Decorate Your Life Quotes

I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? Why are you hiding, darling? (I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling). Where are you riding, Dolores Haze? What make is the magic carpet? Is a Cream Cougar the present craze? And where are you parked, my car pet? Who is your hero, Dolores Haze? Still one of those blue-capped star-men? Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays, And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen! Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts! Are you still dancin', darlin'? (Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts, And I, in my corner, snarlin'). Happy, happy is gnarled McFate Touring the States with a child wife, Plowing his Molly in every State Among the protected wild life. My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair, And never closed when I kissed her. Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert? Are you from Paris, mister? L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita; Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie! Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita! Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie? Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, Of hate and remorse, I'm dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, And again I hear you crying. Officer, officer, there they go-- In the rain, where that lighted store is! And her socks are white, and I love her so, And her name is Haze, Dolores. Officer, officer, there they are-- Dolores Haze and her lover! Whip out your gun and follow that car. Now tumble out and take cover. Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Her dream-gray gaze never flinches. Ninety pounds is all she weighs With a height of sixty inches. My car is limping, Dolores Haze, And the last long lap is the hardest, And I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust.

Hodge says he's on his way and he hopes you can both manage to cling to your flickering sparks of life until he gets here," she told Simon and Jace. "Or something like that." "I wish he'd hurry," Jace said crossly. He was sitting up in bed against a pair of fluffed white pillows, still wearing his filthy clothes. "Why? Does it hurt?" Clary asked. "No. I have a high pain threshold. In fact, it's less of a threshold and more of a large and tastefully decorated foyer. But I do get easily bored." He squinted at her. "Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you'd get dressed up in a nurse's outfit and give me a sponge bath?" "Actually, I think you misheard," Clary said. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath." Jace looked involuntarily over at Simon, who smiled at him widely. "As soon as I'm back on my feet, handsome.

People always ask me, ‘You have so much confidence. Where did that come from?’ It came from me. One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl … It doesn’t have anything to do with how the world perceives you. What matters is what you see. Your body is your temple, it’s your home, and you must decorate it.

While in a vintage restaurant..."the past isn't quaint while you're in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you see it as decor, not as the shape your life's been squeezed into.

Hunter, you can’t seriously be the Goblin King. You’re not even sixteen yet! I had to give you a ride to the store after school in September when we were getting supplies for Homecoming decorations!

For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.

Want to create the best Christmas ever? Forgive someone who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. Hug a stranger. Pass on something that you want to keep for yourself. Spend time with the ones you love. Spend time on your knees. Decorate your life with light and laughter. Love yourself while you’re loving others. Christmas is about Christ and Christ is all about your joy and happiness.

Oh, I daresay they're all very well as decoration, somethin' nice to look at while you're workin', somethin' for show, but the start and finish, the start and finish, is helpin' people when life is on the edge. Even people you don't like. Stars is easy, people is hard.

My philosophy is if living 'the good life' or 'sensually nourishing life' is not at the top of your priority list, you are letting your life pass you by.

Smile once a while; even if life tastes like bitter bile, just file out your teeth and cheeks and take a mile of sweet smiles... Smile, make it your life's style. Decorate your face with piles of smiles!

Some people center the universe around themselves; while making other people nothing but decorations to their existence. "I will do this and then I will do that and then people will think this about me and then people will think that about me, and then I will add that person to my life when the convenient time arrives, and this person over here would make a very convenient addition as well..." They build their own thrones for themselves, and add decorations all around their thrones. The problem with that is: it does not bring happiness. A throne must be built for you; it must not be you who builds your own throne. If so, everything that you think you are is only an illusion! And illusions dissolve one day. Poof!

Do not be afraid to marry a man who's firmly planted to earth, for he is the flagpole to your flag - not restricting, but anchoring, so that you may be free to fly. In return, you shall decorate the dull gray metal of his life forevermore.

Maybe you know something about young people, and maybe you don't. I, having been one myself once upon a time, know a few things about them. One thing I know is that if you don't want one to do something - for example, go into a room where there's a portrait of an unbearably beautiful princess- saying "It might cost you your life" is about the worst thing you can possibly say. Because then that's all that young person will want to do. I mean, why didn't Johannes say something else? Like, "It's a broom closet. Why? you want to see a broom closet?" Or, "It's a fake door, silly. For decoration." Or even, "It's the ladies' bathroom, Your Majesty. Best not go poking your head in there.

There’s a huge difference between the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It’s a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we’re wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating. It’s acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it’s a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. No one understands us

To live is to prepare for goodbye For loneliness is a friend who will not betray. Shiver not in the pouring love, instead buy an umbrella Believe not in happiness, even in the passions of love… Confess not your love, even if you would die for it. For love is like a season It comes and goes to decorate life’s boredom The moment you call it Love, it melts away, an ice sculpture… Goodbye, Someday. Happiness lasts not forever As Despair lasts not forever. Some days, there is Goodbye some days, there is Hello. At death, some look back on being loved While some look back on having loved… I’ll definitely look back on having loved…

Interior decoration is not just one's artistic efforts, but it is that which your home (even if it is just a room) is. If you are 'decorating' with clothes draped on every chair, with scratched and broken furniture- it is still your interior decoration! Your home expresses you to other people, and they cannot see or feel your daydreams of what you expect to make in that misty future, when all the circumstances are what you think they must be before you will find it worthwhile to start. You have started, whether you recognize that fact or not! We foolish mortals sometimes live through years not realizing how short life is, and that TODAY is your life.

Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become. Emily Dickinson barely left her homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, but when we read 'My life stood -- a loaded gun' we know we have met an imagination that will detonate life, not decorate it.

It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

Decorate your inner dreams with love, light and laughter

Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away.

I come to call you Home. Those who resonate with my words and follow them internally, will find that place and know It's completeness, its joy and fullness. I have come to call you away from suffering, from fear and from a life of sorrow and into your own, divine Being. I did not come here to give you decorative stories, to excite your imagination, or sign you up for some long program but to show you how available Truth is, and to remind you that you are never separate from It. No person on this planet is apart from the Truth in the Heart and yet the world is so vast and varied in expression. The greatest good and greatest evil is here. In this forest of duality and complexity you must find your way Home. You must win your Self back. Wisdom and trust will be your compass. Many voices came to call us but we are here today because we are freshly called by the voice of God, Love, Truth. Do not come half way home, but fully home. I know the voice that called you is true and Truth and that where you are being called to is also Real. It is inside your own Heart. It is what gives me the strength to be here. I love to see the beings being set free from the hypnosis of conditioning; from fears, false projection and the grip of ego. And I know that to be liberated is not difficult. It requires only openness and the sincere desire to be free. I don't need to hear anything about your past. Your stories are of no interest to me. That is not how I know you. I know you only through your Heart. That is my true connection with you - the living power of God. It is That which I respond to in you and it is only This that I know. I can only keep reminding you of It by pointing you again and again to the obvious in yourself. Now you must respond to my pointing. This will complete this yoga of seeing. Find and be one with That which is imperishable. Be merged in the Absolute. Don't go to sleep.

An interesting observation. I must admit I’m a little surprised, though. No girl’s ever complained about it before. You’re the first...” “I didn’t mean your muscle tone, Narcissus. I mean that... thing. I didn’t know you were in the habit of decorating your body with portraits of your victims. It totally reminds me of the cockroach you so theatrically banished from this life.

Our entire society’s based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything. Taking it for granted that that’s the whole point of life, never to be satisfied. If you’re perfectly happy with what you’ve got–specially if what you’ve got isn’t even all that spectacular–then you’re dangerous.

If you should happen to catch a glimpse of what really matters in life, regard it with care. Decorate it with flowers. Cover it with love. Hold it in the sunshine. Give it a little bit of time and attention. And when the world tries to push you forward, listen to your heart instead. Because if you don’t make time for what really matters, no one is going to do it for you. Taking a few minutes to savor everyday wonders makes the heart fuller, the inner doubts quieter, and the human connections stronger. And that’s when the ordinary becomes extraordinary for yourself and those who share your life.

It is not the dead rather the ones who lives through war have seen the dreadful end of the war, you might have been victorious, unwounded but deep within you, you carry the mark of the war, you carry the memories of war, the time you have spend with your comrades, the times when you had to dug in to foxholes to avoid shelling, the times when you hate to see your comrade down on the ground, feeling of despair, atrocities of the war, missing families, home. They live through hell and often the most wounded, they live with the guilt, despair, of being in the war, they may be happy but deep down they are a different person. Not everyone is a hero. You live with the moments, time when you were unsuccessful, when your actions would have helped your comrades, when your actions get your comrades killed, you live with regret, joyous in the victory can never help you forget the time you have spent. You are victorious for the people you have lost, the decisions you have made, the courage you have shown but being victorious in the war has a price to pay, irrevocable. You can't take a memory back from a person, even if you lose your memory your imagination haunts you as deep down your sub conscious mind you know who you are, who you were. Close you eyes and you can very well see your past, you cant change your past, time you have spent, you live through all and hence you are a hero not for the glorious war for the times you have faced. Decoration with medals is not going to give your life back. the more you know, more experiences doesn't make it easy rather make its worse. Arms and ammunition kills you once and free you from the misery but the experiences of war kills you everyday, makes you cherish the times everyday through the life. You may forgot that you cant walk anymore, you may forget you cant use your right hand, you may forgot the scars on your face but you can never forgot war. Life without war is never easy and only the ones how survived through it can understand. Soldiers are taught to fight but the actual combat starts after war which you are not even trained for. You rely on your weapon, leaders, comrades, god, luck in the war but here you rely on your self to beat the horrors,they have seen hell, heaven, they have felt the mixed emotions of hope, despair, courage, victory, defeat, scared.

