Filed under: Friends, God, friendship, love, stupidity, thoughts | Tags: spirituality, Thanks
I received a card from the family of Theresa Hummel. I wanted to share it.
Perhaps you sent a lovely card,
Or sat quietly in a chair:
Perhaps you sent beautiful flowers,
If so, we saw them there.
Perhaps you sent or spoke kind words
As any friend could say;
Perhaps you were not there at all
Just thought of us that day.
Whatever you did to console the heart
We thank you so much, whatever the part.
Tribute to Theresa Hummel
November 27, 1932 — August 6, 2009
Filed under: Friends, God, friendship, love, nature, spirituality, thoughts
The mother of a good friend recently passed. She was blessed with good family and friends; and now she is blessed with God’s presence. There were two prayer cards at the funeral. Both are a tribute to her. May she see the light and rest in peace.
Prayer Card
May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
May the rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Prayer Card
God saw she was getting tired
And a cure was not to be.
So He put His arms around her
And whispered, “Come with Me.”
With tearful eyes we watched her suffer
And saw her fade away.
Although we loved her dearly,
We could not make her stay.
A golden heart stopped beating,
Hard working hands to rest.
God broke our hearts to prove to us
He only takes the best.
Filed under: Food, Friends, humor, laugh, love | Tags: Food, Ketchup, Oddities, Recipes
We had some fun popcorn and usual recipes a couple a blogs ago. Now lets have some fun with ketchup. Let me begin by stating that ketchup is one of my favorite condiments. It is healthy and tasty and can be used on lots of items to add and/or change flavor. While I am not normally brand choosy, I am when it comes to ketchup. I only like Heinz ketchup. This is not an advertisement for Heinz; it merely is a statement of fact. Now here’s some odd uses of ketchup.
(1) My youngest daughter (she’s 23) won’t eat macaroni and cheese without ketchup. When I asked why, she explained that growing up she frequently ate hot dogs with ketchup along with macaroni and cheese. Somehow the ketchup always found its way into the macaroni and cheese. Now, as an adult she will not eat macaroni and cheese without ketchup.
(2) Growing up I can’t recall my Dad eating eggs without ketchup on them. He also would spread ketchup on saltine crackers; he did the same with mustard.
(3) As a youngster, I had a friend a who family used ketchup as their sauce on spaghetti. Her mother would cook the pasta and put it in a bowl on the dining table. Then the family just took bottles of ketchup and poured it over the spaghetti. When my friend learned of “real” sauce for spaghetti, she was surprised. She had grown up thinking spaghetti sauce was ketchup.
How about you? Any odd recipes or uses of ketchup?
Filed under: God, love, music, nature, politics, spirituality, weather | Tags: America, Beauty, Thought
We sang this song in Church Sunday to celebrate Memorial Day. Is America still beautiful? How is it beautiful? What do you think?
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
I know, recently, I became hung up on quotes. They can just be so thought provoking and most often can’t be said better. Here’s so more and I promise . . . this is it.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance. Oscar Wilde
Taxes and life insurance are just about the same thing. You pay out the money, and someone else has the fun of spending it. Unknown.
If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.
Calvin Coolidge
When people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to the unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter Inaugural Address
Only a life lived for others is the life worth while. Albert Einstein
We are always getting ready to live, but never living. Ralph Waldo Emerson
With God, all things are possible. State Motto of Ohio
Time is the least thing we have of. Ernest Hemingway
Excellence is born of preparation, dedication, focus and tenacity; compromise on any of these and you become average. John Chatterton
Filed under: God, books, friendship, humor, love, mind, spirituality | Tags: life, People, Quotes, Words
One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.
A. Bronson Alcott
I often use quotes from famous and not so famous individuals in my writings. A question was posed recently on on another blog as to whether the utilization of quotes is symbolic of intelligence and wiseness, or is it a sign of the inability to express your own thoughts in your own words. I suppose this is a valid debate to which there is no end, nor answer. I personally enjoy reading others words, reading about others thoughts and lives. There is so much to learn from others’ experiences and words. Most of the time, I could have not said it better. So, as they say (a quote), why reinvent the wheel. I leave you with a dozen very common quotes used by many regularly in their day-to-day conversations. They are so common, we know their meanings and we don’t question the wisdom they embellish.
-Live and learn.
-Live and let live.
-What’s done is done.
-To each his own.
-The early bird gets the worm.
-Easy come, easy go.
-The end justifies the means.
-Enough is enough.
- Experience is the best teacher.
-God helps those that help themselves.
- Here today, gone tomorrow.
-With God all things are possible.
Can you add any?
What do you think?
