I have been very busy lately and haven’t taken a lot of time to watch the chrysalises much. One disappeared one day – I guess something got it. :( There were still 4 chrysalises on the upper doorframe, out of the way (except for all the spider webs nearby). Yesterday as I came in the door I noticed that the chrysalises had turned dark – which meant the butterfiles were getting ready to hatch.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at them a few minutes ago and there were two butterflies hanging out drying their wings! They hatched! And I think they hatched much faster than last year – though I may have been paying so much attention that the days went by slowly last year. Two weeks from caterpillar to butterfly! I wish I would turn my life around that fast. I think the other two will hatch tonight or tomorrow. The weather is nice so once the dry, they will fly away.

I am just thankful that I got to see them again this year. :)

(Pictures later) 2 weeks ago

visited 38 states (16.8%)Create your own visited map of The World or jurisdische vertaling duits?

Places I have been. How many of these places would I like to revisit? My next map will be places I want to go!! 3 weeks ago

These are all the states I have visited to date.
visited 47 states (94%)Create your own visited map of The United States or jurisdische vertaling duits?

One day I will accomplish my goal of riding my bicycle in every state in the U.S.! I think I will make a bicycling map and post it! Fun!! 3 weeks ago

Yesterday I had 5 caterpillars hanging in their “J” formation, and today I look and see 5 chrysalises! That was FAST. Just think of all the things that had to happen for this transformation to take place.

The caterpillars had to develop their hard chrysalis shell, they had to lose their head (the curved part of the “J”), they had to split open and discard their legs and soft caterpillar body. All of this in less than 48 hours. Wow, if only humans could change that fast. ;)

I love watching this process. It just keeps me in awe of nature. 4 weeks ago

I am so happy! Last year I had the pleasure of watching caterpillars turn into chrysalises, and then hatch out as butterflies. I was fascinated with the process, and I was hoping that I would get to see the process again this year. Well today my cat was looking at something on the living room floor, and when I investigated, it was a caterpillar. (The weather is wonderful today so I had the door open and screen door closed.) I picked it up and took it outside and then saw 7 caterpillars around my front door! They’re back!! :)

Between last year and this year I had torn out a lot of the front yard and replaced the area with a brick patio. I was hoping that I had left enough of the mourning cloaks habitat that they would return – and they have. Oddly enough, I hadn’t seen a caterpillar until today – even though I left some milkweed growing in my yard to feed the larvae.

These are not pretty caterpillars, but they are “my” caterpillars! The photo is from wikipedia.

2. I gave 11 Kiva loans to people in 6 countries. Kiva makes me so happy. :)

3. I made seven Vittana loans to women who are pursuing university degrees in other countries. Because I have visited some of the countries and I know how difficult it is for women to get educations in some areas, this is an important goal for me. 4 weeks ago

Had AT&T fix my internet at home so it is faster!! Yeah!

Went to the movies with my niece. We saw “Lincoln”, what a great film! I highly recommend that everyone see if when they have the chance.

Got rid of two boxes of papers from the house. :) Progress!! 1 month ago

A fantastic day where I had time to lay in the hammock and enjoy the lovely weather.

My car was cleaned inside and out and looks great!

Walking with a friend.

Kale salad for dinner that my friend made – delicious!!

Time spent working on my house so it is comfortable and clean!!! 1 month ago

movies with my niece and her boyfriend. Fun to share this with them.

Wonderful weather so I spent time outside.

Got a fair amount of work done on my new project. I was going to take a day off, so this was a bonus to get so much accomplished. 3 months ago

When I started this goal, it was to force me to focus on the positive aspects of my life. And it worked, though some days it proved challenging to find three items. Lately I haven’t written much on this goal and the reason is found under my other goals. As I have changed my attitude, there are now far more positive things going on in my life than negative. So each day I have entries for my other goals that list the great experiences I am enjoying.

Coffee with friends. Significantly improved health. New project at work with nice people supporting it. Sunny days. Good books, thoughtful movies, the cats, great neighbors, etc. The list goes on and on. :)

I have been fortunate to have three positive things happen before lunch, every day, since the year started. Hummingbirds are visiting the camellias. I enjoy eating breakfast on my patio. Walking around the Rose Bowl. Seeing more friends at work. It’s all good.

