Drum Making Class

So I went to a Drum Making Class being offered through a new-to-me local Pagan shop. Typically, going somewhere new, being around all new people, and doing something I’ve never done before, sends me into a full-blown panic attack. But this is something I’ve been wanting to do for AGES, so I pounced at the chance and paid in my $55 so there was no way I could back out of it.

And sure enough, when it came time to drive over there, I could feel the anxiety rising.

But I’m so glad I went. I had a BLAST.
Even if I was sitting by the most neurotic, perfectionist on the planet.

I did amaze myself at how well I just rolled with the experience. I wasn’t hung up on making The Most Perfect Drum EVER. I was focused on doing my best with THIS drum. MY drum.

And damn, is she gorgeous. It’s difficult to capture the color properly, as the skin is still damp, and I can’t put the drum in direct sunlight yet. There is all this feathering and striping within the red, due to the elk hide that I wish showed up better in this photo.

Hopefully, I can get a photo of her outside on Wednesday and I can get some photos that truly do her justice.

And the very quick drum beater that I made as well, to go with my drum:

I am debating if I’ll remake this. I kind of want to replace the cloth head with a leather/suede one. But I’m getting the feeling that it’s just fine the way it is. I’ll test it out on my drum once she dried and cured completely and make my decision at that point.

Group Photos

One of my aides asked if we could do a big group photo of our students and I thought this was a brilliant idea.

Note: This is NOT all 70 of my students though.

Nice photo:

Photo that accurately captures my various students’ personalities:

And fun photo with all the staff in the photo:

That’s me in the lower right hand corner, front row. :)

New Friend

I made a new friend today:

This is a little Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis).

He flew inside the elementary school I run my after-school program in, to escape the storm winds. He was more than happy to relax on my hand as I showed him to the 8 or so students I still had in the program at that point.

Once the winds died down, I put him back outside.

CORRECTION: This is a Jade Clubtail Dragonfly (Arigomphus submedianus)

Fo Shizzle...

…my Driz-Zel. ::cracks up::

Ok, so to explain.
I was walking Holly today. We’ve been getting a SHIT ton of rain over the past month or so....and it’s just continuing for the foreseeable future.

So anyways, I decided I should walk Holly today. Typically, we walk out the pedestrian gate, around the backside of the apartment section (our apartment complex is actually three completely separate sections), and then we head off to the wooded trails on either side of the road that runs in front of my apartment section.

Well, we hit the backside of the section and it starts sprinkling. So I’m hoping that it’ll let up by the time we hit the split that I can either go right and hit the wooded trails, or I can admit defeat and turn left and come in the vehicle gate.

The drizzling rain isn’t letting up…so we conceded defeat and turn left. I scope out my hawklings. They are a bit soggy but still looking great.

And that’s when I see this little Mourning Dove on the pavement. And I notice right away that it’s a fledgling AND there’s some seriously wrong with it’s wing.

I take Holly up to the apartment and return with a shoebox. Poor little thing was soaked to the bone and sitting in a puddle while the rain drizzled down. It barely fought me when I picked it up.

So she chilled in the dark shoebox, with a nice warm rag in there to help her dry, and I set that in front of my space heater and kept it just warm enough.

I located a wild bird sanctuary that was open (miracle) and more than happy to take her.

Well, I knew she deserved a name before I sent her packing.

I called her Driz in the beginning, for the drizzling rain…but then that morphed into Driz-Zel because of the ghetto-rific place I live. ::laughs::

So now, Miss Driz-Zel is in good hands. I wish her a speedy recovery:

It's the Little Things

Given the recent rains and cloud-cover, the temperatures were PERFECT for my daily walk on the wooded trails with Holly, my ever-loyal Old Lady Dog (as I’ve come to affectionately call her).

The first of the lil Yellow Flowers are finally beginning to bloom:

And I found my first Blue Jay feather of the year:

I’m keeping track of how many I find this year, as I’m pretty sure last year I found around 20 or so. I’m sure with me doing daily walks this year, I should be able to find even more. ::smiles::

It’s something about feathers that always make me smile. I just can’t be sad with a new-found feather in my hand.

They Grow Up So Fast

My little hawklings are growing up so fast.
It seems like yesterday they were just two puffy white balls.
Now, they have most of their adult feathers in and are beginning to experiment with flight (attempts).

Both babies:

Look at those scrawny little legs!

Got some height on this hop:

Nice landing:

And one more attempt:

They’ll be flying before I know it! :)

Normal Sucks

I cannot articulate what this screams at me right now. I’ll try, but I’m sure I’ll fall far short of the mark.

It started with a spam email. The subject line was “We’re young and we’re pissed off, and we’re going to do something about it”. It was an email from a group that I signed their petition to keep abortions legal and accessible to Texas women.

And my cynical side retorted “I’m too tired to be pissed off.”

And I thought to myself, “How fucking sad is that?”

But it’s a mind-loop I’ve been racing around on for days now.
I miss my passion. I miss my drive. I miss my sense of adventure.

In a nutshell? I miss my mania. I miss my psychosis.
This being normal shit sucks. This being responsible for everything I did while “enjoying” my manic years sucks even more. ::chuckles:

And I really, I think me being so damn anti-social is making it all worse.
I know I need to get out and do SOME sort of socializing. Hell, I even want to at times. But when it actually comes down to doing it? I freeze and then bolt in the other direction.

I need to sit down and write a list of things that I enjoy doing. Things I’m interested in. Things that peak my interest/passion. And then I need to go out and do those damn things.