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I got this from AmputeeHee. I didn't even answer the question about my biggest pet peeve about other blogs. I don't really care. After all, if I don't like a blog, I just don't go there again. There's plenty of other stuff out there. So many blogs, so little time...
Our daughter and her husband were visiting for five days. On Monday afternoon, Becky and I spent some time enjoying the antics of some baby finches in the yard. There were four fledglings and one seemed a little older than the other three. The three younger ones stayed pretty close together while the fourth one was wandering farther away.
On Tuesday morning we were in the dining room when I happened to look out and see a sharp-shinned hawk perched on the back of our bench with his catch in his talons. He had caught one of our baby birds. I was sad to see that, but that's nature, isn't it? However, when he finished with that one, he went back down the ground and picked up a second one that he had killed. And when he had finished and left, we went out to inspect the damage (and wash off the bench). It looks like he killed all three of our baby birds at one shot. I'm sure they were all huddled together behind a bush and he hit the jackpot. It doesn't bother me so much that he killed and ate one baby bird, but that he didn't eat the second or third babies.
Bugger.
If you support Hillary or are a Republican, you should probably stop reading now, because any further comments in this post will just irritate you.
I heard Hillary won the primary in Pennsylvania, and I'm disappointed.
The more I hear about and from Obama, the more I like him. By the same token, the more I hear about and from Hillary, the less I want her to be elected President. As far as I'm concerned, she's just too firmly entrenched in the big corporate world and some of her actions are too Republican for me. She strikes me as a Republican in Democrat's clothing.
On a personal note, I can't stand to hear her talk. It's like Dub-yuh. The second that man opens his mouth, I change the channel because I can't stand to listen to him. With him, it's the whole package--west Texas accent, slaughtering the English language, and then his politics. After all, this is the guy who for some reason thought that starting wars in two countries was a good idea. So I've pretty much not listened to our nation's president for eight years.
I'd like to have a president I could stand to listen to for the next four years. That wouldn't be Hillary.
For two days on April 17th and 18th, we had these Eurasian collared doves in our yard. I looked them up in our bird book and thought they might be ringed turtle doves, which would be very rare. Fortunately, a guest with a good camera took this photo and I sent it off to a local bird person at the Rio Grande Nature Center.
I'm really familiar with all the birds in our yard, so when I see something different, I get pretty excited about it. I like to think that we're creating a little micro-ecosystem in our small yard, so it's pretty satisfying to provide a haven for some different birds, even if only for a couple of days.
I've pretty much avoided politics all my life. After all, I'm just one person and can't influence anything, can I? Just leave it to others. However, we've discovered that everything is political. To get much of anything done at all, it's all about who you know and how much influence you have.
We are continually amazed in this small pond of Albuquerque (well, it's actually the biggest pond in the state) at how connected we have become in a mere four years. If something needs to get done, we generally know the person to contact. It may not always happen but at least we can try.
Here's the important part: give of yourself first. Get active and involved, participate in meetings and hearings on subjects of interest, work on committees, eventually become a member of the board of directors of organizations. You will become a person of influence and authority. And if you've worked to make things happen and helped others along the way, you create a sense of obligation in others. It makes them feel like they owe you, and it's much easier to cash in those favors when you need some help.
In a nutshell, that's politics. It just gets bigger and more complex from there.
Poor Stanley. He went to the conference with us and never got to Disneyland. Wait a minute, neither did I. I had hoped at least to take him to Downtown Disney, but he never even made it out of my laptop case.
Just to prove that I actually was there, here's a picture of Flat Stanley with one of Disney's room amenities. Gotta love the mouse ears on the lotion cap.
I also bought that cute little Mexican hat with Mickey ears--couldn't resist. When I bought it, the sales clerk told me it's the "tiniest hat on earth." A little play on their theme of "the happiest place on earth."
Haiku on haiku
Haiku isn’t hard.
Three lines. Think in syllables.
Just five, seven, five.
No rhyme or meter.
The second line is hardest.
The rest is easy.
Rats. That’s much too long.
It’s all in the choice of
words.
What word can I use?
Concise, clear meaning.
Pare it down to the basics.
Just five, seven, five.
This is the fourth spring I've had this orchid, and it blooms at least every spring, sometimes even one more time later in the year. Right now it has these three lovely flowers on it, and it has buds for two more.
I have no "secrets" for growing orchids. In fact, I generally have a black thumb and kill houseplants if I'm not careful. Somehow I managed to find just the right spot for this one, only water it once a week, and have re-potted it once. It hasn't died on me yet.
I may post more on this later. The situation I'm writing about has not been resolved yet, but I expect it will be soon. Just in case the other person involved happens to read my blog, let's keep it just between you and me for a while, okay?
When I'm upset with someone and afraid that if I speak to them it will all come tumbling out and I'll lose my temper, I just stop speaking to them. I'm not a particularly chatty person by nature, but when I completely stop talking to someone? That's a bad sign.
We're back from the national innkeepers conference. Yes, Virginia, there really is a national association for bed & breakfast owners.
While it was held at Disneyland this year, we never made it any closer than Downtown Disney, mostly just to grab something quick to eat between sessions or events at the conference. And if it wasn't right outside the door of the Disneyland Hotel, we wouldn't have made it to Downtown Disney, either.
As always, the conference was three days packed solid from the keynote speakers or general sessions first thing in the morning, workshops and sessions through the day, well into the evening with networking and social events.
And, for the fourth year, we've already learned during the conference something that will pay back the money we spent on the conference. Some things are so important that our reaction is, "well, that paid for it right there." When you get a few of those, you start to understand why you need to belong to a national association--and ATTEND THE DANG CONFERENCE! (I fail to understand why someone would be a member of an association and then never attend any of the meetings.)
Here's the real problem with this conference: We get so many ideas and so much inspiration to take our operation to the next level that we don't know what to do first. Without exception, every innkeeper I talked to was creating a long list of things to work on, while saying, "now when am I going to have time to work on THAT?"
That's how we were feeling by the end of the conference on Thursday afternoon. Totally overwhelmed, exhausted, energized and worn out all at the same time. So many ideas that the pages of notes go on forever.
Where to start?
Low-hanging fruit--pick something that is the most obvious and easy to accomplish immediately. Immediately you'll feel a sense of accomplishment and be energized to tackle the next task, maybe one a little harder or one that takes a little longer.
We didn't plan it that way, but since the conference ended on Thursday afternoon and we weren't flying back until Friday afternoon, we used Thursday evening as a working session, pulled out our laptops, and tackled that first task of low-hanging fruit.
