SSA Blog #033     By Michelle Drew     December 19, 2005

It's good to be back in New England again. It's much warmer here than in Wyoming, where Robert remains for another few days. This weekend he went ice fishing with his friend Stub. He was so excited to that he seems he forgot how much he dislikes being cold!! When we spoke last night, he was headed to the hot tub to warm up a bit.  It's always good to see Robert take time for sports or hobbies, He works hard with little time taken off for fun and adventure. This weekend when he took time for himself, he got to remember again how much fun there was to be had.

How about you? Do the stresses of life and the holidays have you in a frenzy? Be sure to take some time for yourself and your family during this season. This is the reason that you go to work each day. Take time to relax and appreciate those who have been there for you all year. While you are enjoying what you have, do take the time to make a charitable donation.

If you have children, have them contribute in small ways like a pair of gloves. Your family can collect food,  money, or clothes for your local charitable agencies. And don't forget the senior citizens in your lives. Helping them out with decorating, shopping or paying a high winter heating bill, will be welcome contributions to the seniors, but a valuable lesson in taking care of the elderly and needy at this time of year.



All Good Thoughts

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and
to have it found out by accident.
Charles Lamb

The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.
Bertrand Russell

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
Helen Keller

Our plans miscarry if they have no aim. When a man does not know what
harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca



Reader Contribution

Here are a few "factoids" sent in by Scott


Nov 19, 2004 - Japanese researchers using the Subaru Telescope have found a large galaxy caught in the act of consuming a smaller companion galaxy. It's a messy eater; there's a wispy trail of stars over 500,000 light-years long, which is the longest astronomers have ever seen. Examples of this kind of galactic destruction are hard to find because the consumed are usually dim dwarf galaxies. We have only indirect evidence of digested galaxies in our own Milky Way, like groups of stars traveling in an unusual trajectory.
 
In 4000 BC Egypt, men and women wore glitter eye shadow made from the crushed shells of beetles.
 
In M&M candies, the letters stand for Mars and Murrie, the developers of the candy in 1941.
 
In the 1700s, European women achieved a pale complexion by eating "Arsenic Complexion Wafers" actually made with the poison

Most American car horns honk in the key of F.
 
Most lipstick contains fish scales.