Managing My #Parrots, Managing my Life

I am a home-loving woman. I love my cozy spaces, surrounded by the people and pets and things that make me happy and add something to my life. When my home is in a state of flux, my world just doesn't seem right.



Right now things are in flux. It is the time of year when my parrots move from their summer spot at the north-facing end of our living room to their winter spot at the south-facing end, where there are huge windows that bring in every bit of sunlight that God provides. (This also involves rearranging everything in our living space, during which time I also do a thorough cleaning.)  And typically I do this at about the same time as we put up our storm windows.



This year, however, due to health issues (both my husband's and my own) it has been several weeks since we put the storm windows up, and the parrots still haven't been moved. In addition, one of my 2 beloved cockatiels died this fall. These teenaged pointy-heads have been together their whole lives, sharing a large flight cage since I acquired them about 8 years ago. Now the remaining bird is using only a tiny area of the cage, and is much less active than when he had his buddy around. I think he needs a bit of a shaking up, and one of the ways I plan to do that is to move him to a different cage, one that is more fitting to a single bird. Meanwhile I have 2 lovebirds - a brother and a sister - who aren't tame, are also in their teen years, but have been living in 2 smaller cages for several years. They love to be together, don't get out for regular flight time like the others do (I have to net them to get them back in, and I hate doing that!), so they will take over the large flight cage.



My parrots have had the same cages for quite a few years, and I know that they don't like change. But I am hoping that a different cage for the cockatiel, with stimulating toys and activities just for him, will bring him out of his lethargy. He still has his friend the greencheek conure with which to share out-of-cage flight time, and they will be next to each other instead of stacked as they are now. I am hoping that these changes will help him to recover from his loss. And I know that the lovebirds will get more exercise in the flight cage, they will love being together (they stay as close as they can with bars between them right now, and love their rare times out together); I plan to divide toys and sleeping spots and feeding areas into 2 separate areas, so they can either claim their own territories or can share and fly back and forth between the 2.



I plan to do this within the next few days so that all of them can adapt to their changes in their current places in the living room. Once all is well, I can do the room rearranging that will need to be done so that they can enjoy our northern Michigan winter sunshine.



And once all is done, all 9 of my parrots and I can enjoy our cozy home again and not deal with another state of flux until spring!

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All Eyes On December 1st

Everything in my life, it seems, is focused on Dec. 1st. When I think about the future, it is divided into "before my surgery" and "after my surgery".

Goals for before my surgery: lay up a supply of food for my parrots (formerly known as Itty Bitty Birdie Bites, when I was still running my business); get my shop reorganized and cleaned; move our keyboards/bookcase/music books from the dining room to the half of my former shop that will now be the music room; clean the dining room, including the carpet; move my table/chairs from the sunroom to the dining room; clean the sunroom, including the carpet; move the futon into the sunroom for added living space or a place for guests; rearrange the bird cages to the other side of the living room so they'll have southern exposure and sunshine from the biggest windows through the winter, and move our living space to the other side where the birds were - of course cleaning thoroughly (including carpets!) as I go.

And I am putting up a website for our church. This is really important to me. Right now we are living without an income, and therefore without a tithe. This is our offering that God can use for the advancement of His kingdom and is very important for me to provide. It was grieving my heart that I had nothing to offer until we get some sort of income, then God put in my heart that I can still work toward growing His church and supporting my local congregation. Creating a website is how I am doing that. I want to get it up Before Surgery, and can fine-tune it and add to it After Surgery, especially in the first days (or weeks? I hope not!) when I probably won't be doing a whole lot else. But it energizes and excites me to know that I can still contribute resources to God's kingdom in this way.

These are the main things I want to accomplish. Each day I try to do at least SOMETHING toward my goals, depending on the state of my arthritis and gut pain I do more on some days than others. But these are things that I feel MUST be done.

I am writing an ebook also, and have picked it up and worked on it on and off for several months. Not sure what I will do with it once it is finished, but that is something I want to do After Surgery. I also want to do some more recording of music on my keyboard, and I have a lot of Christian materials here - music books, CDs, fiction and nonfiction books - that I need to organize and decide what I want to do with them...and I probably will be listing a bunch of stuff to sell that I will have weeded out during my rearranging and organizing Before Surgery.

I have much in my mind that needs to become reality, and I am making it happen. So I do what I can, when I can, and it will all get done...Before Surgery or After Surgery.

Some Michigan schools even ban cupcakes... [Michigan - Land of diminishing rights & increasing restrictions.]

URL:  http://detnews.com/article/20101115/SCHOOLS/11150353/14...

If I were raising a child in my low-carb lifestyle and they were being brainwashed into eating whole grains and other carby foods I'd be TICKED. It is a parent's right to determine their child's dietary standards. Of course, it's a parent's right to determine many things that government-run schools have taken over now. Private school or homeschool - it's the only way I'd educate a child, if I had one now...

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Free Online Diet Plans #lowcarb #diet #food [This is really a great site packed FULL of excellent information!]

URL:  http://www.free-healthy-diet-plans.com/index.html

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At The Doctor Yesterday

So there are a few things I need to do to prepare for surgery on Dec. 1st and one of them was to see my family doctor. Yesterday she did the standard stuff like an EKG and ordering lab work, and we also discussed the particulars of the upcoming surgery which she can pronounce and I still can't.

