Lovely. Simply lovely.

One of the blogs I visit regularly is Rambling Woods. Her photography and the videos she occasionally shares are a breathtaking reminder of the beauty and intricacy of God's creation. Just one example: this beautiful video about pollination.

 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 

- Psalm 19:1

 

Join in on Wordless Wednesday!

Can anyone tell me the name of the bush that was so attractive to the bees and the butterflies? I'd sure love to have one of 'em!

H/T to Four Seasons for identifying the "mystery bush" - it's an abelia. Gotta have one!

Way cool.

I don't understand the language in this video. But it has to be the coolest way to separate an egg I've ever seen. I'm betting you'll wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Peculiar" photo prompt

First off, I need to recognize the winner of last week's prompt - Live, Love, Travel. Her photo wants me to pack my bags and head to Oregon:

Now on to this week's photo prompt, "peculiar".

My hubby's grandfather lived in Arizona, and when Dave was young, his parents drove with him across the country for a visit. While there, his grandfather took the family out to eat at a restaurant called Pinnacle Peak Patio. For decades thereafter - literally - Dave talked about the meal they had there. He also mentioned the live rattlesnake they kept behind glass there and the ties hanging from the ceiling. It turns out that, in addition to their steaks, the ties were something Dave remembered quite clearly.

It turns out that when men-folk come in to eat, they're allowed to wear Western ties if they wish, but any other type is a violation of the dress code. The offending party will be shorn of his tie, which will be hammered into the beams of the ceiling to join the rest. It makes for an interesting effect, as I was to see a few years ago when Dave took me there for dinner. I think these photos will do quite nicely for this week's photo prompt, "Peculiar".

And now that I've shared my "peculiar" photos, how 'bout you share yours!

Out of the mouths of babes.

This little girl really "gets" the story of Jonah, and tells it better than I could! Take 7 or 8 minutes from your busy day and enjoy!

The story of Jonah from Corinth Baptist Church on Vimeo.

I wanna be a bear

If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too.

If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them, too. I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.
I wanna be a bear.

10 Hard Truths

10 Hard Truths I Don't Want to Tell My Children But Have to Anyway

10) Some people will treat you indifferently. And that'll hurt you more than if they went out of their way to hurt you. It doesn't mean you're not special. It just means that they've forgotten how to see how special people are.

9) As special as you are, you're not more special than others. God loves you. I love you. But that doesn't mean the world revolves around you. It doesn't. The world was full of heartache and smiles before you got here and smiles and hearts will go on breaking long after.

8) People who work in drive-thrus get the order wrong. I don't know why but it's about as consistent a rule as rock stars and overdoses.

7) Oh, your favorite bands break up. And it seems the more awesome the band is the quicker they break up. The terrible ones linger on forever or reunite often. Spandau Ballet is currently touring. You don't know who they are and if I do my job as a parent you never will.

6) Suffering is part of this life. As much as I'd like to protect you from this, I can't. I may even be the cause of it sometimes. But it's part of life and good can come out of it. I'll hate watching you go through it but I'll be proud of how you get through it.

5) Loving someone doesn't mean they'll love you back. Just try not to make too much of a fool of yourself over it.

4) You're going to die. You will. But trust in Christ's promise that you will live forever.

3) Rooting for sports teams is simply another avenue to invite heartbreak into your life. I've been incredibly lucky in that I've seen my NY Rangers win the Stanley Cup, Notre Dame win a national championships, the Mets win the World Series and the Giants have won three since I really started paying attention to sports. That's actually really lucky but that's about 120 sports seasons and 6 championships. That means 114 times I'm left screaming at the television, admonishing coaches, and yelling about biased referees. That's not a good rate of return. But you'll probably do it anyway. The good news is that some of the happiest people I know are Cubs fans and some of the most miserable are Yankees fans. It doesn't make sense but it's true.

2) The SAT's matter a lot as to which college you'll get into. But which college you got into stops mattering two years after you start working.

1) The easy way usually isn't the right way. I wish it were different but taking the hard way really does build character. It's a funny thing about character. It usually builds when you're not focused on yourself. And a strong character makes the hard way a lot easier to bear.

There's a lot more I don't want to tell you but you'll learn soon enough. Life has a way of teaching you whether you want it to or not.

by Matthew Archbold

H/T to Creative Minority Report 

Wordless (almost)

This is Louie, our new kitty. And The other day when I looked at him, I was reminded of the Chick Fil A billboards.

Do you think he could be featured on their next advertisement?

Do you mind?

I was doing a bit of poking around on the internet the other day and found a post that I recommend. (See the bottom of this post for the url.) The article is well written and insightful. And one phrase from the title has resonated with me since I first saw it:

Mind your mind.

