HOME: There's No Place Like It in the World!

[There is so much to say about HOME! But here are some of my thoughts on the subject, and some other people's thoughts as well. I wrote this post back in the fall -- thus the autumn decor.]

As a child, I moved a lot, always in the same metro area, because, as the Temptations song says, "Papa was a rolling stone." (My "papa" is 79 now and still restless, wanting to move every few months. I now understand the vagabond nature of my childhood.)

Our family lived in various apartments, townhomes, duplexes, regular houses, and farmhouses in and around Kansas City (both sides of the state line). We lived in the city, the suburbs, and the countryside. In the fourth grade, I attended three different schools, for example, in three different school districts. By necessity, I learned to adapt.

The Temptations song continues: "Wherever he laid his hat was his home."

Home is wherever you are -- wherever the people you love and the people who love you are -- regardless of the home's shape, size, cost, decor, etc. I have even felt at home in hotel rooms while traveling -- the sanctuary of a secure, designated place to rest and regroup.

Home is a special place by virtue of the fact that you belong there.

Who hasn't come in from bad weather or from a difficult day and felt the contentment of arriving at home?

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. -- John Howard Payne, 1823

Some quotes about home:

To us our house was not an unsentient matter – it had a heart and soul and eyes to see us with, and approvals and solicitudes and deep sympathies. It was of us and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome – and we could not enter it unmoved. -- Mark Twain on his mansion in Hartford, Connecticut

If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. – William Morris, English designer and philosopher

This is the true nature of home — it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before those faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light, — ...so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of home. – John Ruskin

The reality of the house is order / The blessing of the house is community / The glory of the house is hospitality / The crown of the house is godliness. – Frank Lloyd Wright

His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. -- J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit

There is a mystical virtue in right angles. There is an unspoken morality in seeking the level and the pumb. A house will stand, a table will bear weight, the sides of a box will hold together only if the joints are square and the members upright. When a bubble is lined up between the two marks etched in the glass tube of the level, you have aligned yourself with the forces that hold the universe together. -- Scott Russell Sanders, The Paradise of Bombs, University of Georgia Press:

If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. – Chinese Proverb

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition. – Samuel Johnson

Home should be an anchor, a port in a storm, a refuge, a happy place in which to dwell.  Home should be where life’s greatest lessons are taught and learned.  Home can be the center of one’s earthly faith, where love and responsibility are appropriately blended.  – Marvin J. Ashton, L.D.S. General Authority

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The righteous woman may save the home, which may be the last and only sanctuary…in the midst of storm and strife. – Spencer W. Kimball, L.D.S. Church President

The affection and thoughtfulness required in the HOME are no abstract exercises in love, no mere rhetoric concerning some distant human cause. Family life is an encounter with raw selfishness, with the need for civility, of taking turns, of being hurt and yet forgiving, and of being at the mercy of others’ moods. Family life is a constant challenge, not a periodic performance we can render on a stage and then run for the privacy of the dressing room to be alone with ourselves. The HOME gives us our greatest chance, however, to align our public and private behavior, to reduce the hypocrisy of our lives – to become more congruent with Christ. – Neal A. Maxwell, L.D.S. General Authority 

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a HOUSE of PRAYER, a house of FASTING, a house of FAITH, a house of LEARNING, a house of GLORY, a house of ORDER, a house of GOD. -- L.D.S. Doctrine & Covenants 109:8

Like sands through the hourglass...

I tend to ask for strange things for Christmas, and after a few years of making these strange requests, my husband usually buys them for me and I cherish them. (I know -- from a feminist perspective, I should probably buy them for myself, but because I know that I will cherish them, I like them to come from him.)

In previous years I have asked for and received a bushel basket and a shepherd's hook, for example, both symbolic items that are full of meaning to me.

The strangest item on this year's wish list was a good, old-fashioned hourglass. Not a 30-minute glass, or a stopwatch or anything mechanical that ticks or tocks - a real hourglass. Before he bought it for me, he asked me why? Why did I want an hourglass?

[Pictured: The hourglass Scott gave me showing exactly how much time this blog post took from beginning to end.]

It was difficult to explain.

I have long had a suspicion that I'm living in the wrong century. Not that God made a mistake, of course, but that I am living in 2016 as a sort of compromise between the 1800s, when I might have been born, and the 2100s when my husband might have been born. Maybe we mutually agreed to be born in the latter half of the 20th century. Just a theory, but who knows? It could be true.

Anyway, I am comfortable with an hourglass. It doesn't buzz at me or make any noise. Even holding it close to my ear, I can't hear the sand trickling down. I can look at it and see, without numbers or mathematics of any kind, how much time I have remaining in my task. No calculations necessary, or possible. It is a purely visual way of tracking time.