One of the things she mentioned is that I should consider going on a liquid diet now. This makes sense from the aspect that everything I eat makes me sick and causes pain and bloating anyway. (Recently I've had such huge bloats that even my largest pair of sweat pants don't fit, and I look flat-chested even though I wear a DD cup!) I know I can do this, I can do whatever I have to do. Many are the times I have wished to just go Home and leave the pain behind if I can't live without pain.

The irony here is that I am such a foodie! I go to sleep most nights watching recipe videos on YouTube. I blog about food, write about food, plan my life around food - not because I have a need to actually consume more food than others, but because everything about it fascinates me. I love creating dishes, I love serving food to those I love. I love grocery shopping, budgeting, planning. How food is used by the body, which foods cause health and wellness and which will kill, what our bodies need - and don't need - from the food we eat, why we eat what we do...everything about food fascinates me. Food is my passion.

Everything else we discussed during my 30-minute-long appointment is a blur now. All that stands out is that she strongly recommends I go on a liquid diet (not clear liquid, BTW) so that my "pipes" are in the best possible shape, and I will have the best possible outcome. And all I could think about was the huge grocery stockpiling I had just done last week, all of the wonderful marvelous dishes I had planned...

Today I am dealing with it all. I awoke this morning with the realization that I can still plan, shop, cook, and provide wonderful meals for my family and friends...I will just need to make my own soups and yogurt smoothies and things at the same time. (I will blog about what I will be eating in my other blog.)

Just another step on the journey, one that is maybe trying to trip me up a little bit but it is all part of attaining the goal of a normal healthy future.

Online Television

I've used sites like Hulu and Fancast quite a bit when I've wanted to spend a mindless evening de-stressing in front of numerous News Radio episodes. But now that, due to hubby's recent surgery and subsequent lifting restrictions - along with my health issues leading me to all but close my business, we are a zero-income family, we are having to give up some things. And our beloved DirecTv is one of them. Actually we have put the account on hold until better days come.

Enter internet TV. We have watched it since the beginning - only about 5 years ago actually - and have had high hopes for actual online entertainment. From Babelgum to Boxee, we've watched the baby steps of the industry, which I believe only became a viable alternative to our satellite television within the last 2 years.

There have been a gradual increase in options available for watching TV online, and my own level of interest in each has increased as well. Early on, sites with original programming such as documentaries were common. And sites started popping up with "world programming" that boasted thousands of stations - most of them weren't in English, and the quality of the programming was poor. But to this day there are lots of those kinds of sites; they don't interest me. Then came sites such as Babelgum in 2006, which I watched a LOT! Great original programming, different stuff than what was available on cable TV but just as good to me; I loved it! And cable networks started jumping on board, offering limited programs on demand; now many networks offer an extensive selection of their own programs. (The landscape continues to change with the advent of internet connectivity directly to - or through - our television, but that's another post for another day.)

But perhaps the most popular are sites that offer a selection of independent and network programs (and often movies) for viewing where we can choose from dozens or hundreds of programs from every genre and watch full episodes at our leisure. Finally getting to the point :) I offer a selective list of these sites which I consider to be the best for my own entertainment purposes. And it is these sites which will get my attention in the coming months when my favorite programming on DirecTv isn't available to me. (NOTE: Some of these sites offer links to programming elsewhere and don't host the programs themselves, but it's all the same to me - if I can click on a program to watch, it doesn't really matter much how I get it, as long as it starts playing on my screen!)

Enjoy!
Hulu
Fancast
TVDuck
Surf The Channel
SideReel
Veoh
SlashControl
AOL TV
Babelgum
Boxee (requires download but worth it!)

There are other sites that also have full-length television episodes; some I haven't listed because this isn't their main focus, or because of time limits, or for other reasons. But if you have a favorite site, I'd appreciate you letting me know!

Appointment with the Surgeon

I've often spoken of my health issues here, but we are working on their resolution. First I was able to regain my sight last month, and am once again able to drive, read my music, read books, etc...so many things that I had enjoyed until the old cataract totally obliterated my vision, and messed up my depth and distance perception...but that's all history now.

The next thing that is being tackled is my gut. I've had gut issues for years of one sort or another, but the last 10 years or so they have become intolerable, with incredible bloating and pain, vomiting, etc. But now I have surgery scheduled for December 1st. It will be a difficult surgery the doctor said but I have great hopes that, eventually, after the healing period is past and time goes on, my quality of life will be vastly improved. My gut issues have been hell, and there have been times that I have wished for death rather than living with them one more day.

I don't know how much I will discuss the particulars of my surgery. Pete just had a major surgery last week, and after discussing it we agreed not to give details online. The reason? People tend to belittle our anxieties and minimize the procedure. "Oh that's not a big deal, I've known lots of people that had that done!" and similar comments make one feel stupid for our own concerns about our own upcoming procedures. So rather than opening that can of worms, we decided it is simply best if we ask for prayer or whatever, but keep the details of such things to ourselves.

During the next month I will be preparing mentally, physically, and spiritually. This will be a major life change, and at least for a while, how I can eat will be drastically changed (ie, liquids for the first few weeks). I elected NOT to have WLS at the same time, even though it would have been pretty easy while he's in there anyway, but that's not the route I want to go. Besides, I will be having 2 different surgeries in one and that's plenty I think.

I'm trying not to think about the surgery itself, or even the healing time afterward, but rather what life will be like when I am healed and back to "normal". It has been so long since I lived without pain every time I ate - or even if I don't - that I can hardly imagine it. Praise God that this is possible, and not only that but that it's scheduled to be done!