Cookie Elf Wisdom

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you. - Wally "Famous" Amos

Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycles don't insult you if you are a novice.

American Presidential Wisdom

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done - Dwight D Eisenhower.

Candian Biker Wisdom

Don't lead the pack if you don't know where you're goin'

Chinese Wisdom

The palest ink is better than the best memory. - Chinese Proverb

Author Wisdom

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. - William Arthur Ward

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself - Lois McMaster Bujold

Jewish Novelist Wisdom

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.- Elie Wiesel

Nonconformist Wisdom

They always talk who never think. - Matthew Prior

Educator Wisdom

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide. - Marva Collins

Ancient Greek Wisdom

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. - Cicero

French Intellectual Wisdom

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom - Marcel Proust

Danish Entertainer Wisdom

Laughter is the closest distance between two people - Victor Borge

Presidential Speechwriter Wisdom

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire

Author Wisdom

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary, men alone are quite capable of every wickedness - Joseph Conrad

Western Actor Wisdom

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory - Paul Fix

Inventor Wisdom

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless - Thomas A. Edison

Motorcycling Author Wisdom

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. - Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

Motorcycles don't insult you if you are a novice. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

If your motorcycle is boisterous, you can buy a muffler. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

If your motorcycle smokes you can do something about it. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Motorcycle Wisdom

Your motorcycle will let you know if something is wrong. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycles never develop spare tires. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Wisdom

Biker Wisdom

A motorcycle can go for more than one ride in an hour - Old Guy's Place Biker Wisdom

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. - An English Professor

Presidental Advisor Wisdom

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems ~ John W Gardner

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

The two most common elements in the univers are Hydrogen and stupidity - Harlan Ellison

Lebanese Wisdom

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees - Kahlil Gibran

US Presidential Wisdom

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. - Abraham Lincoln

Parental Wisdom

My dad always used to say, "If you're falling off a cliff, you may as well try to fly. You have nothing to lose." -- Captain John Sheridan

Danish Philosopher Wisdom

Life can only by understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards - Soren Kierkegaard

Human-Computer Interface Expert Wisdom

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. - Jef Raskin

Dutch Wisdom

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains - Dutch proverb

Western Author Wisdom

For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction , biography and history offer inexhaustible numbers of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time - Louis L'Amour

Got a questionnaire from Old Biker Hen....

she's compiling info for a book - Here's my answers.....

Karen aka WyzWmn©

Nickname? And if there’s a story behind it, would you share it?

I am called WyzWmn….an anagram meaning Wise Woman although I have close friends that continue to pronounce it Wiz as in Wizard (I’ve never been able to figure that one out) Wyz started out as a nick name given to me as a joke – because it was opposite to the person I was as a very young woman – originally I was called “PMS365” and that evolved to “Aunty Kranky” by family….although why anyone would name me cranky is beyond me *snicker snicker*

However…as time went on I became the “older more mature woman” in my group of friends, the person everyone went to for advice…I developed a reputation for a kind of advocacy work amoung my friends and WyzWmn began to evolve. That coupled with the fact that I am a practicing Wiccan with a lunar lien and a generational story teller (descendant from a long line of women story tellers)…so get comfy…I’m long winded!

When did you start riding? Or how old were you? And why? (There is no need to give your age, or a year that would give away your age, if that makes you uncomfortable.)
I think I originally started riding as a means to piss my father off…he was an Ontario Provincial Police officer (OPP) for 30 years and as regimental as the day is long…so my version of rebellion became motorcycling…when my means of rebellion became fine-tuned that is…

I went for my first motorcycle ride on the back of a 450 Honda with my Uncle Ron…He is my mother’s youngest brother and only 10 years older than I…at 51 that’s not a big age difference but at 10ish it’s massive…I thought Ron was cool and sexy and all those illicit things that my father disliked for his little girl. At the time, we were on holidays in Merritt BC (from Perth ON) where my Mom’s family lived and Ron had got stuck babysitting me (in those days 10 yr olds had babysitter’s now days they have boyfriends and shop at the Rubber Rainbow…but that’s another story)

Anyway Ron took me on this long ride around Merritt, a here to fore unknown to me and we ended up at the drive-in with a bunch of his friends where by he got horrendously, gutter puking drunk and I had to walk home by myself in the dark…it was a smozzle…my father roared my mother and grandmother shrieked like fishmongers…my grandfather just smacked his lips and drank beer as was his wont.

