What have you learned from lizards lately? Try saying that five times fast! I've learned some important things about self-care from lizards. #selfcarehacks #selfcaresunday #selfcare #lizard #lessonsfromnature #toxicrelationship #regrowth #mindset #growthmindset

What have you learned from lizards lately? Try saying that five times fast! I’ve learned some important things about self-care from lizards.

Have You Ever Learned from Lizards?

The older I get, the more curious I become. I think smartphones and the internet have much to do with my budding curiosity. With apps such as Merlin and Seek, I can enter basic information about a bird or snap a photo of an object and know what I see within seconds. Last weekend I saw a weird flower-looking thing on a willow tree. I snapped photos of it from several angles on several different willows, and when we entered cell service, I uploaded the photos to Seek.

To my surprise, what looked like a flower was a gall. Of course, I had to use my dictionary app to figure out the exact definition of gall. I’d only heard it used to describe a skin sore or something bitter. The pretty flower turned out to be an abnormal growth of plant tissue housing an insect or parasite.

I will often find one piece of information about something in nature and keep following rabbit trails until I end up knowing all kinds of things that will never come in handy unless I end up on Jeopardy. Although, since students always ask random questions, I know how to answer at least some of them.

The inspiration for today’s episode, full of the self-care hacks I’ve learned from lizards, started as one of those random observations and questions from my students. I’d love to hear what young people in your life have inspired you to learn lately!

Show Notes

If you’re not sure whether or not to see a counselor, this post may help.

This episode is full of great self-care hacks for parents of adult children.

Curious about African spiny mice? This like will help!

You can find out more about the free Merlin bird app here.

And you can find my go-to app (Seek) for identifying everything else here.

What have you learned from lizards lately? Try saying that five times fast! I've learned some important things about self-care from lizards. #selfcarehacks #selfcaresunday #selfcare #lizard #lessonsfromnature #toxicrelationship #regrowth #mindset #growthmindset

Come Back Next Week

With all the hours I’ve spent watching and photographing hummingbirds, next week’s topic shouldn’t surprise you! I’ve learned a lot about self-care from hummingbirds, too!

  • Welcome to the Inspire Me Monday Community! The link-up opens Sundays at 4 pm, Arizona time.
  • Link up your family-friendly inspirational posts (no more than two, please).
  • Visit the person who links up BOTH before you and after you and leave a comment. This helps keep our community vibrant!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

9 Comments

  1. During our time at the beach, our grandson enjoyed the resident lizard – tail and all! Your 4 points on what we can learn from a lizard are spot-on! Your students must so enjoy how you teach!

  2. Oh my goodness, Anita, I just went down a gall rabbit hole! The encyclopedias were my favorite books as a child and now I just love wikipedia and the internet to help me find the answers to all of my random curious questions. Great post!

    Shelbee

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Anita Ojeda

Anita Ojeda juggles writing with teaching high school English and history. When she's not lurking in odd places looking for rare birds, you can find her camping with her kids, adventuring with her husband or mountain biking with her students.

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