A beautiful poem for a change

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE (by Dorothy Law Nolte)

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive.
If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with jealousy, he learns what envy is.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative.
If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with recognition, he learns that it is good to have a goal.
If a child lives with sharing, he learns about generosity.
If a child lives with honesty and fairness, he learns what truth and justice are.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself and in those about him.
If a child lives with friendliness, he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live.
If you live with serenity, your child will live with a peace of mind.
With what is your child living?

Honey, let's do it!

I'd say that's the motto of the happy husbands (or wives) these days! Or at least it seems to be judging from what I've seen during today's morning trip to the mall.

For the past week or so we've had nothing but rain and there seems to be no change coming in the near future whatsoever. This, of course, can be extremely boring, but I never thought it could drive people into such crazy acts as barbecuing! Well, I suppose when you're desperate enough you just have to do what has to be done!
This morning I was shocked at the discovery that people are madly stocking up on meat, sausages, beer and that special cole you need for barbecue. I just don't understand! Aren't you supposed to have picnics outside? Well, I always thought you needed sunny weather for that unless you want to have your stakes swimming around. However, a way must have been discovered which enables you to have picnics in the rain, too. I suppose I just haven't heard of it yet. If anyone could be so kind and reveal this mystery to me, I would be extremely grateful, because after so many rainy days I long for a little picnic, too - outdoors, of course!

The ultimate invention

I collect them, so I might as well write something about them. I'm talking about one of the most famous inventions ever. You've all heard of it, some of you even have it. You're probably wondering which thing I mean. Well, let me give you some clues: red handle, silver logo, numerous tools. Well? Figured it out yet? No? OK, one more clue: MacGyver. Now you know, right? That's right! I'm talking about the famous Swiss Army Knife.

For me this is the ultimate invention. You can use it to do just about anything: from cutting bread to fixing a car. All the tools you could possibly want, neatly packed between two red plates - it's THE thing you want to have with you when you're in trouble.

I got my first one when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was one of my first serious, "grown-up" possessions. At first, I just "pealed" sticks of wood with it, but I soon graduated to taking things apart and fixing them with it.
But to me it was more than just a gizmo to play with. When my mum gave me my first one, it proved to me that she trusted me - even with "grown-up" things. It was a reward which I respected and valued highly.
I learnt another lesson with it, too. You can use a knife to destroy things, but you can use it to fix or make new things which is much better and more fun to do!

I still use the Swiss Knife - now I use it to "channel my inner genius" :-) . And I still have loads of fun with it!

More of the promised wisdom :-)

I've been reading these two books and they are great - if you have a chance to get them, do!

1)Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese (Wise people once said...)
2)The Lexicon of Stupidity (Laughter guaranteed!)
Both books are by the authors Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras. You can look them up on the net.


Here's a little something for you to taste from the first book:

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
(Confucius)

Everyone has a gift for something, even if it's the gift of being a good friend.
(Marian Anderson)

He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise.
(Lao-Tzu)

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
(Albert Einstein)

Something nice, something funny...

I am a Bear of Very Little Brain and long words Bother me.
(Winnie-the-Pooh)




I can resist everything except temptation. (Oscar Wilde)

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. (Oscar Wilde)

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long. (George Bernard Shaw)

The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went. (Saki)

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. (Kierkegaard)



Stay tuned for more wisdom! ;-)

The 6th sense

I've always believed it existed and two days ago I got yet another proof of it. This time it was two turtle doves that proved its existance.

It was a sunny day and we were sitting in the garden, having a splended time. As usually, our two doves were keeping us company, sitting in the tree-top. (The two birds are wild animals, so they don't live in a cage in my room. However, the dove-couple has grown to like us since we always feed them during the winter-time.)

All of a sudden the two birds started screaming and flying around above our heads. At first we didn't know what was wrong, but since clouds were beginning to gather, we decided to go back inside. By the time we got to the door the two birds have already gone. Just minutes after we came back in, a thunderbolt struck less than ten metres away from where we had been sitting before. It was then that I realized: The two doves must have somehow know what was going to happen and had been trying to warn us! If that's not 6th sense, I don't know what is!

Mowing the lawn - what a delightful task!

I mowed the lawn in the back yard yesterday for the first time this year. Many people would think that mowing is a boring (and above all tiring!) task, but I don't think so. You just have to turn it into a pleasant activity! Just think...

First you prepare the mower (I like this part in a special way because I love everything to do with engines). Then you spend an hour or two slaving away on the lawn, pushing the mower in front of you (unless you are one of those lucky ones with a small-tractor-like mower you can sit on and drive around without having to move a muscle). By the time you finish you are half dead and discovering that you have ruined (another) pair of shoes (by turning them into green mucky things from walking on the freshly cut grass) deosn't help a bit!

However, now comes the good part! The best thing to do is to to have a nice long shower, put on clean clothes and thongs (or flip-flops if you prefer to call them like this), find a good book to read, bring out the lawn chairs and just sit in the shade of the tree (if you have one :-) ) and enjoy the fruits of your work! Take in deep breaths of the lovely smell of the still-wet grass and relax! Isn't it just great? It's heaven!

