Tag Archive | pictures

The Miracle of the World <3

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ~
Frances Hodgson Burnett

This quote couldn’t be more true! Everywhere we look, there is some kind of beauty. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, what season we’re in the midst of, what mood we’re in, if we’re healthy or sick, grieving or in some other kind of pain, homeless or live in a mansion, financially rich or poor, Alone, lonely, surrounded by others,
whatever struggles we have, there is some form of beauty to soak up, cherish, and celebrate. ❤

Celebrating beauty is what I’m doing here. Here are my pictures and some of my favorite quotes!

😀

“This world, after all our science and science, is still a miracle: wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think it.” ~ Thomas Dekker

(I was waiting for a bus today in the freezing cold but it was well worth it because the scenery is so beautiful and I was surrounded by adorable little sparrows! I noticed the cute little fuzzy heads they have and the caprice of their tender wings, fluttering all around)

“Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool’s living water.” ~
Robert Browning

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” ~
Kahlil Gibran

“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.” ~ Paul Valéry

Life is what we make it so let’s make it beautiful.

Live everyday and find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.” ~
Mary Jean Iron

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Find the good and praise it.” ~Alex Haley

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

”The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.” ~Richard Bach

(my adorable girl, Isis Summerjo)

“I’ll be back in the high life again
All the doors I closed one time will open up again” ~Steve Winwood

“O, with what freshness,
what solemnity and beauty,
is each new day born;
as if to say to insensate man,
‘Behold!
thou hast one more chance!
Strive for immortal glory!'” ~
Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it.” ~Anne De Lenclos

~Heaven is Earth~

(night in the city)

“There’s beauty up above and things we never take notice of
You wake up and suddenly you’re in love.” ~ Billy Ocean

(me!<3 <3)

“And I guess we never learn.
Go through life parched and empty,
Standin’ knee deep in a river and dyin’ of thirst.” ~ “Standing Knee Deep In A River” (Dying of Thirst)

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucius

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
~Agatha Christie

“Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.”~
Henry Van Dyke

“I love this crazy, tragic,
Sometimes almost magic,
Awful, beautful life” ~Darryl Worley ♥

“I’m thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes.
I’m thankful for the birds; I feel like they’re singing just for me when I get up in the morning… Saying, ‘Good morning, John. You made it, John.’
I’m thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down.
I’m thankful…”
~Johnny Cash

“Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.” ~
Abraham Maslow

The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.

~Veronique Vienne

I hope you find the beauty in each moment no matter how low your mood is or how much pain you are experiencing or how bored or stressed or distracted you are. We can’t always be happy but we can find something in each moment to grasp and hold and see the joy in.

(I don’t eat steaks [unless they’re vegan ones] but this building is so pretty, all lit up and surrounded with people)

Let’s surrender to each fleeting moment and absorb all the beauty and love Each one
provides.

Much love to you. ❤

Xoxo Kim ❤

Starry, Starry Night

Mar2

“Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.” ~ Don McLean ❤

Recently there was this one night the sky seemed to be filled with more stars than usual. I have a camera that reaches the stars(my phone camera almost never can capture them) but my camera is lost and kind of broken(my dad broke it by cracking it against a table or something and it fell apart, sort of). I always hoped for a camera that can beautifully capture the night sky then last year I got one, not the best, probably, but an ok one. It’s in my house somewhere but I have no clue where. And it’s a small house! Lol I don’t yet have a way to get my pics online off the camera because the camera needs wifi or to put the pictures on a computer first. And my computer isn’t set up because it needs wifi to be set up.
So I carelessly tossed it aside.
I should be getting wifi soon, now I regret it.

I was in awe over the beauty of the starlit night! I kept trying to take pics with my phone and it kept only capturing one star, the brightest one.
Then in one picture, it got two stars.
I was thankful. Sometimes it can’t even capture one. But I wanted the whole sky full of stars to show up.
It was amazing! They were literally twinkling!
I kept imagining what that would look like in a picture and how I would love to have and share a picture like that!

I kept thinking “if only I was more careful with my camera!!”
And
“I really hope when I get a good camera or find mine, the sky looks like this again! “

It was a worse feeling than not having a camera at all because it was like a feeling of “being so close…” I have it and could have captured the stars but it’s lost because I was careless.

