This short movie from Simple Truths has richness in it.
I enjoyed the illustrations immensely. They captured the nuances of emotions and made me laugh.
This is really apropos for today’s times.
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresEntries Tagged 'Inspirational' ↓
Living in the land of opportunity or the land of penguins
September 30th, 2008 — Inspiration and creativity, Inspirational, Movies, Opportunity, Style
Hand feeding hummingbirds (and finances)
September 26th, 2008 — Fashion, Friendship, Hope, Inspiration and creativity, Inspirational, Just thinking, Nature, Opportunity, Perfumes, Relationships, Safety, Spirituality and God, Travel
Just when it seems like a bit of good news would be exceedingly welcomed, comes this true story (I’ve checked it with Snopes) about a woman hand feeding hummingbirds.
Isn’t it great that with the Internet we have a way to easily share these experiences that we might never hear about otherwise?!
Thanks to Cathy for sharing with me in the first place!
It’s a reminder to me that “God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world.”
from “Pippa Passes”
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven -
All’s right with the world!Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Is it possible that in these difficult times we could trust more deeply that God will feed and clothe us, as he does the birds and the lilies? Whether we are literally in need of food, shelter, clothing, water, health, employment or any of a myriad of other needs, the most basic need is for the ideas that will lead us in the right direction and out of limitation.
Ideas are always limitless! (This goes along with the short movie I posted earlier.)
Not too long ago while pondering how I should schedule my day, though my first inclination the night before had been to get on down the road and back home, I felt it was all right to meander a bit. In doing so, I had a number of interesting conversations with strangers, some welcome time with a friend, and a bit of fashion enjoyment, including some time with perfumes.
After I’d been back on the highway for a while, an electronic sign informed me of an accident 26 miles down the road. One lane was closed. (I learned later that it had only cleared about an hour before I got there.) If I had hurried my way home, I would have been stuck for hours while they cleared the road. I was able to get past it without any lost time.
Sometimes we do not know what we or others are protected from, but this time it was apparent. And it could have been far worse, but thankfully wasn’t. On this busy stretch of road, many more could have been involved in this accident but were not.
That’s just a small example of how ideas will clear our day for us. Expect ideas today and always that will help you!
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresPartnering in life, thinking outside the box
September 26th, 2008 — Friendship, Hope, Inspiration and creativity, Inspirational, Just thinking, Opportunity
Imagine the possibilities!
Here’s a 3 minute short movie on flying outside the box.
When we think we’ve run out of opportunities, we need to shake that box and see what else we can shake out!
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresMan and butterfly
August 26th, 2008 — Inspirational, Nature, Relationships
This is such a heart warming story about a man who has a 37 day encounter with a butterfly.
After all the negative news, it is good to read something so precious.
Share it with your children!
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresReal life women
August 4th, 2008 — Age, Books, Inspirational, Joy and happiness, Spirituality and God
I came across this interesting woman, Ruth Hamilton, yesterday, and now I can’t remember where. Perhaps you’ve looked at my various links and seen the link to the oldest blogger — well Ruth was even older — 109, imagine! And embracing new technology!
If you want to see and listen to a woman, born in 1898, who was the first women elected to the legislature in New Hampshire, who was one of the first women to have a radio talk show, who taught diction to movie stars, have fun perusing this site for more of her.
I’m always on the look out for people who lead interesting lives as they age — and for the ones that younger people gravitate toward because they have a zest for life that is contagious. If you play around at the site, you will find her eulogy and also information about a book she wrote as well as excerpts. It’s fun listening to her talk about God. For example, she asks God why she has lived so long, and all she hears is, “Shut up!”
Who do you know who might qualify as another Ruth? I’d love to have more real life stories of real men and women who are living vibrant lives as they get older.
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresFlirting with Forty by Jane Porter
August 4th, 2008 — Books, Grief, Inspirational, Joy and happiness, Romance
This book is a coming of age book for the forty- or fifty- or sixty- year olds. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only was it entertaining, it was affirming and real — or as real as it could be if you were in these circumstances.
Jackie Laurens is the divorced mother of two young children. She and her husband had grown apart in their twelve years of marriage, as people do, but the deciding factor was his affair. It’s hard to know if he did or didn’t, but he isn’t very nice at the moment, and she found out through emails.
