Tag Archives: nature

The 04/03/13 Joy Jar

2 Apr

Moi wears socks all winter to keep her feet warm. So, moi’s feet look like crab feet and need a pedicure. But, she was looking at her feet and admiring her toes. Actually, even without a pedicure they are attractive and moi is thankful that she has them. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar are moi’s toes.

 

 

“Behind everyone who behaves as if he were superior to others, we can suspect a feeling of inferiority which calls for very special efforts of concealment. It is as if a man feared that he was too small and walked on his toes to make himself seem tall”

Alfred Adler

 

 

 

“People never add to their stature by treading on others’ toes”

Unknown

 

 

 

Fake friends are a vital piece of life. They keep you on your toes and teach you to never take the real ones for granted.

Ayjee Grogan

 

 

 

May your time be filled with relaxing sunsets, cool drinks and sand between your toes.

Unknown

 

 

 

“The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.”

Leonardo da Vinci

 

 

“What a wonderful beautiful thing, to wiggle your toes.”

Dalton Trumbo

 

 

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.
Xun Zi

 

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The 03/25/13 Joy Jar

24 Mar

Moi was on a walk and a butterfly floated by. This must be a hardy little creature, because even though the calendar says Spring, it has been cold. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are butterflies.

“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”                                                                                           Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Butterflies are self propelled flowers. ”                 

R.H. Heinlein

“A power of Butterfly must be –

The Aptitude to fly

Meadows of Majesty concedes

And easy Sweeps of Sky -”

Emily Dickinson

“Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”                                                                                                      

Hans Christian Andersen

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.                                                                                                                                                        Unknown

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The 03/21/13 Joy Jar

20 Mar
Today was the first day of Spring and in Seattle, the weather can take many paths.  Spring can come early or late.  The calendar says Spring and moi is going with the calendar. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is Spring.
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
Henry Van Dyke
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven–
All’s right with the world!
Robert Browning
 
Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
Bishop Reginald Heber

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.
Virgil A. Kraft

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils.
William Wordsworth

April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
Christopher Morley
John Mistletoe.

It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!
Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer, Detective.

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The 03/07/13 Joy Jar

7 Mar

Sunday is the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. We are all supposed to spring forward and fall back. . Daylight Savings Times means the clock moves an hour forward on Sunday. One can move the hands of a clock in an instant, but it takes moi’s body clock a week or so to get the body rhythm back. Still, moi loves the long days of summer and the increased light of the Spring. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is Daylight Savings Time.

I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.                                                                              

Victor Borge

 

Some people have the time but they don’t have time while others have time but do not have the time.                                                                                  

Jacques Prevert

 

 

I don’t understand people who say they need more Me Time. What other time is there? Do these people spend part of their day in someone else’s body             

Hussein Nishah

 

 

I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.             

Charles M. Schultz

 

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.                                                                            

Will Rogers

 

It takes a long time to become young.                                                                

Pablo Picasso

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The 03/04/13 Joy Jar

3 Mar

Walking down a street lined on both sides by trees that all winter were like skeleton arms reaching for the sky. Today on the the skeleton arms were, bumps, mounds, there were so many buds on the branches it looked like a full sports stadium. The bumps, buds seemed to make the branches happy, there was definitely no urge to scratch. There seemed to be more birds as well. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ are the buds that have formed on tree branches.

 

“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it”                   

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

“Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulation of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.”                                                                       

George Eliot

 

 

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”                                                             

John Quincy Adams

 

 

 

“The bud may have a bitter taste, / But sweet will be the flower.”                      

William Cowper

 

 

 

“Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.”                                                                                

William Carlos Williams

 

 

“Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid A million buds but stay their blossoming And trustful birds have built their nests amid The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing Till one soft shower from the south shall bid And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of Spring.”                                                                                         

Robert Bridges

 

 

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.                              

Seneca

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The 02/22/13 Joy Jar

21 Feb

Moi was walking down the street on a gray Seattle day. The street was just a cold ribbon of concrete which lead up to two trees. Someone had taken the time to plant a riotous color of pansies at the base of the two trees who were naked without their leaves. The pansies were defiant, determined to shake people out of their gray consciousness. One couldn’t walk by the naked tree and the riotous pansies without smiling. Although, technically a late winter plant, the appearance of pansies means Spring is getting closer. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the pansies and the unknown person who planted them knowing that they would defy the gray.