One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl. I wear colors that I really like, I wear makeup that makes me feel pretty, and it really helps. It doesn’t have anything to do with how the world perceives you. What matters is what you see. Your body is your temple, it’s your home, and you must decorate it.

It’s amazing how dramatically life can change while your bedroom decor stays exactly the same.

The Scars come before the Stars.

Music is nothing more than decoration for the imagination. That

Don’t design your lifestyle for comfort, design it for passion. Don’t design it for functionality, design it for sensuality.

The past isn’t quaint while you’re in it. Only at a safe distance, later, when you can see it as decor, not as the shape your life’s been squeezed into.

learning to live in the spirit of prayer hour by hour decorates your life with insight and blessings

On Easter we wrap up pretty, little decorated eggs symbolizing life and renewal. We do this because of the intangibility of a promised gift, which is the eventual resurrection of the body, restored to its finest forever state. Easter celebrates life and the idea of its eternal value, most notably the life of the gift-giver who demands nothing in return. He is your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Through these seventeen years of your life I have had this hour of your marriage in mind. In everything I have taught you I have considered two persons, the mother of your husband and your husband. For her sake I have taught you how to prepare and to present tea to an elder; how to stand in an elder’s presence; how to listen in silence while an elder speaks whether in praise or blame; in all things I have taught you to submit yourself as a flower submits to sun and rain alike. “For your husband I have taught you how to decorate your person, how to speak to him with eyes and expression but without words, how to—but these things you will understand when the hour comes and you are alone with him.

And Mrs. Earwig,” said Mistress Weatherwax, her voice sinking to a growl, “Mrs. Earwig tells her girls it’s about cosmic balances and stars and circles and colors and wands and . . . and toys, nothing but toys!” She sniffed. “Oh, I daresay they’re all very well as decoration, somethin’ nice to look at while you’re workin’, somethin’ for show, but the start and finish, the start and finish, is helpin’ people when life is on the edge. Even people you don’t like. Stars is easy, people is hard.

How was it that the profound simplicity of those words had the power to rock her world? Never again would she lose sight of what mattered, not for a day or an hour or even a minute. She would treasure every instant of her life from now on, for she knew something now, a deep truth that had eluded her all of her life. Love wasn’t a great, burning brushfire that swept across your soul and charred you beyond recognition. It was being there, simply that. It was a few people, standing together in a living room, trimming a Christmas tree with the decorations that represented the sum total of who they were, where they’d been, what they believed in. It was simple, everyday moments that laid like bricks, one atop another, until they formed a foundation so solid that nothing could make them fall. Not wind, not rain … not even the faded, watercolor memories of a once-brushfire passion.

You think you know what a man is? You have no idea what a man is. You think you know what a daughter is? You have no idea what a daughter is. You think you know what this country is? You have no idea what this country is. You have a false image of everything. All you know is what a fucking glove is. This country is frightening. Of course she was raped. What kind of company do you think she was keeping? Of course out there she was going to get raped. This isn't Old Rimrock, old buddy - she's out there, old buddy, in the USA. She enters that world, that loopy world out there, with whats going on out there - what do you expect? A kid from Rimrock, NJ, of course she didn't know how to behave out there, of course the shit hits the fan. What could she know? She's like a wild child out there in the world. She can't get enough of it - she's still acting up. A room off McCarter Highway. And why not? Who wouldn't? You prepare her for life milking the cows? For what kind of life? Unnatural, all artificial, all of it. Those assumptions you live with. You're still in your olf man's dream-world, Seymour, still up there with Lou Levov in glove heaven. A household tyrannized by gloves, bludgeoned by gloves, the only thing in life - ladies' gloves! Does he still tell the one about the woman who sells the gloves washing her hands in a sink between each color? Oh where oh where is that outmoded America, that decorous America where a woman had twenty-five pairs of gloves? Your kid blows your norms to kingdom come, Seymour, and you still think you know what life is?" Life is just a short period of time in which we are alive. Meredith Levov, 1964. "You wanted Ms. America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance - she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else to the United States of America? Well, you do now, big boy, thanks to your daughter. The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the sit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok! America amuck! Goddamn it, Seymour, goddamn you, if you were a father who loved his daughter," thunders Jerry into the phone - and the hell with the convalescent patients waiting in the corridor for him to check out their new valves and new arteries, to tell how grateful they are to him for their new lease on life, Jerry shouts away, shouts all he wants if it's shouting he wants to do, and the hell with the rules of hte hospital. He is one of the surgeons who shouts; if you disagree with him he shouts, if you cross him he shouts, if you just stand there and do nothing he shouts. He does not do what hospitals tell him to do or fathers expect him to do or wives want him to do, he does what he wants to do, does as he pleases, tells people just who and what he is every minute of the day so that nothing about him is a secret, not his opinions, his frustrations, his urges, neither his appetite nor his hatred. In the sphere of the will, he is unequivocating, uncompromising; he is king. He does not spend time regretting what he has or has not done or justifying to others how loathsome he can be. The message is simple: You will take me as I come - there is no choice. He cannot endure swallowing anything. He just lets loose. And these are two brothers, the same parents' sons, one for whom the aggression's been bred out, the other for whom the aggression's been bred in. "If you were a father who loved your daughter," Jerry shouts at the Swede, "you would never have left her in that room! You would have never let her out of your sight!

Our entire society’s based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything. Taking it for granted that that’s the whole point of life, never to be satisfied. If you’re perfectly happy with what you’ve got—specially if what you’ve got isn’t even all that spectacular—then you’re dangerous. You’re breaking all the rules, you’re undermining the sacred economy, you’re challenging every assumption that society’s built on. That’s why Rafe’s dad throws a mickey fit whenever Rafe says he’s happy where he is. The way he sees it, we’re all subversives. We’re traitors.

You cannot rest on your laurels as a sensual woman. Remember, your life is like that of an influencer. Meaning your yesterday's 'wow' quickly becomes your today's 'ordinary.' Your value comes from your creations. So as a sensual woman, what are you creating everyday in terms of your dressing style, your home decorating style, your meal preparation style, your romance style, your sexting, flirting or seducing style, even your style when it comes to connecting or making love to your intimate lover? Are you living at the edge of your sensual capabilities? A sensual lifestyle is essentially a value creation lifestyle. It's not for those who are lazy, complacent, unimaginative, prudish or frigid.

Milwaukee, Rebecca. Order and sobriety and a devotion to cleanliness that scours out the soul. Decent people doing their best to live decent lives, three's nothing really to hate them for, they do their jobs and maintain their property and love their children (most of the time); they take family vacations and visit relatives and decorate their houses for the holidays, collect some things and save up for other things; they're good people (most of them, most of the time), but if you were me, if you were young Pete Harris, you felt the modesty of it eroding you, depopulating you, all those little satisfactions and no big, dangerous ones; no heroism, no genius, no terrible yearning for anything you can't at least in theory actually have. If you were young lank-haired, pustule-plagued Pete Harris you felt like you were always about to expire from the safety of your life, its obdurate sensibleness, that Protestant love of the unexceptional; the eternal certainty of the faithful that flamboyance and the macabre are not just threatening but - worse - uninteresting.

A growth decorated in warmth of uniformity, wrapped as project. Your life's tomorrow thrust at your steps, crowning you architect. Moving steps upon steps, lines on lines without a defeat. Your mark you elegantly phase, all in niches so perfect. Societies you have preserved, great wills you have as elect. Hearts and minds of all human race, you have carved with your smile as your solemn affect.

You are the TEACHER. Some people are so stuck on what you did in the past, that they don't realize that you forgave yourself, matured, and graduated from what happened. Yet here they are stuck on that memory..wondering how you were able to move on. Time waits for no one and life keeps going. When haters try to remind you of your past, starve their attention with silence..Just realize that you don't have time to supervise adults. You got things to do and individuals to mentor. What was designed to crush you just strengthened your walk, put confidence in your talk, and encouraged you to be content with You. Their presence or opinion is only entertainment in the bleachers, tolerated decorations on the wall, and the uncelebrated clown at your events. Remember you are the teacher and they are the student...take charge of your classroom!!

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad’s garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who’s just landed a job with Marco Pierre White? There’s no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there’s a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It’s a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we’re wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating. It’s acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it’s a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever.

