355. September 17

Friday night out on the rowboat with ma and pa. 

Wow, only ten days left with you, dear reader, and then my days of twenty are up. This is fortunate because I've run out of inanimate objects in my home to photograph at a quarter to midnight, but also a shame because I've only just discovered Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book. I found Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book, published 1923, in a thrift shop today. The cover page describes it as "CONTAINING THE INSPIRED AND INSPIRING SELECTIONS GATHERED DURING A LIFE TIME OF DISCRIMINATING READING FOR HIS OWN USE." In other words, it is a truly unique and valuable collection of quotes and poetry gathered from a lifetime of reading. For example, today's quote of the day:

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a prettier shell, or a smoother pebble than the ordinary, whist the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

~ Newton

And check out this Elbert Hubbard quote, posted here, last November.

163. March 9

There was a slight relapse in progression towards spring. I must admit, upon first seeing the snow I was quite upset. But, I have the weather to thank for a rather delightful day. 

"Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."

~Kin Hubbard

360. September 22

First day of fall.

My room is a mess, it's been a long day, and I'm a little on the cranky side.

But I woke up to the most beautiful morning. I love sleeping with the window open and waking up with the sun to find the morning breeze billowing through the curtains and to hear the birds outside. Of course, it also means hearing sprinklers, dogs, passing cars, and whole hosts of other noises throughout the night, but it's so worth it. Thank goodness for fall, and weather still warm enough to wake up to the sound of birds.

And thank you to Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book for supplying yet another quote of the day.

"What can I do? I can talk out when others are silent. I can say man when others say money. I can stay up when others are asleep. I can keep on working when others have stopped to play. I can give life big meanings when others give life little meanings. I can say love when others say hate. I can say every man when others say one man. I can try events by a hard test when others try it by an easy test. What can I do? I can give myself to life when other men refuse themselves to life."

~ Horace Traubel

356. September 18

Tonight, I lamented to my dad that I needed to get out of the house. Ten minutes later, three bikes were in the back of my dad's truck and my parents and I were off on an adventure. My dad took us down a relatively new bike trail, through parts of my home town I'd never even seen before. That's what I love about my dad; he just knows a lot of cool stuff. He also knows southern Utah better than nearly anyone I've ever met. And this is what I love about southern Utah; I could live here twenty years and still not see it all.

Another from Hubbard's collection...

"The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing,--where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do."

~ Phillips Brooks

52. November 19

I think Thursday has become the new Tuesday... In other words, icky.

Not a bad day, just a bit exhausting.

Today's Gratitude List

1. I am grateful I didn't have to face another rainy day. It was sunny today and warm enough to wear a skirt.
2. I am grateful for afternoon naps.
   
3. I am grateful for the postal service. How cool is that for under a dollar you can send a letter almost anywhere in the world?
4. I am grateful my geology lab exam is over.
5. I am grateful tomorrow is Friday.
6. I am grateful my Southern Literature paper is finally coming together, even if Spell Check refuses to properly function.
   
7. I am grateful I have plans to look forward to this weekend.
8. I am grateful I had braces a long time ago so now I have nice straight teeth.
9. I am grateful for this little gem of a video. And for Mom for forwarding me a link. 

And now, the picture and quote of the day.
Sometimes it takes me a while to get to this point, but trust me, I always will.

Sorry giant behemoth of an umbrella, you weren't needed today!

"God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars."

~ Elbert Hubbard 

Oh dear. This post is rather scattered, isn't it? Rain, gratitude, and scars. Somehow though, tender threads leave all these things connected in the workings of my mind.