Christmas lights

Our neighborhood has started decorating for Christmas. You might think it’s too early. I might have thought so too, until I saw it lit up at night. It’s so cozy and welcoming. You can’t help but smile. While I loved the pumpkin, it’s time for it to move over for little strings of happiness…

Bewicks wren

I love to bird watch. I’m not very good at it. You would think with a Master’s degree in biology (I studied birds), that I would be a descent bird watcher. This, however, is not the case. My excuse was that as a graduate student there was no time for bird watching. Ultimately, I named this as one of the reasons I did not pursue my PhD. Why study birds if it ends up making you unable to watch them? I can tell you about the intricacies of bird respiration, the current theory on why parrots mimic, why male bower birds build towers that they dance around on the jungle floor, why yellow breasted chats… you get the hint. But ask me to tell you the difference between a Tennessee and a Connecticut warbler and you’ve rendered me speechless. So, I left the academic world of avian biology in exchange for a chance to do a little bird watching. However, my next career didn’t afford me any more time for watching birds. Good grief. But, now my life is a little less hectic (whew!) and I have a wonderful window. That has made all the difference. Just this week Larry and I added a new bird to our “life list.” We didn’t have to travel to distant places. We sat at our kitchen table with our bird book and our binoculars in hand (we admit it’s nerdy, but we love it) and we identified a Bewicks wren on our deck. Life is good.

They are actually endangered (and relatively rare) east of the Mississippi river. Some might dispute that we actually saw one. Although I may have lost some credibility in admitting what a poor bird identifier I am, really, it couldn’t have been anything else….

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/135/_/Bewicks_Wren.aspx
http://www.50birds.com/BPBewickswren.htm

enchiladas

Tonight I am going out to eat with some friends. This makes me happy. Things I'm looking forward to tonight: hanging out with people I can really be myself around, hefty laughter and yummy enchiladas. Ahhh. Life is good.

here we go!!

Here's to my first try at blogging! It's a little bit exciting. I decided that my blog would focus on happy and positive things. I regularly check a few blogs and the ones I love are those that cheer me up, those that make me smile for the day. The tricky part was choosing a name. I was inspired by the movie "happy feet" and wanted to name my blog "happy toes." I thought it would be cute to say I was "happy all the way down to my toes." But, the name was taken, as were about a thousand other cheerful names I contemplated. I think it was for the best because simple is always better and "happy me" is really just what I was going for. So here goes...