I live in the very definition of the ‘burbs. The middle of Southern California, with nothing but a few dozen carefully maintained parks, two golf courses, and a settling basin or two left as a reminder of the “wilds”.

I’ve done what I can to bring the “wilds” a little bit closer; I have two bird feeders, and I encourage the rather dimwitted dove pair that like to nest on my front porch to remain by using my garage door when they’re around. (They had six babies this year.)

Suburban as the area is, I am constantly surprised by what I see in my own backyard. These pictures are all ones I’ve taken inside my yard within the past six months. In addition to these critters, I’ve seen a heron perched on my backyard wall where it could gaze longingly at the koi pond next door. I once flushed what I thought was a cat while I was watering, only to realize that it was a possum when it nearly stepped on my foot. (And yes, that one of the doves, dead, beneath the hawk’s tail on the lower right. Circle of life, right?)

On the way home from my parents’ house (about three miles from mine), I once had to hit the brakes to avoid a skunk crossing the road, and I once saw a coyote crossing the nearby railroad tracks.

I love my “wild” backyard and the surprises I see when I look outside.

Do you have a “wild” backyard? Which animals have visited you there? Do you encourage your wild neighbors, or prefer to have them stay away?

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I’m just back from the RWA conference in Orlando, Florida, a conference of over 2000 women. Two thousand women. TWO THOUSAND WOMEN.

Women, and I’m speaking historically here, have a love/hate relationship with mirrors. I’m thinking the love stage lasts until about the age of six; after that, we find FLAWS, DEFECTS, ABNORMALITIES. This is when we enter the hate phase of our relationship with mirrors, a phase I have not passed through yet so I can’t console anyone else about its eventual passing. I’m hoping someone out there will console me. Will I? Will I ever learn to love the image in the mirror?

I want to. I want to be this cat. I want to look in the mirror and see a LION. A fierce, beautiful, confident lion of a woman. I want to love the woman I see there. I want to roar! This goes beyond the physical image. This tiny cat sees a predator, a top-of-the-food-chain, power cat. A thunder cat! When do I get to be that? When I choose to be that?

I think so. The truth about mirrors is that they only show us what we want to see, what we expect to see. The real mirror is in our minds. The real truth of who we are, we get to decide about ourselves and for ourselves.

I am Thunder Cat! Hear me roar!!

What do you see when you look in the mirror? How would you describe your personality?

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You may be too young to remember the days of Green Stamps, but Dh and I can recall how our grandmothers collected stamps from grocery stores, then pasted the stamps into books and redeemed them for prizes and/or cash. I can also remember as a kid doing the licking and stamping for my grandmother because she had so darn many her tongue would go numb.

Well, I just read a magazine article about ways to save in the current tight economy. While grocery store stamps weren’t on the list, there were lots of good ideas in the categories of home, health, shopping, travel, cars, insurance, taxes, and miscellaneous, some that I’d never even thought of before.

Saving on car gasoline was a big one. I’d always been taught that turning off your car was bad for the engine and you shouldn’t do it unless you planned to idle for a very long time. Now I learn that the trade-off is a mere ten seconds. That is, idling your car for 10 seconds uses as much gas as restarting your car. And two minutes of idling equals a mile of driving. The moral? I’m gonna start paying a lot more attention to what’s happening when I’m driving.

Some other interesting statistics are that fuel efficiency drops 5 miles per gallon for each 10-mile speed increase over 55 mph. And for every 100 extra pounds you lug around in your car, you can lose 1-2 percent in efficiency. I don’t know if I have the willpower to drive more slowly on the freeway, but I’m definitely cleaning out my car this weekend.

Dh and I do have some regular practices to help our piggy banks:
= Or local grocery store has daily specials and we can rack up nice little savings using our grocery store card.
= We wait to buy groceries until we’ve accumulated a large enough list to qualify for gasoline discounts – 10 or 15 cents off  per gallon really helps on the gas bill.
= We use the rewards program at several franchise store (office supplies, books, electronics).
= My fave clothing store gives discounts if you’re a club member. Of course, not buying new clothes at all would save even more.
= A local restaurant club gives a free entree during our birthday months.
= Our two major credit cards have rewards programs (one for airline miles, one for prizes or cash).
= We buy stuff in bulk at warehouse stores, and often buy cheaper gas there, too.
= We often buy meat/fish in bulk, then freeze in smaller airtight bags, so we only cook as much as we need for a meal or two.
=  A big discount story sells generic prescription drugs for vastly reduced costs over brand name drugs.
= We wait to make some on-line purchases until we can qualify for free shipping.
= We make good use of leftovers, mixing and matching them with one or two new dishes and a salad for later meals.

Do you remember ways your grandparents saved? Do you now have your own ways of being kind to your pocket book? And do you or do you not like leftovers?

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The other day, I was telling Deb Marlowe how surprised I was by how much I’d grown to love my 3 mile-a-day  walk and my lap swimming (I’m up to 54 lengths in an hour–yes, I’m a slow swimmer, but I’m gaining speed every day). I couldn’t understand how I could have hated exercise for so many years, and then suddenly I was loving it.

Deb said she knew why I was loving it. Exercise gave me headspace. She’s right. And you know what? Apparently I need a lot more of it than I used to.