There are a couple of very different ways to interpret that phrase, I suppose. One that didn't really occur to me at first is that, sometimes, my mind bugs me. I really mind it - i.e. dislike it - when my mind leads me down pathways I'd much prefer not to travel. These are roadways to negativity - criticism, selfishness, self-righteousness, anger, resentment... I'd like to be able to say I never head in any of those directions, but unfortunately that wouldn't be true. I go there far more often than I should, far more often than I care to admit, and it bothers me. I mind it very much.

There is another way to interpret the phrase, however. Used that way, it means to take care of, to protect. And I find that, more and more, this has become important to me. I'm learning to be more discriminating about what I read, what I watch, what I listen to, and who accompanies me on the journey. By taking better care of "what goes in", I find "what comes out" to be far less objectionable to me.

Garbage in, garbage out...

My actions and words are a result of what goes on in my brain and in my soul. These have been given to me by God to use well. I show my gratitude by the way I take care of and use my mind.

Read more here. You'll find a very thought-provoking article by Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington.

 

"Photographer's Choice"

This week, Yolanda will choose the winner of our photo challenge, and you get to choose anything you'd like to share - the theme is "Photographer's Choice".

Here are a few "critter shots" I'd like to share this week. BTW - for someone who really isn't crazy about bugs, I sure find myself enjoying them through a camera lens!

"What big eyes you have, my dear!"

I don't know what this critter is, but he was fascinating to watch.

He kept on bending in the middle like this doing some sort of "buggy calisthenics."

This spiderweb was built overnight. Such workmanship!

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold.

Job 8:13-15 

Apricot-Glazed Pork Roast and Stuffing

Have dinner ready when you get home from work! Gotta love that crock pot!

Ingredients

4 cups seasoned bread stuffing mix
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/3 cup chopped onion
2 1/2 pounds boneless pork loin
1/3 cup apricot preserves
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Spray slow cooker with cooking spray. Mix stuffing, broth, apricots, and onions in cooker. Brown all sides of the pork in a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a 12" skillet over medium-high heat, then brush with the jam. Place pork on stuffing mixture. Mix jam & vinegar; brush over pork. Cover & cook on low heat setting for 7-8 hours or til pork is tender. Stir stuffing before serving with tender, tasty pork!

You've already won!

Imagine that you won this prize in a contest.

Each morning the bank will deposit $86,400 into your private account for your own personal use. However, this prize comes with rules.

The rules are:

• You must spend the money each day.
• Everything that you don’t spend in that day will be taken away from you.
• You cannot simply transfer the money to another account.
• You cannot give the money away and it can't be used by anyone else.
• Every morning, upon waking up, the bank credits your account with another $86,400 to be used that day.
• The bank can cancel your account and stop depositing at any time without warning.
• When the game is over, IT IS OVER!!

What would you personally do?

I guess, that you would buy anything and everything that you wanted, right. Not only for yourself, but for everyone you know and love. You couldn’t spend it all on yourself, and you would try to spend as much as possible every day, wouldn’t you?

Actually, this game is reality and you are already playing! The only difference is that you don't receive money.

The magical bank is the BANK OF TIME and you already receive this gift every morning.

Every morning, we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, to spend that day and anything left over is lost.

Whatever we haven’t lived today is lost forever.

Every morning, the bank of time is replenished, but we never know when it will end without warning!!

So what are you doing with your time? Are you really getting the maximum value from the time you have? Are you really living your life to the full??

What do you plan to do with the 86,400 seconds that you will be given when you wake up tomorrow. If it was your last day, what would you plan to do??

Enjoy every second of your life, cause time races by so much quicker than you think.

Is it really worth wasting it in meanness, unhappiness, jealousy, disagreements, and all those other negative emotions that suck the life out of us?

Take care of yourself, spread happiness and love to those around you and enjoy your life.

- Source unknown

Wordless and wonderful

Have you noticed the days are getting shorter? That makes garden blooms all the more precious! I've captured these to view when winter comes.

What have you been shooting lately? Please share your shots using the linky below!

33 motivating tips

I read this list of tips on getting & staying motivated on SparkPeople - a great free site for those trying to live a healthier lifestyle. I found many of these points were wonderfully wise (although I didn't "get" them all)... At any rate, I thought the list was worth sharing.

Let me know, too - would you have other suggestions to add to this list?

1. Ignore The Unimportant. Learning to ignore is a fantastic lesson. Much more rewarding than you think. There must be an art of ignoring and they should teach it in universities. Spanning your focus in so many areas will only weaken you. Ignoring what’s unimportant will free up energy, foster motivation and help you stay focused and productive.