“I send thee pansies while the year is young, Yellow as sunshine, purple as the night; Flowers of remembrance, ever fondly sung By all the chiefest of the Sons of Light; And if in recollection lives regret For wasted days and dreams that were not true, I tell thee that the “pansy freak’d with jet” Is still the heart’s ease that the poets knew Take all the sweetness of a gift unsought, And for the pansies send me back a thought.”
Sarah Doudney

“And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”
William Shakespeare. Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Ophelia at IV, v)

The beauteous pansies rise
In purple, gold, and blue,
With tints of rainbow hue
Mocking the sunset skies.                                                                                 Thomas John Ouseley

If they want easy color, pansies are easy to take care of. They’re pretty easy to grow.                                                                                                                                                                                   

Sherie Sinon

How does a pansy, for example, select the ingredients from soil to get the right colors for the flower? Now there’s a great miracle. I think there’s a supreme power behind all of this. I see it in nature.                                                                     

Clyde Tombaugh

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The 02/09/13 Joy Jar

8 Feb

Hard to believe but, the first day of Spring is March 20 and Daylight Savings Time starts in March as well. The news reports are about a blizzard in New York and New England. Fall means that one begins to think about colder weather and the need for sweaters. In many parts of the country where there are clearly defined seasons, people store their sweaters. In Seattle, one keeps their sweaters handy until at least August. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a warm sweater.

 

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
Ambrose Bierce

“When the bold branches Bid farewell to rainbow leaves – Welcome wool sweaters.”                                                                                                             B. Cybrill

I’ve about decided that’s the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you’re a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.

Barbara Kingsolver

 

I’m a super hero, too, underneath my sweater.

Rusted Root

 

Dramatic art in her opinion is knowing how to fill a sweater.

Bette Davis

 

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail.
Fran Lebowitz

 

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The 02/02/13 Joy Jar

1 Feb

The Winter Solstice in December marks the beginning of the march toward Spring. Slowly the days get longer and there seems to be more light. In January, people are acting like it’s Wednesday and there is too much week or too much winter left. Almost defiantly those who weren’t wearing bright colors before, start testing the waters in expectation of Spring. Bright, vibrant colors start appearing as accessories in the form of a hat, gloves, or a scarf. Some are bold and wear a neon coat or sweater. Everyone is waiting for the Primroses to appear, the first sure sign of Spring. Meanwhile random bright colors will suffice for now. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the bright colors of winter.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.
Marc Chagall

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.                    Murasaki Shikibu

Colors are the smiles of nature.                                                                     

Leigh Hunt

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.                                                            

Paul Gauguin

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors.  I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.                                                            

Winston Churchill

 

Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.
Pablo Picasso

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The 01/28/13 Joy Jar

27 Jan

Moi has been at the ALA Midwinter Meeting for the past couple of days and it has been raining off and on in Seattle. Some folk in Seattle think of themselves as Rambos. They wouldn’t be caught dead carrying carrying an umbrella and some not only forgo an umbrella, but are sans hat. Their choice of badge is Gore Tex. Moi has a trusty fold-away umbrella which she carries everywhere in her purse, even in August. Because in Seattle, no matter the date on the calendar, one never knows. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is my umbrella.

 

It is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged index of social position. . . . Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilized mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with. Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Prepare the umbrella before it rains. Life is full of surprises!

Unknown

 

“With large umbrellas, come large responsibilities” Matt Maldre

 

“The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just’s umbrella”

Charles Bowen quotes

“It ain’t no use putting up your umbrella till it rains.” Alice Caldwell Rice

This last quote could be written for Seattle.

Any fool carries an umbrella on a wet day, but the wise man carries it every day.
Irish Proverb

 

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The 01/25/13 Joy Jar

24 Jan

The last several days in Seattle were cold with freezing fog. The foggy cold created a temperature inversion and felt like one could see and chew on the air. It was dry. The rain broke the dry spell and even for January, the temperate began to rise to more of the January Seattle normal. Rain in Seattle is like washing your dog or washing your car. Rain cleans the city and makes the air feel refreshed, it is like everyone goes ah. Still, even Seattleites complain if the rain goes into that 40 days and 40 nights thing.

 

“It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.”
Ernest Hemingway

 

“On the late afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business.

Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk?

He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking the puddles.

And yet this person is the hero of his own life story.

He is the love of someone’s life.

And what he can do may change the world.

Imagine being him for a moment.

And then continue on your own way.”
Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Innocent droplets of rain
Make almost all events
Quite natural.

(from “A Rainy Day”)”
Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

 

“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.”
Vladimir Nabokov

 

“I miss it if I’m not in it for any length of time; I don’t feel comfortable. I want trees and I want frequent rain.”
Murray Morgan

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