Chapter 8, Page 31, Book 16

I have had some computer problems.  I did loose some files like the one I had all set for today's post, but thankfully I did have a back up from August 26th and could restore a lot .  It may take a few days to get back to the regular / normal daily posts.  We'll see....

The good news is that everything is working perfectly now.  

Chapter 8, Page 30, Book 16

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people. 

Albert Einstein

August 30th - time to reflect

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. 

James Levin

We constantly take in countless sights, sounds, and information every day. While it is important that we continue to be open to the world around us, it is also important that we stop and reflect on all that we have learned and experienced.

Through refection we can see how strong we've become through the ups and downs, joys and disappointments of life. These experiences have made us stronger and more capable. From times of reflection we gain a new appreciation of who we are  the ways we contribute to the world.

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. 

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Chapter 8, Page 29, Book 16

Days Of The Week


Monday - Wash Day

Lord, help me wash away all my selfishness and vanity, so I may serve you with perfect humility through the week ahead.

Tuesday - Ironing Day

Dear Lord, help me iron out all the wrinkles of prejudice. I have collected through the years so that I may see the beauty in others.

Wednesday - Mending Day

O God, help me mend my ways so I will not set a bad example for others.

Thursday - Cleaning Day

Lord Jesus, help me to dust out all the many faults I have been hiding in the secret corners of my heart.

Friday - Shopping Day

O God, give me the grace to shop wisely so I may purchase eternal happiness for myself and all others in need of love.

Saturday - Cooking Day

Help me, my Savior, to brew a big kettle of brotherly love and serve it with clean, sweet bread of human kindness.

Sunday - The Lord's Day

O God, I have prepared my house for you. Please come into my heart as my honored guest so I may spend the day and the rest of my life in your presence.

 Author Unknown

August 29th - Mondays are another day to celebrate

Monday is the key day of the week.

Scottish Proverb

Monday morning is a day most people dread, and wish could change places with Friday.  Here's the thing, Monday doesn't have to be a day to dread, it can be a day to celebrate.

Monday starts your week, it sets the tone for your week, and you can choose to be happy that it's Monday, or hate that it's Monday.  It can be hard, many of us don't like our jobs and would rather be some where else.  I've been there before and I know it is hard to feel great about Monday morning. 

Mondays are the start of the work week which offer new beginnings 52 times a year!

David Dweck

But doesn’t really take much at all to learn to love Mondays. Honestly, it’s just a shift in perspective. Instead of dwelling on all the things you dislike about Monday, focus on what you love and all the opportunities you have

Let's celebrate Mondays, not dread them. Life is Short. Dreading Monday is a ridiculous waste of time. 

If you start the week with a positive attitude on Monday, it'll be a lot easier to fight off negativity the rest of the week.    

  Monday is a fresh start. It's never too late to dig in and begin a new journey of success.     

Author Unknown

     

Chapter 8, Page 28, Book 16

The more we express our gratitude to God for our blessings,
    the more He will bring to our mind other blessings. The more
    we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier we become.

 Ezra Taft Benson

August 28th - grateful and happy

Happiness is a grateful spirit, an optimistic attitude, and a
    heart full of love. 

When we aren’t grateful for what we have, we aren’t capable of being happy. You cannot be thankful and unhappy at the same time.

  Happiness comes from counting our blessings, appreciating little things like a flower by a stream, seagulls circling over the ocean, laughter of little children, a call from a friend, a challenge met. 

There are two ways of being rich. One is to have all you want, the other is to be satisfied with what you have.

Author Unknown 

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings not his cash.

I have repeatedly noticed that when I feel grateful or happy I also feel prosperous regardless of my finances. This is because prosperity comes from within. Being grateful is an  attitude that causes us to  look for the good in every encounter.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           If you find some happiness inside yourself, you'll start finding
      it in lot of other places, too.

 Gladiola Montana 

Chapter 8, Page 27, Book 16

The best day of your life is the one
on which you decide your life is your own.
No apologies or excuses.
No one to lean on, rely on, or blame.
The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey 

and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.
This is the day your life really begins.

Bob Mouawad

August 27th - no excuses here

'Excuse me' has several meanings in polite company. It is used when bumping into somebody accidentally. It is employed to interrupt somebody who is speaking and the listener wishes to interject a thought or two. It is spoken when a person wishes to move away from a discussion to move elsewhere. It can be a request after a belch.  We can ask to be excused from classes, jury duty, and other invitations to which we would rather stay home.