Life is good, and it is getting better every day!!! 3 months ago

Rainy days lately. This provides an opportunity to wear my colorful jacket that I love but is too warm much of the time. It gets lots of compliments since it is a Pendleton.

Got out for a walk today. I enjoyed that because I am fond of walking around the Rose Bowl. Stopped at TJs afterwards and stocked up on cheese and such. I want to make grilled cheese on the little grill so I bought several types of cheese to experiment.

Good music! Top it off with a good cup of coffee and life is almost perfect!! :) 3 months ago

The glasses I bought in December arrived in the post! I had an appointment with my chiropractor and he wanted some of the glasses, so I ended up with four pair. I’ll stick with these for a while and then I can buy more if I want.

Chiro app’t was good. Lots of things for us to talk about besides health matters. I enjoy the appointments, but I need to schedule a business appointment so we don’t spend all the time talking shop.

Work was fine. Quiet and relaxed. Got stuff done since it was so quiet. That is always good. 4 months ago

Beautiful day! I walked around the Rose Bowl and it was very different than yesterday with all the people. I stopped and enjoyed the roses that grow along the east side of the stadium. They had bloomed, even with the small amount of sunlight they get in the winter. And I saw the woodpeckers who frequent the area.

I cooked, which I am doing a bit more these days. (Trying to clan out the cupboards by eating everything up.) I enjoy cooking when I have the time.

I talked with one of my neighbors, which I always enjoy. She isn’t feeling well so the conversation was short. It is nice to have neighbors I get along with. 4 months ago

My favorite “Pasadena” holiday! While I love Thanksgiving because of the idea, the food, and getting together with friends and family, I love New Years in Pasadena! The morning started out with clouds, and cleared by the time the Rose Bowl game started, but it was cold! OK, cold by my standards. ;)

Traffic was light, and instead of parking at the Rose Bowl, we parked at my friend’s house and walked to the game. It was less than a mile, and was a nice walk. The game was exciting/boring/exciting so there was time to talk with other fans and enjoy the scenery. Stanford was victorious so I was happy about the outcome. Wisconsin played a good game.

And the absolute highlight was the flyover of the stealth bomber. It comes at you as a knife edge outline, and flies very low over the Rose Bowl. Totally cool, and I never get tired of watching it because it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Add some excellent music from my collection which I haven’t listened to in a while, and the day was PERFECT!

Happy 2013 to EVERYONE on 43Things. I hope that we all make tremendous progress on our goals this year! 4 months ago

A wonderful curry that my friend made (her first time making curry!) She is an excellent cook, and the curry was as good as I anything I would get in a restaurant.

A great session at the chiropractor’s. We tried some new treatments, and also discussed some plans for 2013.

I feel like my life is really coming together now! My friend even commented on how much happier I am these days. If I can end 2012 on a high note, that encourages me for a great 2013!! 4 months ago

A BEAUTIFUL day at the beach and a wonderful lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. Yummy! And you couldn’t design better scenery than we had looking out of the windows at the islands.

Hot soup with my Sister in the evening. The soup was delicious. It was nice to have the energy so I could stay and talk for a while, instead of rushing home.

The cats all came in when I needed them to so I could leave for the day. No fuss, all well behaved. :)

A great way to almost end the year! 4 months ago

Games party with friends. Fun to get together with coworkers who I don’t spend a lot of time with at work. Interesting how people interacted outside of work as well.

I stayed out later than I have in a long time. It was nice to not be exhausted at 10 p.m. 5 months ago

Neighborhood Holiday party was a success! We have held a neighborhood holiday party for the past decade, however the responsibility usually fell on two families. This year I didn’t want them to have to do the majority of the work so I offered to organize the event. My email requests for help fell on mostly deaf ears, however I just decided that the party would go on, and whatever happened would be fine.

One neighbor helped out with some last minute tasks. And I got permission to use the local school so setup and clean up was easier. The party went off without any problems, and the people who showed up had a great time. Best of all some of the new neighbors attended and were very excited that we have parties like this!

