practices in 7th grade art. Graphite is my preferred medium, and I've never really branched away from it, so doing an entire mural was branching WAY out.

Well, instead of starting on the wall right away, I got distracted with life. I was doing Thoroughly Modern Millie that summer and spent a couple weeks in Austria. When I got back, I pushed it to the back of my mind, too afraid to actually tackle the project.

October rolled around, and I got started. And by "got started" I mean pressure-washed the big cement bricks. After that, I primed the whole wall, and drew out plans for the actual painting.

And then it stayed that way. Weeks turned to months. Months turned into a couple years. By that point, I still wanted to do it, and I knew my aunt and uncle still wanted it, but I was scared to even bring it up, because if I did, I'd be reminding them that I still had not done it. It was a problem.

A few weeks before coming home from BYU, I was playing around with my oil pastels, just doodling out ideas.

sunset draft

condos draft

Suddenly, it dawned on me. 

Spray paint.

 I'd been fretting and nervous about using actual cans of paint. With all the colors and all the blending and layering, that could get messy. And REALLY expensive. I arrived home determined and with a plan.

It even worked out that my aunt and uncle were in New York with their family for a week, so I could work as I pleased and surprise them when they got home.


After day 1, I was this far.

I was a little bit nervous because it just looked like a bunch of crayon scribbles, especially up close. But the more layers and colors I added, the better it looked. The mountains really made the whole thing.

Day 2

I LOVED how it was turning out, but was still really unsure of how to do the other 2 scenes. I felt like it would just look choppy and weird. The rest of the Compound inhabitants agreed. A quick call to my aunt in New York granted permission to do whatever I wanted. I love hearing that. :) So instead of doing 2 other scenes, I just extended the sunset on either side.

bottom coat of blues...

more color layering..."crayon scribble" stage

3-4 days, 22 cans of spray paint, some hallucinations from inhaling fumes, and a freakin' awesome tan later, and TADA!!!!!

I admit, I impressed myself. Who knew, right? I mean, who'd'a thought a nice girl from Mesa would end up a commissioned graffiti artist painting Tetas?! ;) yes, i'm sometimes immature. get over it. :)

Anyone want need a mural done next summer?

Summer Projects #1

When my family bought our house a year and a half ago, we bought it with the idea of "improving" it...or at least I did. Needless to say, a house that an older couple built 30 years ago is going to need a little updating and work in the decor area. Wall-paper and floral print galore. I vowed to fix that. However, it's taken this long to actually do something about it, and it's still not done. But the project is started and will be finished...someday... My goal for the few short weeks I was home was just to get all that blasted wallpaper down. Painting can happen later.


I started off with my bathroom. 


Before:

 

Cute little village setting, right? GAG! It's just covering up a seam from the blue dotted mess. And that brass hardware and yellow wood? Told you it needs some help....

I removed any and all things attached to the walls (making a mess in the process- for some reason, whoever put them in felt the need to use multiple layers of screws so you think it's gonna come off, but you realize you have to take the whole thing apart into 5 different peices...annoying). Anyway, it was a process.

all the necessary tools: steamer, screwdrivers, screws, fillet knife, butcher knife...

Yeah, there are chair rails in the bathroom...what the? Those babies got pried off to get the wallpaper peeled.

Here's a before in the foreground and an after in the background.

The wallpaper itself was a lot easier to get off than I expected. I didn't even need a steamer. A soaked rag, a scraper, and a heckalot of peeling worked mighty fine.


The next step will be replastering the walls. You see, the wall under the chair rails is textured plaster, and the top half is smooth. And after that's done, I can finally paint. Woop-dee-doo.


And now, I can do my bathroom business without my mind wandering down little pastel village pathways. How depressing.



My bedroom was next. And let me tell you, this wallpaper job was the best in the whole house *note the heavy sarcasm. The bottom third was a textured, dark forest green, while the rest comprised of all manner of pink roses set against a creamy background. It seemed like someone's bad attempt at an indoor garden atmosphere.

I love when little brothers help. Here we are, starting in on the first wall of removing the back cover of the previously peeled wallpaper. You can catch a glimpse of what the lovely stuff looked like in the top left corner.

First wall nearly finished....

And....totally done!

Still one long wall to go....And we have the same problem as we do in the bathroom with replastering. The other 2 wall in my room were not wallpapered, and therefore, have textured plaster. We'll have to smooth everything over before I can paint.


At least the hard part is done, right? ...Kinda?