Jackie finds her life turned upside down. It is lonely in many ways as she figures her way out after the divorce. Her long time friends don’t understand where she’s coming from. Their husbands are friends with her ex-. They all feel in some way she should have settled for what she had, not taken steps to correct it. But her husband is showing his true stripes in his dealings with her, so I figure she did the right thing. And they’d like her to date again. Basically, her friends would like it to be as it had been — that way they don’t have to think too hard about their own lives.
Complicating it all, is that in the midst of her heartache, her kids are being typical bratty kids with their sibling arguments, as well as repeating what they have obviously heard from their dad.
One of her group of friends, Anne, decides to treat the two of them to a few days in Hawaii. We know Anne’s husband isn’t enamored of the idea — and he gets sick moments before Anne is supposed to show up at the airport. And he gets well, just as quickly when she calls Jackie to say she won’t be showing, but Jackie should go on her own.
Jackie’s already at the airport, and her kids are at their dad’s. So she bites the bullet, gets upgraded to first class, and heads to Hawaii on her own. Somewhere in the last 12 years of marriage she has lost herself. The woman who used to have a spirit of adventure, who used to travel on her own with no qualms, fights against her better judgment in order to go ahead with the trip.
I loved her stream of consciousness as she finds out who she is again. Many women could identify with this and have found themselves at similar crossroads.
In some ways it reminds me of the book (and movie) that is similar to this whose name I have mercifully forgotten. The one where the author had a similar experience in RL.
Anyway, in Hawaii she finds Kai, the surf instructor who is significantly younger than she is, but at 30 to her turning 40, it is a doable age difference. She should count herself lucky! The alternatives were the older, paunchy guys, multiple married, rich, but creepy.
Of course, her friends and ex- are dead set against this match, never mind that her ex- is with a younger woman. But she travels back to Hawaii more than once to see him, finding happiness along the way. And she deserves it.
She talks about past miscarriages and experiences one in this book, for those who would find that hard.
I give it a 3.5. I think I’d like to read it again now that I know where it is heading. While it is chick lit, it is not typical. It has more thought in it, as well as being life encouraging and affirming for those of us who could use some.
You might like to know that Heather Locklear has been cast as Jackie in the Lifetime original movie of Flirting with Forty set to premiere December 2008.
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresRemember me? by Sophie Kinsella
June 20th, 2008 — Books, Inspirational, Memory and forgetting, Romance
This was a really interesting book. Imagine if you wake up in the hospital after a car accident and your most current memory is three years before when you were out with your friends for the evening. You slipped and fell getting into a taxi. In the hospital, you think this is what has brought you to the hospital. But it is three years later and every vestige of those three years is lost to you.
No one is sure how long your memory will be gone or if any parts of it will resurface.
But ‘you’ as you are now are not the ‘you’ that you remember. The old you had the nickname Snaggletooth. Now you have perfect pearly whites. And that’s just the beginning. All your friends have changed. You are now a high powered executive (or you are told you are one…and you weren’t particularly likeable.)
And how are you to figure out the truth when there are lies in abundance around you?
Oh! and don’t forget you are married — and you have the wedding album to prove it — but not a single memory. Never mind that he is handsome and wealthy and perfect — or not.
That is the premise of this book and Kinsella keeps it up through 389 pages.
Is there any three year portion of your memories that you’d be willing to give up? Not likely, not when every single memory is wiped out.
And who is Lexi to trust? her husband who is more than a little creepy? the colleague in her office who covets her job? the man who says they were lovers and she was going to leave her husband?
And those who knew her during these years are not so quick to fill in the blanks, or they revise history if it would show themselves better, so whose ‘memories’ can she trust?
Her life is perfect — or is it?
She is a heroine you root for, with spunk, courage and joy, and you are not disappointed. She manages to get the best of those who want the worst for her, while finding herself, and the memories she makes are worth having.
This book is a delight to read. Nearly every page has some humor in it. It’s told in Lexi’s voice and takes place in London. I think it might be good to listen to this book read, if the reader is British.
Kinsella has also written the Shopaholic books, which I intend to read in the near future.
Have you read this book or any of her books? I give it a 4. Whose memories of your life would you trust? I suspect there are some parts of my life that would be lost to me as I’d have a hard time believing it all!
