Some of my favorite links...

I've been crazy busy at work for some time now. Better than being bored, though, I suppose! Even at night, I'm finding it hard to find time to blog. Rather than leave great lengths of time in between posts, I'll leave you with a post of some of the links I visit now and again...

The newspaper in my hometown.

The J.K. Rowling's official Harry Potter webpage.

Post Secret - See a Secret, Share a Secret...

A library of online books called World Wide School website.

I still listen to Pandora at work now and again.

The cutest of cute is Cute Overload and Daily Kitten.

And the newest one I've found recently is BrainyQuotes.com

There's actually tons more, so these are just a few. I hope you end up finding a new page to check out often, as I did.

Someone emailed this to me today...

The Price of Children

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 to be $160,140 for a middle income family.
Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year, or

* $741.38 a month, or

* $171.08 a week.

* That's a mere $24.24 a day!

* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is "if you want to be 'rich', don't have children."
Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day

For $160,140, you never have to grow up.

You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
* keep reading "The Adventures of Piglet and Pooh" ,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish upon a star.

You also get to:
* frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets, and collect:
* spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas,
* hand prints set in clay or Mother's Day, and
* cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no bigger bang for your buck.

You get to be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
* coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness history:
* her first step,
* his first word,
* her first bra,
* his first date, and
* their first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal.
You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs called grandchildren and great grandchildren in your obituary

You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God.

You have the power to:
* heal a boo-boo,
* scare away the monsters under the bed,
* patch a broken heart,
* police a slumber party,
* ground them forever, and
* love them without limits...

So that one day they, like you, will love without counting the cost.


That is quite a deal for the price!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!

Sunset

Sunset
Rainer Maria Rilke


Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs--

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

Fun site...

Here's a link to a fun site...

It's a "message in a bottle" type site. It's kinda fun...

You can send messages out into the big wide world for others to see, or you can actually put in a specific email address and send a message in a bottle to anyone who has an email address.

Plus, if you wait a couple of minutes, you will actually get messages from others across the internet.

It's something different to do to if you have extra time and don't know what to do with it...

;)

Happy Belated Birthday!!

Would you believe this guy just turned 43?!!

Wow.... Where does the time go? We've been married nearly 23 years now.

And we've definitely been through thick and thin, better and worse.

(His birthday was actually last weekend (Sept. 4), but he wasn't feeling very well, so I told him we could celebrate this weekend instead.)

Happy (belated) Birthday!!!

I love you!

Rest in Peace, Steve....

Stephen Robert Irwin

February 22, 1962 to September 4, 2006

Rest in Peace

You were taken too soon. You died the way you lived, and the way you wanted, I know.
We'll miss you more than we can express.

G'bye, mate...

<3

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~Henry Miller

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
~Anaïs Nin

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
~William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.
~Emily Dickinson

A full heart has room for everything and an empty heart has room for nothing.
~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin