Happy Easter

Wishing you all a joyous and blessed day.

 

Happy Easter, to all...

Saturday Silliness

Let’s start this day with a smile...

Kissing Mirrors At School

According to a news report, a private school in Victoria, BC was recently faced with a strange, but unique problem.

Several of the grade 12 girls were starting to use lipstick and would always put it on in the bathroom. They would then press their lips against the mirror as if they were kissing it; leaving dozens of wee lip prints.

Every night, the maintenance man found himself having to clean it over and over as the girls kept putting them back.

Finally the maintenance man went to the school principal and she decided that something had to be done.

To demonstrate how difficult it was for the mirror to come clean, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He pulled out a long-handled squeegee, dunked it in the toilet water, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have never been lip prints on the mirror.

Sunny Side Up

"Man is rated the highest animal, at least among all animals who returned the questionnaire."

- Robert Brault -

We end this week with a video that will make you smile.



Squirrels may be little rascals, but they sure are adorable.

Make it a great weekend, everyone!

Funny Animal Dialogue

It’s been a very busy week, and I’ve been trying hard to keep up with my blogs, your blogs, and everything else in-between. So much to do, so little time... Garden chores should also be getting added to the mix any day now, along with day trips, evening walks, photo shoots, and on and on and on. So it’s going to get crazy around here!

I enjoy blogging regularly, but if my plate starts overloading, I may have to skip some days here and there to keep up. We’ll see how it goes.

Today is another demanding day, so I’m keeping this post short and sweet. I’ll let the animals do the talking with this entertaining dialogue between them.

Have a great day, everyone!

Accountability

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
- Stanislaw Lec -

My mother never let my brothers and I get away with anything when we were kids. If you broke the rules, you were held accountable. No excuses. No exceptions. She was determined to raise us to be responsible in every which way, and she took this job very seriously.

One clear cut memory of my mother’s commitment to this part of our upbringing was the way she handled the time the younger of my two older siblings got caught with some candy that he brought home from the neighbourhood convenience store that he *cough, cough*  ‘forgot’ to pay for.

Was she angry? Sure. Did she preach? Yup. Yell a little? You betcha. And after she got all that out of her system, did it end there? Nope. She took it one step further.

*Gulp*

To ensure that my brother would never, ever do something like that again, she held him accountable for his actions. She marched him back to the store to return the ‘borrowed’ candy, and to apologize to the shop owner. And she took me along, so that I could ‘watch and learn’.

Perhaps his "self-esteem" suffered a little that day from the humiliation he experienced when facing the store owner, but he did learn a very important lesson, and so did I:
That everything you do in life, every choice you make, has a consequence.

In this case, the consequence was not a good one.

Sure, self esteem is important, but I think sometimes our society goes overboard with it. Parents have become overprotective and unrealistically defensive. They dismiss or overlook bad behaviour and make excuses for their children instead of holding them accountable for their actions.

Was my mother insensitive that day? I’m sure plenty of parents who feel that my brother’s self-esteem should have taken priority will say she was. I personally don’t think so. She was determined to put out that small bonfire to ensure that a forest fire would never break out in the future. As she explained it “If he ‘borrowed’ candy as a little boy and I didn’t teach him this lesson, what would he be ‘borrowing’ as a teenager?”

My brother never ‘borrowed’ anything again in his life. And, unsurprisingly, neither did I.

Today's Trivia - Little Golden Books

Before this series, children’s books normally sold for $2 - $3; way beyond reach for many families. George Duplaix, president of the Artists and Writers Guild, Inc. (a joint interest of Simon & Schuster Publishing and Western Printing) came up with the concept of developing a colorful children's book that was durable and affordable for most American families. Little Golden Books initially sold for 25¢ (rising to 29¢ in 1962) - a much better deal!

The first 12 titles were published on October 1, 1942:

1. Three Little Kittens
2. Bedtime Stories
3. Mother Goose
4. Prayers for Children
5. The Little Red Hen
6. Nursery Songs
7. The Alphabet from A to Z
8. The Poky Little Puppy
9. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
10. Baby's Book of Objects
11. The Animals of Farmer Jones
12. This Little Piggy and Other Counting Rhymes

Although the details have changed over the years, the Little Golden Books have maintained a distinctive appearance. A copy of The Poky Little Puppy bought today is essentially the same as one printed in 1942. Both are readily recognizable as Little Golden Books. At the time of the golden anniversary, Golden Books claimed that a billion and a half Little Golden Books had been sold.

The official Random House website contains an interesting timeline for Little Golden Books.

(Most of the info above is from Wikipedia.)

I was a huge fan of Little Golden Books when I was a child, and so were my children when they were young.

What about you?

Pin Up Girls...er...Felines?

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, I run across a site called “Cats That Look Like Pin Up Girls”, which is about exactly what the title implies: cats that look like pin up girls. Photos of (unsuspecting) cats are placed next to photos of pin up girls that they resemble.

Take a look:

 

Aren’t they hilarious?

Yes, there’s even one of Grumpy Cat. I can't imagine she's happy about this. Poor kitty...

For more of these silly images, click here.

A Single Photograph

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”
- Henry David Thoreau -

Saturday Silliness

Ready for some humour? Let’s do it...

Sunny Side Up

“Some people have cats and go on to lead normal lives.”

- Author Unknown -

Ever wonder what cats talk about? The video below sheds a light on this mystery...



* snicker *

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

The Horse Whisperer

Okay, I’m not really a horse whisperer. But the horses do flock to me when I’m out in the country taking photographs. And I’m tickled pink about that.

They are such wonderfully sociable creatures, and I adore them. I’ve taken many photos in the past little while of these beautiful animals, and I wanted to share some with you today. Like of this cutie.

This one was very friendly and inquisitive, too, and if it wasn’t for the fence, s/he would get even closer.

This beauty was a little shyer and decided to maintain a safe distance.

On another country road, I got out of the car to snap some photos of a farm setting, and these two emerged from behind the barn, obviously curious.

They decided to stroll over to take a closer look. *Squeal with delight*



The light-coloured horse was much bolder and moved in as close as possible.

She took a deep whiff as I happily snapped away. Look at the size of these nostrils!

"You smell funny...like a...mmm...human."

I walked further along to a section where she could stick her head out at me. I think she was quite pleased about that.

Isn’t she beautiful?


Can we take this one home?

I am laughing in the image below because she attempted to lick me. Or taste me? In any case, it was hilarious.

I am always happiest when I’m outdoors enjoying the beauty of nature, and the company of glorious animals such as these.

Life is good!

Country Roads, Take Me Home

No, this isn’t about John Denver’s song, which I like very much, by the way. It’s about the barns and abandoned places we spotted along the country roads last week. Everyone was off for spring break, and hubby and I headed out into the rural areas a couple of times.

The weather wasn’t warm and sunny as often as we’d hoped, but we did manage to get out for some fresh air. And to snap some pictures.

Most of the days were grey and dreary. Where are you sunshine?

Zombies live in this abandoned house. I just know it.

 Some of the roads we traveled through were downright creepy. They looked like a post-apoclyptic world.

Oh...here are some photos when there was a lot of sunshine.

And here are more.

Oh, back to the clouds... *sigh*

It’s still pretty ‘winterish’ in my beautiful city. And I’m a little fed up. Outside my window yesterday morning, it looked like mid January after a snowstorm. The horror of it all... Come on spring...get your act together!

And that’s it for today. Short and sweet...