Time goes by. We don’t get any of it back; each moment matters. When we are reminded that the supply of days isn’t limitless, we start to see greater value in each one. When we become more committed to living life intentionally and without regrets, it’s some times called ‘no excuse living’.

We get what we get. A day, week and month for you is the same amount of time for me. Its value, however, is in how we use each moment of time. 

We choose how to show up to each day of our lives. We can choose to make life grand, an event,  or we can allow ourselves to get pushed and shoved through life, based on what others want for us, disappointed and bitter. A 'no excuse' life is one that takes possession of how we live life, for how it is and how we want it to be.

Live with no excuses

Love with no regrets

Chapter 8, Page 26, Book 16

Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.

Og Mandino

August 26th - celebrate life

Don't ever save anything for a special occasion.
Being alive is the special occasion.

Author Unknown

We shouldn't need an excuse to celebrate our lives.  Life is a gift, and you are a gift. We should learn how to celebrate every day like it’s special!  

We often think of celebrations as centering around special occasions, like Birthdays, Christmas, or other holidays. But there is no need to wait for those times. Everyday is a cause for celebration. The very fact that you are alive, the wondrous world around you, and the special people in your life are all reasons to rejoice. 

A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose - and don't let them tell you otherwise... only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.

Leo Buscaglia

Chapter 8, Page 25, Book 16

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

August 25th - life is not a soap opera or video game

We all fall into our habits, our routines, our ruts. They're used quite often, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid living, to avoid doing the messy part of having relationships with other people, of dealing with a person next to us. That's why we can all be in a room on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another. 

Andrew Stanton

Some routines and habits are good for us but if we find that we are regularly complaining, we need to make a concerted effort to express gratitude. If we have lapsed into mindless routines, such as snacking or binge watching television, we simply need to insert a new activity into that same time slot, such as walking, reading, praying, or meditating.  If you feel more connected to the characters on your shows than your real friends, it might be time to switch things up a bit.  

If you don't watch out, putting on your unhappiness in the morning can become as instinctive as putting on your clothes.

Robert Brault

If we consciously replace ineffective habits with more constructive ones, we'll feel happier, more peaceful, and energetic each day.

Even if your everyday routines are comfortable and you do okay with them. there are benefits to mixing things up that you don't get if you stick to the same activities month after month. Widely speaking, any time you force yourself to make a change, you encourage your brain to make new connections.  Routines can run on idle, but changing our habits force your brain to pay attention.

A bad habit never disappears miraculously. It's an undo it yourself project. 

Abigail Van Buren 

Chapter 8, Page 24, Book 16

Let's honor our mistakes by allowing them to teach us. Let's consider our failings to be gifts, and share them humbly with others. Let the cracks in our perfect facades let in light and air so that new life can grow through them. 

Molly Gordon

August 24th -  Embrace the Cracks and Let Your Light Shine Through!

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

There is a story told about a gardener who had two large buckets. One was leaky while the other one was brand new. Determined to replace the old bucket one day the gardener kept using it. Each day the gardener would draw water in the hot sunshine, knowing that one bucket was losing water, while the other one remained full. As time went on the gardener noticed that on the side of the path with the leaky bucket there were fresh, beautiful and colourful flowers. But the side of the path with the new bucket, that didn't see a drop of water, was bare and barren. So despite its obvious flaw the old bucket was still doing a lot of good. The same goes for our own faults too. We need to acknowledge them, work with them and use them to our advantage as best we can.

Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.

 Author Unknown

There is nobody perfect and that includes me.  We all have our weak points, a flaw, a crack or something that prevents the complete picture. Our modern world is very uncomfortable with cracks or weaknesses. There is often a rush to patch them up, hide them, bury them but rarely to embrace them. The emphasis is so often on perfection and to have everything just right. There is almost a pressure to comply. Young people are particularly vulnerable, and when they fall short, they often just don't know what to do. 

The trick is to let our own unique light shine, even the light that comes through a crack.

Remember:

It’s the ones who’ve cracked that the light shines through

Chapter 8, Page 23, Book 16

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

Robert Brault

August 23rd - it's the little things you do every day that will make a big difference.

Little by little does the trick.

Aesop

It’s the little things we do or don’t do every day that shape us in to who we are. The little things determine how we respond when big things come in to our lives.

Our life is continuously being built out of tiny pieces of time. One small action connected to the next, and each one of these tiny pieces of your life combine into the whole web of who you are.

It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen. 

