My nose is running away with me

Douglas Adams once wrote in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

In the beginning, the universe was created.

This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Many races believe it was created by some sort of god, but the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI firmly believed that the entire universe was, in fact, sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.

The Jatravartids, who lived in perpetual fear of the time they called "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief" were small, blue creatures with more than fifty arms each. They were therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.

The Jatravartids would not like to hang around me.  I have two white handkerchiefs in my coat pocket, another in my pants pocket, and a stack of them freshly laundered and ready to be used. 

I’m thinking I need to embroider ‘Don’t Panic’ on one of them.  Or little blue creatures in the corners. 

Write: NaNoWriMo Update

Yesterdays word count:  16036
Yesterdays goal:  25000

I'm still a bit behind, but I'm working on it slowly.  Yesterday, my computer and the NaNo site were acting up, so I called it a day early.  Today is a meeting day, so I've got to try to get my word count in somewhere.  I will leave you with this quote from Dr. Seuss and get my fingers writing!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Inspire: Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.  There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.  To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have come to a point this week where this quote seriously applies.  It's confusing, and sometimes you do follow the path your critics have chosen.  But it's not always because of them.  Sometimes you choose to follow that path because that is the path that you must choose. 

So I choose this quote today to remind myself that I must choose my path not based on what others think but what I believe in my heart.  Now I just have to remember what is in my heart and not be swayed.

Create: Holiday Cards

This could fit under Inspire, but it's under Create 'cause Iz created somethin'.  Okay, yeah I know, don't do that again.

I used all the xmas cards I bough awhile back to send out to a card exchange.  Normally I hand each relative a card with poetry or a quote on the inside with or instead of presents.  This year I decided I had some extra cardstock and had a blast making snowflakes, so I'd glue some on for cards!

Normally the quotes don't follow a theme, but this year it's Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Everyone has a quote from him, and I try to match the quotes with the person. 

Have a happy holiday!

Inspire: DH Lawrence

"Live and let live, and each pansy will tip you its separate wink. The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in the earth and manure; and in the perfume there hovers still the faint strange scent of earth, the under-earth in all its heavy humidity and darkness. Certainly it is so in pansy-scent, and in violet-scent; mingled with the blue of the morning the black of the corrosive humus. Else the scent would be just sickly sweet."

Excerpt from the Introduction to Pansies, D.H. Lawrence.

"The fairest thing in nature" is rooted in the dark earth, the compost, the stuff no one likes to think about.But without it, where would we be? I hold the belief that to truly live, to truly see the beauty in life, one must survive the dark times. Maybe to some my dark times aren't that bad, but they are dark times to me and that's what matters. I would not be the person I am today if I did not have to strive to overcome the darkness. However, it is not that I overcame them that is important, it is important that they happened. Dark times teach us about life. They teach us about taking things for granted, about what is important, and about ourselves.

 I don't think anyone can truly know what kind of person they are if they aren't challenged at some point. That's what the "heavy humidity and darkness" do for us.  They reveal what is kept inside.  Are we really strong people?  Or do we faint at the first sign of opposition.  A lot of the time we don't know what we are learning until after the event.  When we look back we go, "You know, I feel more confident in myself for getting over that hurdle.  It wasn't such a big deal, and now I know how to deal with it."  Or, "That was a really bad part of my life.  But I have learned how to stay out of those situations or how to deal with my grief so that I can continue living." Sometimes it is necessary to step back and evaluate where we are.  With our feet deep inside the darkness, we can find ourselves.