The Way Things Are with Critters

 Welcome to another 

SATURDAY'S CRITTERS

For my post today I'm going to lead with

my daughter's animals from my recent trip to Alabama.

"An animal's eyes have the powers to speak a powerful language."

Martin Buber

Artemis loves Murphy the dog living on their right side but as usual Artemis has her eyes on three dogs living on the other side always under her watchful eyes!

Miss Lou-Lou

What greater gift than the love of a cat.

Charles Dickens

As a matter of fact this is Sparkle's comfy position. 

A cat has the absolute emotional honesty; human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not. Ernest Hemingway.

"I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time. Neil Gaiman

 

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

Anatole France

Artemis checking out Sparkle and Lou-Lou enjoying the sun from their catio, and still keeping watch on the dogs next door.

The kitties have a cat sized doorway leading from the living room to their special catio on the deck!

There is a wilderness we walk alone.

However well - companioned.

Steven Vincent Benet

Truth is a hard deer to hunt. Life is not lost by dying;

 life is lost minute by minute,

day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. S. V. Benet

The most complicated skill is to be simple.

D. Stojanovic

May you live every day of your life.

Jonathan Swift

Thanks for stopping by know that your comments 

are as special as you are.

Take good care of you!

Use the wings of the flying Universe.

 Dream with open eyes; see in darkness. 

Dejan Stojanovic

Alabama Moments

 Here are a few memorable moments from my recent trip to Alabama. 

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. - Tom Robbins

Don't you find it odd, 

how some children pretend to be all grown up

while enthusiastic adults are full of quirks and secrets

living a life as complicated creatures instead of being

all grown up?

"Art is the magical act of one bleeding heart healing another."

A. Mandal

Your intuition knows what to do. The trick is getting

 your head to shut up so you can hear.

Louise Smith

You can't reach for anything new

 if your hands are still full of yesterday's junk.

Louise Smith

Why would anyone want perfection when growth comes from flaws.

Shannon L. Alder

One of the most important things you can do on this earth 

is to let people know they are not alone.

Shannon L. Alder

My grand-daughter, Lyra Phoenix

 

"I remember making that vow, the one not to forget,

 not to remember what happened,

but to remember who I was and how I felt."

Especially more so with my grandchildren.

"The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary,

that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors,

 friends, family, in one's backyard.

Abraham Maslow

My little girl, Cierra.

Tate Farms one of my favorite Alabama autumn places.

Me.

In any given moment we have two options

to step forward into growth

or to step back into safety.

Abraham Maslow

What is necessary to change a person is

to change his awareness of himself.

Abraham Maslow

The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

Abraham Maslow

Thanks for your visit and take good care of you!

Meet Artemis my daughter's new pup! Finally got to meet her (now that she's a year old) as my March visit was delayed due to COVID-19 and the risk of flying back then.

Extraordinary Things Begin to Happen

When you let your guard down.

Being an artist is possible at any given moment. 

We tend to forget we're capable of anything. 

Michael Birawer - artist

This piece - Calm Before the Purple

Just before the Minnesota Vikings played The Wisconsin Green Bay Packers 

We do not believe in ourselves

until someone reveals that deep inside us

something is valuable.

E.E. Cummings

Ready-set-go- Grab paint, brush, open white space, you decide.

 "If someone listens, or stretches out a hand or whispers a word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen."

Loretta Firzaris

Artists and merrymakers are enthusiastic about little things

happiness being the result of personal effort and

splashing that joy about one stroke at a time.

Cheerfulness is the atmosphere in which all things thrive. 

Jean Paul

A good friend is a connection to life. 

A tie to the past,

a road to the future

the key to sanity in a totally insane world.

Lois Wyse

This time of year I capture all those marvelous gifts of nature that soon for me will be covered in snow and ice.

Sometimes the little things in life are more than enough.

Lorretta Firzaris

You haunt the forgotten parts of us that linger in my soul.

Angie Weiland-Crosby

When darkness branches to your soul, light still finds a way to rise.

A. Weiland-Crosby

On the shore of nature's magic, I dreamed summer knew no end.

That being said-

Don't become so involved with life's duties that you neglect the pleasures of adventures and goodness of ordinary things all around you.

Me

Thanks for your visits they mean the world to me.

Take good safe care of you.

There is Nothing Like Looking

 Happy Tuesday September 22, 2020 is

In honor of Hobbits Today is Hobbit Day. 

"Keep your spirits up, hope for the best, and with a tremendous slice of luck you may come out one day and see the Long Marshes lying below you."

J.R.R. Tolkien

"Far over the misty mountains cold....  In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look. But, it is not always quite the something you were after." - J. R. R. Tolkien

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

J.R.R. Tolkien

"He who tries to shake a tree stump, shakes only himself."

African Proverb

"Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on?"

J.R.R. Tolkien, From the Hobbit, Or There and Back Again.

 

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

J.R.R. Tolkien

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks."

J.R.R. Tolkien

Play follow the leader.

If you see someone falling behind, walk beside them. If you see someone being ignored, find a way to include them. Always remind people of their worth.  One small act could mean the world to them.

"It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keeps the darkness at bay,  Small acts of kindness and love." 

J.R.R. Tolkien

"Where there's life there's hope."

J.R.R. Tolkien

Even for us during this COVID-19 time. Keeping our spirits up is key.

"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend, are soon told about." (taken from The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again.

Little did he or any of us ever imagine this virus business of 2020.

Are you as curious as I am as to what J.RR. Tolkien would have to say about all of this?

We must be grateful for all that we have and do these days.

Welcome to the Grocer's Table in Wayzata, Minnesota.

The tables outside were filled and inside there were two other tables of folks dinging besides mine.

So far I haven't ordered anything that wasn't delicious, especially their soups. They are over the top in my opinion.

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song, above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

J.R.R. Tolkien

I took the photo below in Excelsior, Minnesota basically just across the lake from Wayzata, and where you can still catch a boat excursion. Masked upon boarding of course.

I'm thankful for every chance of normalcy as we once knew it

 

Spend as much time as you can with loved ones and friends, it's crucial.

Thank you all for finding time to stop by 

Your comments mean the world to me!

Take good care of you.

 

 

Beyond Our Shadowy Scope Among Critters

and SATURDAY'S CRITTERS

Life is and will forever be a curious subject of observation combined with living, and yet, more importantly, our memories, which is, the sum of us. 

Me

Mind is a flexible mirror, adjust it, to see a better world.

Amit Ray

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.

Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Jesse James Gang rode into town but there to meet them was,

The Sheriff  James Glispin of Northfield.

Another yearly event to remain dark this 2020.

Hawthorne ends the story this way; He failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, for living once in all of eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. Live, love, your present.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The magnificence of my skeleton is hidden by the weight of my flesh.

Vera Caspary

We need the skeletons of other stories to understand our own, sometimes.

Lauren Groff

Because it's true: more than the highlights, the bright events, it was in the small and the daily where she'd found life.

Lauren Groff

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(Just wander beyond, way beyond your shadowy scope.)

Thank you for your visit, and may the joy of happiness follow you everywhere you go.