An hourglass is a useful thing if you need to do something very quiet on a regular basis for one hour, like writing.

A few quotes on HOURS:

Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of HOURS per day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book

An HOUR’s industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve your affairs than a month’s moaning. – Ben Franklin

One of the illusions is that the present HOUR is not the critical, decisive HOUR.  Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. – Emerson

From John Dryden, English writer “Happy the Man”:

Happy the man, and happy he alone

Who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today!

Be fair or foul or rain or shine,

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate,, are mine.

Not heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and

I have had my HOUR. 

RESEARCH NOTES: Hourglasses were not invented until about 150 BC. I would have thought they were older than that! In 1519, the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, took 18 hourglasses with him as he sailed from Barcelona to circumnavigate the globe. A page would flip the hourglasses every 60 minutes to ensure the accuracy of the captain's logs. The hourglass remains a symbol of time today, most frequently on electronic screens to indicate that the computer is engaged in a time-consuming process.

Quotes and Thoughts on BEGINNING

Every journey ends at the BEGINning of another journey. - Anonymous

One who fears failure limits his worth. Failure is the opportunity to BEGIN again more intelligently. – Henry Ford

It is better to BEGIN in the evening than not at all. – English proverb

You can’t solve every problem, particularly if the problem isn’t yours to BEGIN with. – Dear Abby

The BEGINning is the most important part of the work.  – Plato

Attention is the BEGINning of devotion."-  Mary Oliver

To love oneself is the BEGINning of a life-long romance. – Oscar Wilde

The journey of a thousand miles BEGINs with one step. – Lao-tse

Now this is not the end. It is not even the BEGINning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the BEGINning. – Winston Churchill

Don’t despair. The world is round. What looks like the end may only be the BEGINning. – Unknown

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can BEGIN to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime. - Tara Brach 

Peace BEGINs with a smile. - Mother Teresa 

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

Everyone has two lives. The second one BEGINs when you realize you only have one. – Steven Sotloff, American journalist killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it BEGIN here" -- Captain John Parker, 1775 (commander at the Battle of Lexington)

Tomorrow is a new day; BEGIN it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I Happened To Be Standing" by Mary Oliver

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing

just outside my door, with my notebook open,

which is the way I BEGIN every morning.

Then a wren in the privet began to sing.

He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don't know why. And yet, why not.

I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe

or whatever you don't. That's your business.

But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be

      if it isn't a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Have a Nice Day

I am old enough to remember the 1970s, when I aged from 6 to 16. Those were my formative years. I remember hippies and hippie vans, polluted rivers, litter, "All in the Family," "The Waltons," and happy faces.

You remember happy faces, don't you? They were as ubiquitous as peace signs. Yellow circles with big, elongated eyes and upturned smiles. (Wal-Mart has co-opted a variation of the happy face in its advertising, but it isn't quite the same. Emoticons have also brought back the happy face in a miniscule format.)

Anyway, I remember happy faces and store clerks (all store clerks) saying thank you and have a nice day. They don't say thank you anymore (in fact, I usually find myself thanking them), and they rarely say have a nice day. They usually just kind of shrug and turn their attention to the next customer in line. (Am I sounding like an old bitty, or what? I know I am, but it's true!)

Back then, it was good to be known as nice, but somewhere along the line people began disparaging the adjective. Nice went from meaning 'kind, thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of others' to meaning 'ordinary and unassertive.' Nice people became synonymous with doormats, and who wanted to be a doormat?

Now we've gotten 180 degrees out of phase with 'nice' often meaning its opposite, 'not nice.' (Think seagulls in famous "Finding Nemo" scene.) 'Ni-ice," on the other hand, means very nice.

I started thinking about this because today I realized that my view of how to experience a day is out of whack. To this point in my adult life (certainly since becoming a mother), I have regarded one 24-hour period as a commodity to be properly used rather than enjoyed.

For some reason, this makes me think of a story I read in our local paper in 2002 by Bruce Northam, a National Geographic travel writer. I wrote most of the story down in my quote book:

My father and I walk together a lot. Last summer we undertook a 180 mile trek across Wales, coast-to-coast along Offa's Dyke - the grand earthwork project conceived in the eighth century by King Offa of Mercia to separate England from Wales. Our walk was a celebration of sorts.

A year earlier, my father, who was then 70, had undergone open heart bypass and back surgery. Now we were walking together atop the long, curving ridge- boundary of Brecon Beacons National Park. En route we befriended Erica, a Welsh woman who was clearly oblivious to the beck and call of stress.

