Valentine's card

"Forget love - I'd rather fall in chocolate!"
Sandra J. Dykes

What every student needs to know – in pictures

The slideshow from Advice To Sink Slowly is for students. However everyone should follow it.

Enjoy the project. "It Will Be Worth it":

... and "Be Yourself":

Where real happiness is

"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are."

by Osho

pic from deviantart.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day".
~ Robert Caspar Lintner

Reflection in frustration

They say Nordic countries have two seasons: a cold season and a very cold one. I tend to agree especially when winter lasts painfully long.

This time the very cold season began in October 2010. Long nights, frosty grey days and two-meter high snowdrifts brought me to extremely low spirits. My mode of life was very uneventful, boring and filled with distress. I had a terrible job, health problems, boyfriend blues and dreaded a huge change in the near future.

The Huge Change was a marriage proposal and a move to Finland, the country that dramatically differs from Russia and where I knew nobody but my husband. Besides I supposed the town we were going to live was so small in comparison with St. Petersburg that there would be nothing to do. That was the right assumption.

Anyways, the decision had been made. I moved in mid-February, married in March and began to get settled in Finnish suburbia fighting back boredom and frustration. A tough thing to do.

These days I often recall Francesca (a character from “The Bridges Of Madison County”) who once said: “When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you're expected move again only you don't remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself.”

…And I start to wonder if I am actually capable of leaving the swinging twenty-something life behind and ready to dedicate myself to my brand-new family.

animal planet

"Teach your children to honor themselves with integrity and you will teach them to honor your love."

Wes Fessler

animal planet

"Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait"

animal planet

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die".

Edward Kennedy

animal planet

"From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free"

Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997)

animal planet

"The start of a World Cross Country event is like riding a horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede. It's a thrill if you keep up, but one slip and you're nothing but hoof prints".

animal planet

"A lion's work hours are only when he's hungry; once he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together".

by Chuck Jones

The photographer's site is here

about women

"Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater.

If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby.

If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.

If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.

If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart.

She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her..

So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit".

animal planet

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder".

~Charles Morgan

animal planet

"Freedom is the oxygen of the soul'
~Moshe Dayan

animal planet

“An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship”

Oscar Wilde

animal planet

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Morrie Schwartz

animal planet

"There is nothing we like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in a person's eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These are the moments worth living".

Don Marquis

animal planet

"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it." ~Henry David Thoreau

animal planet

"It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self".

a little quote

A friend has just sent this picture and it breathed new life into my work.

Good luck with whatever you do, dear bloggers!