True Beauty

I was strolling through the interwebs, and I came across this poem by Sam Levenson. After all of the junk one might read in a beauty magazine, this is refreshing.  

Fun fact: it was also one of Audrey Hepburn's favorite poems, so you  know it's got to be good. 

[The flower pictures are from my latest romp to capture the spring. 

...I love flowers.]

"For attractive lips,
Speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes,
Seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure,
Share your food with the hungry.


For beautiful hair,
Let a child run his or her 
fingers through it once a day.

For poise,
Walk with the knowledge
you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things,
have to be restored, renewed, 
revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;
Never throw out anybody.

Remember,
If you ever need a helping hand,
you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older,
you will discover
that you have two hands,
one for helping yourself,
the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman
is not in the clothes she wears,
The figure that she carries,
or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman
must be seen from in her eyes,
because that is the doorway to her heart,
the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman
is not in a facial mole, 
but true beauty in a woman 
is reflected in her soul.

It is the caring that she lovingly gives,
the passion that she shows,
And the beauty of a woman
with passing years-only grows!"

sometimes, it's ok to be crazy

Ok, I had a momentary lapse of sanity yesterday.

What happened: I was sitting here blogging, quickly typing up a post about some silly incident, when I glanced outside.

Outside.

It was so beautiful. 

Some plants that I had been waiting on to bloom finally had blossomed.

These flowers are fabulous, I'm telling you.

I HAD TO TAKE PICTURES. 

I knew I'd regret it if I didn't. 

So, do excuse that last post. 

Wipe it from your memory.

I gave in and got my camera and macro lens.

I spent at least a good forty minutes taking pictures of things outside, silly as that sounds.

I loved it. 

This kind of picture-taking is still a challenge for me, because my macro lens has no auto-focus or zooming function...and therefore, I have to stay really still while I get my image focused just so. I also have to get up close and personal with the plants. 

As it is, I got some happy pictures of spring.

Check it out:

dance...and "events"

This weekend I went contra-dancing.
It was majorly fun.

Here's what happened on the ride home (we'll call my friend L)

Me: I noticed there were at least five guys wearing skirts tonight. That was just a bit awkward, huh? 

L: Oh yeah, haha, I guess they like twirling too!  Did you see the transvestite? 

Me: *feeling naive* Ohh, really? I thought that was just a really looks-challenged individual... I danced with it! ...I think I'm going to be sick. 

L: haha, well, we can change the subject. 

Me: No really, I'm going to be sick.
...and the contents of my stomach were in my lap. Luckily it was just water and banana, but still. Gross! I got myself cleaned up, and the conversation continued... 

L: I'm so sorry! I didn't know it would actually make you sick to talk about transvestites! I won't ever bring that up again.

...

Contra attracts a VARIETY of people, a real variety. It's not a bad thing -- they're all nice folks, but, um, they just have a different way of doing things.

Ok, ok, ok. I'll just say it. There was a person there who looked like neither a man nor a woman.

And I danced with him/her (let's just say it). Not as a partner, but when you're going through the line, you get a turn dancing with everyone. 

I danced for three hours Saturday night. Every dance (except for the 10-minute-intermission when they played polka music. I know it's shocking, but I don't know how to polka) was danced. Because your brain is thinking about the dance moves and what you're supposed to be doing next, it ignores your body telling you to take a rest.

Where do you get that hair?

Hair color is just hair color, right?
Well, if you've a specific color that seems to define you, it's not.
(you don't know how tempted I was to type "it snot". The 12 year-old in me lives on!)

If you haven't seen me before, I'm a redhead.
It's not orange-in-your-face, but it's a multi-colored variation with gold, orange, red, and brown. It looks like varying shades of copper, pretty much.


The question I'm asked most frequently (aside from, "how are you?") is,
"where did you get that hair?" 

Instead of giving my family tree and history, sometimes I'm tempted to come up with a more creative response.

Creative spring fever

Yesterday, I felt creative.
I also had a desire to do some spring cleaning.

The desire to clean comes in waves for me.
I always have a hint of OCD (others make fun of me for it), and I like to be organized. I really do.