At dusk the three of us encountered an elderly lady and her beagle hiking toward us. Teetering along on a walking stick, she wore a motoring cap and held a bunch of wildflowers. I said "hello" and asked her where she was going. She replied in Welsh,

"Rydw I yna yn barod." We looked to Erica for a translation.

"She said, 'I'm already there.'" (Cheryl's side note: ISN'T THAT THE BEST?)

They continued their placid conversation in Welsh until the old woman resumed her walk. As she faded into the distance, I declared my envy for her simple philosophy.

"Let's catch up with her. There's something else I'd like to ask her."

We spun around and caught up with her. She walked a few more steps along the trail, traded her flowers to the other hand, and raised an eyebrow. Erica translated my question,

"What's the secret to a long and happy life?"

The old woman and I scrutinized each other for an instant, beings from different eras and opposite sides of an ocean. She directed her answer to Erica.

"Moments." There was a quiet pause. Then the old woman smiled, squinted at my father, and spoke slowly,

"Moments are all we get. A true walker understands this."

After a silent minute, we all clutched hands with the old woman, then we waved good-bye as she trudged off with eternal poise and bearing. As we turned to continue on our way, my father and I exchanged smiles.

Moments. They are all we get.

~ Author Bruce Northam ~

Some Quotes on Life and Writing

Pit your daily determination, discipline, grit, and sense of duty against the debilitating emotions of fear, dread, confusion, and procrastination.
-- Lloyd D. Newell. Oct. 17. 2010 ("Music and the Spoken Word")

There isn't time to talk about someday writing that short story or poem or novel. Slow down now, touch what is around you, and out of care and compassion for each moment and detail, put pen to paper and begin to write. - Natalie Goldberg

Don't quit. It's very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it's very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can't get fired if you don't write, and most of the time you don't get rewarded if you do. But don't quit. - Andre Dubus

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. -- Pablo Picasso

Nothing keeps a poet in his high singing mood like unappeasable hunger for unattainable food. -- Joyce Kilmer

Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember. -- Willa Cather

I am always surprised at what I find in myself, and this to me is the most rewarding part of being a writer. -- Doris Lessing

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. ~English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University

The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie

Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man. ~Emily Dickinson

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851

An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. ~Gustave Flaubert

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. ~Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895

I do not like to write - I like to have written. ~Gloria Steinem



And one exquisite stanza of a poem by Ezra Pound (not necessarily about writing):


What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.
What thou lovest well shall not be reft from thee.
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage.

Change the Page...Write About Anything!

Late Sunday night, two stories due for the newspaper tomorrow -- the perfect time to blog. At least that is my M.O.

Anyway, I have one recent quote to share:


Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
"I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?'
He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"

Love it! Utah's own Yogi Berra.

Here are some famous Yogi Berra quotes:
As a general comment on baseball: "90% of the game is half mental."[17]
On why he no longer went to Ruggeri's, a St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."[18]
"It ain't over till it's over." In July 1973, when Berra's Mets trailed the Chicago Cubs by 9½ games in the National League East; the Mets rallied to win the division title on the final day of the season.[19]
When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which is accessible by two routes: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."[20]
On being the guest of honor at an awards banquet: "Thank you for making this day necessary."[21]
"It's déjà vu all over again". Berra explained that this quote originated when he witnessed Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hit back to back home runs in the Yankees' seasons in the early 1960s.[22]
"You can observe a lot by watching."[23]
"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours."[24]
Responding to a question about remarks attributed to him that he did not think were his: "I really didn't say everything I said!"[25]
On the death of George Steinbrenner, the New York Times quotes Berra as saying "George and I had our differences, but who didn't?"[26]

More Quotes (Again)

I know...Quotes! Quotes! Quotes! And some people don't like quotes, but I love them because they make me think and/or laugh. I finished transcribing my very first quote collection from a small pink corduroy blank book to the computer this week. I remember walking to the drug store in high school to buy that quote book, and it took me years to fill it up. Now I have several others still waiting to be transcribed. I rarely write quotes down by hand anymore as I stumble across them -- I just type them directly into the computer. Saves a step.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this eclectic assortment of quotes:

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. – Popular Mechanics, 1949

The average person has one ovary and one testicle. – Statistical fact, proving that statistics are not the whole story

I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. – Sherlock Holmes, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone”

Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart. – Confucius 500 BC

When the pilot told us to brace and grab our ankles, the first thing that went through my mind was that we must all look pretty stupid. – Jeremiah Rawlings, age 12, after the 1989 DC-10 crash in Sioux City, Iowa

I am a bit suspicious of any theory that says that the highest moral stage is one in which people talk like college professors. – James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense, 1993

