Our Kids

 

From an Orwell essay

The next time someone insists on using "politically correct" language, think of this quote from George Orwell:

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Kids say the darndest things

We were driving in the car, yesterday. It was a warm, sunny day and we were outside for the first time that day. We were driving through the city with the windows rolled down, and I said, "Isn't it nice to have some fresh air?"
Dexter (age 2) said, "No, how 'bout pizza?!"

Another time we were driving along and passed a business that had a gate with bars. Geneva (age 4), said, "I can fit through that. Dang, little girls are smart!"

Last week, Ravenna (age 14), put a pricetag on her forehead and said, "I am no longer priceless."

Proverbs and Edison Quotes

I like to think of these two proverbs together:

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail,”


“We plan, God laughs.”


I also like these quotes from Thomas Edison:

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."


"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress."


"It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work."


"If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves."

Things to do before I die list...

Anyone in favor of such a list?

I can think of one or two things to put on it:
learn drumming of some sort, I have my eye on taiko drumming
go skiing or snowboarding or both
take dance lessons - ballroom, clog or tap

Quote by Thomas S. Monson:
"It is necessary to prepare and to plan so that we don't fritter away our lives. Without a goal, there can be no real success. One of the best definitions of success I have ever heard goes something like this: success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Someone has said the trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never cross the goal line...
I want to state here and now that wishing will not replace thorough preparation to meet the trials of life. Preparation is hard work but absolutely essential for our progress."

So, I guess my 'things to do before I die' list is more of a wish list than a goal list, since I don't have a plan right now for doing them, but I don't think they are essential to my eternal salvation, so it's probably o.k. if they are just wishes for now. It reminds me of the movie "Elizabethtown" with Orlando Bloom and Susan Sarandon, where her husband dies and she starts doing all these crazy things that she wants to do before she dies, because his death was a wake-up call to her. (The rest of the movie was kind of dumb)

Anyway...

I'm averaging about 1 post a month, that's more than some bloggers I know... but certainly less prolific than I thought I would be when I started this.

Wisdom from Benjamin Franklin

I was just going to post the first one here, but all of these are so good...


"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

A longer version of the same quote: "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."


"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."


"As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence. "


"Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."


"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality. "


"How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them."


"If you desire many things, many things will seem few."


"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing. "


"It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."


"It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."


"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it."


"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."


"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it. "


"Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody."


"You may delay, but time will not."


I got these quotes from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjamin_franklin.html

church sign

There is a church in my neighborhood, on a corner, that has a sign on which they post funny things sometimes. Right now it says, "God so loved the world He didn't send a committee."