2. Understand What Makes You Bored... and avoid it. Boredom is a nasty place to be. But as any other state of your being can be understood and you can identify the triggers. Once you understand that, you can safely go away from the gray zone. Takes some time but it really worth the effort.

3. Laugh More Often. Watch comedies, read comics. Throw away that ugly seriousness from your face. Laughing is a safety valve for your stress relief mechanism. It actually let it out from your body in bursts. And while you’re laughing you can still learn new stuff, like personal development lessons from Dumbo.

4. Log your breakthroughs. Do you remember when you had the first major success of your life? No? I thought so. We tend to overlook this simple habit of writing down our feelings every time we have a major breakthrough in our lives. If you want the shortest path to motivation, just keep a log of your successes. And get inspired by it.

5. Exercise. This is one the easiest and simplest way to summon motivation. Just walk out from the office, start doing some pushups or just go for a short run around the house. It will instantly declutter your physical body. Every time you exercise, you produce endorphins. Endorphins are good.

6. Create A Custom Environment. You can’t be motivated if you work in an environment which does not represent you. Make changes, adjust, improve. Doesn’t matter if it’s about your job office or your home. Whatever the space you work in, make it yours somehow, that will lower your unconscious adaptation efforts and you’ll have more time dedicated to the actual tasks.

7. Read Success Stories. Like in other people success stories. Get inspired. Admire them (with caution, but do admire them). Reading about success will make it more available to you and will fuel your efforts towards its achievement. And of course, you can learn how to be successful too.

8. Switch Tasks. You will get bored if you work on the same projects for too long. Boredom kills motivation. Try having several small projects that you can land on whenever you feel you’re on the verge of a burn out. Not to mention that switching tasks will instantly create fresh perspectives, helping you solve problems faster.

9. Assess Your Progress. If you work constantly you will make some progress, that’s a rule. You may have the impression that you’re not going anywhere but that’s because you’re skipping all those little milestones you go through every day. Watching back with satisfaction at what you created will surely boost your energy.

10. Talk About Your Projects... with your friends or family. Let the people know you’re doing stuff. That will often make yourself aware of the fact that you’re actually doing stuff and enjoy doing it. It will also create a certain level of accountability that will most likely push you forward.

11. Avoid Energy Vampires. Naysayers, pessimists, braggers they all are sucking up your energy. Don’t get caught in such power games, avoid at all costs those energy leaks. Even if that means you’ll isolate more often. It’s better to do work in your own secluded realm than to try to resist to a diminishing environment.

12. Write Clear Goals. Most of the time that translates to actually write down your goals, you already have them clear in your mind. But take them out of your mind, put them in a trusted system and move on. Your mind works better when it knows what it has to do not when it spends time figuring what it has to do.

13. Exercise Satisfaction. Once you finished some task, reward yourself. Give yourself a prize. No need to be a huge one, but just enough to create the habit. Look forward to it while you’re working, wait for it, praise for it. In time you’ll become addicted to this fulfillment satisfaction and you won’t stop until you reach it.

14. Accept Failure... as part of the game. Failure, like success, is just a result of your actions, nothing more. One of the biggest motivation enemies is fear of failure. Fear that your outcome will turn bad. Accept it. It may turn bad, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you’re doing. Give your best and hope for the best.

15. Use Affirmations. Like writing down your intentions, your goals, your current status. Affirmations are a very powerful tool, hugely underrated. People find it awkward to write self-directed messages and read them out loud. News flash: you’re doing this all the time, unconsciously. So why not doing it consciously? Start with a morning phrase.

16. Play Games. Impersonate people. Imitate animals. Pretend you’re Sindbad the Sailor. Playing challenging games will relax your mind and at the same time will gather more resources from secret sources. A good motivation is always blended with joy. You can start with a simple game like how to get from a to b in 5 random steps.

17. Say “No”. Say “no” to distractions, to trolls, to depression. Exercising no's is liberating. Too often too many commitments are making your life a continuous chore. Limit your promises and only get into things you really want to finish. Once you do that, go to a mirror, smile and start to politely exercise your no's.

18. Look For Positive People. Sadness, whining and complaining doesn’t play well with motivation. On the contrary. But positive, optimistic, energetic people will always shift your vibration in the right direction. Search them, find them and become their friend. Sometimes all you need to get motivated is to be surrounded by shiny happy people.

