Thursday, July 29, 2010

learn what you do

...you learn what you do. If you worry a lot, then day after day you are learning how to worry even better. If you think about doing something a lot, then you are learning how to think about doing. Every moment you are happy, you are learning how to be even happier. Every time you act, you are learning how to take an action even better.

What is it that you've been learning today?

What is it that you want to learn tomorrow?



By the way, I totally stole the above paragraph from a facebook application. Definitely worth thinking about. In your life, what are you learning by your actions even better every day? Apply these questions to yourself every day. Sometimes change is hard, but it only takes that one step "to do" to move forward in the direction of change. I do believe people can change. I wrote about that in an old blog, definitely worth reading, called 'do you think people can change?' And like I mentioned in this old blog, thoughts determine our feelings and behavior and above's stolen paragraph is saying, so do our actions. So be careful what you're thinking and what you do.

You are what you think and you are what you do.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

ode

I know I have a lot of catching up on blog reading...thank you all for still being here/around. I'll be back soon, I promise. In the meantime, here's a poem I couldn't resist posting, after I updated my facebook status with the first two lines. Enjoy! :) I learned of this poem after falling in love with the first two lines that were used by Willy Wonka in the original movie.

Full Version Poem of the "Ode" by Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamer of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties,
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry —
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.

A wondrous thing of our dreaming,
Unearthly, impossible seeming-
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

And therefore today is thrilling,
With a past day's late fulfilling.
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of tomorrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for it's joy or it's sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry-
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the corners
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers,
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamt not before;
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.



Tuesday, July 6, 2010

my house is not haunted, it's mad at me

my house can't be haunted by ghosts...i'm the first and only owner of this house. i don't hate my house, in fact i love it! maybe my house loves us too! so, why would it be mad at me, you ask. well, i'm in the middle of a short sale contract. and while i love this place, for many various personal reasons, it is time for me to move on...it is what's best for me and my son. I didn't notice the signs of anger until this past week when almost every day something went wrong, but it did start a few months ago when:

the light bulb for the outside fixture above my entrance door went out. have not and will not replace it.

one of the two light bulbs in my fan fixture in my master bedroom died. still not replaced.

my smoke detector started going off at 2am. I've lived in this house for 4 years and have had these detectors go off already three different times (of course all in the middle of the night). this means, I have to go downstairs, grab the ladder, go back up stairs with said ladder, unscrew damn smoke detector, remove battery, drain sound of annoying beep, and find way back to sleep. needless to say, ladder and smoke detector sans battery are still in my closet.

one light bulb out of 5 in dining room light fixture went out while eating dinner. still out.

one of the light bulbs in my son's bathroom went out. still out.

garbage disposer in kitchen went berserk. had to use that wrench thingy tool that it comes with. all better now.

two weeks ago: dishwasher clogged up. googled how to fix it and when that didn't work, called my friend Brian who helps me via telephone to fix things in the house. It worked. Thanks B!

last friday: underneath kitchen sink, one of the nots on the pipes corroded and fell. Didn't notice until the water flowed all around in the cabinet instead of inside the pipes. had to call for emergency plumbing and 10 minutes after his arrival and departure, figured I could have done that myself. arg!

saturday: the battery in my AC thermostat died.

yesterday: I witnessed the halogen light bulb in my kitchen fixture burn out.

today: candle on toilet in guest bedroom fell and shattered.

what will happen next?
the short sale better be approved fast before something else more costly happens.

is it ironic I am reading a fiction novel about a haunted house?

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