Waiting in line at the local big box store, I had two items to buy. The gentleman in front of me offered to let me go ahead of him – which was very nice. The woman in front of me decided to go buy another item while she was checking out, and it took a while. I was a bit frustrated and the gentleman said “Everything for a reason.” That got me thinking. He had let me get in front of him. He wasn’t bothered by her taking a long time. Why should I get upset about it? I took a couple of deep breathes and just chilled. It all worked out in the end, and I didn’t leave the store upset.

I just feel better! Mentally, physically, emotionally. It makes a difference and I like how I feel these days. 5 months ago

Qi Gong in the morning at a local park. It was different, mostly I loved being outdoors. :)

I cooked breakfast and ate on my patio. Wonderful! Warm, sunny, quiet, relaxing. I love to eat outdoors.

Walk/run around the Rose Bowl. I haven’t run in well over a year, and I just decided to walk/run today. The first mile was tough. My body was trying to figure out how to run again. I focused on being relaxed, and keeping my heart rate down. Plus I changed out the songs on my ipod, so new music was a bonus!!

I made Runzas with the filling I had frozen after I made the first batch. They are tasty! Yum. I tried a different biscuit mix, which was a bit greasy. Next time I make them I will use bread dough. That should be perfect.

Great music this evening. Listened to some more scripts. My legs are sore but life is GOOD! 5 months ago

Football at the Rose Bowl – UCLA vs Stanford. Since UCLA has already qualified for the PAC 12 Championship this game was an odd one. I expected Stanford to win (they did), however now both teams will play each other next week. Strategy wise, this has to be a tough decision for UCLA. The weather was nice, the crowd was friendly, and the game was pretty good (except for all the fouls UCLA collected!!)

I bought two hypnosis downloads and listened to them this morning. They were good, maybe a little thin in content. Still, they should help me.

I found some free hypnosis downloads after I bought the two mentioned above. I’ll try out the free ones for a while and then decide if I want to purchase more, or make my own mp3s.

So it was a positive day all around. An quite warm for late November. 5 months ago

Breakthrough on animal communication!! I understand how this works for me and I was getting solid confirmed responses. Yeah! When I got home last night, my cat was meowing at me and I finally understood that she wanted a water dish in another part of the house because she was getting ambushed trying to get to the kitchen. That explained so much of her behavior.

It was a perfect day to spend outdoors. We ate lunch on some picnic tables under the trees. It was relaxing and beautiful. Someone said we were having a picnic, and I laughed because that has been on my list for so long. (But I am not counting that as my picnic.)

I am very content and happy. Things are falling into place in terms of thoughts, goals, vision, etc.

Today was a very educational day for me. Thank you everyone who contributed! 6 months ago

First day of the animal communication class. Amazing what the other students were sensing. I did very well, but since I just “sensed” things, I wasn’t as sure of my answers. Later in the class the instructor mentioned how she gets answers and when I tried that approach, my answers became more accurate.

The weather was perfect – sunny, warm, a great day to be in the foothills and enjoying the outdoors. I really needed a weekend away from home. It was so relaxing.

I woke up this morning feeling like I was my own best friend. I even made up a little song to sing to myself. Silly? Who cares. It felt good and made me happy.

I got to spend some time looking at the stars in the evening. It was wonderful to just enjoy star gazing for a while.

A WONDERFUL day! 6 months ago

“Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.”
- William Butler Yeats (From 43Things)

I was going to take the day off of work, but the weather turned cold and I decided to stay indoors instead. I spent the afternoon in my new office, and saw more people I hadn’t seen in a while. It is so nice to renew friendships at work!! I helped one lady with some questions about some applications I had created, but someone else is now overseeing. They were general questions about how things worked. She was very grateful for my assistance, and it was nice to be able to clarify things for her.

I had my chiro app’t and he tested a big combination of allergies together. Basically it was a pizza, yeast, gluten, casein, and grain mix. I had passed the individual items, but when they were grouped it was more than my body could handle.

I spent the evening listening to a self-hypnosis audio file I had purchased. It was very good, my only problem is I fall asleep during the sessions – and I am sitting up! I woke up and realized the file had been on a loop, so I don’t know how many times I had listened to it. :)

It seems to be helping as I slept really well. 6 months ago

Pizza for lunch from the little “Mom and Pop” place in town. It was good and the owner was nice this time. The place is small, the pizza is tasty but the owners usually lack personality. Today, he was friendly. Maybe he has to get to recognize you before he is nice?