Filed under: Friends, God, friendship, hello, love, mind, spirituality | Tags: Faith, family, Friends, love, spirituality
A not so famous quote:
You are accountable and responsible to make it happen . . . to that end, please do so and don’t let me down.
-Speaker to be identified late in this blog.
What does this quote mean?
You are accountable and responsible.
Each of us is accountable and responsible for our lives. No one else is! We often think or blame others, especially when things don’t seem to be going right. But despite what it may seem at times, we control our paths, our lives, our destiny. If you are stuck – its no one’s fault but your’s. Your right to chose is absolute. No one can stop you from doing what you really want. You only think they can. You and only you control your path.
To make it happen.
You and only you can make it happen. Just do what it takes. Sometimes that means thinking outside the box, perhaps leaving your comfort zone. We are not bound by handcuffs. You possess the intelligence, the strength the do whatever needs to be done. Just look inside yourself and you will find it. Courage, desire, drive to make it happen. It’s in everyone one of us. Find it and behave accordingly.
Please do so.
So do it! Please do it! It’s a God given right to do it. God gave us free will so we could do it. The only boundaries on action are our ethics and values. So live not to disappoint – You.
And don’t le me down.
Who should you not let down – you, yourself and no one else.
So whose quote is this? I am told it is mine from many years ago on I a project I ran. I embedded in it into the fabric of the project’s success.
Was it or is it real? Yes. I today, try to live my life accordingly. Do I always succeed? No. Sometimes I am down and out – stuck on a path, perhaps a comfortable path. I may even be stuck for a while. But with prayer, with God’s support, with support from family and friends, I find the courage to take the right path, regardless of how tough. Thank you God for free will.
What do you think?
Filed under: humor, laugh, love, mind, smile | Tags: fun, humor, laughter, smile
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. Abraham Lincoln
If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago committed suicide. Mohandas Gandhi
A few days ago a good friend of mine, who had just read this blog for the first time, remarked how it was all so serious; that there was no humor. I looked back at the first 34 Thoughts and he was absolutely right. The Thoughts were all so serious. So, it got me thinking . . . seriously about humor. This is for you, Jack!
First, what is humor? Wikipedia (Wikipedia – a sign of the times) defines humor as “the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.” According to Lincoln and Gandhi (no doubt two great men and thinkers), we need humor to survive. We need to laugh in spite of hard times. In these turbulent times today, humor may be the only free entertainment available. For some it may be the only entertainment they can afford. It costs nothing and you can get it anywhere. You don’t have to drive to it. It is avaialable anywhere, anytime. So laugh, smile, be amused!
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt: its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. Thomas Carlyle
Good humor isn’t a trait of character, it is an art which requires practice. David Seaburg
So where is this free stuff? Inside each and everyone of us. Look deep inside; it is part of our human fabric. You need to find it and practice each and every day. It’s all attitude. Smile. Laugh. Practice being humorous, at being happy.
Do you have a sense of humor? Wikipedia defines “a person with a sense of humor as people who can be amused.” Do you laugh, smile, allow yourself to be amused. Let’s hope so. If you don’t it is sad. We need humor in all lives. In all aspects of our lives . . . both in good times and especially bad times. Learn to laugh. Learn to smile. Learn to be humorous! Your life will be enriched the more you are humorous.
Thanks Jack for reminding me of this and I promise you, you will be see more humor in upcoming Thoughts. What do you think?
Humor is the other side of tragedy. Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest and earliest national resources which must be preserved at all costs. It came over on the Mayflower and we should have it, all of it. James Thurber
Filed under: God, hello, love, mind, spirituality | Tags: afterlife, future, life, past, present, spirituality
Live for now, for today! I have blogged on that point or topic in many bogs. See What’s on Your Mind – Thoughts 19, 20, 26, 30 and 32. I believe living in the present is the foundation for a happy life today and a happy life tomorrow. It determines your external life. Enough from me. But look what this wise men and women had to say.
-Get over it. The past is the past. (Suzie Orman)
-Duty and to-day are ours, results and futurity belong to God. (Horace Greeley)
-How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. (Annie Dillard)
-Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away; enjoy therefore the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce. (Horace Greeley)
-Lost yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever. (Horace Mann)
-Every man’s life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain. (Marcus Aurelius)
-If before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar and remark, “there goes another day of my life, never to return” you will becoe time conscious. (A.B. Zu Tavern)
-Let any man examine his thoughts, and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live. (Blaise Pascal)
-Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a section; and enjoy and improve the present without wishing, through haste, to rush on to another. (Jean Paul Richter)
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. (Albert Einstein)
-The best preparation for the future, is the present well seen to, and the last duty done. (Jawaharlal Nehru)
-I know today truly is a blessing and is the only time there is. (Wally Amos)
