Dust Yourself Off Quotes

To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

You know you're going to get burned from time to time. It's just part of the game. So when it happens you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and forget about it because they're about to snap the ball again.

Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.

Closing The Cycle One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Don’t receive condemnation when you have setbacks or bad days. Just get back up, dust yourself off, and start again.

I’m on a side of a road somewhere, stuck in the middle of a very deep hole, with no way of getting out. Never mind how I got in there, it’s not relevant to the story. I’ll invent a back-story… I was walking to get pizza and a chasm opened up in the earth and I fell in, and now I’m at the bottom of this hole, screaming for help. And along comes you. Now, maybe you just keep walking. You know, there’s a strange guy screaming from the center of the Earth. It’s perhaps best to just ignore him. But let’s say that you don’t. Let’s say that you stop. The sensible thing to do in this situation is to call down to me and say “I’m going to look for a ladder. I will be right back.” But you don’t do that. Instead you sit down at the edge of this abyss, and then you push yourself forward, and jump. And when you land at the bottom of the hole and dust yourself off, I’m like “What the hell are you doing?! Now there are two of us in this hole!” And you look at me and say, “Well yeah, but now I’m highly motivated to get you out.” This is what I love about novels, both reading them and writing them. They jump into the abyss to be with you where you are

Sometimes you have to walk out on a limb, knowing you could fall thirty feet to the hard ground, just to see if that apple on the edge is worth the risk like you think it is.” “And what if it’s not?” “Then you get up, dust yourself off, and keep walking til you find the next tree.

What you're experiencing isn't a dry spell. It's a dust bowl. Tell me, do you find cob webs in there every time you get yourself off?

If we could talk to our younger selves now, eh? Dust yourself off, don’t let the bastards grind you down, and always make your mum proud.

Of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others. Jumping from a high bridge is not recommended even if you cannot swim, for wind and water abound in weird contingencies, and tragedy ought not to culminate in a record dive or a policeman's promotion. If you rent a cell in the luminous waffle, room 1915 or 1959, in a tall business centre hotel browing the star dust, and pull up the window, and gently - not fall, not jump - but roll out as you should for air comfort, there is always the chance of knocking clean through into your own hell a pacific noctambulator walking his dog; in this respect a back room might be safer, especially if giving on the roof of an old tenacious normal house far below where a cat may be trusted to flash out of the way. Another popular take-off is a mountaintop with a sheer drop of say 500 meters but you must find it, because you will be surprised how easy it is to miscalculate your deflection offset, and have some hidden projection, some fool of a crag, rush forth to catch you, causing you to bounce off it into the brush, thwarted, mangled and unnecessarily alive. The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off - farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you stretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.

...What time are you seeing her?' 'How do you know it's a woman?' 'This isn't my first rodeo 'What do you mean?' 'You look like you got hit by a bus, and you dusted yourself off, and did it again for the hell of it. You look like you're wondering when the next time you can get hit by that bus is.

Memory is a talent. You were born with it,” my grandma told me when I was young. “But it’s a painful one. So, try to make yourself a little less sensitive. Be extra cautious with happy memories, my dear. Happy memories seem like jewels when in fact they’re burning charcoal. You’ll hurt yourself if you hold on to them, so let go and dust off your hands. Child, they are no gift.

A woman is always carrying other people’s burdens, kicked to the ground, scorned, and damaged to the core. When a woman is going along at a steady pace, someone comes along to knock her off balance. A woman falls more often than she likes to. That’s okay, give yourself a shake and dust it off. A woman can be bruised many times, but she is not broken, and she always rises above it.

If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray.

A book about books is like a poem about poetry: Books are knowledge, paid for, all. Readers - horses in a stall. Stallions should always run. Lest they stale become, in turn. Running waters are most clear. In some books, you disappear – lose yourself, and track of time. How I wish that one was mine... Mine, to have, to write, to read... Mine, just like a flying steed. Mine, forever, - to improve. Would I then, of me, approve? I would not, I can't... myself. I'm but dust, swept off a shelf. Fly, can I, just 'til I'm settled, down, beside my flower, petalled.

Be your best self and do not imitate anyone else. Find your strengths. They are your talents. They will make you smile and cause you to real joy on the inside. Don’t listen to those who ridicule the choices you make or the dreams you share. Let no one despise your youth. As Og Mandino explained in The Greatest Salesman in the World, “Experience is overrated, usually by old men who nod wisely and speak stupidly.” Create your own experiences. And know that you are creating memories for a lifetime. Life is not about finding yourself; it is about creating yourself. You have to take chances to make your dreams reality. Face your fears head-on and move rapidly. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Make lots of them! Your odds for success will increase with the number of decisions you make. Have patience with your dreams and the expectations you have for others. Be impatient with yourself daily. Live as if this is your last day. Say “I love you” to all those who matter. Know that everyone matters. You must play full-out right now. Sit up, hold your head high. Breathe deeply. Lift your chest up. Stand up straight and with confidence. Dust yourself off. Stop being a party pooper in your own life. Smile. A bigger noticeable smile. Start acting happy. Yes, you act first. I promise the feeling of happiness will soon follow.

Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.

I'm going to need help, and I need someone who is fearless. Someone who isn't afraid to stand up to dragons and battle them day after day. Our results may not show promise for years. Our patients will die. There will be days when you feel so beaten down you'll want to crawl home and give up. But I'll need you to get up, dust yourself off, and be ready to wage battle the next day." He locked eyes with her. "I need someone who wants to win as badly as I do. That is why I want you for this job.

Nothing big ever happens, good or bad, unless the floor falls out first. Let your longing wind you down through that spiral. And know that falling can be the most wickedly awesome and totally safe thing you’ve ever done. Down, down, down, because when you hit that solid ground you’ll know. You might touch down softly, or you might land in an ungraceful thud. But land you will and when you’re ready, you can stretch your shaky legs, dust yourself off tossing your head back to the heavens and proclaim ‘Here I am! All that I am, and all that I will be.” And your heart will still love what it loves. And you will remember that was good in you, and in her. And these memories will comfort and will serve you as you move through life, open to love – wherever and whenever it finds you.

take a deep breath Pick yourself up, dust yourself off Start all over again And again and again and again. May be easier said than done, but it can be done. Slowly but surely — and sometimes, not so surely, but with radical hope. Step by precious step.Hour by hour.Day by day.

The road to better mental health is a long and difficult one. You will stumble and fall. You will slip up in a thousand little ways, daily. You will fall backward into old, destructive patterns, again and again and again. And if you treat every one of those setbacks as a personal failure, you will never make it. The only way forward is to get back up, dust yourself off, and move forward again. The only way to do that is to accept yourself as less than perfect. And the only way to do that is to have grace.

Use the bricks thrown at you to build a beautiful house with a foundation of Christ.

Your future is brighter than your past. Get up,dust yourself off and just keep going.

Do not stop after a success; keep the forward momentum. Don't stop after a failure; dust yourself off, learn the lesson, and start up again.

Dust yourself off. Your best surface is just around the bend,” he says.

Pull yourself out of the dirt, dust yourself off, and get back on the horse and ride towards the sunset.

...What time are you seeing her?' 'How do you know it's a woman?' 'This isn't my first rodeo' 'What do you mean?' 'You look like you got hit by a bus, and you dusted yourself off, and did it again for the hell of it. You look like you're wondering when the next time you can get hit by that bus is.

The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.

You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero.

Do not apologize for wanting to be a wife and not a girlfriend. You encourage a man to think about his motives and his vision. If you have a "girlfriend" mindset you will do just about anything without a ring. You will play house, wear whatever and will not challenge him to measure up and step up to the plate. So, do not get mad if the guy runs off to dusty, trashy crowns who have low or no standards . Hold onto your standards because your future husband will be looking for a godly wife.

order to reclaim your joy. Set Your Intention Having a clear, positive intention for your day is the easiest way to raise your vibration. Make sure that your intention is clear, but don’t feel guilty if you don’t manifest it. Just like a pole jumper who fails to clear the bar, dust yourself off and try again. Your intention can be general, like I want to be less judgmental today, or it can be specific if you’re concerned about a confrontation or decision that is in the offing. Always envision the outcome as a happy ending.

