The Finch Chronicles: A Mother's Prerogative

We have nesting activity. I repeat, we have nesting activity.

I'm excited, Tim's excited, even Daddy Finch is excited. We have an egg nestled nicely in the nest. I peeked into the nest this morning to see what was happening and saw the little egg sitting in the middle, surrounded by cotton fluff and feathers, generously donated by Louise. I thought I might offer some more cotton because it looked pretty packed in and like it could have used some more smush. So I pull a cotton ball apart and stick it between the bars of the cage. I've learned that they like it better that way - they have developed an "Anna-shall-not-put-ANYTHING-in-our-nest" rule. If I do, they throw it out. I think they like feeling like they're "harvesting" stuff for their nest. So I stuff the cotton between the bars and go about my morning routine. As I pass the cage, I catch Daddy Finch pulling some cotton and putting it in the nest. I thought "Oh, how cute... he's helping!". When I walked by 10 minutes later, Mommy Finch was sitting in the nest, squawking, and throwing the cotton out that Daddy Finch had put in. God bless men, they know not what they do... I guess nest decoration is a mother's prerogative!

Please say a little prayer today - Tim and I have a friend from church who is 24 years old and having a brain tumor removed at this moment... he needs our thoughts and prayers!

This morning there was a car accident on the freeway outside my bedroom window. At 5:30am. The police, ambulance and fire trucks couldn't get through because traffic sucked, so they just sat their with their sirens on. I tried to be mad about it but then remembered that the people in the accident were dealing with a whole lot more than being awakened early. So I went running.

And finally, if you've read this far, leave me a comment! I see my counter moving, but I'm fully convinced that only my mom, Tim, and occasionally Eva love me. It takes two seconds. You can do it!

The Finch Chronicles Part Deux

So, this weekend, I cleaned and rearranged the cage. I moved the nest because it's one of the covered nests, and they kept sitting on top of it instead of in it. My hope was that if I moved it to a place where the top of the nest was wedged against the top of the cage, they would go in instead of on. Two hours later... we have an egg. In the nest. With birds sitting in it. Amazing. This is the type of nest that they can't shove the egg out of, so we'll see how it works out. They seem pretty happy - Louise, of course, is continuing her maid duties while Thelma and Brad nest. One big happy family.

In other news, this weekend was fabulous. Tim and I finally had the chance to hang out again (seems like it's been forever), so Saturday night we went downtown and walked around. It was so mellow and relaxing! He even bought me a rose from a street vendor! :)

I had the bishop here for my mass on Sunday. Boy was I a wreck! Now I know why Annette used to get so fussy before he came... it's a lot of pressure on a director! Fortunately, things went really well!

Oh yes, the ending of the "Cell Phone Chronicles". So Saturday morning I'm sitting with Tim, and what do I go and do? I open my phone. Yes, I know. Against the advice of my Cingular representative. So I open it and it snaps into two pieces. Well, actually three if you count the little tiny metal piece that went flying at Tim. For simplicity sake, let's call it two. So I'm sitting their, holding the pieces of my cell phone and I tell Tim to call me, just for kicks. I have no sound or video, but the phone was still on. Lo and behold, the lights flash. Hilarious. This begins the trek back to Cingular to get a new phone.

Salesperson: "Can I help you today?"

Anna: "I'm looking for a new cell phone."

Salesperson: "Well, do you know which one you want?"

Anna: "I was thinking about a Nokia. I've had some bad luck with the flip phones."

Salesperson: "That's too bad. Well, if you can hold off until the end of April, Nokia will be having some new phones come out."

*Anna holds up two pieces of phone and giggles*

Salesperson: "Oh, well, I guess we're looking today then."

Gotta love salespeople. I ended up with the Nokia 3120. It's a great phone. Doesn't have a boatload of bells and whistles, but I really didn't think I would use them, so I didn't want to pay extra. My favorite part is speakerphone. What an amazing invention!

It looks like I'll be needing a new TV too. Bummer... I was hoping that it was SBC's fault, but apparently, your TV really can pick just one channel to screw the sound up. Go figure it chooses Fox so I can't watch "American Idol". I wonder what's new in the land of TV technology...

Seatbelts As Accessories

Ok, so thanks to Eva, I subscribe to this great newsletter, called LiquidTreat. It's very cool and full of neat little things - for designers and artsy people. Well, in this week's edition, they had arguably one of the coolest things I've seen in my 24 years. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce the seatbelt purse. Yes, you read that correctly, I said seatbelt purse. Apparently, this husband/wife duo were installing seatbelts in their car and thought "Hey, seatbelts are strong They would make great purses!".

