Exceedingly Mundane

I’ve been working on a new style for my blog… I’m hoping everyone else sees it and not just me! Let me know if you see the same thing (blue, green and white) or if you see my new look.

By the way, if you do see it, there’s a nice little sentiment attached to the picture at the top. That’s an old barn with a really old hay rake in the middle, down the road from Tim’s parent’s house and church. We stopped there one day this year, late spring, when everything was pretty and green, and Tim let me take some photos. I really like that picture, and decided to see if I could incorporate it into my blog. So there it is! 😀

Apparently, my hummingbird feeder full of sugar water is attractive to all of the birds in the area, except for the actual hummingbirds. I’ve actually been trying off and on for a couple of weeks to take a picture of the sparrows that frequent my hummingbird feeder. I finally sneaked up on one today, which is odd. Normally, they fly off, and normally there are 2 or 3 on this feeder, rather than just one solitary bird.

Can anyone help me figure out how I can actually attract hummingbirds to this, instead of the sparrows? I mean, I have two bird seed feeders up around the yard for them, but they drink from this one all the time. Not that I mind, but the hummingbirds won’t eat their bird seed, it doesn’t seem fair that they drink all the hummingbird’s sugar water 🙂

I just won $1.00 on the instant prize at Iwon.com. It’s not much, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it, but hey, it was nice to win and have them say they will send me my prize. Obviously, I’d much rather be winning bigger things, but hey — I’m the kind of person, after all, who will stop in a parking lot, bend over and pick up a penny I see on the ground. So, a buck ain’t too bad! 🙂

OK, here’s a question and a comment for those of you who listen to audiobooks. I know audio books have been around for a while, but I had never actually tried listening to one.

I went to the library last Friday and checked out 2 audio cd’s, and have already ripped one to my PC and transferred it to my iPod. I started trying to listen to the audiobook last night at bedtime. Now, granted – I was in bed and getting sleepy. But boy, I had a terrible time trying to concentrate and retain anything I had heard. Is this common? Something I need to get used to? I seem to retain information a lot more, I am starting to realize, if I see it written. Is it just me, or is anyone else like that?

Chime in and let me know if you love audiobooks, hate them, couldn’t care less, and whether it took you a while to get used to “listening” to someone else read a book, rather than just reading the darn thing yourself!

Along with the cute pictures that Amanda sent me of Ethan and Abby (that I posted about last night, and are now added to the photos section of Hambones), she also sent me a couple that had me in it.

Now, that might sound weird, but it’s not. I’m always behind my camera and there are hardly ever any pictures with me in it. Which, most of the time is fine by me. I’m not photogenic and I don’t particularly like to be in the picture. But, being a scrapbooker and looking back through pictures I have taken since I was 12 years old, I realize the need for me actually being in some of the pictures sometime! Otherwise, if I die, people might not remember me at all without a picture! 😯

Amanda was sweet enough to send me a good picture of me and my dad on Father’s Day, one of me by myself with my beloved little camera (which I’ll spare you of, since it was just me), and this one of me with Abby, who was not quite 5 months old, but such a big, pretty girl!

Thanks Amanda! 😀

I just loaded some new pictures on the Photos section of Hambones that Amanda sent me last night. She has some 4 month photos that she took of Abby a while back (she turns 6 months old in a few days!), and also some of Ethan dressed up at church, over the July 4th weekend. They are so cute, and really great pictures! Of course, I’m not in the slightest bit biased in any way. Go check them out and see for yourself!

Well, a few minutes after Tim brought me the flowers (which of couse, I took a picture of and was back in the computer room, trying to blog about) – he came back inside the house and started calling for me. I thought, gee, did he pick me more flowers or is something wrong?

The answer is ….

He found a baby bird out by the big tree in the front yard! He apparently scared it and he said it was trying to walk out into the street. He scooped it up and brought it inside for me to see. My first experience with a displaced or injured baby bird (no, I didn’t have much of a childhood!).