I read a wonderful passage in an interview with Carolyn Chute, the author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine, who was discussing rewriting: “I feel like a lot of time my writing is like having about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations. But no tree. You’re going, Where do I put this? Then they go, Okay, you can have a tree, but we’ll blindfold you and you gotta cut it down with a spoon.” This is how I’ve arrived at my plots a number of times. I would have all these wonderful shiny bulbs, each self-contained with nothing to hang them on. But I would stay with the characters, caring for them, getting to know them better and better, suiting up each morning and working as hard as I could, and somehow, mysteriously, I would come to know what their story was. Over and over I feel as if my characters know who they are, and what happens to them, and where they have been and where they will go, and what they are capable of doing, but they need me to write it down for them because their handwriting is so bad. Some

This yet another DIY project that's simple enough it doesn't need laid out, listed instructions.  Simply take the permanent marker of your choice and decorate your mug as you wish!  You can keep it simple or go all out with a variety of colors, themes, drawings, sayings, and more.  When your mug (or mugs) is decorated to your content, pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  It is recommended to hand-wash the mugs after use rather than pop them in the dishwasher to better preserve the decorations.

Vanity is by far my favorite of all sins, and the camera lens is the ultimate vanity mirror. The camera captures all moods and nuances; immortalizes the soft and silky continuum that is humanity. Those still life moments seem so fluid, so representative of continuity. They are a single moment captured, yet an eternity expressed. All your youth; all your ages, captured and expressed in a single click. Of all the indulgences, vanity is certainly my favorite which we should otherwise resist, but are inexplicably captivated by and addicted. What other animal would spend so much time pouting and preening for its reflection? Only humanity would participate in such self-adoration. You would think we have the most colorful feathers or softest of manes. Rather, we are a naked biped that feels incomplete without some decorative element, accessory, or embellishment of the self. We are intoxicated by the image of the body, no different than we are seduced by fine wines, foods, or mind altering elements. We devour the skin, and peel away clothes as if they were the skin of some tropical fruit, covering a colorful and juicy interior. We hunt for bodily pleasures, and collect them as prizes; show them off in social situations as if our companions were some sort of extended adornment to ourselves. We are revealed in our sensuality. To touch beneath the surface; to connect beyond facades, that unattainable discourse between individuals is put tentatively within reach in intimacy. To capture those moments is to capture the essence of what makes us human, and what ultimately sets us above and aside from the rest of nature. Capturing humanity in its most extravagant expressions is intoxicating. Vanity is by far my favorite sin, and it is an endless tale as infinite as humanity. Every person is but a stitch in a giant tapestry.

My tattoos are permanent; it’s just my body that’s temporary. So is yours. We’re only here on earth for a short while, so I decided a long time ago that I wanted to decorate myself as playfully as I can, while I still have time.” I love this so much, I can’t even tell you. Because—like Eileen—I also want to live the most vividly decorated temporary life that I can. I don’t just mean physically; I mean emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. I don’t want to be afraid of bright colors, or new sounds, or big love, or risky decisions, or strange experiences, or weird endeavors, or sudden changes, or even failure.

It used to be that when I made mistakes like this or came close to losing my life, I would just call Miguel. He'd drop it all to come to me—his movies, media engagements no matter how big they were, and even his criminal activities went on hold for me. It made me think he cared. Miguel canceled an appearance on the Dave Letterman show just because he called me and thought my voice sounded like something was wrong. He directed his gaze to the bruises decorating my face. “You said you weren't hurt.” With those big arms, he picked me up and slammed the door behind us. “When I ask you if you're okay, you tell me the truth.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." -- Said by Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot Indian Chief. This last entry was written in red ink and decorated with a border of green-ink stars; the anthologist wished to emphasize its "personal significance." "A breath of a buffalo in the wintertime" -- that exactly evoked his view of life. Why worry? What was there to "Sweat about"? Man was nothing, a mist, a shadow absorbed by shadows. But damn it, you do worry, scheme, fret over your fingernails and the warnings of hotel managements.

This is just one version of how the world of successful people actually works. But social capital is all around us. Those who tap into it and use it prosper. Those who don’t are running life’s race with a major handicap. This is a serious problem for kids like me. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I didn’t know when I got to Yale Law School: That you needed to wear a suit to a job interview. That wearing a suit large enough to fit a silverback gorilla was inappropriate. That a butter knife wasn’t just decorative (after all, anything that requires a butter knife can be done better with a spoon or an index finger). That pleather and leather were different substances. That your shoes and belt should match. That certain cities and states had better job prospects. That going to a nicer college brought benefits outside of bragging rights. That finance was an industry that people worked in. Mamaw always resented the hillbilly stereotype—the idea that our people were a bunch of slobbering morons. But the fact is that I was remarkably ignorant of how to get ahead. Not knowing things that many others do often has serious economic consequences. It cost me a job in college (apparently Marine Corps combat boots and khaki pants aren’t proper interview attire) and could have cost me a lot more in law school if I hadn’t had a few people helping me every step of the way.

You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able, though not without great labour and effort, to pay the rent. You are earning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. How are you going to furnish it, how are you going to decorate it? With whom are you going to share it, and upon what terms? These, I think are questions of the utmost importance and interest. For the first time in history you are able to ask them; for the first time you are able to decide for yourselves what the answers should be. —Virginia Woolf, “Professions for Women,” 1931

Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you? That was how I felt the first time I stood in the astronaut garden at OCA PNW. Is it still there? Do you know it? Every OCA campus had – has, please let it be has – one: a circular enclave, walled by smooth white stone that towered up and up until it abruptly cut off, definitive as the end of an atmosphere, making room for the sky above. Stretching up from the ground, standing in neat rows and with an equally neat carpet of microclover in between, were trees, one for every person who’d taken a trip off Earth on an OCA rocket. It didn’t matter where you from, where you trained, where your spacecraft launched. When someone went up, every OCA campus planted a sapling. The trees are an awesome sight, but bear in mind: the forest above is not the garden’s entry point. You enter from underground. I remember walking through a short tunnel and into a low-lit domed chamber that possessed nothing but a spiral staircase leading upward. The walls were made of thick glass, and behind it was the dense network you find below every forest. Roots interlocking like fingers, with gossamer fungus sprawled symbiotically between, allowing for the peaceful exchange of carbon and nutrients. Worms traversed roads of their own making. Pockets of water and pebbles decorated the scene. This is what a forest is, after all. Don’t believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence. As I stood contemplating the roots, a hidden timer triggered, and the lights faded out. My breath went with it. The glass was etched with some kind of luminescent colourant, invisible when the lights were on, but glowing boldly in the dark. I moved closer, and I saw names – thousands upon thousands of names, printed as small as possible. I understood what I was seeing without being told. The idea behind Open Cluster Astronautics was simple: citizen-funded spaceflight. Exploration for exploration’s sake. Apolitical, international, non-profit. Donations accepted from anyone, with no kickbacks or concessions or promises of anything beyond a fervent attempt to bring astronauts back from extinction. It began in a post thread kicked off in 2052, a literal moonshot by a collective of frustrated friends from all corners – former thinkers for big names gone bankrupt, starry-eyed academics who wanted to do more than teach the past, government bureau members whose governments no longer existed. If you want to do good science with clean money and clean hands, they argued, if you want to keep the fire burning even as flags and logos came down, if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.

We've taken it away too much, the funeral people take over. No. Let people bury their own." "Do you think it helps people to go through the process and be intimately involved?" "Yes of course, of course!" It's the most emphatic Steve has been about anything. "Keep the body at home, put it on the dining table, let the kids sleep under the table, paint the coffin, decorate it, eat. When my brother died we had fights over the coffin drinking whiskey. I remember one brother pounding Bill's coffin 'Oh you bastard!' It was our lives. We carried the coffin, we filled in the hole. I used to work in the garden as a boy with my father. And I dug the hole to put his plants in and filled in the hole. In the end we put Dad into the ground and I helped my brothers fill in the hole. We need to do it ourselves." "Why do you think it helps to have that involvement?" "It's our responsibility, it's not to help, it's enabling us to grieve, it's enabling us to go through it together. Otherwise it's taken away and whoosh - it's gone. And you can't grieve. You've got to feel, you've got to touch, you've got to be there." Steve is passionate. He reaches into his bag to pull out something to show me. It's an old yellowing newspaper clipping. The caption reads 'Devastation: a woman in despair at the site of the blasts near the Turkey-Syrian border'. The photograph is a woman, she has her arms open to the sky and she is wailing, her head thrown back. "I pray in front of that" Steve tells me as I look at it. "That's a wonderful photo of the pain of our world. I don't know if she's lost relatives or what's blown up. You have a substance to your life if you've felt pain, you've got understanding, that's where compassion is, it makes you a deeper richer human being.

