Stickers for Halloween

Stickers on Halloween pumpkins?

Yes please!

Cons of pumpkin carving:

• So painful! Those strings inside the pumpkin burned!
• Slimy and hard to manouver
• Carving those features/the design - needs patience 
• Last fall (2021) it was warmer than usual the weeks before Halloween, it took about a day for a few hundred gnats to make the hollowed up pumpkin their home

Another side note - apparently the whitish pumpkins last for months (uncarved of course)! 

Harry Potter, I ♥ Butter Beer

Well, here it goes again. Pottermania.

Having a term created for you signifies how prevalent you are as part of conversation for most people. Well, it may not have made it to the Oxford dictionary yet; but if every newspaper in print runs it, I consider it enough said.

This brings me to a more important topic of Butter Beer.

The Harry Potter Wiki describes it as follows:

Butter beer is a popular wizarding beverage described as tasting "a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch".

I wish it would be easy to taste words as they are, because this amazing drink certainly went beyond my imagination. Mildly alcoholic, but enough to get a house elf drunk on, it wraps you up like a welcoming warm well-worn blanket. Perhaps hot chocolate does the same on a cold winter's day. But that's like comparing apples and oranges.

Here is an overview of the buttery machine.

Perhaps a close up of the golden goodness is more preferred by you at this point ☺

I recommend the cold-soda version rather than the slush as I find it much easier going down (for me at least).

Sláinte!

Heaven for me

Random Images

Quote - Pablo Picasso

Punctuation Anarchy

Quote - Rainer Maria Rilke

In the deepest hour of the night,
confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write.
And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots,
the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?

This is one of my favorite quotes.
I am a writer, I write for myself though; first and foremost.
I love feeling words sprout from my fingertips before I can tap it in my conscious mind (as it is in this day and age of the keyboard). Its quite like gardening.

I am not averse to verbal diarrhea myself, if it makes sense on some level :)

Quote - Self Help by Charlie Brown

Show me a picture of joy

I will show you a picture of a child or of children laughing.

The indescribable swelling of a bird in our being, which struggles to be set free... and so it does... through our smile.

Always smile, for it is the wings of that bird struggling to fly out that causes those tips of your lips to lift..and that joy of release that brings forth an ode of life with your voice... your laugh.

Who is :Anon:?

A question that would have no doubt crossed your mind as you leafed through your English-language text books in school. No doubt, you would have been told that this is from an author who did not want to be named, either by choice or an unfortunate loss of information through history.

But wait, there is hope! It started when I recently discovered that I could put an image to face the mysterious "Anon".

Here it is.

No. Not the one on the right. The other one.
Mysterious.

May I present Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii ('the anonymous notary of king Bela') aka Anon.
Apparently this faceless chap romanticized history based on his whims, rather than fact.

Beautiful story. I enjoyed the part where someone about a thousand years ago understood the importance of the written word.

Calvin makes my day ஜ

Exposure

Do you know that some of the most beautiful photographs come only from "exposure"?
There would be no pretty star-lite nights where almost the entire galaxy can be seen at your leisure.
Keep your eyes glued to the tropical blue darkness and the lens captures stars that we cannot see.

Do you wonder how strong you could get if you had no "exposure"?
You would sit and bemoan the Languor and Lassitude of your life.
The Vestigial amounts of living that makes you like a Penumbra.

That "exposure" is much like Serendipity, an Elixir of Beauty.

Calvin and Hobbes: The future

Quote - Robert H. Schuller

Never cut a tree down in the wintertime.
Never make a negative decision in the low time.
Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods.
Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.

Quote - Ann Frank

How true Daddy’s words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

– Anne Frank

Celtic Prayers

An Celtic Prayer

May God give you…
For every storm, a rainbow,
For every tear, a smile,
For every care, a promise,
And a blessing in each trial.
For every problem life sends,
A faithful friend to share,
For every sigh, a sweet song,
And an answer for each prayer.

An Old Celtic Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Tip: Get free music using Google search

Copy and paste the above text into a google search text area and replace the “artist or song” with an actual artist or song.

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “artist or song”

Enjoy

Source: clipmarks.com

Quote - Bob Marley

Found at the Hidden Place in Pune

Calvin and Hobbes -looking at the stars

douglas-adams-quote

Oxytocin

What is this magical word?

Call it the feel-good factor, the contentment and peace of a craic that got a lot of fuzzy warmth into your tiered limbs, or even the balance of the yin and the yang inside you.

Recently, I read about a woman's search for what made her most happy. Translation: What got her Oxytocin levels to the highest?

An interesting test when you consider how easy it is to please a woman.
There is of course, spending time with your loved ones, best friends, always shopping,..and in my case sleeping too, but I guess that wont be counted. It seems to be more a collection of activities in my perceptive and lucid state.


This woman too took a couple of "tests".
1. She went on a date.
2. She spent time with her daughter. (I suppose that means she is a single mother)
3. She met up with her best friend.
4. She went shopping.

How did it rate?
Well, she thought that the flutter of her heart and the butterflies in her stomach (signs that she enjoyed her date to be sure) sort of guaranteed that it would win hands down. But guess what, that turned out to have got her Oxytocin levels up the lowest (yes, I do see the Oxymoron here). The shopping did better that that though.
Spending quality time with her friend seemed to have done wonders to her too. But undoubtedly, hearing her daughter say the magic three words shot her Oxytocin through the roof!

I conclude that it is perhaps not the tingles and the stars that we see or feel that make us the happiest. Its peace, plain and simple. A warm hug from your loved ones, a sweet word, or a thoughtful act these bring joy not just in other people, but in ourselves as well.

We look for thunder and lightning and goodness knows what sort of signs of magic. We forget that magic is an art so advanced, its signs are but the most subtle.