I am still learning. – Michelangelo, 1560, age 85

In youth we learn. In age we understand. – Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aphorisms, 1883

For some reason, possibly to save ink, the restaurants have started printing their menus in letters the height of bacteria. – Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns Fifty, 1998

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. – Scottish author John Buchan, 1875-1940

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. - Robert Hughes

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. - Leon Bloy

An irrational passion for dispassionate rationality will take all the joy out of life. - John Maurice Clark

If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. - Doug Larson

Librarians...possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is. - Garrison Keillor

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize I'm going to miss mine by just a few days. Garrison Keillor

Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. ~Ansel Adams

Lisa: "Do we have any food that wasn't brutally slaughtered?"
Homer: "Well, I think the veal died of loneliness." - Matt Groening, The Simpsons

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem. ~David Carradine

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part. ~Shirley MacLaine

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Some quotes found while substitute teaching...

I subbed for two days last week in Abby's geometry class and enjoyed reading the teacher's folder of quotes. They were all on the subject of education. Here are a few of my favorites:

Some people would rather die than think. -- Bertrand Russell

The human mind treats a new idea the way the human body treats a foreign object; it rejects it. -- Sir Peter Medawar

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin wth doubts, he shall end in certainties. -- Sir Francis Bacon

To travel hopefully is better than to arrive. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Comparison is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game we cannot win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives. -- Jim Collins

When Abraham Maslow asked a college class if any of them had expectations of greatness, no one responded. "What else then?" he asked.

Good teachers share one trait -- a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work. -- Parker Palmer

Each individual brain is like a unique and unimaginably dense rain forest, teeming with growth and decay. It is less like a programmed machine than an ecological habitat that mimics the evolution of life itself. -- Professor Edleman, Nobel Prize winner

Everything depends upon the quality of the experience. -- John Dewey

Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license. -- Richard Tait

Wherever you are, be there. -- Emerson

In any work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts. -- Emerson

To attract joy and create success, try doing less but doing it with more enthusiasm. -- Phillip Humbert

Probably not an original thought...

It's probably not an original thought, but it felt like one when it occurred to me about midnight last night after I'd turned off the light to go to sleep. I sat up in bed, turned on the light again, and wrote this on a 4x6 card:

The good news and the bad news are the same news: you can have just about anything you want in life if you're willing to work for it.

Now as I sit here thinking about this midnight revelation, it occurs to me that we receive many of the desirable things in life without working for them: our five senses, our health, bright warm sunshine, breathtakingly beautiful scenery, family...They are gifts from a loving Father in Heaven.

He also gives us the freedom to pursue happiness - that's where work comes in. If we're lucky, the work involved is rewarding. If we're really lucky, it's even pleasurable.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite all-time quotes:

Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that the power of work is a blessing, that love of work is success. -- David O. McKay

An Engineering Kind of Quote

This excerpt from the book "The Paradise of Bombs" by Scott Russell Sanders (University of Georgia Press) made me look at the world a little differently. (There's a moral lesson in the quote, too.) I'd really never thought about the importance of engineering before reading this:

"There is a mystical virtue in right angles. There is an unspoken morality in seeking the level and the plumb. A house will stand, a table will bear weight, the sides of a box will hold together only if the joints are square and the members are upright. When the bubble is lined up between two marks etched in the glass tube of the level, you have aligned yourself with the forces that hold the universe together."

Some Intriguing Quotes

Men like women who write. Even though they don't say so. A writer is a foreign country. – Marguerite Duras, French novelist

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud. – Emile Zola

There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman. – Emile Zola

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. – Gloria Steinem

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. - Bertrand Russell

I realized all the really good ideas I had came to me while I was milking a cow. So, I moved back to Iowa. - Grant Wood, Iowa native and painter.

John Kennedy once said to a assembled group of scholars in the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh. – Malcom Muggeridge, editor of Punch

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. - W.B. Yeats

I wake up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult. - E. B. White

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. - Doris Lessing

A happy family is but an earlier heaven. – Sir John Bowring

No matter how you feel, you get up, clean up, dress up and show up. – Anonymous

Quotes on Beauty

Never miss an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting....a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The perception of beauty if a moral test. - Henry David Thoreau

That which we feel as beauty we will one day know as truth. - Johann Schiller

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains because the average man can see better than he can think. - Unknown

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. - Emerson

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. - Emerson

Just a quick quote note...

On Mother's Day I heard a talk with an elongated version of a quote I had long since memorized from John Ruskin (1819-1900). I liked the more complete quote and thought I would share it here:

This is the true nature of home — it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light, — shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea; — so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of home. – John Ruskin

Welcome Spring

It's April 24th and it's raining -- that's the way it should be. For now, at least, the snow is gone.

