I miss you Sam!!

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

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty



Can miles truly separate you from friends.... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there? ~Richard Bach



Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. ~Walter Elliott, The Spiritual Life



People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. ~G.B. Shaw



Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. ~Author Unknown



Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford

Shadow Shot Sunday!

Finding shadows during the frequently gray days of autumn can be a challenge, but it does frequently inspire one to be more creative! Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted every every week by Tracy at Hey Harriet and believe me it's the most fun ever! Click on her name, sign up and join the fun!

I tried to find shadows inside this week because although we had some occasional sun, it was cold and windy and I'm a chicken where cold, windy weather is concerned. So, started looking around the house and these are what I found. All of the shots are more interesting if you click on them to embiggen!

The first is sun coming through a seashell that I brought home from a vacation years ago.



This was a almost hidden shadow on one of my plants.



The next two are just some favorite color shadows that I'm always playing with.



Friday, October 30, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty



The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. ~Stephen King



It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves. ~John Bulwer



I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. ~Eleanor Roosevelt



Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it. ~Sudie Back



Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance. ~S. Leonard Rubinstein, Writing: A Habit of Mind



When the student is ready, the master appears. ~Buddhist Proverb

How to Stay Young!

These words of wisdom have made the rounds many times, but they're always worth repeating and reading again.

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them'

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER :
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Oh, and one last idea!

As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to "make a difference" in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable achievements of other "seniors" who have found the courage to take on challenges. Harold Sclumberg is such a person.



I've often been asked, 'What do you old folks do now that you're retired'?
“Well… I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background, and one of the things I enjoy most is turning beer, wine, Scotch, and margaritas into urine”.

Atta way to go Harold! Great words for all of us!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty



I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. ~Thomas Jefferson



You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind. ~Author Unknown



He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. ~Friedrich Nietzsche



Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks. ~Henri Bergson



Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end. ~Max Eastman



A man isn't poor if he can still laugh. ~Raymond Hitchcock

Sky Watch Friday!

Time to share your magnificent skies once again! Sky Watch Friday is hosted each week by Klaus, Sandy, Wren, Fishing Guy, Louise and myself, and I would like to invite you to join us and share the fun and the beauty! Click on the icon and sign up today!




For the most part we've had our usual varied skies, but Autumn is here and we're beginning to see more and more gray, gray, gray! So, I try to capture all the color I can when it puts in an appearance. As usual these were taken from our deck and at the harbor. Enjoy!









Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty



There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anaïs Nin

Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. ~Dr. Alexis Carrel



I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of. ~Michel de Montaigne

There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud. ~Carol Shields



Keep smiling - it makes people wonder what you've been up to. ~Author Unknown

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. ~Rabindranath Tagore

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin

Sounds About Right to Me! Unfortunately!

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman for the U..S. Government", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. ....
Now give me back my dog.

A good friend of mine sent this to me -- had to share it. It would be really funny if it wasn't so true and that makes it scary!!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Happy Birthday, Sam Schnauzer!!!



The big day has finally arrived and I'm seven years old!!



Mom and I slipped down to the basement so she could give me one of my presents without Mojo getting all jealous! She's in a bad mood anyway because her Dad is out of town this week!



But, of course, she heard us and came running downstairs, looking all sad and looking for her toy.



Where's mine??? She asked me.

I felt so bad for her. So, Mom and I decided that I can have the rest of my presents when Mojo's Dad gets home! Plus, we have some for her as well. It'll be a great celebration!! For the rest of the week!!! And don't forget to look for Bozo of Mumbai this weekend!! He always has fun stuff going on!!!

ABC Wednesday -- O

Sorry, I lost all connection with other participants of the day -- don't know if I'm the only one, but please forgive me for not commenting on your ABC Wednesday posts.



Schools are in full swing again, so how are you with the alphabet? Mrs. Denise Nesbitt hosts ABC Wednesday each week and gives us all a chance to show what we know and can do with the alphabet! Click on her name, sign up and play!!

The letter for this week is O! And here are some of the O words that I found!

O is for Olives!



And O is for Oranges



O is for Oregon grapes!



O is for Otter!



AND! O is for Mount Olympus in Washington state!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Evening, Wisdom and Beauty

To view That's My World, please scroll down to the next post.



A smile confuses an approaching frown. ~Author Unknown



People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile. ~Lee Mildon

Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available. ~Jim Beggs



A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. ~Charles Gordy

A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you're at home. ~Author Unknown



Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator



The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. ~William Shakespeare, Othello

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