Ten Thoughts to Ponder!!

Number 10 Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9 Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8 Men have two emotions :Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7 Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

Number 6 Some people are like a Slinky-not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.

Number 4 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3 Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800.00, and a substantial tax cut saves you  $30.00?

Number 2 In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

And The Number 1 ThoughtLife is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers--what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.

- - - and as someone recently  said to me : "Don't worry about old age--it doesn't last that long."

Some Smiles for Wednesday!

May you all have a wonderful, beautiful, laugh and love filled day!

Priceless Observations Department:

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin. - Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement. - Mark Twain

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible. - George Burns

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year. - Victor Borge

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. - Groucho Marx

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. - Jimmy Durante

I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. - Zsa Zsa Gabor

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. - Alex Levine

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
- Rodney Dangerfield

Money can't buy you happiness ... But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. - Spike Milligan

Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP. - Joe Namath

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.
- Bob Hope

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it..
- W. C. Fields

We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress. - Will Rogers

Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty .. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. - Phyllis Diller

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.
- Billy Crystal



And the cardiologist's diet: -
If it tastes good spit it out.

Reminder for the Day!

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Love the ones who don't just because you can.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands..
If it changes your life, let it.
Kiss slowly.
Forgive quickly..
God never said life would be easy.
He just promised it would be worth it.

Evening, Wisdom - Life Comes at You Fast ! How are You Using Your Time?

A friend sent this to me the other day -- I had to stop and wonder if she had done it for more of a reason than just sharing something she had found or had sent to her. But for whatever reason, it did make me stop and take a look at how I use my time. It's worth taking a minute or so to read.

Too many of us put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Canadians cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years.. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker.. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to....not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask 'How are you?' Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi'?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

'Life may not be the party we hoped for...

but while we are here we might as well dance!'

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!

Leaving a Footprint Behind

“This blog is about leaving my footprint behind when I go. It's also about finding out who I am now, even if it's a different person each day. It's about thinking, feeling, learning and changing - and about laughing too, I hope; and it's about filling my life with new people and making each new day interesting.”

I found this statement about blogging as I was surfing around one afternoon and I copied and pasted it, wishing I had written it myself because it said so perfectly how I feel about blogging. Then the doorbell rang, I hit the wrong key and promptly lost my connection and by the time I returned to my computer I was unable to return to the blog where I had found it – the big frustration of the day.

I am not claiming in any way that these are my words, but they did make me think about what it’s like to be able to leave that “footprint” behind – so much better than a diary because this is shared with other people. It’s a way for me to leave a kind of legacy to my children. It has become, for me, a new way to learn about myself, to explore places within me that I would have been afraid to see in earlier stages of my life. It has helped me realize that in many ways I am a different person each day. I am learning more each day, not only about myself, but about others and how we interact, how we manage to touch those similar strings in the instruments of our lives and enjoy the music that we create together. And it is about laughter, joy, being able to see the beauty in our world, as well as in the those who inhabit our world, those that add to our joy and our laughter.

It offers each of us the opportunity to reach out, to meet others, to exchange thoughts and ideas and laughter. It helps us to see our many similarities with others as well as helping to define our differences with others, but whatever, we never come away empty handed.

So, to whomever wrote this, I say thank you. You have helped me to define the pleasure and excitement and the sense of fulfillment that blogging has brought into my life. And I’m also glad that it has come to me at this stage of life as I have such a rich tapestry to explore and to enjoy.

Attitude is Everything

It's been a very good week for me -- nothing special -- well, we've had lots of sunshine for a change and the new Trader Joe's that we've been waiting two years for finally opened today here in Ballard and while my neighbor and I aren't going shopping until Tuesday, it's still exciting! But it has been one of those weeks when you suddenly realize how incredibly you've been blessed in so many ways, when there's such a wonderful reawakening to the beauty in your life, the joy, the love, the laughter. In spite of the politics, the economy, and all the other negatives that sometimes cloud our vision, it's still a beautiful world.

These words were sent to me by a good friend and I thought I'd share them -- they're worth remembering.

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
Live simply,
Love generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly.......
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.

How Interesting Life Is!

I began blogging, as most of you know, because I was at a real low place in my life and as a result I have found a truly high place in my life! I have connected with people that I would never have had a chance to know; people that have filled my life with so much joy, pleasure – whatever you choose to call it. I have found people all over the world, young and my age and everywhere in between and you have brought to me such amazing and incredible joy! I guess this post is about thanking each of you for all you have given me and shared with me. I cannot even begin to tell you what you have come to mean to me, but I am grateful. Grateful for the beauty of your photos, your own world, which I have been so delighted to discover is “all over the world”! And that is exciting and rewarding.

Thank you all, for reminding me of the joy, the love, the mind boggling experience of being able to share “my/your world” over the past seven months! Life is good – but sometimes we need to be reminded, you have and I am.