Tag Archives: Joy Jar

The 01/20/13 Joy Jar

19 Jan

We are living in what used to be a first world nation. Because the economy has driven so many out of the middle class and into survival, there are still things that one takes for granted.  Seattle has a wonderful municipal water system and the tap water is quite good. But, even bottled water is plentiful. We don’t realize that in many parts of the world clean and safe water that won’t make one sick or dead is a rarity. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is clean water.

“Five million people die unnecessarily each year because of illness related to lack of potable water. Half of them are children under the age of five. To bring it home, think about this: one child dies from lack of clean water every twelve seconds.”

         Thomas M. Kostigen, You Are Here: Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

                                         Aeschylus quotes

“When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water.”

                                                                            Benjamin Franklin

“When you drink the water, remember the spring.”

                                                                             Chinese Proverb

“We have the ability to provide clean water for every man, woman and child on the Earth. What has been lacking is the collective will to accomplish this. What are we waiting for? This is the commitment we need to make to the world, now.”

                 Jean-Michel Cousteau

“A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure.”

  Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

 “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”

                                                                         W.H. Auden

“Water links us to our neighbor in a way more profound and complex than any other.”

  John Thorson

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The 01/18/13 Joy Jar

17 Jan

Moi is fairly old school. She will buy her first smart phone tomorrow so she can tweet constantly at the ALA Midwinter Meeting which is the weekend of the 25th. There is nothing like having a nice piece of paper and writing on it with your pen. Although, moi uses a computer, she feels more secure with a jar of pens on her desk. She even has that favorite leopard pen and pens in different colors. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the pen.

 

To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire

 

You want to be a writer, don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.
Paul Simon

 

Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Writers are people who put pen to paper every day.
Richard Russo

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.
Michael Ondaatje

 

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Horace

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The 01/17/13 Joy Jar

16 Jan

Walking through downtown Seattle this evening, moi noticed how bright all the lights were. Crossing through Westlake Park, moi noticed the trees were still wrapped in the strings of white lights that had shown brightly through the Christmas season. They were still sparkling now. As this reflection is written, the computer and the illumination in the form of a lamp are all powered by electricity. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is electricity which powers so many things moi takes for granted.

We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires.
Dave Barry

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.
L. Frank Baum

I believe talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent.
Maya Angelou

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you look at the inner workings of electrical things, you see wires. Until the current passes through them, there will be no light. That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, to produce the light of the world, Jesus, in us. Or we can refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread.

Mother Teresa

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The 01/16/13 Joy Jar

15 Jan

There is a different energy in cities than in rural areas. Cities can be noisy, crowded, dirty, and in-your-face. Cities are diverse because people come for opportunity, acceptance or to escape. There is an energy that escapes for the steam arising from the goulash. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is gratitude for the energy of city living.

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
Aristotle

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
Plato

You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city – you don’t need to go to Beirut for that – but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective.
P. J. O’Rourke

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Charles Caleb Colton

A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.
Margaret Mead

“When you look at a city, it’s like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it.”                                                                                         Hugh Newell Jacobsen

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The 01/15/13 Joy Jar

14 Jan

The temperature last several days in Seattle has hovered near freezing. It is cold and clear with the emphasis on cold. Now is the time that many who live in colder climes dream of sandy beaches, palm trees, and tropical drinks made with exotic fruits. Some people live in places where it is always sunny and warm. Still, a cold clear day which makes one long for Spring and Summer puts a punctuation mark on on the seasons. There is a difference and a rhythm to the seasons and the cold focuses one on that rhythm. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a cold clear day.

“So when you’re cold
From the inside out
And don’t know what to do,
Remember love and friendship,
And warmth will come to you.”
Stephen Cosgrove, Gnome from Nome


There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you…. In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.  Ruth Stout


The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer.  I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and the blood.  John Burroughs


O, wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley


Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. Author Unknown

“Withstanding the cold develops vigor for the relaxing days of spring and summer. Besides, in this matter as in many others, it is evident that nature abhors a quitter.”
Arthur C. Crandall, New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor

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The 01/14/13 Joy Jar

13 Jan

Sunshine can mean the warm from the sun or the warmth from the glow of a person or personality. Dictionary.com defines ‘sunshine’ as:

sun·shine

noun

1. the shining of the sun; direct light of the sun.