Quite the scene….but all these years later the thing that sticks with me is that feeling of exhilaration…that elicit thrill. I can still close my eyes and see him in his chino’s and baby blue short sleeved cotton sport shirt, penny loafers and white cotton sox (sheesh, how schmaltzy eh?) and I can see me holding on for dear life more afraid and out of my element than I ever had been before…but still exhilarated, the kind of exhilarated that kids feel when they are first discovering their sexuality…those naughty and nice ingredients that in later life define us. (No helmet either…my my my we were brave and stupid in those days…)

Long story short – we went back to ON and I was riding my own in the bush around Thunder Bay by the time I was 13. My Dad didn’t forgive my uncle Ron until I was in my 40’s…well at least he said he’d forgiven him – but who knows?

What was your first bike?
My first bike was a 2 stroke dirt bike. It was so beat up it was always a wonder when it kicked over (and in those days I had the knees to be able to kick it!) I’d leave the house in the morning and not return until I ran out of gas or darkness descended.

I stopped riding for a while when I discovered boys. Then I discovered men and rode as a passenger for a while. I rode an old triumph chopper that was mostly held together with baling wire and luck. I then graduated to a chopped Sporty with a real 50's version back rest that looked like it had been stolen from the iron fence at the cemetery along with a coffin tank and fish tail pipes. I was young and thought I was smokin!

Over the years, I've had many bikes and I’ve been involved in many accidents, from dropping the bike myself, to spinning out on a lawn and flipping, to cresting a hill on a dirt road in first ride of the season in spring to find that the road had washed out. (I landed on the coffin tank and flattened the damn thing with my butt!) But all in all the greater majority of my accidents were as a result of riding as a passenger with someone who was not in “good control of his machine” so I went back to riding my own.

I rode without a license until I was 40 (shhhh – it’s a secret) and at 40 decided that I would impersonate an adult and take the Canadian Safety Council MC course so I could get a discount on my insurance. I discovered instead that my riding skills were comprised of a clabbering of bad habits and the course gave me a healthy understanding of the need for me to be accountable to my actions while operating a motorcycle…and an understanding that I was not immortal and could in fact die if I didn’t start paying attention.

What has been your best experience?
There are too many experiences to have one single “best experience”.

The phenomenon of truly amazing people from all walks of life coming together under one theme….riding.

All the years I spent volunteering for the Ride for Sight, culminating in 4 years as BC’s Ride for Sight Chair. Riding in the snow, the first ride of spring every year, the first time I had a riding story published, dealing with many years of health issues and not being able to ride for both health and financial reasons culminating in a move to Vancouver Island and the purchase of my current ride (a 1974 VW trike called “the Pickle” as in my motorpickle)….becoming a member and then a “core member” and then an officer of the Southern Cruisers Riding Club(SCRC) here in Victoria and discovering another “family”. Having members of my club work tirelessly and at their own expense to restore my old trike to beauty and safety, having perfect strangers approach me to talk about my ride!

The people, the places, the people, the parties, the people, the road, the people the weather, the people, the wind in your face, the people, the events, the people, the fun, the people, the agony, the people, the love and of course, the people.

Even after all these years – the feeling of the open road and no specific place to go…but going.

What has been your worst?
I broke my back in the early 80’s and then was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I wasn’t able to ride for a long long time. I was miserable…and probably earned “Aunty Kranky” during that period…stayed in touch with many of the people but didn’t actually ride for reasons of health and finance.

