Give thanks... keep fighting

Finished another Twitter create your own quote contest today. The prompt was "Give thanks" and the winner is Fernanda (@bfersapiens) with her inspiring words "Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow." Thanks, Fernanda, and to everyone who participated in the contest! The results page is at www.quotegarden.com/contest-20091105.html.

The words

One of the cool things about being obsessed with quotes, and I know of no one more obsessed, is that after a long hard day, when I have little energy for much else, I think over all that I've ever read and know that I don't have to find the words to express how I feel because with few exceptions someone else has already found them before. And then I feel relief at having one less thing to do before retiring for the night, I don't have to search my heart and soul for the words, some other writer - and we are all writers - has done it for me....

"In many areas of understanding, none so much as in our understanding of God, we bump up against a simplicity so profound that we must assign complexities to it to comprehend it at all. It is mindful of how we paste decals to a sliding glass door to keep from bumping our nose against it." ~Robert Brault

A perfect day

"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate. That's my philosophy." ~Thornton Wilder

Goodbye, GeoCities!

As of October 26, 2009, GeoCities will be no more. And to you I say goodbye GeoCities, and thanks for helping me get my start. In early 1998 you let me sign up for a free webspace with you so I could learn HTML, and you gave me my first address of www.geocities.com/ Athens/Aegean/1994. I created Quotations That Make a Statement and started typing my collection of quotes into your pages. It was nice to get my collection out of WordStar for CP/M and into the world wide web for all to enjoy. You served me well until September 2001 when I was routinely exceeding my allotment of bandwidth and moved to my own domain, www.quotegarden.com. I appreciate the nice system and community you had going back then, and I thank you and bid thee farewell!

"Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the Net, it looks like very soon everyone on Earth will have 15 megabytes of fame." ~M.G. Sriram

Liz

R.I.P.
Liz Armbruster

"In what you say of another, apply the
test of kindness, necessity and truth, and let
nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority."
~ Liz Armbruster & Robert Brault ~

We'll miss you.

My heart, my heart

Ran another create your own quote contest on Twitter a few days ago and posted the winner and honorable mentions today. The prompt was "My heart..." and I was pleased with all the nice entries. The winner: "My heart filled with love, flowing over with joy, my own little drum that I like to march by!" composed by Gunda Fijnje-Nolan, @godutch. It made me think of Henry David Thoreau, "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away." Her heart is her drum, how beautiful. See some of the other great entries here: www.quotegarden.com/contest-20090902.html.

Celebration of love

A few quotes in honor of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary...

"Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work." ~Author Unknown

"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years." ~Simone Signoret

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." ~Zora Neale Hurston

"A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time." ~Anne Taylor Fleming

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." ~Mignon McLaughlin

"Are we not like two volumes of one book?" ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

"The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart." ~Author Unknown

"A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short." ~Andre Mauroi

"True love stories never have endings." ~Richard Bach

Too much coffee

Under every full moon

That was great fun! Decided to have a create your own quote contest on Twitter. For 2 or 3 years now I've had this phrase in my head, "under every full moon" and wanted to write a sentence out of it but for some reason no words would ever come. That's the first time I thought about having some type of contest. But, I decided I didn't have the time or desire to set it up.

Then after I joined Twitter a few months ago I thought maybe now's a good time to do it. But still decided against it.

Then in May, Robert Brault posted a make your own quote entry on his blog. It was like a choose your own adventure multiple choice type quote (see the post here), and it was so fun I finally decided to go ahead with my own.

And so a few days ago on Twitter I issued the challenge to complete the thought "Under every full moon..." in less than 100 characters. I received a few dozen replies, and I had a great time reading through them and choosing a winner. I love people's creativity!

The winner was Lorraine Skylark (@Larked), "Under every full moon, a woolgathering world idles," which was posted on my Daydreaming page. I also published a page of honorable mentions here.

It was fun and definitely worth it, so I plan to do it again every once in a while using some new prompts. Yeah for writing!

