If I were cool enough to have a band this would be our name & album cover

I learned how to use photoshop just for this! Of course when I say “learned” I mean I only figured out how to do this one thing & the rest is a complete mystery to me. But perhaps when I have a free decade I’ll finally figure out how to make it work.

In the meantime, I caught the copy bug again and decided to do this fantastically cool album cover meme from sweetney. So, voila! Here it is!! Do you like? Huh? Do ya?

If you’d like to try one of your own, then: following these easy steps (rules courtesy of Best Week Ever):

1. Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
2. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text & spiffify.
5. Post a link to your band’s album cover here! Let’s see whattcha got people.

Enough for now,
Ciao

***Thank you for the image I used for my album!!!***

Thursday Thirteen – 2nd edition

Thirteen Favorite Quotes 1. Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong? – Jane Austen, English novelist (1775 – 1817) 2. In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior – Sir Francis Bacon English author, courtier, & philosopher (1561 – 1626) 3. The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone – Harriet Beecher Stowe US abolitionist & novelist (1811 – 1896) 4. At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other -Ann Landers 5. As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death – Leonardo da Vinci Italian engineer, painter, & sculptor (1452 – 1519) 6. Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can – Danny Kaye US actor & singer (1913 – 1987) 7. Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves – Walter Anderson 8. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pan American Day address, April 15, 1939 32nd president of US (1882 – 1945) 9. Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so – John Stuart Mill 10. Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent - Carl Jung Swiss psychologist (1875 – 1961) 11. If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive -Dorothee Solle 12. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office – Aesop 13. It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea – Robert Anton Wilson

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Think You are Multitasking? HA! Fool! Think Again : NPR

I KNEW It! I knew that I had to be fooling myself with this “multi-tasking” thing. What’s really happened is I’ve just given myself ADD. The only way I think multi-tasking works is in this scenario:
Stop doing dishes to go to laundry room to start load of laundry. Then go back to kitchen to finish dishes. And in this scenario it’s not technically “multi-tasking” its more like I started one thing and then stopped to start another thing then went back to finish the thing I started before.

Anywhoozlebee, check out this interesting article. And stop fooling yourself with this “multi-tasking” idea.

Think You’re Multitasking? Think Again : NPR

It’s time for some more of my favorite Quotes!

I think sufficient time has past since I last posted my favorite quotes. Therefore, I’ve decided today would be the day that I’d force some more down your throats. I say it this way because generally I find myself drawn to “preachy” quotes. The kind of quotes that teach or attempt to impart some sort of lesson upon the reader. So if that’s not your cup of tea, then TOO BAD. Heh. I’m just saying, these are my favorites, but I hope you enjoy them as well.

I’m going to start this batch with the coup de grâce:
It is not uncommon for a mother, particularly, to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of her parental assignment. For each child she raises, she is the primary protector of his health, education, intellect, personality, character, and emotional stability. She must serve as physician, nurse, psychologist, teacher, minister, cook, and policeman. Since she is with the children longer each day than her husband, she is the chief disciplinarian and main giver of security and love. She will not know whether or not she is handling these matters properly until it is too late to change her methodology. Furthermore, Mom’s responsibilities extend far beyond her children. She must also meet her obligations to her husband, her church, her relatives, her friends, and in some cases, her employer.
~Dr. James Dobson
Can I get an AMEN?!

All right, moving on…
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.
– Joan D. Vinge

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
– George Bernard Shaw

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
– Harry S Truman

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.
– Olin Miller

Time is like a handful of sand- the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.
– Anonymous

To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
– Nelson Mandela

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.
– Charlotte Bronte

Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
– M. Scott Peck

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.
– Margaret Atwood

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
– Oscar Wilde Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 – 1900)

Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.
– Charlotte Bronte

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.
– Margaret Atwood

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.
– Emily Bronte

Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
– Matthew Arnold, ‘Self-Dependence’ English critic & poet (1822 – 1888)

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

Look at what your idea of success would be. The more that you take in external motivators, the more it reduces your ultimate satisfaction because it doesn’t come from inside.
– Chris Messina, Cashing In or Selling Out, SXSW 2006

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow US poet (1807 – 1882)

You create your opportunities by asking for them.
– Patty Hansen

The soul is healed by being with children.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.
– Mary Tyler Moore US television actress (1936 – )

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
– William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1600 Greatest English dramatist & poet (1564 – 1616)

Enough for now,
Ciao

We’re moving, again -or not (part 7)

Just in case you want to get up to speed on the whole saga of ‘We’re moving, again’ there are seven other posts on the topic.  And I have tried, tried, tried to get the damn things to link here but it just isn’t working so you’ll just have to search.  Sorry.

Ok, are we ready?  Here’s the latest scoop.  It has officially been 12 months (yes, I said 12 months) that our house has been for sale.  You’d think we must have one dump of a house for it not to have sold in 12 months.  Oh, contrare, we have a stunning house.  And if you read any of the above referenced posts on this topic, then you know cause I’ve described the house in detail… anyway, the only thing I can attribute to the house not selling is this unbelieveably horrible housing market. 

