"The rule for us all is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering
whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do
this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you
loved someone, you will presently come to love him."

*****C.S. Lewis


"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon,
there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always
difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.
To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some
of the same courage which a soldier needs."

*****Ralph Waldo Emerson


"There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes,
I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away
and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they're still
there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box.
It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to
hold them up and say, "How good or how bad am I?" That's where courage
comes in."

*****Erma Bombeck


"Every second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a
moment that never was before and never will be again. And what do we teach
our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four and
that Paris is the capital of France. We should say to each of them, "Do
you know who you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In the millions
of years that have passed, there has never been another child like
you."

*****Pablo Casals

Thank you {{{{{{{{{Whisper}}}}}}}} I think my favourite was the last one. It's so important.

And it's so great to see you back!!! I know you've been flat out busy, but it's so good to see you :D :D

I think that last one is pretty good too. It makes me smile.

Hey, you aint whistlin' Dixie when you talk about "busy". It's just been unbelievable. I thought once the kids were back in school things would slow down for a bit, but .... not so much. I just can't catch a break. Every time I turn around there's something else I need to do. Finally tonight I decided I was going to play a little. I'll paint my door on Monday (b-day party and football game tomorrow).

Tell me what's been going on with you!!!

Shhh,
Whisper

leave the door until Monday! Weekends are for fun! :D

Let's see...what's been happening. Oh, I now have a wonderful garden on my balcony. It's just gorgeous. Several Aussie natives, jasmine, purple (hehe) rock daisies, heaps of herbs, and a geranium that has shoots of heaps of different colours and they're all blooming.

Happily working on the website and steadily adding to it: (gratuitous and shameless plug follows)

http://www.crosswinds.net/~kendaa/index.html

(Oh and be sure to check out the website I made for Alexander the Great - I'll be adding more to it today for his First Birthday page (finally!) :D

What else? Starting to plan for my trip to the UK next year to visit with Laurissa and The Boodle :D The itinerary so far is two weeks with Mum and Bub and families, then two or more weeks going to the following (starting out from London):
St. Albans
Oxford
Bristol
Bath
Glastonbury
Salisbury /Stonehenge/Avebury
Cornwall (still deciding on whether to do just Penzance and Land's End or do a tour)
London
(See, I've been up north, and I plan on leaving Scotland and prolly Ireland until the next time I go avisiting) :D

It's nine months away and I'm already really, really excited :D

Then, after that's came and gone, will be a trip to NZ with a good mate.

Also been working on crafty type things which is new for me, but really enjoying it. You know, buy the bare items, like wooden boxes of all sorts, then paint and decorate and lacquer them as gifts :D

Work is going good and life in general is good, so there ya go! :D

and the url for the Boodle's site is:

http://www.crosswinds.net/~kendaa/Bev.html

I should be slapped! Look how busy you are!! LOL! I adore gardens. I have a little over half an acre and several gardens. This year I had to give my tomatoes the boot, though. Everytime a tomato would get as big as a golf ball, the squirrels would eat it. I finally quit watering them. On the plus side, I found three missed tomatoes last week, they were huge (6 inches diameter)!! Don't know how they got there.... lol All but one stalk of basil was dug up by squirrels too. Rotten rats. Most of my flowers did quite well, so I'm not complaining. :D

We're getting ready to go to Illinois in a couple of weeks, just a weekend trip to visit the in-laws. Yip-yip-yip-yahoo. Nothing as grand as your vacation, that's a fact! Can you see me glowing green with jealousy from there? I AM!!

*envy...argh...jealousy...eek...envy...argh...jealousy...eek...envy...argh...jealousy...eek...envy...argh...jealousy...eek...envy...argh...jealousy...eek...envy...argh...jealousy...eek!*

Ah well. I've got a pretty good life, so I guess I'll just thank my lucky stars and dream of the day....

Shhh,
Whisper

{{{{{{{{{{{Whisper}}}}}}}}}}

I'm not as busy as it sounds. Just cruising along (and you'd laugh at the size of my balcony "garden", but I just love it - and it makes me so happy to look out there and see all the plants you know?) Really enjoying a nice pace of life right now :D :D Mind you, I have more energy now than I've had in a really long time, so that's really kewl too.

As for the Grand Trip - well, it's mostly to see Laurissa, Boodle and co (and not forgetting Pippa the Wonder Dog - who'll be jetting off to the UK on November 11!!!! I'm buying her some fleecy lined doggie booties for Christmas because she's such a wuss when it comes to the cold and she'll probably freak out when she gets her first taste of snow, LOLOL! I've just GOT to share this pic with you...just cracks me up totally every time I look at it, LOL!



See? She's DEFINITELY a sun and sand girl, LOLOL! :D

I'm sorry your plants have been suffering because of those little guys - geez, they're fast, aren't they? Wonder how they missed the tomatoes like that - maybe they stuffed themselves on all the other tomatoes!