SSA Blog #035     By Michelle Drew     December 21 2005

It has been a few pretty busy days around here, now that I am readjusting to life and home. The weather is much more tolerable here. Robert is still in Wyoming, finishing up his work before the holidays. I am reclaiming my home and doing some necessary and overdue house projects. This week I have been making arrangements for new garage doors.

All Good Thoughts

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be
in reality what we would appear to be
Socrates

If...I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub
out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy
heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then pene-
trate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a
benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in
good humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely,
surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.
Washington Irving

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
Helen Keller

Reader Contribution

Robert and I find this very funny. Maybe you have to have been in Wyoming to notice this...

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE WYOMINGITE WHEN:

"Vacation" means going east or west on I-80 for the weekend.

You measure distance in hours.

You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.

You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging
blizzard, without flinching.

You see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings).

You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.

You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled
with snow.

You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction .

Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

Down South to you means Utah or Colo.

A brat is something you eat.

Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new pole shed.

You go out to a tail gate party every Friday.

Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

You find 0 degrees "a little chilly."

You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Wyo. friends....Sad....but true!!!

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 18 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you  might  live in Wyo.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Big Piney is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Wyo.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Wyo.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in South Wyoming.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Wyo.

If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Wyo.

If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Wyo.

If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number , you might live in Wyo.

All Good Thoughts

Here are some proverbs to remind us of the collective folk wisdom that this world possesses

One who loves the vase loves also what is inside.
African Proverb

Where there is love there is no darkness.
Burundi Proverb
 
When one is in love, a cliff becomes a meadow.
Ethiopian Proverb
 
The heart that loves is always young.
Greek Proverb
I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.
Persian Saying

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
Chinese Proverb

It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
Chinese Proverb

Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
Chinese Proverb

Inspirational Reading

FILLING UP YOUR LIFE by Steve Goodier

We can live a long time without thinking about such things as
"meaning" and "purpose" in life. But happy and healthy living requires
that we visit these words from time to time

I have heard that Ralph Barton, a cartoon­ist of a former generation,
left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his life: "I have
had few diffi­culties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from
wife to wife, and from house to house, visited great countries of the
world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four
hours of the day."

Whatever psychological problems may have afflicted him, Ralph Barton
suffered from an empty life. He tried to fill it up -- with
relation­ships and things and busyness. He was no doubt successful in
his work. And probably well liked. His problem was that he felt his
life had no meaning.

Educator Morrie Schwartz helps us put meaning into our lives. In Mitch
Albom's audio book TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (Grand Haven, MI: Nova Audio
Books, Brilliance, 1997), he chronicles the final months of Morrie's
life, as his former teacher slowly dies of Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).
Morrie, that irrepressible lover of life, says this: "So many people
walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep even when
they are busy doing things they think are im­portant. This is the
product of chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your
life is to devote yourself to lov­ing others, de­vote yourself to your
community around you, and devote yourself to creating some­thing that
gives you purpose and meaning."

Do you want to be happy? Do you want a life that matters? Then fill it
up with loving and caring for those around you! I guarantee, it will
never seem empty again!