And The World Keeps On Spinning

Every now and then I have a spasm of stress. It sucks, makes me very iritable, and, during said spasm, I tend to get weepy.

I had one yesterday morning. I'm pretty sure that if a psychic had seen me, she (or he) would have said my aura was inky black, only penetrated by flashes of the deadliest lightning.

Sounds fun, huh?

My day did get a little better when I got a surprise delivery at work... an old issue of Cooking with Paula Deen that I had spent the past two months trying to track down. I was pretty jazzed about that.

Then, our intern said something that really hit a cord with me.

She said, "And the world keeps on spinning."

She said it more to herself than to me and it was about a completely unrelated subject to my foul mood, but it made me smile, and suddenly I felt better.

She is so wise.

For When Life Gets You Down

Kirtley's Rules of Wisdom

(Bruce, Mr. Kirtley, and me at a wedding last May)

Last Sunday, I went to a retirement party for my high school English teacher, Mr. Kirtley. He was without a doubt one of my all time favorite grade school teachers and I pity all future generations of English students who won't get to have him as a teacher. The party was filled with his friends, co-workers and former students, and it was great to see a bunch of people that I haven't seen in about five years!

As a parting gift to all of his guests, Mr. Kirtley gave us all a small sample of "Kirtley's 66 Rules for a Good Life." I would like to share them with you now...

1. Read some non-fiction. Several biographies or autobiographies a year will be good for you.

2. Read to your children from the minute they come home from the hospital.

3. Have adult conversations with your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles NOW. Let them talk about their own lives and upbringing. You will value the content of these conversations your whole life. Don't put it off.

4. Don't forget Mother's Day.

5. Undertake volunteer work for which you have a passion.

6. Write notes: thank you notes, notes of congratulations, notes of sympathy, etc. Boys, this is not a sissy thing to do. The "big boys" (CEOs, college and university presidents, school administrators, physicians, lawyers, and heads of firms and many more men) do it all the time.

7. Learn to use objective case pronouns correctly. If the pronoun functions as a direct object, indirect object, or object of the preposition, you need to use an objective case pronoun: me, us, him, her, it, them.

Example...

Wrong: Dad handed the keys to Delores and I.

Right: Dad handed the keys to Delores and me. (object of preposition)

8. Memorize at least five inspirational lines. These may be Bible verses, lines of poetry, or some expression that someone has said that made a particular impression on you. You never know when you might be a POW, a hostage, or simply sitting in an emergency room or an intensive care waiting area and need to draw upon these for emotional sustenance.

9. When phoning someone other than people you talk to on a regular or almost daily basis, identify yourself by both first and last name. Don't assume that the person with whom you are talking will automatically recognize your voice. Believe it or not, you're not the only Adam, Chris, or Kristen in the world and chances are the person on the other end of the phone isn't psychic.

10. DO NOT capitalize the names of the seasons unless it's the first word in a sentence. Many people including the intelligentsia make this mistake.

11. Be compassionate. Let "There, but for the grace of God go I" ring in your ears.

12. Make an effort to get to know people unlike yourself or people with whom you think you have nothing in common.

13. Remember: One day a peacock, the next a feather duster.

Weekly Wisdom

"Breath Deeply and Often"

(Anonymous)

Weekly Wisdom

“You are what you do. Not what you think. Not what you want. Not what you dream. Not even what you believe. You are what you do.”

(Anonymous)

Virtue is a Virtue

We got Chinese food the other night and my fortune was pretty interesting.

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it."

This is such a great saying, even if it did come from a fortune cookie. We often know what we have to do and how to do it, but that doesn't always mean that we actually do whatever it is that we should.

Take me for instance, over the past year I got fat. Not super fat, just fat enough that my middle sort of spills over the top of several pairs of my pants, just a little, but enough to make me feel very self-conscious. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that I look about 3 months along when I wear a dress.

Now, wisdom tells me that the obvious solution to my not-so-little problem would be to eat better, snack less, and get some hard-core exercising done.

The skill part would mostly involve me, good shoes, and a treadmill hanging out together for about 4 miles a day.

But virtue has been failing me for about 2 months, which is about how long it's been since I decided to implement my new eating and exercising regimen. In September, I decided to go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after class. I even put my sneakers and gym clothes in my car so that I would have them after class and not have to go home. Unfortunately, my shoes and clothes are still sitting, neatly folded, on the back seat in my car. They still smell like laundry. I'm still fat.


I guess I need to work on my virtue.