So, my usual routine is, the sun clock starts lighting up at 5:30. David calls around 6 to remind me to go to the gym, the sun clock beeps at 6:05, then the CD alarm clock goes off, then eventually I drag my butt out of bed, go to the gym, come home, feed the cats, eat breakfast and start work.

Today, the Nummy clock went off at about 4:30, he started playing with my CPAP mask. I fell back asleep till David called me, I never even saw the sun clock. I fell back asleep the second I hung up with David. Then, the sun clock started beeping, I turned it off and fell asleep again. The CD went off, i hit the snooze about 3 times. Then I remembered that I still haven't met with a co-worker in India and there is a really important deadline. I put on my gym clothes, and ran to boot up the PC to see if she was logged in still (they are 11.5 hours ahead of us). She wasn't and I did some work as I knew she was going to be looking for me. I was getting hungry, so I had breakfast and kept working. She finally came on about 9:30, and we met for a while. I thought about going to the gym, but remembered that I had to go to the post office at lunch time anyway so I would just go then. So, noon rolls around, I head to the post office. Then I remembered that I needed to pick up kitty treats and run a few more errands.

So, I come home and go back to work. I just went out to the kitchen (it's 6:35 now) and notice that:

-- The cat bowls are in the sink
-- My gym water bottle is in the drainer

Which means I not only didn't go to the gym today, I also NEVER FED THE CATS!!! The weird thing is, no one mentioned it to me at all! Even Barty didn't say anything! He just sat in my office or on the porch all day, not a word of complaint! Which actually made me feel worse. (In my defense, it's not like anyone was going to starve, the dry food bowl and water bowl were both full, this was just wet food that they didn't get this morning. )

But still, I am a bad, bad BAD mom.

And I didn't go to the gym either! I think I will have to blame this all on the Nummy clock for throwing my sleep schedule off.

Ok, so you ever ingest mass quantities of hallucinogenic drugs, then drive to Walgreens and see that hair dye is on sale, so you buy a cheaper brand cause, hey, how can you go wrong when it's only $1.99? And then, still under the influence of the hallucinogenic drugs you actually apply the dye to your head? Here's a word to the wise kids: Drugs and Dye do not mix:



The sad thing is, everyone knows I don't really do drugs, so there is nothing other than stupidity to blame this mess on. As I've often said, I don't need to do drugs, I am enough of a dumbass without them!

I had a couple of snakes getting romantic in the yard yesterday. By the time I got my camera they had moved apart from each other, but were staring at each other longingly. I guess they didn't want to make my critter porn page. Maybe I will start a critter star crossed romance page. Can you just hear music in the background? A tiiiime for us, somedayyy there'll be....

This week is starting out much better than last. I made a new friend this morning, he is living in my yard:

Perhaps it's just the PMS talking, but I think American Idol needs a phone number that you can call that makes a giant hand come out and smack the (alleged) singer upside the head repeatedly when they destroy one of your favorite songs (e.g., Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars"). Then another giant hand picks up the singer and drops them in a garbage can. And the judges should be tested for drugs. I don't know what Simon is smoking, but I want lots of it; if it could make that destruction sound good to his ears, it must be really really good drugs. But maybe this is the PMS talking.

I've been busy this weekend already. I decided that part of the slump I've been in is that I spend way too much time on the internet. So, I decided to separate my work area from my play area. The Mac (my play computer) now lives in the guest room, where the cats aren't allowed and the door is always kept shut. Not nearly as hospitable to goofing off in here. And it's really cold in here too. Blah. My work office now, is pretty cool. I bought a smaller desk ($49 at Office Max):



The cats really like sitting in that window watching the birds and squirrels, but there really wasn't enough room there for everyone. So, I built a 5-stall bed for them, and even washed all the bedding and fluffed everything up:



You can't really tell, but the beds are all separate, hopefully that will keep the squabbling down. They were a little leery of the bed at first, but you can tell they got over that pretty quickly. Here is Pita looking happy and snuggly:



Once they decide which bed is whose I will probably paint their names on them.

Tomorrow the bird count, Sunday, sleep. Lots and lots of sleep!

I've mostly been blogging over on http://www.deemotivation.net, but I thought it was time that I updated my personal blog.

Yesterday, a coopers hawk tried to eat one of my doves. She was a beautiful bird, and I got her picture. I think she is still out there, the doves are pretty scarce today:



In other news, my big sista sent me some baklava (mmmm totally, insanely yummy!) and this ornament, which I have hung in my office, it makes me laugh:



So, life is good. Very very good:-)

So, one of the things I know that I do, and I'm sure that other fat chicks have a problem with, is setting unrealistic goals. We hear on the news and from our doctor that we "have" to exercise at least an hour a day 4-5 days a week. So, we say, "Hey! I will exercise for an hour 5 days a week! Yee Haw!". But then reality sets in. Something comes up at work, a kid or cat get sick, it's raining, a really good tv show is on -- whatever the reason, we miss a day and then just give up; we have it so ingrained in our heads that we MUST exercise 4-5 times a week for an hour a day, that we convince ourselves that anything less is worthless.

But the truth is, it's not. Something is better than nothing. That is the point of the daily twitter suggestions at the top of the web site, that is the purpose of the weekly events. What ever you do counts. Walking around an art festival or traipsing through a forest taking pictures of birds won't get you a gold medal in the olympics. But the thing is, you aren't sitting on your couch either. And, it's kind of like eating a vegetable pizza; there is a healthy component (the veggies) but they are buried in something good (the non-veggie part of the pizza!)