It's splended how you can get such quick and enjoyable results from a simple task such as lawn-mowing, isn't it? You just have to learn how to turn everything to your advantage!

We were better than our neighbours again this Easter!

Easter - such a wonderful time, full of joy and happiness! Children colouring eggs, mothers baking all sorts of delicious cakes and breads... I like these days of the year very much!

Where I come from we have special traditions connected with Easter, just like they do in other countries. First of all, there's the egg-colouring. Making easter eggs is mainly children's duty. Then, there's the baking. In every part of my country they have one special type of bread or cake that is typical for that particular region. However, there is also the walnut roll, which can be found throughout the country at this time of the year. It's a delicious thing to eat. Ham and horseradish are on the Easter-menu, too.
Well, on Easter Sunday we put all these things into a basket and take it to church for blessing. It's a lovely tradition. Except it's been ruined by people completely! It's supposed to be a religious and spiritual event, but people have turned it into a vulgar competition: who will bring the biggest basket with the most things in it and, what's worse, who will leave more money on top of the basket for the church to collect! The Sunday mass has even turned into a fashion-show for the very pious ladies and a car contest for the pious ladies' husbands! And, to make things worse, all this is usually the subject of conversations for days after Easter! People just keep showing off! It's unbelievable! What piety!

I really don't understand why people always have to ruin everything that is beautiful and turn it into something awful!

Easter

I decided to post this link on - for all of you to enjoy:

http://i.flowgo.com/greetings/rapeasterbunny/rapeasterbunny.swf

I liked it very much! I hope you will, too! :-)

Comments, please! :-)

I would like to ask everyone who reads my blog to leave comments. Just click "Comments" at the bottom of the post you want to comment and you're ready to go. You don't have to leave your names (you can tick off "Anonymous" under "Choose your identity" below the comment) or you can make up a name (tick off "Other" under "Choose your identity" and then write the name in the little box called "Name"). When you've written the comment and chosen your identity, just press "Login and publish" button at the bottom and your comment will get published. It's that simple! :-) If you're a Blogger user, you can use your Blogger-name, too (you know what to do to post comments then, too).

I would like to have some response from my readers so that I'll be able to shape and mould my blog into a pleasant site to read! :-)

Thanks in advance,

Wolf

The roof-cleaner

Every morning at exactly half past eight the old crow starts his work. He comes to the roof of the building accross the street and begins. He inspects the roof-tiles, knocking on those that might be loose. He keeps the roof clean, too. If he sees rubbish that doesn't belong there, he picks it up, pushes it under a tile and then knocks on the tile firmly, making sure that the dirt doesn't get out. He inspects the whole roof like this every day. He never forgets.

Making friends

I went into the garden yesterday. I had an interesting book to read and I couldn't wait to start. The comfy lawn-chair was waiting for me already in the sunny part of the garden, a glass of hot tea keeping it company. I sat down and opened the book. When I was half through the first page I had a feeling that someone was watching me. I turned around... and there he was!

He looked quite nice, actually. He was wearing an orange shirt and a bright red jacket - you know, one of those with big pockets on the sides to put things in. He had a pair of blue jeans on (they were patched at the knees - he must have torn them somewhere) and black boots. He was holding a pipe in his hands. You could see it was freshly stuffed with tobacco and he was just about to light it. He had a big red hat on his head and he was smiling at me. I smiled back and we just kept looking at each other for a few moments. I liked him and I don't think he objected me being there, either. Moments passed. I then returned to reading my book, leaving him there to keep me company.

This is how I made friends with our neighbours' garden gnome.

A poem

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
(William Blake)

Beauty lies in small things!

"What's your opinion on this?"

Opinions - a topic I could keep talking about. But don't worry, I won't. I'll just give you my opinion on them.

It has come to my attention that whenever I'm asked the famous question "What's your opinion on this?" ('this' usually being something I've never even heard of) I never seem to have one at all. Such situations usually end by me smiling awkwardly and saying that I don't really have one; that I would need some time to think about it and only then I could really form an opinion.

However, when I come accross a topic that I am familiar with and I really have an opinion on, nobody asks me about it! I have even been 'accused' of never having an opinion on anything and I had to listen to quite a boring lecture on how important it is to always form opinions because they are so important and we should always have one on everything.

But, you see, I do have an opinion! Always! Except it's on every-day things! And it's not my fault if people keep coming up with some marginal strange topics I've never heard of before, is it?

Everything was my fault!

Have you ever had one of those days when everything was your fault although you had nothing to do with it? Something like that happened to me recently. I was the one that was blamed that nobody at the college I go to could cite correctly! Students in their research-papers or diplomas, professors in their MAs and PhDs - nobody could do it! And apparently it was all my fault - at least it was according to the person that spent 20 minutes shouting at me about that! And all that because I made a tiny unimportant mistake when citing the title of 1 book!
You wouldn't believe the things that can happen to you if you catch a person on a bad day!

