Tag Archives: Dr Wilda

The 08/19/13 Joy Jar

19 Aug

This wonderful Seattle summer actually had what the meteorologists call measurable precipitation. Rain in Seattle means the air gets cleaned. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is clean air.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.
Albert Camus

“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.”
Elizabeth I Tudor, Letters

“oxygen

Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine

stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a

stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your

right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a

beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know

where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except

everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles

to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.”
Mary Oliver, Thirst

“What keeps earth air breathable? Not oxygen alone. The earth is a freer place to breathe in, every time you love without calculating a return — every time you make your drudgeries and routines still more inefficient by stopping to experience the shock of beauty wherever it unpredictably flickers.”
Peter Viereck, Unadjusted Man in the Age of Overadjustment: Where History and Literature Intersect

“To keep the air fresh among words is the secret of verbal cleanliness.”
Dejan Stojanovic

“Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person’s property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.”
Michael Simpson, The Metamorphoses of Ovid

“The demons don’t like fresh air. What they like best is if you stay in bed with cold feet.”
Bergman, Ingmar

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The 08/18/13 Joy Jar

18 Aug

Moi is three quarters through the ‘Joy Jar’ project. She began the project when the Mayan end of the world thingie went up in smoke. The goal was to find something every day to be grateful for. Some days were easier than others. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is perseverance.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
Maya Angelou

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Confucius

“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
Winston Churchill

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas A. Edison

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
Abraham Lincoln

“When you get to the end of your rope. Tie a knot and hang on.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.
Lao Tzu

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Nelson Mandela

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The 08/17/13 Joy Jar

17 Aug

vMoi has been walking all over and she notices the various types, forms, and shapes of concrete. From pillars which support highways to planters, to sidewalks, to buildings – it is everywhere. Sometimes, they try to pretty it up by coloring it or embossing it, but it is still concrete. Because it forms so many useful structures, today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is concrete.

“The road is a word, conceived elsewhere and laid across the country in the wound prepared for it: a word made concrete and thrust among us.”
Wendell Berry

“Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.”
Desmond Morris

“There is always opportunity until concrete is poured.”
Rosaleen Tallon

“Concrete is, essentially, the color of bad weather.”
William Hamilton

In the abstract conception of universal wrong,
all concrete responsibility vanishes.
Theodor Adorno

Christianity stands or falls as a living program,
a way of life, made concrete in the life of man by
the life of God through the life of the concretely living Christ.
-Kenneth L. Pike

Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
Agnes Martin

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make
abstract that which is concrete.
Jean-Paul Sartre

For though we often need to be restored to the small,
concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to
be reminded of the large,
vague, unlimited, unknown.
A. R. Ammons

Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content,
from which changes of mind might naturally arise.
– Hannah Arendt

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.
Alfred North Whitehead

Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw,
hear what you heard, feel what you felt.
Relevant detail, couched in concrete,
colorful language, is the best way
to recreate the incident as it happened
and to picture it for the audience.
– Dale Carnegie

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human
terms wherein my individuality consists.
In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.
– Josiah Royce

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life;
everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.
Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated,
thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
-Viktor E. Frankl

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The 08/16/13 Joy Jar

15 Aug

Moi walks in downtown Seattle a lot and she has been noticing the buildings with marble exteriors and quite often marble interiors. Moi guesses it is to make the buildings seem grand and impressive. When one walks in neighborhoods, not so much marble, there. The marble is in a variety of shades and conditions. Obviously, the well-tended marble belongs to the affluent for whom, image is important. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the beautiful stone marble.

“The best memory is that which forgets nothing, but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.”
Persian Proverb

“Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.”
Alexis Carrel

“Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.”
Aldous Huxley

“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”
Charles H. Spurgeon

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.”
Joseph Addison

“An artist that works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who molds his thoughts in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody’s use, and glorify them by his handling”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh.
Victor Hugo

The court is like a palace of marble; it’s composed of people very hard and very polished.
Jean de la Bruyere

“Guido the plumber and Michelangelo obtained their marble from the same quarry, but what each saw in the marble made the difference between a nobleman’s sink and a brilliant sculpture.”
Bob Kall

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The 08/15/13 Joy Jar

14 Aug

Moi was on one of her excursions when she saw a sunflower peaking over a big fence like a gigantic happy face. It just seemed to be smiling at everyone who passed. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar” are sunflowers.

“Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.”
Henry Ward Beecher

“And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood.”
William Cullen Bryant

“The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter – hour by hour”
~Oscar Wilde

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows follow behind you.”
Maori Proverb

“Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour.”
Pedro Calderon de la Barca,

“As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.” Henry Ward Beecher

“True friends are
like bright sunflowers
that never fade
away, even over
distance and time.”
Marie Williams Johnstone

“The Sunflow’r, thinking ’twas for him foul shame
To nap by daylight, strove t’ excuse the blame;
It was not sleep that made him nod, he said,
But too great weight and largeness of his head.”
Abraham Cowley

The Sunflower by William Blake
Ah, Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
Where the traveller’s journal done;
Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

“The sunflower is a favorite emblem of constancy.”
Thomas Bulfinch

“I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers.”
Vincent Van Gogh

“Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.”
Helen Keller

“It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose!”
~ Thomas Moore

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The 08/14/13 Joy Jar

13 Aug

Moi is researching two major items in August. She will be buying a new computer and she is trying to learn about computers. She will also be buying a good pair of walking shoes as she begins building her endurance. Later she will buy a good pair of running shoes. Here are some great quotes from Jason Fitzgerald’s blog Strength Running and his post 33 Quotes About Running to Help You Conquer Your Dreams: Today’s deposit into the’Joy Jar is finding the right walking and running shoes.

These running quotes are among my favorites and inspire me to stay focused every day. I hope you enjoy them.
Train Hard
“There are a lot of guys out there now who know they are not working as hard as other people. I can’t fathom how they think.” – Alberto Salazar
“What does not destroy me, makes me strong.” – Nietzsche
“It works better for me to be nervous and hungry.” – Lance Armstrong
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
“To be a good runner, you must first be a good athlete.” – Jay Johnson
“You don’t run against a bloody stopwatch, do you hear? A runner runs against himself, against the best that’s in him…Against all the rottenness in the world. Against God, if you’re good enough.” – Bill Persons
“Consistency is king.” – Unknown
“Good things come slow, especially in distance running.” – Bill Dellinger
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.” – Bill Bowerman
Race Harder
“Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.” – Steve Prefontaine
“One thing about racing is that it hurts. You better accept that from the beginning or you’re not going anywhere.” – Bob Kennedy
“A man who sets out to become an artist at the mile is something like a man who sets out to discover the most graceful method of being hanged. No matter how logical his plans, he can not carry them out without physical suffering.” – Paul O’Neil
“‘No pain, no gain’ does not mean that pain systematically equals gain. It’s easy to go hard. It’s hard to go smart.” – Erwan Le Corre
“Run the first two-thirds of the race with your head and the last third with your heart.” – Unknown

Reach New Heights With Your Running
“It’s at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.” – Emil Zatopek
“In football, you might get your bell rung, but you go in with the expectation that you might get hurt, and you hope to win and come out unscathed. As a distance runner, you know you’re going to get your bell rung. Distance runners are experts at pain, discomfort, and fear. You’re not coming away feeling good. It’s a matter of how much pain you can deal with on those days. It’s not a strategy. It’s just a callusing of the mind and body to deal with discomfort. Any serious runner bounces back. That’s the nature of their game. Taking pain.” – Mark Wetmore
“You can’t flirt with the track, you must marry it.” – Bill Easton
“If you want to run, then run a mile. If you want to experience another life, run a marathon.” – Emil Zatopek
Running Motivation
“The human spirit is indomitable. No one can ever say you must not run faster than this or jump higher than that. There will never be a time when the human spirit will not be able to better existing records.” – Sir Roger Bannister
“To be great, one does not have to be mad, but definitely it helps.” – Percy Cerutty
“We must wake up to the fact that athletics is not, nor ever can be perfected; there will always be more to learn.” – Arthur “GreatHeart” Newton
“God has given me the ability. The rest is up to me. Believe. Believe. Believe.” – Billy Mills
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. – Lance Armstrong
“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” – Marilyn vos Savant
“Run hard when it’s hard to run” – Pavvo
“When you experience the run, you…relive the hunt. Running is about thirty miles of chasing prey that can outrun you in a sprint, and tracking it down and bringing life back to your village. It’s a beatiful thing.” – Shawn Found
“Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.” – Shakespeare
“What am I on? I’m on my bike busting my ass for 6 hours a day! What are you on?” – Lance Armstrong
Enjoy Your Hard Work
“I want my time spent running to serve as a reward.” – Frank Shorter
“The essential thing in life is not so much conquering as fighting well.” – Baron de Coubertin
“I love running cross-country…You come up a hill and see two deer going, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ On a track I feel like a hamster.” – Robin Williams
“Remarkable health is the pursuit of the unconventional.” – Matt Gartland
“Always enjoy yourself. Don’t be upset if you don’t win, you’ve won by simply not giving up.” – Unknown
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends or follow me on Twitter! If you think I left out any awesome quotes (I’m sure I did), then leave them in the comments for others to read!
http://strengthrunning.com/2010/07/quotes-about-running/

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The 08/13/13 Joy Jar

12 Aug

Moi has been walking more lately and she intends to build up her endurance. While walking, she notices that in some areas there are many plants many consider to be weeds. She thought about it and wondered if weeds were important.The Garden Organic blog posted the article, Benefits of Weeds in Farming Systems:
Organic farmers and growers should not be aiming to completely eradicate weeds from their fields and farms. Management rather than complete control is a more realistic and desirable goal. The word ‘management’ emphasises use of appropriate methods to maintain acceptable weed levels that take into account short-term economic and long-term ecological issues.