Anything else you might want to share.
I write, have a couple of blogs and write for the Busted Knuckle Chronicles. http://wyzwmnswords.blogspot.com/ http://wyzwmnsworld.blogspot.com/ http://www.beltdrivebetty.com/joomla07/index.php

Why do you ride now, or what does riding mean to you?
Being a business woman and spending my days dealing with administrative issues, I find more and more all the time that the only time I really feel “me” is when I’m riding…even when I’m riding in traffic I feel so much more “liberated” than I do at home or in my office. So much so that my family will often tell me – “you need to get out for a ride…yer like a bear with a cut butt!”

I have found the largest group of truly honest, loving, respectable, trustworthy people in the riding community. For every person I have come across that is a boor, or un-integral I have found a half dozen really wonderful people to counter the negative pull…with odds like that – one can’t go wrong

Words of wisdom, or lessons learned.
My wisdom is nothing more than repeated practice. I am able to “sound” wise because I have (without bragging) had some truly serious trials and have come through…not always on top but come through….I have retained my sense of humour through it all – only because of an undying need to laugh and love.

Only because: "Ya gotta laugh or yer hair falls out!"

Irish Playwrite Wisdom

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

Authoress Wisdom

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been - Madeleine L'Engle

Theoretical Physicist Wisdom

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. - Albert Einstein

Cartoonist Wisdom

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night....without the satisfaction - Lynn Johnston

Motorcycling Author Wisdom

Driving a motorcycle is a sensual, visceral, and immediate response. It’s the blast of air parting in an almost physical way around your body. It's the feel of heavy steel machinery between you thigh’s and knees as you move through turns, running a good road on a clear morning. It's the taste of wet grass, deep woods, damp river banks, and freshly cut hay that finds its way to the back of your throat. You know and experience what is around you and feel the very sensation of motion itself, in a way that you never can behind the wheel of a car.

In a car you drive a road; on a motorcycle you feel it. On a motorcycle every rise and dip, every change in surface or cant, every turn and straightway, is a temporal and physical experience. In a car you are enclosed, removed from what is without by the machinery that moves you, the windshield, the air-conditioning, the heater, the radio, the upholstered cradle of your seat, the locked doors the surrounding frame, they all separate you from the reality of the road and the weather. On a motorcycle the machine and the environment are an integral part of the experience. Coming home in the afternoon, the sun touches your shoulders with great warm hands. Somewhere in the middle of a long day of riding - especially on curves, where the lean and torque, body and bike angle, gravity and speed, determine the physics and the line of movement - the machine becomes an extension of the body, a melding of what is human and what is mechanical.

- Karen Larsen "Breaking the Limit"

American Author Wisdom

Age is no guarnatee of maturity. - Lawana Blackwell

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Roman Statesman Wisdom

Where is the dignity unless there is honesty? - Cicero

Presidential Wisdom

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever acheive greatly - Robert Kennedy

Buddhist wisdom

If you find yourself saying, once too often, "Someone should do something about that!," tell yourself: "I am Someone." - Dalai Lama

French (Russian-born) author and salonist Wisdom

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found - Tzvetan Todorov

Contemplate:

The first faults are theirs that commit them, the second theirs that permit them

Producer/Director Wisdom

Drama is life - with all the dull bits cut out - Alfred Hitchcock

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desire to believe that there is some - group of folks who know what they are doing - Damon Knight

Cruising Rider Quote

The walls of my church are made of asphalt, brick and solid steel; it`s lined with rock and wood, river and ocean. I ride its pulpit and I preach its damn gospel.