19. Difficulty Is Part Of The Game. Learn to work under pressure. Some things are more difficult than others. Accept that fact and focus on doing what you have to do not on your feelings of dissatisfaction. Difficulty is often what makes things worth doing. No sweat, no glory. Whenever I feel something is going to be tough, I’m usually more motivated to do it. The reward will be higher.

20. Create Personal Challenges. Personal challenges are short term goals, usually from 15 to 90 days. Like starting to exercise, or creating a habit from scratch in 15 days. Using personal challenges strengthen your inner power the same way exercising is strengthening your muscles. The more you do, the more motivated you feel to do even more.

21. Choose Positive Motivation. Whenever you lock in your motivation, do your best to keep it on the positive side, which is rooted in service. As opposed to the negative motivation, which is basically rooted in fear. Negative motivation works just the same, only it lasts significantly less than positive motivation.

22. Release Your Guardians. You do have guardians and some of them are pretty nasty. They won’t let you do your stuff. The bad thing about your guardians is that most of the time they’re working at the unconscious level, really difficult to interact with. Just accept, acknowledge and let them go. You will be much better off.

23. Enforce Your Personal Mission. You gotta have a personal mission. If you don’t, go find one fast. Reinforcing your personal mission at certain intervals is surely one of the greatest motivators of all. It’s like looking on a map and seeing at any moment where you are, how much do you have to go and which path you have to chose.

24. Spend Time Outside. If you can do something creative, like gardening or landscaping, even better. But it’s ok even if you don’t. Spending time outside of your box will clear the air inside. When you get back, everything will be fresher and shinier. And something fresher is always a nice motivator.

25. Keep A Clean Inbox. That’s one of the few GTD (Getting Things Done) concepts I still use and it proves to be a great motivator. A clean inbox helps a smooth thoughts flow. A smooth thoughts flow let me be in the moment without any hidden burdens. Being in the moment is usually all I need to actually start doing things.

26. Don’t Aim For Perfection. It will soon drain you out. Aiming to be better is the real game. Perfection is a dead end, nothing really happens after you reached to it. Accepting that you can be better instead of perfect leaves some room for growth. And that means you have a reason to do more. And that’s what we usually call motivation, right?

27. Do One Thing At A Time. Multitasking is a myth. Even computers processors aren’t really doing multi-tasking, that’s what we perceive. Instead they have a single frequency and several parallel buses managing information, faking a multi-tasking activity. Multitasking is creating internal conflicts, both in humans and in computers. You end up spending more time solving those conflicts than actually working.

28. Keep A Source Of Inspiring Readings. You’re not always completely down, most of the time you’re just averagish, just one sentence away from your best shape. Be sure to keep around a list of inspiring readings. Quotes, blog posts, ebooks, whatever works for you. You can start with 100 ways to live a better life, for instance.

29. Put On Some Good Music. Just let it there, floating around, don’t turn the volume knob. Just enough to recreate a pleasant atmosphere. Music speaks to areas you can’t control with logical tools, yet is so powerful that can completely shift your mood in a second. The only thing better than silence is good music.

30. Don’t Fall Into The Productivity Trap. It’s not how much you do, but how much of it really matters. Doing stuff just for filling up notebooks with tasks won’t make you feel motivated. On the other side, whenever you’re doing something that matters, your planning and organizing activities will just flow.

31. Keep Your Life Lenses Clean. Your camera objective may be blurred but you don’t know. This is why you get the same picture again and again, this is why feel stuck and can’t seem to see any progress. Sometimes all you have to do is to clean up your lenses. It takes a little bit of courage but it’s worth the trouble.

32. Clean Up Your House. I know you need motivation for that too, but believe me, it’s a fantastic way to clean up your internal garbage. Cleaning up your house is not a chore, it’s a necessity. Your action paths may be clogged the same way your floor is sticky. And most of the time unsticking the floor will open your mind again.

-- Dragos Roua 

Cheddar bay biscuits

These are very similar to the yummy ones they serve at Red Lobster. Enjoy!! 
And if you have any food photos you'd like to share, be sure to check the post below this one for our new Monday photo challenge ~ Food ~

Ingredients 

2 C Bisquick

1/4 C butter
3/4 C Cheddar cheese (shredded)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp parsley
1/2 C cold water

Preheat oven to 450. Mix together baking mix, cold water, & cheese. Cut biscuits with cutter or shape into evenly-sized biscuits.

Place on baking dish that has been sprayed with cooking spray.

Melt butter and blend in parsley, garlic, and Italian seasoning, then brush biscuits with butter mixture and bake for 8-10 minutes.

YUM!

New photo prompt: food

This week Bethany will choose the winner for our new photo challenge, "Food". Here's my interpretation, and we're looking forward to seeing what you'd like to share!