Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday Sydney

Your friends at Family Vision Clinic wish you a very happy birthday. We hope that you have a wonderful day and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Best Wishes,
Family Vision Clinic

A Poem

A poem by Phillip Lopate that I read in a book by Anne Lamott:

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you 
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration 
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

Anne Lamott read this to one of her writing classes.  She then wrote, "They stare at me like the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Only about three think this poem is funny, or even a good example of someone taking his own paranoia and shaping it into something artistic and true. A few people look haunted.  The ones who most want to be published just think I'm an extremely angry person.Some of them look emotionally broken, some look at me with actual disgust, as if I am standing there naked under fluorescent lights."*

What do you think?

*Lamott, Anne
Bird by Bird: some instructions on writing and life
Originally published by Pantheon Books, New York, 1994

I'm listening to it on streaming audio from OverDrive provided to me by my public library and also reading it in e-book form.  It's so good that I need to be able to highlight things. I plan on buying a hard copy (traditional book) so I can read it again and mark up the book for reference. 

Do I even need to say that I recommend this book to anyone interested in writing?

Doctor Who Banner

By BBC (selfmade with Inkscape) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Link to original page

Never Cease To Learn

While straightening up my desk I found a piece of notebook paper with notes taken by me.  When? Why? Where? I have no idea.

At the top, like a title, are the words "Never Cease To Learn".  That's kind of my mantra right now. I'm taking an on-line class through my church called "Connectional Living; Connectional Giving". I am brushing up on my German using the library's foreign language data base.

So I read the notes.  It's mostly good information that I want to keep but I need a piece of notebook paper hanging around like I need, well, like I need something that I totally don't need. I know, I'll blog it.

And here are my notes about learning:

Always be on the lookout for new ideas.

Research, go to meetings, workshops,

Think, Dream, Plan.

Continually improve and learn.

Good habits are the key to success.

We are what we repeatedly do - Aristotle

You can choose your habits.

Determine your own life and your own habits. Don't let others do it for you.

Play the music that is within you.

Aha! Know how to ask the right questions.

Learn to listen.

Jerome Bruner - The process of education

Avoid negative influences.

You shape your future or your future will shape you.

Don't just survive and exist; take risks and grow.

Make it a habit to go to one conference a year.  Visit venders, meet other professionals, network and share, attend multiple sessions, parties and receptions.

Integrity

100 million children around the world do not go to school.

Everyone deserves to be respected, indispensable and loved.

Am I Reading Too Much?

A more accurate title might be "Am I Reading Too Many?"

My hope is that reading multiple books at the same time will ward off dementia.

Currently I am reading:

• Still Foolin'  'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?, an autobiography by Billy Chrystal, is my current bathtub book. 
• Burn by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge is part of my morning laying-in-bed-before-I-get-up ritual.  I listen to it on my Kindle
• The Legacy Journal: A Radical View of Biblical Wealth and Generosity by Dave Ramsey is part of the same morning ritual. I read it on my Kindle (e-book). 
•  Bombshell by Catherine Coulter is entertaining me currently whenever I get into my car. I like to say I read in my car.  I always have a book on CD in the CD player. 
• Honeymoon by James Patterson and Howard Roughan just became available.  I had it on hold in Overdrive (library e-books) and I only have two weeks to read it before someone else  gets a turn. I read Second Honeymoon first (and loved it), not realizing it was a series. I put this book on my iphone and will read it at the gym and on break at work.
• The Bible. I'm always reading the Bible.  It's my before-I-go-to-sleep reading material.  I'm about to finish the CEB translation of the New Testament.

What I should be reading:

• My Advent books
• Books I planned to read before Christmas: Merry Christmas Alex Cross by James Petterson and The 12 Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen. I traditionally like to read Skipping Christmas by John Grisham but I'm not sure I can fit it in this year.
• Relentless is the December book for my Dean Koontz GoodReads book Group.

So what are you reading?

This is How I Decorate

Giving Tuesday

We've had one day to give thanks, two days to get good deals, and one day to be generous.  Today is Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday isn't new, but it isn't really old either. It began in 2012 but I didn't hear about it until this year. If you google "Giving Tuesday" you'll find more information than you have time to read.

I saw that UNICEF promises 90% of your donation will go to the children.  That's a high percentage, but I'm donating through my church where 100% of my donation goes directly to the cause I choose.

I'm making my donation to ICT4D (Information & Communications Technology for Developing Countries). I love technology and when I read about the lives that can be saved and improved by simply having cell phones in remote areas, I was in.

• Pastors and missionaries can stay connected with the outside world.
• People can get information about floods, disease outbreaks, war and other emergencies in time to prepare for them.
• In some places, cell phones are used to pay teachers which reduces money lost to graft.
• Farmers and business owners can get the latest information pertinent to their ventures.

Think of all the ways you use cell phones and other technology and imagine what they can do in the hands of people in less prosperous parts of the world.

If you are interested in learning more or donating to ICT4D, here's the LINK.

Go now, be generous today and give to a cause that captures your passion.