Like when playing a crane machine and it completely misses the desired object and it’s like “oh well.” but when it picks up the thing you want and then drops it before it makes it to the slot it’s like “omg! So close!! If only it would have held on a second later…!!” lol

I couldn’t shake the feeling. “If only….” and “I hope…” But it was the kind of restraining hope that holds me back, not an exhilarating kind.

And it’s not every night there’s that many stars! And big bright ones! All twinkling!
I really felt so strongly that I was missing out.

I went back out into the backyard to look up at the starry starry night and it took my breath away and I was reminded that that’s really all that matters. Experiencing the beauty, not capturing it.

I wasn’t missing anything.

While it’s amazing to get beautiful pictures of our experiences and the beauty all around us, sometimes the desire, activity, or opportunity to capture it can hold us back.

When we forget our phones, lose our cameras, our battery drains….and we can’t get a pic we can feel that we’re missing out, we can feel a sense of loss, a sense of a missed opportunity.
And sometimes we can get so wrapped up trying to get the “perfect picture” that we neglect to savor the moment itself.

Girls, haven’t you ever had a day where your makeup looked so perfect or your hair, better than usual and it kind of felt like a waste because you weren’t going anywhere or your plans did not work out? And in some way you almost wished you did not look so good? Because there’s like nowhere to go, no one to see it. Lol I know I’m not the only one!

(this isn’t my picture, I don’t know the original source but it’s funny!)

That’s kind of like this experience. Like, damn, the sky looks so good! And I can’t capture it!

;-p

I heard on the radio a couple years ago that there’s a study that shows that many people feel that it’s more important to capture and get “proof” of the fun occasions and beauty they experience than actually experiencing it. According to the radio program, most teenagers who took the survey said they would prefer not to experience something amazing if they can’t get a pic than experience it and not get pictures! I don’t know how accurate this survey/s is/are since I just heard it briefly some years ago and did not hear all the info. But I know this phenomenon is definitely true for some people.

I have met people who felt this way and I have felt a touch of this myself on some occasions. Not that I would prefer not to experience something great if I can’t get a pic but feeling so disappointed and anxious if I couldn’t get one to the point I sometimes let the disappointment and anxiety ruin the moment.

Looking up at that starry, starry sky I was reminded that living is much more important than capturing or “proving.” Both are great but we can’t always have both. And why let disappointment ruin the actual moment?

I almost never let “picture taking” take away my focus or experience of what is happening. That is a common problem now in society, at least the one I live among. People are obsessed with capturing and showing the fun they’re having and beauty they’re witnessing and instead of living the moment, they pull out their phones/cameras and play with them, posing instead of being natural, looking into a phone or camera instead of each other. I believe I manage a healthy balance of capturing the moment but also living it. But my problem is when I can’t capture it in at least one pic, I have felt so very disappointed.

And it’s the same with the makeup, who cares if you’re not going anywhere or seeing anyone? Just bask in your own beauty, put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty.

(and meet me tonight in Atlantic City ;-D lol)

It’s worth it! We don’t need a special occasion or to show anything. Wear that clingy dress, the diamond earrings, use the expensive utensils and sparkling crystal wine glasses, buy yourself flowers….each moment we’re alive is a special occasion.

I’m thankful the sky showed me. Lol

Also, I choose to look at the bright side! At least I got the biggest, brightest star! Lol And it looked like it was a falling star after a while! It was like curving or something. Fantastic!

So pretty!

This is definitely not an airplane (my sister insists that it is but I kept my eyes on it since it was a small speck hanging over the rooftops) or the moon. It somewhat resembles one but it’s a star, I’m sure of it.
I know what an airplane and what a star looks like(although one night I did mistake a traffic light for the moon so I guess you can’t be too sure of my judgment….but this I’m sure of!)

The moon was on the other side. And it stayed in one place all night, not moving, just sparkling, until it decided to curve like this. I kept running out to check on it all night. And took like one hundred pics. All shitty ones but I still like them.

(this picture has two stars! I had to lighten the picture a lot to make them more visible. Very hard to see but they’re there!)