Technology junk

I have read somewhere that a special mobile phone has been made which you can wrap around your wrist and wear it like a bracelet! I have also seen on TV that they have made a phone you can plant after you have stopped using it and a sunflower will grow out of it!
Where is all this going? We can watch science-fiction movies where they use all sorts of technological devices to travel, communicate, heal and so on and I'm sure many of us think to ourselves: "Hmm, I wish I had that. I could beam myself to wherever I wanted in a second!"
But does anyone stop to think that we already live in an era where it's only a matter of time until they invent a "beaming device" and other weird things that will sooner or later become "indispensible" in our lives?
But what if something goes wrong? What if something goes so wrong that the human race will be wiped off of the face of the Earth? Apparently nobody's worried about that! Because, why worry now? We'll just cross that bridge when we come to it, right? Sure, if there will be anyone left to cross that bridge at all! And what if there isn't a bridge to cross because we forgot to build one?
I'm beginning to miss the good old days when life was still simple - with no technology junk to worry about... Maybe someone will finally figure out how to build a time-machine and we can travel back to those lovely, uncomplicated days and stay there, as well!

Cars

On my last drive along the highway I was watching through the window of the car and suddenly it dawned on me: My God, you can practically see no old cars on the roads any more! People buy new cars like they buy shoes or clothes, like something they absolutely necessarily need! Second-hand cars are not good for them; oh, no - it has to be NEW! (Although you can find a lot of perfectly good used cars out there that still have plenty of life left in them.) It seems to me that cars have become more than just a necessity in modern life - they are the sacred four-wheeled chappels of the modern era!

Money, money, money, ...

I was watching the news on TV last night and they showed again the prices of stocks and shares (or whatever those things on the stock-market are called). While watching this I started to think about money. Or better, about having lots of it. This can sometimes come in quite handy. On the other hand, it's actually a curse of a special kind. Having lots of money means getting a lot of attention from media and also being a target of robbers. It means that you have enemies, who envy you your fortune, as well. And if you get on their nerves too much they could even have you killed... Which can also happen quite naturally, too, if you suddenly lose all your money and drop dead of a heart-attack caused by shock.
And if they find your corpse in a million-dollar mansion or in a small cheap appartment, it makes no difference - you end up pushing up daisies one way or the other.
So, I think it's better to have money in moderate sums and live a long, happy and above all risk-free life than to die too soon because you have too many printed pieces of paper in the bank, which just happen to have some value in today's society.

Cliches

Note: You'll have to excuse me for not spelling 'cliches' with the accent on e (I haven't figured out how to do it yet).

A while ago I bought 2 dictionaries of cliches. When I started skimming through the two tiny books, I had great fun! Some of the phrases were extraordinary, some sounded strange, others were pretty clever, but most of them were simply amusing.

I wonder why people have such negative attitudes towards cliches. Sure, they might not be an original way of expressing your ideas since a lot of people use them. But, you have to admit, sometimes they really can be grat fun!

Weird moment to do that!

I have noticed that sometimes the best things can be done when least expected. For example, translations.

I live about an hour's drive away from the college I go to, so I always take the bus to get there. At the beginning I used to think that the 2 hours I spent on the bus every day were a complete waste of time until I succeeded to create one of my best translations (translation of a poem) on the bus-ride back home! You would never think that bus-rides on the highway can be so productive!

Murphy's law or just bad luck?

The other day I wanted to buy a roll of hockey tape to tape the blade of my hockey stick. I went to 4 or 5 different stores but I couldn't get the tape. I could have bought just about anything from boxing gloves to table-football, or even the complete golf-gear if I had wanted to. Except that tape! Have you ever noticed how sometimes you can get everything except the thing you're looking for? I sure have! I wonder, is that another one of the famous Murphy's laws or is it just plain old bad luck?

Some things I like and that might be useful

I have decided to put another post on with some links to web-pages I like and to some that are also quite useful:
http://www.howstuffworks.com (you can find lots of useful information on just about anything on this site)
http://www.birdsbeestreesandthings.com.au (I'm a big fan of Australia and this is a nice page on the topic)
http://scoubiguide.co.uk (I also like handcrafts and scoubidous are my speciality :-) )
http://www.forsthaus-falkenau.de.vu (I'm a big fan of the series - never miss a part ;-) )
http://www.thekoala.com (another site with loads of useful information and links)

Well, I hope you like the pages, too :-)

Until next time!

Wolf

My hedgehog

My first news is about my hedgehog, MacGyver :-)

He finally woke up from his winter sleep. Yesterday he came to say good morning at 9.50 p.m. and then he left again to look for food.

More about MacGyver coming up soon... :-)

Trying it out :-)

Ok, here goes... My first attempt to actually create something on the web, not just view it ;-)

For starters, let me just say a few words about my plans with this blog. I'll try to post on some interesting and useful links, pictures, messages to my friends, etc.

To all my beloved relatives: if you want, you can let me know about the family meetings (or anything in that category :-) ) and I'll post it on for everyone to see. Or, even better, post the information up yourself (if you know how).

Well, that's about it for my first post. I will try to keep the blog up to date as much as possible and any help is more than welcome :-)