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Author Quotes
- "I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it." Edgar Allan Poe
- "The love of knowledge is a kind of madness." C.S. Lewis, "Out of the Silent Planet" (1/8/10)
- "...my private opinion is that after the words 'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread; another clause has dropped out from the original text, running 'In the exasperation of thy souls shalt thou attend social functions.'" C.S. Lewis, "Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis Vol. 1" (9/17/09)
- "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown." Ralph Waldo Emerson (9/16/09)
- (Description of Charlotte Lucas) "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be the pleasantest preservative from want." Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice" (8/4/09)
- "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to noone, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But, in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredemable. To love is to be vulnerable." C.S. Lewis (5/13/09)
- (Elizabeth to Jane) "Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense." Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice" (3/21/09)
- "If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (3/15/09)
- "Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute." Mark Twain (3/14/09)
- "How frequently in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which when we are fallen into it, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be rais'd again from the affliction we are fallen into." Daniel Defoe, "Robinson Crusoe" (2/12/09)
- "I did avoid a critical personal examination...I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me." Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" (1/10/09)
- "When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy. We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (12/23/08)
- "Let us never forget what the poor widow did, when we think we are charitable." Charles Dickens, "The Life of Our Lord" (11/30/08)
- (Writing of champion boxer, Max Baer, in comparison to James J. Braddock) "Everything was so easy for him-but great champions usually are fashioned by adversity." Jeremy Schaap, "Cinderella Man" (11/27/08)
- Dorian Gray to Lord Henry, "'I don't want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.' Lord Henry smiled. 'People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.'" Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (11/18/08)
- "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different." Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (11/17/08)
- "In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (11/14/08)
- "Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary." C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" (11/5/08)
- "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it." Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities" (11/1/08)
- "Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect." Norman Maclean, "A River Runs Through It" (10/27/08)
- "'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'" Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" (10/26/08)
- "The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use for oneself." Oscar Wilde (10/25/08)
- "I have been cautioned to talk but be careful not to say anything. I do not consider this a difficult task." Mark Twain, "Nineteenth Century Progress" (10/24/08)
- "Only keep your ears open and your mouth shut and everything will lead you to everything else in the end." C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" (10/23/08)
- "I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least." C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" (10/22/08)
- "Shasta's heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. But all he said out loud was: 'Where is the King?'" C.S. Lewis, "The Horse and His Boy" (10/21/08)
- "Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (10/20/08)
- "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" (10/19/08)
Vegetarian Fed Eggs and Life Lessons
You know, you learn a lot about yourself once you suddenly find yourself the only responsible adult in the household. Or, you know, the only person in the household period. I've learned that I find cooking irritatingly repetitive if I'm only cooking for myself. Why go to all the trouble and mess to cook for one person when pulling a Lean Cuisine from the freezer works just as well? I've also learned that eating the same thing for three months will make you ill. Literally and metaphorically. I've learned that I don't know how to grocery shop. My habit has become to go to the grocery store, wander the aisles and stare blankly into space waiting for some revelation about what to cook for dinner, eventually capitulate and buy Rice-a-Roni and fruit and call it a day. The other day I looked at my shopping list and realized that, no exaggeration, I had written down such specifics as: trash bags, soft soap, bottled water, food. Simple is better. Makes life easier. Or harder? Anyway, as I was wandering the aisles and suddenly realized I'd only bought replacement eggs once since December I thought I'd better buy some more, as I dare say eggs have an expiration date. (Do they? I mean, if I keep them in the fridge, that should extend their shelf life, shouldn't it? Come on, wasn't the Ice Man nearly perfectly preserved for how long since he was on ice? Same goes for eggs, right?) As I was standing there, I noticed on the side of some egg cartons were these words: "Vegetarian Fed Eggs." Personally, it was an eye-opening experience-I didn't realize eggs needed to be fed or that some were vegetarian. If it is in reference to the chickens, aren't they 'vegetarian' already? I mean, yeah, I'd love to see some barnyard bi-ped trying to choke down a medium-rare 12 oz., but I just don't think that's going to happen. So, suddenly having to become my own responsibility has taught me quite a few new things. Such as:
1. Cool-Whip will mold. Who knew?
2. Even if you don't know for sure, if a food article doesn't seem like it is supposed to smell like that, chances are, it isn't.
3. You can cook an entire meal in one pan. It's all going to end up in the same place anyway, and it saves having to wash multiple dishes.
4. You can also eat straight out of said pan, also saving clean-up time.
5. If you don't do it, it doesn't get done.
6. The phrase 'dead quiet' seems a little creepy when you live by yourself.
7. It's hard to put a band-aid on your own elbow.
8. Make sure you have reserve tooth-brushes just in case you drop yours on the floor.
9. It's nice to be able to drink straight from the orange juice carton, but just remember that when you offer some to guests.
