This picture of a bear smelling the peonies was in our local paper:
Credit: Daniel Seitz
I loved it so much I looked for the phone number of the photographer to ask for permission to use it.
He not only said yes, he sent me the original plus three others. He said it was a mother with two cubs.
Credit: Daniel Seitz
Credit: Daniel Seitz
Credit: Daniel Seitz
Credit: Daniel Seitz
Thank you Dan!
June 12, 2021
Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.
I’m sorry I won’t be around to raise my kids. It makes me very sad but I can’t change that fact, so I did everything I could with the time I have and the time I had to help other people.
Someone’s going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon and I won’t be there to catch them and that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall so that seems like the best and highest use of my time and I better get to work.
—Randy Pausch, October 23, 1960-July 25, 2008
Yesterday’s post reminded me of Randy, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2008. He said he was trying to keep a positive attitude, but couldn’t be sure about how he was doing. Then he received this e-mail:
… I happened to have been behind you for a few blocks as you were driving from campus last night (Monday). Before I recognized it was you, I found myself thinking, “Gee that guy is really enjoying the moment…..driving down the road on a warm, early spring evening, top down, wind blowing through his hair, with a smile on his face…..probably headed home to a wife and maybe a little one or two……that’s the way to live life.”. And then you turned left and I recognized it was you. I then found myself thinking, “It’s Randy! He looks so happy! And, in this most private of public moments (alone in his car, yet on the road for anyone to observe), I can’t imagine anyone who IS living life more. No one is more deserving!”. Thanks for sharing your happiness/your life so fully with so many of us…….on campus and in your car. You can never know how that glimpse of you tonight made my day, reminding me of what life really is all about…”
As Nightbirde said in yesterday’s video,
You can’t wait until life isn’t hard any more to decide to be happy.
Amen to that.
June 11, 2021
I assume a lot of you have seen this video of a remarkable young woman:
She reminds me of Duke Ellington’s,
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
One of my favorite mantras is
The quality of our lives depends on how we focus our energy and our attention.
Nightbirde is wise enough to have learned that at a very early age. Bless her!
June 10, 2021
Last August I wrote about the gazillion items in my mailbox and how I decided to work on it:
I save way too many email messages. I’m not nearly ruthless enough in deleting them, but I’ve been working on it. The one quote that consoles me is Ashleigh Brilliant’s,
I feel so much better now that I have given up hope.
I’ll continue to try to delete more than the number that come in every day, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. Instead of asking myself,
How can I get this done and enjoy the process?
I’ll simply ask,
How can I enjoy the process?
It’s better than nothing.
Surpisingly enough, I got in the mood and tossed and organized them. Now I try to keep the number down to ten or less and it’s been working for the past ten months. Maybe this is a habit that might stick?
Miracles do happen.
June 9, 2021
It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
—Aldous Huxley
I’m certainly no genius, but I’m still a little kid at heart and can get enthusiastic about all sorts of things. That’s why this post is so late today.
What sparks your enthusiasm/lights your fire?
June 8, 2021
Not all pups are as interested in cuddling as the ones in yesterday’s video, of course. I keep thinking of Tempi’s post about Zoe a couple of years ago when Zoe was recovering from being hit by a car.
Zoe was “helping” mom prepare dinner. This basically means she sits in a corner and looks pathetic hoping that someone will respond to her by giving her more food (a kibble and wet food dinner not being sufficient for her). On this occasion, she seemed more subdued. She lay down in the corner and rested her head on her paws and shared those big brown eyes rather than sitting on Mom’s feet. Due to her recent accident, our Mother was very worried and laid along side of her as the carb food (barley) continued to cook and the meat food (pork) rested. She pet Zoe and said we loved Zoe (not sure who “we” are, but Mom was serious and said it over and over). Zoe really played up her misery, getting lots of good pets and kisses from Mom. That is until she saw her moment to strike – and moving like a lightning flash (or a cobra)- she jumped up, rushed to the counter, slurped up a pork chop off the plate before Mom could even get to her feet. Fortunately, she (Mom) was quick enough to spare the second chop the same fate. Somehow the vegetables remained intact.
Poor Tempi didn’t get any of the meat…sometimes it doesn’t pay to be good.
June 7, 2021
Ann told me about this pup a while back and it makes me smile. Some of you have no doubt seen at least part of it already, but it’s too good not to share.
June 5, 2021
Ah! there is nothing like staying home for real comfort.
—-Emma, Jane Austin
I smiled when I read this quote. It reminds me of two others:
Home is where the heart is.
and
This is my happy place.
Where is your happy place?
June 4, 2021
The Bristers (our year-round neighbors) sent this picture of a little fire yesterday. They took it from their porch and apparently it’s about 1.2 miles from our house. They reported it and also contacted everyone in the neighborhood.
Beate and Tim have also been watching it through their telescope and said it was just one tree that broke and the top was burning on the ground. I‘m assuming it was from a lightning strike and won’t spread, that we are in no danger. Fingers crossed.
June 3, 2021