But sometimes, it feels like too much of a burden to care if everything is truly tidy or not. Life gets busy, and I feel like I don't have time, especially for my bedroom.
Yesterday, it was a weird joy of sorts to clean. To have things TIDY and PRETTY was an awesome feeling.

After taking care of basic cleaning, (dusting, vacuuming, etc. I'm sure you know what that means, so I shouldn't have to explain it, but I did, and now I'm over-using parenthesis. So sorry.), I embarked on some projects:

A bit of culture

Yes, yes, I'm going to put some poetry up. Poetry = cultured

If you know a few lines of a poem by heart, you are well on your way to being a character in a novel (that's the only place I've seen people quote poetry by heart prolifically.) 

I didn't write this poem, but it's lovely nevertheless. (My humility is great, no?) 

It was written by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) 

{as an aside, do you find it funny that his middle name was manley? 

His mother apparently thought ahead}

So, enjoy some poetry and a chill picture. 

insouciant interests?

                        There are clouds of yellow surrounding EVERYTHING.                  

                                The sky is even starting to take on a yellowish hue.                  

I had forgotten what it was like for everything to be coated in pollen.             

                                                                             It's the yearly infestation.                  

If you live anywhere near a pine tree, you know what I mean.

Only a few more weeks (or a big rain storm) and the pollen will have dissipated. 
I hope. 

Right now, I'm wishing that I had some yellow clothes. 

Then it wouldn't show up when I stupidly sit on a park bench. 

(it hasn't happened yet, but as the boy scouts say, "be prepared!")

I'll eventually get my wish. My clothes WILL be yellow if I stay outside long enough. 

It's most definitely warming up. Perfect weather to run in. 
I love it. 
The sun is making all of my freckles pop out. 
Oh, if only they would all join together... 


Ho hum. 
Freckles aren't that bad...
I'm glad I don't live a few hundred years ago, 
back when freckles were considered horrid; 
people had to stay in the shade all of the time or use poultices for fear of them.  
Being a red head wasn't the best either...


Yup, this is a prime era to live in! I can have freckles freely... 


Speaking of prime eras, I wonder if I should have been born about 50 years or so ago. 
It's odd, but I identify with the 60's and 70's culture; the music, the clothing, the attitude. People seemed to be so much more original and creative. 
Now everything is canned. 
Especially the music. 
I live in the past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 




So in my math class, we are getting to draw flowers. 
Talk about sweetness. 
It sounds nerdy, "it's the polar graph of a sine or cosine function. One of the many tedious exciting shapes"


AND, didyaknow, there's a video contest going on in the math department (extra credit if I participate!) 
The deal is that it has to be sport related 
AND use higher level math... oh dear. 


Hmmmm, I'll be brainstorming. I think that first place gets something like 50 bucks. Not too bad, especially considering that I'll be getting some much needed extra credit. 


Speaking of videos, my mac, 
(which is WAAAAAY better than a PC, I add snidely) 
has some pretty sweet video editing software. 
I've been playing with it for a week now. 
It's rather addicting. 
I uploaded one of my videos to youtube...I like background music, in case you didn't notice. 
Sound effects are also fun.  (if you want to see the whole thing click here)





So, this is what my sisters and I do for fun. 
Don't ask me who that last guy on the credits is... I really have no idea. 


*********
This week will be full of energy. 
My cousins are in town, staying with us all week! 
All four of them. Aged 8 and under. 
It will be really fun, 


...so long as everyone gets their naps in during the day. 


(Oh! Oh! I have something else to talk about, but maybe I'll save that for another post...yes, I think that I will. )


This post has gotten longish. 
I like longishness USUALLY


...as long as it isn't just long run on sentences that just seem to go on and there aren't any breaks and the writer doesn't understand paragraphs and really sometimes you can't understand the meaning of the sentence even after you read it twelve times or maybe even fourteen times and then the grammar isn't great like you know people who write stuff and like don't think about how other people dislike ambiguity ...


You get the idea. Thankfully none of my friends write like that. 
But if they did, I'd still love them. 


I'll attempt to save you from that annoyance.





A man. A plan. A canal. Panama.