Target

"Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain." - Doug Coupland

Yesterday, I went to Shaw's Cove in Laguna Beach.  I grew up here, but I don't think I've ever been there before.  Like 1000 Steps, you have a long staircase to traverse to get to the beach (58 steps, with camera gear, ugh!).  Its a small cove often used for scuba classes but I was mostly alone and company was few and far between.  It was a very low tide so a perfect time to check out the tide pools.

 

 

Today, I indulged in a couple of my Orange County favorites. First stop, A's Burgers for some fried zucchini with ranch dressing and a root beer. These are not your ordinary fried zucchini. A's slices them long ways and they are long sticks of fried gushy goodness, dripping in ranch.

Conveniently, the second is right down the street.  I love to go to the jetty at Dana Point Harbor.  It's so peaceful and usually attack free.  Except this time.  I took my yummy zucchini and went out to the jetty to sit on a bench and watch the waves.  I was just about to put a zuccini in my mouth when a sea gull swooped down and tried to steal it from me!  Right out of my mouth!  Bonking me on the head with it's wing for good measure.  Cheeky bugger!  It didn't get it, but at that point I didn't want it any more so I threw it into the air and the bird caught it before I could blink.  Wow.

Then, suddenly, there were two gulls.  Then four.  Then seven.  And more coming.  Ummm.  Yeah.  I finished my zucchini in the car.

California Here I Come...

"You can't go home again" - Thomas Wolfe

I'm off to California to visit my parents.  It's nice going home again, visit my friends, places I used to hang out.  And Southern California is a landscape photographer's nirvana.

It was overcast and rainy my first day, Saturday, but stormy weather always offers stunning sunsets if it clears.

 

Sunday morning was cloudy and gray.  With visions of fog shrouded sea shots, I headed for the San Clemente Pier, but not my luck.  Instead of fog, I just got overcast gray.  But the sun did peek out a few times.   
 

Southern California family activity

 

San Clemente Pier

 

A portrait of a local.

 

 

 
On Sunday afternoon we went to a production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two at the Laguna Playhouse.  The playhouse often puts on fantastic productions and this was no exception.  It was clever, funny, and well acted and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The theater, of course, doesn't allow flash photography, but I snuck in a quick shot, sans flash, at the intermission, of the wonderful set.

Conscious Choices

 After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully.  After five years, look at it with suspicion.  And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.  ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958

I follow a financial blog called The Simple Dollar and yesterday’s post was about “Training Your Intuition” and how to basically make good choices you can trust. 

First, you have to take a serious look at the choices you’re making and be willing to say, “Yes, I am making poor decisions.”

Of course, he was speaking mostly of financial decisions but it also lends itself to any decision in life.  In my case, how I spend my time on a daily basis.

look for a single decision that you make regularly in the wrong direction. It could be anything. Maybe you come home from work and vegetate for too long.

This is me.  I make a decision to come home from work and turn on the TV and stay there until it’s time to go to bed - ignoring housework, friends, studying, writing, taking pictures.  All those other choices I COULD be making on how to spend my time.

IT IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION.

Whenever I approach one of those decision points, I attempt to do things as close to my visualization as possible. The goal is to make the “right” way of doing things feel like the natural way of doing it.

At some point, your conscious decision becomes an unconscious habit.  My next goal is to work on consciously changing that old habit.  Visualize the life I want to be living and make appropriate choices on how to spend my time in accordance with the life I want.

Busy, Busy

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau

I thought it was supposed to SLOW DOWN after the holidays.  I've been busier than ever.  It seems like everything is coming to a head all at once.

I am studying for my certification exam.  I hope to take it by the end of February and have a LOT of studying to do.  It seems my first exam was a cakewalk next to this one, the material being exponentially more difficult.  (At least in my opinion and I finished at the top of my class for the first one!)

I am scrambling to get this trip to Scotland planned so I can make reservations before every place gets booked up for the season.  The Alaska trip seemed a lot easier to plan than this one.  Alaska sort of lends itself to where you are going and what you will do when you get there.  Go to Anchorage = take a glacier cruise.  Up to Fairbanks?  Stop at Denali.

But the Hebrides are many, many islands with many places of interest across them.  Do I visit this castle or that standing stone?  This village or that one?  Stick to the Outer Hebrides or stop off in Mull?  Some of the smaller, less known islands?  Does the ferry even run on the day I want to get off that island?  Geesh!

I'm going to visit my parents in a couple weeks so I have to clean my place.  One cannot leave a messy house when travelling.

Before I go, I have to get my cats to the vet, and myself off to the dentist.  Not to mention a training webinar I have to attent for my future Red Cross volunteering.  And every book I was on a waiting list for at the library has come in all at once.  And since there are people on the lists after me, I can't renew them so I have to read them ASAP!

This is what I get for wanting to stop being a couch potato!

At least I'm being treated to some beautiful (if COLD!) mornings on my walks.  (sorry, most pictures from walks are taken with an iPhone so the quality is pretty bad.)