Are You Lucky?
Posted on October 7, 2008 - Filed Under adventure, amazing, breathe, joy, my opinions
Is it possible that one thing can change everything? One moment, one realization, one person, one event? I’m beginning to think that maybe it can. While I consider myself a realist I am also a closet optimist. I like to be real and honest but I also think life is nothing without hope and the faith that there is at least the promise that something wonderful is always possible.
We spend our day to day lives fighting traffic, arguing politics, bemoaning our bills and missed opportunities and it’s hard, folks, to step back from that and unentangle yourself from the mess. But every now and then something wonderful does happen, unexpected, smack-you-upside-the-head, never-saw-that-coming wonderful - and if we still have a brain left in our heads we grab it. And we’d better, because it doesn’t happen everyday - sometimes it doesn’t even happen every year.
For all the ‘bad luck’ that I have unearthed this year in particular - the worry, grief, frustration that has seemed to be the constant landscape of my life - some little kernel of light stayed alive in the back of my mind because I have been lucky most of my life. In big ways and small ways, unexpected ways, delightful ways, suprising ways. So I knew my luck would return to me. And it has.
But I think too that luck has a lot more to do with us, ourselves and how we think and what we think. If we walk around believing that our luck is gone, good things don’t happen, we don’t deserve it, etc., etc. then I think that’s what we get. Conversely if we walk around believing that it’s there, that it belongs to us, that we deserve it then anything is possible, the most amazing things are possible, often times things that are beyond what we dare to wish for.
And so my friends a little word of advice, never doubt your luck and never believe it has left you - because it’s always there, waiting to deliver. I promise.
Two Houses - Actions vs Words
Posted on August 12, 2008 - Filed Under George W Bush, WTF?, algore, amazing, bloviating one, global warming
(I was sent this by a friend and found it ever so interesting - though I was aware of it. I thought it might be an interesting thing to mention and it will be interesting to see the response to it. Annie)
House #1 A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern ’snow belt’ area. It’s in the South.
House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every ‘green’ feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.
The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.
HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee and is the home of ‘environmentalist ‘ Al Gore.
HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas and it is the home of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.
Verifying information can be found here.
(I do find it very enlightening that people in general seem to be more interested in believing the words rather than the actions. And this is just one reason why I can not help but make fun of Algore and call him a hypocrite. Annie )
First Books
Posted on May 28, 2008 - Filed Under all about books, amazing
I don’t know about you, but from the time I can remember, I always have had a book of one sort or another in my hands. I hated dolls and toys and only ever wanted books or clothes (yeah, I guess I was born 40 like Ma used to say). My books then were very special to me and had their own special places on the shelves above my bed.
My books now are special too. I just love books, plain and simple.
I just found out about this. I think it’s a wonderful thought and great idea. They have already distributed 55 million first books to low income families.
You want to change the world? Then it’s this sort of thing that will do it. Books feed imagination, curiosity and stokes the thirst for knowledge - and that leads to some amazing things and helps to add to the growth of our fellow human beings. What better way could we help?
Please check into it - if it grabs you, send them something - or find a way to get involved.
WC
3,000 Miles on One Tank of Gas?????
Posted on March 20, 2008 - Filed Under WTF?, amazing, high-tech
Is it a car? An airplane? A hover craft? Nope. It’s the wave of the future. A car so fuel efficient you could conceivably drive across the country on one measely tank of gas. It really reminds me of George Jetson’s little coupe, remember that one? I wonder what kind of hairdo you’d wear with that though?
It’s a three-wheeler, which brings to mind all kinds of fun stunts one could endeavor with this baby - especially on a wide open highway on a windy day. 
Actually from this view, it reminds me of R2D2 on steroids:
Though the interior is kind of cool looking and I can imagine zooming down the highway as the scenery rushes by - feeling like I was in my own special space craft.
For the full scoop and all the specs click here.
It’s really worth the read and quite an amazing piece of machinery. I wonder when I get test drive this thing.
WC
Blogging is my Power
Posted on March 10, 2008 - Filed Under Blogging, amazing, brain farts
Most of you know that I stumbled onto blogging unexpectedly and through my friend Michael. What started out as a temporary fill in became practically a vocation for me. Little did I know when I started blogging that it would go so well, that people would come and read and do so regularly and continue to do so. It still really blows my mind when I think about it.
The main reason I decided to start blogging was because I wanted the discipline of having to write everyday. For all the years that I’d written up to that point, that was the one thing I’d never been able to master. There were times when I literally went years without writing. I abandoned it many times, believing, or perhaps being convinced that it wasn’t an important or intregal part of my life. Wrong. Because it really is the core of me. And just as painters have to paint, writers have to write. If they don’t, a part of them dies and usually it’s a really good part.
So, with the phrase, “If you write it, they will come,” whispering in my ear I started out on this adventure. The demand and consumption of readers, plus the instant gratification of feedback, through comments, was a heady perfume for my writer’s soul and I blogged at a fevered pitch. The blog gods had their hooks in me and I don’t think I minded at all.
Soon, I had 30,000 hits, then 50,000, then 80,000 and recently have passed the 100,000 mark. Who knew? Not I, to be sure. With awe and wonderment, I simply couldn’t believe that so many people would want to stop by and read what I had to say.
Of course, at some point, life had to go and rear its ugly head and interfer. The job from hell, the this and the that. Always something driving my stress levels beyond what I was used to and ever wanted to get used to.
I started to view blogging with a wary eye and began to feel it was yet another obligation I had to fulfill and when I did post many of posts were so ‘woe is me,’ that frankly, it was embarrassing.
I started to rethink the whole blogging thing. Did I really need to keep doing it? Was it just one more thing that I had to fit into my harried and exhausting day? Are blogs just for kids?
So I backed off. I posted less. I let all the stuff that stressed me move front and center and concentrated on that. Blogging took a backseat. And I began to feel worse and worse and worse. I was convinced I’d lost my blogging mojo and that made me feel even worse. My finger was poised above the delete this blog button many times. It really was but something always kept me from pulling that final trigger. Something in me just wasn’t willing to let it go.
Then I realized something - of all the things I’d done in the last year and a half, blogging was the thing that had made me happy and had brought me the most joy. It had inspired me, been my mother confessor, the receptor for my screwy sense of humor and irony - and more than any force in the universe had made me write. Regularly and consistently. Day in and day out. And believe it or not had changed me in a good way.
When I needed to write a synopsis for my novel in order to begin the agent search, it was you guys who made me meet the deadline. It was you guys who cheered me on. When it was time to submit to the agents, again, it was you guys who stood on the sidelines, offering support and believing in me more than I believed in myself. And I know that without that support I wouldn’t have taken those steps, I wouldn’t have had the nerve.
And the list goes on - from bad jobs to life’s worries, you guys have been there for me - giving me the power to believe in myself.
And I’ve realized that I’ve been going at this thing bass ackwards. It isn’t time to blog less and relegate it to something I do when I can. It’s something to put back on my list of priorities. Without realizing it, blogging has formed a close, tightly-knit support systerm for me as a writer. How could I ever let that go?
And for all the worry that it would somehow take something away from my writing and writing time, that was a lie because without blogging, I’d never written any of the many words here on this blog. How screwed up would that be?
So, now I know. Blogging for me is part of who/what I am. It is the thing that gives me the power to connect with other people and makes me write and for a writer what power could have more value? None that I can think of.
So, I thank you for reading and commenting and coming back.
WC
Christmas Comes Alive
Posted on December 10, 2007 - Filed Under Christmas, amazing, beautiful photos
My buddy Marli just sent me an amazing link - you must click on this, unbelievable. Fantastic. To see more, just keep clicking next until you’ve seen them all. It’s worth the few minutes. Really.
WC
We Are Family…
Posted on December 8, 2007 - Filed Under Blogging, Family, Writers, amazing, writing, writing life
Don’t you just love that song? All I need is to think of the title and it starts rocking inside my head. Something about it is so uplifting and fun and just the best.
I was just over at Smith’s place and belatedly read a Thanksgiving post, which I really enjoyed. Not because there was anything earth-shattering per se, but I don’t know, because there was just a sort of soft, hanging with a friend, warmth of snatch of conversation. Wow, what a weird sentence that was.
Anyway, it just hit me why it is that I love blogging so much and why I don’t think I could ever really give it up. It’s because of us - all of us. All my chums who roll by and say hi or need a laugh and whose places I visit for wit, wisdom, laughter or even a tear.
We don’t know each other in the physical sense at all (okay maybe a couple of exceptions) and yet rarely have I ever encountered such a group of warm, caring, witty, intelligent and stand up folks ever in the ‘real’ life I lead.
And for the longest while I’ve been thinking that what has bonded us has been the common denominator of blogging. We all live in the same neighborhood, so to speak and the constant bumping into each other makes for a bond. But really, I think it’s more that we are all writers. And in your real life, how in the heck are you going to encounter that many fellow writers? You just aren’t - unless you work for a publishing company or something.
This may sound kind of hokey, but in a strange, 21st century, high-tech, virtual sort of way, I liken us to those who used to hang at the Algonquin Hotel and the sidewalk cafes of Paris. Maybe we really are the new generation of the lost generation. I don’t know.
But we are family. And I’m glad.
Annie (aka Writer Chick)
Angels
Posted on October 31, 2007 - Filed Under Deep thoughts, amazing, hope, joy
I have a friend who sent me some angels today and I really needed them. Desperately. She is a very special person, unique in ways that defy description. I don’t believe I have ever met anyone who is truly filled with love and whose goal was truly peace until I met her. I am grateful and awed to be any part of her life and honored to have her as a part of my life. In her case, I truly do believe in fate. It was fate that we met. It was fate that we found each other. I simply can’t believe otherwise.
And though we have never met in the real world, I couldn’t love her move. I couldn’t treasure that connection more. And it’s funny because we aren’t in contact in any constant sense. We don’t email everyday or gab on the phone often. Yet, I always feel like she is there, in the room with me. I carry her in my world and maybe in some inexplicable metaphysical sense, I talk to her every day on that level.
The people in our lives are so special and we so rarely acknowledge that, much less say anything out loud. I realized this today. Maybe it was the angels who opened my eyes, or the spiritual connection I feel to this most special person, or maybe it was just something I don’t need to define in any way. Maybe I just need to accept that something happened today for me. Something changed. And I’m a better person because of it.
I believe in angels, I always have. And I hope I always will.
Happy Halloweenie
Posted on October 30, 2007 - Filed Under Just For Fun, amazing, autumn, joy of creating
Some amazing pumpkins, courtesy of people who have a lot of talent and a lot of time on their hands. WC
Have a great, safe free candy night and don’t take any wooden apples.
The Magic of Chalk
Posted on March 8, 2007 - Filed Under Dear Readers..., Dreams, Heroes, Pioneers, adventure, amazing, art, beautiful photos, beauty, classics, cool cats, fangirly, favorites, joy of creating, loving it!, really cool shit, that's class, works of art
Beerman, the chalk artist has more amazing entries I just had to share:
and
and
and
I think my favorite is the one with Batman - but hey I wouldn’t kick any of them out of the neighborhood. It never ceases to amaze me how much a true artist can do with so little. Incredible. Bravo I say!
WC
