quote wall

An Old Irish Blessing

I'm working on a memory card for a dear family friend and ran across this in my hunt for the perfect quote. I forgot how much I liked it and wanted to share. Enjoy.

Introducing....

...the newest Bond girl!!!!!

Dear Willpower,

I know you like the idea of jogging. And I know you thought it might speed up your evening workout. But have you ever thought about how it affects us? The sudden jarring every time your foot hits the pavement? The twinge in your already sensitive hip? Perhaps next time you could stick to power walking. We would very much appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Your sore knees

i'd rather be...

...scrapbooking! But I'm not. Instead here I sit in my room writing field notes and researching proper word forms for oral histories I did two weeks ago. Why don't I do this at work you ask? Simple. It doesn't get done. The piles on my desk aren't shrinking and inevitably someone (say a student) walks in while I'm smack in the middle of documenting the terms - which requires re-listening to the interview. (yup, all 12 hours of them!) It's hard to catch words like USS Palou or ASRAT while helping students. So here I sit listening to tales about crashing planes or flying missions in Korea instead of creatively reliving Paris and Rome. Sigh.

feeling...

...fiercely patriotic.

I watched the National Memorial Day Celebration this evening; what a tearjerker. Last year at this time I was preparing to fly to D.C. for work and remember the excitement I felt knowing I would see the monuments again within a couple of days. This year I remember the memories, the thrill, and the appreciation that overwhelms me whenever I'm in our nation's capital. I recently heard screenwriter Aaron Sorkin describe his so-called love affair with Washington D.C. as being somewhat romantic. It meets his every expectation and is a thing of beauty. I know what he means. There's just something about the city that draws me in. It's humbling. Exciting. And somehow personifies what it means to be an American. Don't ask me to explain. After all these years I still can't covert this influx of emotion into words. They simply exist.

___________________________________

Today we salute the men and women in uniform who bravely serve our country.

And this Memorial Day, as with every other, I honor my grandfather who served on the USS Winged Arrow during World War II. Anchors Aweigh!

A Perfect Moment

Don't you just love perfect moments? You know, the ones where everything is at peace and all is right with the world? They don't come often enough but when they do they always remind me how much life exists in a mere second. Or minute.

This afternoon I took a break from work and made a bank/Starbucks run (yes, she's resorting to caffeine to get her through 3 very late nights and 1 very early morning). My perfect moment snuck up on my in the Starbies drive-through. I was in line waiting for my drink, window down, looking up at the blue sky, and listening to my current musical obsession, Matt Monro's Impossible Dream. And I had my perfect moment. In spite of all that is wrong and sad in the world, for a few minutes everything felt right and I was at perfect peace.

Did she or didn't she?

That is the question. Yes, Ladies & Gentleman, Royals & Commoners, she did. After weeks of speculation, vacillating back and forth, and almost not doing it because of my crazy week, yours truly was up at 2:30 a.m. to watch the royal wedding. What on earth possessed me to it, you ask? Because it sounded exciting. Because it's completely unlike me. And because I now have my own Charles and Diana story to tell my grandkids...let's hope this one has a happier ending.

My plan was simple: get up at 2:30 (timed to see the Queen arrive), watch wedding, and head back to bed at 4:00. (some of us still have to work...) I followed my agenda to the letter. Unfortunately, this meant two things 1) I missed the royal exit from Westminster Abbey and 2) I should have stayed up because it took me forever to get back to sleep. However, I can now say long with billions of Earthians, that I watched William and Kate become man and wife. :-)

This lovely slipper shot is proof that I was indeed watching

the festivities on the other side of the pond at 0 dark 30.

Reasons for posting this photograph?

1) It says LIVE!

2) During our visit to the Abbey we sat in the choir cloister, 2nd row,

on the left side of the screen. Talk about memories!

By now someone was getting sleepy! (and the numerous hymns did not help)

A simple trip to the local Michaels...

...turned into another Kira grand idea extraordinaire. I went to Michaels today for the sole purpose of purchasing a few supplies intended to upgrade a little project and went home with the makings to completely revamp it! Like I need something else to do! It all began when I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, finally stumbled across something else that had definite potential, and it all went downhill from there. The good news: I should be pleased with the end result.

