A touching story about one girl’s vision to make many children happy:

Ana’s Vision

Okay, I had a contest yesterday. I didn’t have the chance to post our Positive Quote Wednesday. So here you have it: Positive Quote Thursday.
I didn’t win the contest…at all! So today, admittedly self-involved, I’m posting quotes on losing. We’ve all been there, right?

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
Billie Jean King

A good balance of winning and losing is important. If you just win all the time, you won’t get anything out of it; having some tough losses can be really important.
Andrew Shue

A losing trade, I assure you, sir: literature is a drug.
George Borrow

About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you’re fighting temptation.
Tom Wilson

As I said, I began losing confidence in my instincts, which is tough and very bad for an instinctive person.
Kim Novak

Bambi has a profound effect on children because it’s about losing your mother.
Christine Baranski

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.
Jackie Robinson

Being a decathlete is like having ten girlfriends. You have to love them all, and you can’t afford losing one.
Daley Thompson

Being an only child and losing both my parents at an early age, I have found that the friends I have made over the years are the people who help me get through life, good times and bad.
Fannie Flagg

Bjorn was a different breed, I threw my best material at him, but he would never smile, but that added to the charm when he played me and Mac. We were going nuts and losing our mind and he was sitting back like he was on a Sunday stroll.
Jimmy Connors

Extremely strong, effective, tenacious, and powerful political networks can be built when you fight losing battles as well as when you win.
Patricia Ireland

For myself, losing is not coming second. It’s getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I’ve been in.

Ian Thorpe

I also think stress is related to control. When you’re in charge of your life, you tend to not care about losing control of things that don’t really matter like traffic jams.
Marilu Henner

I don’t gamble, because winning a hundred dollars doesn’t give me great pleasure. But losing a hundred dollars pisses me off.
Alex Trebek

I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.
Steve Irwin

How exciting!

A recent touring exhibition is turning a long held common belief on its head. The common perception is that the great statues and buildings of ancient Greece and Rome were all pure unpainted stone or green tarnished bronze, but researchers have been arguing that this may not been what these classic monuments really looked like back in the era of their creation.

That, in fact, these statue’s were quite alive and vibrant, full of color.

Researchers believe, particalurly Vinzenz Brinkmann who has been doing this research for the past 25 years, that artists used mineral and organic based colors and after centuries of deterioration any trace of pigment leftover when discovered, would have been taken off during any cleaning processes done before being put on display, washing the historical art clear of its true colors.

Source: ColourLovers.com

If you’ve ever paid a visit to New York City, chances are, you PAID a visit literally: it’s an expensive city! The Brooklyn Free Store is a wonderfully conceived and executed place where people leave what they want and take what they want…all for free!

The Brooklyn Free Store is exactly what it sounds like. The large white tent on Walworth Street houses a huge variety of items, along with a sign that says, “Take what you want. Share what you think others may enjoy (not limited to material items).”

Don’t go looking for anything in particular there: you’ll never find the same thing twice. Merchandise can range from canned vegetables to flashlights; books to fur coats. Along with taking what they like, visitors are encouraged to drop off items they no longer want. Because there is no need to hire a cashier, and no risk of theft, the store is never locked, and is open at all hours.

The store opened in early July, and is proving to be a smashing success, with customers coming in at all hours to sort through the collection and drop off their own donations. And, even though the Brooklyn Free Store is the first of its kind, it’s not likely to be the last.

“New York is world renowned for having the best garbage,” Myles Emery, an organizer of the store, told the New York Times. “There could be free stores everywhere.”

First New York—next, the world?

Source: Gimundo

My friend is going through a divorce and wrote this piece for our writing class. I asked her if I could reprint it to which she agreed.

Most of us have heard that “TV is bad for you.” Perhaps because it disconnects us from ourselves - we “zone out.” During a particularly difficult period, I’ve come to honor that “zone out” time and don’t think it’s as detrimental as its often made out to be.

Going through a divorce is not for the weak at heart. Every day brings forth a new complication, a new dilemma. Here you are, trying to iron out major life decisions with a person who you innately have problems with! By the end of the day, I’m exhausted and drained.

So I’ve chosen a few TV programs that I watch in the evening. It’s my zone out time. But as an artist, it’s a zone out with some creative perks. Some programs offer me a chance to runaway to another time (such as The Tudors) or imagine myself in a strong, powerful position (such as Damages.) Others help me vent my frustrations (Breaking Bad) and others have simply educated me (Criminal Minds, Lie to Me.)

Sure, too much television is a bad thing. But for me, some of my programs have given me an opportunity to venture off into an imaginary world and take a break from my real life. Perhaps there’s a chance that some of the qualities I like in these televised characters enhances underserved parts of myself. Who knows?

But even if it doesn’t, that time out of mind feels good on an overworked, tired mind. I don’t overdue it - one show an evening. And I can’t help but feel some of these TV shows have become therapeutic - not the evil I’ve always heard they could be.

How can their possibly be positive quotes on loneliness? Well, first of all, whoever said loneliness was all bad? Often loneliness can propel us to create a piece of art or take an action or simply feel the depths of our soul and release a good cry. Here’s what some other sage-like wonders have to say:

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

- Aristotle

No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees.