When you live life at altitude and then trip and fall — which we all do every day — you have a long way to fall and you may kill yourself. But if you’re standing on the ground, you can fall again and again and simply get up, dust yourself off, and take the next step.

Can I tell you something? Off the record?” Alex nodded. “Before I took this job, I used to work in Maine. And I had a case that wasn’t just a case, if you know what I mean.” Alex did. She found herself listening in his voice for a note she hadn’t heard before-a low one that resonated with anguish, like a tuning fork that never stopped its vibration. “There was a woman there who meant everything to me, and she had a little boy who meant everything to her. And when he was hurt, in a way a kid never should be, I moved heaven and earth to work that case, because I thought no one could possibly do a better job than I could. No one could possibly care more about the outcome.” He looked directly at Alex. “I was so sure I could separate how I felt about what had happened from how I had to do my job.” Alex swallowed, dry as dust. “And did you?” “No. Because when you love someone, no matter what you tell yourself, it stops being a job.” “What does it become?” Patrick thought for a moment. “Revenge.

You've been hiding yourself, and you're good at it. A master of camouflage." She laughed. "Camouflage?" "That's the only possible explanation. You've made a frock from the same silk covering the drawing room walls, trimmed it with cat hair and feathers. Then when gentlemen visit, you stand still and blend in." "You have a surprisingly vivid imagination." "What I have is experience." He stopped in the road and turned to face her. "I've built a fortune by spotting things that are undervalued, dusting them off, and selling them at the proper price. I know a hidden treasure when I see one.

To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can’t let that stop you. If you get hurt, just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

The Age Of Reason 1. ‘Well, it’s that same frankness you fuss about so much. You’re so absurdly scared of being your own dupe, my poor boy, that you would back out of the finest adventure in the world rather than risk telling yourself a lie.’ 2. “ I’m not so much interested in myself as all that’ he said simply. ‘I know’, said Marcelle. It isn’t an aim , it’s a means. It helps you to get rid of yourself; to contemplate and criticize yourself: that’s the attitude you prefer. When you look at yourself, you imagine you aren’t what you see, you imagine you are nothing. That is your ideal: you want to be nothing.’’ 3. ‘In vain he repeated the once inspiring phrase: ‘I must be free: I must be self-impelled, and able to say: ‘’I am because I will: I am my own beginning.’’ Empty, pompous words, the commonplaces of the intellectual.’ 4. ‘He had waited so long: his later years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless daily cares, he had waited…But through all that, his sole care had been to hold himself in readiness. For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence….He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from behind….’ 5. ‘ ‘It was love. This time, it was love. And Mathiue thought:’ What have I done?’ Five minutes ago this love didn’t exist; there was between them a rare and precious feeling, without a name and not expressible in gestures.’ 6. ‘ The fact is, you are beyond my comprehension: you, so prompt with your indignation when you hear of an injustice, you keep this woman for years in a humiliating position, for the sole pleasure of telling yourself that you are respecting your principles. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were true, if you really did adapt your life to your ideas. But, I must tell you once more…you like that sort of life-placid, orderly, the typical life of an official.’ ‘’That freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one’s responsibilities.’ ‘Well…perhaps I’m doing you an injustice. Perhaps you haven’t in fact reached the age of reason, it’s really a moral age…perhaps I’ve got there sooner than you have.’ 7. ‘ I have nothing to defend. I am not proud of my life and I’m penniless. My freedom? It’s a burden to me, for years past I have been free and to no purpose. I simply long to exchange it for a good sound of certainty….Besides, I agree with you that no one can be a man who has not discovered something for which he is prepared to die.’ 8. ‘‘I have led a toothless life’, he thought. ‘ A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on-and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What’s to be done? Break the shell? That’s easily said. Besides, what would remain? A little viscous gum, oozing through the dust and leaving a glistering trail behind it.’ 9.’’ A life’, thought Mathieu, ‘is formed from the future just like the bodies are compounded from the void’. He bent his head: he thought of his own life. The future had made way into his heart, where everything was in process and suspense. The far-off days of childhood, the day when he has said:’I will be free’, the day when he had said: ’I will be famous’, appeared to him even now with their individual future, like a small, circled individual sky above them all, and the future was himself, himself just as he was at present, weary and a little over-ripe, they had claims upon him across the passage of time past, they maintained their insistencies, and he was often visited by attacks of devastating remorse, because his casual, cynical present was the original future of those past days.

Me? The only thing I knew about being a dad was that not having one around sucked.” His eyes grew distant. “That is the one thing I will say. I may have learned it from a negative example, but maybe because of that I knew in my gut more than anything that what being a dad means is being there. Someone once told me it was half the battle in marriage, but in fatherhood? Even more so. Never let anything get between you and your family, Jake. Be it work, supervillains, or your own selfishness, whatever it is, if it’s trying to get between you and them, you fight it. You fight it until it’s dead and cold, then you dust yourself off and you hug your kids, because whatever else they see looking back on things, you want them to see that you were there, that you cared enough to always be there, no matter what. That’s what’s going to make the difference.

Hadn’t she already learned that when life and circumstance pushed you down, when it held you squirming in the dust, you did what you could to drag yourself back onto your feet, dust off all the crap and get on with living.

What if you fall outside all the boxes? What are you supposed to do then, other than wrestle with the feelings of otherness, the "oh shit, my sexual-identity deadline is here and I don't have all my paperwork filled out yet"? There really is something about being able to put yourself into one concise, well-marked, tidy section of society, dusting your hands off on your pants. "That's that. Now I can move on with my day." But it's not that simple.

Our failures make us who we are; they build our character, we are defined by what we do with them, and how we respond to adversity. Without failure there is no growth, no striving for better, no adjusting, or dusting yourself off to try again.

Marah. To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down—girls can be really mean to each other—but you can’t let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.

Decisions congregate with emotion; one moment you are certain of yourself, the next you are standing where you once swore you never would. And then you must pick up your life where it fell, dust it off, and pretend that you knew what you were doing. Pretend that profound wisdom can be somehow gleaned from pride.

Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween. I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop. Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices. “Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.” “Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.” “I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.” He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases. “I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in... “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.” He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Not if you’ve been where we have. Forty years ago, in Südwest, we were nearly exterminated. There was no reason. Can you understand that? No reason. We couldn’t even find comfort in the Will of God Theory. These were Germans with names and service records, men in blue uniforms who killed clumsily and not without guilt. Search-and-destroy missions, every day. It went on for two years. The orders came down from a human being, a scrupulous butcher named von Trotha. The thumb of mercy never touched his scales.” “We have a word that we whisper, a mantra for times that threaten to be bad. Mba-kayere. You may find it will work for you. Mba-kayere. It means ‘I am passed over.’ To those of us who survived von Trotha, it also means that we have learned to stand outside our history and watch it, without feeling too much. A little schizoid. A sense for the statistics of our being. One reason we grew so close to the Rocket, I think, was this sharp awareness of how contingent, like ourselves, the Aggregat 4 could be—how at the mercy of small things…dust that gets in a timer and breaks electrical contact…a film of grease you can’t even see, oil from the touch of human fingers, left inside a liquid-oxygen valve, flaring up soon as the stuff hits and setting the whole thing off—I’ve seen that happen…rain that swells the bushings in the servos or leaks into a switch: corrosion, a short, a signal grounded out, Brennschluss too soon, and what was alive is only an Aggregat again, an Aggregat of pieces of dead matter, no longer anything that can move, or that has a Destiny with a shape—stop doing that with your eyebrows, Scuffling. I may have gone a bit native out here, that’s all. Stay in the Zone long enough and you’ll start getting ideas about Destiny yourself.

Remember me. I will be with you in the grave on the night you leave behind your shop and your family. When you hear my soft voice echoing in your tomb, you will realize that you were never hidden from my eyes. I am the pure awareness within your heart, with you during joy and celebration, suffering and despair. On that strange and fateful night you will hear a familar voice -- you'll be rescued from the fangs of snakes and the searing sting of scorpions. The euphoria of love will sweep over your grave; it will bring wine and friends, candles and food. When the light of realization dawns, shouting and upheaval will rise up from the graves! The dust of ages will be stirred by the cities of ecstasy, by the banging of drums, by the clamor of revolt! Dead bodies will tear off their shrouds and stuff their ears in fright-- What use are the senses and the ears before the blast of that Trumpet? Look and you will see my form whether you are looking at yourself or toward that noise and confusion. Don't be blurry-eyed, See me clearly- See my beauty without the old eyes of delusion. Beware! Beware! Don't mistake me for this human form. The soul is not obscured by forms. Even if it were wrapped in a hundred folds of felt the rays of the soul's light would still shine through. Beat the drum, Follow the minstrels of the city. It's a day of renewal when every young man walks boldly on the path of love. Had everyone sought God Instead of crumbs and copper coins T'hey would not be sitting on the edge of the moat in darkness and regret. What kind of gossip-house have you opened in our city? Close your lips and shine on the world like loving sunlight. Shine like the Sun of Tabriz rising in the East. Shine like the star of victory. Shine like the whole universe is yours!

THE WELL Be thankful now for having arrived, for the sense of having drunk from a well, for remembering the long drought that preceded your arrival and the years walking in a desert landscape of surfaces looking for a spring hidden from you so long that even wanting to find it now had gone from your mind until you only remembered the hard pilgrimage that brought you here, the thirst that caught in your throat; the taste of a world just-missed and the dry throat that came from a love you remembered but had never fully wanted for yourself, until finally after years making the long trek to get here it was as if your whole achievement had become nothing but thirst itself. But the miracle had come simply from allowing yourself to know that you had found it, that this time someone walking out into the clear air from far inside you had decided not to walk past it any more; the miracle had come at the roadside in the kneeling to drink and the prayer you said, and the tears you shed and the memory you held and the realization that in this silence you no longer had to keep your eyes and ears averted from the place that could save you, that you had been given the strength to let go of the thirsty dust laden pilgrim-self that brought you here, walking with her bent back, her bowed head and her careful explanations. No, the miracle had already happened when you stood up, shook off the dust and walked along the road from the well, out of the desert toward the mountain, as if already home again, as if you deserved what you loved all along, as if just remembering the taste of that clear cool spring could lift up your face and set you free.

This life is only a passing flicker of the flame, a shadow. You will cast it off and soar to a new plane, a new level of understanding, where you will realise that what you perceive now as reality is no more than a prison of the senses. You will look, and it will be as if you see with the eyes of the maker. You are within creation. Creation is within you. You are an aspect of the first breath that made the universe, your body is made of the dust of bodies that have gone before, and when you die, your body and your deeds give life. You, yourself, are God.

Be big enough to offer the truth to people and if it short circuits them I think that's tragic. I think that's sad but, I will not strike no unholy bargains to self erase. I wont do it. I don't care how many people fucked up their lives. I don't care how many bad choices people have made. I don't care how much pettiness they've consumed and spat out. I don't care how much viciousness , rage, abuse, spanking they've dealt out. I am gonna tell the truth as I see it and I'm going to be who I fucking am and if that causes the world to shift in it's orbit and half the evil people get thrown off the planet and up into space well, you shouldn't of been standing in evil to begin with because, there is gravity in goodness. So, sorry; I have to be who I am. Everyone ells is taken. There is no other place I can go than in my own head. I can't jump from skull to skull until I find one that suits bad people around me better. I don't have that choice. So, be your fucking self. Speak your truth and if there are people around you who tempt you with nonexistence , blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself from the world. Do not piss on the incandescent gift of your existence. Don't drown yourself in the petty fog and dustiness of other peoples ancient superstitions, beliefs, aggressions, culture, and crap. No, be a flare. We're all born self expressive. We are all born perfectly comfortable with being incredibly inconvenient to our parents. We shit, piss, wake up at night, throw up on their shoulders, scream, and cry. We are in our essence, in our humanity, perfectly comfortable with inconveniencing others. That's how we are born. That's how we grow. That's how we develop. Well, I choose to retain the ability to inconvenience the irrational. You know I had a cancer in me last year and I'm very glad that the surgeons knife and the related medicines that I took proved extremely inconvenient to my cancer and I bet you my cancer was like "Aw shit. I hate this stuff man." Good. I'm only alive because medicine and surgery was highly inconvenient to the cancer within me. That's the only reason I'm alive. So, be who you are. If that's inconvenient to other people that's their goddamn business, not yours. Do not kill yourself because other people are dead. Do not follow people into the grave. Do not atomize yourself because, others have shredded themselves into dust for the sake of their fears and their desire to conform with the history of the dead.

… Where are the ways through black wastes? God, do not abandon us! What are you summoning, God? Raise your hand up to the darkness above you, pray, despair, wring your hands, kneel, press your forehead into the dust, cry out, but do not name Him, do not look at Him. Leave Him without name and form. What should form the formless? Name the nameless? Step onto the great way and grasp what is nearest. Do not look out, do not want, but lift up your hands. The gifts of darkness are full of riddles. The way is open to whomever can continue in spite of riddles. Submit to the riddles and the thoroughly incomprehensible. There are dizzying bridges over the eternally deep abyss. But follow the riddles. Endure them, the terrible ones. It is still dark, and the terrible goes on growing. Lost and swallowed by the streams of procreating life, we approach the overpowering, inhuman forces that are busily creating what is to come. How much future the depths carry! Are not the threads spun down there over millennia? Protect the riddles, bear them in your heart, warm them, be pregnant with them. Thus you carry the future. The tension of the future is unbearable in us. It must break through the narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable. Running away is deception and detour. Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come will be created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfil the way that is in you. Oh, that all men and all their ways become strange to you! Thus might you find them again within yourself and recognize their ways. But what weakness! What doubt! What fear! You will not bear going your way. You always want to have at least one foot on paths not your own to avoid the great solitude! So that maternal comfort is always with you! So that someone acknowledges you, recognizes you, bestows trust in you, comforts you, encourages you. So that someone pulls you over onto their path, where you stray from yourself, and where it is easier for you to set yourself aside. As if you were not yourself! Who should accomplish your deeds? Who should carry your virtues and your vices? You do not come to an end with your life, and the dead will besiege you terribly to live your unlived life. Everything must be fulfilled. Time is of the essence, so why do you want to pile up the lived and let the unlived rot?

You see,” continued the minister, bowing thankfully to the duke, “Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They’re grown right here in our orchards.” “I didn’t know that words grew on trees,” said Milo timidly. “Where did you think they grew?” shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn’t know that letters grew on trees. “I didn’t know they grew at all,” admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly. “Well, money doesn’t grow on trees, does it?” demanded the count. “I’ve heard not,” said Milo. “Then something must. Why not words?” exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business. “To continue,” continued the minister impatiently. “Once a week by royal proclamation the word market is held here in the great square and people come from everywhere to buy the words they need or trade in the words they haven’t used.” “Our job,” said the count, “is to see that all the words sold are proper ones, for it wouldn’t do to sell someone a word that had no meaning or didn’t exist at all. For instance, if you bought a word like ghlbtsk, where would you use it?” “It would be difficult,” thought Milo—but there were so many words that were difficult, and he knew hardly any of them. “But we never choose which ones to use,” explained the earl as they walked toward the market stalls, “for as long as they mean what they mean to mean we don’t care if they make sense or nonsense.” “Innocence or magnificence,” added the count. “Reticence or common sense,” said the undersecretary. “That seems simple enough,” said Milo, trying to be polite. “Easy as falling off a log,” cried the earl, falling off a log with a loud thump. “Must you be so clumsy?” shouted the duke. “All I said was——” began the earl, rubbing his head. “We heard you,” said the minister angrily, “and you’ll have to find an expression that’s less dangerous.” The earl dusted himself off as the others snickered audibly. “You see,” cautioned the count, “you must pick your words very carefully and be sure to say just what you intend to say. And now we must leave to make preparations for the Royal Banquet.” “You’ll be there, of course,” said the minister. But before Milo had a chance to say anything, they were rushing off across the square as fast as they had come. “Enjoy yourself in the market,” shouted back the undersecretary. “Market,” recited the duke: “an open space or covered building in which——” And that was the last Milo heard as they disappeared into the crowd. “I never knew words could be so confusing,” Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog’s ear. “Only when you use a lot to say a little,” answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he’d heard all day. “Come,” he shouted, “let’s see the market. It looks very exciting.

Life sometimes is like tossing a coin in the air calling heads or tails, but it doesn’t matter what side it lands on; life goes on. It is hard when you’ve lost the will to fight because you’ve been fighting for so long. You are smothered by the pain. Mentally, you are drained. Physically, you are weak. Emotionally, you are weighed down. Spiritually, you do not have one tiny mustard seed of faith. The common denominator is that other people’s problems have clouded your mind with all of their negativity. You cannot feel anything; you are numb. You do not have the energy to surrender, and you choose not to escape because you feel safe when you are closed in. As you move throughout the day, you do just enough to get by. Your mindset has changed from giving it your all to—well, something is better than nothing. You move in slow motion like a zombie, and there isn’t any color, just black and white, with every now and then a shade of gray. You’ve shut everyone out and crawled back into the rabbit hole. Life passes you by as you feel like you cannot go on. You look around for help; for someone to take the pain away and to share your suffering, but no one is there. You feel alone, you drift away when you glance ahead and see that there are more uphill battles ahead of you. You do not have the option to turn around because all of the roads are blocked. You stand exactly where you are without making a step. You try to think of something, but you are emotionally bankrupt. Where do you go from here? You do not have a clue. Standing still isn’t helping because you’ve welcomed unwanted visitors; voices are in your head, asking, “What are you waiting for? Take the leap. Jump.” They go on to say, “You’ve had enough. Your burdens are too heavy.” You walk towards the cliff; you turn your head and look at the steep hill towards the mountain. The view isn’t helping; not only do you have to climb the steep hill, but you have to climb up the mountain too. You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero. As a fallen warrior, you are human; and you have your moments. There are days when you have more ups than downs, and some days you have more downs than ups. I most definitely can relate. I was floating through life, but I had to change my mindset. During my worst days, I felt horrible, and when I started to think negatively I felt like I was dishonoring myself. I felt sick, I felt afraid, fear began to control my every move. I felt like demons were trying to break in and take over my life.

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit, indeed, careless of the consequences, and when these are developed, you will shamefully desist. “I would conquer at the Olympic Games.” But consider what precedes and what follows, and then, if it be for your advantage, engage in the affair. You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or not, at a stated hour, in heat and cold; you must drink no cold water, and sometimes no wine—in a word, you must give yourself up to your trainer as to a physician. Then, in the combat, you may be thrown into a ditch, dislocate your arm, turn your ankle, swallow an abundance of dust, receive stripes [for negligence], and, after all, lose the victory. When you have reckoned up all this, if your inclination still holds, set about the combat. Otherwise, take notice, you will behave like children who sometimes play wrestlers, sometimes gladiators, sometimes blow a trumpet, and sometimes act a tragedy, when they happen to have seen and admired these shows. Thus you too will be at one time a wrestler, and another a gladiator; now a philosopher, now an orator; but nothing in earnest. Like an ape you mimic all you see, and one thing after another is sure to please you, but is out of favor as soon as it becomes familiar. For you have never entered upon anything considerately; nor after having surveyed and tested the whole matter, but carelessly, and with a halfway zeal. Thus some, when they have seen a philosopher and heard a man speaking like Euphrates[3]—though, indeed, who can speak like him?—have a mind to be philosophers, too. Consider first, man, what the matter is, and what your own nature is able to bear. If you would be a wrestler, consider your shoulders, your back, your thighs; for different persons are made for different things. Do you think that you can act as you do and be a philosopher, that you can eat, drink, be angry, be discontented, as you are now? You must watch, you must labor, you must get the better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintances, be despised by your servant, be laughed at by those you meet; come off worse than others in everything—in offices, in honors, before tribunals. When you have fully considered all these things, approach, if you please—that is, if, by parting with them, you have a mind to purchase serenity, freedom, and tranquillity. If not, do not come hither; do not, like children, be now a philosopher, then a publican, then an orator, and then one of Caesar’s officers. These things are not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own reason or else externals; apply yourself either to things within or without you—that is, be either a philosopher or one of the mob.

May I inquire what is the point?” he snapped impatiently. “Indeed you may,” Lucinda said, thinking madly for some way to prod him into remembering his long-ago desire for Elizabeth and to prick his conscience. “The point is that I am well apprised of all that transpired between Elizabeth and yourself when you were last together. I, however,” she decreed grandly, “am inclined to place the blame for your behavior not on a lack of character, but rather a lack of judgment.” He raised his brows but said nothing. Taking his silence as assent, she reiterated meaningfully, “A lack of judgment on both your parts.” “Really?” he drawled. “Of course,” she said, reaching out and brushing the dust from the back of a chair, then rubbing her fingers together and grimacing with disapproval. “What else except lack of judgment could have caused a seventeen-year-old girl to rush to the defense of a notorious gambler and bring down censure upon herself for doing it?” “What indeed?” he asked with growing impatience. Lucinda dusted off her hands, avoiding his gaze. “Who can possibly know except you and she? No doubt it was the same thing that prompted her to remain in the woodcutter’s cottage rather than leaving it the instant she discovered your presence.” Satisfied that she’d done the best she was able to on that score, she became brusque again-an attitude that was more normal and, therefore, far more convincing. “In any case, that is all water under the bridge. She has paid dearly for her lack of judgment, which is only right, and even though she is now in the most dire straits because of it, that, too, is justice.” She smiled to herself when his eyes narrowed with what she hoped was guilt, or at least concern. His next words disabused her of that hope: “Madam, I do not have all day to waste in aimless conversation. If you have something to say, say it and be done!” “Very well,” Lucinda said, gritting her teeth to stop herself from losing control of her temper. “My point is that it is my duty, my obligation to see to Lady Cameron’s physical well-being as well as to chaperon her. In this case, given the condition of your dwelling, the former obligation seems more pressing than the latter, particularly since it is obvious to me that the two of you are not in the least need of a chaperon to keep you from behaving with impropriety. You may need a referee to keep you from murdering each other, but a chaperon is entirely superfluous. Therefore, I feel duty-bound to now ensure that adequate servants are brought here at once. In keeping with that, I would like your word as a gentleman not to abuse her verbally or physically while I am gone. She has already been ill-used by her uncle. I will not permit anyone else to make this terrible time in her life more difficult than it already is.” “Exactly what,” Ian asked in spite of himself, “do you mean by a ‘terrible time’?” “I am not at liberty to discuss that, of course,” she said, fighting to keep her triumph from her voice. “I am merely concerned that you behave as a gentleman. Will you give me your word?” Since Ian had no intention of laying a finger on her, or even spending time with her, he didn’t hesitate to nod. “She’s perfectly safe from me.” “That is exactly what I hoped to hear,” Lucinda lied ruthlessly.

In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations—configurations—of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other—when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.

In case you haven't noticed,rodeos are a serious business.Careless cowboys tend to break bones,or even their skulls,as hard as that may be to believe." She stared down at the hand holding her wrist. Despite his smile,she could feel the strength in his grip. If he wanted to,he could no doubt break her bone with a single snap. But she wasn't concerned with his strength,only with the heat his touch was generating. She felt the tingle of warmth all the way up her arm.It alarmed her more than she cared to admit. "My job is to minimize damage to anyone who is actually hurt." "I'm grateful." He sat up so his laughing blue eyes were even with hers. If possible,his were even bluer than the perfect Montana sky above them. "What do you think? Any damage from that fall?" Her instinct was to move back,but his fingers were still around her wrist,holding her close. "I'm beginning to wonder if you were actually tossed from that bull or deliberately fell." "I'd have to be a little bit crazy to deliberately fell." "I'd have to be a little bit crazy to deliberately jump from the back of a raging bull just to get your attention, wouldn't I?" "Yeah." She felt the pull of that magnetic smile that had so many of the local females lusting after Wyatt McCord. Now she knew why he'd gained such a reputation in such a short time. "I'm beginning to think maybe you are. In fact,more than a little.A whole lot crazy." "I figured it was the best possible way to get you to actually talk to me. You couldn't ignore me as long as there was even the slightest chance that I might be hurt." There was enough romance in her nature to feel flattered that he'd go to so much trouble to arrange to meet her. At least,she thought,it was original. And just dangerous enough to appeal to a certain wild-and-free spirit that dominated her own life. Then her practical side kicked in, and she felt an irrational sense of annoyance that he'd wasted so much of her time and energy on his weird idea of a joke. "Oh,brother." She scrambled to her feet and dusted off her backside. "Want me to do that for you?" She paused and shot him a look guaranteed to freeze most men. He merely kept that charming smile in place. "Mind if we start over?" He held out his hand. "Wyatt McCord." "I know who you are." "Okay.I'll handle both introductions. Nice to meet you,Marilee Trainor. Now that we have that out of the way,when do you get off work?" "Not until the last bull rider has finished." "Want to grab a bite to eat? When the last rider is done,of course." "Sorry.I'll be heading home." "Why,thanks for the invitation.I'd be happy to join you.We could take along some pizza from one of the vendors." She looked him up and down. "I go home alone." "Sorry to hear that." There was that grin again,doing strange things to her heart. "You're missing out on a really fun evening." "You have a high opinion of yourself, McCord." He chuckled.Without warning he touched a finger to her lips. "Trust me.I'd do my best to turn that pretty little frown into an even prettier smile." Marilee couldn't believe the feelings that collided along her spine. Splinters of fire and ice had her fighting to keep from shivering despite the broiling sun. Because she didn't trust her voice, she merely turned on her heel and walked away from him. It was harder to do than she'd expected. And though she kept her spine rigid and her head high, she swore she could feel the heat of that gaze burning right through her flesh. It sent one more furnace blast rushing through her system. A system already overheated by her encounter with the bold, brash,irritatingly charming Wyatt McCord.

For most people moving is a tiring experience. When on the verge of moving out to a new home or into a new office, it's only natural to focus on your new place and forget about the one you’re leaving. Actually, the last thing you would even think about is embarking on a heavy duty move out clean. However, you can be certain that agents, landlords and all the potential renters or buyers of your old home will most definitely notice if it's being cleaned, therefore getting the place cleaned up is something that you need to consider. The process of cleaning will basically depend to things; how dirty your property and the size of the home. If you leave the property in good condition, you'll have a higher the chance of getting back your bond deposit or if you're selling, attracting a potential buyer. Below are the steps you need to consider before moving out. You should start with cleaning. Remove all screws and nails from the walls and the ceilings, fill up all holes and dust all ledges. Large holes should be patched and the entire wall checked the major marks. Remove all the cobwebs from the walls and ceilings, taking care to wash or vacuum the vents. They can get quite dusty. Clean all doors and door knobs, wipe down all the switches, electrical outlets, vacuum/wipe down the drapes, clean the blinds and remove all the light covers from light fixtures and clean them thoroughly as they may contain dead insects. Also, replace all the burnt out light bulbs and empty all cupboards when you clean them. Clean all windows, window sills and tracks. Vacuum all carpets or get them professionally cleaned which quite often is stipulated in the rental agreement. After you've finished the general cleaning, you can now embark on the more specific areas. When cleaning the bathroom, wash off the soap scum and remove mould (if any) from the bathroom tiles. This can be done by pre-spraying the tile grout with bleach and letting it sit for at least half an hour. Clean all the inside drawers and vanity units thoroughly. Clean the toilet/sink, vanity unit and replace anything that you've damaged. Wash all shower curtains and shower doors plus all other enclosures. Polish the mirrors and make sure the exhaust fan is free of dust. You can generally vacuum these quite easily. Finally, clean the bathroom floors by vacuuming and mopping. In the kitchen, clean all the cabinets and liners and wash the cupboards inside out. Clean the counter-tops and shine the facet and sink. If the fridge is staying give it a good clean. You can do this by removing all shelves and wash them individually. Thoroughly degrease the oven inside and out. It's best to use and oven cleaner from your supermarket, just take care to use gloves and a mask as they can be quite toxic. Clean the kitchen floor well by giving it a good vacuum and mop . Sometimes the kitchen floor may need to be degreased. Dust the bedrooms and living room, vacuum throughout then mop. If you have a garage give it a good sweep. Also cut the grass, pull out all weeds and remove all items that may be lying or hanging around. Remember to put your garbage bins out for collection even if collection is a week away as in our experience the bins will be full to the brim from all the rubbish during the moving process. If this all looks too hard then you can always hire a bond cleaner to tackle the job for you or if you're on a tight budget you can download an end of lease cleaning checklist or have one sent to you from your local agent. Just make sure you give yourself at least a day or to take on the job. Its best not to rush through the job, just make sure everything is cleaned thoroughly, so it passes the inspection in order for you to get your bond back in full.

There are things I can confess only after swallowing a bottle of ink. How i crushed a moth between my palms before it rushed to the fireplace. These hands that are used to killing things midflight. Like my mother tongue. Before I can roll out my rounded R and O. Because women like me are believed to practise witchcraft and blackmagic. We swallow men and spit out their bones. These hands that danced with your ghosts on the bluest 4 AMs. These hands that raised a knife to its throat. How deep was the longing to be nothing more than an empty bed, an empty room. If someone asks you tell them writing was the closest I came to witchcraft. Poetry was the closest I came to being possessed. I wanted to leave behind more than emptiness so I wrote. . They say it takes 7 seconds for the eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. I glide across the dark room like the light was never here. Your body imprint on the mattress lost to the frenzied waltz of sunray and dust. How easy was it to just grab a handful of you before you dissolved. If someone asks tell them loving you was the closest I came to seeing god. . On some nights I open the curtains and you are the moon. I am the darkness surrounding it. Which is to say I don't know how to love without being consumed. If they ask you tell them remembrance was the closest I came to being sick. . Once I met a homeless man who spoke in madness because he had forgotten his mother tongue. How long do you hide yourself from the world before you forget your beginning. Like him - I too am full of silence. My beloved - a handful of you, your body. There are things I could only tell the moths but they no longer visit. I have put off the fireplace. Which is to say they too don't know how to love something that won't kill them. . My phone always autocorrects I love you to I live you and what is love if not living the other person. One summer afternoon our bodies turned into each other's. Your breath played lye strings on my neck. If they ask you tell them that was the closest I came to being alive.

In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations – configurations – of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other – when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.

When an ovulating woman offers herself to you, she's the choicest morsel on the planet. Her nipples are already sharp, her labia already swollen, her spine already undulating. Her skin is damp and she pants. If you touch the center of her forehead with your thumb she isn't thinking about her head—she isn't thinking at all, she's imagining, believing, willing your hand to lift and turn and curve, cup the back of her head. She's living in a reality where the hand will have no choice but to slide down that soft, flexing muscle valley of the spine to the flare of strong hips, where the other hand joins the first to hold both hip bones, immobilize them against the side of the counter, so that you can touch the base of her throat gently with your lips and she will whimper and writhe and let the muscles in her legs go, but she won't fall, because you have her. She'll be feeling this as though it's already happening, knowing absolutely that it will, because every cell is alive and crying out, Fill me, love me, cherish me, be tender, but, oh God, be sure. She wants you to want her. And when her pupils expand like that, as though you have dropped black ink into a saucer of cool blue water, and her head tips just a little, as though she's gone blind or has had a terrible shock or maybe just too much to drink, to her she is crying in a great voice, Fuck me, right here, right now against the kitchen counter, because I want you wrist-deep inside me. I hunger, I burn, I need. It doesn't matter if you are tired, or unsure, if your stomach is hard with dread at not being forgiven. If you allow yourself one moment's distraction—a microsecond's break in eye contact, a slight shift in weight—she knows, and that knowledge is a punch in the gut. She will back up a step and search your face, and she'll feel embarrassed—a fool or a whore—at offering so blatantly what you're not interested in, and her fine sense of being queen of the world will shiver and break like a glass shield hit by a mace, and fall around her in dust. Oh, it will still sparkle, because sex is magic, but she will be standing there naked, and you will be a monster, and the next time she feels her womb quiver and clench she'll hesitate, which will confuse you, even on a day when there is no dread, no uncertainty, and that singing sureness between you will dissolve and very slowly begin to sicken and die. The body knows. I listened to the deep message—but carefully, because at some point the deep message also must be a conscious message. Active, not just passive, agreement. I took her hand and guided the wok back down to the gas burner. Yes, her body still said, yes. I turned off the gas, but slowly, and now she reached for me.

