Be happy

Bringing a smile to your face

It doesn't matter how much space is available.  From planting one hundred plants to caring for one lone plant, the pleasure of seeing your home grown plants thrive and flower will bring a smile to your face and reward you over and over.  It never fails.

Easily my favourite

Among the plants in my collection my favourite is the  Brazilian Snapdragon or Amazon Blue.  I love the colour and the fact that the flowers which look like blue pearls can last for several weeks. The only downside is the plant grows tall and wiry after a few months.

 

Pain makes us strong

Fun in Broga

A time to be yourself

My high school classmates...friends since I was 14.
Had a good meal and a memorable afternoon reminiscing about the old days 

There is something about dolphines

Do you know?

• Outside of its striking friendliness, the Dolphin seems to have been blessed with a well developed sense of humor.
• Dolphins live in social groups dominated by a leader.
• A dolphin's skin is extremely delicate and easily injured by rough surfaces--very similar to human skin.
• Comparing dolphin's brains to ours and others we can claim that it is deductible that dolphins could be intelligent enough to communicate.
• If brain weight is a true measure of intelligence, Man is superior, followed by dolphins with the chimp trailing third.
• Ever since the first time man ventured into the sea, dolphins have been man's friend. Throughout history mentions are made showing this.

You may be interested to read a 1970 article on dolphines by Regina Blackstock: Dolphins and Man.....Equals?

I confess a fascination for dolphins

Some of my dolphins collection

 

 

 

 

The most common but under-reported subject area in the field of psychology

Abuse of parents by their children is one of the most common but under-reported and under-researched subject areas in the field of psychology. Parents are quite often subject to levels of childhood aggression in excess of normal childhood aggressive outbursts, typically in the form of verbal or physical abuse. Parents feel a sense of shame and humiliation to have that problem, so they rarely seek help and there is usually little or no help available anyway.

…abuse may appear in one or a combination of five forms; physical, verbal, psychological, emotional, and financial. Bobic mentioned only four of the five listed abuses; verbal abuse was not included in her 2004 article, Adolescent Violence Towards Parents.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_abuse_by_children

We can decide to look forward

As we know, change is the one constant in our lives. There are changes that we look forward to, changes that we fear and changes that we feel so sad about. However, things will not stay the same no matter how much we would like them to.

I suppose we have two choices. We can continue to feel despair about the change or we can decide to look forward at the new possibilities that the change presents.

CNY reunion dinner 2016

CNY eve dinner alone 2017

😄😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃

Parents are deserving of kindness

“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him.  And that you be dutiful to your parents.  If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour.” (Quran 17:23).

God continues this verse by reminding us that parents are deserving of kindness because they raised their children with gentleness and often made great sacrifices for their wellbeing.

Prophet Muhammad reinforced the duty to be kind to parents.  A companion of the Prophet once asked him which of the many good deeds a man can do is the most loved by God.  Prophet Muhammad answered him by saying, “To offer the prayer in its proper time”.  The companion then asked, “And what is next?” to which Prophet Muhammad replied, “To be good and dutiful to your parents…”[1].  The responsibility to be kind and good to parents comes right after the greatest duty in Islam, the prayer.

Source: https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1624/kindness-to-parents-part-1/

 

 

The pain

"The end of a marriage has got to be one of the saddest events one can experience. I've heard that the pain [of divorce] is second only to an actual death in the family, and that sounds about right." —Danica McKellar

 

To find sanctuary

I have found, through years of practice, that people garden in order to make something grow; to interact with nature; to share, to find sanctuary, to heal, to honour the earth, to leave a mark.  Through gardening, we feel whole as we make our personal work of art upon our land.-Julie Moir Messervy, The Inward Garden, 1995