10. No matter how much you try to pretend like you're a 'responsible adult' you can never really convince yourself that you really are.
11. Trying to be completely responsible and mature makes you realize you never get too old to need to call your mama and daddy, just to hear their voices.
12. Even if you make friends, nobody fills in for your family.
13. When you're the one responsible for making sure the oven is turned off you realize that being obsessive compulsive can be a learned trait.
14. Never assume you have enough milk for cereal tomorrow.
15. When you lose your social circles, you realize just how social you really were, even if you thought you weren't.
So, life has been.....interesting during these past few months. Not bad, necessarily, just......interesting.
#11 - I'm tired of being responsible and mature. Therefore, I call my 90 year old mama every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. And quite often in between.
ReplyDeleteLove you.
Well, as long as you are learning, it's all good. One thing about being on your own - you find out about yourself. Not just the kinds of things to buy at the store and about expiration dates. All of that is important too. But there is something about being on your own that gives you the opportunity to see who you really are. To look inside yourself and figure out what is really important. Seems to me that when you are constantly with family, awaiting roomies, knowing neighbors could drop in any minute - one never really goes deep. Too much solitude would suck. But there is something nice about the self-discovery that can only be done on your own.
ReplyDeleteCool Whip molding? That must mean there are some real ingredients in there. Go figure.
The one pan meal thing? Brilliant. If you added all that clean up time together and saved it up you could read an entire book with it.
One must be careful about what one reads (or watches on TV) when one lives alone. Dead Quiet? I don't even want to know where that expression came from.
It is good to remember that you've been drinking out of the orange juice bottle when you see your company pour themselves a glass. They'll probably be OK. More than likely they'll be fine.
At 53 I am reminded fairly constantly that I lack in responsibility. Wish it weren't so.
When you run out of milk for cereal, try the orange juice. At least you know no one else has been drinking out of it. And it makes the cereal all tangy.
I hope that you never get too responsible/mature/worldly wise to call your folks often. It's good for all.
In the long run, say when you are 53, and you are looking back at this time in grad school, it will seem short compared to the big picture. You are learning way more than the Dewey Decimal System - am I right?
This is my third year, and I still have a hard time buying/making the right amounts of food(usually way too much). I like making soup during the weekend so I have some leftover for lunch during the week. Also? In order to not overspend, during the weekend I'm planning the meals ahead and I spend about an hour or two because I can never figure out what to cook. I usually try about one or two new recipes a week, and undoubtedly, will fail at one of the recipes at least once a week (yesterday I tried to make teriyaki noodles and veggies... let's just say we ended up going to Kroger for a oven pizza for Stephen). I'm glad we decided to wait on children, so I have time for trial and error and when they come along I've had sufficient practice and not inflicting undue torture! Hahaha. So yeah... If you ever feel like taking a 14 hr road trip, you know where to come ;) Hugs! Miss you!
ReplyDelete*Cool whip doesn't last long enough in my house to mold. if it lasts a day, consider it lucky.
ReplyDelete*Easy recipe: pasta, cream, parmesan cheese (heat cream over medium, add cheese=alfredo sauce, toss with cooked pasta). To spice it up, add mushrooms or shrimp. Note: cream will boil over all of a sudden if heated too high (you may be able to safely go up to medium high heat without making a mess) so be sure to watch it.
love you too, 'mother figure' :) if i throw in the towel, will you let me and my shoes come home?
ReplyDeletehaha! i know what you mean, tim! i don't know what i thought was in cool whip but i never thought it was anything 'real.' i'll have to try the o.j./cereal thing. i haven't heard anything from the company, so i guess the o.j. was o.k. or maybe it wasn't and that's why i haven't heard anything from them.....yep, i'm definitely learning quite a bit more than just the curriculum. i guess it's like mark twain when he said that he never let his schooling interfere with his education. i'm just not sure when i'll get a diploma for this education.
aww, thanks, hannia! i'll have to dig out the cookbooks and try to believe in six impossible things in one morning. :) i miss you, too! if i decided to run away from my running away from home, can i really come see you? as far as the kids go, everything i've ever had that you've cooked has been great, and anyway, they don't even eat real food for, what, the first year or so? that gives you some extra time.
thanks, susanne! i'll have to give it a try! every time i have eggplant parmesan now i think about book club. good memories!
This is a fantastic list!! I love that you said life has been interesting not bad but interesting. I think that is a lovely way to put it. I think you have a great perspective. I look back on big changes and moves I've had and at the time they seem bad and so hard but in retrospect they are mostly just interesting.
ReplyDeletep.s. I didn't even know eggs didn't have to be refridgerated until I moved here. They store them on the shelves in the stores.