I couldn’t imagine why I saved this picture and was about to delete it then I realized why! If you look closely you can see the shadow Of me standing on the tips off my toes desperately holding my phone up to the sky as high as I possibly can hoping to just get a few stars to show up! And also hoping the neighbors in the back wouldn’t think I’m some kind of creeper taking pictures through their windows. I promise it’s only the stars I was spying on. ;-D

It is a funny picture, kind of pathetic. Being this desperate but oh well….lol

Don McLean – Starry, Starry Night

Mobile:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

Desktop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=oxHnRfhDmrk

I hope you’re having a great day and a beautiful starry starry night!! ❤

😀

Xoxo Kim

Random Inspiration #11 {quotes & pictures}

Feb20

Here are some of my pictures with some of my favorite quotes.

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
John Ruskin

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ~
Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.” ~ Immanuel Kant

I don’t know that Kant really said this just like this but that certainly is his philosophy. For example lying. What if everyone lied about everything? Our society would not function well. What if everyone killed themselves? It would be catastrophic. In other words, if it wouldn’t be ok for everyone to perform the action, don’t engage in it yourself ever. Very thought provoking but I’m not sure how practical it would be to always live that way. Love is a good one though. Live as if love were a universal law.

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” ~Henry David Thoreau

“Always have the highest bar for yourself. Wake up everyday and, no matter how crappy you feel, want to change something for the better. Do something that makes someone happy. Create something that inspires someone. Be someone’s light when they are hopeless.” – Dave Grohl

~Hug the hurt
Kiss the broken
Befriend the lost
Love the lonely~

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” ~ Sarah Williams

There is always something beautiful, something positive even in the pain and ugliness and darkness. Sometimes we have to try harder to see it but it’s there. I’m grieving the recent tragic loss of my beautiful friend Diane. She was 58 years old and died suddenly and unexpectedly and I’m trying to focus more on the beauty, joy, and happiness of the decade I knew her than on the devastation of her death. </3 ❤ This quote brings me a sense of comfort. I hope it helps you too if you're hurting in some way. Remember through any kind of pain, physical or emotional, there are stars, bright, twinkling stars just for you.

“I will leave such an imprint on your heart that anyone you encounter after me will have to know me to be able to understand you.”

“Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solely by the perfection of his repose, by the calmness of his figure, in which there was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace.” ~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Boy has his shit together! Lol

“Do not fall in love with people like me.
I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth.
I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people.” ~
Caitlyn Siehl

“Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.” ~ Rumi ❤

I’m wishing you much love & happiness. Today and always. And remember keep, keep going no matter how sick you are, how depressed, or how much of any kind of pain you’re in. Keep going and brighten someone else’s day! The simplest things can help someone significantly. ❤

Xoxo Kim

Random Inspiration #9 {Beauty (and mystery) in the Mundane}

Jan10

Adventure is great, holidays, celebrations, weddings, buying new things, shopping sprees, vacations, new jobs, promotions, and new experiences! Those are great things to experience and pursue if we’re into those things. But we don’t always get the chances to do those and we don’t need them anyway to be happy and have fun, thrilling lives! There’s so much beauty in the mundane, extraordinary in the ordinary, simple joys in everyday. Let’s cherish, savor, and deeply appreciate them!

Check out my post in the Page section on the menu:

“Small Things Forgotten”

https://inspirationalgem.wordpress.com/small-things-forgotten/

This page explains my goal of reclaiming and shedding light on the simple, often abandoned things, the mundane aspects of our lives like the colors, the textures, the hues and simple conversations, lines and edges and our favorite books and knick knacks and the sounds in the streets, the wetness on bottles of drinks, the fragrance of cookies baking or food being cooked, our kitchen table or dresser even if it’s plain and just getting old or boring now, the rooms in our house, the streets we walk each day, the ground we walk upon, the hills, buildings, and trees we pass by on our way to work…and how they are beautiful even when they’re not, merely because they make up our lives each day, every single day and they are part of us. They are no less important than the big celebrations and vacations and holidays and weddings, all the “big” things many of us often wait for, search for, hope for, and sometimes feel incomplete, jealous, depressed or low without, either because we want them and don’t have them or because society as a whole says we should have them and if we don’t, we can feel like outcasts or less than successful.

I love to take pictures of “ordinary” or “boring/plain” objects making them look beautiful, mysterious, obscure, nostalgic, or difficult to detect what they are.

Like this one:

Can you tell what it is?!