John Wooden

I believe life is in the details. Ongoing small gestures can mean so much more than one grand display of love. Simple pleasures throughout the day can be far more gratifying that one amazing weekend. When you connect the dots between all these little joys, life seems fuller and more satisfying.  There are many little unnoticed things and people in our lives that make a big difference.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimal of pleasurable and genial feeling. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Chapter 8, Page 22, Book 16

  Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.

August 22nd -  Look for the good stuff, the beauty, the love.

Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you'll start believing in it.

 Jesse Owens

It is true that some days are more challenging than others, but even on the most difficult days we can still find something good that happened.  If you don't stop and look around for a while, you could miss it

Look for beauty each day. It will change how you see the world. 

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

George Orwell  

Be positive- when it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars

We need to go beyond the ups and downs of our drama filled lives. To take time to just to breathe, to see all the good around us, and to celebrate it with the same emphasis we place on the hurdles. Taking time to pause as we go through our days and notice the subtle beauty in a stranger’s smile, a good meal, or an effortless meeting. Teach yourself to appreciate these gifts by giving them your attention, gratitude, and grace.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter 8, Page 21, Book 16

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this decide what you want.

 Ben Stein

August 21st - the importance of setting a lifetime goal

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

George Patton

I’ve made a lot of plans and set many goals in my life, but never realized until just recently how important it is to set lifetime goals. These differ from the everyday to do lists we might make.  They are the things we want to commit our life too.  There are long term goals and short term goals, but lifetime goals are different. They say it’s really a good thing to do when you young, but really it’s something we all can do anytime. Remember today is the first day of the rest of your life.

The shortest distance between two points assumes you know where you're going. 

Robert Brault

We wouldn’t set out on a journey without a plan and believe me, life is a journey through time that each of us makes. Setting a goal is like having a map and compass, and a clear route to your to your destination. I want to know that when the very last day comes, I’ll be just where I want to be. I’ve made a life time commitment to my faith, to my family and to my friends.  They are what is important to me now and always have been.

When we set life time goals, we know that every second counts. We have to give the very best that we have, every single day. We know that we can’t waste a moment in self pity or meaningless time wasting activities. As a result, we start accounting for the present moment much more than we would otherwise.

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. 

John Dewey

I think that the personal goals, professional goals and material goals we set are often a reflection of what we set as our lifetime goals.  Once you have thought about your life goals, you can start to plan how best to achieve them.

As we all know, we can make plans that don’t exactly work out the way we want, but if we have set goals for a lifetime, we can ultimately reach them. If we don’t loose sight of the destination and commit to finishing the work we began, we’ll end up just where we want to be.

We all have a path to take; sometimes it's hidden under the weeds, so you might have to work a little. 

Mike Dolan

Chapter 8, Page 20, Book 16

A gentle word, like summer rain,
May soothe some heart and banish pain.
What joy or sadness often springs
From just the simple little things!

Willa Hoey

August 20th - Encouragers pick others up when troubles weigh them down.

We all need friends who pick us up, and we all know of others who need our encouragement. Like a fresh breeze on a hot day, we can all do our part to bring hope and a change in perspective to someone that needs it.

I’ve had many occasions to feel the fresh breeze of encouragement from family and friends and know just how important it is.  Hopefully I will also send just a bit of that your way too.

Fred Rogers said, When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

It’s true, no matter where you go or what circumstances you are in there are helpers all around us.  It’s always amazing to see how many people flock to help in times of disaster.  Not every one can help in the same way but thankfully many try to do what they can when help is needed.

It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

We all have the means to bestow on others the most lavish gifts; love, joy, peace, hope, kindness, acceptance, encouragement, laughter, forgiveness, time. There is not enough money to buy them and not too little money to give them. The more you spend, the wealthier you become; yet nothing will cost you more than what you freely possess to give. 

Eden Eliot

Chapter 8, Page 19, Book 16

Ability is what you're capable of doing.

 Motivation determines what you do. 

Attitude determines how well you do it. 

Lou Holtz

August 19th - Living Ordinary Days with an Extraordinary Attitude

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 Psalm 118:24

It seems to me that this psalmist discovered the secret to living ordinary days with extraordinary enthusiasm. He simply decided and declared that since the Lord had made each day, and that it was a gift to him, he would enjoy it and be glad. He made a decision that produced the feelings he wanted rather than waiting to see how he felt.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. 

W. Clement Stone

That is a choice we all can make.  It’s our choice what kind of attitude we want to have and that choice does make a lot of difference in our lives.

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.

Katherine Mansfield

Chapter 8, Page 18, Book 16

Let's make it our goal to be present moment people. Let's practice gratitude, especially when worry tries to take over our hearts. Life will become simpler, easier and less cluttered.