*I would be more specific but since certain members of this blog readership are not allowed any details until mid-May I shall refrain from providing any...after the mystery event I shall elaborate in full. :-)

All in a days work

By now you've no doubt heard me rant and rave at some point in my life about how history is *not* all about names and dates. But...even I admit dates are important, and I thought it would be fun to share a few memorable ones that took place on April 12.

First space shuttle flight:
Launch of STS-1, shuttle Columbia
April 12, 1981

The Civil War begins:

Battle of Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861

Death of a president:

Franklin D. Roosevelt dies, a mere three weeks before the United States declares victory in Europe.
April 12, 1945

Going Nuclear:

The USSR performs nuke testing in eastern Kazakhstan.
April 12, 1983

High Orbit:

Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit the earth.
April 12, 1961

SOS:

The United States "officially" liberates Buchenwald concentration camp.

April 12, 1945

And last, but certainly not least...

Birth of yours truly :-)

Cake Pops!

In honor of a certain day of commemoration that occurs every year at this time in my honor (aka birthday) my best friend surprised me at work with an armload of tasty treats. Unfortunately, I chose that day to take an uncharacteristic, bonafide lunch break and actually ate outside with two friends. Shocking, I know. When I got back to my office I found two cupcakes and three cake pops awaiting me...all from Patty's Cakes, a local bakery in Fullerton, California. Now, my BFF knows me WELL and bought me not one but two s'more cake pops. Think moist cake, lots of delicious marshmallows, graham cracker, and chocolate coating. AMAZING!!! Talk about a delectable experience for the taste buds! Thanks a million, friend! (note: Photo courtsey Pattys-cakes.com. Someone forgot to bring her camera to work to photograph these beauties.)

on time in a day

It's 5:00 on a Friday evening. The weekend beckons...and I have SO much to do. For example, today/tonight I'd like to accomplish the following: 1. Photo shoot for new work brochure 2. Complete remaining 6 hours of work 3. Workout (ug) 4. Scrapbook (as in finish the page I've tinkered with for the past THREE weeks) 5. Finish/mail baby shower invitations 6. Housework (including vacuuming) 7. Watch another episode of Mad Men 8. Read 9. Print directions to Reagan Library for tomorrow What I've done: items 1 and 2. :-( What's left: 3-9 Now, there are simply nowhere near enough hours in the day to actually cross off each of these items. And I know I won't be watching TV or scrapbooking or reading. But hey, a girl can dream. (and wish she was Superwoman) I shall console myself with the words of Scarlett O'Hara. "Tomorrow is another day." P.S. My formatting is completely screwed up. Apparently Blogspot doesn't believe in the "enter" key. Great.

Emergency Car Kit Update

Remember that emergency car kit I started a few months ago? Well, not much has happened with it since. (except for one brief change of residence from my trunk to my friend's new place. Fortunately, it was recovered without incident.) However, as of last week I am now the proud owner of a very cool LED flashlight -- now part of my box of emergency treasures. Thanks to my awesome aunt and uncle for this fabulous find! Next on the list: food & water. Obviously, they aren't as important as a flashlight.

Tweet less, Kiss more

My sentiments exactly...
_____________________________________

Tweet Less, Kiss More
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 16, 2010
I was driving from Washington to New York one afternoon on Interstate 95 when a car came zooming up behind me, really flying. I could see in the rearview mirror that the driver was talking on her cellphone.

I was about to move to the center lane to get out of her way when she suddenly swerved into that lane herself to pass me on the right — still chatting away. She continued moving dangerously from one lane to another as she sped up the highway.

A few days later, I was talking to a guy who commutes every day between New York and New Jersey. He props up his laptop on the front seat so he can watch DVDs while he’s driving. “I only do it in traffic,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”

Beyond the obvious safety issues, why does anyone want, or need, to be talking constantly on the phone or watching movies (or texting) while driving? I hate to sound so 20th century, but what’s wrong with just listening to the radio? The blessed wonders of technology are overwhelming us. We don’t control them; they control us.

We’ve got cellphones and BlackBerrys and Kindles and iPads, and we’re e-mailing and text-messaging and chatting and tweeting — I used to call it Twittering until I was corrected by high school kids who patiently explained to me, as if I were the village idiot, that the correct term is tweeting. Twittering, tweeting — whatever it is, it sounds like a nervous disorder.

This is all part of what I think is one of the weirder aspects of our culture: a heightened freneticism that seems to demand that we be doing, at a minimum, two or three things every single moment of every hour that we’re awake. Why is multitasking considered an admirable talent? We could just as easily think of it as a neurotic inability to concentrate for more than three seconds.

Why do we have to check our e-mail so many times a day, or keep our ears constantly attached, as if with Krazy Glue, to our cellphones? When you watch the news on cable television, there are often additional stories being scrolled across the bottom of the screen, stock market results blinking on the right of the screen, and promos for upcoming features on the left. These extras often block significant parts of the main item we’re supposed to be watching.

A friend of mine told me about an engagement party that she had attended. She said it was lovely: a delicious lunch and plenty of Champagne toasts. But all the guests had their cellphones on the luncheon tables and had text-messaged their way through the entire event.

Enough already with this hyperactive behavior, this techno-tyranny and nonstop freneticism. We need to slow down and take a deep breath.

I’m not opposed to the remarkable technological advances of the past several years. I don’t want to go back to typewriters and carbon paper and yellowing clips from the newspaper morgue. I just think that we should treat technology like any other tool. We should control it, bending it to our human purposes.

Let’s put down at least some of these gadgets and spend a little time just being ourselves. One of the essential problems of our society is that we have a tendency, amid all the craziness that surrounds us, to lose sight of what is truly human in ourselves, and that includes our own individual needs — those very special, mostly nonmaterial things that would fulfill us, give meaning to our lives, enlarge us, and enable us to more easily embrace those around us.

There’s a character in the August Wilson play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” who says everyone has a song inside of him or her, and that you lose sight of that song at your peril. If you get out of touch with your song, forget how to sing it, you’re bound to end up frustrated and dissatisfied.

As this character says, recalling a time when he was out of touch with his own song, “Something wasn’t making my heart smooth and easy.”

I don’t think we can stay in touch with our song by constantly Twittering or tweeting, or thumbing out messages on our BlackBerrys, or piling up virtual friends on Facebook.

We need to reduce the speed limits of our lives. We need to savor the trip. Leave the cellphone at home every once in awhile. Try kissing more and tweeting less. And stop talking so much.
Listen.

Other people have something to say, too. And when they don’t, that glorious silence that you hear will have more to say to you than you ever imagined. That is when you will begin to hear your song. That’s when your best thoughts take hold, and you become really you.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 17, 2010, on page A19 of the New York edition.

Quote of the Day

"I'm stubborn. I don't like it, but I am."

Quote courtsey of Downton Abbey. I must say, I identify with this more than I (sometimes) care to admit!

Why

Why is it so easy to want what we don’t have?

Why does the grass appear greener on the other side?

And why is it so difficult to appreciate life as it is and not what we think it should be?

Thought of the day

Sometimes I wonder how I can be so misunderstood by those in power.

Update: Emergency Car Kit

Objective: Create emergency kit for car

Purchased: one 18 quart container

Acquired: gray sweatshirt retreived from goodwill donation pile (from closet project)
Christmas blanket that for the first time since it's creation now has a purpose

Should old acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne ?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

Dear Blogsphere:

Here we are at the last day of 2010, and for the first time ever, I am not sorry to see it go. Usually I get sentimental at the end of a year and face January 1 with a mixture of happiness and a wistful sense of what I leave behind. Not this time. This year has been full of obstacles, both small and great, that challenged me more than I ever though possible. And despite all of the good things that happened I am ready for the new. 2011, you had better not disappoint.

Thanks for sharing in the journey. Here's to an amazing new year.

-Little Dreamer

Suggestions gratefully accepted

Recently, I decided that I ought to carry an emergency kit in my car. (trash bag full of goodwill donations does not count) It seems to be one of those simple suggestions I fully intend to implement...and never do anything about. So, I decided to make 2011 the year this changes. I've done some research about basic necessities to have on hand, but I thought I'd reach out to the blog world. Do you have a car kit? If so, what did you include? Anything you don't have you wish you did? I don't plan on spending a lot of money to get started but I can certainly add to it over the next few months. (and that fleece sweatshirt I planned to get rid of just might come in handy in my little endeavor!)