I consulted Eva on these awesome accessories and she said she's seen them at LAX - and that they are to die for. I think the coolest part is the names of the colors. They come in Ferrari Red, Limo Black, Beetle Blue, Delorean Silver, Buick Brown, Cadillac Pink, Rally Green, Taxi Cab Yellow, Hummer Green, and Lexus Gold. How cool is that?! Eva said she's also seen an orange one... I wonder what the name of that was?!

If you'd like to check out the purses, go to: http://www.seatbeltbags.com. You'll love them! :)

The other cool but kind of quirky item featured in the newsletter can be found at this link... http://www.littlemissmatched.com. Very interesting!

Day Four

Hello everyone!

Well, I've hit Day 4 of my fitness regime. I'm so tired today. But, I hauled my slightly-less-jiggly booty out of bed at 6am for the 4th day in a row and am feeling pretty good about running. I'm staying at a 9:30 mile for now... I may try to speed that up, but after nearly two years of not running courtesy of my foot, I'm trying to ease into it. I'm not even really that sore... although my calves feel a little tight. Let me make one recommendation: if you don't have an iPod, GET ONE. They are the greatest invention ever! Seriously, I have 3500 songs on mine... that's more than enough to make my 9 1/2 minutes of pain go by very quickly.

I've caved and gone to Starbucks twice this week. I chalk it off to the fact that I'm running again, but realistically, according to the treadmill, I only burn 100 calories on my mile run. Now, I know that exercise also boosts your resting metabolism and stuff, but I'm not sure if it's enough to tackle a grande white chocolate _mocha and an apple crisp. Although, I have been ordering it non-fat lately because I can't taste the difference, so I figure, why not? *sigh* This watching what you eat thing is too hard. I'm over it. I'm down to running and eating what sounds good. It worked before, it should work now. I just can't pass up the animal style fries at In-N-Out, no matter how hard I try. Yes, I know that the fries have more calories than my burger. I just really don't care. They taste good that way!

I'm seriously considering starting a "Dear Anna" column on here. In the past few days, three of my close friends have come to me for advice about serious/life altering situations in their lives. I'm honored, but I wonder why everyone thinks I have it all figured out... I'm hoping advice I give doesn't backfire... Don't hate me if you've asked me for advice and it doesn't work out! :)

Cell Phones...

Ahh... technology...

*sigh*

So I'm in the market for a new cell phone. Tim and I are both in the market. As it turns out, the phone that you end up getting for free with the plan is not the best investment. Yes, it's free. However, it breaks at the hinges and you slowly but surely lose the screen on it... I literally have to hold it together while I talk... the top half of the phone is held together by wires and the itty bitty piece of plastic that's left. In talking to Cingular (whom I love by the way - I seriously recommend their service!) I discovered that I am not eligible to upgrade my phone until December. Here's the conversation that ensued:

Anna: "Well, honestly, do you think my phone will last until then?" (opening phone for clerk to see)

Clerk: "Not if you keep doing that."

Anna: "Opening it?"

Clerk: "Yeah."

So apparently, my phone will make it to December, as long as I don't open it...

In other news, apparently I'm a klutz today. Like really bad. If I could drop it, I did. Then, I was installing our new backup unit at work (apparently my job title is now account coordinator/house technician). The darn thing weighs 60 pounds... which isn't THAT heavy for me. Well, didn't seem like it until I stepped on the cord. I then tripped and barely caught the thing... pinning it between my leg and the table. So now I have a beautiful big blue bruise the size of my silver dollar fish on my left thigh. Way to go, Anna.

The Three Musketeers

It must suck to be the third wheel...

... you always get pooped on. Literally in Louise's case. Yes, that's her, the light gray one underneath the other two. Poor thing. She's also the maid... she squawks when the water is low or they need more food. All work and no play.

So I watched "The Notebook" tonight. Yes, I cried. Poor Tim came in about 3/4 of the way through, so he:

1. Had no idea what was going on.
2. Had no idea why I was crying about it.
3. Didn't really care what it was about.

lol... it was a pretty good movie, although kind of predictable and a little on the cheesy side. That's coming from someone who reads romance novels. :)

The rest of my day was kind of bland. I am very proud of myself. I went to bed early last night and got up early today to run. Day 1 of my training regimen. My goal is 5 days this week. We'll see how that goes...

The Three Musketeers