The thing I remember from the Letters Page in those antique days was the way the OBs signed off. There was Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely, and I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant. But the ones I always looked for - and which I took to be the true sign of an Old Bastard - simply ended like this: Yours etc. And then the newspaper drew even more attention to the sign-off by printing it: Yours &c. Yours &c. I used to muse about that. What did it mean? Where did it come from? I imagined some bespatted captain of industry dictating his OB’s views to his secretary for transmission to the Newspaper of Record which he doubtless referred to with jocund familiarity as ‘The Thunderer’. When his oratorical belch was complete, he would say ‘Yours, etc,’ which Miss ffffffolkes would automatically transcribe into, ‘I have the honour to be, sir, one of the distinguished Old Bastards who could send you the label off a tin of pilchards and you would still print it above this my name,’ or whatever, and then it would be, ‘Despatch this instanter to The Thunderer, Miss ffffffolkes.’ But one day Miss ffffffolkes was away giving a handjob to the Archbishop of York, so they sent a temp. And the temp wrote Yours, etc, just as she heard it and The Times reckoned the OB captain a very gusher of wit, but decided to add their own little rococo touch by compacting it further to &c., whereupon other OBs followed the bespatted lead of the captain of industry, who claimed all the credit for himself. There we have it: Yours &c. Whereupon, as an ardent damp-ear of sixteen, I took to the parodic sign-off: Love, &c. Not all my correspondents unfailingly seized the reference, I regret to say. One demoiselle hastened her own de-accessioning from the museum of my heart by informing me with hauteur that use of the word etc., whether in oral communication or in carven prose, was common and vulgar. To which I replied, first, that ‘the word’ et cetera was not one but two words, and that the only common and vulgar thing about my letter - given the identity of its recipient - was affixing to it the word that preceded etc. Alack, she didn’t respond to this observation with the Buddhistic serenity one might have hoped. Love, etc. The proposition is simple. The world divides into two categories: those who believe that the purpose, the function, the bass pedal and principal melody of life is love, and that anything else - everything else - is merely an etc.; and those, those unhappy many, who believe primarily in the etc. of life, for whom love, however agreeable, is but a passing flurry of youth, the pattering prelude to nappy-duty, but not something as solid, steadfast and reliable as, say, home decoration. This is the only division between people that counts.

At six years old we didn't have any money; there was my mother, my brother and I. We had a deadbeat dad; left us before we were two, but she took us at Christmas-time to downtown Los Angeles. We had little cars going around in circles, it was pretty cool, and decorations in the window. She gave my brother and I a dime and told us, "Boys whole half of it each, give it to the man ringing the bell in the bucket." We put it in this bucket, we said, "Mom, why did we give that man a dime? That's like two soda pops." This is 1951, two soda pops, three candy bars. And mom said, "Boys, that's the Salvation Army. They take care of people that have no place to live and no food. And we don't have a lot of money, but we can afford a dime this year. Boys, always remember in life: give a little something to those in need, they'll always be somebody that's not as well-off as you are. No matter where you are or how far down you are, try and help someone along the way." It stuck with me.

I threw my binder of materials down on our apartment’s floral couch. “Seriously, pink is a neutral color! And what’s elegant about navy blue? No one ever says, ‘Hey, you know what’s elegant? The Navy!’” Arianna rolled her dead guys. “There is nothing neutral about pink. They need a color that looks good as a background to any shade of dress.” “What color clashes with pink?” “Orange?” “Well, if anyone shows up in an orange dress, she deserves to clash. Yuck.” “Chill out. You can do a lot with navy.” I sank down into the couch next to her. “I guess. I could do navy with silver accents. Stars?” “Yawn.” “Snowflakes?” “Gee, now you’re getting creative for a winter formal.” I ignored her tone, as usual. I was just glad she was here. She’d been gone a lot lately. “Hmm . . . maybe something softer. Like a water and mist theme?” I asked. “I . . . actually kind of like that.” “Wanna help me with the sketches?” She leaned forward and turned on Easton Heights. “Decorating a stupid dance is all yours. You’re the one who decided to be more involved in your ‘normal life.’ I’d prefer to be sleeping six feet under.” “This is probably a bad time to mention I also might have signed up to help with costumes for the spring play. And since I know nothing about sewing, I kind of maybe signed you up as a volunteer aide.” She sighed, running one glamoured corpse hand through her spiky red and black hair. “I am going to kill you in your sleep.” “As long as it doesn’t hurt.” We hummed along to the opening theme, which ended when the door banged open and my boyfriend walked through, shrugging out of his coat and beaming as he dropped a duffel bag. “Free! What did I miss?” Lend asked, his cheeks rosy from the cold and his smile lighting up his watery eyes beneath his dark glamour ones. “I lost the vote on color schemes for the dance, the last episode of Easton Heights before they go into reruns is back on in three minutes, and Arianna is going to murder me in my sleep.” “As long as it doesn’t hurt.” “That’s what I said!

I’m in mid-passage, darling,” he said, beginning to talk like a queen so as to demystify himself, so as to destroy the very qualities John Schaeffer had fallen in love with, “I’m menopausal, change of life, hot flashes, you know. Wondering how much longer I can go without hair transplants and whether Germaine Monteil really works on the crow’s feet. I’ve had it, I’ve been through the mill, I’m a jaded queen. But you, dear, you have that gift whose loss the rest of life is just a funeral for—why else do you suppose those gray-haired gentlemen,” he said, nodding at his friends on the floor, “make money, buy houses, take trips around the world? Why else do they dwindle into a little circle of close friends, a farm upstate, and become in the end mere businessmen, shop-owners, decorators who like their homes filled with flowers and their friends flying in on Air France and someone pretty like you at the dinner table? It is all, my dear, because they are no longer young. Because they no longer live in that magic world that is yours for ten more years. Adolescence in America ends at thirty.

It was this motley band of modest peeps and plovers on the beach who reminded me of the human beings I loved best - the ones who didn't fit in. These birds may or may not have been capable of emotion, but the way they looked, beleaguered there, few in number, my outcast friends, was how I felt. I'd been told that it was bad to anthropomorphize, but I could no longer remember why. It was, in any case, anthropomorphic only to see yourself in other species, not to see them in yourself. To be hungry all the time, to be mad for sex, to not believe in global warming, to be shortsighted, to live without thought of your grandchildren, to spend half your life on personal grooming, to be perpetually on guard, to be compulsive, to be habit-bound, to be avid, to be unimpressed with humanity, to prefer your own kind: these were all ways of being like a bird. Later in the evening, in posh, necropolitan Naples, on a sidewalk outside a hotel whose elevator doors were decorated with huge blowups of cute children and the monosyllabic injunction SMILE, I spotted two disaffected teenagers, two little chicks, in full Goth plumage, and I wished that I could introduce them to the brownish-gray misfits on the beach.

Everything felt like a stage set: she kept viewing herself as if from the outside. Instead of just acting, just doing, just running or speaking or playing or collecting, she would feel this sense of externalization: And so, a voice inside her head would comment, you are running. Do you need to run? Where are you going? You’re picking up that rock but do you want it, do you really need it, are you going to carry it home? Certain things she’d always loved, like lighting the dinner-table candles or stirring a cake mix alongside her mother or sitting up on the roof to play her accordion or decorating the Christmas tree or collecting the eggs in the morning, felt suddenly hollow, distant, staged. It was as if someone had dimmed the lights, as if she was viewing her existence from behind a glass wall. And her body! Some mornings she woke and it was as if lead weights had been attached to her limbs by some ill-meaning fairy. Even if she had the urge to walk across the paddock to feed the neighbors’ horses—which she hardly ever did anymore, she didn’t know why—she wouldn’t have the energy, the sap in her, to do it. She wanted it returned to her, Marithe did, that sense of security in her life, of certainty, of knowing who she was and what she was about. Would it ever come back?

tuff. Almost all of us have it in abundance. What can we do with it? One of my favorite hideaways is an old faithful: the cardboard box. Cover it with festive Contact paper and stuff away. Or hang a shelf about a foot from the ceiling, and use it to store items you don't want sitting around. It's also great in a child's room for toys that aren't played with often. Get old school lockers or trunks, paint them, and use them for storage. Clutter around your house can cause clutter in your emotional and spiritual life too, so clean up and spend your best time enjoying life. re you reluctant to share your home with others? Maybe it's not your dream house or you don't have the money right now to decorate the way you'd like to. But you know what? It's not about having a perfect home. It's about your spirit of hospitality, your willingness to share your home and your life with others. Don't wait until everything is perfect because that will never happen. Focus on making your home cozy and comfortable. Your place will always be at its most beautiful when you use it to warm hearts. aking time for your husband doesn't have to be difficult or a hassle. With a little imagination and the desire to make him happy, you can make him feel loved. Are you thinking, Oh great, now Emilie 's telling me what I'm doing wrong with my husband. Not at all! I just want to give you a few ideas to help you let your

If there was anything really wrong with Shady Hill, anything that you could put your finger on, it was the fact that the village had no public library – no foxed copies of Pascal, smelling of cabbage; no broken sets of Dostoevski and George Eliot; no Galsworthy, even; no Barrie and no Bennett. This was the chief concern of the Village Council during Marcie’s term. The library partisans were mostly newcomers to the village; the opposition whip was Mrs Selfredge, a member of the Council and a very decorous woman, with blue eyes of astonishing brilliance and inexpressiveness. Mrs Selfredge often spoke of the chosen quietness of their life. ‘We never go out,’ she would say, but in such a way that she seemed to be expressing not some choice but a deep vein of loneliness. She was married to a wealthy man much older than herself, and they had no children; indeed, the most indirect mention of sexual fact brought a deep color to Mrs Selfredge’s face. She took the position that a library belonged in that category of public service that might make Shady Hill attractive to a development. This was not blind prejudice. Carsen Park, the next village, had let a development inside its boundaries, with disastrous results to the people already living there. Their taxes had been doubled, their schools had been ruined. That there was any connection between reading and real estate was disputed by the partisans of the library, until a horrible murder – three murders, in fact – took place in one of the cheese-box houses in the Carsen Park development, and the library project was buried with the victims.

