I have a problem...

I am one of those kinds of people that try to read...well, what looks like a million books at once! Ever so often I will get so captivated by a book that I can't put it down and I'll actually finish it. But most get added to one of these giant stacks near the chair in my room. It's bad. It's like a disease. Emily made it worse by giving me a Kindle for Christmas. Oh dear. If anyone knows of a cure, would you please pass on that valuable information?
The other day I tried to clear out the books that I'm DEFINITELY not reading right now. I think I made a significant dent. Emily was not so impressed. What do you think?

The red box IS in the first picture. In case you were wondering.

Empire State Building

These aren't great pictures, but I wanted to post this to show how much I'm loving my new lamp from Carly's yard sale! Here's the shadow it casts on the wall:

Here it is in daytime:

And at night:

The pictures definitely don't do it justice, but it fits in my room so much better than I had even imagined. Thanks again, Carly!

Mad About...

Vintage bicycles!

Good thing my birthday is coming up and this is the one thing I asked for! I can just picture cruising down some street in Ventura on a warm summer day with a nice crisp beachy breeze...mmmm....

Pink Dinosaur

Most kids have a favorite stuffed animal growing up. For normal kids it's a teddy bear or a dog or maybe even a floppy bunny. But for me it was a pink dinosaur. That's all I wanted for Christmas of 1989. My mom searched high and low wondering where she was ever going to find it, but she finally did in the gift shop at the end of the dinosaur ride at Knott's Berry Farm.
The pink dinosaur was aptly named, Pink Dinosaur. For a short while it seemed that she needed a more...clever name, so I changed it to Christine, after my middle name, but it didn't last. Deep down I already knew she was dubbed Pink Dinosaur. Changing her name was like....changing her personality. That's right. I said personality. Just like Toy Story or Muppet Babies, our stuffed animals came to life, when we played with them, and maybe even when we left the room. ;)
Here's what Pink Dinosaur was like the day I got her: And here's poor Pink Dinosaur now...

Poor Pink has clearly seen better days. No more toenails, no more purse or presents. (I cut those off about 5 minutes after I opened her.) No more eyelashes or kissy lips or even pupils! But I still love her!

Five O'clock Bird

If this picture looks strange to you, it's because this doesn't happen. Dogs are not allowed on my bed, let alone in my room. But sometimes, I'm driven to take drastic measures. Allow me to explain...

For the last few years, come springtime, I have had a little visitor oustide my window. RIGHT outside my window. One of my favorite things about my bedroom is the window. There is a wide ledge that I could turn into a window seat except that it's a little too high off the ground and would look strange. Instead my bed is set right against it so that I can lean on a pillow and look outside ever so often as I read. My favorite time to do this is right after I get home from work. The sun is at the perfect spot so that it shines through the tree outside my room and highlights the little fuzzy white things floating around that cause all kinds of allergies. Anyway, it looks beautiful. And the little visitor comes around at this time and I appreciate him. He adds to the moment. I always call these moments "glimpses of Heaven."

But at five o'clock in the morning, we're talkin' a whole different ballgame. At five o'clock in the morning, I can't stand that little bird. I often pray harm on him. I imagine someone marching out of their house and chucking a stone at him. Or you know, I just pray that he will fly away. (I may or may not have yelled at him.)

On Monday morning I was in the midst of the previously described scene when somewhere downstairs I heard a bark. And for a millisecond, the bird stopped. "Chirp chirp chirp TWEET, chirp chirp chirp TWEET, chirp chirp BARK ---- chirp TWEET."

I thought it just might solve everything. Maybe if I invited Tacy onto my bed, she would hear the annoying bird and bark at it and it would fly away. So I called for her. And I got this.

I don't know if you can see this very well. But it's a faceful of slobbery dog. And that's all I got. No bark. No bite. Just dog and bird and no sleep.
On my way to work I stopped by Starbucks to get some oatmeal and there were these cute little birds outside chirping and hopping around and I was thinking of how God even takes care of them and feeds them and their chirping in the morning is probably out of hunger and I felt just a tad...guilty. At least until five o'clock the next morning.