Reason enough

“I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and—I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations.”

-Lorraine Hansberry

What I learned in my time away

I recently stepped away from this blog for a couple of months. Looking back, I wonder how I ever found the time to spend here in the first place. The minutes that had been allocated to blogging were filled with other things almost immediately, like water rushing in to fill a canyon and soon obscuring what lies below. Time is finite, and whether we realize it or not, we’re constantly making choices with every minute that goes by.

Don’t get me wrong: this space has been a labor of love, and I’m not leaving it behind. I’ll continue to post, albeit infrequently, and I’ll drop in now and then to visit the wonderful bloggers I’ve discovered.

However, I won’t be spending as much time here.

Like everyone, I have responsibilities. I have hobbies I take pleasure in. There are also a multitude of things I’d like to learn, places I’d like to visit, and people I’d like to spend more time with. Improving my mind, honing my skills, trying new things, and lending a hand in the community are important to me. In short, my ambitions are far greater than the available hours in the day.

Do you ever experience this conflict? Do the things you love compete against each other for your attention and your time? Do you wonder how you’ll ever fit a new interest into your day?

I think it’s a struggle that every individual faces and deals with in their own way.

Rapt in awe

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

-Albert Einstein

Free Hugs

Spend wisely

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

-Carl Sandburg

Stop and smell the flowers

This summer is proving very busy for me. So today, I am posting this sunny little flower along with a heartfelt wish that each of you will chance upon a free moment here and there to enjoy beauty and simple pleasures.

Hello Kitty cruiser

I’ve always had a soft spot for Hello Kitty. Isn’t this a great bicycle? If only I lived in a place with good weather year-round so I could buy it and make it my primary vehicle.

clipped from www.amazon.com

And now, something completely frivolous

Oh, how I’d like one of these. I can picture myself lounging there, reading a book. Alas! There is no room at my house for it, so it will have to reside in my virtual home for the time being.

clipped from www.ikea.com

Happiness

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

-Frederick Keonig

Monday Melee 5/21

The Monday Melee is a Fracas project. You’re invited to participate. Get details and see the participant list here.

The Misanthropic: Name something you absolutely hate.
Waste. Millions of people around the world are going without basic necessities while the privileged few voraciously churn through a constant stream of luxury items, loading landfills and junkyards with products they’ve simply grown tired of.

The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent, or bogus.
Giving a teenage girl a $65,000 SUV and letting her host a party for a handful of friends at a beach mansion that rents for $10,000 a day. The occasion? Back-to-school. Hubby was channel surfing and landed on this frightening show called ‘Daddy’s Spoiled Little Girl’. It was strange and disturbing: it made me sick and yet I could not look away.

The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.
I have been really busy lately and haven’t had much time to visit the sites on my blogroll to read posts and leave comments.

The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.
Journalists and media personnel often work in dangerous places and put themselves at risk in order to investigate and report on world events. In the course of their work, many have the integrity and courage to challenge authority and speak out against injustice.

The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.
I appreciate and find happiness in life’s simple pleasures: hanging out with loved ones, a beautiful sunset, the aroma of baking bread, escaping into a good book, checking a task of my to-do list, waking up to birdsong, and so on.

The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.
I’d like to be able to visit and talk with a person or family from another country, in their home, once a week. I guess I will need to put teleportation and a sci-fi language interface on my wish list in order to carry this one off.