In spite of all the difficulties caused by weeds, they can offer some beneficial properties, particularly when occurring at low densities. These aspects should be utilised in the farming system, although this may make organic management more complicated than chemical based systems. Some of the potential benefits of weeds are listed below:
• helping to conserve soil moisture and prevent erosion. A ground cover of weeds will reduce the amount of bare soil exposed helping to conserve nutrients, particularly nitrogen which could otherwise be leached away, especially on light soils.
• food and shelter can be provided for natural enemies of pests and even alternative food sources for crop pests. The actual presence of weed cover may be a factor in increasing effectiveness of biological control of pests and reducing pest damage.
• weeds can also be valuable indicators of growing conditions in a field, for example of water levels, compaction and pH.
• weeds can be an important source of food for wildlife, especially birds. Bird populations have been declining on farmland over the last few decades and leaving weeds as a resource has been shown to help revive bird populations… http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weedtype.php?id=-2
Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are plants considered to be weeds.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.
Doug Larson

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
Dogen

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.
James Russell Lowell

They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
William Cowper

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.
William Beveridge

If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed.
Luther Burbank

Violence is like a weed – it does not die even in the greatest drought.
Simon Wiesenthal

I didn’t want to tell the tree or weed what it was. I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.
Wynn Bullock

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The 08/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Aug

Moi has begun walking more to build up endurance to eventually start running. She is slowly getting healthier. A summer in Seattle is green and verdant. One thing moi notices that no matter the season of the year the fir trees and evergreens are green all year long. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the evergreens which are green even in the grayest of winters.

“The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience — they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.
Denise Levertov

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau

The trees are God’s great alphabet:
With them He writes in shining green
Across the world His thoughts serene.
Leonora Speyer

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
John Muir

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,
Unnerves his strength, invites his end.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Woodnotes”

Trees are your best antiques.
Alexander Smith

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
Robert Louis Stevenson

He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Lucy Larcom, “Plant a Tree”

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
Kahlil Gibran

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Nelson Henderson

The best part of happiness is the pines.
Terri Guillemets

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The 08/11/13 Joy Jar

10 Aug

Moi is discovering how many recipes that she likes which contain basil as an ingredient. Basil is a wonderful herb which along with added spices seasons a dish. Life would be very bland without herbs and spices. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the seasonings which make life less bland.

It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love.
Moliere

“Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other
things.
Love is the same way.
Use it to “season” people.”
– Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“The chief pleasure in eating does not consist in costly seasoning or exquisite flavor but in yourself’
Horace

“People can be induced to swallow anything, provide it is sufficiently seasoned with praise”
Moliere

The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success ,–the ability to do
some slight thing bet …
Henry David Thoreau

“Perfume was first created to mask the stench of foul and offensive odors…
Spices and bold flavorings were created to mask the taste of putrid and rotting meat…
What then was music created for?
Was it to drown out the voices of others, or the voices within ourselves?
I think I know.”
– Emilie Autumn , The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.”
Proverbs 15:17)

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The 08/10/13 Joy Jar

9 Aug

Moi has got a list of children’s books that she will be reviewing for her blog. She is looking forward to reviewing the books and she is glad that there are so many good books for children and adults. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are really great children’s books.

“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
C.S. Lewis

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

“Anything can become a children’s book if you give it to a child…Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.”
Orson Scott Card

“As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that the things that are truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. Courage and kindness, loyalty, truth, and helpfulness are always the same and always needed.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder

“~Reading a book is like looking through a window!”
Zetta Hupf

“Every child deserves to be read to. It is a great bonding time for you and your baby.”
Abha C.

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
Lemony Snicket

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested throughly.”
Cornelia Funk

“There is more treasure in books, than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”
Walt Disney

“The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t.”
-Mark Twain

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life.”
Christopher Morley

“We read to know we are not alone.”
C.S. Lewis

“Don’t just teach your children to read…
Teach them to question what they read.
Teach them to question everything.”
George Carlin

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