This Old Pot - Day 336

I know, I know, it looks like an old coffee pot, and I am sure it was made to be one, but actually, it is a very old hot chocolate pot.  It makes the best hot chocolate on earth.  I think the flavor gets a little better for every year of use.  Of course, it could be just because it is only used when the family gets together to share.  

"The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain." - Thomas Jefferson

"Love is like swallowing hot chocolate before it has cooled off. It takes you by surprise at first, but keeps you warm for a long time."

Look Grammy, I can swim! - Day 335

This little sweetheart has been afraid to try and swim all summer.  I did pictures just a few weeks ago where she was wearing a huge frown on her face and would not even try and have fun in the water.  I just thought it was amazing at the difference a couple of weeks can make in the life of a child.  

Believe in yourself, not only in swimming, but in life itself. You always have to have fun. You have to have an open mind. If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. Life's too short. 

Debbie Meyer 

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. 

Woodrow Wilson 

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. 

Bill Cosby

Field of Mushrooms - Day 334

This was really an amazing sight.  The picture does not do it enough justice as it was at twilight and rather far away.  This long line of while dots are toadstools.  They went most of the way across the field.  The girls got pretty excited to see them as we don't get many of those up here.  They were behind a fence and in a meadow and I was not able to get as close as I would have liked.  Still, I thought that they were beautiful in their own way.  

Could we change our attitude, 

we should not only see life differently, 

but life itself would come to be different. 

Katherine Mansfield

Macro Friday - Mountain Thistle - Day 333

Today, I am linking up with Blogging From Bolivia for another Macro Friday.  This week, while walking the dogs, we came across some thistle.  I have never noticed it before, but when I looked close, it was actually pretty amazing.  I would not want to pick it, but it really was beautiful.  And yes, all those brown spots are bugs.  The thorns did not seem to bother them in the least!

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.   Abraham Lincoln

I learn more about God
From weeds than from roses;
Resilience springing
Through the smallest chink of hope
In the absolute of concrete....
~Phillip Pulfrey, "Weeds," Perspectives, http://www.originals.net/

Ring Around The Rosies - Day 332

Whenever kids get together, they find something to play about.  These girls enjoyed themselves, not only swimming, but playing a revised version of ring around the rosies that required underwater dunking.  As you can see from the smiles, it was too much fun!

I've never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful. 

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.  ~Phyllis Diller

Tarzan really had a great idea!! - Day 332

We were priviliged to go to a friend's family reunion for a visit.  We had so much fun.  Someone there made a rope swing for the kids.  Once the girls got over their fear of falling off, they had a ball!  These are just a few of the pictures from that amazing evening. 

Play energizes us and enlivens us.

It eases our burdens.

It renews our natural sense of optimism

and opens us up to new possibilities. 

Stuart Brown, MD

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A child loves his play,

not because it’s easy,

but because it’s hard.

Benjamin Spock

Children need the freedom and time to play.

Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.

Kay Redfield Jamison

Deep meaning lies often in childish play.

Johann Friedrich von Schiller

Surely all God’s people…like to play.

John Muir

You can discover more about a person

in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Plato

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow,

yet we forget that he is someone today. 

~Stacia Tauscher

Play, while it cannot change

the external realities of children’s lives,

can be a vehicle for children

to explore and enjoy their differences

and similarities and to create,

even for a brief time,

a more just world where everyone is

an equal and valued participant. 

Patricia G. Ramsey

This Rock - 331

Bloom Where you are planted!

“I am come that they might have

life, and that they might have it

more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

“The abundant life does not come to us packaged and ready-made. It’s not something

we can order and expect to find delivered with the afternoon mail. It does not come

without hardship or sorrow. It comes through faith, hope, and charity. And it comes to

those, who, in spite of hardship and sorrow, understand the words of one writer who

said, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.*”— Joseph B. Wirthlin, "The Abundant Life," Ensign, May 2006, 99-102

*Albert Camus, in John Bartlett, comp., Familiar Quotations , 16th ed. (1980), 732