Saturday, September 6, 2025

The Sunday Salon: Sunrise, a Burrowing Owl, and a Happiness Class

 




Welcome! I am delighted that you joined us here at the 
Sunday Salon

What is the Sunday Salon? 

The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week. It's also a great opportunity to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 





My sister and I,
after a 16-mile e-bike ride 
around Waco

We came home from spending the week with my sister and her husband in Waco, and I got back to my at-home routine of swimming and doing nature volunteer work and reading and taking some classes. What am I taking this fall? I signed up for a four-week guitar class, an eight-week writing class, and a six-week happiness class. 







What I Read Last Week:

An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi (Nonfiction)

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Children's Fantasy)

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)






What I'm Reading Now:

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami

Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi



I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:




Good Thing #1:

I joined friends 
at the beach in Galveston
for the sunrise.



Good Thing #2:

Burrowing Owl
that has (apparently) settled into
life near a Galveston restaurant.



Good Thing #3:

Action for Happiness
online class to practice
happiness habits.



Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.



31 comments:

  1. You and your sister look like you had a great time! Lots of classes coming up for you this fall. I hope you enjoy them. I added An African History of Africans to my TBR list.

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  2. How wonderful to have the time to spend with your sister. A longer visit is always good. I'll be eager to hear about your happiness class.

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  3. Burrowing owls seem to have adapted amazingly to suburban life. We saw a lot of them in a town in Florida, where they burrow ritght in green lawns. What fun!
    Good to see everyone at Sunday Salon.
    best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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  4. What a cute photo of you & your sister. Sounds like a fun bike ride. I'm glad you liked Dream Count -- I still plan to get to it and I hope you enjoy the talk with the author. I'd love to see a burrowing owl ... but mostly what we have here are Great Horned Owls. Thx for the link up.

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  5. I could really use a happiness class! Enjoy!

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  6. I've never seen a burrowing owl, that's a very cool photo. Glad you had such a good time iwth your sister on the visit. When I used to get together with my sis we could get laughing until tears came. Fun times.

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  7. I haven't checked in for a whole ad so fun to see you keeping at it! Biking!!!! I am so overdue to do that :)

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  8. I am shamed by the amount you do!! It is fall, I need to motivate myself.

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  9. Love the picture of you and your sister, Deb. Who would have thought years ago that there would be electric bikes? Ha! We just returned from a vacation to Yellowstone Park and enjoyed it very much. I'll be sharing some pictures and getting back to blogging soon. I've missed it. Take care!

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  10. What a wonderful week, indeed! You are now the second person today who has mentioned a bike ride! I have been toying with the idea of beginning that endeavor again so I will have to give this some more thought. It's probably been 35 years since I've sat on two wheels, but you know what they say about riding bikes ;-) Hope you have a glorious weekend and wonderful week ahead! Thanks for sharing this link up for us all!

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  11. Such a great picture of you and your sister. I love owls.

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  12. I love this post! I talked to my middle sister on the phone for 2 hours last weekend. She still lives in Ohio and I'm in Florida so we don't get to see each other as much as we use to. My favorite place to be is the beach and I collected owls for quite a few years, then I switched to lighthouses.

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  13. Wow, impressive bike ride!! I will be curious to hear what you learn in your happiness class, I hope you will share with us!! Have a great weekend!

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  14. Good for you on the classes. That will make you happy - learning is so invigorating! I like Adichie. Will check out!

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  15. A friend of mine who lives in Houston is just getting into birding and drove to Galvaston to see the burrowing owl!

    I am so glad to see that you liked Dream Count and I look forward to seeing what you think of New New Me as I was just looking at it on the shelves of my indie bookstore.

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  16. Great pic of you with your sister. Those classes sound wonderful. I hope you enjoy them. Have a great week!

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  17. I think we could all use classes in Happiness these days.
    Have a great week!

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  18. I saw a news show about how Burrowing Owls move into neighborhoods and dig their homes in people's yards. Wouldn't that be something? Love the Galveston photo at sunrise.

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  19. Sounds very busy and exciting. How are you finding Katabasis? I bought it a week or so ago and am looking forward to reading it, although realistically that probably won't be until next year.

    Have a great weekend!

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  20. It’s been a long time since I saw a Burrowing Owl. As habitat loss continues apace they are more and more driven to close proximity with humans, where traffic, feral cats, spiteful yahoos and other hazards are legion.

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  21. Love that you spent some time with your sister. Hope you have a great week.

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  22. Oh my gosh!! I am just getting ready to do a unit study on Burrowing Owls with Wyatt because we are reading Hoot! I will have to show him that. I am also adding Dealing with Dragons to his list. Sigh. This kid loves dragons right now.

    I am glad you had fun with your sister!

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  23. so many projects, you are amazing!
    I have never seen a burrowing owl. But yesterday, we watched a red tail hawk fr several hours, from our back yard. He was there during our breakfast, cleaning, digesting. He stayed several hours.
    Then when we went outside for our supper, he was there, again on top of an electrical pole just at the corner of our yard, eating a squirrel! He ate ALL of it, including the tail!!
    I took zillions of pictures and a few vvideos. He was really gorgeous.
    Then he stayed there, digesting and resting.
    He was still there when we went to bed a few hours later

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  24. A writing class sounds so fun! I've been trying to write more again. I failed the happiness training they were trying to require for us at work. LOL We were expected to be at our desk, on zoom, and sharing all of the group activities. No, thanks.

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  25. I'm intrigued by the happiness class! You are so inspiring with how many new things you try. And that picture with you and your sister is so stinkin' cute.

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  26. Ooh, I need to give Katabasis a shot... though honestly I need to read Babel, first. Are you enjoying it?

    I'll have to check out the Action for Happiness site, that looks interesting. I do stuff like gratitude journaling and so on, but it's easy to end up going through the motions.

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  27. Those E-bikes are a lot of fun! Happy to hear you had a good time with your sister. 16 miles?! Wow! That owl is so cute and what a beautiful sunrise! I love your 3 good things every week.

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  28. You and your sister look very proud of yourselves, as you should be!

    Wishing you a happy reading week.

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  29. Your classes sound so great! I am happy that you got to join once in our Sacred Reading Week sessions. Hope to see you again there at some point.

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  30. That's a lovely pic of you and your sister! How lovely to be able to cycle together:). Are you the one delivering the Happiness Class, Deb? Because you always seem such an upbeat, positive person. And I'm going to dig out my copy of Dealing With Dragons - because I don't think I've read it! I hope you have a lovely week.

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  31. What a great photo of you and your sister! Glad you had such a nice time. Burrowing owls seem to be everywhere around Cape Coral, FL. I think they are protected, because a developer was on television last winter expressing frustration that they'd taken to burrowing on a large tract of land where he was about to build. The project was halted for a period of time.

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