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresThe Land of Mango Sunsets (book)
June 2nd, 2008 — Books, Guest writer, Inspirational, Romance
Today we have a guest writer reviewing for us. I’ve not read this book, but it will definitely go on my to-read list. If you have read the book, or any by this author, how do you rate them?
Karin
In The Land of Mango Sunsets, author Dorothea Benton Frank illustrates that coming of age is not just for the young. In fact, if we have the kind of meaningful, eventful life that spurs personal growth, we probably ‘come of age’ several times.
The Land of Mango Sunsets, like all of Frank’s books, revolves around the low country of South Carolina; a place where southern ideals still reign true and sultry seascapes soothe and heal.
In this case the heroine, Miriam Elizabeth Swanson has been living in New York City for all of her adult life. In traveling home to Sullivans Island she finds freedom from childhood angst, outgrown perceptions, as well as strength after a soul crushing divorce, by forgiving her dying mother. She also finds true love, but romance is an aside to personal growth and the healing of her relationships with her grown children.
Frank manages to tell this story with humor and sensitivity so that it is not in anyway sad or depressing. It is a thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting book. Reviewed by Marcia.
4 stars
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Making study and learning a habit
April 9th, 2008 — Books, Inspirational, Joy and happiness, Just thinking, Opportunity
This came across my computer from Insight of the Day today:
I believe people should study a little bit every day. It should become habitual, like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, having a shower or getting dressed. Study the mind, the laws of the universe and paradigms. There’s enough information on those subjects to keep a person studying forever. Bob Proctor
Because I like to learn about new things, I don’t think of it as a habit. I laugh and say once I’ve learned one new thing each day, I can go to sleep.
Recently I read the book Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
I really need to get back to the habit of Curves!
Karin
Related Articles Related StoresThe elusive nature of happiness, part 2
September 17th, 2007 — Books, Inspirational, Joy and happiness, Just thinking
I think it’s possible to have a certain level of happiness underlie all of our experiences, the good, the bad or the ugly, if we are aware of them. That’s possibly what is meant by having a set-point for happiness. It’s there, somewhere. I wonder if we can set our set-point higher with a little awareness.
“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.” ~ Georges Bernanos (1888-1948)
Back to some thoughts from the article in US Airways:
Psychologists have been studying happiness since the 1960’s, but it didn’t become a discipline in its own right until 1998 with the adoption of the term ‘positive psychology.’ There are now research centers such as a lab at the U of N Carolina or a center at U of Pennsylvania.
Happy people live longer, enjoy healthier lives, achieve more success, and maintain stronger relationships than the chronically unhappy. “This doesn’t mean that people need to be euphoric or ecstatic all the time, but rather that people who are in a positive state the majority of the time have an advantage in terms of success.” Ed Diener, professor of psychology at the U of Illinois quoted by Liz Seymour
It’s a good thing happiness is not dependent upon being ecstatic all the time. It would elude me completely. Does fighting for a level of happiness count? I think it should. At any rate, what is, is. I don’t think we should rate ourselves against other people but compare ourselves to ourselves. There are tough things in life. It would be too much to think we should go through them without a bit of sorrow. Sometimes sorrow shows our compassion.
The belief is that anyone can become happier. So stay tuned to other parts.
Meantime, the day that books leapt out at me in the library, another one did about happiness (now returned, so I don’t have the title in front of me.) In this book the author tells the story of a concentration camp survivor who was too happy, according to her family, and they wanted her to see a psychologist. He is amazed at her capacity for happiness and in several chapters, he details her thoughts to him. In one instance, she points to the tattoo of the number on her arm and says that that is a sign of her happiness — that others have signs too, but they might be less easy to find.
Lest this sound too ethereal, she was grounded in reality. One thing she said was that during her camp experience she often held the hand of a man who would shake when the guards came by. Finding a sense of worth in the camps, doing something good for others, helped to save her. She says that he survived and waved to her from the truck that released him.
I know someone who seems happy all the time. For her, it comes easily. Or maybe she demonstrated it over a long life and knows the value of holding on to it even in the face of tragedy, as she has had some. It does seem to come more easily to her than to me.
What do you do to consciously bring happiness into your life, maybe especially if you are going through some hard times? Readers of this blog would like to know.
There even comes a time when being like Scarlett O’Hara is not such a bad thing: resolving to think about it another day, because there isn’t anything more that can be done today.
Karin
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