If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. ~Hamilton Fish

I hope all of you Have A Wonderful Holiday Weekend. I also want to thank all those who serve our country in the military at home and abroad and their families.I also would thank those public servants who keep our families safe here EMS personnel,Police Officers, and Firefighters .

I thought it was kind of good that my 300th post was on America's birthday.

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I first want to say that I love my husband with all my heart and he is the best thing that ever happened to me now and always will be.

Do you remember when you were in your teens which celebrities you had a crush on? Now come on you know you did? I will admit mine were Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy,Lance Kerwin(James at 15) and Dean Butler(Little House on the Prarrie) . I had posters of some of them on my wall and would swoon when I looked at them.

Here I am in midlife and there are a few men who I think are worthy of crush's maybe we should call them Cougar Crush's.Oh come on you know you have them too.I have always found Mike Rowe cute even back in the day when he was on QVC. I like that he isn't afraid to get dirty and poke fun at himself.Johnny Depp(oh how sexy he is )has grown better as he has aged and I am always amazed by his talent in any movie he is in. I have been a fan of his since the Gilbert Grape days. Then there is Anderson Cooper(I love that gray hair ) . I will admitt sometimes I turn to CNN just to catch a glimpse of him. The last one is William Petersen. I have liked him since CSI first debuted to me he represents the Braniac Sexy Person. I know you are laughing but that is the point isn't it.Who are your Cougar Crush's?

On another note the next time I post it will be my 300th post which is hard to believe but in honor of that I will be doing a book giveaway. I will be giving away The Host by Stephanie Meyer,Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver, and East Wind Rain by Carolyn Paul .Please Enter to win one of these and I will draw the winner Next Wednesday July the 8th which will give everyone ample time to enter.

Parts of My Youth

First I would love to THANK Lissa for my new blog header. I encourage you to go to her blog and check it out.She is a gifted writer and graphic designer and such a sweet person. I so thank her for wonderful work she did here.She is truly gifted.

This week has seen the passing of many of the icons of my youth bringing home with great detail the fact that I am getting older.

I remember growing up we lived out in the country and had an antenna and we could only get two channels on TV (PBS and NBC) and maybe on a good day CBS.In those days a lot of your TV viewing depended on the weather and I spent many evenings going out to turn the antenna while someone would yell if the picture was clear inside.

I loved to watch Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon was one of the highlights of the show. I loved the banter between the two and watching Carson only made my West Coast yearnings grow. I was so sad when Leno took over and I don't think the show has been the same since.

It was also so sad to hear of Farrah Fawcett'spassing. She struggled so valiantly with the anal cancer and I so admire her for the documentary she did. I remember when Charlies Angels was popular I wanted to have her hair and be as beautiful as she was.She was a true Steel Magnolia and even to the very end she lived with grace .

Yesterday I had been out helping my husband do stretcher trips for the medical transport company he works for and then tocome home and hear the shocking news of Michael Jackson's death. I truly believe he was a gifted performer and my heart goes out to his children.

I will send along my prayers to all these families and loved ones.I thank them all for making me life richer for their body work .

The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive - perhaps for some purpose which we ought to re-examine. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

New Book Post up at The Mermaids Bookshelf.

The worth of a Soul.

She loved saying hello, to anyone. People remembered that about her, the woman on the bench at the downtown corner of Southwest Sixth Avenue and Alder Street. She considered it her purpose to bestow good cheer, if only with a flash of her smiling baby blues. Her long red hair bounced when she nodded.
The first-year medical students knew none of that, of course. In a well-lit lab at OHSU, four of them stood in scrubs, plastic aprons and gloves around a gleaming stainless-steel table where the 71-year-old body lay. They took in the details: tattooed biceps, slender fingers, that red hair.
She came to them not by choice but by circumstance.
She had nowhere else to go.
She was unclaimed.

This story by Anne Sexton was on the front page of The Oregonian today I encourage you to go there and read it.The photo above is the only photo that exists of this woman.

In Oregon the homeless are quite prevalent due to our mild climate here in the valley and like lots of people seeing them over time becomes part of the fabric of our lives. I find it hard at times to make eye contact with them because I sometimes wonder if but for the grace of god that it could be me. I try to give them food when I can but probably don't do enough to help them.

The article deals with what happens when you die with no next of kin.This story made me sad to think of the number of people who exist all around us that have no one who loves or cares for them and who would miss them if they were gone. It really makes you stop and think and be grateful for all that you do have.

Even though the woman in this Picture whose name was Anita I believe didn't have much she tried to make the world a better place.She would sit on a street corner in downtown Portland and smile at everybody and wish them a good day.The day her two sons had a small memorial service for her at her bench when they turned the corner there were at least a 100 people there whose lives she had touched(office workers, merchants, etc.). It just made me realize that whatever we can do to help another person each day maybe even if it is only a smile just might touch another persons soul. It also makes me know that every human soul has worth and value.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we could exhibit a little of her sweet spirit?

