25th August
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
~ Anais Nin (1903-1977), author, diarist

If I am honest I am not a big risk taker but I have taken some risks
in my life and have enjoyed them.
Sue is obviously not willing to risk posing for me today!!!

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“The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision.”
~ Robyn Davidson

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24th August
"If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.”
~Flavia Weedn; author, artist Colin and I are certainly picking up the pieces at the moment, after a very stressful few months. However, we are now feeling we are coming out of that period and picking up the pieces.

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“To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”
~ Bernard Edmonds

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23rd August
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps have never been seen.
~ Robert Bresson This quilt was being made for Sue’s 21st Birthday.
That was well over a decade ago!
One day it might get finished and then will be visible to all
rather than hidden away in my workbox waiting the final
quilting stitches.

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“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
~ Anthony Robbins

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22nd August
"Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe"~ St Augustine It took me many years to start believing in myself and it was not until I met and married
Colin did I have the confidence to achieve things I had once thought were impossible.
He gave me the confidence to try and for that I will be eternally grateful.

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Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
~Norman Vincent Peale

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21st August
I say to the moment: Stay now! You are so beautiful!
~ Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThis is one beautiful young lady I love to come and stay with me.

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You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing. ~Marie Stopes

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20th August
I expect some new phases of life this summer, and shall try to get the honey from each moment.
~ Lucy Stone

Enjoying the gradual return to good health is certainly a sweet honeyed moment for me this summer.

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“Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.”
~ Walter Savage Landor

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19th August
The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.
~ Laura Wilson Candlelight is a soft and relaxing light that I love to let into my life especially when laying back in a bath full of bubbles!

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There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~ Edith Wharton

18th August
"The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing; the main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unseen attack."
~Aurelius Marcus

I decided to join Shimelle’s Scrap Your Day project in July.
The aim is to scrap the 25th day of each month.
It has been ready on my desk to complete for over a week now,
Maybe today will be the day I finish it!!
Being ready in life is what I do best but getting things completed is another matter.

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“We are always getting ready to live, but never living”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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17th August
"Every person in this life has something to teach me -- and as soon as I accept that, I open myself to truly listening.”~ Catherine Doucette; author

Listening to all that goes on around me I like to think I have learnt a lot about life and everything it offers.
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“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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16th August
"Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.”
~ Frank Tyger

It is always good to know when to listen rather than talk.!!!

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“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.”
~Sue Patton Thoele
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15th August
Nothing feeds the center of being so much as creative work.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I certainly enjoy my creative work but think that time management to do it is seriously lacking commodity in my life.
So I think from now on I will ignore housework!!!
Here I am playing with mirrors!

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Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art. ~Ansel Adams
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14th August
Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.
-Emory Austin

My singing voice is not one I share with others often, for that they are grateful.

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Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on earth.
~Edith Piaf
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13th August
The world is grand, awfully big and astonishingly beautiful, frequently thrilling.
~Dorothy Kilgallen

Being at one with nature is always thrilling, especially if I have my camera in my hand.
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"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.”
~ Jules Henri Poincaré
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12th August
"Remember the feeling as a child when you woke up and morning smiled? It's time you felt like that again." ~Taj Mahal

Just to face a new day through the eyes of a child would be brilliant, you wake up for the day not what might happen tomorrow or what did happen yesterday but full of the anticipation of what will happen today. If only life could be like that everyday!

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“Children learn to smile from their parents.”
~Shinichi Suzuki

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11th August
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me."
Erma Bomback

I like to think that the gifts/talents that I might have I use to their full potential.
I love my photography, craftwork and my garden.

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“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”
~ Henry Van Dyke

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10th August
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
~Leonardo da Vinci Not sure how sophisticated I am but I do like simplicity in art and design.
These can be seen in many aspects of our everyday life, mind you the supermarket trolley on the sign is a lot more simplistic the ones in real life where the wheels wobble and they never want to go in the direction you want them to!!!
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“Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”
~Charles Dudley Warner
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9th August
"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory."
- Ghandi Mahatma
Well I have certainly put full effort into my diet that I started 7 days ago. Mind you when you look at a day's meals from the Slimming World diet I have been on, the effort has not been difficult.
I am certainly looking forward to the victory of getting into size 12 clothes again!!!

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“If I want to be great I have to win the victory over myself... self-discipline.”
~ Harry S Truman quotes
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8th August
“Appreciation...acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.”
- Alan Cohen; author I certainly appreciate all the good things that have come my way in life.
Here is a photo of two of them on the way to Abbie’s few days away with her Aunty.
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“The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.”
~Amelia Earhart
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7th August
"Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), American civil rights leader There are many ways to help and serve others

and although I help raise funds for
Helen and Douglas House hospice in Oxford. I will always remember the day we went out into the barren land of the Gambia in an old pickup truck to visit the children of a small primary school that we had brought materials for. They were so grateful for everything that it was a really humbling experience.

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“Happiness... consists in giving, and in serving others.”
~ Henry Drummond

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6th August
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
- Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian political and spiritual leader In trying to help others I often find that ,although I might be able to do quite a few things to help, I can not physically do everything so have to learn to say "no" occasionally. So why is it when I say “no sorry, I can’t do that” I always feel guilty?

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He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise.
~Lao-tzu, Tao te Ching

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5th August
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”
- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), poet

Being there for my family, listening to them and loving them as I do I find it hard sometimes not to be able to protect them from some of the hurt that they have had in their lives. However I am always there to give support and help and hope that this goes someway in lessening the pain.

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“Words and hearts should be handled with care for words when spoken and hearts when broken are the hardest things to repair.”
~ Anon

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4th August
“No person ever ended his eyesight by looking on the bright side.”
—Zig Ziglar (b. 1926), author, motivational speaker

I like to think that I can see the brightside in most given situations. Mind you sometimes life can make that a little difficult to do. Nonetheless, I endeavour to always to look on the brightside of life. Judging by this photo I am not the only one!
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Here is the first verse of a Monty Python song.
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life..
~words and music by Eric Idle

August 3rd

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
—Ashley Smith (b. 1978), author, speaker

The beauty of nature is amazing, I love nothing more than having my camera in my hand and capturing the images of nature. Sometimes, with the camera it is possible to see things that are not visible to the naked eye. Today I went to take my photo for the prompt and came across this little Speckled bush Cricket. He posed and smiled for me for over an hour and by the end of it he had acquired a name. So this is ‘Alfie’
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“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are”. ~ Osho
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August 2nd
Happiness... is not a destination:

it is a manner of traveling.
Happiness is not an end in itself.

It is a by-product of working, playing,

loving and living. ~ Haim Ginott

Today is our 39th Wedding anniversary so this prompt is very apt! Over those years Colin and I have worked, played, loved and lived and the by product of that has been much happiness. We are still travelling along and although these past few months seem to have thrown a lot at us, in our marriage we are truly happy.
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“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same” ~ Anne Frank:

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August 1st
"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”- Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), 261st Pope of the Roman Catholic Church

I have been sitting around a lot recently and at times have been very frustrated, however, I now plan to at least take control and change one aspect of my life. I intend to loose the weight I have put on. I know that this is possible for me to do.I just need the willpower!
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"Hope is a waking dream." ~ Aristotle