“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy”
- Anne Frank
Category Archives: Books
Inspirational Quote: It’s This Simple
Thought of the New Year: Chapter One
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Inspirational Quote: Keep it Silly, Stupid!
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.” - Gustave Flaubert
Top Ten: Things To Be Thankful For
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Today, our friends across the pond gather together to get merry around a heaving table which buckles under the weight of a bursting banquet of delicious grub worthy of any tudor king. Traditional delights include pumpkin and pecan pies, sweet potato mash topped with melty marshmallow and the infamous roast turkey, to name but a few.
Yes, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in true American style and that means BIG. BIG food. BIG love. But most of all, BIG thanks. Whatever your nationality, appetite or marital status, everyone should take the opportunity to be grateful for this day. Look around you. Think about all the things, BIG and small, that make life worth living but are sometimes taken for granted. Whichever way you look at it, there’s always, always, always something to be thankful for. Stop. Think. Thank. Share the love.
THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR…
1. A proper cup o’coffee.
2. The written word. A-Z. A good book. A trashy magazine. Words carved into park benches. Even insults etched onto the back of toilet doors.
3. Friends. Say no more.
4. Sunshine. When it decides to make an appearance.
5. Music. The food of love. Play on.
6. Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter. Yes, that’s four but technically it’s one.
7. Breakfast. In bed. With the newspaper. Freshly squeezed orange juice. And a kiss with maple syrup. Thanks very much.
8. Birthdays. Any excuse for a celebration.
9. Trees. The ambassadors of Mother Earth. Givers of life.
10. YOU! Yes, you.
Feel Goof Friday: Children in Need
GET YOUR GOOF ON AND SUPPORT CHILDREN IN NEED.
Today we’re celebrating the pure genius of childhood. The laughs, the tears, the squabbles and the sticky fingers. We were all children once. The lucky ones amongst us still are. Let’s get back to grips with the joys of being a kid. Those glory days when we could entertain ourselves with our own reflection, pull ridiculous faces and still be considered ‘cute’, stick our fingers into the chocolate cake, scream the house down for no apparent reason, and tell people they smell with a snigger.
Those were the days. Ah. Go on, relive the moments. Chase your housemates around the kitchen table. Swap shoes with your boyfriend/girlfriend and strut your stuff up and down the corridor. Face paint. Start a band with pots and pans and milk bottles. Blow raspberries. Skip.
If it’s silly, it’s necessary. And it’s all in aid of Children in Need. As if you needed an excuse.
A child is a curly dimpled lunatic. ~Ralph Waldo
Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed. ~Robert Gallagher
Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it. ~Not Your Average Dictionary
Children seldom misquote. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said. ~Author Unknown
Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
We’ve had bad luck with our kids – they’ve all grown up. ~Christopher Morley
And if you can’t get enough of all this silliness, click on the sticky out tongue below:
Inspirational Quote: An Optimistic Kind of Love
“Optimism is the first cousin of love, and it’s exactly like love in three ways: it’s pushy, it has no sense of humour, and it turns up where you least expect it.” Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
Inspirational Quote: Live and Forgive
“Life appears to me too short to spend in nursing animosity and registering wrongs.” Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Monday Madness: Find Yourself in Wonderland
The weekend is over. A new week has begun. But instead of falling into the Monday morning mope, let’s fall down the rabbit hole instead and have some fun. I’ve been pondering Wonderland through Alice eyes. What does it all mean? Can we learn anything from it? So, I’ve gathered together the best quotes and images to be found and attempted to tie them together with some non and some sense. To quote the Duchess:
“Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
THE WHITE RABBIT
The White Rabbit. That waistcoat wearing, clock bearing, hop hop hopping curiosity that may have killed the cat. Or Alice for that matter. Be curious. Follow that rabbit. You never know where it might lead you.
FALLING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Yes, it might lead you to some incomprehensible places for reasons as yet unknown. Places that are dark and fuzzy, surreal and strange. Places that scare you and dare you to explore. Feel the fear. Step out of your comfort zone. Take a chance and do something different. Surprise yourself. You never know what’s round the corner so instead of waiting, hop skip and jump right in.
CURIOUS COMMANDMENTS
Drink me. Eat me. Challenge me. Dare me. Do something spontaneous. Take a risk. It may unlock doors that once seemed impassible. No, I don’t mean impossible. As Door so rightly stated:
“Nothing is impossible!”
BIG AND LITTLE
Sometimes you’re ten feet tall, know it all, having a ball. Next, you take a curve ball, have a great fall, feel teeny tiny small. We change. We grow. We go one way. We stop. We change direction. We take a couple of steps back then a few forward. Like a dance. Most importantly, we just keep going.
TIME
Tick tock. Tick tock. The ticking clock will never stop. Time is elusive. Time won’t wait. Time is all we have. Time is now. Now is for ever. Live for now. This moment. Right here. And the next. And the next.
PACK OF CARDS
Life is like a game of cards. People are dealt different hands. Some keep their cards close to their chest. Some play by the rules. Some cheat. Sometimes, you just need a bit of luck. Sometimes, following the rules is futile. Sometimes, you just have to go with it. Pick a card, any card and make it work.
MAD HATTER’S TEA PARTY
“Curiouser and Curiouser”
Alice, we know exactly how you feel about life not making sense. But sense is for tasting. For seeing. For hearing, feeling, smelling. There is no sense in trying to make sense of something that has no sense at all. Life is nonsensical. The wise sense that life is for living, for sensing, for nonsensing. Life is not for trying to make sense. If that sounds like nonsense then it most probably makes sense.
Take a leaf out of the Hatter’s tea cup. Embrace the nonsense. Oh, and drink tea.
“We’re all mad here”
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Looking at your reflection in the mirror is all well and good. If you like what you see, of course. But, as much as we’re convinced to believe otherwise, surface is superficial. Sometimes you have to go deeper. We’re not our own reflections. We’re human. We have multiple dimensions. We have layers. We have depth. Most of all, we have imperfections. That’s what makes us all so darn perfect! Give up standing on the outside, appraising exteriors. Step into that looking glass and explore a plethora of individual, nonsensical and utterly fabulous wonderlands.
BELIEVE
We are all Alice. We are all exploring. Wonderland is exhausting. But help is at hand. Read. Use your imagination. Play. Be spontaneous. Live young. Stand tall. Most importantly… BE. LIVE. BELIEVE.
AUTHORS NOTE
Finally, that age-old question that’s had us scratching our chins for decades…
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
Lewis Carroll had this to say:
The End. Or should I say, THE BEGINNING. Write your own Wonderland.
Inspirational Quote: Follow the Yellow Brick Road
“Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.”
- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
