I miss you Sam!!

I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Pet Pride

Hey guys! It's time to play with Bozo from Mumbai again! So get up off your tush, have your two-legged friend sign in -- just click on the icon -- and we're ready to show our stuff for another week!

Just to show what an incredibly generous Schnauzer I am, I'm letting Mojo have the whole post today, but I'll be back!!!

She's really playing the lady here with her own "wearable" backpack for when we go camping. I don't need one, my mom takes care of all that!!

 

She can't peel a banana!! Who does she think she's fooling! I didn't even like them till we moved to Seattle and I discovered that I'd eat anything didn't try to eat me first -- otherwise, Mojo, gets it all!

 

Yes, and even Mojo gets tired when she does nothing but run around chasing stuff -- and me, of course! And, yes, I know, everyone is saying, "oh, poor Mojo"! Well, you can bet your paws I'm not!

 
Posted by Picasa

Thought for the Evening



Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly.

Kiss slowly. Love truly.

Laugh uncontrollably,

and never regret anything.

Shadow Shot Sunday!

Shadow Shot Sunday is sponsored and hosted by Harriet at Hey Harriet. It's the most fun ever and you will be amazed at where and of what you discover shadows! They're everywhere! just waiting to be discovered and shared! Click on Harriet's name, sign up and join us every weekend!

This first photo was taken at a pond near the beach where the ducks and turtles enjoy the sun on a nice day. You can click on the photos to embiggen and see more details. I saw the reflection/shadows in the water here. And that is a big turtle on the log!


 

This weird looking shadow is my son, Adam, and his dog Mojo playing at the beach. Not sure why they seem so distorted, but I thought it was a little weird and since I am a little weird myself, I decided to post it.

 

This one is Mojo and her shadow searching the water for the stick Adam has thrown.

 

Colored bottles and glasses in the breakfast room -- always love the colored and crystal shadows! And lovely shadows of the apple and pear trees on a sunny summer morning!



And finally, some shady shadows on the sand at the beach! Obviously, one of my favorite places.

 
Posted by Picasa

Friday, July 17, 2009

Evening Wisdom, Thoughts and Beauty



The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea. ~Isak Dinesen



Never a ship sails out of the bay
But carries my heart as a stowaway.
~Roselle Mercier Montgomery, The Stowaway



How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! ~Emily Dickinson, letter to Mrs. J.S. Cooper, 1880

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. ~George Washington Carver



Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Corporate Shake-up

If you've ever worked for a boss who reacts before getting the facts
and thinking things through, you will love this!

Arcelor-Mittal Steel, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired a new
CEO. The new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers.

On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning against a
wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that he
meant business. He asked the guy, "How much money do you make a week?"

A little surprised, the young man looked at him and said, "I make $400 a
week. Why?"

The CEO said, "Wait right here." He walked back to his office, came
back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600 in cash and said,
"Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and don't come back."

Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and
asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did here?"

From across the room a voice said, "Pizza delivery guy from Domino's."

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Little Late Evening Humor

Sometimes as the day winds down, I'm ready for a giggle or two and a friend of mine supplied some. Thought I'd share them with you this evening!





I am a Nobody.
Nobody is Perfect.
Therefore I am Perfect.



FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS! Except that one where you're naked in church.

Sky Watch Friday!



Sky Watch is hosted each week by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy and Louise and offers us a great opportunity to share our lovely skies with people all over the world! Click on the Sky Watch icon and sign up and join the fun!

These are some skies in Oregon -- they have beautiful skies there just as we do here in Washington and I thought I'd give you a little change scenery.

A golden sunrise!





Interesting cloud formations. Let your imagination give them a name!



Sunset

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Evening Words, Wisdom and Beauty



Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
Anne Frank



Life is a gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.
Greek Adage



We can stay young by focusing on a dream instead of on a regret.



It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older one climbs with surprising strides.
George Sand



If you treat a sick child as an adult and a sick adult as a child, it usually works out pretty well.
Black Hawk

Looking Back - Part 11 - Medical Miracles - More or Less

I'm on a roll with this "Looking Back" series because there have been so many things triggering my memories these days. My daughter Kerith’s birthday is next Monday, and I found myself thinking about the birthdays of my all four of my kids – none of which I was supposed to have, and this in turn led me to reflect on my experiences with the medical profession. That’s not hard to do these days when there seem to be more and more nightmare tales of screw-ups not only by doctors, but hospitals and other health care facilities.