You’re called to come out of the crowd. You’re called to be counter-culture. You’re not called to live in this world, be of this world-you’re called to come out. News flash-the crowd is stupid. The crowd has no identity at all. We just do what everyone else is doing. “ “When you decide, you divide the enemy and his tactics, and his distractions towards your life. The moment you actually conqueror the urge, you get stronger and the urges get weaker. But it will never happen, until you determine “I am not like the crowd, I’m coming out of the crowd. I’m apart of the minority. Ruth is determined to choose right over easy. You want to know what the right thing is? The right thing is God’s word, and it’s not just about knowing it, it’s about applying it to your life!” “Choose right over easy.” “See, when you come out of the crowd, and when you say, and when you say with the crowd, it’s all crowded here, and when you say I’m going to be apart of the minority, but let my commitments stand. Hey Naomi, you don’t know me, I made a commitment, and my commitment matters. You can tell me I’m relieved of my responsibility, but my vow is my vow. And I’m not going to be swayed, just because the circumstances have changed.” “Stay on the path, because you don’t know what lies ahead of you. Because you’re not God. All He asks you and I is to put one foot in front of another. To keep on moving. Keep on going. Commit to God’s way, and watch God make a way, when there seems to be no way. “ “Being single is awesome! When you’re single, everything in your house, you own all of it. All the money in your bank account, belongs to you.” :) “I think one of the hardest things, that people don’t talk about is that you get to decorate your house exactly how you want to do it.” “The older I get, the more I realize that people are borderline obsessed with what’s next…but if you’re not careful you’ll get so obsessed with what’s next, you won’t care about what is now. It doesn’t take a lot of use to realize, that if you’re graduating from high school, everyone’s going-“where you going to college?” If you’re in college, everyone’s like “where are you going to work?” You work for a little while as a single person, and it’s like “when are you going to get married.” You get married, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have kids?” You have a kid, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have more kids.” “Singleness is not a stop sign. It’s not a period, it’s not a comma. Your life doesn’t begin when you get married. A boy-friend or a girl-friend doesn’t make your life start happening. Life is happening. The question is, “are you happening?” You don’t have to live boring or be bored to be single. A life filled with Jesus is full of adventure. It’s filled with spontaneity, it’s full of ups and downs. And it’s time for you to get on mission. Let me just be loud and clear and frank with it-Jesus is a better partner than any spouse could ever dream of being.” “The truth is, sometimes sitting on the path can be just as detrimental as getting off the path. You’re called to move forward, you’re called to grow, you’re called to become.” “Be the minority, because the majority is overrated.” -Rich Wilkerson Jr., Single and Secure

[What to do with] Unwanted Gifts This can be a very sensitive issue for many people. However, here’s my very best advice on what to do with unwanted presents: get rid of them. Here’s why. Things you really love have a strong, vibrant energy field around them, whereas unwanted presents have uneasy, conflicting energies attached to them that drain you rather than energize you. They actually create an energetic gloom in your home. The very thought of giving them the elbow is horrifying to some people. “But what about when Aunt Jane comes to visit and that expensive decoration she gave us isn’t on the mantelpiece?“ Whose mantlepiece is it anyway? If you love the item, fine, but if you keep it in your home out of fear and obligation, you were giving your power away. Every time you walk into the room and see that object, your energy levels drop. And don’t think that out of sight, out of mind will work. You can’t keep that gift in the cupboard and just bring it out when Aunt Jane is due to visit. Your subconscious mind still knows you have it on the premises. If you have enough of these unwanted presents around you, your energy network looks like a sieve, with vitality running out all over the place. Remember, it’s the thought that counts. You can appreciate being given the gift without necessarily having to keep it. Try adopting a whole different philosophy about presents. When you give something to someone, give it with love and let it go. Allow the recipient complete freedom to do whatever he wants with it. If the thing he can most useful he do is put it straight in the trash or give it to someone else, fine (you wouldn’t want him to clutter up his space with unwanted presents would you?). Give others this freedom and you will begin to experience more freedom in your own life too.

Do me a favor,” he said to her, “and stay close to me at all times. If I tell you to get down or to run like hell, you do it. No questions, you just do it, you got that?” A small furrow creased her perfect brow. “I thought I was safe in this town.” “You are.” George shot Harry a what-are-you-doing look behind Alessandra’s back. Harry ignored him. “Humor me,” he told her. “Please? I know you don’t believe this, but Trotta’s a son of a bitch, and he’s known for his persistence.” George opened the door. “Harry just wants an excuse to put his arm around you.” Alessandra glanced quickly at Harry, surprise lighting her eyes. Surprise and something else. Something as hot and electric as lightning. It brought her to life so completely and made her exquisitely beautiful despite the heavy makeup. But as instantly as it appeared, it was gone. Quaffed and shoved back inside. Somewhere down the line she’d learned to hide any excitement, any life, any passion. Someone hadn’t wanted her to be anything more than a pretty bauble. A decorative but unobtrusive piece of art. George closed the door. “If you want, I’ll turn around and you two can kiss.” Harry eviscerated George with his eyes. “George imagines there’s some kind of weird attraction thing between us, Al. But George is wrong. George is dead wrong.” He muttered under his breath, “In fact, George is dead.” He looked at Alessandra. “I’m sorry if he offended you.” “He didn’t. I’m aware that you’re not . . . that we’re not . . . I’m aware.” “Still, that was completely inappropriate.” Harry looked at George again, who was totally amused. “Stupendously, asshole-ishly inappropriate.” “I think we’re all a little punchy.” The ice princess had been replaced by someone softer, someone less certain. Someone he had far more trouble resisting. Someone he did want to kiss. And George knew it, too. The son of a bitch was grinning at him, damn him.

Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left even the faintest trace of itself behind. "Greed of money," he replied, "has brought about these unaccountable changes. In the good old times, when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered. Then it was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk unknown in stone or shrub. That he might understand the movements of heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore, that his faculties might be equal to invention. Turn to the sculptors if you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir. And we, sodden with wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too. What has become of logic? of astronomy? Where is the exquisite road to wisdom? Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence or bathe in the fountain of wisdom? And they do not pray for good health and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another, if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety! The Senate itself, the exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter himself with spoils'. Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever created by those crazy little Greek fellows, Apelles and Phydias!

He just wanted a walk- and a few books. It had been an age since he'd even had free time to read, let alone do so for pleasure. But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda. Jesminda had been all laughter and mischief, too wild and free to be contained by the country life that she'd been born into. She had teased him, taunted him- seduced him so thoroughly that he hadn't wanted anything but her. She'd seen him not as a High Lord's seventh son, but as a male. Had loved him without question, without hesitation. She had chosen him. Elain had been... thrown at him. He glanced toward the tea service spread on a low-lying table nearby. 'I'm going to assume that one of those cups belongs to your sister.' Indeed, there was a discarded book in the viper's usual chair. Cauldron help the male who wound up shackled to her. 'Do you mind if I held myself to the other?' He tried to sound casual- comfortable. Even as his heart raced and raced, so swift he thought he might vomit on the very expensive, very old carpet. From Sangravah, if the patterns and rich dyes were any indication. Rhysand was many things, but he certainly had good taste. The entire place had been decorated with thought and elegance, with a penchant for comfort over stuffiness. He didn't want to admit he liked it. Didn't want to admit he found the city beautiful. That the circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family... It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be. An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug. Forced his hands to be steady while he poured himself a cup of tea and sat in the chair opposite Nesta's vacated one. 'There's a plate of biscuits. Would you like one?' He didn't expect her to answer, and he gave himself all of one more minute before he'd rise from this chair and leave, hopefully avoiding Nesta's return. But sunlight on gold caught his eye- and Elain slowly turned from her vigil at the window. He had not seen her entire face since that day in Hybern. Then, it had been drawn and terrified, then utterly blank and numb, her hair plastered to her head, her lips blue with cold and shock. Looking at her now... She was pale, yes. The vacancy still glazing her features. But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully. She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once. But even as shame washed through him, the words, the sense chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours. Mate.

