"Read a book. Eat a banana."

What is this? It's a female house finch in the barn swallow's nest from last summer, under my porch roof. I haven't even cleaned it out yet. Could there be eggs already??? It's below freezing at night!

I caught a photo of her when she flew out. I think we have enough house finches around here. I certainly don't want to see more...

For the past week I’ve lost my drive and energy to post here. My sincere and underlying desire is to post, but the ideas and words are hard to find. When I think I have an idea, I quickly shoot it down. The plain truth is that I’m stuck in a rut. In a rut. Stuck. Stuck in a rut. Enough said?

Today, remembering when my daughter as a young child, I realized we were well matched in some ways. Unless we were physically active and busy participating, we were bored. We both had a “let’s get out of the house and do something” routine after the household chores were finished. We walked, swam, found time to be outdoors, and played every day. I used to budget funds during the summer months for a long walk to the snowball stand every summer evening with neighbors and friends. My favorite was Spearmint or Egg Custard with marshmallow and Gina's favorite was Sky Blue with marshmallow. In winter months during snowstorms, we didn’t watch from indoors, but ventured out there and caught snowflakes on our tongues and didn’t care to come back inside unless our toes and fingers were numb.

Days when we were trapped inside because of hurricanes, blizzards, or excessive heat, I always had a list of things to do around the house to keep me busy and Gina loved to work on arts and crafts with her little friends. However, now and then, the dreaded case of boredom would overtake her little soul and I’d hear her repeat, “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.” My stock reply was, “Oh, go read a good book.” If I heard the same whine too many times in one day, I’d get exasperated and sharply reply without any sweetness in my tone, “You aren’t bored! Your problem is that YOU are BORING!”

Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. I’m not bored. I’m stuck in a rut because I’m just plain B-o-r-i-n-g lately.

Speaking of stock answers, this reminds me of the very familiar complaint from children while they’re hanging on the refrigerator or pantry door, letting their little high-pitched whiny voices be heard, “I’m hungry but there’s nothing to eat in this house!” Another stock reply I gave - “Have a pickle. Or, better yet, eat a banana!” I’ve been pushing bananas for years. It paid off a few times, though. Whenever Gina ate a banana before a butterfly, individual medley, or breastroke race in a championship she’d win – not by a few hundreds of a second, but by a yard. I can’t say enough about bananas and their benefit to your heart and body.

Back to being boring.

Great photo, ey? My next door neighbors, to whom we have only spoken about five times in a year and a half, just listed their house today. I’m not sure, but I think their names are Beverly and Ken. Are they moving because of their boring neighbors or because they’re tired of the blonde woman snapping photos of the trees in their yard? I’m sure that’s not the case since they don’t socialize, but it did enter my mind for a fleeting second or two.

Over the weekend, I tried to correct my boring self and ventured out in the sub-freezing wind chill to catch some glimpses of nature but failed. What I gained from that effort were reddened, freeze-dried face and hands. I also missed the best photo of a hawk. It would have been fantastic. The hawk saw me pull over and before I had my hand on the gear shift, the blankety-blank flew away. See the speck with a white belly in a photo taken two city blocks away? Could be a woodpecker... I am starting to curse at the birds.

My job is boring and a source of frustration, I'm tired of worrying about people and things beyond my control, I'm tired of my blog template, and my backyard birds are boring me to tears. Here's an example:

I am laughing out loud! If that's not enough, here's another:

Even my entertaining, begging for food, pestering, loving and farting dogs are boring me:

If, after all of this boring talk you are wondering how it relates to the subject of this post, “Books and Bananas”, you have company. I’m clueless, too. I should change the subject to "Self Help". And you can bet your sweet bippy I will do it (help thyself). No more boredom for me! I CAN'T STAND IT. I just need a little time and a few more rants in between.