Philosophical Friday: Happy April Fools Day!

St. Jude - Patron Saint of Fools and Lost Causes

Small April sobbed, I'm going to cry

Please give me a cloud to wipe my eye;

Then April Fool, she laughed instead

And smiled a rainbow overhead.

(Anonymous)

"The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives intellect...and they move the earth. To some He allots heart...and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence...and these, who never grow up, but remain always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from His palette the Artist of all has taken one color instead of many."  -- Mary Roberts Rinehart

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something."   -  Plato

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. - Mark Twain

WIP Wednesday - Just keep swimming!

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 people be considered as ends in themselves and not as means to an end.  Can you think of any cultural or economic practices that might seem to violate this principle?"      Fun huh! 

Also started working on the taxes.  Yes, I know. Should have started long before now.  I have excuses.  Discovered the version of Quickbooks we have at the shop, doesn't want to work on my windows 7 laptop for whatever reason.  Figured, no problem..... installed turbo tax at work to import the quickbooks file into it.  Something screwy there too.  Didn't want to do it.  Que the violin music, please.   Just have to do it the old fashion way, and printed off all the reports needed and will  manually enter the information.    So...... that's what I'll be working on for the next few days.  

In the midst of all this, re-evaluating the first quarter of home school curriculum, making some changes and refreshing myself on how to be a better mentor to my 5th grader.  I've had a decided lack of patience lately, which doesn't fair well, when trying to teach my wonderful child.   Which is one reason I decided to reread Thomas Jefferson Education.  

I'm continuing to write everyday and making progress.  Getting a little bit closer to that final scene of Red Thief.  The morning pages are going well and helping me work some frustrations out on the page.   I'm in week 7 of The Artist's Way - recovering a sense of connection.  One of the tasks is make a collage.  Collect 10 magazines, set yourself a time limit and go through, cut out images that reflect your life and interests.   Make sort of a pictorial autobiography.  Shouldn't be too difficult, right.  Unless all you have is Writer's Digest, Writer, Bookmarks, Air and Space and Reader's Digest.  *facepalm*   As a result,  I kind of went on a subscription bing of magazines I've been wanting, but never got around to it.  Subscribed to Poets and Writers, Sunset, Coastal living, Smithsonian, Conde Nast Traveler, and Old schoolhouse.   Happy Happy Joy Joy! 

I haven't had a whole lot of time to write any reviews. Heck, I haven't had a whole lot of time to read for pleasure. However, I just started "Heart of Deception" by M.L. Malcolm for TLC Book Tour coming up on April 4th.  

Speaking of reviews, you may have already seen this, but if you haven't, you should.   It's a great reminder to authors of how NOT to respond to a negative review.  This author melted down, telling commentors and the blogger to  'f' off twice when he refused to delete the review and in my opinion just killed her career as it were. Amazingly unprofessional but educational for the rest of us.

Sometimes God calms the storm.  At other times, he calms the sailor.  And sometimes he makes us swim.  ~Author Unknown

Just keep swimming!  

Sunday Salon: Happy Blogoversary to Me!

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 to ask. 

The first giveaway is for my top two personal cheerleaders who have stuck with me through thick and thin and provided me with unconditional support, no matter what direction I seem to go in.   I can't tell you all how much I appreciate you. Thank you, ladies for your unlimited support.

Staci at Life in the Thumb 

Candace at Beth Fish Reads

They will receive the Josephine Wall journal above along with

The Reading Woman

 

The second giveaway is the book of your choice from my 2010 book list, excluding e-books and class books.  You must already be a follower of my blog to win and there will be four winners in honor of my four years as a blogger.   Leave your name along with your email address and the book you would like to win in the comments.  The giveaway is open for U.S. Residents only and will close at 11:59 p.m. on April 3rd.  The winners will be picked by Random.org.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.  ~Marcel Proust

Thank you to all my wonderful virtual friends, readers, followers, tweeters and lurkers. I appreciate you more than you can know.  Cheers to one more year! 

Philosophical Friday: Post to ponder while I'm unplugged for the day

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."  

"Then 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 have more things, or more money, in order to have more of what they want so that they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. -  Margaret Young (pg 96)

End of the first round of ROW80 - a Round of Words in 80 Days

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 helping me work things out in writing, staving off 'computeritis' in the morning, and generally stop me from worrying about things.  If something bothers me - turn to the page, write it out, work it out and move on.   Highly recommend it.   I kind of jumped the gun the other day when I was in borders (breaking my buying ban - *gasp*) by picking up another one of Cameron's book's The Vein of Gold. I couldn't resist.  

Another major major benefit of A Round of Words in 80 Days besides the accountability, is the other participants. I've had the pleasure of discovering a diverse group of writers, in all stages of their quest and learned a lot from all of them.  Big thanks to Kait for hosting and her wonderful group of sponsors who made it all the more interesting.  Round 2 will run from April 4 through June 23rd.   If you haven't joined in, perhaps then would be a good time to start. 

Check out how everyone else did with their goals here.

Happy 80th Birthday Dad!

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

Sunday Salon: Spring Reading Thing and the homestretch for Row80

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 across an old book, marked up with notes in the side margin. Provides an insight into how the book affected that person or a memory it tripped.  Susan Wise Bauer's method she discussed in Well Educated Mind finally makes sense to me.  However, it works better for non fiction, than fiction in my opinion. Along with the fiction books I'll be reading for various challenges and book tours, I'll also be reading:

1. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius who solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time  by Dava Sobel
2. The Real George Washington by Jay A Parry and Andrew Allison
3. Memories, Dreams and Reflections by C.G. Jung
4. A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille
5. Theology for Beginners by  F.J. Sheed
6. Holy Yoga by Brooke Boon
7. The Apostles by Pope Benedict
8. The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman

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We are in the homestretch for the first round of A Round of Words in 80 Days.  I'm not quite done yet with the first draft of Red Thief.  My goal was the finish it by this round, but not going to happen.   The next round doesn't start until April 4th and I expect to be done by then.    I had mini goals each week which I have accomplished so far which is 

Writing every day at least a half hour and shoot for at least one full handwritten page, front and page. Whether it amount to 500 words or not, don't know. 

Morning pages ala The Artists Way.  Haven't missed a day.

Work everyday on the tasks for Artists Way. Doing good.

One good thing about Row80 and The Artist's Way.  Both have prompted me to set mini goals and write to do lists every morning and check things off as I go along.   I feel like I've been much more productive so thanks to kait for hosting.  

Go cheer on the other participants, give them some encourage and a pat on the back for sticking it out.  You can find them here.

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Guess what! March 21st is also my 

 Blogoversary! 

I'm thinking about what we can do to celebrate.  Stay tuned!