The temple was in a field of graves suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared and said: A melancholy autumn wind Blows through the world; the pampas grass waves As we drift to the moor, Drift to the sea. What can be done With the mind of a man That should be clear But though he is dressed up in a monk's robe, Just lets life pass him by? Such deep musings Made me uneasy, I could not sleep. Towards dawn I dozed off... I found myself surrounded by a group of skeletons, acting as they had when they were still alive. One skeleton came over to me and said: Memories Flee and Are no more. All are empty dreams Devoid of meaning. Violate the reality of things And babble about 'God' and 'the Buddha' And you will never find the true Way. Still breathing, You feel animated, So a corpse in a field Seems to be something Apart from you. If chunks of rock Can serve as a memento To the dead A better headstone Would be a simple tea-mortar. Humans are indeed frightful things. A single moon Bright and clear In an unclouded sky; Yet we still stumble In the world's darkness. This world Is but A fleeting dream So why be alarmed At its evanescence? The vagaries of life, Though painful, Teach us Not to cling To this floating world. Why do people Lavish decoration On this set of bones, Destined to disappear Without a trace? The original body Must return to Its original place. Do not search For what cannot be found. No one really knows The nature of birth Nor the true dwelling place. We return to the source And turn to dust. Many paths lead from The foot of the mountain, But at the peak We all gaze at the Single bright moon. If at the end of our journey There is no final Resting place, Then we need not fear Losing our Way. No beginning. No end. Our mind Is born and dies; The emptiness of emptiness! Relax, And the mind Runs wild; Control the world And you can cast it aside. Rain, hail, snow, and ice: All are different But when they fall They become to same water As the valley stream. The ways of proclaiming The Mind all vary, But the same heavenly truth Can be seen In each and every one. Cover your path With fallen pine needles So no one will be able To locate your True dwelling place. How vain, The endless funderals at the Cremation grounds of Mount Toribe! Don't the mourner realize That they will be next? 'Life is fleeeting!' We think at the sight Of smoke drifting from Mount Toribe, But when will we realize That we are in the same boat? All is in vain! This morning, A healthy friend; This evening, A wisp of cremation smoke. What a pity! Evening smoke from Mount Toribe Blown violently To and fro By the wind. When burned We become ashes, and earth when buried. Is it only our sins That remain behind? All the sins Committed In the Three Worlds Will fade away Together with me.

I stared through the front door at Barrons Books and Baubles, uncertain what surprised me more: that the front seating cozy was intact or that Barrons was sitting there, boots propped on a table, surrounded by piles of books, hand-drawn maps tacked to the walls. I couldn’t count how many nights I’d sat in exactly the same place and position, digging through books for answers, occasionally staring out the windows at the Dublin night, and waiting for him to appear. I liked to think he was waiting for me to show. I leaned closer, staring in through the glass. He’d refurnished the bookstore. How long had I been gone? There was my magazine rack, my cashier’s counter, a new old-fashioned cash register, a small flat-screen TV/DVD player that was actually from this decade, and a sound dock for my iPod. There was a new sleek black iPod Nano in the dock. He’d done more than refurnish the place. He might as well have put a mat out that said WELCOME HOME, MAC. A bell tinkled as I stepped inside. His head whipped around and he half-stood, books sliding to the floor. The last time I’d seen him, he was dead. I stood in the doorway, forgetting to breathe, watching him unfold from the couch in a ripple of animal grace. He crammed the four-story room full, dwarfed it with his presence. For a moment neither of us spoke. Leave it to Barrons—the world melts down and he’s still dressed like a wealthy business tycoon. His suit was exquisite, his shirt crisp, tie intricately patterned and tastefully muted. Silver glinted at his wrist, that familiar wide cuff decorated with ancient Celtic designs he and Ryodan both wore. Even with all my problems, my knees still went weak. I was suddenly back in that basement. My hands were tied to the bed. He was between my legs but wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He used his mouth, then rubbed himself against my clitoris and barely pushed inside me before pulling out, then his mouth, then him, over and over, watching my eyes the whole time, staring down at me. What am I, Mac? he’d say. My world, I’d purr, and mean it. And I was afraid that, even now that I wasn’t Pri-ya, I’d be just as out of control in bed with him as I was then. I’d melt, I’d purr, I’d hand him my heart. And I would have no excuse, nothing to blame it on. And if he got up and walked away from me and never came back to my bed, I would never recover. I’d keeping waiting for a man like him, and there were no other men like him. I’d have to die old and alone, with the greatest sex of my life a painful memory. So, you’re alive, his dark eyes said. Pisses me off, the wondering. Do something about that. Like what? Can’t all be like you, Barrons. His eyes suddenly rushed with shadows and I couldn’t make out a single word. Impatience, anger, something ancient and ruthless. Cold eyes regarded me with calculation, as if weighing things against each other, meditating—a word Daddy used to point out was the larger part of premeditation. He’d say, Baby, once you start thinking about it, you’re working your way toward it. Was there something Barrons was working his way toward doing? I shivered.

My darling son: depression at your age is more common than you might think. I remember it very strongly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when I was about twenty-six and felt like killing myself. I think the winter, the cold, the lack of sunshine, for us tropical creatures, is a trigger. And to tell you the truth, the idea that you might soon unpack your bags here, having chucked in all your European plans, makes your mother and me as happy as could be. You have more than earned the equivalent of any university 'degree' and you have used your time so well to educate yourself culturally and personally that if university bores you, it is only natural. Whatever you do from here on in, whether you write or don't write, whether you get a degree or not, whether you work for your mother, or at El Mundo, or at La Ines, or teaching at a high school, or giving lectures like Estanislao Zuleta, or as a psychoanalyst to your parents, sisters and relatives, or simply being Hector Abad Faciolince, will be fine. What matters is that you don't stop being what you have been up till now, a person, who simply by virtue of being the way you are, not for what you write or don't write, or for being brilliant or prominent, but just for being the way you are, has earned the affection, the respect, the acceptance, the trust, the love, of the vast majority of those who know you. So we want to keep seeing you in this way, not as a future great author, or journalist or communicator or professor or poet, but as the son, brother, relative, friend, humanist, who understands others and does not aspire to be understood. It does not matter what people think of you, and gaudy decoration doesn't matter, for those of us who know you are. For goodness' sake, dear Quinquin, how can you think 'we support you (...) because 'that boy could go far'? You have already gone very far, further than all our dreams, better than everything we imagined for any of our children. You should know very well that your mother's and my ambitions are not for glory, or for money, or even for happiness, that word that sounds so pretty but is attained so infrequently and for such short intervals (and maybe for that very reason is so valued), for all our children, but that they might at least achieve well-being, that more solid, more durable, more possible, more attainable word. We have often talked of the anguish of Carlos Castro Saavedra, Manuel Meija Vallejo, Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, and so many quasi-geniuses we know. Or Sabato or Rulfo, or even Garcia Marquez. That does not matter. Remember Goethe: 'All theory (I would add, and all art), dear friend, is grey, but only the golden tree of life springs ever green.' What we want for you is to 'live'. And living means many better things than being famous, gaining qualifications or winning prizes. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. Only now, when all that has passed, have I felt really happy. And part of that happiness is Cecilia, you, and all my children and grandchildren. Only the memory of Marta Cecilia tarnishes it. I believe things are that simple, after having gone round and round in circles, complicating them so much. We should do away with this love for things as ethereal as fame, glory, success... Well, my Quinquin, now you know what I think of you and your future. There's no need for you to worry. You are doing just fine and you'll do better, and when you get to my age or your grandfather's age and you can enjoy the scenery around La Ines that I intend to leave to all of you, with the sunshine, heat and lush greenery, and you'll see I was right. Don't stay there longer than you feel you can. If you want to come back I'll welcome you with open arms. And if you regret it and want to go back again, we can buy you another return flight. A kiss from your father.

What Are The Main Advantages of PVC Doors They usually have a clean floor with bright paint-free in order that they'll keep away from the discharge of any toxic gas within the air which might be very dangerous to human physique especially if they use the decorative paint. PVC doorways have another advantage in that they are surroundings pleasant because they are often recycled after their life is other to other varieties by melting them and then remolding them.In addition to the above advantages of PVC doors, you find them to be good for your own home as a result of they are very simple to put in in addition to simple to maintain. Moreover, PVC upvc doors ipswich doorways are straightforward to take care of. As a result of the truth that PVC is manufactured from plastic, there are much less possibilities of injury from other parts. Cleaning them just requires a wet piece of cloth with little cleaning liquid.The opposite most important advantage of those PVC doorways is that they're climate proof. They aren't affected by presence of extra water or moisture since they don't take up any amount. They can not warp in case of direct heating. Also, they do not lose their colour when exposed to direct daylight and this has led to their increased utilization worldwide. Another good motive why PVC doorways are fashionable is that, under regular circumstances, they are generally straightforward to take care of. Cleaning a PVC door is relatively easy to do. All it's good to wipe its surface clean and it'll look pretty much as good as new. Furthermore, PVC doors don't require stripping or repainting, and are typically quite sturdy. The identical can't be said of conventional wooden doorways, significantly those which can be sensitive to moisture and chemical compounds. Traditional wooden doorways require cautious maintenance to be able to preserve their appearance and wonder. Initials PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride which is a chemistry time period used to discuss with a certain type of material which may be very durable, has great insulating traits and does not emit any harmful fumes under regular conditions. Its chemical properties could be modified so that it turn out to be very robust and stiff like in a PVC door and even very flexible like in an inflatable swimming pool. PVC is getting used all around the world due to its power. The following are the advantages of PVC doorways; PVC door does not require upkeep, repainting or stripping and you solely need to wipe its floor occasionally for it to look good. Compared to timber door body which shrink and develop over time, PVC door body often remain steady as it is 100% water proof. Whereas doors from other materials discolor and fade if they're exposed to direct daylight, PVC’s one does not fade or discolor as a result of it is extremely UV resistance and thus it can remain looking new for a very long time.

