Thankful Thursday – A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

So here’s 3000 words?

Had a bit of a scare this past weekend…still not sure why he’s tossing his cookies every day…but we seem to have ruled out anything really bad…

Thankful Thursday – An Hour in the Life of a Spoiled Woman

When did I become so spoiled?  I realize that it is something that has slowly but surely crept upon me this past decade or so…  And I am ashamed.

I left my office today, walked through the halls of my company and left the building to take my lunch hour.  I realize that I took for granted the fact that I have a job that adequately pays my bills and even affords me my own office with a sunny window from which to work.

I jumped into my car and drove to Target.  I realize that I took for granted the fact that I have not only a reliable car but also the funds to pay for gas and insurance to keep it on the road.  I also took for granted the fact that I live in an area of the world where all of our material needs can be met within a few moments drive.

I couldn’t find a parking spot close to the doors and settled for a spot several rows and some distance away and made my way into the store.  I realize that I took for granted the fact that I could jog with no problem the short distance from my car to the door.

I wondered the electronics department until I found a set of ear buds  that I liked.  I realize that I took for granted the fact that I own an Mp3 player and that I don’t have to think twice about spending the $10 to replace the over-sized ear buds that came with it.

I went to the register, pulled out my wallet to pay and in the process discovered four “thummies” (small crown-like finger “puppets”) that my niece must have made and slipped into my purse when I was babysitting last Friday. I realize that I took for granted  my beautiful nieces and nephews and how much they love me.

I proceeded to the food court section and picked up a pack of breadsticks and asked the girl to make it a combo.  I filled the cup that she gave me with Coke and proceeded to sit at a table to eat my lunch. I realize that I took for granted how easy it was to obtain food served in disposable/wasteful containers.

I pulled out my cell phone and set the alarm so that it would vibrate and let me know when it was time to head back to work.  I then got my Nook out of my bag and proceeded to read a few pages of the latest book that I’d downloaded.  I realize that I took for granted access to so many electronics, access to electricity to power them, access to books, and the ability to read them.

When my alarm sounded, I packed up my belongings and headed back to my office.  As I entered the lobby, regretting the fact that I had to go back to work, I asked myself….When did I get so spoiled??

Are you spoiled too?

In Honor of Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week is an annual awareness campaign that celebrates the freedom to read,draws attention to banned and challenged books, and highlights persecuted individuals. The United States campaign “stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them” and the requirement to keep material publicly available so that people can develop their own conclusions and opinions. The international campaign notes individuals “persecuted because of the writings that they produce, circulate or read. 

List of the top 110 banned books (of all time). 


Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you’ve read part of.
Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).
Read more. Convince others to read some.


#1 The Bible

#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 
 
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 
 
#4 The Koran
 
#5 Arabian Nights
 
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
 
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift 
 
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 
 
#9 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
 
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
 
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli 
 
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
 
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 
 
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 
 
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker 
 
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
 
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
 
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
 
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 
 
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 
 
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
 
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
 
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce 
 
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
 
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
 
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
 
#29 Candide by Voltaire
 
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
 
#31 Analects by Confucius
 
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
 
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
 
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
 
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
 
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
 
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
 
#38 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
 
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
 
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 
 
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
 
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
 
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
 
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
 
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding 
 
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
 
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
 
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
 
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
 
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
 
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
 
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmu
 
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
 
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X 
 
#57 The Color Purple by Alice Walker 
 
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
 
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe 
 
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
 
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
 
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
 
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
 
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
 
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes 
 
#69 The Talmud
 
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
 
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson 
 
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
 
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
 
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler 
 
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
 
#76 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
 
#77 The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
 
#78 Popol Vuh

#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
 
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
 
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 
 
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
 
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
 
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
 
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
 
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
 
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
 
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
 
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
 
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
 
#91 The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
 
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
 
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
 
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin 
 
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
 
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
 
#98 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
 
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
 
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
 
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
 
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
 
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
 
#104 The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier 
 
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
 
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein 
 
#108 The Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck 
 
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
 
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

How many have you read??

Note: I have to admit that most of these ironically were read in school.
(And they are banned/contested in other schools?)

Practical Magic – Finding the Magic in Every Day

In honor of the Practical Magic Blog Party, I’m just going to talk off the cuff today about several ways to find and appreciate the magic in everyday life.  Too often we get caught up in living day to day and forget to live for all of the small magical moments that are either right there in front of us…or are incredibly easy to “make” happen.  So here are just a few ways that I plan to live a more magical life!  I encourage all of you to join me!!

1.  Make a wish upon a shooting star.  Remember the magic and hope of childhood?  Allow yourself to recapture it!

2. Drink a cup of tea, relax and meditate.  Connect with your inner self.

3.  Take a walk and look around you at all the magic in your own neighborhood…the newly blossomed flowers, the rabbit munching on the clover in the lawn, the morning dew on the leaves…experience it all anew.

4.  Follow your intuition.  Don’t ignore that little voice within…let it speak and listen.  We are all wiser than we think.

5.  Engage in random acts of kindness and see how the magic spreads.  Buy a dozen flowers and give them out to strangers on the street.

6.  Plant a seedling  and watch it grow day after day and year after year into a tree and admire the magic of Mother Nature.

7.  Start an herb garden even if it’s just a few pots on your kitchen windowsill.  You can use the herbs while cooking or to prepare home remedies or toiletries…or just enjoy the wonderful and magical aromas that they impart.

8.  Volunteer within your community and bring magic into another’s life.

9. Widen your circle.  Get to know your neighbors - make some pumpkin bread and go introduce yourself.

Pumpkin Bread recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups shredded fresh pumpkin
• 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.

In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Combine both mixtures and fold in the shredded pumpkin and pumpkin seeds. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick coat it with butter and flour.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. For muffins temperature should also be 325 degrees F., but bake for 30 minutes

10.  Take a magical bath.  Use lavender in the bath and let your cares fade away into the sunset…

Lavender Sugar Scrub

• ½ cup jojoba oil
• ¾ cup of  sugar
• 6 drops of lavender essential oil
• Bunch of finely chopped fresh lavender and flowers

Mix and enjoy!

And remember:   There’s a little witch in all of us!

Visit the Practical Magic Party 2011 site to see a list of all the other participants!

Image Credits
Lilac Field: Image: prozac1 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tea:Image: Piyachok Thawornmat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Rabbit:Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Flowers:Image: Rosen Georgiev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Seedling:Image: criminalatt / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Shooting star:Image: Exsodus / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To Autumn – John Keats

                      

                     TO AUTUMN.

                                            1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

                                                ~~~~  John Keats (1795-1821)

Photo Credit:  Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net