i believe....

In a cellar in Cologne, Germany after World War 2 were found these words on the wall:

I believe in the sun ,
even when it is not shining;
I believe in love,
even when i feel it not;
I believe in God,
Even when He is silent.

doctor small's activities

on that topic, Arwen also arose at 6:30 this morning, and i ordered her to read on her own, since i was still semi-comatose. she got up, grabbed her book, got back on the bed, and read a bit of the story to me: "Doctor Small looks in Ben's ear with an otoscope. He says that Ben needs to have an operation on his sore ear."
I lept out of bed. Not a moment to waste shaping the mind of this young prodigy.

arwen december/january

this is what her art has evolved to of late

see my new slippers?

oh hey, i just came out and found her doing this. gloves n' all. i ran for the camera

duh, preparing for the under 3 chess championships...

scissors are a new fascination at the moment

i assure you, the surprise haircut is eminent any day now (mia knows all about that)

she is IN-LOVE with puzzles

think right toward people

Success depends on the support of other people.
Take the initiative in building friendships-leaders always do.
When you make a pleasant remark to a stranger, you make him feel one degree better. This makes you feel better and helps you relax. Every time you say something pleasant to another person, you compensate yourself. It's like warming up your automobile on a cold morning.
Thoughts breed like thoughts.
The person who does the most talking and the person who is the most successful are rarely the same person.
Conversation generosity wins friends. Conversation generosity helps you learn more about people.
Don't be a conversation hog. Listen, win friends, and learn.
Make yourself lighter to lift. Be likable. Practice being the kind of person people like. This wins their support and puts fuel in your success-building program.
Accept human differences and limitations. Don't expect anyone to be perfect. Remember, the other person has a right to be different. And don't be a reformer.
Find qualities to like and admire in a person, not things to dislike. And don't let other's prejudice your thinking about a third person. Think positive thoughts towards people-and get positive results.
Practice courtesy all the time. It makes other people feel better. It makes you feel better too.
Don't blame others when you receive a setback. Remember, how you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

the amazon

see...pink dolphins!

The Amazon Rainforest is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon basin of South America. The area, also known as Amazonia or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.2 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers, located within nine nations: Brazil (with 60 percent of the rainforest), Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guina. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas after it. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world.

The Amazon River or River Amazon of South America is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total river flow greater than the next top ten largest rivers flowing into the ocean combined.
The Amazon River accounts for approximately 1/5 of total world's river flow, and it has the largest drainage basin in the world. There is an ongoing dispute regarding it's length and along with the Nile it is one of the contenders for the position as the longest river in the world. Because of its vast dimensions, it is sometimes called The River Sea (o rio-mar in Portuguese), and at no point is it crossed by bridges.

pink dolphins

did anyone else know there are pink dolphins in the amazon?
i'm going!

cake!!!

it was daddy's birthday yesterday, so we made a cake/employed the toddler for the afternoon.

made the mistake of telling her to smile...

aaand then she just wouldn't stop...

looks good huh!


well, they enjoyed it, that's what counts.

arwen's presents

arwen finally got to open her presents the other night, though her main present was just a tad hard to wrap, or hide for that matter, cause it was a trampoline. (tell us more they say...) don't worry, i hear the yawns. so i won't linger.

new years

our new year's was a blast. well it actually was. mainly because i got to bed on time & felt quite rested at the set of 2008. we reveled in a rapturous game of pick up sticks. haha. i seldom drink, so one beer got me good & wasted. then we kicked back with some episodes of friends. this may sound bizarre, but we enjoy doing this sort of stuff....

make your attitudes your allies

How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. They reflect thinking. When our attitude is right, our abilities reach a maximum of effectiveness and good results inevitably follow. Right attitudes win for you in every situation.
To activate others, to get them to be enthusiastic, you must first be enthusiastic yourself.
Enthusiasm can make things 1,100 % better.
Results come in proportion to enthusiasm applied. Enthusiasm is simply "This is great!"
To get enthusiastic, learn more about the thing you are not enthusiastic about.
Use the dig-into-it-deeper technique to develop enthusiasm toward other people. Find out all you can about another person-what he does, his family, his background, his ideas and ambitions-and you'll find your interest in and enthusiasm about him mounting. Keep digging, and you're certain to find some common interests. Keep digging, and you'll eventually discover a fascinating person.
In everything you do, life it up. Enthusiasm, or lack of it, shows through in everything you do and say.
People go along with the fellow who believes what he says. Say it with life. Put vitality into your speaking.
And when you put life in your talk, you automatically put more life in you.
Life it up. Be sure everything you do and say tells people, "That fellow is alive." "He means it." "He's going places."
Broadcast good news. Good news does more than get attention; good news pleases people. Good news develops enthusiasm. Good news even promotes good digestion.
No one ever won a friend, no on ever made money, no one ever accomplished anything by broadcasting bad news.
Whenever you leave a person, ask yourself, "Does that person honestly feel better because he has talked with me?"
Good news gets good results. Broadcast it.
Broadcasting good news activates you, makes you feel better, Broadcasting good news makes other people feel better too.