Austrialian Nurse Wisdom

He who controls you conquers you - Elizabeth Kenny

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Bonnie Jean Wasmund

Journalistic Wisdom

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it. - G. K. Chesterton

Authoress Wisdom

No good deed goes unpunished - Clare Booth Luce

TV Show Host Wisdom

Expecting the world to treat you fairly
because you are a good person
is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you
because you are a vegetarian - Dennis Wholey

American Astronomer Wisdome

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back - Carl Sagan

Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be. - Jim Horning

American Cartoonist Wisdom

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer? - George Price

French (Russian-born) author and salonist Wisdom

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse. - Anne-Sophie Swetchine

British Writer Wisdom

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before - Robert Lynd

British Physician Wisdom

Health is not values till sickness comes - Dr Thomas Fuller

American Singer/Comedian Wisdom

I never know how much of what I say is true. - Bette Midler

British Writer Wisdom

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. - Aaron Rose

British Prime Minister Wisdom

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life - Herbert Henry Asquith

American Sitcom Wisdom

The Great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel - from "Taxi"

English Writer Wisdom

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest. - William Hazlitt

Scottish essayist Wisdom

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. - Thomas Carlyle

Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelist Wisdom

The only difference between a rut and a grave....is in their dimensions - Ellen Glasgow

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

We don't have to wait for fear to vanish altogether because that moment will never come; all we need is a moment of daring that can change a whole lifetime of waiting. ~ Diane Conway

Greek Philosophy Wisdom

All paid jobs abosrb and degrade the mind. - Aristotle

Famous Cartoonist Wisdom

Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation. - Kin Hubbard

Famous Comedian Wisdom...

I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top 2 corners of the map so it won't fall down. - Mitch Hedberg

Famous Actor Wisdom

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously - Peter Ustinov

Famous Author Wisdom

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But becuase it sees more, it is willing to see less. - Rabbi Julius Gordon

Famous Author Wisdom

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone - Anthony Burgess (1917 - 1993)

TV Personality Wisdom

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. - Johnny Carson

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

Did you ever see an unhappy horse?

Did you ever see bird that had the blues?

One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. - Dale Carnegie

Screen Writer Wisdom

If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital. If you don't feel like you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don't have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you are not trying to tell enough. ~ John Irving

Economicist Wisdom

We increasingly live in a complicated world in which those things that can be done in one click get done, and those that can't, don't. ~ Brad DeLong

Famous Author Wisdome

A classic is a book which people praise and don't read. ~ Mark Twain

Computer Scientist Wisdom

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. ~ Donald Knuth

Inspirational Writer Wisdom

The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement. ~ William Arthur Ward

Author Wisdom

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. ~ Deirdre Sullivan

Start thinking in 2007!

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. ~ Lao-tzu

Seasonal Wisdom

There's a candle in my window

With its halo of bright gold,

Telling with each tiny flicker

Of the joy each heart can hold.

At this joyous Christmas season

For each passer-by to see,

Ponder on his way and reason,

This is just as it should be.

~ Ruth Scott Hubbard

Seasonal Wisdom

God bless you with the courage to

Pursue each noble quest

And grant this golden Yule will be

By far your happiest.

~ James J. Metcalfe

Seasonal Wisdom

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveler, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! ~ Charles Dickens

Seasonal Wisdom

When Christmas bells are ringing

The carols old and true

Of you, dear friend, I'm thinking,

And I send my wish to you.

~ Mrs. W. Baggott

Seasonal Wisdom

There is a Christmas song upon the air,

There is a joy innate within the heart;

An inner sense of peace, a holy light

Illumines life and sets these days apart.

~ Edna Greene Hines

In the Spirit of the Season - A Story

I wrote this story several years ago....but I find it bears repeating:

For years and years I too hated Christmas…too much brouhaha in my books…then I had a Christmas epiphany…no small feat for a non-Christian…but here goes

I always put huge store in Christmas…because I was raised in a huge family and I had believed all my life that "family" is what Christmas was about…My Father’s birthday is the twenty-third and my uncle’s is the twenty-fifth and as a child we always did the big Christmas/birthday celebration…but as time goes on things change and you discover that "family" are people too…and they have foibles…they mess up…and things never quite live up to your expectations.

