Smile for Today ~

"The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year."
~ John Foster Dulles (1888 - 1859) U.S. Secretary of State, '53 -59.

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."
~ Zig Ziglar (Nov. 6 - Nov. 28, 2012) U.S. author, motivational speaker.

"Congratulate yourselves if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) American essayist, poet.

"The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything  ~ and it works."
~ William Strong

~ Treasury of Wit & Wisdom, Reader's Digest, 2006.

Word Watching ~

Lavender Field

"Tussie Mussie" or Nosegay n. a small bunch of flowers, a posy.*  ("Tussie Mussie" isn't in my Canadian Oxford Dictionary.) The traditional nosegay was so called because it was carried close to the nose to disguise foul smells from the city drains and crowded places.  A drop or two on a tissue can have the same effect.

It has been suggested that herbs were used to sweeten the straw in baby Jesus' manger.

It is during the Canadian winter that some of us begin dreaming of our herb garden.  Nothing compares with live herbs within sight of the kitchen window ~ unless it is indoors in the kitchen.  (Not the fresh kind in see-through cartons purchased in the organic section, I mean pots on the windowsill. lbw)

Whatever the form, a few common herbs ~ rosemary (my favorite), lavender another ~ in the kitchen close to the nose can brighten a day.

~ *The Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

~ Using Herbs In The Home, Anthony Gardiner, 1996. Promotional Reprint Co., Ltd., London England for Chapters in Canada.  Apologies to the lavender-field photographer, photo saved long ago, origin unknown.

Thoughts on the Future ~

Science Fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, gave us his thoughts on the future:

"...inventions [i.e. machines, cars] which induce you to behave immorally are indeed with us and are beginning to cause a hell of a lot of trouble in the cultures of the world.  The very countries that made fun of us are now going through the traffic jams and the smog and the murder on the highways...
I've written an article on the steps we have to take to change, rebuild and rethink a lot of things.  We're on our way there.  A lot of big corporations are interested in this, and we're going to have corporate responsibility on many levels.  We're going to build a lot of small towns again, ones which work in new terms.  They'll be humanistic, technological small towns of the future which will have all kinds of travel in it, ways of getting around without using cars.  It will have so many textures that we need, or think we need, as educated hedonists of the future.  There are two or three now being built, and when they work there will be hundreds, and then we'll get people out of the big cities.  The big cities will be partially blown up and replotted into gardens, and they'll be made to work again."

~ Interview with Lawrence Grobel, Endangered Species, Da Capo Press, 2001.

(Ray Bradbury never drove a car and his fear of flying kept him from being a world traveller.  He often lectured high school and college students on how to make a better future.  He spoke to futurists on how not to forget the past and present.  He consulted with architects and city planners on how to turn cities into parks and rebuild communities more feasible for living.) Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012) American Sci-fi, fantasy, horror writer.

Thoughts on A New CanadianYear ~

"Despite the tough times, compared with just about any other land on earth, Canada still is blessed with the mandate of heaven."

~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian author, columnist.

"What many Canadians do not seem to realize is that in most countries of this world people would say about Canada: 'Boy, I wish we had their problems and not ours!'"

~ Arkadi Tcherkassov, Russian commentator, 'Our Man in Moscow.' Grainews, July 1992.

'You've got to keep moving.  What you're most proud of today is quite likely to be scrapped five years hence."

~ Edgar G. Burton, merchandiser, interviewed by R.E.Knowles , The Toronto Star, 22 Jan. 1937.

"Luck is an opportunity seized."

~ Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, quoted by Peter C. Newman, 'The Table Talk of Roy Thomson,"  Maclean's, Dec. 1971.

~Famous Lasting Words/Great Canadian Quotations.  John Robert Colombo, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.

"May your walls know joy.  May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility."

~ Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey, author, artist, student www.maryanneradmacher.net

AND:  "Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there."  ~ Mickey Friedman 
( Never attend a party if you will be the most interesting person there! lbw )

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

~ Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)  American author, astronomer.

"It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space."

~ Thomas K. Mattingly II (b. 1936) Rear Admiral USN, Ret. NASA astronaut Apollo 16.

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

~ Bill Watterson (b. 1958)  American cartoonist, author of Calvin & Hobbes.

A Thought on Resolutions ~

"He who breaks a resolution is a weakling;
He who makes one is a fool."

~ Frederick Lawrence Knowles (1869 - 1905) American Poet,  A Cheerful Year Book.



Angel Reading Book



"I want all my senses engaged.  Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness."

~ Maya Angelou (b. April 4, 1928)  American author, poet.  At Presidential Inauguration, 1993, recited her poem, "On The Pulse of Morning."

Angel Snowed In