Author Archive: Julia
Watch with glittering eyes
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” ― Roald Dahl Look around you today. Great secrets and enlightening discoveries may be hiding in plain sight. What are the unlikely places you tend to look past? What secret discoveries …
A happier state of mind
“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” — George Santayana Here in the northern hemisphere, we are enjoying the colors of the foliage and the cooling weather. Meanwhile, our neighbors south of the equator are enjoying the end of winter and …
Wake up fresh
“The best cure for a disastrous day is to go to bed early and wake up fresh in the morning and start over.” — Garrison Keillor I totally agree with Keillor about this. The problem is, a disastrous day usually leaves me frustrated, agitated, angry or in some other state not conducive to a good …
Always in the midst
“It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry An updated note, seven years later: As I go back through these posts, it surprises me how many of them I have totally forgotten. Others I vaguely remember, but the details are lost to me …
The celebration of life
“Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe…”― Robert Farrar Capon In at least three generations of my mother’s family, the males outnumber the females by a ratio of two to one, or more. …
Full and bright
It’s Halloween! It`s Halloween! The moon is full and bright And we shall see what can’t be seen on any other night. — Jack Prelutsky I hope your evening is filled with delightful sights, sounds and tastes, even if only in your childhood memories! Grady wishes everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! And if you …
Always more
“I don’t know that there are real ghosts and goblins, but there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids.” — Robert Brault Giving out candy on Halloween is almost as much fun as trick-or-treating. I don’t know which I enjoy most, seeing my cute neighbors in their costumes, or seeing all the people I don’t …
A slightly sour sweet
“Halloween wraps fear in innocence, As though it were a slightly sour sweet. Let terror, then, be turned into a treat…” — Nicholas Gordon I’ve always wondered what it is in us that finds a small dose of fright so appealing. Most of us don’t like truly horrifying or gory fare, but even little ones …
Available to all
“The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free.” ― Judith Martin a.k.a. Miss Manners I’m not sure how etiquette came to be equated with …
The secret of the sea
…my soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The ocean is alluring, but it also can be quite intimidating. So much of it is unseen, its secrets literally and figuratively unfathomable. A great many …
The past is beautiful
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” ― Virginia Woolf Reading this quote, I can only wish that Woolf had thought of these words before she took …
Wherever I went
“I had always believed that I left a bit of me wherever I went. I also believed that I took a bit of every place with me…And the only possible explanation I could find for that feeling was that a spirit existed in many of the places I visited, and a spirit existed in me …
A lot of comfort
“The most trying hours in life are between four o’clock and the evening meal. A cup of tea at this time adds a lot of comfort and happiness.” — Royal S. Copeland I don’t know about you, but I agree with Copeland that late afternoon is the most difficult time of the day. By four …
The human story
“The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.” — …
Tough as nails
“Love is not warm and fuzzy or sweet and sticky. Real love is tough as nails. It’s having your heart ripped out, putting it back together, and the next day, offering it back to the same world that just tore it up.” – Glennon Doyle Melton Very few writers are able to cut through the …
The right way
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett Recently on an early evening walk, I was basking in the new cool of September, and as I approached our Alexandria townhome I looked over the expanse behind it and felt almost as if I …
How you are talking
“Be careful how you are talking to yourself, because you are listening.” – Lisa M. Hayes One year ago, I wrote about hearing stupid remarks. Today, I’m writing about saying them myself. I have a double standard when it comes to what I say; I will talk to myself in ways I would never talk …
Thoughtful minds
“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” ― John Ruskin Well, thanks for the compliment, Mr. Ruskin! I don’t know how true it is, but I know without a doubt that I belong in the group you have described. I am mad about color, lots of color in all …
And yet be determined
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald For most of …
In a fast-moving world
“A friend of the first man to fly an airplane, Lindbergh lived long enough in a fast-moving world to befriend the first man to walk on the moon.” — A. Scott Berg Isn’t it astounding how rapidly the world is changing? Maybe it’s my imagination, or my limited knowledge of history, but when I look …
You learn to pay attention
“When you are where wild bears live, you learn to pay attention to the rhythm of the land and yourself. Bears not only make the habitat rich, they enrich us just by being.”― Linda Jo Hunter If I lived where my brother lives, I would certainly pay a lot of attention when I ventured out …
Defeat Despair 