Love songs…

… sentimental, cheesy, slow, heartfelt, all of the above. I’m listening to music as I write this, & thought about songs with special meaning. As we approach Valentine’s Day, what’s your favorite love song, the one that always makes you think of your special someone. Maybe it’s a 1st-dance-at-our-wedding song, or 1st-date, or whatever.

Mine & Anthony’s song, I’m sure that everyone knows it by now, its Conway Twitty’s version of “I’d Love To Lay You Down.” He sings it to me often. We play it over our two ways. Although it wasn’t our first song, I used to sing Donna Fargo’s “Somebody Special,” but somehow, we stopped listening to it. I still play it every now & then. I love to hear it. So I’m playing it while I write this. Sh… Don’t tell Anthony that I shared that. He’s a very private person and don’t like me to share the really personal stuff. But I have a tendency to share just about everything. I want my Grandchildren & their Grandchildren to know how much love they came from.

What song is love music to your ears?

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Valentines Day Punch

INGREDIENTS
4 (12-oz.) bottles strawberry soda
1 cup pineapple juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup water
2 quarts ginger ale, chilled
1 cup orange juice

DIRECTIONS
Freeze the strawberry soda in ice cube trays. Boil sugar and water for 5 minutes. Add fruit juice and chill. To serve, put cubes in punch bowl and pour juices over. Add ginger ale before serving.

Variation: To make a yellow punch for Easter, freeze mountain dew.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious. ~ Blaise Pascal (19 Jun 1623 – 19 Aug 1662).

As scribed on a paper and always carried with him: “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars.. Psalm 119:16:I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word. Amen.” ~ Blaise Pascal

 

Warmth: Which means, “polish & andirons”

Is time to clean out the fireplace and raid the woodpile, then snuggle up with a good book. My fireplace is gone now,  I’ll have to go out and buy me a electric fireplace (or two). Burr.

The temp here in Ohio is below freezing, it seems like the perfect day to curl up with a warm cup of coffee, tea or maybe some hot cocoa and a good book. Or, watch some football! Since, I don’t have a dog in the fight (our Bengals are a fold) let’s focus on the books (or magazines, etc.) – what are you reading right now?

I put South of Broad on my this weeks to do list, just as soon as I finish up Entangled (A Fredrickson Winery Novel) [Kindle Edition]. I ordered 4 more books this week, they won’t be in for awhile, but I still have a lot of winter left to muddle through. I’m missing my fireplace already.

The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture. ~ Charles Lamb

 

Looking For Your Face

by Rumi

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it.

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

Today I have found you
and those that laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did.

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you with a hundred eyes.

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold.

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine.

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow.

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky.

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer.

 

Don’t forget…

that we are ultimately judged by what we give, not by what we get.

It is more blessed to give than to receive. ~ Acts 20:35

 

Never…

remind someone of a kindness or act of generosity you have shown him or her. Bestow a favor and then forget it.

You must give time to your fellow men – even if it’s a little thing, do something for others – something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. ~ ALBERT SCHWEITZER

 

When you arrive at your place of work in the morning,

let the first thing you say brighten everyone’s day.

Happiness is contagious. Be a carrier. ~ ROBERT ORBEN