In the early ‘90’s my Mother moved to BC leaving me to live in the old family home in Thunder Bay. My brother was newly married to woman that put the "C" in control. (and another word that I won’t use here!) She didn’t like cooking when I was around and for many years I thought it was cos she was intimidated by the fact that I have my chef’s papers…turns out she’s just lazy, opinionated and lazy…but that’s another story.

So Mom moves to BC, Dad and my sister are in Toronto and I am faced with the prospect of cooking the whole Christmas shebang at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. My sister-in-law has invited her whole family so I am cooking a 27lb turkey and all the trimmings. Two kinds of stuffing (one for each end) 3 kinds of salad and 4 vegetables, mashed spuds, gravy, pickles etc etc and top it all off with Figgie Pudding…(I’m from a go big er go home kinda family)

Five days before Christmas my sister-in-law calls me and informs me that I am "allowed" to come to her house for an hour between 6 and 7 AM to stuff the bird and put it in the oven…but then I need to leave for the day so she can have some "quality" time with her family.

Can you guess where I told her to put her bird? ~ahem~

So the Christmas dawns and I am alone. I am not answering the phone…and I am depressed….as my Grampy used to say, "I am lower than whale shit and that is on the bottom of the ocean! We are having a good old North Western Ontario blizzard and as I listen to the radio I am overcome both with the concept that I can’t get away from Christmas (it’s just freakin everywhere) and that I am alone. So I jump in my truck and head out to the local truck stop for breakfast. Somewhere where there’s people and noise.

On my way to the truck stop I drive past the Greyhound Bus Depot and while it is closed I spot and elderly man in a summer weight suit huddled in the doorway.

I drive by…then go around the block and drive by again. Something about this situation tweaks my conscience and I cannot get the picture of this man out of my head.

On my third pass I pull into the parking lot and lean out my window. "Are you ok?" I ask. This tiny elderly fellow looks up at me and with tears running down his face says, "I’ll do."

"Well no…he won’t do." I think as I watch him shiver and shudder. So I offer to let him in my truck. I’m thinking that if it turns out he’s got a gun…I certainly won’t feel any worse off than I already do this Christmas.

At first he refuses. But then with some cajoling and conversation he eventually climbs in and I take him to the truck stop to warm him up and maybe get him some food. He refuses to eat but allows as I could buy him a "cup of cocoa".

As he thaws out he tells me his story. He tells me his name is Sheldon Shepherd. He left Vancouver 3 days ago on his way to London ON to spend Christmas with his family. He was traveling by Greyhound. In the bathroom in the Thunder Bay bus terminal he is mugged…robbed…and knocked out. Because he is old school and won’t ask for help when he comes to… he doesn’t tell anyone, his grandkid’s Christmas presents are gone, as is his coat and wallet. He finds himself outside of the depot, the depot closed, in a blizzard with a lump on his head the size of Santa. Areas of his story seem lacking to me…but he’s got this lump and no coat and no money…so…

I am filled with righteous indignation and I insist that he allow me to call the police. They come and after all is said and done I find out that they can get him another bus ticket to London but they have to find a judge to authorize the funds and besides there is no bus running thru till the twenty-sixth. One of the police officers suggests that this sad soul go to the local homeless shelter. I’ve never been there but I know where it is so I agree to drive him there.

Sheldon is quiet on his way to the shelter. He confides in me as we are pulling into the parking lot that he’s never had to accept charity before and not comfortable with it now. I fully understand. I have never been able to look a homeless person in the eye. I have always been consumed with guilt and the thought that there but for the grace of all the gods go I.

In we go. My first impression was that we were entering a jail. We walked in thru the front door to be confronted with locked double doors and a "security guard". Sheldon is pulling back so I tell the guard his story and the guard opens the locked doors to allow us into the shelter telling us to "find Rick".