My kids and I have frequently joked that we are alive today in spite of doctors rather than because of them and because we spent their early years on a military base I soon became convinced that all the medical students who made Ds in med school automatically went into the military. The fact that I even had a child period, much less four normal, healthy ones was considered unbelievable unless one believes in miracles - which I do.

I had been told early on by several doctors that my chances of getting pregnant in the first place were slim to none, let alone carrying one for a full nine months. But get pregnant I did just three months into my marriage. I carried my baby full term and delivered an eight pound, very normal and beautiful little girl. Needless to say, I thumbed my nose at that early diagnosis.

As soon as my husband returned from Vietnam I promptly got pregnant again but this time, in the process of moving to Germany, I did miscarry. It ended up being a nightmare experience with one complication, one misdiagnosis after another. It took two months before I even began to feel normal -- whatever that is for me anyway. Not sure normal was ever a discription.

We thought that perhaps my first little girl was a miracle and there would be no more. Wrong! Three months later I found myself pregnant again and shortly afterward we were transferred to Madrid, Spain. Again, it was a very normal full term pregnancy, but about a week before I was due I woke up with what felt to me like pleurisy pains and we made a trip to the air base hospital. There I was told by the doctor that there was no indication of anything wrong and I was just getting anxious to deliver and he sent me home. The next day it was worse and we went back to the hospital. This time a different doctor took my husband aside and told him there was nothing wrong with me, I was not in labor, but if he wanted to leave me at the hospital for the weekend, he’d okay it. Wisely, for his own sake, my husband declined the offer. The following day we made a third trip and saw still another doctor who said he could find nothing wrong either, but asked if I had been x-rayed earlier. When I told him no, he said that real or imagined, I was obviously in pain and I was certainly far enough along that an x-ray wouldn’t injure the baby and urged me to have one. It turned out that I had walking pneumonia and the pain I had been experiencing was indeed pleurisy and, with a proper prescription this time, I was sent home. Four days later, pneumonia free, I gave birth to another perfect little seven and a half pound girl. Within three more years I had – remarkably given birth to two more perfect, healthy babies – boys this time. And they’re all still miracles to me.

Over the next years my wariness of the medical profession and aided by extraordinarily healthy children, we were pretty much able to stay out of doctor’s offices except for routine shots etc. Then when my youngest son, Adam, was eighteen months old, our whole family was returning home in the car from an evening swim at the local indoor pool. The kids were hungry and quickly found a jar of their Dad’s favorite dry roasted peanuts between the seats. There was a lot of giggling and teasing and Adam quickly choked on his peanuts. We whopped him on the back and a peanut flew out of his mouth and we continued on our way home. The following morning he was flying around the house as usual, but what wasn’t usual was the fact that he rattled. By mid day it was obvious that the rattle wasn’t going away and I took him in to see the pediatrician. I told him what had happened the previous day. He listened to Adam’s chest and x-rayed him, but could find nothing. I told him again about the peanuts and he patiently explained how it was impossible for Adam to have inhaled a peanut because the oil in the peanut would have set up an infection that would have resulted in pneumonia almost immediately. I explained that they were dry roasted peanuts and he sighed and shook his head and asked me to bring him back in the following day if he was still “rattling”. The next day Adam was still rattling and the doctor still couldn’t find anything, but admitted there was definitely something not right even though Adam was still tearing around like a normal eighteen month old – he just rattled. The doctor then sent us to a thoracic specialist, who also listened and x-rayed without results. I told him the same story of the dry roasted peanuts and got the same head shaking response – impossible, he said. For the next five weeks Adam was subjected to every imaginable test – all to no avail and while he was still tearing around, he was also still rattling.

By that time the specialist said they had no option other than to fluoroscope his lungs and that had to be done in the hospital and could have possible side effects. But, feeling that we really didn’t have a choice, we took him in and I spent the night sitting beside him, feeling so frightened because he looked so small and helpless in that big hospital bed. They were supposed to take him to the operating room at seven the next morning, so he wasn’t allowed to have anything to eat – tell that to a hungry eighteen month old! As it turned out they didn’t come get him until nine and by that time both his Dad and I were worn out from carrying him around the ward trying to distract him from thoughts of food. Adam saw a nurse coming out of a room with a tray of food and kept trying guide his Dad in that direction by tugging his ears like a steering wheel.

