"Rocking Robin" or Tales from the Bird Sactuary

Back in the day, I lived with a roomate who was a birdwatcher. I was just as suprised as everyone else when I discovered that birdwatchers were not just fat, balding old men, but could also be cool, hip young flight attendants! Well, recently I have been thinking about birdwatching again because of all the bird activity that is going on around my house.

And to my dismay, I have started to hear MANY birds chirping at night lately. I thought birds were only active during the day, but have found that is not the only case. They do this to mark their territory from other predators, or they may be babies who are chirping for their mommies. I am trying to learn how to ignore them, but some nights, it is like a bird symphony!

It seems like every day, there is some new type of bird hanging outside my window. I have seen this:

A wood pecker (not entirely sure, but it sure looked like one!)

and this:

A red-breasted robin

and I constantly hear this (even during the day!!!!)

An owl (I'm not sure what it looks like, so I picked the creepiest looking one! Did you know that in Mexican culture, the owl is considered a symbol of death? It is bad luck to come into contact with one)

That reminds me, I have two owl stories:

When I was a kid, my mom told me this story about my grandma and an owl. In our old house, the dining room window was a up high because it was a 2 story house. One early evening, my grandmother said that she was sitting in the dining room, when all of a sudden, an owl flew right to the window and stayed there for a few minutes. The whole time, it had it's wings outstretched, and to her, she said it seemed as if it was trying to fly into the room. Naturally this FREAKED my grandma out, and she went and grabbed a broom (and I am sure a rosary!) and yelled and prayed for it to go away. It did, but the experience always made her shiver when she thought of it.

My second owl story occured about a year or so ago. Rich and I were driving home at night, and while we were driving up one of the streets to our house, our headlights shone on an owl that was just sitting in the road! As we drove closer, it would not move and just sat there, looking at us. Of course we were intrigued, so Rich got out of his car and slowly started walking towards the owl. Just then, the owl spread it's wings, and for a split second I thought of my grandma. Oh no?! Would it try to fly at our windshield? What actually happened was that as it started to fly away, we realized that it had a LIVE MOUSE IN IT'S CLAWS! We must have come upon it when it had just captured it's prey. Crazy!

All this bird activity has made me interested in learning more about bird watching. Who knew? I am not sure if our yard is somehow becoming a bird sanctuary, but if it is, I might as well be prepared! And I hope I don't see anymore owls. Those birds just creep me out! Any birds creep you out, or do you have a cool bird story to share?

"These are a few of my favorite things....."

Caber and Peanut sleeping in our bed (only when we let them!)

Patch of flowers at CSUN

My grandsons

These are a few of my favorite things right now. I am trying to find things in my life that I am grateful for, and trying to take pictures of those things or remember moments is helping me to have gratitude. I am also very thankful for all my friends and family, and like I have said a million times, I can't wait to celebrate with everyone that I love at my graduation party!

Shopping Guilt

Here they are. The two places that I love, and hate the most. Why do grocery stores make me feel this way? It's like a relationship, but with none of the benefits. Okay, I guess food is a benefit, and they never ask me to move over in bed.....but I digress.

I started thinking about shopping because, low and behold!, I went shopping yesterday. But if you are like me, you have 2 stores you have to shop at. For me, it is Ralph's and Trader Joes. This is one of the "hates". Why can't everything be at one store? Oh well.

Yesterday, it was my shopping at Trader Joe's day. I realized that besides picking only 2 stores to shop from, I am also a creature of habit with the things I buy. Here are items that typically get put in my cart:

Strawberries & blueberries (hate frozen!, love them on everything!)
Red onions (I make a yummy salad with them)
Hard boiled eggs  (although today I had to buy uncooked egss since they were out of the pre-made ones. The nerve!)
Cucumbers
Baby broccoli  ( I guess I am partial to babies!)
Spring Salad mix
Cherry tomatoes
Waffles

I hate that I can't be more adventurous. Well, today I was. Don't tell anyone, but I also bought "Romaine hearts" to use for salad greens. Crazy, I know! But I guess the real reason I am not that adventurous is because, who am I kidding, most of the time, I am not in the mood to try something new, and then it's "Crap, this stuff has mold on it already? Should have had it for breakfast/lunch/dinner".

May I add that when I can, I try to buy all these items organic. Why? Because one of my "hates" is shopping guilt. For one of my "wonderful" CSUN classes, I had to watch a documentary about the grocery industry. And boy, let me tell you, serious guilt trip! Inhumane treatment of chickens, genetically modified produce, overcharging for conveience, yada, yada, yada.

So, now my life is relegated to 2 stores. Ralphs for all the non-food items (garbarge bags, Ziplock bags, Crystal Light) and Trader Joe's for all my food. And while I do get excited sometimes about trying new things that I see ("Oooh, grilled chicken strips! That might be a quick and easy lunch!"), I still feel some guilt.

Because even though I can get pretty much most of the food organic at Trader Joe's, I know I really should be shopping at a Farmer's Market. Then I am really cutting out the middle man, getting food directly from the source, and not getting bananas from Chile. But I really like bananas in my smoothie, and they don't have them at a farmers market! Aaaaah! See my guilt?

To top it off, why do other people make me feel even more guilty when I see that they remembered to bring their paper Trader Joe's bag to get a raffle ticket for a $25 TJ gift card? Or even worse, they bring in their OWN reusable bags! Yuppies! (Wait, does that describe me?)

Anyways, let me know how your shopping experience goes and what you put in your cart. Then maybe I won't feel so much guilt, and maybe, just maybe, I'll get to try something before it gets moldy. Well, off to try my "Marinated Lentil Salad" with pre-cooked lentils I bought from Trader Joe's (wait, are they organic?...........)

Inspiration

This is it. This is the reason why I wanted to start a blog. A beautiful painting that I have seen for many months. But let me give you some background first........

As many of you may know, I attend Cal State Northridge and am in the process of completing my last and final semester of school for my Bachelor's degree (yes!). Since I have been going to CSUN since 2008, I have passed this painting at the library. But the painting was not just in the main lobby, it happened to be located in the........BASEMENT!

Every time I walked downstairs to visit the "Teachers Curriculum Center" (a place I have become VERY familiar with), I would see this HUGE painting right outside the entrance. It has always intrigued and haunted me. Who did this painting? Why is it in the basement of the library? Is it worth anything? The painters name is listed at the bottom, and of course, I forgot to include this in my blog. But since this is my first post, I'm sure I'll learn from my mistakes next time.

Overall, this painting reminds me that art can be very powerful. It can make a person stop in their tracks, stare and think. With our world so busy today, I like the fact that there are some things in life that I am allowed to take my time with.

Let me know some of your favorite paintings and where you saw them. It just may inspire you to go out and buy an expensive phone just so you can blog about it, like I did! :)