My son mowed the lawn today with unusual eagerness -- the first grass cutting of the year -- decapitating dandelions before they could turn into seed globes and blow through the neighborhood. Trees all over town are white, pink, dark pink, lime green, even purple.

People have literally come out of the woodwork of their houses onto the streets and sidewalks of our town.

Spring is busting out all over, as the saying goes. Which reminds me of a quote that isn't really about spring (EVERYthing reminds me of a quote, as you know): "See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds." (The quote is from a Hindu guru. It's amazing to think about how nature works with apparent effortlessness, isn't it? Something to think about while doing yoga...)

Bonus quotes I stumbled upon (and enjoyed) while looking for the flower quote:

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -- Edward Abbey

Some people follow their dreams. Others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission. -- Neil Kendall

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge

The greatst part of our happiness depends on our disposition, not our circumstances. -- Martha Washington

I've been on a constant diet for the past two decades. I've lost a total of 789 lbs. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet. -- Erma Bombeck

I believe if I ever had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough terragon around. -- James Beard, food writer (b.1903)

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. -- Mark Twain

Hell is anywhere you are with a bad attitude and no gratitude. -- Anonymous (SO TRUE!)

My Ongoing Theme: Quotes on Housework

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house. -- Zsa Zsa Gabor


My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. -- Anonymous


I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. -- Joan Rivers


I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on. -- Roseanne Barr


Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. -- William Morris, English designer and philosopher


The reality of the house is order
The blessing of the house is community
The glory of the house is hospitality
The crown of the house is godliness. – Frank Lloyd Wright


His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

5 Quick Quotes

Here are five thought-provoking quotes. The first two I heard on the radio yesterday (both regarding our country's current economic crisis).

May you be born in interesting times. - Chinese Proverb

Let history be written in your own hand. - Glenn Beck, encouraging everyone to chronicle this period of history in journals

Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. - M. Scott Peck

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch. - John F. Kennedy

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Winter Quotation by Henry David Thoreau

I came across this quote today while looking for another one. It made me almost nostaligic about winter time, even though I am hoping it will end soon.

In winter we lead a more inward life.

Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts whose windows and doors are half concealed but from whose chimneys smoke cheerfully ascends.

Henry David Thoreau

A Few Quotes for Writers

In the course of transcribing my quote collection, I've come across a bunch of quotes for writers, some of which I will post here:

I reject your rejection. - Snoopy (Charles Schulz)

We [writers] have the power to bore people long after we are dead. - Sinclair Lewis

I wish you a wrestling match with your creative muse that will last a lifetime. - Ray Bradbury

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. - Earnest Hemingway

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. - Voltaire

The muse is a tough buck. - Perlman

No work is ever finished - it is only abandoned. - Joseph Conrad

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights and you have to make the whole trip that way. - E.L. Doktorow

William Faulkner once described one of the joys of writing as the moment when a character stands up and casts a shadow.

Some Quotes from the Great Greek Philosopher, Anonymous

When I was about ten, my dad introduced me to Bartlett's Quotations, and I really did think that Anonymous was an actual person who seemed to know something about everything. (Aside: I also thought Arson was the name of a person. News reports on a rash of fires in Kansas City when I was young always ended with "Police suspect arson." I wondered why they didn't just go arrest him.)

Anyway, I started my own quote collection in high school and I have several books of them now, which I'm transcribing to computer bit by bit. Many of them are by 'Anonymous.'

Here are a few to give you an idea of Anonymous's breadth of knowledge and insight:

Ideas are very much like children – your own are wonderful.

Some people have 100 acres of possibilities and about ½ acre under cultivation.

A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous.

An extravagance is often something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.

You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.

Corduroy pillows make headlines.

Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

Being a husband is like any other job. It helps if you like the Boss.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.

Peace is not the absence of conflict; it's the absence of inner conflict.

More Food for Thought...

Emily's depiction of the ultimate ice cream sundae

Here are a few quotes I've collected recently -- I hope I haven't already posted any of them on my blog...Enjoy!

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money. - Joe Weinstein

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
-- A.E. Housman

Language is a power tool. -- Herbert Gans, Columbia University sociologist

It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another, his education is incomplete. -- Norman Cousins, autobiography

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. – Mark Twain

Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed the deeper they burn. – Robert Southey

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ~George Bernard Shaw

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, 'This I am today; that I will be tomorrow.' ~Louis L'Amour

One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of one's history. ~Lemony Snicket

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia - Charles Schulz