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about how multi-tasking isn’t actually that good. People who multi-task rather than focusing on one thing get less work accomplished and it hurts their brains (or something like that). I’m beginning to believe it. When I’m in the pool or walking outside, all I do is think. I think about my book. I think about my family. I think about my plans. Sometimes I think of nothing at all.

That’s why I love playing computer card games, too–all I think about is winning the card game. And for someone who thinks about everything ALL the time, it’s very SOOTHING.  I honestly think it’s an age thing. I just NEED the headspace. And I’ve found that my work is better, and certainly my mood is better with the focus on thinking.

So do you need headspace? What do you do to get it–have a soak in the tub, listen to music, garden, cook, play computer games? Do you find that it helps you in every aspect of life?

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I don’t know why, but I do.  I’d go to every parade in the area if some of them weren’t so huge you have to go a day early and camp out.  I draw the line there.  But the smaller, local, easy to show up a half an hour early and get a seat parades?  That’s where you’ll find me.

In the village where I live we have our 4th of July parade the weekend before the 4th, which is SO great, because that means I can go to a different parade on the actual 4th.  I don’t care if it’s 90 degrees (and yesterday it was!).  I’ll sit in the sun in my lawn chair and cheer.

I love the flags, the bands, the baton twirlers, the dancers, the cars, the Little League kids, the fire trucks, the horses.  Everything is just so fun.

Except for the clowns.  While I don’t have nightmares about clowns, nor do I run from them, I am not a fan.  I mean, really.  Clowns are weird.

When my boys were little they loved parades too, mostly because of the candy that was thrown out.  We used to bring a bag for each of them, and they hauled it in.  It was like Halloween, but the candy came to you.  I can still remember their faces the first time candy landed right at their feet.  That was priceless.

Do you love a parade?  What’s your favorite part?

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Yesterday over lunch my best friend reminded me that it’s time to go look at the new Hallmark Christmas ornaments. This is about the time of year the 2010 Star Wars, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other “specialty” ornaments hit the shelves. I used to ask for them for Christmas, but soon realized that by December they were all sold out. So now I purchase all the ones I want and put them in a sack by the front door. Whoever wants to give me one as a gift exchanges a check or cash for an ornament over the rest of the year. I don’t look at the sack again until after the holidays so I’ll be surprised by what I’ve been given.

I justify this self-gifting by telling myself that not only are they gifts, they are part of my collection. How can I sit by and watch pieces of my collection pass by without making a grab for them? That’s just wrong.

But my point is, it’s just barely July, and I’m thinking about Christmas. When I went to Target yesterday they had just put out all their back-to-school supplies, and this makes me shake my head. For crying out loud, school just ended like 10 days ago. How can a poor kid settle into summer when he goes to the store looking for flip-flops and sees his Fall supplies already waiting for him?

And do I need to start thinking about Halloween in August? Or Valentine’s day on January 2nd? I’m still enjoying Christmas and New Year’s Day. Or I’d like to. I truly don’t like thinking about Christmas in July, either. I’d be perfectly happy if Hallmark didn’t release their Holiday Collections until, well, the holidays.

The worst is when I go into a clothing store in, oh, August, looking for summer clothes on sale (because it’s still 95 freakin’ degrees outside), and what’s on the racks? Turtlenecks. Winter coats. Suede. Sweaters. Just seeing them there is enough to give me heat stroke. It makes the weather seem even hotter and more miserable than it already is. Now in my family it’s a tradition to not begin playing holiday music until the day after Thanksgiving. August is a bit excessive.

Do you like plenty of advance warning before a holiday? Do you find that the pre-holiday push by stores, etc., diminishes both the holiday and the time before it, or does it help to heighten your anticipation? What should the decorating/sales cut-offs be for holidays?

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I don’t want anyone to think I haven’t been doing my duty as a movie-going goddess geek, so here are a few of my impressions for the latest round of movies:

Prince of Persia – As I think I’ve mentioned before, I love playing the video games. They have adventure and romance and some pretty snappy dialogue on occasion. The movie didn’t quite have the high-flying acrobatics of the game, but Jake Gyllenhaal did look very, very nice. I’d rate it a go-and-have-some-popcorn and have a good time movie.

Iron Man 2 – Again, if a movie makes me laugh or smile and forget that I have to go home and clean something, then it was worth the money. That said, while IM2 wasn’t quite as fresh as the first one, it was fun. I like a hero who’s aware of his flaws.

Robin Hood – I have kind of mixed feelings about this one. To me it was like they tried to cram a miniseries into one movie. There were way too many characters and subplots to give any one of them enough screen time. It did look pretty dirty and gritty.

The Karate Kid – I’ve been a “wax on, wax off” KK fan from way back, and I was ready to write this movie off as an excuse for Hollywood to once again not come up with something original. So imagine my surprise when I realized that I actually enjoyed it – probably just as much as the first one. Two big thumbs up.

The A-Team – In college I submitted a script for the original A-Team series, and it was under consideration at the time the show was canceled. I therefore consider myself a total A-Team geek authority. And I loved the movie. It had the chemistry and the humor and the bigger than life explosions and the witty one-liners, and it was just a good, exciting time. And stay through the end credits. Two more big thumbs up.

Toy Story 3 – I will never throw another toy away. I promise. They will all have good homes, and I’ll even make sure the ones in boxes can get out if they need to. I love this movie series, and it ends just so perfectly it made me cry. Three thumbs up.

What’ve you seen this summer? What are you waiting for, and which movies will you pass on?

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