Susan K. Rowland

 

August 18th - the worry cure

Why worry? Look at all the things we have and be happy.

Araceli Segarra

Gratitude means thankfulness, counting your blessings, noticing simple pleasures, and acknowledging everything that you receive. It means learning to live your life as if everything were a miracle, and being aware on a continuous basis of how much you’ve been given.

 Gratitude has made such a big difference in my life.  It seems to be the cure for many things and worry is one of them.  If you are grateful for all you have in life, there is no room for worry.

We always have enough to be happy if we are enjoying what we do have--and not worrying about what we don't have.

Ken Keyes, Jr

 If you make a habit of being thankful, you’ll never have to worry.  Gratitude shifts your focus from what your life lacks to the abundance that is already present. Giving thanks makes people happier and more resilient, it strengthens relationships, it improves health, and it reduces stress. 

There are two kinds of worries -- those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.

Duke Ellington

Chapter 8, Page 17, Book 16

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Louis L'Amour

August 17th  - the beginning of the ending

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. 

Ivy Baker

In life there are happy endings, sad endings, endings that catch you by surprise. If we see lots of endings only, we can redirect our thoughts to search for new beginnings. The most immediate beginning is the gift of today and it is our blank canvas to add what colors we want.  When something ends, something new begins and a new beginning is always a new opportunity

Doors never close and things never end without new doors opening or new times beginning.  Every day is a new beginning.  Yesterday is gone and we have a gift of a new day, a new beginning !

 Most people wrestle with the many changes occurring in our lives, which bring with them the endings of many things we loved, but sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.  

As each new beginning comes you must give up your expectations, move beyond what you thought you knew. Things are never as they seem. And when they are, it’s rarely as you wish it were.

Not every new beginning is easy. The best things in life never are. But every new beginning is part of your life. And every ending will shape part of who you are

May we all remember that every ending is a new beginning and everyday is a new chance to begin again.

What we call the beginning is often the end. To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from

George Elliot

Chapter 8, Page 16, Book 16

There's a huge difference between giving up and letting go
Giving up is sacrificing what
was rightfully yours,
and letting go is forgetting what never was

Author Unknown

August 16th- let it go

There is a big difference between giving up and letting go. Giving up means selling yourself short. It means allowing fear and struggle to limit your opportunities and keep you stuck. Letting go means freeing yourself from something that is no longer serving you. Giving up reduces your life. Letting go expands it. Giving up is imprisoning. Letting go is liberation. Giving up is self-defeat. Letting go is self-care.

  Daniell Koepke

People in general have a tendency to give up easily while they have a hard time letting go. The difference lies in the attitude of a person. The difference is in the positive and negative acts.

Giving up signals hopelessness. When we give up without letting go, we are often embittered, angry and frustrated.

As we live and experience things, we must recognize what belongs and what doesn’t, what works and what doesn’t, and then let things go when you know you should.  

The phrase Let Go and Let God says it all. Yet, letting go and letting God is probably one of the most difficult things to do.

In the end it all boils down to gratitude and trust; Grateful for the moment. Trusting in the future.  That is the very essence of letting go.

Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet. 

Sarah Louise Delany

Chapter 8, Page 15, Book 16

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

August 15th- disappointment is a powerful feeling

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. 

Henry David Thoreau

Thoughout life, we are faced with many disappointments. Harsh words. Stinging rebukes. Thoughtless remarks. Broken promises.Whether someone you trusted and loved let you down, whether something in your work or business didn’t go right, whether your life isn’t where you want it to be, life just seems to have a way of kicking us when we’re already down.

It’s so easy to be negative when things go wrong, or blame others for negative outcomes in your life.  But negativity and blame never changes anything for the better.

Disappointment can hover at the front of your mind and niggle at the back. Disappointment is not an easy thing to face, but standing strong in the face of disappointment and picking yourself up afterwards is crucial to living a good life. You cannot avoid getting hurt. But you can avoid letting your hurts hurt you.

Remember this:  I will be disappointed, I will disappoint, you will be disappointed, and you will disappoint. Life will be disappointing, but it will pass. Life is short, disappointment comes, but don’t stay there too long.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. 

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chapter 8, Page 14, Book 16

Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people. 

August 14th - Always willing to share my ignorance ... 

My family tree is a few branches short! All help appreciated. 

We are connected to our parents and all the generations that precede us. We may have inherited our father’s athleticism or our mother’s beautiful smile. 

Going through old family photos, I can see the physical characteristics we’ve inherited. Often we notice the negative ones: short legs, crooked teeth, unruly cowlicks. All of us can easily identify in our ancestors our own least favorite body part. In addition to physical attributes, we also inherited character traits, some good, some not so good. But we don’t always pay as much attention to those.

Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.

Shirley Abbott

We are all an accumulation of not only our life experience, but those who were our ancestors.   Our ancestors are as near to us as our breath and bones.  We blame them for our good luck but not for our misfortune.

A family tree can wither if nobody tends it's roots. 

Still and all God has made all of us beautiful, special and unique, too.  Our ancestors determine many things about us but we decide our own future.

Remember too, you will also be an ancestor some day! Think about what you’ll pass on to future generations.

Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past. 

H.F. Hedge 

Chapter 8, Page 13, Book 16

There's a time each year
That we always hold dear,
Good old summer time;
With the birds and the trees'es
And sweet scented breezes,
Good old summer time,
When you day's work is over
Then you are in clover,
And life is one beautiful rhyme,
No trouble annoying,
Each one is enjoying,
The good old summer time.

 Lyrics by Ron Shields, In the Good Old Summertime   

August 13th - busy days are coming

Let me enjoy this late summer day of my heart while the leaves are still green and I won't look so close as to see that first tint of pale yellow slowly creep in. I will cease endless running and then look to the sky ask the sun to embrace me and then hope she won't tell of tomorrows less long than today. Let me spend just this time in the slow-cooling glow of warm afternoon light and I'd think I will still have the strength for just one more last fling of my heart.

John Bohrn, Late August

I have a tendency towards laziness these hot summer days, and knowing that that the busy days are coming I am trying to be very thankful and enjoy each one of them.  School is starting in just a few short weeks here in our part of the world and unofficially when school starts summer does seem to be over.

There is definitely a quietness to summer that Autumn doesn’t have.  There are busy days ahead for students and parents alike.  Busy packing lunches and attending football games are ahead.  There is never a quiet moment it seems when you have a family.  

Now a days I get to enjoy the exuberance of my grandchildren and their busy days but do have some great memories of those days when my own were small and still at home.  I always hated to see summer come to an end but also enjoyed the busyness of it all too.

New shoes, clothes and school supplies meant a new start was coming.  New teachers, new friends and new activities brought excitement to mind.  

When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Chapter 8, Page 12, Book 16

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

 Robert Louis Stevenson

August 12th - What seeds shall we plant to spread peace and celebrate life

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later. 

Og Mandino

The Bible said it: You reap what you sow. The good you do today will blossom tomorrow. The key to success is to figure what you need to do to achieve your most important goals and determine the steps you have to take to get from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.

August harvests include lots of zucchini. Zucchini bread. Zucchini pizza. Chocolate zucchini cake.

One mistake common to many beginning gardeners is to underestimate the zucchini they plant. They don’t appreciate just how fruitful these seeds can be. Just one seed, for example, can produce up to nine pounds of food. So planting just a couple of seeds can quickly result in a zucchini avalanche that leaves a gardener scrambling for clever recipes.

Just like those zucchini, we are gifted with abundant grace and mercy that can lead us to reap so much more than we can sow. Every prayer, every act of kindness, every decision to forgive, can all produce baskets of blessings for the people around us. 

Remember the zucchini! Then go ahead, and sow your seeds

If a man would reap praise, you must sow the seeds, gentle words and useful deeds.

 Benjamin Franklin 

Chapter 8, Page 11, Book 16

All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this — as in other ways — they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it. 

John Berger

August 11th - the days of our lives

Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.

Tony Benn

Our lives are filled with images. They’re everywhere--on our phones, on television, on the side of the road. Pictures of celebrities. Pictures of athletes. Pictures of just about everything.

I’ve got shoe boxes full of old pictures before the days of digital cameras and my computer is full of photos I’ve taken since then.  Most of the pictures are of happy times and special occasions like birthdays and holidays.  Seldom to we ever take pictures of bad times or sad times.

Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them. 

Marcel Proust

It never fails to amaze me how people do change yet when we haven’t seen them in a long time their image remains the same in my mind.  Some of my grandchildren are growing in leaps and bounds and when I think of the last time I saw them as compared to now you’d hardly know who they were.

A lot of my photos are of the view from my porch.  Documenting the seasons with flowers blooming or snow coming down. I have pictures of the trees, bare and grey in winter, leaf buds popping out in spring, in full leaf of summer and beautifully colored in the fall.  There isn’t much in my life that hasn’t been photographed.

A photograph is usually looked at — seldom looked into. 

Ansel Adams