- Carole Borges

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

- Charles Caleb Colton

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.

- Dag Hammarskjold

There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.

- Dante

We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?

- David Foster Wallace

The most I ever did for you was to outlive you. But that is much.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.

- Eric Hoffer

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

- Eric Hoffer

It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.

- Eric Hoffer

I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.

- Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell To Arms” ( $ ) ( ? )

“Don’t you want to join us?” I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. “No, I don’t,” I said.

- Franz Kafka

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Theres nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment, perpetually wearing their “discomfort” like a favorite shirt.

- Jhonen Vasquez

Oh, sweet sorrow, the time you borrow, will you be here when i wake up tomorrow?

- Katherine Wolf

Loneliness the clearest of crystal insight into your own soul, its the fear of one’s own self that haunts the lonely.

- Keith Haynie

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

- Kurt Vonnegut

If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself….If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight

- Leonardo da Vinci

The loneliest it gets is when the wind begins to chill and when I sit atop of your old street, the church top brings a still ness to me, there’s nothingI would rather do, than have my heart broken by you.

- Lifetime

Life dies inside a person when there are no others willing to be-friend him. He thus gets filled with emptiness and a non-existent sense of self-worth.

- Mark R. J. Lavoie

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

- Maya Angelou

Follow your bliss. It’s been said time and time again. This artist didn’t need to hear it, he simply did it. And the payoff has been pretty outstanding!

Willard Wigan never meant for his art to become a business.

In fact, he never really set out to be an artist; the vocation found him as he was hiding from the real world at 5 years old.

Now 53, Mr. Wigan is renowned for his “micro-sculptures,” ultra-miniature works in a rare genre he helped create. He makes the minutest of statuettes, fitting them in a needle’s eye or fixing them atop a pin head. He carves figures into matchsticks and puts lipstick and clothes on dead houseflies. In short, he takes life-size ideas and characters and shrinks them to a “molecular level.”

These uniquely small works, a sampling of which is currently on display at the Atlanta Art Gallery in Buckhead, fetch high-profile buyers at big prices. During an interview in February, Mr. Wigan said he was working on a commissioned sculpture that would bring seven-foot-tall basketball star Shaquille O’Neal down to nano size.

England’s Prince Charles, musician Elton John, boxer Mike Tyson and “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell all own pieces of Mr. Wigan’s work, which range in price from $35,000 to upwards of $100,000. David Lloyd, the former British tennis player, owns 72 pieces, almost half of Mr. Wigan’s total output of about 200.

Though his work has made him a millionaire, Mr. Wigan doesn’t do it for the money.

“If I wasn’t going to get paid for it, I’d still do it,” he said. “It’s like telling someone who plays basketball they won’t get paid. They’ll still do it. You do what you love.”

Source: GlobalAtlanta

I had a conversation with my friend yesterday. We were talking about an upcoming competition for women. She believed that women weren’t as competitive as men. I believe they’re often discouraged in sports, with not nearly the attention men receive. Then I read about these women today. Guess they’re skating through the glass ceiling!

Cammi Granato (first photo) and Angela James

TORONTO (AP) — The Hockey Hall of Fame is no longer just for male inductees.

Cammi Granato and Angela James changed that on Tuesday when they became the first women elected to be enshrined in Toronto. Along with former NHL All-Star Dino Ciccarelli, Granato and James will go in as part of the players category during an induction ceremony in November.

Longtime Red Wings executive Jimmy Devellano and the late Daryl (Doc) Seaman — a founding owner of the Calgary Flames — were elected as builders.

While women had always been eligible for induction, the Hall made it easier for them to be voted in when it established a women’s subcategory this year.

Up to four male players are eligible for induction annually, but only Ciccarelli was voted in Tuesday. Eric Lindros and Joe Nieuwendyk were potential contenders among NHL players in their first year of eligibility that didn’t receive enough support.

Women were given their own player category this year, and James and Granato filled the maximum of two female inductees per year.

“This is a day I never really thought would ever happen,” James said. “I’m really honored to represent the female hockey players from all over the world.”

Granato played on the U.S. women’s hockey team for 15 years and led the club to a gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Her brother, Tony, played and coached in the NHL.

“I dreamed of being in the NHL my entire life, and this certainly makes up for those dreams,” Granato said. “Being amongst the first women to play at college and later at the Olympics, it certainly was worthwhile being a hockey pioneer.”

Sometimes there seems so little of it. Sometimes all it takes is a little.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.
Mother Teresa

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
Maya Angelou

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
Mohandas Gandhi

The fact that you are willing to say, “I do not understand, and it is fine,” is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.
Wayne Dyer

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
Tony Robbins

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Understanding is a two-way street.
Eleanor Roosevelt

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
Helen Keller

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.
Lao Tzu

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Understanding can overcome any situation, however mysterious or insurmountable it may appear to be.
Norman Vincent Peale

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
Plato

Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?
Pablo Picasso

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Leonardo da Vinci

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
Erma Bombeck

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Carl Sagan

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
Carl Sagan

I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?
Zsa Zsa Gabor

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
Albert Camus

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.
Margaret Thatcher

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
Stephen Hawking

It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.
Oprah Winfrey

People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.
Soren Kierkegaard