Tag Archives: Positive Affirmation

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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The 01/23/13 Joy Jar

22 Jan

Moi has an early appointment tomorrow with the hairdresser. Since moi will be covering the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle beginning on 1/25, along with other harried journalists and bloggers, moi wants to look her best while she is running to and fro. Last Friday, moi got a manicure, it that tangerine rosy color. It looks good and makes people think of Spring. The checker at Kress Market commented and said it made her think of Spring. Anyhow, moi has to get up early because the hair appointment is just the start of a busy day. Better set the alarm clock. Today’s deposit into the “Joy Jar’ is my trusty alarm clock.

 

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.
Pablo Picasso

 

I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock.
Martin Freeman

I miss the days in college when my alarm clock would be

set in the P.M.

Unknown

The truth is like an alarm clock. You might not want to

hear it…but it will wake you up from your dreams and

bring you back to reality.

Unknown

If you think its your alarm clock that wakes you every morning, try putting it next to a corpse and understand the Grace of GOD!!!

Unknown

 

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The 01/22/13 Joy Jar

21 Jan

The last several days have been cold for Seattle with the temperature hovering around freezing. There has been a temperate inversion and that has produced a thick pea soup fog. There is something mysterious about fog. One expects Sherlock Holmes to emerge. The horror movie, ‘Fog’ made people disappear. It is good to have variety, like fog because it is good for one’s imagination. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is fog.

 

“Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.”
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

 

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.
Joseph Conrad

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin

The atmosphere of libraries, lecture rooms and laboratories is dangerous to those who shut themselves up in them too long. It separates us from reality like a fog.
Alexis Carrel

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us. Henri Matisse

Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.
Claude Adrien Helvetius

 

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The 01/21/13 Joy Jar

20 Jan

Did you ever wonder how the first person who made coffee came to the conclusion that it was a good idea? They found some coffee beans and decided to smash them and then boil them in water. Really. Moi lives in Seattle and the prevailing wisdom about Seattleites is that they have an IV hooked up at Starbucks dispensing coffee. Close. Still, there is nothing like a good cup of coffee and if one is desperate, any cup of coffee. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is coffee.

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”
Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”
Dave Barry

“I like my coffee with cream and my literature with optimism.”
Abigail Reynolds, Pemberley by the Sea

Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee.              Stephanie Piro

“Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
David Lynch

“Coffee – the favorite drink of the civilized world.”
Thomas Jefferson

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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 01/19/13 Joy Jar

18 Jan

Moi is trying to learn how operate her new smart phone. Moi must be the last person in America to get a smart phone, all the twelve year olds have them. Moi’s old phone was considered dumb by smart phone standards, but the phone was way smarter than moi. It is at times like this that a little glass of wine makes the moment so much more mellow.. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a really good glass of wine.

 

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”
John Keats

 

“Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.”
Ernest Hemingway

 

“I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

 

“Life’s too short to drink cheap wine…”
Cliff Hakim

 

“To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history”
Clifton Fadiman

 

“Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.”
Louis Pasteur

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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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