Bragging, humming, publishing

Janelle still doesn't quite get that bragging is not a good thing. One time, Jed told her to read the book about bragging. And she replied, "I don't need to read it. I already know how to brag." Heh...

We have birds nesting in the backyard again. There were two nests. One was of house finches (I think), in the same juniper tree. The other is of hummingbirds (really cool!) and it's on the wind chime. I guess they like being swung around constantly.

As you may have noticed, I said they WERE two nests. Sadly, yesterday, we found the finch nest on the ground, torn into chunks and with one egg that never hatched. There were already three, I think, that hatched. It was hard to tell because the last time I looked, I couldn't make out the parts of their still-almost-naked bodies. But I believe I saw three yellow beaks at one point. Anyway, we're guessing a crow had invaded the nest again. :( Could have been the rain but that wouldn't explain where they are now. (Update: we saw the parents come back over lunch today. The dad checked out the nest... twice. So sad.)

The hummingbirds, however, are still there. There are two of them. We've even seen the mother feed them multiple times now. She comes shortly before 1 pm at lunch time. Yesterday, it was at 12:50 pm. This morning, I saw her again... just past 7... breakfast! Even the finches came to feed their babies at lunch. By the way, from what I've read online, only the mother hummingbird takes care of the kids, unlike the finches. (Update: Janelle said she saw two hummingbirds chasing each other and she thought they were the parents. If they really were, I guess the dad is still in the relationship but just doesn't want anything to do with the kids.)

This morning, I saw one of the little hummers flying in place. So, it won't be long before they leave their nest.

Blogger.com is discontinuing FTP publishing starting May 1st. I will need to use some other mechanism. Please pardon any dust (or a blackout) during the migration. I have yet to figure out what to do exactly. (Update: FTP is giving me problems now. I remember having the same problems last time. It's probably intentional so people would stop using it. Anyway, you may or may not see this post before the migration.) (Update 2: Migration is done. I couldn't figure out the custom domain route so I just picked blogspot for now. I will probably switch to some other blogging site later on. We'll see...)

Love and light to all.
E

P.S. I would like to give a shout-out to my cousin, Mayan, whom I recently exchanged emails with. God bless you and your hubby always!

Time to breathe

Finally had time to breathe. Taking this chance to blog entries that I have accumulated on my to-blog list. I'll make this as quick as possible.

1. I use (although not as regularly anymore) a service called reQall that lets you dictate items you want to add to your to-do list. It's pretty accurate but it does goof up at times. This one is the funniest. And for the life of me, I could not remember what I dictated... until I logged on to the site, where you could actually listen to your recording. And it made sense after that:

Call doctor about train regarding Caroline.

I know. :) Well, that was my reminder to call our dentist (whose name apparently sounded like "about train") about our caroling. Our choir was going to sing carols at her office. (See how dated this is. Christmas.)

2. I once saw some $50 gift certs on Amazon and bids on it were as high as $66. Why?

3. You know the free shuttle service that car dealers provide when you bring your car in for service? The driver of the Honda dealer we go to owns and drives a Ford.

4. There's a guy at Costco that has always reminded me of our friend Roehl. And I recently happened to see his badge. His name is Roel. Holy synchronicity!

5. Possibly due to our frequent and long practices for caroling, my throat began hurting. It got me worried. I eventually had it checked out. It was nothing. Hmm, I forget exactly what the doctor said it could be. But it was nothing to worry about. Right after the visit, it just went away. Power of the mind, baby. Don't underestimate it.

6. On 1/8, I got a notification from Where's George that a bill I registered 304 days prior had reached Brooklyn, NY.

7. Janelle loved (and still do?) the Chippettes (sp?) so much that she started singing like one. But I think we've managed to snap her out of it.

8. There was a power outage on 1/24. Not having anything else to do, we sat down and played scrabble and snakes and ladders, with a lamp and a candle alongside. Our first ever board game night. Sad that it took a power outage to have us sit down together as family and do it. It was actually pretty fun. But of course, we'd still rather have the power back.

9. I have this entry "heavyweight knives but they are really not" on my to-blog list. I think I know what it means but it doesn't seem as amusing anymore so let's move on. :)

10. One time on the freeway, Janelle, seeing a down-arrow sign (which says to go straight ahead), asked "How are we going down when there's no road going down?". :) Then she saw another sign with a right arrow (indicating an exit) and said, "That I understand". :)

11. On 2/13, we went to Chabot Space Center with my college friend Joey. We stayed until the telescope viewing at night. We got to see Mars (the polar cap... wow!), the Orion nebula, some star cluster, and the pleides (I actually don't remember what they are... must be another nebula or star cluster... a googling is in order). It was really cool and yeah, temperature-wise, too.

12. 3/14 was pi day. Up until 3/9, I only knew the first six digits of pi. Jed's Math teacher forwarded a few YouTube links of people that had memorized up to 523 or something digits. The Guinness record is actually some 60,000+. Ever the nerd, that inspired me to do some memorizing myself. That same day, I memorized the first 50. And I'm up to 66, I think. But I haven't been practicing. Gotta get back into it. Jed and Janelle have also shared the "passion"... well, I kinda forced them... I think Jed can do 20 or 30+ and Janelle, 20+ I think.

13. Speaking of passion, my latest desire is to learn the guitar. I got my learning pack (Steve McKay) from Barnes & Noble. I got a guitar song book from Target (in the clearance section... hehe). But I don't have the actual guitar yet. :) Last night, I pulled Jed's guitar out from the playroom closet. It's too small though. Gotta get a real one. Let's see where this passion takes me. I've semi-officially given up on piano.

14. On 2/22, we went to visit two other college friends (Ger and Cynths) and their families in Ohio. We had fun. Snow all around. We even went to the zoo in the snow. Who does that? Well, there were a few other people there. So, we're not crazy... not totally at least. It was actually okay. Better than rain. A lot of animals were surprisingly out. We saw a tiger and some really cute lion cubs, for example. And the snow backdrop made for some really good shots (at least based on my standards).

I think that's about it. 'Til next breath. :)

Ever