Thank heavens we’ve managed to make it this whole year.  Things could have taken a disastrous turn if our business hadn’t picked up during the same time frame.  Luckily it did & we can still (barely) afford to stay in our house.  For at least another year.  Maybe we’ll get really lucky and the market will be back on the upswing this time next year.  Bwahhahahahahaha!

So for now, we are not moving.  The house is officially coming off the market on Saturday and we are now in the process of possibly refinancing in a slightly vain attempt at reducing our monthly payment.

Ciao 

More Quotes on which to reflect

Without much ado… on to the quotes: 

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
- Danny Kaye US actor & singer (1913 – 1987)

Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another’s appetite as to thine own.
- Sir Richard Francis Burton British explorer & orientalist (1821 – 1890)

Wisdom doesn’t automatically come with old age. Nothing does – except wrinkles. It’s true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.
- Abigail Van Buren, 1978 US advice columnist (1918 – )

When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it.
- Paul “Bear” Bryant, I Ain’t Never Been Nothing but a Winner

The gods too are fond of a joke.
- Aristotle

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.
- Annie Lennox

Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad.
- Christina Rossetti English poet (1830 – 1894)

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
- Harry S Truman

Leave well – even ‘pretty well’ – alone: that is what I learn as I get old. 
- Edward Fitzgerald English poet & translator (1809 – 1883)

Life is a long lesson in humility.
- James M. Barrie

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
-Steve Jobs US computer engineer & industrialist (1955 – )

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
- Oscar Wilde Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 – 1900)

But penance need not be paid in suffering…It can be paid in forward motion. Correcting the mistake is a positive move, a nurturing move.
- Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000

Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
- Walter Anderson

Complaining is good for you as long as you’re not complaining to the person you’re complaining about.
- Lynn Johnston, For Better or For Worse 11-06-03 Canadian cartoonist (1947 – )

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- CP Snow

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
- Colette, The Pure and the Impure, 1932 French novelist (1873 – 1954)

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pan American Day address, April 15, 1939 32nd president of US (1882 – 1945)

The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.
- Jane Wagner

Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.
- Victoria Holt

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty… Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
- Rainer Maria Rilke German lyric poet (1875 – 1926)

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.
- John Stuart Mill

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
- Carl Jung Swiss psychologist (1875 – 1961)

If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
- Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine US actress & television talk show host (1954 – )

More Quotes

OK, more quotes that I find interesting.  Still too busy to think for myself and write a post about something or anything of real import.  Although, I can blame part of it on the fact that I got a new laptop to replace my home & work computer so I’ve spent the last 4 days trying to reload all my programs, files, etc.  It’s crazy how long that stuff takes.  Really, it’s difficult enough trying to reload items from a single computer, imagine doing twice as much.

Anyhoozlebee, hopefully you’ll find one or two of these quotes thought provoking.

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.
- Suzanne Necker

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.
- John Lancaster Spalding

It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.
- Leo J. Burke

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same.
- Pearl Buck, quoted in O Magazine, May 2003 US novelist in China (1892 – 1973)

The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the more you put into it, the more it will hold.
- Glenn Doman

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

If you don’t accept responsibility for your own actions, then you are forever chained to a position of defense.
- Holly Lisle, Fire In The Mist, 1992

What’s the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile.
- George Asaf

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind. 
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi US (Hungarian-born) biochemist (1893 – 1986)

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
- Marilyn vos Savant

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
- Benjamin Franklin US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 – 1790)

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
- George Bernard Shaw

I think when I work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky.
- Armand Hammer US industrialist & philanthropist (1898 – 1990)

Each new day presents an opportunity to start all over again, to cleanse our minds and our hearts anew, and to clarify our vision.
– Mary Kay Ash

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
- Booker T. Washington US educator (1856 – 1915)

We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
- Cato the Elder Roman orator & politician (234 BC – 149 BC)

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
- Oprah Winfrey, in Good Housekeeping US actress & television talk show host (1954 – )

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
- C. S. Lewis English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 – 1963)

Say not, when I have leisure I will study; you may not have leisure.
- The Mishnah

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man; it is what he wants and must have to be good for anything. Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance.
- John Neal

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
- Seneca Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC – 65 AD)

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
- George Bernard Shaw

Quotes part deux

I have been freakin’ busy lately so I have been unable to come up with anything original to write in this blog.  Then again, I don’t think that what I’ve written so far has been all that original either, but anywhoozlebee, here is a bunch more of my favorite quotes. 
Bon Appetit!  (Geez, I must be in a french frame of mind or something.) 