I made runzas! I found some recipes online, and selected the one that looked easy and tasty. I changed things up a bit, used biscuits instead of bread dough, and added poultry seasoning since I didn’t have sage. They turned out very good fresh from the oven. I can see that I would like the flavor better with bread dough. And somewhere someone said they used cream of mushroom soup for a gravy. I think that would make them even better. There is frozen mix in the freezer, and two partially cooked runzas for reheating later this week. :) :)

A wonderfully nice day today. I spent most of it indoors, reading, but I had all the windows and doors open so the warm air heated up the house. 6 months ago

All day class on lab. Tired and cold (Why are rooms so darn cold??) made it difficult to stay focused on the material. Even with these drawbacks the class was interesting and I learned valuable information.

I saw a lot of people I used to work with, and haven’t seen in ages. That was nice.

A hot cup of coffee after class from the fancy K cup machine in the big boss’s area when I was talking with my friend.

I certainly enjoy being back where there are more people!! 6 months ago

High School Football! I went to a local game between two teams I kind of follow. One team isn’t very good (it’s the closest H.S. to my house which is why I follow them), and the other team is pretty good. I enjoyed the game, even if it was a blowout. There were more fans than usual. It was homecoming for the home team, so the half time was interesting.

The fans I was sitting with were nice. I did feel bad for the home team when they fumbled twice in the other team’s red zone. And each time the turnover resulted in a touchdown.

Some of the kids are very good players. Most are average, but they played hard. And for $6 it’s a great way to spend an evening.

I had lunch at my favorite Japanese restaurant. The food was good, though I am noticing that my tastebuds are changing. It was nice to get out and not have to fight crowds at lunchtime.

It was another HOT day! I like it but seriously, this is October after all. :0 7 months ago

I attended a talk on IT security. The speaker spoke too quickly, and the topic was fairly specific, however he had some good points that got me thinking.

I enjoyed a cup of coffee outside, talking with a friend I haven’t seen in quite a while. It is nice to be back where I can spend some time with people I used to work with.

And I went visiting to see some coworkers who I haven’t seen in a while. Lots of catching up to do since I have been off site for 6+ months.

And there were some beautiful dark grey rain clouds in the sky. Very dramatic when they were lit by the sun, against the mountains. And the clouds turned a nice pink at sunset. We have been getting REAL weather, which makes for a nice sky. :) 7 months ago

A sunny, HOT, beautiful day. I went for a walk around the Rose Bowl and stopped at a small rose garden. There were doves and starlings(?) digging in the mulch looking for food. The roses had a few blooms on them and it was a perfect day to sit quietly and enjoy nature.

I had a chiro app’t this afternoon. It went quickly. Then I stopped at Big Lots and bought a bunch more energy drinks that I like.

Sheba came running up to me when I got home. She was ready to come inside and eat dinner. What a sweet cat! 7 months ago

Way behind on this goal.

Today I had a iced coffee with a friend from work. We talked and it was nice to just catch up.

I sat outside and read a book after work. A bunch of tiny birds were flying in and out of the tree and rose bushes, looking for bugs I think. They darted about and chirped at each other to keep track of who was where.

Some ladies walked by on the sidewalk and my cats weren’t afraid!! Progress. They like to be outside with me but also get skittish when people are nearby. 8 months ago

Pranic Healing with a friend. I did another treatment on her and her adrenals were not as hot as last time. She said she is feeling better and her chiropractor commented that she is making progress.

I also scanned my neighbor’s dog. He has a very energetic energy field.

We had dinner and just talked for a while. It was nice. 8 months ago

Nice weather in Ventura. I spent some time in the pool which I enjoy. It’s a large, warm pool so you can swim or just relax. I did some of each.

Talked with my Dad more. And scheduled an appointment for him on Wednesday with a Body Talk specialist. I want to see how this works.

Had a good drive home. It got hotter as I got closer to Pasadena. :( This is not our summer weather and I want it to stop!! 8 months ago