I can do that!

So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.

~ Ecclesiastes 3:12, NLT
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I totally agree with this "Verse of the Day." I will work hard to carry out this advice. :-)

Thank you, Mother and Daddy!

"Travel is the death of prejudice."
~Samuel Clemens

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I'm pretty sure that wasn't the main motivation, but my parents felt like travel was one of the most important things we could do as a family and they instilled a love of travel in both my sister and me. We've both been to all 50 states (several times for most of them). Together we've been to six European countries and on other journeys, we've both been to others (she more than I, but I'll catch up some day). Our parents have been to even more than that and just returned from a 32-day cruise down the Asian coast. There's so much to learn when you travel, but obviously, there's so much more to gain.

Words to Live By . . . Literally

Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

~ Ephesians 4:29, NLT

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Thank you Air1 for another reminder of what I firmly believe.

My Sentiments Exactly!

You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done.

~ Psalm 92:4, NLT

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It's true! It's true!! God has done sooooo much for me. His love and generosity are amazing. I try to remember to be appreciative, I try to notice even the small details of his generosity, but I forget and I don't notice. I can't be grateful enough. And as far as the singing goes . . . well, I can't do enough of that, either. ;-) And what better kind of singing is there than singing for joy? Wow. Every word of this Bible verse is just for me. Praise God!!

If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.  

~African Proverb

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There are four of us up for tenure this fall at UMF. We decided to work at it together. We've had a breakfast together and several "working lunches" where we brought our stuff to the same room at the same time and just worked. Even though we are each doing our own thing, it's so nice to do it with someone. And if you have a question, you just ask and there are three more heads to figure out a good answer together. We even made a Google site where we all share what we know and what colleagues have shared with us. It's been a pleasure and a blast. Beth, one of our members, shared this quote which she saw on the wall of a store in Grapevine, Texas this fall and thought it would be a good one for our tenure group. 

Procrastination

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Spotted in the window at Mooseville--a cute trinket store in downtown Farmington. I actually spotted it on June 28 but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.

Technology is magic

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law) English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - )

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I actually heard this referenced on a TED talk. I firmly believe that technology is magic. How nice that someone else said it so eloquently. :-)

New Motto

Always be joyful. Never stop praying.

~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17, NLT

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This was today's Air1 Verse of the Day. I titled this entry "new motto," but actually, it's not a new motto. This has always been my motto, just not in these words; and I didn't know it was in the Bible. I have a new favorite Bible verse now. :-)

PS Ooops. I just noticed that this was Air1's verse of the day a year ago and I said almost the same thing when I put it in this blog back then. I obviously forgot so God sent me a reminder.

Eisenhower--a Texas boy

I saw a quote by President Eisenhower today and when I went to look up the full context of the quote, I found a plethora of really great things said by this man. We mostly think of Eisenhower as a Kansas boy as that is where he was raised and made his home. But he was born in Denison, Texas, just an hour north of the Dallas area. We claim him, too. :-)

I read a great quote that he made about education and when I went to find the source/context, I found these as well:

“The true purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government.”
Address at the College of William and Mary, May 15, 1953

"It is unwise to make education too cheap. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on anything. Education must always have a certain price on it; even as the very process of learning itself must always require individual effort and initiative."

Address, Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association, Washington, DC, 4/4/57  

And the one that started the search (and I still don't know the context):

A distinguishing characteristic of our nation - and a great strength - is the development of our institutions within the concept of individual worth and dignity. Our schools are among the guardians of that principle. Consequently . . . and deliberately their control and support throughout our history have been - and are - a state and local responsibility. . . . Thus was established a fundamental element of the American public school system - local direction by boards of education responsible immediately to the parents of children. Diffusion of authority among tens of thousands of school districts is a safeguard against centralized control and abuse of the educational system that must be maintained. We believe that to take away the responsibility of communities and states in educating our children is to undermine not only a basic element of our freedoms but a basic right of our citizens. - Dwight D. Eisenhower