My Coffee Cup Has Feet…

Well, it’s actually a quiet day at Diamond today (for once) so my thoughts this afternoon are drifting to the upcoming weekend.  It’s going to be a busy one, but also should be a lot of fun.  Shannon and I are continuing our “date night” tradition, and are going to a party with some good friends on Saturday night.  After a long, tiring week it’s just what the Doctor ordered!

Anyways, here are the remainder of the quotes to date.  Yes, don’t be shocked but I’m actually caught up for once!

05/11 – “When we love anyone with our whole hearts, life begins when we are with that person; it is only in their company that we are really and truly alive.”  – William Barclay

05/12 – “To be in love
Is to touch things with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.”  – From “To Be In Love” by Gwendolyn Brooks

05/13 – “As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.”  – Helen Keller

05/14 – “All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.”  – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

05/15 – “It is a lovely thing to have a husband and wife developing together and having the feeling of falling in love again. That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.”  – Paul Tournier

I still find it amazing how much she fills my thoughts…

One of the biggest life lessons we can learn as we grow is to know when to stand up for ourselves, and for what we believe is right.  I want so very much for my children to learn that sooner, rather than later in life as I did.

Let me explain.

On Monday afternoon, I got a very excited phone call at work from Shannon, telling me that Jonathan had been “attacked” by a group of three other boys on the playground, and that nothing had been done by the school staff on duty at the time to deal with it (Mama Bear was a little pissed).  She vented for a while about some people needing to “do their damn jobs”, and once she’d calmed down a little I got the gist of the story a little better.  We later talked about it, and yesterday morning she went in and calmly had conversations with the powers-that-be about the way this had been improperly handled.  We’ve actually been pretty pleased with most of what goes on at the school, so I have every confidence that it will be looked into and the issues corrected.

That’s not what upsets me.

I had a Father to Son talk that evening with Jonathan about this, as I wanted to get full story about what exactly happened and more importantly how he handled it.  To make a long story short, this particular group of boys has been teasing him quite a bit the last week or so, and decided yesterday that they were going to take it further by surrounding him, kicking and punching him (he actually did have a scrape and couple of bruises).  While telling me all this, he had his hands balled into fists and tears in his eyes, and when he’d finished he followed it with “…I wanted to kick their butts so bad, but I didn’t cause I’d get in trouble.”.

On one side, I’m extremely proud of him in that during a time of stress he found himself able to think clearly and make that decision.  However, the thought that he felt he would be “in trouble” for defending himself bothers me a bit.  It strikes me that in many ways our society is going to extremes to avoid conflict, even in cases where standing up for ones’ rights, beliefs or personal safety comes into question.  Either way, I made sure he understood that in the future he was absolutely allowed to do what he needed to do to stand up for himself, and that I’d back him 100% if need be to defend his actions (along with the statement that if he started it, his butt was mine…).  So far, things seem to have settled down at school, and we’re hoping he won’t need to make that decision anytime soon.

Ok, now on to the quotes for Shannon.  As I’ve said, it’s been harder and harder to find good ones as of late.  However, I have found a couple of rare gems the last few weeks that I’ve been very pleased with.  Enjoy!

04/13 – “Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart.”  – Euripides

04/14 – “When you came, you were like red wine and honey, and the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.”  – Amy Lowell

04/15 – “In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”  – Mignon McLaughlin

04/16 – “The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.”  – Victor Hugo

04/17 – “Love was as subtly caught, as a disease; But being got it is a treasure sweet, which to defend is harder than to get: And ought not be profaned on either part, for though ‘Tis got by chance, ‘Tis kept by art.”  – John Donne

04/20 – Phil was sick in bed;  No quote sent.

04/21 – Phil was sick in bed;  No quote sent.

04/22 – (Makeup for Monday) – “The way you let your hand rest in mine, my bewitching Sweetheart, fills me with happiness. It is the perfection of confiding love. Everything you do, the little unconscious things in particular, charms me and increases my sense of nearness to you, identification with you, till my heart is full to overflowing.”  – Woodrow Wilson

04/22 – (Makeup for Tuesday) – “O happy hours when I may once more encircle within these arms the dearest object of my love- when I shall again feel the pressure of that “aching head” which will delight to recline upon my bosom, when I may again press to my heart which palpitates with the purest affection that loved one who has so long shared it’s undivided devotion.”  – Alexander Hamilton Rice

04/22 – “Marriage is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is Eternity.”  – Khalil Gibran

04/23 – “Love has no desire but to fulfill itself.  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”  – Khalil Gibran

04/24 – “Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.”  – Malagasy Proverb

04/27 – “Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.”  – Mark Overby

04/28 – “To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness.”  – Robert Brault

04/29 – “Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.”  – Rabindranath Tagore

04/30 – “Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve.”  – Percy Bysshe Shelley

05/01 – “In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.”  – Hans Nouwens

05/04 – “My best chosen friend, companion, guide, to walk through life, linked hand-in-hand, two equal, loving friends, true husband and true wife.”  – Sir Charles Gavan Duffy

05/05 – “True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.”  – Honore De Balzac

05/06 – “The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.”  – Lawrence Durrell

05/07 – “All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love And feed His sacred flame.”  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

05/08 – “Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion, not comparison and measurement.”  – Gerald Jampolsky

This morning, I’m going to go outside the norm with my blog entries and post a quote that was kindly sent to me by a very good friend.  It very eloquently sums up some things I’ve been “preaching” for some time now, and I think it’s important to pass along.

“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005

While I realize this may not be a popular sentiment with everyone, it is a realistic and timely message.

Ok, now on to my devotional quotes to my lovely wife Shannon.  I’ve still been managing to keep up with these, although lately it’s been harder and harder to find ones that I like that I haven’t already used.  Anyways, here they are…

03/23 – “True love is night jasmine, a diamond in darkness, the heartbeat no cardiologist has ever heard. It is the most common of miracles, fashioned of fleecy clouds — a handful of stars tossed into the night sky.”  – Jim Bishop

03/24 – “All the pictures that hung in my memory before I knew you have faded and given place to our radient moments together. Now I cannot live apart from you… Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.”  – Sarah Bernhardt

03/25 – “Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. Its eternal goal is life.”  – Smiley Blanton

03/26 – “As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.”  – Napoleon Bonaparte

03/27 – “The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.”  – Truman Capote

03/30 – “The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word ‘love.’ It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.”  – Lydia Maria Child

03/31 – “Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.
And I do lift my aching arms to you,
And I do lift my anguished, avid breast,
And I do weep for very pain of you,
And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest. “  – D.H. Lawrence

04/01 – “This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected – in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life.”  – Thomas Mann

04/02 – “The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it… you and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.”  – George Moore

04/03 – “Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”  – Saint Augustine of Hippo

04/06 – “We’ve grown to be one soul – two parts; our lives so intertwined that when some passion stirs your heart, I feel the quake in mine.”  – Gloria Gaither

04/07 – “When love is your greatest weakness, you will be the strongest person in the world.”  – Garman Wold

04/08 – “Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.”  – Marguerite De Valois

04/09 – “Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”  – Vincent Van Gogh

04/10 – “Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a heaven in hell’s despair.”  – William Blake

It’s amazing how often I think of her during the day…

Well, another year of my life has come and gone.  Looking back, I can’t say it was a good year, or a bad year… The roller coaster went in both directions so many times I lost count.  No matter how I look at it though, it was a VERY memorable time.  Ok, ’nuff said on that one.

Borg Tux

To follow up on my last post, well… I did it.  I got the tattoo, and I love the results!  I can’t say enough nice things about Chris and Lisa from Tattoo Mafia (http://www.tattoomafia.net).  From minute one they did everything to make the whole experience a great one.  I was very impressed with them, and with my new tat, and would recommend them to anyone who’s thinking about getting one.

One more wonderful birthday present to note, we got a good report back on Jonathan’s yearly checkup with the Hemotology/Oncology Doctor at A.I. DuPont Hospital.  As some of you know, we actually got Jonathan’s original diagnosis and prognosis on my 30th birthday so this time of year tends to make me twitch a little when the checkup comes around.  This year though, all is good and he’s doing just fine… <insert sigh of relief here>

Ok, now to the quotes.  As I noted last time, I’m a bit behind so I’m going to post a bunch to catch up.  Enjoy!

02/16 – “Love transforms; it simultaneously makes us larger and limits our possibilities. It changes our history even as it breaks a new path through the present.”  – Michael Dorrius

02/17 – “Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little.”  – Hannah Moore

02/18 – “An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.”  – Harold Loukes

02/19 – “Love demands all, and has a right to all.”  – Ludwig Van Beethoven

02/20 – Phil was out of the office most of the day;  No quote.

02/23 – (Makeup for Friday) – “Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”  – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

02/23 – “And of course, the brain is not responsible for any of the sensations
at all. The correct view is that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart.”  – Aristotle

02/24 – “The truth of love is the truth of the universe: it is the lamp of the soul that reveals the secrets of darkness.”  – Kabir

02/25 – Phil was out running most of the day and didn’t get one out in time.

02/26 – (Makeup for Wednesday) – “A mind might ponder its thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach in a day.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson

02/26 – “The brain gives the heart its sight. The heart gives the brain its vision.”  – Rob Kall

02/27 – “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”  – ‘His Holiness 14th Dalai Lama’, Tenzin Gyatso

03/02 – (Snow Day) – “Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased.  It comes from Heaven, unasked and unsought.”  – Pearl Buck

03/03 – “Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.”  – Helen Rowland

03/04 – “Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter.”  – T.S. Eliot

03/05 – “To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.”  – Francois Mauriac

03/06 – Hectic Office Day, Phil Forgot

03/09 – (Makeup for Friday) – “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”  – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

03/09 – “The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”  – Jiddu Krishnamurti

03/10 – “I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion -
I have shudder’d at it.
I shudder no more.
I could be martyr’d for my religion
Love is my religion
And I could die for that.
I could die for you.”  – John Keats

03/11 – “Love is always in the mood of believing in miracles.”  – J.C. Powys

03/12 – “There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.”  – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

03/13 – “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. “  – Rainer Maria Rilke

03/16 – Shannon’s Phone was Dead – No Quote Sent

03/17 – “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”  – Aristotle

03/18 – “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. “  – James A. Baldwin

03/19 – “Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.”  – Saint Thomas Aquinas

03/20 – “You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. “  – Henry Drummond

… And she continues to inspire me.

Each year as my bithday gets closer, I tend to look back to what I’ve accomplished over the previous 12 months.  Sometimes, these recollections bring a smile to my face, sometimes not.  This year it’s an odd mix of emotions, however I think the positives greatly outweighed the negatives.

It seemed to be a period of extremes, but all in all I can honestly say that I’ve learned an amazing amount about myself, and what I’m truly capable of.  Without getting into specifics, much of my energies were spent dealing with long-held worries, fears and anxieties and while no growth comes without pain, I’m proud of how much I feel I’ve grown as a person during this time.

This week, I’m taking on one of my oldest, deepest fears;  Needles.  On Wednesday at 4:00pm I have an appointment to get a tattoo… Yes, really.  I’ve always held an appreciation for the artistc component behind tattoos, as well as the committment getting one holds.  However, between the thought of the pain involved, and more specifically of voluntarily allowing needles to pierce my skin repeatedly I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it.  Well, Wednesday that all changes.  I’ve picked a “Geeky” tatoo (go figure) and plan to get it on the back of one of my shoulders.  While the fear is still there, I’m excited to get this done and confront my anxiety head-on.  I’ll make sure to post pictures once it’s all said and done.

Ok, now on to the quotes.

I have to say one thing before I post this batch.  The growth I’ve had over this last year has gone hand in hand with support from my wonderful wife.  She’s always there for me, and after all we’ve been through and done the last twelve months, we’re stronger as a couple than I ever thought we could be.  She’s a constant reminder of how blessed I am.

Ok, and here’s this installment of SMS messages to my Love;

01/19 – “Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.”  – Plato

01/20 – “Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields.”  – Christopher Marlowe

01/21 – “I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
I still believe the words we said
Forever will ring true
Love is certain, love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isn’t something that we find
It’s something that we do”  – Clint Black, “Something That We Do”

01/22 – “Love has the power of making you believe what you would normally treat with the deepest suspicion.”  – Mirabeau

01/23 – “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.”  – Sam Keen

01/26 – “Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.”  – Woody Allen

01/27 – “So we’re okay, we’re fine
Baby I’m here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I’m stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We’ll look at them together then we’ll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that’s true
Multiply life by the power of two.”  – Indigo Girls, “Power of Two”

01/28 – Shannon was out for Surgery

01/29 – “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. “  – Peter Ustinov

01/30 – “Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.”  – Joanne Woodward

02/02 – “The mind determines what is possible. The heart surpasses it.”  – Pilar Colinta

02/03 – “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”  – Charles Dickens

02/04 – “We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.”  – Benjamin Disraeli

02/05 – “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.”  – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

02/06 – “To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”  – Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

02/09 – “Love is like a river, always changing, but always finding you again somewhere down the road.”  – Kelly Elaine

02/10 – “The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”  – Allan K. Chalmers

02/11 – “Companioned years have made them comprehend
The comradeship that lies beyond a kiss
The young ask much of life — they ask but this
To fare the road together to its end.”  – Roselle Mercier Montgomery

02/12 – Insanely Busy Day, Phil Forgot

02/13 – (Makeup for Thursday) – “A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.”  – Charles Kingsley

02/13 – “Each moment of a happy lover’s hour is worth an age of dull and common life”  – Aphra Behn

I hope to get time to post following the tattooing experience, so I should be able to catch back up on the quotes at that time.  Wish me luck!

Well, they say to be careful what you wish for… In my case, I wished for snow.  As of now, we’ve got around 10 inches on the ground, it’s still coming down and the 40mph winds are blowing drifts all over God’s creation.  Oh well… at least when it settles down I’ll have a chance to play with the new snow thrower.

So, has it really been since the middle of December since I posted?  Wow… I can’t even blame Warcraft for the delay as I really haven’t had much time to play lately.  I am finally getting Gadrok leveled up (78 at the moment), but at the rate I’m going it’ll be a while before I hit 80.

Overall, things are good in the Malmstrom home;  Shannon’s finally recovered from some minor surgery.  The kids are doing well in school and continue to enjoy it.  Diamond has been holding fast through the country’s economic turmoil, and seems to be back in a growth mode again.  Shannon and I are still getting out as a couple once a week or so, and having lots of fun meeting new friends.  All in all, life is good.

As for the quotes… Yes, I’ve been maintaining the quotes to my Love each day.  It’s been getting more and more complicated to find new ones that I like and haven’t used, but I continue to send them.  As it’s been so long, I’m going to post some in batches to try and catch up.  So without further ado, here’s the first installment for 2009:

12/15 – “Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.”  – Germaine De Stael

12/16 – “The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”  – Sir Hugh Walpole

12/17 – “Perfect love is rare indeed – for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.”  – Leo Buscaglia

12/18 – “Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”  – Voltaire

12/19 – “When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.”  – Erich Fromm

12/22 – “I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.”  – Rabindranath Tagore

12/23 – “Only in the mysterious equations of love can any real logic be found.”  – from “A Beautiful Mind”

12/24 to 12/26 – Christmas Vacation

12/29 – “To the world you may only be one person, but to one person you may be the world”  – Heather Cortez

12/30 – “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”  – Thomas Merton

12/31 – “Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low.”  – Henry Ward Beecher

2009
01/01 – New Years Day

01/02 – “Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other.”  – Felix Adler

01/05 – “You were made perfectly to be loved – and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.”  – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

01/06 – “I think we dream so we don’t have to be away from one another. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we’ll always be together.”  – Hobbes

01/07 – “your slightest look easily will unclose me though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose”  – E.E. Cummings

01/08 – “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen each other in all labour, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories?”  – George Eliot

01/09 – “I’ve looked around enough to know that you’re the one I want to go through time with.”  – Jim Croce

01/12 – “Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;  And every little absence is an age.”  – John Dryden

01/13 – “Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.”  – Kahlil Gibran

01/14 – “You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”  – from “Hook”

01/15 – “I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”  – Jennifer Gray in “Dirty Dancing”

01/16 – Out of the Office all Day.

I’ll try to post another batch in the next couple of days to help catch up.  Enjoy!

This past weekend, we celebrated one of the most important moments of my life;  The birth of my Son, Jonathan.  As many of you know, his life has been medically complicated and when he was born there was a big concern that he’d not be with us long.  Therefore, when I sit back and realize that we just celebrated his 9th birthday the emotions are overwhelming.  Happy Birthday Jonathan!  Daddy loves you!

As always, Shannon had the whole party thing under control and other than a small issue getting the cake everything went very well.  He had a great time at his party, and went to bed with a smile on his face… What a beautiful sight.

Now, on to the quotes.  Funny enough, I still love doing these for her.  I’m going to come close to catching up this time…

12/01 – “Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.”  – Vincent Van Gogh

12/02 – “Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one’s own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.”  – Ayn Rand

12/03 – “Human Love… It is that extra creation that stands hurt and baffled at the place of death. Being human, wanting children and sunlight and breath to go on, forever.”  – Christopher Leach

12/04 – “Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible — it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could.”  – Barbara De Angelis

12/05 – “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”  – Kahlil Gibran

12/08 – “LOVE: He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”  – Albert Einstein

12/09 – “Love’s greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred.”  – Barbara De Angelis

12/10 – “Someday, after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energy of love; and for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”  – Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

12/11 – “The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.”  – Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

12/12 – “… See there’s this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It’s the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me.”  – Gretchen Kemp

Well, ok… I’m behind on postings again.  Between the Holidays, and things finally getting busy at Diamond once again I’m tighter on time than I’d like to be.  Either way, I have a couple of things I want to note before I post the list of quotes…

First off, Shannon finished her Teaching II class with a score of 290/300!  Yay!  I’m just so proud of her!  Congrats Love!

I also wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who came to help us set up the Christmas lights and decorations at the house this year (you know who you are!).  As many of you know, we do pretty significant decorating for the Christmas Season, and we never could have pulled it off this year if it wasn’t for the help of some wonderful friends.  Thank you all!

Ok, and now to the quotes…  Since I’m a little behind, I’m going to post a few extras this time to catch up.  As always, my loving Wife is entrenched in my thoughts and therefore the dedications continue.  Enjoy!

11/10 – “This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love;  the more they give, the more they possess.”  – Rainer Maria Rilke

11/11 – “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”  – David Viscott

11/12 – “I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun-warmed, flower-bordered path.”  – Andre Gide

11/13 – “Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”  – Christopher Marlowe

11/14 – “Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice. Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart.”  – Robert Sexton

11/17 – “Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire…”  – A. C. Swinburne

11/18 – Crazy, Hectic Day… Phil Forgot.

11/19 – (Makeup for the 18th) – “Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.”  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

11/19 – “Love is not blind – It sees more and not less, but because it sees more it is willing to see less.”  – Will Moss

11/20 – “You’ll discover that real love is millions of miles past falling in love with anyone or anything. When you make that one effort to feel compassion instead of blame or self-blame, the heart opens again and continues opening.”  – Sara Paddison

11/21 – “And when the future hinges on the next words that are said, don’t let logic interfere, believe your heart instead.”  – Philip Robison

11/24 – “Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it, everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, never… never forget it.”  – Curtis Judalet

11/25 – “As we grow older together, As we continue to change with age, There is one thing that will never change. . . I will always keep falling in love with you.”  – Karen Clodfelder

11/26 – “If God is the DJ, then Life is the dance floor; Love is the rhythm, and You are the music.”  – P!nk

11/27 – Thanksgiving Day (She was with me, so texting seemed pointless… lol)

11/28 – “We sat side by side in the morning light and looked out at the future together.”  – Brian Andres

Well, the last month or so has brought a lot of fresh stress to the pile.  The economic downturn has been felt at Diamond, the time change always makes for some grumpy mornings, the weather hasn’t been overly pleasant as we wander into winter, and our schedules have just been insane.  Funny enough, the one constant light in my life has continued to be just that.  I know at this point I may be starting to sound like a lovestruck teenager, but through all the craziness that has been happening around us as of late I’m constantly reminded of why I’m so deeply, passionately in love with my Wife.

Thank you Shannon.

So, to continue the previous posts… Here’s the next batch of devotions to my best friend and partner in life.  Enjoy.

10/27 – “Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”  – Oliver Wendell Holmes

10/28 – “The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”  – William Shakespeare

10/29 – “When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.”  – Dr. Seuss

10/30 – “Love feels no burden, regards not labors, strives toward more than it attains, argues not of impossibility, since it believes that it may and can do all things. Therefore it avails for all things, and fulfils and accomplishes much where one not a lover falls and lies helpless.”  – Thomas P. Kempis

10/31 – “The soul mate is what we aspire to and like to understand about us, is what we deem to be perfection, purity and endless regarding our own being.”  – Sorin Cerin

11/03 – “Sometimes people care too much.  I think it’s called love.”  – Winnie the Pooh

11/04 – “Love simply is — it asks no permissions.  Acceptance is all love asks, the only demand it makes, but it is an absolute one. You can either admit it to your heart or refuse it, but there’s no other option.”  – Stephanie Laurens

11/05 – Shannon Forgot her Phone at Home

11/06 – “Love, true love, is that which can give the most without asking or demanding anything in return.”  – Mazie Hammond

11/06 – (Makeup for the 5th) – “Beautiful eyes are those that show the beautiful thoughts that burn below.”  – Ellen Allerton

11/07 – “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.”  – Winnie The Pooh

You know, the Internet is a vastly remarkable thing.  I spend a significant part of my day researching problems, and looking for insight and information to assist with my job.  In all that time, I can truly say that I’ve never found a subject that I can’t find information on.  What a resource we have!  I had the thought when I started finding and sending these quotes of endearment, that at some point I’d find that I’d used all the really good ones (I’m pretty picky), and would have to change something… That hasn’t been the case so far, and doesn’t appear that it will be an issue for some time to come.

Anyways, Here’s the next batch of quotes sent to “woo” my Loving Wife.  Enjoy!

10/13 – “Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

10/14 – “Doubt thou that the stars are fire;  Doubt that the sun doth move;  Doubt truth to be a liar;  But never doubt I love.”  – William Shakespeare

10/15 – “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.  Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.  They’re in each other all along.”  – Maulana Jalalu’ddin Rumi

10/16 – “What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?”  – Friedrich Nietzsche

10/17 – “Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”  – H.L. Mencken

10/20 – “He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”  – Ralph Waldo Emerson

10/21 – “Two souls and one thought, two hearts and one pulse.”  – Halen

10/22 – “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach…”  – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

10/23 – “What I feel for you seems less of earth and more of a cloudless heaven.”  – Victor Hugo

10/24 – “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”  – Lao Tzu