How To Be The Best Husband

Send your wife flowers on the third anniversary of your first date. Genius.

Advice To New Wives

Don't say you're coming to your husband's softball game and then run errands through the whole thing.



Seriously.

Advice To New Husbands

Don't tell your wife that her cabbage rolls are good and then tell her how they could be more like your mother's.


I'm just saying.... :P

Make A Modern Proverb

We all know that a stitch in time saves nine, not to count our chickens before they hatch, and that it is unwise to put the cart before the horse. We've been working with most of these since Ben Franklin's day or before. Isn't it time to come up with some new proverbs? Help me accrue some new wisdom for the modern age...

'For True' Quote of the Day

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.

- Gene Fowler

Have you ever noticed how you always panic more about your secret shames then other people do? You are terrified that others should find out and when they do, they seem underwhelmed and soon forget about it? It's because the rest of us are too selfish to care long about your problems. This is at once a great sorrow and a great joy. That's why we have anonymity, because people don't care. I, for one, think it's a blessing.

Quote of the Day

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

~Henry Ward Beecher

Success

"Get up one time more than you're knocked down. "

~Peter's Principle

Philosophy Hour

Who is the bigger fool? The man who shouts, "There is a God!" in a godless universe? Or the man who stands with fists akimbo declaring, "There is NO god!" while the God of the universe looks on?

To the Dreamer

I want to honor a man who spoke about what was hideous and dared believe in something that was beautiful. He is one of my heros.

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

~Martin Luther King Jr.

It Took Forever to Find This Quote

Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Tom Noe Before and Afters

I guess the moral of this story is, "don't invest in rare coins."

Motivator Monday

Here's a little help (albeit a bit late in the day) to help us all on a slow Monday to get crack-a-lackin' on those tasks we've put off since before the weekend:

You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.
David Harold Fink

One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.
John W Foster

Make sure you visualize what you really want, not what someone else wants for you.
Jerry Gillies

Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Dwight D Eisenhower

Wisdom of the Peanut

The Search for Truth has ended, it seems, for our dear and esteemed friend honestus. He hasn't posted a single thing on his blog Searching for Truth in the last two months. So it would appear that honestus has found his answer. He has reached the pinnacle of enlightened attainment! He has found the ultimate truth! Which appears to be... peanut butter?? What can this mean?
Having thought about this many times since November the twenty and eighth and all I can come up with, is this: they may crush you, salt you, and smear you around, but never forget; it is only when you've come out of your shell that you can truly taste the jelly.

That's just my interpretation.

My P.S.A. for the month:

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

(sent by Ray)

True Motivation

It was only a matter of time before someone used the motivater poster page to express something genuinely motivational. Dabuheebly sent these:

The first two posters are made with photos of kids in a Sudanese refugee camp. You can find more like them at this site.

Rolland and Heidi Baker who minister to them are doing what Jesus said to do for the little ones who don't have stuff.

The fishing kids are from Angola and the rehearsal guys are from Watoto.

Watermelon Cocoa and Bus Breath

You ever have one of those grumpy days where you start out grumpy and very little occurs outside of yourself to change the grump factor? It's one of those days for me. I try to ride low when this happens and keep my head down. "It'll pass" is my favorite motto on days like this one. Of course, I still hold out hope that in about twenty minutes things around me will suddenly turn to sunshine and roses and pull me (even unwillingly) from my duldrums. But as of yet, it hasn't happened. (It's not a necessity, either. Just it would be nice...)

I have two major complaints of the morning and I'd like to share them with you so you can be on the look out. I'm here for you, sharing my wisdom so you don't have to.

1) Bus breath. If you get on a bus and the person behind, beside, before or around you is both a smoker and a cold sufferer, switch seats. If you think smoker's breath is bad, try mixing it with cold breath. It is the most horrendously ungodly combination of odors and since you can't open a window on a bus in winter and you're unlikely to breathe fresh air for some time, get away from the stench. Seriously. Let them be offended. Just go. I sat for ten minutes like an idiot with my scarf around my face trying to "thin out" the smell. Didn't work. Would have been a lot happier if I'd just moved. And the smell always increased exponentially when the man behind me rolled out a juicy cough. I almost vomited, but just managed to keep it in. Dangerous. Just dangerous.

2) Watermelon cocoa. Don't let it happen to you. Just because someone gives you a red and white striped candy cane doesn't mean it tastes like peppermint. I wrecked a perfectly good cup of hot cocoa by stirring in what I thought was a peppermint candy cane. You know how you get yourself all set to taste one thing and then it ends of being something completely different and your brain just can't wrap itself around the puzzle of what is going on? Yeah, that was me five minutes ago. And just for the record, watermelon and chocolate aren't that great together. Seriously. It kinda sucks.

Anyways, hope your day is going better than mine. Don't eat the yellow snow and if you're lucky enough to have sunshine and 50 degree weather please don't complain about it here. I just don't wanna hear what kind of Hawaiian print shirt you'll be wearing to the office Christmas Luau party.

For True Quote of the Day

"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."

~Paula Poundstone

The Laws of Normalcy

Are you aware of the force that pulls you constantly to the earth's surface? The force that binds you to the crust of this sphere we call home? We call it gravity and its power is undeniable. Man has fought it for almost as long as he has existed. Human mind has tried to reject it, tried to break free from it's hold, and for moments, at least, has succeeded. Man takes flight and challenges the clouds for supremacy. But eventually gas runs out, wind dies down and gravity is more persistent than we are. The old axiom rings true again and again that what goes up must come down. We are settled on this earth for ancient reasons and since no one has come up with better reasons, we stay here. It is probably no accident that when we die we fall not just down but often into the earth.

Normalcy is similar to gravity. Powerfully compelling us to find a status quo and stick with it. To define ourselves with a pattern or projection of what we are like and what we can expect from life. If it worked for generations before us then it will work for us. If this is the way I've always done something then this is the way I will continue to do it. Or if not to define ourselves, at least we define our schedule, our eating habits, our work and other peripheral activities that we can then point to and call 'ourselves.' We are almost always looking to even out the ride, settle into an efficient pattern to get us where we are going. We all want smoother sailing to get us through our journey. The stronger our patterns for our lives the fewer questions we will be forced to ask and the more we can take on assumption. And assumptions streamline the process of everyday living.

Let me ask you a question: Have you ever witnessed a moment when another human being, either through traumatic events or personal discovery, realizes that their life could be different? Sometimes even should be different. And for a shining moment they reject the pattern they have thus far chosen and start off on another path entirely, living their life with boldness and clarity? I have seen it. May have even lived it. And I have noticed time and again that despite the revelation, no matter how great, the tendency to ebb back into the pattern of previous living is incredibly strong. Sometimes the point of clarity was vivid enough to last a lifetime and it remains a fixed point of change. But more often than not, the point of clarity dims as it recedes into the past.

So, why this essay on normalcy, I hear you ask. Change is difficult and often unwanted. Change is helpful and often unexpected. And when we are handed our chunk of change in life we get to make a choice: we can absorb it into our current life pattern or we can choose to change our life pattern to fit our new circumstance.

And I was curious... Which do you do?

Skip to the Loo

Next time you have to go, try skipping. To. The. Loo.

Don't skip going to the loo.

That would just be silly.

Wisdom of the Ages