Happy Birthday Karen!!

Today, 26 years ago, at 00:16 or so in the morning (I may be a bit foggy on the details given what I had just been through!) we welcomed an 8 pound 3 ounce baby girl into our lives! Karen, I love you so very much, and I am so very proud of you. I have felt a little sad today, because at 26, you can't really just have a birthday, unless your job-school-life-in-general decides to cooperate. So instead of singing and candles and general merriment, you have a day full of school, work, class projects, term papers, theses (pleural intentional - 3 in fact), and NO TIME FOR A BIRTHDAY! From a little squirming pile of little baby googoo, to this:


(Karen and Laurie)
I am a truly fortunate woman. I love my kids, my kids love me. I love watching their lives unfold.

Happy Birthday Karen!! We'll celebrate right after you toss that graduation cap in the air on May 28!

One other thought, completely off subject. I basically staple my pants to the floor and stay in my office all day.....I put bird feeders outside my window to kinda brighten up the vast wasteland that is my unfinished back yard. (Doesn't really count as a UFO (UnFinishedObject) because it has never been started!)

Today I noticed a bird that was pulling at a bit of cotten stuck on one feeder. I raced outside and clothespinned cotton balls to the oriole feeder, just for grins. The goldfinch was delighted.


He came back and proceeded to rip the cotton balls to pieces. A hummingbird staked one out and also made off with clumps of cotton, but I couldn't catch him with the camera. Here you see the goldfinch, upper right corner of the cotton balls, peering at you with a piece big enough to resemble Santa's beard....see his little black eyes peering at you?



Then he hopped to the left, sat on a clothespin and posed for me.....and took off!



Cute! (I apologize for shooting through the open window screen....Must think of a way to avoid that next time...)
Back to work for me.....