He got me to get a shoe box and put it in there and had me go look on the Internet to find out how to care for it. Well, every site I went to said first thing to “return the baby to its nest or the area you found it”, and its parents would take care of it. They all seemed to discourage keeping the baby bird and trying to care for it. I went back outside and told Tim, whom was none too pleased. As he pointed out to me, we have a lot of cats in our neighborhood, and that baby bird might be one of those cat’s supper. And he’s right – I went to put the bird back out by the tree where he found it, and sure enough, across the street, there is a cat peering up over its fence. I am afraid now that my baby bird won’t make it through the night. I sat out front for a while, hoping to see its parents come back, but no sign of any bird, just that darn cat.

Tim thinks it is a baby dove, by the way – what does it look like to you guys?

P.S. Ok – update, Tim is still out weedeating and edging and I keep going back and forth, checking on my baby bird. It hasn’t moved one inch. I’m afraid it’s hurt or its parents aren’t going to find it in time and one of these neighborhood cats is going to get it. 😥

Tim got in from work and went outside to cut the grass. He came in a little while ago and brought me these:

Yep, he’s sweet and I’m so glad he’s mine. He’s definitely a keeper!

I just read this story, from the front page headlines posted on Hambones.org. We’ll probably watch this, and I know for me in particular, I intend to follow this Supreme Court nomination process a little more closely than perhaps I have in the past.

We have a neat little personal tie-in to all of this. We had just finished our tour of the US Capitol in Washington when Sandra Day O’Connor was tendering her resignation to President Bush. Tim and I went to the Library of Congress, then walked down to see the US Supreme Court building. There were cameras everywhere and protesters, but we had not heard the news or radio all day, so we had no idea what was going on. We weren’t sure if it was like that every day, or if something had happened. We found out a couple of hours later, when we talked to Kirk on our cell, about Justice O’Connor’s resignation.

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OK, I have seen this one on other blogs, and I’m going to add it to my list to check every Tuesday. You know me, I love lists!

10 Countries You’d Like to Visit

Here’s my answers, in no particular order:

1) England
2) Scotland
3) France
4) Greece
5) Italy
6) Australia
7) New Zealand
8) Austria
9) Switzerland
10) Canada

**UPDATED** – I changed #10 from Belgium to Canada. I actually sort of added this one as an afterthought, and then later realized after I read Elizabeth’s comment, that I wasn’t sure what I would want to see there! I would love to see Montreal, Toronto and also Vancouver, among other places in Canada, so I changed my answer. My blog, my rules!!! 😀

I just added two new movie reviews to the Reviews section at Hambones.org. We rented 3 movies this weekend and have watched two of them so far – The Pacifier with Vin Diesel and Miss Congeniality II with Sandra Bullock. We also rented another old one on my list “Wimbledon” with Kirsten Dunst, but we haven’t watched that one yet.

I also added comments to two reviews that Trent entered over the weekend – to movies we have seen and enjoyed. Check out Trent’s review of Star Wars Ep III and King Arthur. Thanks Trent!

Tim is working on the backup server for Hambones tonight, so I’m catching up on some newspapers and magazines in the den, and using the laptop to do a little surfing. 🙂

Oops, I forgot to mention yesterday that among other things, I also loaded a few new pictures of Nathan Lee that Wendy had sent me last week. He’s such a beautiful baby! Go check them out in the Photos section of Hambones, if you’re a registered user. 😀

Just a test post… moving some stuff around behind the scenes on the blogs and the Hambones main site.

😀

when we don’t go in and out of the front door for oh… say, maybe 3 hours! We left tonight to go out to eat, and went out the front door. There was NOT a spider web there when we left. However, Tim went outside about 10:20 to get something out of his truck and almost ran face first into this:

Then, he called me and told me to bring my camera! Gotta love a guy that supports my habit! 🙂

Click the -More- link if you want to see a couple more… this was a really intricate web, and HUGE!

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It’s just the tip of the iceberg, but I’m feeling rather proud of myself this afternoon. I have been wanting to get started on cleaning out some stuff out of my scraproom (which also doubles as our computer room). This room is bulging at the seams, and most of it is my junk, so I really need to knuckle down and get started.

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