"But wait!" you say. "How can we have fun? What about the mantra "No pain, no gain"? Well, personally, I have found that if leaving my couch isn't fun, I'm not about to do it. So let's have a new mantra: "No pain, no having to spend $40 at Walgreens on aspirin, heating pads, cremes and ace bandages!"

Okay, so on to the point of this post. For this weekend, let's make some realistic, non-couch goals. Here are mine:

-- Go the Friday night Audubon meeting
-- Go to the art festival at Fox Lake Park on Saturday (see the events page for details, shoot me an email if you want to join us!
-- Finish the paper mache on Timmy Flamingo and start the paint
-- Shop for Thanksgiving (I will be making my infamous bread with the bad name.)

What are your non-couch goals for this weekend? Leave a comment with your plans for getting off your butt!

I have knocked some items off of my short term goals:

Short Term Goals
================
1) Make curtains for my and David's offices.

2) Finish Osprey.

3) Make crabs.

4) Give Lisa a tummy rub and emerge unscathed.

5) Make replacement for Rudolph.

6) Get new tattoo.

7) Get promotional material (brochures and magnets) for David's business printed.

8) Make new goals for the ones I just knocked off.

This is an article I wrote for the Limpkin (our local Audubon newsletter.) This is the 4th in a series of Very Bad Birder articles.

*******************

Advice From One Very Bad Birder to the Others

By Dee Fairbanks Simpson

Recently, I was going back through my birding journals of the last ten years. I have been given a lot of advice since moving to Florida a decade ago. Some of the advice made me laugh at the time, but in hindsight, despite the fact that I am still a Very Bad Birder, I am not nearly as bad as I was when I started. I thought I would share with you some of the wisdom that has been imparted to me.

On my very first trip to Merritt Island, I was looking at a bird in a bush, having no idea what it was. A guy pulled up behind me and asked if I knew what it was. I told him no. He then proceeded to introduce himself (Doug Johanssen) and tell me what the bird was (Prairie Warbler), and then he had me follow him around the refuge. We were somewhere out on Haulover canal when a Tern came along, at which point, Doug said, "Wait for a minute, another Tern will come along." I of course, took the bait and asked him how he knew that. To which he replied, "Well, everyone knows one good tern deserves another." That day, Doug taught me about birds, he put me in touch with Travis MacClendon (and hence the IRAS), and he also taught me that birders are capable of terrible, terrible puns.

At my very first IRAS meeting (before we became SCAS) I brought in a photo album I had put together of my bird pictures. I proudly showed it to Travis MacClendon, and asked if he could help me identify the birds therein. The sage advice that I received from Travis that day was, "That's a Laughing Gull. That's another laughing gull. That's another laughing gull. That's another laughing gull. That's another laughing gull. etc" It turned out that I had about 75 pictures of laughing gulls (young, old, winter, summer, breeding.) I had no idea that they changed color throughout their lives. The lesson learned from this experience was to buy Sibley's Guide to Birds, which I don't leave home with out now. (I also learned that Travis has the patience of a saint!)

After joining Audubon, I started birding regularly with Pat and Bill Meyer. I have learned a lot from them over the years, but I think the advice that has improved my birding the most was when Bill told me, "Palm Warblers pump their tails when they perch." From this I started to notice how important behavior, not just color and shape is to identifying birds. I was able to add the Dowitcher (sewing machine bird), Ruddy Turnstone, and many others to my life list once I started to notice behavior.

One fateful day at an IRAS meeting, some insanely handsome guy came in and said they needed volunteers for the Cocoa Christmas Bird Count. I knew nothing about counting birds, but hey, I figured, this really cute guy needs volunteers, so I signed up. A few days before the count, I was a feeling a bit apprehensive and called my dad for advice. The advice he gave me was, "The easiest way to count a flock of birds is to count their eyes and then divide by two." I guess this wasn't so much a birding lesson as a life lesson; I learned that insanity runs in families.

Eventually, I started dating that cute guy from the bird count. One day, before we were married, David and I were out birding. He pointed out a bird to me and asked me what it was. I don't remember exactly what I guessed, but it was something along the lines of "Little Blue Heron?" David looked at me incredulously and said, "You are not getting back into my truck." I knew I had said something very very very wrong. I opened my Sibley's and started searching. That day I learned how to identify Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, and he finally let me get back into the truck. To this day, they are one of the few birds that I don't get wrong. Ever.

Despite getting lots of advice, I eventually came up with my own ways of identifying birds. I tend to anthropomorphize a lot, or to find objects that birds look similar to. Belted Kingfishers, to me look exactly like the cartoon character Bart Simpson -- I can always tell one on the wires remembering that. I kept this to myself for the most part though, as I assumed that real birders don't need to associate birds with something else to remember them. One day, while birding with Travis MacClendon, he pointed to some birds and said there was a Chimney Swift in the flock. I asked him how he knew, and he replied, "Chimney Swifts in flight look like cigars with wings." I was so relieved to find that "real" birders use less than scientific descriptions too. Eventually, as part of the Florida Master Naturalist course, I developed a presentation on Non-Scientific Birding that, although quite silly, seems to strike a chord with other bad birders.

After I'd been birding for a while, although I was enjoying it, I was still pretty self conscious of the fact that I just wasn't very good at it. One day, Carroll Holland gave me some advice that I think has really made all the difference to me: "If you want to see more birds, have a few drinks before you start birding, that way you will see two of everything." I laughed at the time, but it also made me realize that I was taking birding way too seriously. I learned from Carroll the most important birding advice: just because it's a scientific endeavor, it doesn't mean it can't be fun.