"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." --Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I LOVE taking pictures and I LOVE poetry and quotes. So...in 2010 I am going to attempt to take one picture a day and post it along with a quote or poem.Whether it be something I did that day, something that made me happy, something that made me sad, something I thought was beautiful, something I thought was not, something that made me cry, something that made me laugh...we shall see.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Day 59

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family.
Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.
But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down.
It translates into:
* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month, or
* $171.08 a week.
* That's a mere $24.24 a day!*
Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice is... don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up.
You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.
You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watching Saturday morning cartoons,
* going to Disney movies, and
* wishing on stars.*
You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day,and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.
For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck.
You get to be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
*coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.
You get a front row seat to history to witness the:
* first step,
* first word,
* first bra,
* first date, and
* first time behind the wheel.
You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.
You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits.
So . . one day they may, like you.
Love without counting the cost...
That is quite a deal for the price!!

~Author Unknown

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Day 58

Nice shot Chance


If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Day 57

a tree in Auburn on our way to Coby's basketball practice
"It's come at least...the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache... they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them."
~A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - Chapter 53, pg. 453

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Day 56

yummy
Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.
~Ernestine Ulmer

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Day 55

I spy a rainbow...do you? 4:13 PM
May you always have work for your hands to do.
May your pockets hold always a coin or two.
May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.
May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
~Irish Blessing

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Day 54

Orange Creamslush I have been wanting for months. Thank you John!
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
~Robert Heinlein

Monday, February 22, 2010

Day 53

Gunnar lost his tooth today

Losing baby teeth were a part and parcel of one's life - a symbol of growing up, and it is the tooth-fairy that makes this otherwise dreaded and painful process an exciting one - something to look forward to.

~Mansi Maheshwari

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Day 52

Celine and John
Does the father figure in your cat's life ever clean the litter box? My husband claims that men lack the scooping gene.


~Barbara L. Diamond

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Day 51

Coby on the bench
I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Day 50

It took forever to straighten Chance's hair...it is so thick
Beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.
~Garrison Keillor

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Day 49

2010 Olympics in Vancouver...Snowboarder, Hannah Teter
The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation, the kind of international competition that's wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us.
~John Williams

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Day 48

Sophie...my beautiful niece
A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he cannot get along without it and none is so poor that he cannot be made rich by it. Yet a smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.
~Author Unknown

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Day 47

11:58 AM p.s. I know I take a lot of pictures of the sky but I can't help it.



It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

~Henry David Thoreau

Monday, February 15, 2010

Day 46

nephew Malachi (#21) at the Portland Tournament

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Day 45

Happy Valentines Day




















Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
~Tom Wolfe

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Day 44

Happy 1st Birthday Tyler

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.”
~Author Unknown

Friday, February 12, 2010

Day 43

Chance and his cell phone
As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.
~Fran Lebowitz

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Day 42

Gunnar's Valentines
You really shouldn't say "I love you" unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.
~8-year-old Jessica

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Day 41

Upon entering my laundry room this morning
Raising Boys
I scrub the wall of fingerprints,
Pick up the mounds of clothes.
I sweep the dirt that shoes track in-
Wish I could use a hose!
Meals are served from dawn to dark,
Dirty dishes crowd the sink.
Just when they're washed and put away-
Everyone wants a drink!
The washer pulls the dirty grime
From pants worn thin and patched.
They look so very neat and clean-
Yuck, look what the pockets hatched!
Broken bones and bloody knees,
I should have been a nurse.
I take it all in shaky stride-
Just grateful it's not worse!
Screams and shouts and arguments
Test the keeping of my cool.
They left the neighbor's faucet on-
See their new front yard pool!
A soothing bath is ecstasy,
A reward at the end of my rope.
Raising boys isn't really bad-
But first I must wash the soap!
A rose can say I Love You,
Orchids can enthrall;
But a weed bouquet in a chubby fist,
Oh my, that says it all!
~Roberta I. Teague

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Day 40

Gunnar's kindergarten class
Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.
~John F. Kennedy

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Day 38

Coin toss-Super Bowl XLIV-Colts vs. Saints...GO SAINT'S!!
Let's face it, you have to have a slightly recessive gene that has a little something to do with the brain to go out on the football field and beat your head against other human beings on a daily basis.
~Tim Green

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Day 37

320th and Pac Hwy sky
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them.
~Leonard Louis Levinson

Friday, February 5, 2010

Day 36

our thermostat
Why is it...when I am cold my husband says, "put on a sweatshirt". But when he's cold... he turns up the heat. hmmmmm?

~Jaime Martineau

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Day 35

neighbor's blue bicycle
The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.
~Sloan Wilson

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Day 34

Downtown Seattle- headed to the Elton John/Billy Joel Concert


Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.
~Jean Paul Richter


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Day 33

"Bob"...the groundhog puppet... Happy Groundhog Day!






















The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.


~Patrick Young

Monday, February 1, 2010

Day 32

Beautiful Tyler
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
~Rachel Carson

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About Me

My photo
Mother. Friend. Daughter. Sister. Aunt. Artist. Photographer. Child of God. Dreamer. Listener. Teacher. Cook. Nurse. Book nerd. Maid. Movie lover. Referee. Girl. Country singer. Sock and PEZ dispenser collector. Scrap booker. Brunette. Chauffer. Game player. Bird Watcher. Cheerleader. Fashion designer. Lover of: rice crispy treats, polka dots, cheese, vanilla candles, Survivor, Interior design, So You Think You Can Dance, shoes, the UFC, Bon Jovi, chocolate, music
I LOVE taking pictures and I LOVE poetry and quotes. So...in 2010 I am going to attempt to take one picture a day and post it along with a quote or poem.
Whether it be something I did that day, something that made me happy, something that made me sad, something I thought was beautiful, something I thought was not, something that made me cry, something that made me laugh...we shall see.