Sometimes the best way to relax, unwind, and get everything straightened out... is to curl up with a good book. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Give something of yourself to the day... even if it’s just a smile to someone walking the other way. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Even if you can’t just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day, and you can keep shortening the distance between the two of you. – Douglas Pagels, from 100 Things to Always Remember and One Thing to Never Forget Rest assured that, whenever you need them, your guardian angels are great about working overtime. – Douglas Pagels, from A Special Christmas Blessing Just for You Never forget what a treasure you are. That special person in the mirror may not always get to hear all the compliments you so sweetly deserve, but you are so worthy of such an abundance... of friendship, joy, and love. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady I love that I get to wake up every morning in a world that has people like you in it. – Douglas Pagels, from You Are One Amazing Lady Be someone who doesn’t make your guardian angel work too hard or worry too much. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Each day is a blank page in the diary of your life. Every day, you’re given a chance to determine what the words will say and how the story will unfold. The more rewarding you can make each page, the more amazing the entire book will be. And I would love for you to write a masterpiece. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Practice your tree pose. I want you to have a goal of finding a way to bring everything in your life into balance. Let the roots of all your dreams go deep. Let the hopes of all your tomorrows grow high. Bend, but don’t break. Take the seasons as they come. Stick up for yourself. And reach for the sky. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Remember that a new morning is good medicine... and one of the joys of life is realizing that you have the ability to make this a really great day. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Find comfort in knowing that “rising above” is something you can always find a way to do. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Look up “onward” in the thesaurus and utilize every one of those synonyms whenever you’re wondering which direction to go in. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Don’t judge yourself – love yourself. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! If you have a choice between a la-di-da life and an ooh-la-la! one, well... you know what to do. Choose the one that requires you to dust off your dancing shoes. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life! Write out your own definition of success. Fill it with a mix of stardust and wishes and down-to-earth things, and provide all the insight you can give it. Imagine what it takes to have a really happy, rewarding life. And then go out... and live it. – Douglas Pagels, from Wishing You a Happy, Successful, Incredible Life!

Start by dusting off that version of yourself you've dreamed about. That person is the real you!

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? 14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. 15 The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. 16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. 19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? 24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? 31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c] or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth? 34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? 35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f] or gives the rooster understanding?[g] 37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens 38 when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? 39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? 41 Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

When you find yourself on the ground after a big leap, you dust yourself off and commit to failing smarter next time. The path to moments of greatness in your life will be paved, in part, with your spectacular failures.

It’s one thing to fail your whole life and then become successful because of your failures, it’s another thing entirely to repeat the process after you have fallen from the success you once had as the memories of success will attempt to creep into your mind and cripple you, Don’t Let it stand back up, dust yourself off and keep walking

Hands smothered Alexei's face. Spider fingers, furry and boney, like a paw. He tasted the sharp tang of blood. A dirty odor stung his nose. "Where am I?" "The past is not dust," echoed a voice like a B-flat note. "I cannot see!" Alexei mumbled. "You see everything. Even yourself. No mirror serves me." "Who are you?" "I am orange in the sky. Green in the pines. Autumn rivulets. I am the conjured." "Where the hell am I. Get off!" "You, Alexei Viktor Georghovlovna, are where you desire to be. Inside my music." Greylock by Paula Cappa

Life, it's hard. That's how life is...., It is designed to knock you down and pin you to the ground if you let it. Get up, dust yourself off and fight one more round.

Whenever we reach an unexpected barrier in the way of honoring our souls' truth through action, it is essential to dust ourselves off and keep flying toward our dreams.

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. Eluding these assaults, you come up beneath the towers of the fortress, where other troops are holding out: the Books Dealing With Something You're Working On At The Moment, the Books You Want To Own So They'll Be Handy Just In Case, the Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer, the Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves, the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified. Now you have been able to reduce the countless embattled troops to an array that is, to be sure, very large but still calculable in a finite number; but this relative relief is then undermined by the ambush of the Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time To Reread and the Books You've Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It's Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them. With a zigzag and a dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author or Subject Appeals To You. Even inside this stronghold you can make some breaches in the ranks of the defenders, dividing them into New (for you in general) and New Books By Authors Or On Subjects Completely Unknown (at least to you), and defining the attraction they have for you on the basis of your desires and needs for the new and the not new (for the new you seek in the not new and for the not new you seek in the new). All this means that, having rapidly glanced over the titles of the volumes displayed in the bookshop, you turn toward a stack of If on a winter’s night a traveler fresh off the press, you have grasped a copy, and you have carried it to the cashier so that your right to own it can be established. You cast another bewildered look at the books around you (or, rather: it was the books that looked at you, with the bewildered gaze of dogs who, from their cages in the city pound, see a former companion go off on the leash of his master, come to rescue him), and out you went. You derive a special pleasure from a just-published book, and it isn’t only a book you are taking with you but the novelty as well, which could also merely be that of an object fresh from the factory, the youthful bloom of new books, which lasts until the dust jacket begins to yellow, until a veil of smog settles on the top edge, until the bindings become dog-eared, in the rapid autumn of libraries. No, you hope always to encounter true newness, which having been new once, will continue to be so. Having read the freshly published book, you will take possession of this newness at the first moment, without having to pursue, to chase it. Will it happen this time? You can never tell. Let’s see how it begins.

Let’s say I locked you in my closet. And then you were like ‘let me out,’ and I was all ‘no, never muahaha,’ and then you had to sit in there while the dust bunnies started a war, and as menial as it seemed to you, what else did you have to do with your time but meddle? So, you did. I mean, in the end, you’d probably off yourself too.

No matter what the chroniclers, the sages, and the poets tell you, all deaths are equal. To the dead, anyway. No matter what you die for-a cause, true love, yourself-people eventually forget that. Great causes fall apart, true loves find other true loves, and you eventually become the same bones and dust as everyone else. Pain, though... Pain is different. Not all pain is equal. I've taken hits from warlords charging at me on birdback that dragged me for twenty feet and walked them off with a stiff drink. I've been given four words in a dark room that made me go days without sleep, they cut me so deep. Pain is a weapon. And it all comes down to whoever's the one holding it when it sticks into you.

Routine was death of the worst kind, a slow, insidious stripping of soul. Rarely could I even bring myself to run the same route on subsequent days; more rarely did I run at the same time every day. Sometimes I'd venture out first thing in the morning, other times during midday, still others in the evening or at night. I wasn't made to fit the modern industrialized world; my natural rhythms ran contrary to the nine-to-five business cycle. And I didn't always find people the preferred company. Not that I was antisocial, but being by myself wasn't unpleasant. Running alone was something I relished most of my life, even more so as I'd become older. Most runners prefer to run alone, so these habits are not entirely aberrant. The world and its institutions engulf and suffocate us. We runners find our sanctuary in retreating to the roadways and trails, our sacred reprieve. The wonder isn't that we go; it's that we come back. Our daily outings become purgings and resurrections. We move through this world as spirits, the air and the ground and the sky above absorbing us into something grander, and we disappear from the unbearable heaviness of being. These moments of transcendence cleanse our soul and liberate us from the manufactured and superficial. For a brief, beautiful instant we are as a human is meant to be, free and unencumbered, and this restores us and makes us fresh once more. And then it's on to the follies of being a citizen, of being a useful and contributing member of society. Back to the fickleness and irrationality of human nature and the roller coaster of modern living, with its spirals and twists, letdowns and disappointments. As soon as there are people involved, things get complicated, and rarely do they go the way you want them to. Over a lifetime, nos greatly outnumber the yeses. But the strong endure. The lessons you learn from running translate to life. The runner has a strong body and a strong heart. You get knocked down, you pick yourself back up, dust off, and keep going, only to get knocked down again, only to pick yourself back up once more and continue on, arising one time greater than toppling. And in this persistent enduring you acquire endurance. Your permanence is established in this way because you do not unseat easily, you have what it takes to withstand setbacks. You may waver and misstep, but you never give up. No matter how daunting the obstacle, you forge onward and keep chipping away until that barrier is eventually obliterated and overcome. p97

Self-compassion does not have to be airy-fairy self-indulgence. It is being the voice that you most need to hear, one that will give you the strength to pull yourself back up rather than drive you further into the ground. It is a voice of honesty, encouragement, support and kindness. It is the nurturing voice that dusts you off and looks you directly in the eye, telling you to go back out there and have another go.

lifeisposi 06/24/2024 Life isn’t over until you throw in the towel. Keep pushing, keep fighting, and keep believing in yourself. Every setback is just a setup for an epic comeback. So, dust yourself off, put on your game face, and show life who’s boss. Quitting isn’t in your DNA—your story is just getting started!

