welcome to you and welcome to me

Hi all. This is my first foray into the world of blogging, and it's about time...not to say that blogging is something that has been constantly on my mind. Quite the opposite. The idea hit me smack in the face while sitting at my seven-year-old, overheating, overprocessing, pink-line-down-the-middle-of-the-screen Dell laptop somehow managing to properly view my favorite blogs (a list that I would be happy to share at a later time). The idea of creating my own barely fluttered through my head until I smacked it away like a mosquito and went on trying to come up with some other, more practical idea of expressing myself and showing myself to the world (a bit scary!). I abandoned the stresses of all that "thinking" for the necessity of shoveling out the back parking spot. This is barely a necessity, but in the world of suburbia and too many cars per house with street parking restrictions in winter, a third parking spot out back is really a luxury. If you want to carve out a spot from three winter storm's worth of snow, it's necessary to take your mind off the back-breaking work. It was freezing cold, but sunny, and I had just filled the bird feeder and the birds were jotting around and singing. It was truly beautiful. And so I thought of the blog title "birds in winter." Well, so did someone else, apparently, but the thought to record this strange life of mine didn't leave me. Maybe people would be semi-interested in a 20-something living in and keeping up her grandparents' house, feeding birds, planting gardens, cooking and baking to her heart's content while pretending she lived in the city--attending some small-venue music shows and trying to keep up on the newest new music, walking to shops and restaurants for the sake of walking to shops and restaurants (because you can walk there, and that attribute is lost in suburban living), being a part of a swim team in Cambridge, MA, and finding those corner spots that the locals know for being the best. That whole paragraph should end with at least one question mark (better, a few), because I'm honestly not sure how interesting this would be to anyone else, but it's worth a shot. You at least get an idea of where this name came from. At first, honestly, I had no idea where "slick" came from. It just seemed to roll off my tongue, with "suburban." But it's funny how those things just happen, because the play on "city slicker" and "suburbanite" was perfect. Enough of that. What's the point? Well, I hope to use this as an outlet to share some of my favorite recipes and cooking endeavors, new and old bands and songs that have wooed me, gardening trials and tribulations (once it's no longer -1°F outside), crafts and little design projects I do, some beautiful swims and races I compete in, along with a whole slew of other things that I'll think of as I do them. I hope you find it somewhat interesting, maybe even useful. Feel free to leave comments, too. I hope for this to be interactive and fun. Until soon city slickers and suburban dwellers!