“It is better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved at all.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
To Be, Not To Do
January 24, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Freedom is the right to be wrong,
not the right to do wrong.”
John G. Riefenbaker, 1895-1979
13th Prime Minister of Canada
Life, Not Years
January 22, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“And in the end, it’s not the years
in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.”
Abraham Lincoln
War Against Reality
January 20, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Imagination is the one weapon
in the war against reality.”
Jules de Gaultier
With the Stream
January 18, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Scenes)
“Never forget that only dead fish
swim with the stream.”
Malcolm Muggeridge, 1903-1990
English journalist
Go Instead
January 16, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Scenes)
Roan Highlands
“Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
You’ll Never Escape
January 14, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Don’t take life too seriously.
You’ll never escape it alive anyway.”
Unknown
Who We Are
January 10, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Rocky Fork, Scenes)
Rocky Fork
“What we do comes out of
who we believe we are.”
Rob Bell
Face Tomorrow
January 8, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
New growth after fire destroyed part of Buffalo Mountain
“Courage is reclaiming your life after a devastating event
robs you of your confidence and self-esteem.
It is facing tomorrow with a firm resolve to reach deep
within yourself to find another strength, another talent…
It is taking yourself to another level of your own existence
where you are once again whole, productive, special.”
Catherine Britton
Don’t Waste Yourself
January 6, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman.”
Kate Reddy
“I Don’t Know How She Does It”
Extraordinary Things Not Required
January 4, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants, Oswald Chambers)
“It is ingrained in us that we have to do
exceptional things for God–but we do not.
We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life,
and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people–
and this is not learned in five minutes.”
Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917
Happy 70th Birthday, Dad
January 2, 2012 at 7:00 AM (Bristol, Reflections, Scenes, South Holston Lake, Sullivan County, Tennessee)
My parents at South Holston Lake
“He didn’t tell me how to live;
he lived, and let me watch him do it.”
Clarence Budington Kelland, 1882-1964
Feb. 2004
Dear Dad,
I’ve told you before but not often enough how proud I am of you and how much I love you and who you are and what you have done for me. So much of who I am today is because of you — from listening to your wise counsel over the years, yes, but mostly from watching you in action. I suppose all those years of playing with your office equipment and supplies and writing notes all over your office with your cool pens helped lead me to where I am now professionally. As I organize things, delegate jobs and direct projects, I also glimpse you and your leadership skills rising up in me. Your cool-headedness under pressure and the ability to look at things logically and pragmatically, yet with a touch of compassion and heart, is what I probably value the most. All those years growing up, I always knew you were the real softie!
I also watched you over the years go through challenging experiences and deal with difficult circumstances. You taught me that life isn’t fair and life is difficult, but that isn’t reason to make excuses or blame the world — you keep plugging away and do the best with what you have, and cherish the small moments of life and love your family and serve your church and honor your God and don’t give up on any of those things even when sometimes they seem to give up on you.
Thank you for the sacrifices you have made over the years and continue to make for your family. I know you sacrificed a lucrative career and worldly goods for us. And then you struggled over the years to provide for us in a way that didn’t take you away from us. Thank you for that. Please know that we never once went without the most important things in life — the love of two parents who loved us and put us first in their lives, and the many, many, many wonderful family memories that will last forever. I am thankful now that we didn’t have fancy cars or fancy clothes or fancy vacations. We have fancy memories of a family that loves each other.
We had the coolest family vacations — hiking, camping, canoeing, visiting historical sights — and enjoyed the best times together…and continue to do so. All these things, and so many more that I could write a book about, make you a wonderful Christ-like man and the best father for ME. And one of the things that I thank you for the most is the way that you adore my mother. Nothing speaks more loudly about your Christ-like example and compassion than the partnership you have with Mom and the family that together you have dedicated your lives to.
I thank God daily for you and for allowing me to continue to be blessed by your wisdom and wit and wonderful unconditional love. Thank you for living Christ and letting me see His face in your life so often throughout my life.
I love you.
Lee
Perfection Isn’t All That
January 1, 2012 at 8:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Voltaire, 1694-1778
New Year
December 31, 2011 at 10:09 AM (Scenes)
Crabtree Falls, NC
“In the New Year, may your right hand
always be stretched out in friendship,
but never in want.”
Irish Toast
The Purpose of Christmas
December 25, 2011 at 11:25 AM (Uncategorized)
“To fit us for heaven, to live with thee there.”
John Thomas McFarland
Fool You
October 20, 2011 at 8:38 PM (Scenes)
“Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you”
by Mardy Grothe
Avoiding Reality
October 18, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Scenes)
“You can avoid reality,
but you cannot avoid
the consequences of
avoiding reality.”
Ayn Rand, 1905-1982
Dangerous
October 16, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968
The Gift
October 14, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Scenes)
“The artist is nothing without the gift,
but the gift is nothing without work.”
Emile Zola, 1840-1902
Freedom
October 12, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Scenes)
“People demand freedom of speech
to make up for the freedom of thought
which they avoid.”
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, 1813-1855
Something
October 10, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Scenes)
Blue Ridge Parkway
“Try to learn something about everything
and everything about something.”
Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825-1895
New Idea
October 8, 2011 at 5:24 PM (Scenes)
“A person with a new idea is a crank
until the idea succeeds.”
Mark Twain
Wake Me Up
October 5, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Scenes)
Bass Lake, Blowing Rock
“I have left orders to be awakened
at any time in case of national emergency,
even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004
Survive
October 3, 2011 at 7:00 AM (Flowers & Plants)
“Life is difficult and complicated
and beyond anyone’s total control,
and the humility to know that
will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008