Life isn’t over until you throw in the towel. Keep pushing, keep fighting, and keep believing in yourself. Every setback is just a setup for an epic comeback. So, dust yourself off, put on your game face, and show life who’s boss. Quitting isn’t in your DNA—your story is just getting started!

Look carefully at the area. Notice all the little details. Think about the people in any buildings you can see going about their business, each of them having their own concerns and worries. Now rise higher and higher until you are at cloud level. Look down beneath you. See the land stretching out as far as you can see. Notice the curve of the horizon off in the distance. Feel yourself at peace, knowing you are safe so high in the sky. The world below you seems so small and insignificant, but your journey is not yet done. You feel yourself going higher again, up, up and out of the atmosphere and into space. You are perfectly safe as you float out towards the moon. Looking back at the earth, it looks like a small ball below you. From this distance, all you can see are the clouds swirling around, the green of the land, the blue of the ocean. Billions of souls are going about their lives but from this distance, they may as well be dust. You feel yourself travelling farther and farther away from the earth until you find yourself deep in the heart of the cosmos. All around you are stars, twinkling in a stunning display of natural beauty. Take a moment to breathe in the wonder around you. Appreciate that everything is as it should be, your life unfolding exactly how it needs to. See the countless stars and know that there are countless more out of sight.

Listen… don’t let what that bastard ex of yours did make you crazy. There’s nothing wrong with working hard, being your own woman, and needing a man for nothing except the sex, or companionship, and eventually love that he should provide, if he’s expecting a commitment from you. I really, really get it, Julissa. I do. But me and Tariq… that was a foregone conclusion, and had nothing to do with you. When I looked you up, after he told me about you… girl, you’ve got it going on. Pick yourself up, dust this shit off, and trust me… the love that’s supposed to be yours is going to find you.

When life throws you down, have the courage to stand back up and dust yourself off.

Miserliness shuts a man off from his fellow men and from humanity itself: If you look through a glass window, you see all the world, but if you cover one side with silver, it becomes a mirror and you see only yourself. — M. Zborowski

Did you know God can work with that? He can work with a person who is intentional about living for Him. He can work with someone who repents daily of their sins. He can work with someone who really is trying to change. So, miss "know it all," let go of your control.

When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray.

Orion's Tips for Sane Witchcraft (Ponder and Apply to Living) Know your boundaries. Find time for stillness. Look within! Do not confuse spirituality with egotism. Don't abuse power or give it to those who would abuse you with it. Live your life as an expression of conscious creation and divine revelation. Seek counsel daily with your source, your center, and your ancestors. Don't get lazy, crazy, or otherwise in your own way. Remember grace! It brings wisdom and unlocks more vast knowledge. Be sincere in all that you do. Never compromise (especially your integrity) or be compromised. If you lose yourself, you have nothing. Choose what matters and feed it. (Starve the bane, feed the blessing.) Get the lesson and get on with life. Too often life is what happens when you are busy doing something else. Maintain an attitude of thanksgiving. For in doing so, you give gratitude to source and maintain inner fertile space to receive more. Thank the source and its good spirits at the beginning and ending of each day. If you wake up in the morning, your day has already started out good . . . build from that position. Don't wait for a reason to be happy when it is right in front of you. Claim the direction of your spirit! Fall in love with being you. The seed of divinity is within you; live your truth. Give no enduring interest to what is not spirit while seeking spiritual truth in everything. Do not stray away from your faith in yourself and the source (for in truth they are one). You are guided by the source. Do not be bandied about by the waves of life or you will crash onto the rocks of doubt. Daily, reaffirm your connection with spirit. Renew yourself on the new moment and release the fetters of yesterday to their rightful home . . . yesterday. Weave your web to attract that which you desire . . . then seize it. A witch need not hunt when he or she can attract. If you fall down . . . move what tripped you, get up, dust yourself off, and above all, don't give up walking. In chaotic times, seek the eye of the storm, poise yourself there, and find the wisdom in the stillness. Give thanks for all opportunities to grow.

When you go through a bad relationship and finally dust yourself off, there's a vulnerability that goes along with that.

I thought if you had anything you wanted to say to me, I’d give you a chance to do that while Brie’s occupied with other things.” “Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah, I have something to say. We’ve been over this, but just let me say this once more, so you know where I’m coming from. She’s real special to me and I’ve seen her hurt. Jesus, worse than hurt. You know what I’m talking about.” Mike gave a nod. “I know.” “This thing that’s going on with you and my sister, I fought it. It really scared me, got under my skin….” “I know,” Mike said again. “I under—” “Because I’m a fool,” Jack said, cutting him off. He shook his head in frustration. “Christ almighty, Valenzuela—you’ve had my back how many times? You’d fight beside me in a heartbeat, put yourself in harm’s way to protect me or any member of our squad. I don’t know why I got my back up like I did. When a woman in your family gets hurt like that—you just want to put her in a padded box with a lock on it so no one can ever get to her and hurt her again, even if that’s the worst thing you could do.” He shook his head again and now his expression was readable. He was open. “I apologize, man. I thought of you as my brother before you even glanced at Brie. I know she’s safe with you.” Mike found himself chuckling. “Man,” he said. “Mel must have held you down and beat you over the head.” Now the expression got surly. “I’d just like to know why Mel always gets the fucking credit when I start to make sense. What makes you think I didn’t just think it through and—” “Never mind,” Mike said, sticking out a hand. “I appreciate it.” Jack took the hand and Mike’s smile vanished. The look on his face became earnest. “Jack, I give you my word. I plan to do everything in my power to make your sister happy. I’ll protect her with my life.” “You’d better,” Jack said sternly. “Or so help me—” Mike couldn’t help but smile. “And we were doing so good there for a minute.” “Yeah, well…” “You won’t be disappointed in me,” Mike said. Jack was quiet a moment, then said, “Thanks. I knew that. It just took me a while. Guys like us…” “Yeah.” Mike laughed. “Guys like us. Who’d ever have thought?” Jack rubbed a hand across the back of his sweaty neck and said, “Yeah, well, look out. You bite the dust like I did and all of a sudden you’re breeding up a ball team.” “I’ll be on the lookout for that,” Mike said.

My world is so huge right now—when a Wide Iwish Rose puts her arms around my neck and calls me a silly daddy, my heart almost doesn’t fit in my chest. That Rosie—she isn’t just an idea. She’s more than I could have imagined if my imagination had gone into overdrive.” Franci was quiet for a moment. Then she put a spoonful of ice cream to his lips. “I know,” she said. “You’ve turned yourself into a wonderful silly daddy.” He swallowed the ice cream. “I need you to forgive me for the man I was… If you can.” “I forgave you when I saw you with our daughter. It’s all different now.” “I know I suggested marriage before, but you were onto me. I was just trying to check off the items on my to-do list. It isn’t like that now. I want to marry you because you’re the most important thing in my life. You’re the beat of my heart, Franci—the mother of my child, my best friend and my future. I love you more than anything. I love Rosie as much. I’d lay down my life for either one of you.” “Sean…” she said in a whisper, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m so sorry I had my head up my ass when we were together before—if I could do that whole time over, I’d prove to you that I’m not completely brainless. I love you, baby. You and Rose.” “I know,” she whispered. “We love you, too.” “Will you marry me?” he asked. He grinned. “Bite the dust with me? Spend our lives as husband and wife?” “I will, of course. You’re obviously useless on your own.” “We can plan a wedding or do it quick or wait to decide when I get orders—it’s up to you. Anything you want. But let’s get a license right away so we’re ready, because I need the official contract. I want to be your legal partner as well as your lover and best friend. And let’s get you a ring. Will you consider taking my name, baby? And let me give it to Rosie?” “Uh-huh,” she said, a fat tear rolling down her cheek. “It’s just details, honey—but the important part is right this minute, when we make the decision that we’re a family now.” “We’re a family now,” she said. “Whew,” he said. “I thought you’d probably say yes, but there was a little worry in the back of my mind that maybe I had more to prove. Thank you.” He leaned toward her and covered her lips with his. “Thank you,” he said again. “I love you so much. So let’s get the license and ring this week—what do you think?” She put her bowl on the bedside table. “I think my ice cream is soup, so you should close the door and take my clothes off. What do you think?” He grinned hugely. “I think I’m going to love being married to you.” *

Being a football player, faith plays a huge role," Mariota told FCA Magazine. "When things start to get rough, you find comfort in your faith. Knowing that no matter what, you can dust yourself off and be OK. And you know you do it for [God's] glory. You do it for your teammates, your family, but also for His glory and to represent His name.