All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
-Dale Carnegie

If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.
-Dorothee Solle 

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
- Robert Anton Wilson

The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.
-Gordon Parks

The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
-Pablo Casals

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
-Shana Alexander

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
-Henri-Frédéric Amiel

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
- Aesop

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain.
-Unknown

Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want. That type of self criticism is significantly deterring.
-John Eliot, Ph.D., Reverse Psychology for Success

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
- Brendan Gill

The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one’s sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
-Arnold Bennett

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
-Marcel Proust French novelist (1871 – 1922)

There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time.
- Edith Wharton

Enough for now,

Ciao

Favorite Quotes

Here are a few of my favorite quotes.  I won’t waste my time explaining each of these as I assume you all have a brain (not one shared brain, of course, but one inside each of your own head) and can figure them out for yourself.  Besides, in some cases my interpretation may be different… so read, think, and comment ~if you wish.  Enjoy.  

The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
-Barbara Hall

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
- AA Milne

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life….Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.
-Abigail Adams

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
- James F. Byrnes

At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t.  The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.
-Ann Landers

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
- Elbert Hubbard

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-Carl Jung

Do not measure your loss by itself; if you do, it will seem intolerable; but if you will take all human affairs into account you will find that some comfort is to be derived from them.
-Saint Basil

There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women.  Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL.
-Qoute by Unknown Author

If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority.
-Yugoslav Proverb

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
-Aristotle

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
-George Eliot

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever, have enough.
-Oprah Winfrey

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
- Virginia Woolf

The things we know best are the things we haven’t been taught.
- Marquis de Vauvenargues

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
-Marcel Proust

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
- John Ruskin

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

We’re moving, again. (part 3)

It has officially been 6 weeks since we put our house on the market.  And I’m *sad* to say that we have not had any offers to-date.  Many people have driven by & taken flyers, come to the multitude of open house, and scheduled appts. to view the house with their realtors but alas, not one single offer.  This is starting to get depressing.  I know that I’m probably expecting too much to think that our house should have sold by now, but I can’t seem to help myself.  We’ve always sold our previous homes so quickly, generally within the first 30 days of it being on the market.  If I’m more realistic, then I’ll look at what’s truly happening with the housing market.  But then it will really, really depress me because there ain’t shit happening with the market (and just so you know, I don’t care that ‘ain’t’ isn’t proper English).

I’m doing my best to stay positive.  It will sell when the time is right.  When the right person finds the house.  I need to be patient, I know.  At times it’s difficult.  Especially when things have been extremely slow for our business.  It’s fairly fightening.  I wander, like a lost child, all over the spectrum of emotions and thoughts.  From hour to hour, occasionally, starting at ‘everything will work out fine’ and ending with ‘we are going to lose everything that we’ve worked our whole lives for’.  Then I contemplate the latter scenario… what would it really mean to lose everything?  What if it lead us down another path?  The path for which we were truly destined?  What if we are meant to be free of these things that tie us down, and in a way, keep us prisoner.  When you have so many “things” that have to be paid for, you aren’t free.  You must always work to pay for the house, cars, cleaners, gardeners, PG & E, telephone, water, garbage, and so on and so on ad nauseam!

We are so fortunate to have family close by us, so it isn’t as if we would have to live on the streets.  As some are forced to do.  No, we would ultimately be just fine.  And I generally operate until the philosophy that everything has a way of working out the way it’s meant to be.  Call me a Pollyanna if you want, but I think I do like the world with rose colored glasses.

Besides, what if everything that we are currently experiencing is shaping us?  Forming us?  Molding us?  Because isn’t that one of the purposes of life?  Learning and growing by the myriad of life experiences.  And it’s not just happening for myself or the husband but our children too.  We tend to forget that they are influenced by these events because we see them as so young ~they aren’t actually involved.  But I’m beginning to realize how wrong I am in that judgement.  Even our 2yr old asks, ”is my crib comin to da new house?” or “is da doggies comin to da new house?”  She understands enough to pose these questions.  She comprehends that we will be leaving this house and moving to another and just wants to make sure that her favorite things will be coming with us.  It really is quite adorable, in a slightly heartbreaking way.  I wish that we didn’t have to make the move, for the girls sake.  That’s when I start thinking about the future again… what’s around the corner?  More challenges to be faced with our business?  Random other things that could pop-up completely out of nowhere?  What if the next house fits our life more perfectly than this house?

Even if things turn around completely for our business and we have tremendous growth, my thought on this house is that it’s time to cut our loses.  But when it boils right down to the bottom, it’s completely out of my control WHEN or even IF the house sells.  Maybe I’ll just sing the Bob Marley song, ’Everything will be all right’, in my head ~of course.  Or maybe I will just walk around all day singing it out loud, that will be my new theme song.  And I will make people wonder if I’ve finally lost all my marbles.  But then again, they might just start singing with me!  One can only hope….

In the mean time, we are having another series of open houses, next weekend & the following weekend so wish us luck on finding a buyer!

Enough for now,

Ciao