Time Travel

If you could travel back in time & visit a particular time period, which time would you visit? I think I’d love to visit the late 1800’s-early 1900’s, but I could come up with many, many other times, too.

Any particular time or place you’d love to visit? I’d love to visit some earlier Tuscan villas with ladies baking bread and working the vineyards or maybe some old French countryside, walking and talking with the ladies harvesting the lavender fields or just having breakfast. Talking about old recipes and how they felt about their families, civil issues, wars and such. I’d also like to spend some time in Kansas, with all of my Grandpa Stump’s family as children. It’s always nice to understand where the culture comes from… and the attitudes. Just to see how they really lived.

Most of us romanticize about how we think they lived or what may have beset them in their every day lives. We can speculate as to how they worked or dealt with family issues; one on one. I made a joke today about if you missed one of my Grandma Dorothy’s parties, I think she would have drove over and got you. You’d better be dead if you missed it, cause if not, she’d probably kill ya. Not really, I was just kidding about the physical part;  I don’t think that I ever saw her hit anybody, ever, but she just had a wonderful way about her that brought our families together and often.

And so many others I’d love to talk to…

Wouldn’t you like to know what caused the “Falling-Out,” as its usually referred to, between family members? To see, if maybe, anything could have been done to correct it or to mend the fences? I know I would. Why so & so ______________, (whomever you just thought of here) don’t want someone or anyone for that matter in their lives?

Lots of unanswered questions that I want to ask. A million different places I want to see. So many people I want to meet.

I know we can’t go back, but it’s always nice to dream a little.

What about you?

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere. ~ Carl Sagan

 

Learn about RSS feeds

You don’t have to understand how RSS feeds work to reap their benefits. However, if you want to know, here are articles from Wikipedia and What is RSS? Basically, without utilizing RSS feeds, you would need to visit web sites and blogs individually to see if they have been updated. If you subscribe to RSS feeds using a feed reader, the latest updates come to you. Two of the bigger names in feed readers are Bloglines and Google Reader. You do not have to sign up for either of these, the task is just to read about them and know they exist. If you are familiar with RSS feeds, then this is an easy challenge. Genealogy bloggers are encouraged to share their experiences. If you use a particular feed reader, discuss it and you organize your feeds.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. ~ Albert Einstein

 

Learn to play an instrument…

Most of you know that I spent a fortune on 5 years of piano and voice lessons for Mandy, she sings like an angel, but she never did master the piano. So I decided not to spend the monies on Steven piano lessons, just to repeat the process. He always wanted to play the guitar but never really tried. He does  own one should he decide to, later.

He loves to teach himself things that will increase his brain power like the time… He spent one entire year mastering juggling for that very cause, and I spent that year picking them up. And then one entire summer and now college classes learning Japanese to become… IDK??? (He claims they have the most advanced technology – and wants to be a part of it – maybe they do).

Who knows what he really wants to do with his life, and he is still young enough to change his mind, but I was really proud of him this week when he said he had taken up the piano, just for fun… JUST FOR FUN! I took a deep breathe and said, “Thank you, Lord!” He finally found a real hobby – (and that will still increase his brainpower). LOL

I spent many a long car ride with him as a child listening to classical music. Until the car trip, when my oldest grandson Craigie asked, “Grandma, what is that music… Tom & Jerry?” and I promptly replied, “Yes!” And that was that! He still listens to it, but I don’t have to.

Piano… It just may take the place of video games and that’s a good thing.

I think I should have no other mortal wants if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music. ~ George Eliot

 

“Reflect”ology

“Reflect”ology
Ever feel like you are making the same mistakes and struggling with the same problems week after week? You may benefit from “reflect”ology.  Never heard of it?  It’s a practice that’s been around for many moons. Reflecting about or evaluating the past week is a natural process that can help relieve stress, identify weaknesses, and get you back on your feet. Now don’t feel pressured-just relax and consider these tips for evaluating your week:

• Examination. Create a checklist of five or six self-evaluation questions and keep them in your planning system. Examples include: “What challenges did I face this week and how did I overcome them?” “What goals did I not achieve and why?” “What can I learn from the week as a whole?”
• Regular checkup. Make an appointment with yourself each week and choose a place that is quiet. Review your questions before you plan the next week.
• Prevention. You’ll soon identify ineffective habits and patterns. This knowledge will help you avoid making the same mistakes in the future

Weekly evaluation-a cure for common ineffectiveness.

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Take baby steps. It takes years to get your life out of balance. You can’t fix it in a few days. Focus on improving one role at a time.

 

Imagination is the ability to form mental images

I seem to lack this ability at the present time. I want so much to get fresh and new ideas for the same old processes; but I can’t seem to form any or see things the way I want them to be or even how they could be. Years ago if I thought it, I did it. Now I think, and rethink, then think some, more until I thought myself right out of it. I want my imagination and wonder to be what leads me again. When your young a full of whys and why not’s, it seems so easy to fix whatever the problem is, no matter how complex it may be and you can’t figure out why the world just can’t see it through your eyes? Confident in yourself and those around you. But when you age and you no longer believe there is a quick fix or an easy answer,  then you start to wonder… was that your imagination?

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“The best way to increase your authority is to delegate it.”
-Paul Meyer