It was a good evening, actually. After Mass, we took the boys to Burger King and then to see Rio. It was a really cute and very colorful (literally, again) love story set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Eye candy (Carnival parade!) with a happy ending.
Afterward, in the lobby, the kids wanted to check out the arcade games, and Kevin was chatting with some people he works with, so I just took some pictures. I love to try to see familiar things in new ways, and looking through the scope of the viewfinder can definitely do that.
This is one of the few reasons I wish I taught elementary grades: all the cute-as-can-be collectible art. This piece was in Lucas’ bookbag when he came home today. So cute!
And here’s the back… A Mario Brothers special Bowser’s Flower picture! Check out Mario with the purplish-red hat and Luigi with the green one. 🙂
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you moms out there! And special prayers this weekend for all the mothers who have lost their babies of all ages…
I’ve been playing around with a tool called Cinch this week.
It’s a website and a synced app that allow you to easily record audio, attach a message and image, and share with Twitter and Facebook followers and friends. You can also download, link, or embed the MP3 file.
You can see the widget I add over on the far right sidebar. It will play all of the “cinches” I’ve saved so far, once of which is our theme song, finally on our website:
Yay. Sounds pretty good considering it was recorded on the laptop at the Cinch site.
Every Second of Every Day
by Jo & Kevin Hawke
Everything I do, every word I say
Every second of every day
I give it all to you; I give it all away
Every second of every day
Everything I am, every little flaw,
is a canvas on which you can draw.
I give it all to you; I give it all away
Every second of every day
And in the morning when I look out on the day
I can say it is good 'cause it is yours
And in the evening when I look back on the day
I can say it was good 'cause it was yours
Everything I am, all the bad and good:
All my thoughts, all my feelings, all my beliefs
I give them all to you; I give them all today
Every second of every day
And when I feel like giving up
And when I take pride in what I've done,
It's a travesty of your majesty
And in the morning when I look out on the day
I can say it is good 'cause it is yours
And in the evening when I look back on the day
I can say it was good 'cause it was yours
Everything I do, every word I say
Every second of every day
I found this today when I was organizing arts and crafts stuff. Pretty sure I did it last fall. I don’t really know what inspired it; she’s way different than most people I draw. More cartoonish. I kinda like it.
Every time I see one of these irises, I’m reminded of the living flowers in the old animated Alice in Wonderland movie.
It was all nice and sweet until they asked Alice what kind of flower she was. When she replied that she wasn’t a flower at all, they took her for a weed and ran her out of the garden. Satire, anyone?
p.s. I wish there really were bread-and-butterflies!
I felt so bad about posting this one that I had to cover the name of this church and pastor. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the meaning behind this sign. But I think whoever handles the signage needs a grammar checker. 🙁
I took this one behind my parents’ house. I love the incongruity of the dainty flowers flourishing amid the hardy cacti.
As we were sitting in a meeting waiting for someone to return the other day, Kevin pointed out a photocopied quotation thumb-tacked to a board. It’s by Charles (Chuck) Swindoll.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our attitudes.”
Imagine people reading this, taking it to heart, and actually acting on it. The world could be changed for the better in an instant.
It brings out some points that I try to instill in my students and my own kids, advice that I’m always giving myself, as well:
You don’t always have control over where you are, but you can choose to make the best of it. Bloom where you’re planted.
The only person you can change is you. Be the change you want to see.
Don’t spend too much time looking back. Reflect on what happened, learn from your successes and mistakes, and move on. Don’t let your past alone define you. You are who you choose to be.
I also really like the analogy of the “one string” we have to play. If our attitude is our string, our instrument, then with it …
You can blow everyone else out of the room, or you can tone down to a pleasing volume, so they can actually enjoy what they hear.
You can be loud and proud, blocking others from being heard, or you can be team players, contributing to the overall composition.
You can play so low nobody can hear just in case, or you can do your very best, defeating that nasty old insecurity (for this battle, anyway).
You can lay down your instrument and sit out altogether because you messed up last week or last month or year or decade, or you can determine to do your very best this time, regardless.
We make choices every second of every day. Think about it.
Nestled in the corner of the Big Lots furniture department, I stumbled upon this item: a Special Collector’s Edition Inaugural Lava Lamp!
Wow! Can you believe it? Don’t you wish they were open right the second, so you could drive over and get one all for yourself?!
So, anyway, when I showed it out to Kevin, he wanted to know why it says DRAMA over President Obama’s head. 😀
And I realized that it does, in fact, look like like DRAMA. That one little sliver of a rounded side on thE “O” is the only thing separating OBAMA from DRAMA.
I’d just glanced over those white bubble letters, knowing what they’re meant to say because they’re right over his picture.
Hmmm.
I wonder if it’s really a coincidence or if someone deliberately maneuvered that “O” just enough to make the difference. I guess we’ll never know.
