Can you answer the following question? What was the name of the first manned Apollo mission?
Archives for December 2009
Looking For Resolutions?
At the beginning of 2009 I made note of the following resolutions suggested by Sally Albright and share them with you now for possible inclusion in your list as you prepare for the new year.
Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Couples
#10: Exercise Together
Exercising together as a couple can make getting more exercise fun, and you and your spouse can truly have a “healthy” relationship.
#9: Cook Together
Cooking dinner together is a great way to spend time together.
#8: Play Games Together
Take the time to have some fun with your spouse by playing games together — especially in the colder winter months.
#7: The Little Things
Sometimes, it’s the littlest of things that really matter. Something as simple as setting the coffee machine to brew in the morning or opening the car door for your spouse can really show how much you care.
#6: Get Romantic
The types of romantic gestures you do really depends on what your spouse considers to be romantic, whether it be bouquets of flowers or cuddling together and watching a football game on TV.
#5: Listening
Truly listen. Keep in mind that your spouse isn’t always in search for answers and may not want to receive advice. They just want your ears all to themselves.
#4: Fewer Arguments
Make a New Year’s resolution to argue less. Pick your battles wisely. Most importantly, learn to compromise.
#3: Compliments
Taking the time to compliment your spouse shows them that you do still love them, you appreciate them, and you still find them attractive. Surprise your loved one with compliments during appropriate times, such as when they dress up for a dinner out, do a job well done, or the way they handled your child’s misbehavior.
#2: Dates
A little alone time with your spouse can be all that you need to feel reconnected with them. Having a special date night at the end of the week can give you and your loved one something to look forward to.
#1: Saying I Love You
Say it often, say it with meaning. A simple I Love You can melt someone’s heart.
What Do You Think?
If you were going to a costume party next week, what costume would you wear?
Pop Quiz
Can you solve the following riddle?
Though in theory I am always behind you, I am also around to remind you. But in case it’s your way to give me too much say, I can hamper or, even worse, blind you. What am I?
To Gift or Regift, That Is The Question
By now you may have started to receive a few Christmas gifts. Is it okay to regift them to someone else?
Regift: (verb) To give an unwanted gift to someone else; to give as a gift something one previously received as a gift. — Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
WWMMID?
According to a survey conducted by Money Management International, 60% of people now believe it is acceptable to regift. Here are some of the guidelines that MMI suggests for those considering regifting:
- Is the gift regiftable? Never regift handmade or one-of-a-kind items, free promotional items or anything that is signed or monogrammed.
- How is the condition? Only new, unopened gifts in good condition should be considered for regifting. Don’t give items you have owned for a long time.
- Is this going to work? Be sure you know who gave you the item so you don’t return it to the original giver. Don’t regift something to someone who knows the person who gave it to you.
- Do you have good intentions? Be sure the recipient will appreciate the item. Don’t regift simply because you ran out of time. Think of the other person.
- How does it look? Go for show. Gift bags in good condition can sometimes be reused, but wrapping paper is a one-time thing. Always spring for a new card or gift tag.
- Can you handle it? Can you and do you want to keep the secret of regifting? Never feel guilty about regifting once you have done it.
- Have you considered your options? An unwanted gift could be a welcome donation to a charitable organization. It is an option to suck it up and keep an unwanted gift — after all, it was a gift.
There you go. And, just in case any of you receive a Kindle for Christmas, don’t feel any reservations at all about regifting it to me.
What Do You Think?
If you could grant any three wishes to one person, to whom would you grant them? Why?
Pop Quiz
Can you identify the person described below?
As did his parents and grandparents, he taught speech and worked with the deaf in several schools in New England. Trying to find away to transmit speech, he invented in 1876 what is now a common household item.
Hint, hint: In honor of his accomplishments, several telecommunications companies carry his name.
The Sin of Omission
by Margaret E. Sangster
It isn’t the thing you do, dear;
It’s the thing you leave undone,
That gives you a bit of heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts to-night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way,
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
Which you had no time nor thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.
Those little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be angels
Which every one may find
They come in night and silence
Each chill, reproachful wraith
When hope is faint and flagging
And a blight has dropped on faith.
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great;
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late;
And it’s not the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
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Too Much For The Whistle
(An excerpt from a letter of Benjamin Franklin to Madame Brillon, written in 1779.)
I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the meantime, we should draw all the good we can from this world. In my opinion we might all draw more good from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if we would take care not to give too much for whistles. For to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are become so by neglect of that caution.
You ask what I mean? You love stories, and will excuse my telling one of myself.
When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.
This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle; and I saved my money.
As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.
When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, this man gives too much for his whistle.
When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, “He pays, indeed,” said I, “too much for his whistle.”
If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, “Poor man,” said I, “you pay too much for your whistle.”
When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, “Mistaken man,” said I, “you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle.”
If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in a prison, “Alas!” say I, “he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.”
When I see a beautiful sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, “What a pity,” say I, “that she should pay so much for a whistle!”
In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.
Yet I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the whistle.
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Ocean Trivia
The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.
The Dead Sea is nine times saltier than the ocean.
* * * * *
The Dark Blue Sea
by Lord Byron
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.-
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves’ play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime-
The image of eternity-the throne
Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, ocean! And my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton’d with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-’twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane – as I do here.
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