Finally, they came for him and let him take his “blankey” with him. I was fighting back the tears and clinging to my husband’s hand. Adam looked so tiny and helpless as they rolled him into the operating room. The next hour seemed like thirty. Finally, the doctor came out and walked towards us.

“Boy, is my face red,” he said, with an embarrassed grin.

“You found the peanut, didn’t you?” I asked, trying not to leap on him scratching and biting.

He nodded.

“I’ll certainly tell all my patients from now on that if they’re going to let their kids eat peanuts, make sure they’re dry roasted.”

Fortunately, Adam was fine and within a couple of days he was running around again, but this time without the rattle.

I’m still wary of doctors and the frequent headlines about the medical and pharmaceutical professions don’t do a lot to encourage trust. But I’ve been more fortunate lately and have no personal complaints.

And as for Adam, well, like his siblings, he’s grown into an incredible young man that I’m outrageously proud of – definitely one of the four best things his Dad and I ever did – in spite of the medical profession.

A note of explanation, my oldest daughter, Robyn is a terrific photographer, but prefers to remain behind the camera, so I have very few photos of her. Also, she and her husband live in Michigan and we're not able to get together as often as we'd like, particularly these days. But believe me, she's beautiful!

Never, Never, Ever Be Late!

In light of so much news lately regarding the number of randy Republicans, the latest being Senator John Ensign, I found this piece, sent to me by a good friend, to be right on target.

Priest Retirement

A local priest was being honored at his retirement dinner after 25 years in the parish.

A leading local politician and member of the congregation was chosen to make the presentation and to give a little speech at the dinner.

However, he was delayed debating the "bail-out packages," so the priest decided to say his own few words while they waited:

"I got my first impression of the parish from the first confession I heard here. I thought I had been assigned to a terrible place. The very first person who entered my confessional told me he had stolen a television set and, when questioned by the police, was able to lie his way out of it. He had also stolen money from his parents, embezzled from his employer, had an affair with his best friend's wife, and taken illicit drugs. I was appalled.

"But as the days went on, I learned that my people were not all like that and I had, indeed, come to a fine parish full of good and loving people."

Just as the priest finished his talk, the politician arrived
full of apologies for being late. He immediately began to make the presentation and said: "I'll never forget the first day our parish priest arrived. In fact, I had the honor of being the first person to go to him for confession."

Moral: Never, never, NEVER-EVER be late.

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY, GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL -- My Philosophy and I'm sticking with it! Have a great day.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Evening Wisdom, Thoughts and Beauty



There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
~James Thurber

Music fills the infinite between two souls.
Rabindranath Tagore



Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs. ~Ovid

Don't get your knickers in a knot. Nothing is solved and it just makes you walk funny.
~Kathryn Carpenter



Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ~Eric Fromm

Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.
Rabindranath Tagore



Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you are being hanged from it. ~Stanislaw Lec

Looking Back - Part 10 - Reflections

Sometimes as night begins to fall, the activities of the day completed, the house suddenly quiet, I find myself looking back over the years -- not in a bad or negative way at all, but just with a certain curiosity. I wonder if anyone would have told me fifty years ago when I was twenty-five and working in Dallas, Texas that when I would be getting ready to celebrate my seventy-sixth birthday I would be the mother of four grown children, that I would be living in Seattle, Washington with one of them -- what would I have said? I suddenly found myself laughing out loud and thinking that was exactly what I would have done then --laughed. "Me, get married? Have kids? You've got to be kidding, right? I mean, Seattle wouldn't be bad, but no thanks, to the rest of it." And yet here I am, seventy-six in just a few weeks and I am the mother of four and I am living with one of them in Seattle, Washington and it's working well for both of us. And the others have done well, too. We're scattered all over the country, but thanks to the internet and cell phones etc. etc. we stay in close touch.

I frequently wonder if other people look back over their lives and wonder how they ended up where they are now -- not in a negative way, but just curious. What were the dreams, hopes, plans? How many lives turned out just as they had planned them in their late teens or early twenties? How many find themselves in amazingly different settings than they would have thought possible fifty years ago?

I’ve pretty much lived my life, for the past forty years at least, with the belief that the past is over and done with and you can’t bring it back. Generally speaking I wouldn’t want to anyway. By the same token, tomorrow may never come and that means the only time we have for certain is now, today, this hour, this minute. To live in the moment means, for one thing, letting go of regrets and bad memories. It also means not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today – all kinds of things like getting in touch with old friends, finding the book you’ve been hearing about or wanting to read, glorying in a sunrise or sunset, a day at the beach, a beautiful day regardless of the season. Appreciating good friends and letting them know you care – now, not later. Forgiving everyone and everything that has hurt you in the past. Actually, I feel that forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give to yourself and it doesn’t matter if that means forgiving yourself or someone else. The real reward is a sense of peace and it’s yours forever. Hugging your children every chance you get and that goes for that favorite pet as well. Lingering over a meal long enough to really savor the taste. And laughter, look for and find lots and lots of reasons to laugh. Do your best to get rid of the feelings of anger and frustration because they destroy the beauty of any moment.

Now that I’ve praised this idealistic state of being, do I succeed at doing this for myself all the time? You can bet I don’t – not all the time. I find when I’m not paying attention I can easily let myself remember what it was like to be hurt, disappointed in things, other people, and most of all myself. And for the times when I said or did something that hurt another person. Can you change them? No. Can you eliminate them? Not unless you’re truly willing to let them go, forgive whoever was involved, including yourself and get on with your life here and now, in the present. Too idealistic? Perhaps, but that is and has been my goal at least.

Maybe it's how we begin our journey into our future that determines how far that journey takes us from where we started. Maybe we've become a very different person from the twenty something woman or man that we were. Do we even really remember who we were then? Are there many, who like me, played another role for so many years that we're not sure which one is the real one? I believe that I do know who the real me is now and she isn't that twenty-five year old from Dallas, Texas. For one thing, I've made peace with who I am, who I was and who I hope to be on the other side of seventy-six and that's a very, very good feeling. Still, sometimes I wonder how many lifetimes it took me to finally reach this place?

Well, whatever, it's been a great journey and I'm happy to be where I am. I have so much to be thankful for and happy about. I still have an enormous amount of curiosity about so many things, I still get excited about things that happen every day and I can laugh and have my breath taken away at the sight of a full moon, a bouquet of flowers, the music I love, a beautiful piece of art, the mountains that surround us here and the water! And I have my health. Oh, I know, I get stirred up over politics, I worry about the country, about the environment and grit my teeth over the Republicans, but at the end of the day when I get very still, I know what's real and what matters.

And as I said before it's been a marvelous ride in spite of some bumpy roads and it's not over yet. Who knows how many more lovely surprises are waiting along the way?

So, I don’t have a lot of regrets or at least ones that I’m willing to focus on to the detriment of my peace of mind, happiness and ability to enjoy and live in the moment. Are there things I wish I had done or done differently? Of course, there are, but since it isn’t possible to go back and change those things, they’re not enough to make me waste the “now”, which is all I have, all any of us have. So grin, giggle, laugh and shove as much of the past as you can let go of inside a great big old trunk and toss it over the side of your own personal life boat now! And live -- in the moment!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty

 
Posted by Picasa


An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
Kahlil Gibran

 

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
Kahlil Gibran

 

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Kahlil Gibran

 

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Kahlil Gibran

That's My World -- Lake Quinault, WA



Time to share your world, a meme hosted every week by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy and Louise. Click on the icon and let us see the beauty of your world!

Today I'll share another breathtakingly beautiful part of my world in Washington State. It is an incredibly beautiful place, but until I can get there the next time with my own camera and take my own shots, Wikipedia and Google have supplied me these photos and information.



Lake Quinault is a lake on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington state. It is located in the glacial-carved Quinault Valley of the Quinault River, at the southern edge of Olympic National Park in the northwestern United States. One of the most dominate features of Lake Quinault is being located within the Quinault Rain Forest, a temperate rain forest.



Lake Quinault is owned by the Quinault Indian Nation , a temperate rain forest. The area is accessible from U.S. Route 101.



Area activities include fishing (with permit from the Quinaults), scenic drives (there is a 30+ mile loop around the lake), and hiking. The southern side of the lake features a system of short hiking trails maintained by the National Forest Service that are accessible to casual day hikers.



The southern side of the lake is home to the historic Lake Quinault Lodge and the Rain Forest Resort Village and is encompassed by the Olympic National Forest. The north side of the lake is bordered mainly by private homes and some small resorts located in Olympic National Park.



Sunday, July 12, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty

 
Posted by Picasa


The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life out of them, molding them into money.
Rabindranath Tagore

 

Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.
Rabindranath Tagore

 


God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.
Rabindranath Tagore

 

What Can I Say?

What Can I Say?
I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.

Portland Time