"The world is but a canvas to the imagination." ~Henry David Thoreau

Desires and discipline

Note to self...
greet the morning
nourish yourself with healthy food and happy thoughts
move your body
do the day's work
enjoy the outdoors
love the family
finish chores around the house
cleanse body and mind
heal thyself
breathe
enjoy some tea
then get on the computer

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty." ~Frank Herbert

Elimination

Okay, this might be a little gross for some people but it's been on my mind lately. I remember my 7th grade science class did a unit on the major systems of the body. My classmate Lisa and I had to report on the excretory system. We did lots of reading, drew diagrams, and wrote a nice report, and I remember learning how important that system of the body is. Until then I didn't know that people couldn't live without the various forms of elimination.

According to Wikipedia, elimination "may be considered to encompass all of the various mechanisms and processes by which life forms dispose of or throw off waste products, toxic substances, and dead portions of the organism."

I've been thinking about how important elimination is in the emotional and mental realms as well. In modern society we daily come into contact with toxic situations and people, that get under our skin - figuratively and also through stress chemicals, literally as well. We also hold onto certain assumptions, prejudices, old patterns of thought, grudges, guilt, bad memories, etc, that eat away at our physical and mental health.

When our bodies need to sweat, we sweat, and when we need to go to the toilet we do so. If only we could eliminate our waste products, toxic substances, and dead portions of our minds, with as much regularity.

"Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it - torn up to irrecoverable tatters." ~Samuel Butler

"In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else." ~Alison Rose Levy

"Stress is the trash of modern life - we all generate it but if you don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life." ~Danzae Pace

I love you, Papa

Take 1

"Tell me the first time you knew he was going to be a good father," I asked my mom last week about my dad. When we were kids we had a garden in our back yard and also a small sandbox he built himself. Most of the stories she told me I had heard before, but what I didn't know was that he had planned those two things before we were even conceived....

Take 2

I am a good person. I have integrity. I am a hard worker. I am loving and caring. Family is important to me. I worry too much. I eat too much ice cream. I love learning. I love doing things myself. I love the outdoors, and I respect nature. I am patient.

Why am I all these things? Because I am my father's daughter....

Take 3

I remember always asking you if you would teach me to use the radial arm saw and you telling me I couldn't until I was as tall as it was. I remember when I walked into my bedroom, closed the door, and started dancing like crazy to "Venus" by Bananarama that was playing on my radio, then turning around to see you sitting on my bed and me being so embarrassed but you just started laughing in pure joy which made me laugh and then I didn't feel so bad. I remember when you drove me home from my first semester of college, through the raging thunderstorms and I was a little scared. I remember driving to my first semester of college, with you in the passenger seat, and pulling into the big rig parking at the rest stop in that tiny little pickup truck, and you not saying anything until we got out and all the truckers were looking at us as we walked to the restroom and I finally figured out for myself what silly thing I had done. I remember you taking us to Pic 'N' Save every December so we could go secret Christmas shopping for our mommy and each pick out something for her. I remember all of us squirting water through the gaps in our front teeth at each other, and at the dinner table no less and you were the ringleader. I remember sometimes listening to old-time radio shows with you, like The Shadow.

And I always remember every single day what a great dad you've always been and what a great dad you still are to all of us....

Take 4

Love and appreciation are such personal things they're so difficult to put into words. What I'm really trying to say is you're a great dad and a great person, and you've had such a positive influence on so many people it's amazing. You truly are like one of those skipping stones with a ripple effect. Thanks for rippling me!

"He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." ~Clarence Budington Kelland

"Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad." ~Author Unknown

"I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart." ~Adabella Radici

"A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart." ~Author Unknown

Memorial Christmas

A bit odd to post a Christmas poem in May? Maybe, maybe not. My quote of the day on the site and quote of the moment on Twitter today were both Memorial Day related so thought perhaps I could get away with another holiday on my blog.

I was thinking about my grandpa this morning, who served in World War II. He didn't die in the war, lived happily until 57 years later, but I was thinking about him nonetheless, as I do many days. There's a poem he wrote when I was a little girl, and I posted an excerpt from it on my site a few years ago with my grandma's blessings. Those four lines have since been copied all over the internet. Today I thought I would post the poem in its entirety, for everyone to enjoy.

Let Every Day Be Christmas
by Norman Wesley Brooks

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself.

Peace on Earth, good will to men,
kind thoughts and words of cheer,
are things we should use often
and not just once a year.

Remember too the Christ-child, grew up to be a man;
to hide him in a cradle, is not our dear Lord's plan.
So keep the Christmas spirit, share it with others far and near,
from week to week and month to month, throughout the entire year!

December 17, 1976