My Two Blessings

Just Keep Swimming! You just gotta love Dory! I'm swimming right now, in the midst of doing taxes and also working on class stuff. The module this week in Humanities - Kantian and utilitarian ethics. According to Kant , motive is the operating force and actions are based upon what you think you ought to do based on a sense of duty versus the right or moral thing to do. Pity or compassion doesn't play a role.   Utilitarianism is the ethical concept that says what is right or good is what brings the most happiness.  When faced with a choice, take the one that will make the most amount of people happy.  For example: Given the choice to save one person or five people from being hit by a train, save the five and let the one die.  Or if there is one person you can throw in front of the train further up the tracks that will save them all, do it.      So right now I'm contemplating the question: " consider Kant's requirement that other pe...

4 years old! Join me in a piece of cake to celebrate the 4th anniversary of My Two Blessings!  To celebrate I bought myself a couple of new journals.  One is a beautiful new journal from Peter Pauper Press with artistry by Josephine Wall .  I love her art. Her arts speaks to me and is so colorful and imaginative. The other because I simple love leather and like to write and it had 400 lined pages in which to express myself.   A thick black bonded Italian leather journal from Barnes and Noble and handmade in Italy.  *sigh* In honor of my blogovesary, I am having a couple giveaways just for my followers. I'm very thankful you all are interested in what I have to say, otherwise I'd be talking to myself.  Welcome to the newbies who have joined in the past year.  At some point, please take the time to introduce yourself, say hi, question me an answer or just say boo!  If there is anything you want to know about me, now if the time ...

In one of the week's in Artist Way, one of the tasks was sort of a time travel experiment.   " Describe yourself at eighty ."  Seeing as my dad just turned eighty and all he's accomplished with his life, I thought it an interesting question.   " What do you think you'll be like at eighty? "   Ever thought about it?     " Now, write a letter from you at eighty to you at your current age.   What would you tell yourself?  What interests would you urge yourself to pursue?  What dreams would you encourage. "   "T hen remember yourself at eight.  What did you like to do?  What were your favorite things?  Write a letter from you at eight to you at your current age.  What would you tell yourself. "  (pg 89)   It was an interesting, fun and enlightening exercise. So, what would you tell yourself? Quote to Ponder Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:  They try to h...

The first round of A Round of Words in 80 days is over.  I am so glad I joined in.  Breaking down major goals into mini goals each week really helped me immensely.   Did I finish Red Thief?   Not exactly.   I'm close and there are 12 days til the start of the next round on April 4.  My plan is to have the first draft finished by then.  Cross your fingers, legs and what ever else will cross.  I have to figure out how the bad guy is going to go down.  And if I'm going to kill him off or not.  And how I'm going to get my heroine to forgive the undercover guy who loves her for lying to her and not saving her sooner.  Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive .   Bwahahaha!   In the meantime, I'll be thinking about my goals for Round 2.  Meanwhile, I'm going to continue working on The Artist's Way and writing morning pages .  The morning pages have been instrumental in hel...

Me and my Dad - 1966 (thereabouts) “May God give you...For every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile, for every care a promise and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer.”  Irish Blessing Happy 80th Birthday, Dad Love you to infinity and beyond

Spring Reading Thing 2011 Happy Spring! It is that time of the year again and the start of Callapidder Day's Spring Reading Thing .  This year I'm mixing it up a bit and going to read some non fiction books.   A strange thing happened as a result of my reading deprivation week .    I haven't had any desire to read fiction.  *gasp*   I'm not craving my brain candy.  What I am craving is non fiction. My brain seems to be in a feed me, teach me, inform me, fill me up mood.   Could have something to do with my Humanities class starting and all the work involved with that.  So...I went through my bookshelf of non fiction I've been collecting and meaning to read and picked out several books.   My short stories class seems to have opened my mind about marking up books, underlining passages I want to remember and jotting down notes in a notebook while I read.   I happen to love it when I come acros...

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow. Ovid -- Roman poet and author of Metamorphoses

Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie I decided on my research topic for my Humanities Capstone final project: George Bernard Shaw. Now I just have decide exactly what my thesis will be.  While looking up information about him and discovering he wrote this book called " The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism" I came across this interesting article on Smithsonian.com called " How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature ." The " Woman's Guide etal " was the first non fiction paperback published along with Agatha Christie's " Mysterious Affair at Styles ." Which I read by the way - good book.  I couldn't find a copy of Shaw's original guide but....  synchronicity - the book is being re  released April 2011.  Intelligent Woman's Guide I pre-ordered it and also bought a copy of his play Pygmalion .  TMC recently had an old movies month and I dvr'd both the p...

picture courtesy of Rigmarole I survived my week of reading deprivation and found myself not in any rush to pick up a book yesterday or today.   I was 85% successful.   I allowed for reading emails, business and class related stuff.  My new Humanities Capstone class (my last one!) started on Monday.  I couldn't help myself and had to find out what is in store.  Discovered - lots of writing!   I printed off what I needed so I could work on the questions.   Of course, I couldn't do the treadmill without reading my nook otherwise it is a chore (excuses, I know) and I'm trudging through counting steps bored out of my mind. I read a non fiction book about journal - Write for Life .  I can see I'm going to have to buy a hard copy because it begs for note taking. No fiction. Nada, zip, zilch, no tamales.   My brain candy, my serious addiction that is so hard to do without. Or so I thought.  Here I was surrounded...

Today trying something new and starting Philosophical Friday .  For the 6 weeks of lent, I'll be scheduling thought provoking questions or statements by the great thinkers, philosophers, scientists, prophets and who ever else pops to mind.  Something to think about, perhaps write about.  Fridays will be my unplugged day with no technology and continuing the Artist Way experiment of no reading for the day.  The day will be spent exploring our creative side.  Artwork by Josephine Wall If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ------    Carl Jung

What does writing, reading, lent and row80 have in common?  Me, frustration, desire, sacrifice, and persistence.   I tried to institute a buying ban at the beginning of the year and did quite well for all of a month or so. That all feel apart in the past couple weeks.  Thursday, I went over to the Catholic book store to look around for reading material for Lent and didn't find exactly what I wanted. However, I did find Willa Cather's " Death comes for the Archbishop " and Ted Dekker " Elyon "   I had gone in to look for a book by Thomas Merton.  I had read " Seven Storey Mountain " last year and enjoyed it.     However, the gal who worked there informed me that in his later years, he delved too far into eastern mysticism. As a result Catholic bookstores don't carry his later works because they don't want people to lead in the wrong direction. I'm pretty sure they were probably talking about these books:  The Way of Chuang Tzu and...

Welcome to the first stop of the TLC Book Tour's blog tour of Angelology by Danielle Trussoni. I'm excited to be a part of the tour and thanks to the publisher will be giving away two copies of the book.  More information on the giveaway at the bottom of the post. ANGELOLOGY by  Danielle Trussoni Back Cover :  Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her care was entrusted to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.  Now, at twenty-three, she discovers a 1943 correspondence between the convent's last mother superior and the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller that plunges her into a secret history stretching back a millennium: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.   Blending biblical lore, the Miltonic fall of the Rebel Angels, the apocryphal Book of Enoch, and the myth of Orpheus.  Angelology is a luminous, riveting tale of ordinary ...