Saturday, June 28, 2014

Day 86

I don't have a photo today. Sometimes the happy things I do can't be photographed and I've worked around that for this whole 100 day goal, but today I can't figure out how to work around it and it's my honest to goodness happy thing for the day, so I'm sharing it anyway.  The fact that I'm still sticking with my goal on day 86 is astonishing enough. If I cheat I figure I'm still good, lol.

My happy thing is that I signed up for the the Golden Eagle Audubon Society, which is a cool birding group in Boise. They take field trips to study birds and do conservation things. Part of this year was re-introducing myself to things I used to love and haven't taken the time for lately, and birds are something I really love. Spending time in the mountains on our trip last week just really made me remember how much I love being in nature. I need to be outside. It makes me happy. Participating in birding activities will get me outside, get me around animals, and get me moving on my photography again. All things I love. I'm excited to hopefully participate in a few of their activities over the next few months.

There is also another organization I found through a neighbor and they also do cool bird activities. One of the things they do is catch and tag birds so they can track them. They are doing hummingbird tagging this summer! So I'm trying to get in on that. I want to watch how hummingbirds are tagged. That's got to be cool to see! There is a waiting list to do it, so we'll see.

So I'm really excited about that, and it makes me happy. There is no photo of me signing up online. I guess I could have taken a photo of that, but I didn't. Here, how about a picture of a bird I took a few summers ago. If I'm going to cheat, I might as well go big.

image

In other news, my mom and stepdad officially left on their mission today. I'm excited for them and trying not too think too much about them being gone so long. They are spending a short time at the missionary training center in Utah and then they'll fly to Hong Kong for more training for a few weeks and then they will settle in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They will probably be doing some traveling off and on to Singapore, Indonesia and other areas around there, so I'm sure it will be quite an adventure for them!

I e-mailed them this afternoon. They've literally been gone like, an hour, but I wanted to make sure they had mail when they settled in tonight! It was a funny thought to me as I was writing them. When I was 18 I had a boyfriend who left for two years to do missionary work for our church. I wrote him an obnoxious amount of letters while he was gone. I mean, really, a super obnoxious amount, lol. Writing a letter to my mom on a mission today reminded me of that. I couldn't e-mail back then, I had to send handwritten letters and I had a big plastic box full of stationary and stickers and obnoxiously colored pens and airmail stamps. I had no blog back then, but I've always had this need to write things down, so I think that is how I fulfilled that need to write. I wish I had those letters. Actually, maybe it don't. I would so roll my eyes at my 18 year old self.

Anyway, I don't know why writing to my mom today brought that all back, but the memory made me giggle. It's been a long time since I wrote a letter to a missionary. It almost made me want to go out and buy glittery stickers and gel pens. :) I will refrain.

So that's what's happening here today. I'm excited about joining the birding group and thinking about my mom and stepdad starting their new journey. Sorry I cheated on my picture today. I will make up for it tomorrow. Probably. :)

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