Grow the "you-are-important" attitude.
This is a fact of paramount significance: Each human being, whether he lives in India or Indianapolis, whether he's ignorant or brilliant, civilized or uncivilized, young or old, has this desire: He wants to feel important.
The desire to be important is man's strongest, most compelling non biological hunger.
Make someone feel important, and he cares about you. And when he cares about you, he does more for you.
The big thinker always adds value to people by visualizing them at their best. Because he thinks big about people, he gets their best out of them.
When you help other's feel important, you help yourself feel important too.
Let's not kid ourselves. People who do not have a deep-down feeling of self-importance are slated for mediocrity. Again and again this point mist be driven home: You must feel important to succeed. Helping other s to feel important rewards you because it makes you feel more important. Try it and see.
Practice appreciation. Make it a rule to let others know you appreciate what they do for you. Never, never let anyone feel he is taken for granted. Practice appreciation with a warm, sincere smile. A smile lets others know you notice them and feel kindly toward them.
Practice appreciation by letting others know hos you depend on them.
Practice appreciation with honest, personalized compliments. People thrive on compliments-whether two or twenty, nine or ninety, a person craves praise. He want sot be assured that he's doing a good job, that he is important. Don't feel that you should hand out praise only for big accomplishments. Compliment people on little things: their appearance, the way they do their routine work, their ideas, their loyal efforts. Praise by writing personal notes complimenting people you know on their achievements. Make a special phone call or a special trip to see them.
A person, whether he is a garbage collector or company vice president, is important to you. Treating someone as second-class never gets you first-class results.
Practice calling people by their names. People like to be called by name. It gives everyone a boost to be addressed by name.
Don't hog glory, invest it instead.
Remember, praise is power. When you share praise, your subordinates know you sincerely appreciate their value.

Want to make money? Then get the put-service-first attitude.
It's perfectly natural-in fact, it's highly desirable-to want to make money and accumulate wealth. Money is power to give your family and yourself the standard of living they deserve. Money is power to help the unfortunate. Money is one of the means to living life fully.
Once criticized for urging people to make money, the great minister Russel H. Conwell, author of Acres of Diamonds, said, "Money printed your Bible, money builds your churches, money sends your missionaries, and money pays your preachers, and you would not have may of them, either, if you did not pay them."
The person who says he wants to be poor usually suffers from a guilt complex or a feeling of inadequacy. He's like the youngster who feels he can't make A's in school or make the football team, so he pretends he doesn't want to make A's or play football.
Money, then, is a desirable objective. What's puzzling about money is the backward approach so may people us it trying to make it. Everywhere you see people with a "money-first" attitude. Yet these same people always have little money. Why? Simply this: People with a money-first attitude become so money conscious that they forget money can't be harvested unless they plant the seeds that grow the money.
And the seed of money is service. That's why "put service first" is an attitude that creates wealth. Put service first, and money takes care of itself.
Put service first, and money takes care of itself-always.
Money seeds, of course, grow money. Plant service and harvest money.

make it count...

what is new years to most people? okay duh most people go out, get sloshed, act like idiots for the whole night & forget to go to sleep then recover for the next few days when they finally realise that their life is pending.
some of my sisters and i aren't that psyched about that whole scenario & normally avoid it altogether, opting for more sensible forms of entertainment. ooh yes we're such geeks.
someone recently made a comment to one of my sisters when she told them that she'd prefer not to start the new year off with a big hangover, - they said: "oh yeah, its much better to start it with sobriety & goals..." albeit the mocking tone should be eminent. i've temporarily branded him the village idiot....
sobriety & goals.... what an absolutely flipping good idea! i wish it occurred just a little less seldom. that way i wouldn't feel a responsibility to practice sobriety and goals solo with my tiny group of like minds annually & we could actually guiltlessly kick back with a beer.
but anyway, all that to say, stop and think about what the new year means for you. i've heard that if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll end up where you're headed. where's that for you? you're the michaelangelo of your life, and the david you're sculpting is you! will it be a masterpiece? a classic work of art forever etched in history? only you can decide. make this one count. let's kick ass this year!

"Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements." -- Napoleon Hill