I can’t either! Lol And it’s my own picture I took at work of something we see/use everyday! I remember taking the picture of whatever it is and trying to obscure it, mystify it. And it worked a little too well because now I can’t figure out for the life of me what it is. To me, it looks like packages that come in the mail but I’m nearly certain it’s not!

I even searched the place all day one day looking for it and to no avail! I think the point of this photo Activity

of de-focusing or obscuring objects is to have others guessing, not our own selves but oh well! I guess that just goes to show my madd skills! ;-D

Here are some links if you are interested about photography and photographing everyday objects and tips to taking pictures with a smartphone.

http://digital-photography-school.com/the-16-most-photogenic-everyday-objects/

http://thephotographerwithin.com/2014/01/make-everyday-objects-look-amazing/

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/08/07/close-up-photography-creative-ideas-for-photographing-everyday-objects/

(Caution: this website uses cookies and they can store them or access them on your device so if that’s not ok with you, you may not want to click it) It’s about taking pictures of everyday objects such as a strap on a shoulder bag, a lemon slice in a drink…and making them beautiful in pictures or de-focusing them to make them more interesting and not being able to tell what they arE

How
fascinating!

http://digital-photography-school.com/5-ways-to-take-better-smartphone-photos/

Even if you aren’t interested in photography there are other ways to appreciate and express gratitude or joy for the simple gifts of living like writing/poetry, drawing or painting, or just basking in the beauty, soaking it all up with as many senses as you have!

😀

Here are some of my pictures of simple, everyday things and inspiring quotes I have come across that convey, in some way, the message of how every “ordinary” day is beautiful.

Can you tell what this one is?!

If you can’t tell, why should I?! Lol
;-D

“You can be in love with one thousand views and skylines and souls and minds at once. Don’t apologize for your burn, your passion, or your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm propels the world.” – Victoria Erickson

Hmmm….;-p

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ~
Frances Hodgson Burnett

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” ~ Elliott Erwitt

“Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.” ~
Desmond Tutu

“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.” ~
Boris Pasternak

What in the world? An x-ray pic of a spinal cord?!?! Or maybe it’s just a weird pic of a Center City Philadelphia building. I sent it to my mom in a text and said guess what it is and she couldn’t so I said it’s a spinal cord and she screamed “Eww oh my god Eww!!” and deleted it instantly. Lol 😀 She believed me.

“I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.” ~ Sarah Williams

Light graffiti!

“Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” ~
Bill Moyers

“As a matter of fact, I deliberately look for the mundane, because I feel these stories are ignored. The most influential things that happen to virtually all of us are the things that happen on a daily basis. Not the traumas.” ~
Harvey Pekar

This looks like cold hard cash. That’s because it is! It’s someone’s penny collection. I don’t know whose though.

The perfect snack. No mystery here. MmmMmmm

“What I like about The Sims is that I don’t have a normal life at all, so I play this game where these people have these really boring, mundane lives. It’s fun.” ~
Gerard Way

Lol Remember this quote the next day you crave a more adventurous life! Some people would give anything for a bit of simplicity. ;-D

One of those containers to keep coins in with a toy camera effect on the pic.

“Actually I think Art lies in both directions – the broad strokes, big picture but on the other hand the minute examination of the apparently mundane. Seeing the whole world in a grain of sand, that kind of thing.” ~
Peter Hammill

Busstop.

“The heart of the theater is the play itself, how it dramatizes life to make it meaningful entertainment. To achieve depth and universality, the playwright must subject himself to intense critique, to know human character and behavior, and finally to construct art from the most mundane of human experience.” ~
F. Sionil Jose

” Bus stop, wet day, she’s there, I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella, we employed it
By August, she was mine” ~ The Hollies

And this is???

The rim of a

glass soda bottle (or a photo of one) dressed up in a leaky toy camera effect!

“I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.”
Harvey Pekar

Can you guess this one?

.
.
.
.

It’s raindrops on my dad’s car window! With a street light in the distance.

“every time we go out into the world we can choose to be alert to see what we’ve not seen before. a trip to the corner store can contain a multitude of universes. it only requires a conscious decision to “tune in” and activate all the senses to be open to what we don’t know yet” ~ Keri Smith

And we can look at things we see everyday in a different way than we usually do!