As we enter I am assaulted by a cacophony of sounds and smells….lots of them not pleasant. There is a riot of color and furniture and bodies everywhere…there are people sleeping standing up against walls and on the stairs and tired used old blankets clutched in dirty little children’s fingers.

Slowly as I become accustomed to the "ambiance" I begin to see Christmas in this room. There are bits of tinsel hanging from dirty stocking caps set jauntily over dirty faces. There’s what can only be called a Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the corner and there are new socks and new gloves on many hands and feet…and lots of the people that are awake are smiling. I don’t understand.

Across the room is the big serving window to the kitchen but I see no one on the other side…as I start across the room I hear the unmistakable sound of dishes smashing to the floor and a resounding "Damn it!" from behind the wall. I peek around a see a harried fellow, in half a Santa suit picking up broken dishes and muttering.

"Rick?" I ask. This frantic man turns to me and blesses me with the biggest gap tooth smile and says…"yup…hiya! What can I do for you?"

I explain Sheldon’s story and Rick tells me no problem he can stay here over night. He then turns to Sheldon and says,"I don’t suppose you can cook?"

"Why?" says Sheldon and I at once. Turns out that the volunteer church group that was to cook the shelter’s Christmas dinner won’t be coming because of the storm. Rick says that Christmas is always a banner time for the shelter food wise…"people assuage their guilt by giving at Christmas". The end result is that he has tons of food and no cooks.

"Hmmmmmm," says I, "maybe I can help"

Long story short…we have Christmas dinner for close to 200. Sheldon isn’t a cook but he’s a mean dishwasher and clean up kinda guy…and we recruit a couple of people from the shelter and we are off… We have beef and turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing made in pans instead of in the bird and spaghetti with sauce and chocolate pudding.

We have Christmas Carols and laughter and hugs and tears and handclasps from dirty little fingers. By 10 PM I am completely and totally physically exhausted, sweaty and hot, hot, hot… but as I turn to survey the room I have an epiphany.

Christmas is not about receiving the love from my family that I believe is my due. It truly is about the giving.

In any way shape or form. Sheldon passed away in 1996 but I still hear from his daughter Janice…once a year at Christmas. And that’s the best that I can do.

Seasonal Wisdom

Christmas is the happiness that lights our children's eyes.

Christmas is a song of bells ringing through the skies.

Christmas is a time of peace, of contentment deep within,

A time of love and silent hope that years will never dim.

~ Sherrill Thompson

Seasonal Wisdom

There's a beauty when it's Christmas,

All the world is different then;

There's no place for petty hatred

In the hearts and minds of men.

That is why my heart is happy

And my mind can hold a dream,

For I keep a part of Christmas

With its peace and joy supreme

~ Garnett Ann Schultz

Seasonal Wisdom

The spirit of this season

Is old, yet ever new;

May it be yours on Christmas

And last the new year through.

~ Ernest B. McClellan

Seasonal Wisdom

Carol singing, church bells ringing,

Once more Christmastime is here.

Children laughing, grownups beaming,

Hearts are warm with Christmas cheer.

~ Ruby Lee Mitchell

Life Wisdom

While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. ~ Cyril Connolly

Realistic Wisdom....

A Realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned. ~ Warren W. Wiersbe

Motivational Speaker Wisdome

It's been said that there are two days over which we have no control: yesterday, because it's a cancelled check, and tomorrow, because it's a promissory note. ~ Diane Conway

Famous Author Wisdome

How are you going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued? Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are. ~ Anne Lamot

Motivational Wisdom....

I learned, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: "What next?" instead of "Why me?" . . . Whenever I am willing to ask "What is necessary next?" I have moved ahead. Whenever I have taken no for a final answer I have stalled and gotten stuck. ~ Julia Cameron

Anonymous Wisdom

All through life we must keep choosing. Destiny hangs on "yes" and "no." As we look back, it is to wonder what would have happened if we had gone the other way when the road forked. ~ Anonymous