Words of Wisdom Approach each day with positive thoughts. Believe in the goodness of others. Create a better world by being a friend. Decorate your life with beautiful things. Educate yourself through the teaching of others.

ant an easy and wonderful tradition for you and your children that will provide years of joy? Create a prayer page for each of your family members-husband, children, grandchildren, friends of the heart, and keep them in a notebook. I asked each of the special people in my life to trace his or her handprint on a white sheet of paper. Then I encouraged them, especially the children, to decorate their pages. When I pray for these people, I put my hand on top of their handprints. These handprints are great visual aids. I know the power of prayer doesn't depend on handprints, but they unite the other person and me in a special way. f you're going to complain, do it creatively. You heard me right. Read the psalms and use them for comfort. . .but also think of them as an outlet for your feelings. Read them aloud like they are your own words. Get a journal and pour out your feelings on paper. Start your entry with "Dear God" and go from there. If you're musical, try singing the blues to God. That's what spirituals are all about. Invite God

By meditating in the Word day and night we are nurturing the Word and giving it the right conditions to take root and begin to produce fruit in our lives. Only then will we be able to stand strong and come out victorious in every storm of life. Your bible is a book full of seeds. You have two choices. You can plant those seeds in your heart every day or place them (bibles) on the mantle for decoration. When I was working in my yard some days it seemed nothing was happening, but I knew the seeds were working beneath the ground.

I wonder if the real measure of "home" is the degree to which you can leave it alone. Maybe appreciating a house means knowing when to stop decorating. Maybe you've never really lived there until you've thrown its broken pieces in the garbage. Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn't the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that's actually the easy part. The hard part is what's right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life. The hard part is learning not just how to be but mastering the nearly impossible art of how to be at home.

A water-bearer in India had two large pots hanging at the ends of a pole that he carried across his neck. One of the pots was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house. The other pot had a crack in it, and by the time it reached its destination, it was only half full. Every day for two years the water-bearer delivered only one and one-half pots of water to the master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments—perfect to the end for which it was made. The poor little cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfections and miserable that it could accomplish only half of what it had been designed to do. After two years of what the imperfect pot perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water-bearer and said, “I am ashamed of myself and I want to apologize to you.” “Why?” asked the water-bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “Well, for these past two years, I have been able to deliver only half a load of water each day because this crack in my side allows water to leak out the whole way back to the master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all this work without getting the full value of your efforts,” the pot said. The water-bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot noticed the beautiful wildflowers on the side of the path. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because half of its load had leaked out once again. Then the water-bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path and not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I’ve always known about your flaw and took advantage of it by planting flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day as we walked back from the stream, you watered those seeds, and for two years I have picked these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just what you are, he would not have had this beauty to grace his house.”1 Like that cracked pot, you too can accomplish wonderful things. It doesn’t matter that you have flaws and limitations. Don’t let what you perceive to be a weakness keep you from taking bold steps inspired by hope. 2 Corinthians 12:10 says: “… When I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).” Isn’t that comforting to know? Even when you’re weak, you’re strong because God is with you. He is using every part of your life—even the cracks—to create something beautiful. Get Your Hopes Up!

The same is true for the practice of feng shui. It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

Still, to me, the bottom line wasn’t about the Dark Book at all. It was about uncovering the details of my sister’s secret life. I didn’t want the creepy thing. I just wanted to know who or what had killed Alina, and I wanted him or it dead. Then I wanted to go home to my pleasantly provincial po-dunk little town in steamy southern Georgia and forget about everything that had happened to me while I was in Dublin. The Fae didn’t visit Ashford? Good. I’d marry a local boy with a jacked-up Chevy pickup truck, Toby Keith singing “Who’s Your Daddy?” on the radio, and eight proud generations of honest, hardworking Ashford ancestors decorating his family tree. Short of essential shopping trips to Atlanta, I’d never leave home again. But

Shelley says I have no feelings. I say, the trouble with being a man is that if you are a man you have to get on with it and save the feelings for when you’re ready to deal with it. So far in my life I’ve never been ready. I

Your home should stay sleek and organized all year round and you shouldn’t need decorations to change your mood or start the holiday spirit.   Personalized

the address before moving on to the next letter, dated February of 1935. Her first words were to ask why he had never written to her. She supposed that he was very busy, or that the letter might have been lost in the post. She wrote her address again in large letters decorated with colored pencils and lined with tiny blue flowers. She was doing well and enjoying her life in London. The letter was short. She asked that he write back again at the end and that he might even come to see her that summer. He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of her as she wrote the letter. He ripped open the next envelope. This letter was only a few words. May 12, 1935 Dear Christopher, Please reply to this. I am worried. I can’t come back to see you but wish that I could. Your father told me that you are trying to move on, but please just let me know that you are all right, that you don’t hate me.

wanted Tamera to value herself in terms of what she could do, both with her mind and with her body, not in terms of how decorative she was.

Let the Divine Graces of Simplicity, Order, Harmony, and Beauty accompany you. Really look at your surroundings—your furniture and decorative accessories. Give thanks for your home exactly as it exists today.

If I’m being honest with myself, it’s because I never felt like I was someone worth loving or worth having around. Like I was more trouble than I was worth.” “And why do you feel that way?” “Because, I don’t have much to contribute to society, Charlie. I’m not smart. I’m not decorated. I’m not educated. I’m not anything that anyone aspires to be. I’m not important.” “But how do you know? Is your life over already?” “Well, no. It’s not.” “Then how do you already know all that about yourself and your life if your life isn’t over yet?” “I guess I’m basing it off of who I was before and who I am now.” “Do you want to be and stay that same person, Bernie?” “Well, of course not.” “Then change it. You have the power to change who you are to be the best version of yourself. But you have to want to do it, Bern. No one can do it for you. You also have to believe that you deserve better if you’re ever going to get anything better out of life.

My dad was always tough to please. He thought pushing me would make me a man, but I was never man enough. All I ever wanted from him was a word of praise, a proud smile.” “What about your mother?” He smiled tenderly. “God, she was incredible. She always loved him, no matter what. And I didn’t have to do anything to make her think I was a hero. If I fell flat on my face she’d just beam and say, ‘Did you see that great routine of Ian’s? What a genius!’ When I was in that musical, she thought I was the best thing to hit Chico, but my dad asked me if I was gay.” He chuckled. “My mom was the best-natured, kindest, most generous woman who ever lived. Always positive. And faithful?” He laughed, shaking his head. “My dad could be in one of his negative moods where nothing was right—the dinner sucked, the ball game wasn’t coming in clear on the TV, the battery on the car was giving out, he hated work, the neighbors were too loud… And my mom, instead of saying, ‘Why don’t you grow the fuck up, you old turd,’ she would just say, ‘John, I bet I have something that will turn your mood around—I made a German chocolate cake.’” Marcie smiled. “She sounds wonderful.” “She was. Wonderful. Even while she was fighting cancer, she was so strong, so awesome that I kept thinking it was going to be all right, that she’d make it. As for my dad, he was always impossible to please, impossible to impress. I really thought I’d grown through it, you know? I got to the point real early where I finally understood that that’s just the kind of guy he was. He never beat me, he hardly even yelled at me. He didn’t get drunk, break up the furniture, miss work or—” “But what did he do, Ian?” she asked gently. He blinked a couple of times. “Did you know I got medals for getting Bobby out of Fallujah?” She nodded. “He got medals, too.” “My old man was there when I was decorated. He stood nice and tall, polite, and told everyone he knew about the medals. But he never said jack to me. Then when I told him I was getting out of the Marine Corps, he told me I was a fuckup. That I didn’t know a good thing when I had it. And he said…” He paused for a second. “He said he’d never been so ashamed of me in his whole goddamn life and if I did that—got out—I wasn’t his son.” Instead of crumbling into tears on his behalf, she leaned against him, stroked his cheek a little and smiled. “So—he was the same guy his whole stupid life.” Ian felt a slight, melancholy smile tug at his lips. “The same guy. One miserable son of a bitch.” “There’s

I went away and drew up a list of all the things you wouldn’t have to suffer if you weren’t here anymore. It was something like this:   No more illness, no more struggling to be healthy. No struggling – period. No loss: you would never have to grieve the passing of another. Heartbreak! How lovely not to have to wake in the morning with a heart full of fragments and eyes full of grit. No ageing – here’s a universal truth: the older you get, the more life loses its sparkle, loses a little of the magic. The endless, wonderful possibilities of youth where everything and anything feel possible – that fades . . .   But then I considered all the things you would not experience:   Falling hopelessly in love. Your wedding day. Knowing the blessing of a child. Seeing the sunset in places far and wide. Earning the right in old age to become eccentric, even cantankerous. Getting properly drunk on champagne. Sleeping in a meadow, by a brook. Decorating a room. Waking wrapped in the arms of the one you love. Fresh caught lobster, eaten on a dock. Being old enough to know better, but still laughing so hard at nothing much that you feel dizzy with happiness.   Oh, my darling, this list is endless, it stretches on for infinity . . .   And

Finally, every society develops a system of aesthetic standards that get manifested in everything from decorative art, music, and dance to the architecture and planning of buildings and communities. There are many different ways we could examine artistic systems. One way of thinking about it is to observe the degree to which a society's aesthetics reflect clear lines and solid boundaries versus fluid ones. Many Western cultures favor clean, tight boundaries whereas many Eastern cultures prefer more fluid, indiscriminate lines. In most Western homes, kitchen drawers are organized so that forks are with forks and knives are with knives. The walls of a room are usually uniform in color, and when a creative shift in color does occur, it usually happens at a corner or along a straight line midway down the wall. Pictures are framed with straight edges, molding covers up seams in the wall, and lawns are edged to form a clear line between the sidewalk and the lawn. Why? Because we view life in terms of classifications, categories, and taxonomies. And cleanliness itself is largely defined by the degree of order that exists. It has little to do with sanitation and far more to do with whether things appear to be in their proper place. Maintaining boundaries is essential in the Western world; otherwise categories begin to disintegrate and chaos sets in.13 Most Americans want dandelion-free lawns and roads with clear lanes prescribing where to drive and where not to drive. Men wear ties to cover the adjoining fabric on the shirts that they put on before going to the symphony, where they listen to classical music based on a scale with seven notes and five half steps. Each note has a fixed pitch, defined in terms of the lengths of the sound waves it produces.14 A good performance occurs when the musicians hit the notes precisely. In contrast, many Eastern cultures have little concern in everyday life for sharp boundaries and uniform categories. Different colors of paint may be used at various places on the same wall. And the paint may well “spill” over onto the window glass and ceiling. Meals are a fascinating array of ingredients where food is best enjoyed when mixed together on your plate. Roads and driving patterns are flexible. The lanes ebb and flow as needed depending on the volume of traffic. In a place like Cambodia or Nigeria, the road space is available for whichever direction a vehicle needs it most, whatever the time of day. And people often meander along the road in their vehicles the same way they walk along a path. There are many other ways aesthetics between one place and another could be contrasted. But the important point is some basic understanding of how cultures differ within the realm of aesthetics. Soak in the local art of a place and chalk it up to informing your strategy for international business.

Most people spend years trying to feng shui their lives—to decorate and reorganize life in such a way that order and peace will finally arrive. One can decorate and redecorate for years, but a fresh coat of paint is not going to patch the cracks in your foundation—the only way to do this is through the practice of non-attachment.

You could do nothing more important than to wake up every morning of your life and remind yourself that the One who created and controls everything that exists has been made, by grace, to be your Father. He thinks of you with pure and faithful fatherly love. He acts toward you with the giving, providing, instructing, patient, and forgiving love of a perfect father. He is always with you. His hand is always upon you. He never stops watching you. His heart is always for you. He is always at work accomplishing his plans for you and through you. He lifts your burdens and lightens your load. He is your God, your Savior, your Friend—your Father. Nothing can ever be the same again because you now live in the Father’s house, where glorious grace decorates every room.

Decorate your life and home to represent the vivid hues of your radiant soul. Share your brilliance.

Our philosophy is that home decor shouldn’t be taken too seriously, because we want our homes to reflect who we are, no one else. We want things to be fun and interesting, but we want things we can really live with and around. We want a place where you can use Play-Doh or prop up crusty old cowboy boots on the coffee table. We’re not afraid of candle drippings or drink rings. We believe all these things help our homes tell a tale of love and family. A tale of history and future. A tale of the American experience. Our homes spin the story we want to live in every day. We firmly believe your home should be your sanctuary, where you surround yourself with every sensible and nonsensible thing you love, a place that speaks of where you’ve been and where you’re going. Make no mistake: Our homes are far from perfect! Just beyond the frame of every camera angle is a pile of dirty clothes, three half-unpacked suitcases, and a room still waiting to be decorated. Because that, my friends, is real. C’mon in anyway and stay awhile. Our hope is that you’ll find an idea—a project, a picture, a spark of divine fire—that will inspire you. Because just like the wild woods or the glorious road, like fingerprints or feathers, your home is unique—and it should be uniquely you.

Oh, your birthday! What a day that would be. I would make you a cake and decorate the house with banners, before creeping into your room with a fistful of balloons and confetti and a cupcake with a single candle in it. This would become one of our traditions, so no matter how old you got, you’d always wake to a cupcake, with pink frosting of course, and a single candle. If for any reason I couldn’t be with you on that day, you’d make one for yourself or someone you loved would buy you one, and holding that cupcake would make you feel close to me wherever you were in the world. Your birthday would be a day for great, great celebration, the day my life changed. The day I got you, the day I gave my heart away . . .

#Japanese #Nuru #London massage session can really improve, decorate, and add variety to your sex life. It is divided into professional and partnership and can be done to improve health as well as at the time of closeness. You can experience this stimulation and enthusiasm only with Japanese Nuru London. You are exchanging energy during the massage session, because of the giving, you can get the same!

Three years ago, we sold, donated, or discarded over 70% of our family’s possessions. We removed clothes, furniture, decorations, cookware, tools, books, toys, plus anything else we could find in our home that was not immediately useful or beautiful. The result has been a completely transformed life and lifestyle. It is a decision we have never regretted.

The Christmas story really is a light story. No, not the lights that decorate the city where you live, the lights that you have carefully hung on the tree in your living room, or the candles that you have placed in your windows. No, this story is about the light coming into a world that had been sadly cast into darkness. Under the burden of the shroud of rebellion and sin, the world had become a dark place. In the darkness of immorality, injustice, violence, greed, self-righteousness, thievery, racism, and a host of other ills, the world was desperate for light. Everyone was part of the problem and everyone suffered from the problem, but no one could solve the problem. God’s solution was the only way. He sent the One who is light to be the light that would light the world by his grace. He came into the darkness so that we could know light and life forever. Here is the Christmas story—only light can defeat the darkness, and light has come!

Girls have always been told that their value is tied to their appearance; their accomplishments are always magnified if they're pretty and diminished if they're not. Even worse, some girls get the message that they can get through life relying on just their looks, and then they never develop their minds. I wanted to keep Tamera away from that sort of influence. Being pretty is fundamentally a passive quality; even when you work at it, you're working at being passive. I wanted Tamera to value herself in terms of what she could do, both with her mind and with her body, not in terms of how decorative she was. I didn't want her to be passive, and I'm pleased to say that she hasn't turned out that way.

I visualized traveling the world, doing great things, and living in a home where I would be surrounded by beauty and love. Even after my parents moved away, and I was bounced around from one relative’s home to another, I decorated my makeshift rooms as best I could because I knew instinctively that I needed dignity in my life. There was no one pushing me to live a better life, or to dream; it was something I wanted for myself, and that desire fueled my seeking spirit. Through the losses and neglect of my childhood, the turmoil of my first marriage, and the battles to extricate myself from that and start over, I never gave up. There were never any limitations to my imagination. Visualization served me well—in my mind’s eye, I always saw a better life. Imagination, visualizing, and dreaming. big, combined with hard work, determination, and faith, are what got me where I wanted to go, and they can do the same for you. If you ever find your resolve melting away, tell yourself, “This time I’ll do it! This time I’ll win!” As long as you keep moving forward, despite any disappointments and setbacks, you will be on the path to victory.

What is all that stuff in your home, anyway? Imagine that I said you could buy as many new clothes as you wanted, but you could never, ever take off anything you'd already purchased. In no time you'd be wearing so much clothing that it would be hard to walk. You'd feel hot and irritable, and be unable to do anything well. That's what the stuff in our homes can be like. If we shop and collect, but never decrease or declutter, the accumulation of stuff is a burden. Every item rents a space in your heart and in your brain. If there is too much stuff, then you have little room for new fun, new love, or new anything. So let's take a look at what is really in your home. Where did all that furniture, decor, and stuff come from? Why is it in your life, and what purpose does it serve? What feeling are associated with each object? (Happy Starts at Home: Getting the Life You Want by Changing the Space You've Got, Rebecca West)

My advice on containers for your toiletries is to use open containers that do not have a lid.

If you somehow believe that you can free yourself from yourself, you will spend the rest of your life decorating the prison cell that you’ve been living in all of your life.