The picture on the left was taken after 10:00 at night! Right when a lightening bolt ventured across the sky! And I took the pic on the right just a few seconds later after the lightening disappeared! Isn’t it amazing?! A lightening bolt lights up the whole sky like that but it happens so quickly we don’t realize.

What a beautiful lesson to us! When we’re completely in the dark, we can find just one sliver of light or spark of hope, joy, or beauty that can light up our world.

Purple rain.

Rainy night in my dad’s car under the blue, blue Moon. That’s my dad’s Kindle lit up in the window.

I read a book called “a new adventure everyday 541 simple ways to live with pizzazz” by David Silberkleit.

The book is about how we don’t have to travel to be adventurous, we don’t have to bungee jump or climb a mountain, we don’t have to take big risks and don’t even have to leave our houses to have a thrilling adventure. Those things are fantastic and I definitely would love to and hope to engage in some of those one day but as I have said, they are not necessary to be adventurous.

And the author of this book IS an adventurous person in the sense I mention above. He has traveled to various places and tried new things, took risks, and engaged in big thrilling activities such as rock climbing, sailboat racing, scuba diving, motorcycling, visiting other countries…..he believed that was the only way to be adventurous and have a thrill. Then after forty years he realized that being adventurous can be more simple but still as rewarding, it can mean “discovery of a unique new color of silver reflected in a cloud after sunset or a conversation with the person sitting next to me on a New York subway, just to see if maybe we have something in common.” He also lists: asking his father what he remembers about being his age and telling his best friend something he would have never told anyone before.

In his book he lists many simple, inexpensive activities we can do every single day to bring some adventure into our lives without traveling the world or jumping out of an airplane. I hope anyone who wants to travel and rockclimb and go sailboat racing will! That sounds like a lot of fun! But many, probably most of us cannot do that often but we CAN explore and engage in mini but still thrilling little adventures each day.
Some suggestions the author gives are: admire the small businesses – introducing yourself to the owners and having a look around even if the products or services offered are something you would never use, greeting everyone you see that day without waiting for them to say hello first (I’m so shy so this is definitely a thrilling adventure for me that takes guts!), go on a scary ride at a theme park, pay attention to the name tags of employees in the stores you go to, write down all the things you need to forgive yourself for then burn or bury it or float it down a river, make a compromise with someone, take a whole day and do not criticize yourself, draw self portraits in different ways including two using only your left hand.

The possibilities are infinite!

The point is NOT to avoid big adventures like traveling and sky diving if that’s what we want but to also cherish the simple forgotten things all of us always have access to.

Let’s not overlook all that we currently have no matter how simple! 😀 And let’s use our creativity and imagination and see what we can do with all the things we have every day to make them even more thrilling!
I wish you much love and passion and thrilling adventures whatever you choose to do! ❤

Xoxo Kim 😀

Random Inspiration #7 {Thought Provoking/Zen}

Jan2

“There ain’t no answer.
There ain’t going to be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
That’s the answer.” ~ Gertrude Stein

“Before you study Zen, a bowl is a bowl and tea is tea. While you are studying Zen, a bowl is no longer a bowl and tea is no longer tea. After you’ve studied Zen, a bowl is again a bowl and tea is tea.” ~ Zen saying

Lol “I know it’s crazy but it’s true.”

“The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” ~ Robert Pirsig

“Zen teaches us nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.” ~ D.T. Suzuki

“The art of the tea Way consists simply of boiling water, preparing tea and drinking it.” ~ Rikyu

“Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.” ~ Saint-Exupery

“Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.” ~ Jerry Brown

“Dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?” ~ Havelock Ellis

What is your interpretation, meaning, analysis of the above quotes?! Most of them are meant to be obscure, shady, simple but also complex…intended to get us to think and eventually just to BE.

😀

Xoxo Kim

Random Inspiration #5 {Christmas Cheer}

Dec18

“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

There’s nothing that brings in the Christmas spirit like watching the movie, Home Alone! Especially while drinking a Snickerdoodle cookie iced latte!

Home Alone is the most hilarious movie no matter how many occasions I see it! It never gets old and I laugh as if it’s the first moment I’m seeing it! Lol

And I love the end, so sweet and inspiring!

Snickerdoodle iced lattes with whipped cream are the most delicious iced lattes I ever tasted! I wish they were out all year long!

“Christmas is a time when you get homesick — even when you’re home.”~Carol Nelson

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.” ~Roy L. Smith

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.”~Andy Rooney

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” ~Charles Dickens

“Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. “~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” ~Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby

“A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.”
~Eva Logue

“For the spirit of Christmas fulfils the greatest hunger of mankind.” ~Loring A. Schuler

😀

Much love, happiness, & joy to you!

Xoxo Kim ❤

Currently {December edition yay!!}

Dec17

Currently….

My hair: smells like gingerbread cookies. My hair soap is some kind of buttery winter flavor and smells just like cookies!

Loving: people and things in general. And a free Metaphysics course I’m taking online! Just for fun, to learn, but it can also be applied to life as a personal development technique. I love Metaphysics and I went to college for Philosophy (Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy) so even better! I recently took another metaphysics course too online but this one doesn’t have the weekly quizzes or a certification of completion at the end and it was only seven days. No work required, just reading!
The other one is eight weeks!

Anyone can take the classes!

Here’s the link for the eight week course:

http://www.metaphysics-for-life.com/

It requires participation, reading & quizzes.

And the seven day course:

http://www.whatismetaphysics.com/

I read that this one is going away soon, the whole website, like in April 2015, I think (?)

I don’t know why.

There is an abundance of information, free e books in pdf files, links, and all kinds of info. Check it out! The author said to save as much as you can since he’s taking it away.

But yeeeaaaa for free ebooks! Especially philosophy & personal development ones!

Looking forward to: a job I’m applying for in a psychiatric hospital, assisting doctors with paperwork, charts, and stuff! I used to procrastinate a lot with applying for jobs thinking I’m not qualified but whenever I finally apply for one I get so happy I’m sure I’m going to get the job! (I never do) lol!
I don’t procrastinate much now with the applications. I used to do this because I’m afraid if I send it too soon I will remember something better I could have put, then regret it, but I don’t think there is ever a “perfect” moment for things, we have to just jump in and go for it!

Disappointed about: every year my mom, sister, and me bake cookies for Christmas but this year the oven is broke and we don’t know how to fix it and have to save up money to get it fixed. no baking cookies! But on Christmas Eve I’m going to the wa to buy chocolate chip cookies, the warm gooey, yummy ones! Hopefully they’re not all sold out! 😀 :-p

Reading: A Christmas murder mystery! It takes place in a hotel! It’s called “A Murder For Christmas!” I think it’s one of those stories with a group of people all locked together and one is a murderer but no one (except the guilty one) knows which one and they have to watch their backs every move they make, every breath they take. I love those!

Listening to: right now, “One in a Million You” sung by Larry Graham just ended and Billy Joel’s “She’s Got a Way” and now The Isley Brothers – “For the Love of You”

Laughing at:

This meme:

Lmao!

It’s not mine; I found it on Google images and thought I would die laughing.

Drinking:

THis:

Iced latte!

😀

Planning:

I have a few blog posts I’m fixing up to post soon and I’m working on a “Gratitude Guide mini series!” a few posts on gratitude techniques we can apply to live in gratitude more frequently! And my favorite gratitude songs, quotes, and books…My opinions and thoughts on gratitude…

I’m putting a lot of work and energy into it! 😀

Coming up shortly!

Xoxo Kim

Fool in the rain

Dec9

(me on a different rainy day)

“I’ll run in the rain till I’m breathless
When I’m breathless I’ll run till I drop, hey
The thoughts of a fool’s kind of careless
I’m just a fool waiting on the wrong block…” ~ Led Zeppelin

I have been listening to Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain” over and over for days. And today, that’s exactly what I felt like, a fool in the rain.

Freezing rain.

What a coincidence! Lol

I had a therapist appointment today and have to walk a long way and take two busses. Sometimes on the one bus I listen to music with my earphones. I was listening to “Laughter in the Rain” by Neil Sedaka and it sounded so so good I did not want to get off the bus til it ended! That song always sounds fantastic but some days music just sounds better. Today is one of those days.

So when it was my stop I decided to stay on and get off at the next stop then when the next stop appeared the song still wasn’t over! So I stayed on and then missed the next stop by accident!

Lol go me!

