As if I didn't need more reasons to procrastinate

Yesterday afternoon, my husband showed me two nests in the bushes in front of our house. One is outside the library window. The other is outside my office window. It was hard to find, just looking out the window itself, but now that I know where to look, I see it perfectly. I don't have a clear shot of it, but enough that I'll be able to spend the spring watching for the baby cardinals. This is after I spent the past two months watching the love dance of the parents.

I'd never been much of a bird person until the summer I began freelancing (yesterday was my 3rd anniversary. I forgot to celebrate). That first summer, my office was in a state of dissarray. It was then mostly a place for me to hang out to get away from everybody. So instead, I worked in the family room or on the back porch. One day I noticed a cardinal would come to the slider door every day and just hang out there. He reminded me of college students who would stop by the department office just to say hello, like their day wouldn't be complete until they did so. The cardinal came to the slider every day and if it was the screen open, he would chirp once or twice to get my attention. If the slider door was shut, he would tap on it. I'd look up, say, "Hi Mr. Cardinal," and he'd fly away. I have a blurry picture of him standing there, taken because no one believed me.

And then he stopped showing up. I'd like to think he went on vacation, okay?

I moved into my office, and one window has a view of a fence. I looked up one day, and there was Mr. Cardinal, sitting on the fence post. Every day for a month I saw him. And then the squirrels decided to run the fence, and that was the end of Mr. Cardinal's visits . . . until this winter when I noticed he spent a lot of time inside the bush outside the other window.

And now? I waste way too much time watching him and his Mrs. I think it is time to either shut the blinds or work from a windowless cave.