2. brightness or radiance; cheerfulness or happiness.

3. a source of cheer or happiness.

4. the effect of the sun in lighting and heating a place.

5. a place where the direct rays of the sun fall.

The Urban Dictionary defines ‘sunshine’ as:

Sunshine is a special someone who gives light and warmth in your life. Someone who you want to wake up with just like sunshine and know that that is what gives you life. Someone who is really hot and brightens your day and your life.Good morning sunshine!

However one defines ‘sunshine,’ it makes you feel warm, even on a cold day. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is sunshine.

“Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.”

Walt Whitman

“The sun,–the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man–burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder – Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

James M. Barrie

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”

Helen Keller

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The 01/13/13 Joy Jar

12 Jan

According to the American Library Association (ALA) “There are an estimated 121,785 libraries of all kinds in the United States today. No single annual survey provides statistics on all types of libraries.” Moi goes to the Seattle Public Library’s central library several times a week. One of the joys of moi’s life is that Seattle has an excellent public library system. It really is a temple of knowledge. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is the public library.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
Jorge Luis Borges

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”
Maya Angelou

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man”
T.S. Eliot

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”
Albert Einstein

“Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people’s books, one’s own books – it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments – and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable.”
Aidan Chambers

“The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. ”
Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

“The public library is where place and possibility meet.”
Stuart Dybek

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The 01/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Jan

Moi is a ‘bus chick’ and rides the bus all over Seattle. Walking around the urban environment is a cacophony of sights and smells. Sometimes, riding certain bus routes, one can get a whiff and it is not the smell or roses. The Mayo Clinic defines Loss of smell (anosmia):

Loss of smell — anosmia (an-OHZ-me-uh) — can be partial or complete, although a complete loss of smell is fairly rare. Loss of smell can also be temporary or permanent, depending on the cause.

Although loss of smell can sometimes be a symptom of a serious condition, it isn’t necessarily serious itself. Still, an intact sense of smell is necessary to fully taste foods. Loss of smell could cause you to lose interest in eating, which could lead to weight loss, malnutrition or even depression. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/loss-of-smell/MY00408

Still, one would be lost without the sense of smell. Does one really want to give up the smell of warm bread and baking cookies? Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is the sense of smell.

 

“Each day has a color, a smell.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices

 

“I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.”
Herbert Rappaport

 

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.
William Osler

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
Helen Keller

Keep it simple. Tell the truth. People can smell the truth.
Steve Wynn

 

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The 01/11/13 Joy Jar

10 Jan

Moi walks all over Seattle and she realizes that shouldn’t couldn’t walk all over without her feet. Like many, moi loves shoes and really, what good are shoes if you didn’t have feet to put your shoes on. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is that moi is thankful that she has feet.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt

“Yes no yes no yes no?
Red blue?
Yes red, no blue?
No red, yes no?
In out, up down?
Do don’t, can can’t?
Choices sit on the shelf life
New shoes in a shoe shop.
If the in crowd are squeezing into a must-have shoe
And the one pair left are too tiny for you
Don’t feel compelled into choosing them
If you’re really a size 9, buy that size.
While everyone else
Hobbles round with sore feet
Your choices should feel comfortable
Or they aren’t your choices at all.
Why limp when you can sprint?”
David Baird, Fiesta of Happiness: Be True to Yourself

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
Dr. Seuss

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln

Your feet will take you to where your heart is.”
Irish Proverb

Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.
Lance Secretan

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The 01/10/13 Joy Jar

9 Jan

Have you been in a line at the supermarket and watched the person ahead take forever to get out their wallet or been stuck in traffic with no movement or movement at a glacial rate? What about sitting in a cold doctor’s waiting room, waiting for the doctor to get to you or waiting for a friend to finally show up for coffee? You are always early, they are always late, but still you just want to relish that tinge of superiority because you follow the ‘rules,’ even if those rules are only in your head. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is patience.

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is “timing”
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”
Fulton J. Sheen

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself,
than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all
connected with you.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
Leo Tolstoy

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
Aristotle

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