Seldom do people discernEloquence under a threadbare cloak.~Juvenal

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Simple Things

Christinia of Soul Aperture is hosting Simple Things today .The goal is to list things that make you happy that make your soul sing and bring a smile to your face when you think about them. Here is mine.

The smell of rain on parched earth after a dry spell.

The sound of distant thunder and the sight of heat lightning on a summer night(my granny used to say when it thundered that the angels were rolling pumpkins).

The sight of kites above the sand dunes on a summers day here in Oregon.

Tide pooling on the Oregon Coast.

Sparklers at the beach even when its not the fourth of July.

The sound of lawn mowers in the distance on weekend mornings.

The discovery of a birds nest or the sight of a hummingbird.

The angel sounds of children's laughter on the playground,the voice of my husband and family.

The wet noses of my pets against my cheek.

Blowing bubbles and playing with squirt guns in the backyard even when you don't have children.

Buying lemonade from kids selling it on the sidewalk.

Sidewalk Chalk Art.

The feel of my husbands hand on the back of my neck when we are driving.

The joy of comments here on the blog and the new friends I meet through this medium

and

It being me the smell of books old and new and New and Used Bookstores and Independent Booksellers and libraries. {You knew I had to get books in there somehow}

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week. I work the next two days 12 hour shifts and on my birthday Friday .( Although I am grateful to have a job )

Photo above is by Pink Sherbert Photograpy

"Little things. The thought of losing them makes them unbearably dear ... I only think of the sweetness. Simple things. The quarter moon, the taste of an orange. The smell of the pages of a new book." — Patricia Gaffney (The Saving Graces: A Novel)

Simple Joys

Doesn't this image just speak to you of peace? It is from a site called Amolife and I just loved it and wanted to share it. I love looking a clouds and feel it is one of the simple pleasures of life and apparently others feel the same ways since there is an organization called The Cloud Appreciation Society.

I have a problem sometime with getting to sleep and when I do I often compose blog posts in my head while waiting for sleep(wierd I know). I know that over the last couple of months I haven't posted often but like a lot of middle America right now we are struggling financially and sometimes when I feel weighted down with worry I find that I just don't have a lot to say. I still visit each of you though I need to comment more because you all inspire me so much..It has been over these many months that I have come to a conclusion and that is that if we look back to ourselves as children we will find the simple thing that still bring contentment to us as adults and most often these things are not expensive.

As a child growing up I didn't have many material things but we had a local library and from a very early age I went every week. I think from this came my deep and abiding love of books and the written word.Literature and Books have always been my solace and comfort when I was sad or lonely and my magic carpet that took me on adventures to exotic places and peoples and still does. I am happiest reading and this hobby costs very little and is available to everyone who has a local library.

The other great love of my childhood was being outdoors. I lived in a rural area and when I was a tween spent most of my summer days in the woods looking at plants,animals, birds , the sky and listening to the symphony of the wind in the cathedral of pine trees in my native south. I think from this comes my love to this day for the outdoors, birdwatching ,gardening and just observing nature and the world around me.

In the present day I find that both of these still give me the most pleasure outside of my family and animals and both cost very little .

I think it would do us all good to search our souls and find that place as a child that we were most happy and try to find that simple joy in our adult life.It is what I am searching for this summer. What are you searching for this summer?


"The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."~Thomas Moore, 19th century poet

I just post a book review over at The Mermaids Bookshelf stop by and take a look.

Positive Gossip

I would give this book 4 of 5 stars.

I really enjoyed this book. It was very good and set during the period of pre WWII and the post war era of the 50's . It shows the stories of picture girls and arranged marriages and what the immigrant experience was like for the people who came from Asia to our shores.
It tells the story of this war from the Chinese perspective and also explores the deep and personal bonds of sisters.
I didn't care to much for Peony In Love but in this story Lisa See redeems herself.
It is a book that deals with the immigrant experience and the depth of a mothers love .

Here is an overview from Good Reads:

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)—where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months—they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know. A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and bestselling author Lisa See.
The ending was a bit unexpected but I look forward to seeing with the author does with it.
All in all a thought provoking novel.

On another note I have been thinking what a better world it would be if we as women started practicing Positive Gossip.I know that I like everyone else i don't want to be talked about but haven't we all been guilty of listening when others do it or even participating in it ourselves.

I wonder why we as women choose to tear each other down rather than build each other up as most of us me included have not very good self esteems. I think that often that is what leads us to gossip in the first place because by making others seem lesser it makes us feel better about ourselves. Instead why don't we try to find at least one good thing about each other and try to get others to spread that around. I am going to try and practice this . How about you?

I know that over the last few months my posting here has been hit or miss but I want to try to get back here more often and to document the joys of summer and just life in general.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.I have to work so wish me luck.

"Fear less, hope more;Whine less, breathe more;Talk less, say more;Hate less, love more;And all good things are yours."

-Swedish Proverb