Laugh whenever you can. . . . Find a cause bigger than yourself. Pray for the impossible. Dust off that Schwinn. Get to know someone with a piercing. Spread the good news of God’s love with boldness. . . . Nap, but not while driving. Stay curious. Take a college course. Learn something new. Live. . . .

If a marriage is successful, it is because the wife is dying to herself and submitting to her husband and her husband is dying to himself and submitting to Christ.

One moment you are certain of yourself, the next you are standing where you once swore you never would. And then you must pick up your life where it fell, dust it off, and pretend that you knew what you were doing. Pretend that profound wisdom can be somehow gleaned from pride

Dare to be positive even when everything is falling apart. Dare to smile even when you start your worst day. Dare to fight for justice even when you are surrounded by injustice. Dare to try even when you have failed more than once. Dare to stand up for who you are even when nobody believes in you. Dare to get up and shake off the dust even when people constantly beat you down. Dare to continue even when you have no courage. Dare to find hope even when the future seems bleak. Dare to to give it one more try even when you are extremely tired. Dare to be stronger even when the earth is crashing down on you. Dare to love again even when you have been cheated. Dare to help others even when you are in need of help. Dare to extend a hand to needy people even when you were alone during hard times. Dare to be generous in giving even when you have not much to give. Dare to feel good about yourself even when you think you have not done well. Dare to be confident even when people around you are on the constant lookout to bring you down. Dare to care for people even when no one cares for you. Dare to be grateful even when you have lost everything. Dare to be the first to thank even when people owe you thanks. Dare to share your stories even when you feel they are not worth to share. Dare to be best even when you are surrounded by so much negativity.

Money affords the wealthy time to cultivate their talents, but not all the wealthy are talented and not all take advantage of it. Most have to recognize the opportunity when it arises, seize it, and find time for their passion while working to pay rent and keep food in the refrigerator. If some people are born on third base and spend their whole life thinking they hit a triple, the rest of us have to beat out bunts, steal second, and dive into third on a sacrifice fly. After dusting yourself off, at least you know you worked hard to arrive, and scoring from there tastes even sweeter.

Stronger Than That” I've walked through fire, I've felt the rain, Worn my heart on my sleeve, felt love and pain. They say life's a road that you travel blind, But I'm the one in the driver's seat, I'm takin' back what's mine. Face your life, take the wheel, and drive, Be whoever the hell you want to be, feel alive. When they knock you down, cut you deep, just believe, You're stronger than that, stand tall, and be free. Whispers behind my back, like thorns they sting, But I'm a wildflower, I bloom in the spring. I've got scars to show, and stories to tell, I've danced with my demons, been through heaven and hell. Face your life, take the wheel, and drive, Be whoever the hell you want to be, feel alive. When they knock you down, cut you deep, just believe, You're stronger than that, stand tall, and be free. So let 'em talk, let 'em spin their lies, I'm a storm, I'm the sun, I'm the clear blue skies. I'll brush off the dust, wear a smile, and say, "I'm stronger than that," and I'll pave my own way. Face your life, take the wheel, and drive, Be whoever the hell you want to be, feel alive. When they knock you down, cut you deep, just believe, You're stronger than that, stand tall, and be free. Yeah, face your life, with each sunrise, Give yourself the freedom, let your spirit rise. When life knocks you down, just take it in stride, Brush yourself off, with a smile, take pride.

Life’s a bull. Sometimes you can hang on. Sometimes it throws you off. Sometimes you get completely fucked. You gotta get up, dust yourself off, and keep riding.

Let’s face it, dear, there are people who walk around like deflated balloons – even with all the potential for greatness, but kinda limpy & dusty. IMPRESS YOURSELF, TODAY! Every day when you go to bed, ask yourself, “Did I do something awesome today?” Am I proud of myself?” & feel the answer deep inside your heart.. Sweetheart, look, most people settle for a life way smaller than they’re actually capable of. Most people cage themselves in “self-doubt” & “what if” fortresses & then complain the view sucks. (Seriously, you want a limited-edition life when you can be the GOLD edition?) Darling listen – this is your official wake-up call! Dust off your inner rockstar, ditch the excuses & unleash your awesomeness! You already have talent & inherited wisdom to be extraordinary, you just gotta use them. So, shed those limiting beliefs like a bad outfit. Move from “just existing” to “extraordinary.” Do a few things to make yourself proud. Expand your horizons & surprise yourself with what you’re capable of. Trust me, the world needs your unique brand of magic. I wish & hope that very soon you get a taste for what it means to expand beyond your limited sense of self. Blessings & may your self-impressed journey begin today!

True strength comes from what you do after you have been battered, beaten, and torn to shreds. True power is having the courage to get up, dust yourself off and continue living. Now, the way I see it, you have two choices, you can either lay there like a coward or you can suck it up and take a damn chance!" 

Your destiny isn’t determined by the number of times you stumbled or made wrong turns. Your destiny is not determined by how many times you failed. Instead, your destiny is determined by how many times you rose up, dusted yourself off, and moved forward in your life. Despite your uncertainties. Despite your hardships. Despite your losses, grief, and disappointments.

Arise! Arise! Put on your strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city; for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall never again enter you. Shake off the dust from yourself, stand up, O captive Jerusalem; release the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

you’re going to need a blade. Now …” He moved to the next box, tearing off the lid, nails and all. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and look through a few of these yourself? See if anything jumps out at you. Remember, you’re looking for a blade. Not a mace or a maul or a huge spiked chain that you’d probably hurt yourself with trying to learn.” “Fine.” I wandered down the aisle, looking at random articles. “But I still say the flail looked like it could bash in a vamp’s head pretty efficiently.” “Allison—” “I’m going, I’m going.” More wooden boxes lined the aisle to either side, covered in dust. I brushed back a film of cobwebs and grime to read the words on the side of the nearest carton. Longswords: Medieval Europe, 12th century. The rest was lost to time and age. Another read: Musketeer Rapie … something or other. Another apparently had a full suit of gladiator armor, whatever a gladiator was. A clang from Kanin’s direction showed him holding up a large, double-bladed ax, before he laid it aside and moved on to another shelf. One box caught my attention. It was long and narrow, like the other boxes, but instead of words, it had strange symbols printed down the side. Curious, I wrenched off the lid and reached in, shifting through layers of plastic and foam, until my fingers closed around something long and smooth. I pulled it out. The long, slightly curved sheath was black and shiny, and a hilt poked out of the end, marked with diamond pattern in black and red. I grasped that hilt and pulled the blade free, sending a metallic shiver through the air and down my spine. As soon as I drew it, I knew I had found what Kanin wanted. The blade gleamed in the darkness, long and slender, like a silver ribbon. I could sense the razor sharpness of the edge without even touching it. The sword itself was light and graceful, and fit perfectly into my palm, as if it had been made for me. I swept it in a wide arc, feeling it slice through the air, and imagined this was a blade that could pass through a snarling rabid without even slowing down. A chuckle interrupted me. Kanin stood a few yards away, arms crossed, shaking his head. His mouth was pulled into a resigned grin. “I should have known,” he said, coming forward. “I should have known you would be drawn to that. It’s very fitting, actually.

Housewife does not mean you are married to a house. It means you are a woman who is married to a husband and your husband goes off to work every day and you don’t go off to work at all but embark on house-dusting, house-hoovering and various ironing and washing duties and other things that happen in a house, and in fact you aren’t really expected to go out of the house at all except to get yourself to a supermarket and then you go up and down the aisles with a trolley and a list, looking sad. What a lot of things are embedded in that housewife word.