So I had lots of walking back to do! In freezing cold rain! Which made it feel like an eternity. It was bitter but beautiful anyway! I love walking in the rain but not as much when it’s freezing cold out. But I got a few sweet rainy and gray pictures! It was all worth it.

Rain is magic to me.

“Ooooo, how I love the rainy days
And the happy way I feel inside” ~ Neil Sedaka

In honor of the rainy day today I’m sharing a few of my favorite rainy songs! Yay! 😀

When you pay attention to the life all around and within, you can find beauty anywhere.

1.) Fool in the Rain – Led Zeppelin

“Now my body is starting to quiver
And the palms of my hands getting wet
I’ve got no reason to doubt you baby…” ❤

Mobile version: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c6hpI4_Sm-8&app=m&persist_app=1

Desktop version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=c6hpI4_Sm-8

2.) Laughter in the Rain – Neil Sedaka

“Strolling along country roads with my baby
It starts to rain, it begins to pour
Without an umbrella we’re soaked to the skin
I feel a shiver run up my spine
I feel the warmth of her hand in mine
Ooh, I hear laughter in the rain
Walking hand in hand with the one I love” ❤

Desktop version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsYIiY2wnyU&app=desktop

Mobile version:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SsYIiY2wnyU&persist_app=1&app=m

3.) Walking in the rain – The Walker Brothers

“I want her and I need her
And someday, someway
I’ll meet her
She’ll be kind of shy
And real good lookin’ too
And I’ll be certain she’s the one
By the things she’ll like to do
Like walking in the rain (like walking in the rain)
And wishing on the stars up above
And being so in love” ❤

Mobile version:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NO7vqMwvzkU

Desktop version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=NO7vqMwvzkU

I was waiting for a bus with a group of people in the freezing cold rain and they were all pacing and complaining over the weather and the waiting and I was just standing there like “yayyyy pigeons!!” taking endless pics like I never seen a pigeon in my life ’til then. They were looking at me like I was insane. Lol!

But it was so cute watching them eat their food. It scares me when people put their food near the street though because of the traffic and they can get run over.

If you ever feed birds, please put the food in a safe place. My mom and me stop to take it out of the street when we see it to move it to a safe place for them to eat. We don’t need those birdies getting hit!

I hope you’re having a great day! Much love to you! ❤ ❤

Xoxo Kim 😀

Random Inspiration #4 {Beauty}

Nov29

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. ~Jawaharlal Nehru

“The echoes of beauty you’ve seen transpire, Resound through dying coals of a campfire.”~ Ernest Hemingway

“She walks in beauty,
Like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes”
~Lord Byron

“Even the handsomest men do not have the same momentary effect on the world as a truly beautiful woman does.” ~Jonathan Carroll

“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.”~ D. H. Lawrence

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”~Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.
Three years she grew in Sun and Shower”
~William Wordsworth

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.” ~John Keats

“A soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”
~Johann von Goethe

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. “~Kahlil Gibran

Wishing you much love, hope, & beauty…. ❤

Xoxo Kim ❤ 😀

Random Inspiration #3

Nov11

“Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday.”

“Believe in yourself even when it seems no one else does.”

I’m very inspired by my next door neighbors. Every year they decorate their house outside for holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and every year someone (anonymously) rips their decorations off and throws them around and destroys them and my neighbors just put new decorations right back up like it never even happened. They don’t say a word or express anger. I am so inspired by their determination and how they don’t let the instigator even get to them. They don’t change who they are just because of some asshole.
They love to care for stray animals and used to feed the cats and other neighbors got angry saying it was bringing too many strays but they just kept right on helping the cats until they took them to a no kill shelter to find them furever homes.

Earlier I was on a bus and it was really crowded and I was standing near the door and a sweet young man gave me his seat! Without even asking, he just got up and said “here you can sit here.” I was so thankful! I would have said no if he asked because I don’t want to put people out but it was so helpful, it can be hard to stand on a crowded moving bus, especially with a bag of books. I’m so thankful for kind strangers and random acts of kindness. It inspires me
even more to go out of my way to help others whenever I can. ❤

“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.”

“Every experience no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.” ~ Buddha 😀

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

“Be selective in your battles, for sometimes peace is better than being right.”

“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch but in her own wings. Always believe in yourself.”

Me ❤

Xoxo Kim ❤ 😀