Better Late than Never!

Photo from yesterday evening... having fun enjoying summer instead of being home to post the photo of the day :)

Photo Challenge - Photo of the Day

August 17th - Lemon & Blueberry

#757 on the August Break 2011

Today's Photos:

Photo of the Day ~ August 15th

Photo 1 of "the August Break 2011" :)

Creative August Photo Project!

Idea from: Susannah Conway

I will have to wait to post my first photo when I can get on an actual computer!

P.S.- This is so incredibly difficult to do on a tablet as opposed to a computer! (If only I could figure out how to "touch" select and copy/paste! lol)

THEME of the WEEK :)

I would like to try something new (and fun!) for whomever would like to participate! You can choose to share your input/ ideas/ accomplishments with all of us, or you can choose to make this a more private or personal goal. :)I would like to introduce a little "game" where we can establish a certain "goal" for the week. The simple act of declaring a goal or theme for the week (or even for the day!) can plant a mental seed that has the suggestive power to make it happen. You can be quite surprised by the results. Having a theme will automatically focus your thoughts. Try gratitude, for example. You'll notice more things about your life to be grateful for than at any other time. Spend a few minutes each morning deciding (or remembering) your theme for the day/week. Your days will look better and better. :)

WEEK 1: PATIENCE ♥

~"Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner, you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind." -Leonardo da Vinci

(Ok ok, so we're Mainer's and no matter how many layers we put on, it's still freezing in the winter. Mr. da Vinci however, was nice and toasty in Italy, much closer to the equator! But the principal still applies. He makes a good point. You can save yourself from making a lot of mistakes if you have patience!)

~"The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realisitically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and the direction you have chosen." -Ralph Marston

~"Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears." -Barbara Johnson

JUST REMEMBER:

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. EVERY DAY YOU NEED TO WORK ON IT. ♥


So for this week, I ask you guys to have PATIENCE in your life... with the children, with others, with crazy drivers that cut you off, with waiting in the long line at the store when you only have 3 minutes left of your break, and with any situation that would normally work you up or tick you off. PRACTICE taking a deep breath and remind yourself that PATIENCE is the theme this week! :)

And LET US KNOW HOW IT GOES!!!!!! Good luck guys :)

What is a True Friend?

"A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and loves you despite your faults. A true friend stands by and helps in times of need instead of putting you down and pointing out your flaws. A true friend never throws past mistakes in your face, but instead shows compassion and understanding when you stumble & fall. A true friend can be trusted, and is faithful and loyal to the death. A true friendship is based on unconditional love and genuinely wanting what is best for each other. A TRUE FRIEND STABS YOU IN THE FRONT........" -Me

A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ~Henri Nouwen

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably. ~William Penn

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik