
It brings me to tears to think about the possibility. Wow!
Spontaneous Regression of Advanced Cancer in Mice
Hugs,
Dana
10/25/10 - 10/24/11 ~ My Year Without Spending ~ Follow me as I challenge myself to reign in my spending, use what I have and learn to be more frugal!


or maybe it's just me... I don't know. But I get in a strange mood every now and then where I just wish I could be more hip... ya know... trendy and stuff. I don't feel old... but at this moment... I feel very dowdy or frumpy or something. LOL.. I'm probably not making any sense, huh? (Ok... maybe I am old... but just play along with me here, ok?)
Now, some really neat thoughts on perspective:You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.
Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.
So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red tailed hawk circles over the water or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.
Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister.
All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.
It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.
I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.
By telling them this:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a babys ear.
Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office. I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months.
He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule; panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amidst the Tilt a Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them.
And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't he check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."
And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today, words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed.
-- Anna Quindlen





I did make some Blueberry Jam. I used this recipe from Sure-Jell. It was really simple and I think it turned out well. My 6 half-pint jars sealed... but the lids don't seem as concave as I thought they would be so I'm a bit nervous. They don't pop when the lid is depressed and I can pick them up by the lids and they are secure... I think they are ok. But still... I put them in the refrigerator. It was my very first time canning! I don't want to give anyone botulism... lol. ;)
At the same time as I was pulling dinner out of the oven, Scott ran upstairs and was saying something about "where's the remote" so he could turn on the kitchen TV and then the phone began to ring. I went to answer it as Scott said something about a bridge collapsing. My grandfather was calling to make sure we were all ok. I said yes and I would call him back. We turned on the TV and the pictures were just so awful. So hard to believe.
almost over and I've accomplished NOTHING. All those things I had in my head that I wanted to get done are still just in my head and not done. Darn it!
I love Friday's... but this one came up far too fast! Seriously.
Tracy, Me, Lara, Tara, Angela & Laura
Amy, Alexis & Audrey
Dream Street Papers Booth, Summer CHA 2007
My little Forget-Me-Not Mini Album


