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“If you take anything away from this class, I want it to be the belief that cooperative, mutually beneficial change is still possible between big business and environmental interests.”
― Georgia Bockoven, Another Summer: A Beach House Novel—Love, Loss and Family Reunions

“We could talk about it.” “Talk about what?” “Why you look like someone shot your dog. Shelby, I assume.” “Nah,” Luke said, taking a drink. “That’s not serious.” “I guess that has nothing to do with your sleeplessness or your mood then. Trouble with the cabins? The town? Your tenant/helper?” “Aiden, there’s nothing bothering me, except maybe that I’ve been working my ass off for three months getting a house and six cabins rebuilt and furnished.” Aiden took a sip of his drink. “Twenty-five, so Sean and Mom say. And gorgeous.” “Sean’s an idiot who can’t mind his own business. She’s just a girl.” “She’s just a girl who has you looking a little uptight.” “Thanks,” he said, standing. “You don’t look that great yourself—I’m going to bed.” He threw back the rest of his drink. “Nah, don’t,” Aiden said. “Fix another one. Give me ten minutes, huh? I can just ask a couple of questions, right? I’m not like Sean, I’m not going to get up your ass about this. But you haven’t talked about it much and I’m a little curious.” Luke thought about that for a second and against his better judgment, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a short shot. He went back and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees. “What?” he asked abruptly. Aiden chuckled. “Okay. Relax. Just a girl? Not serious?” “That’s right. A town girl, sort of. She’s visiting her family and she’ll be leaving pretty soon.” “Ah—I didn’t know that. I guess I thought she lived there.” “Long visit,” Luke said. “Her mother died last spring. She’s spending a few months with her uncle until she gets on with things—like where she wants to live. College and travel and stuff. This is temporary, that’s all.” “But—if you felt serious, there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t let it…you know…evolve…?” “I don’t feel serious,” he said, his mouth in a firm line. “Okay, I get that. Does she? Feel serious?” “She has plans. I didn’t trap her, Aiden. I made sure she knew—I’m not interested in being a family man. I told her she could do better, I’m just not built that way. But when I’m with a woman, I know how to treat her right. If she needed something permanent, she was in the wrong place. That’s how it is.” “Never?” “What do you mean, never? No one in this family is interested in that.” “Bullshit. I am. Sean says he’s having too much fun, but the truth is he has the attention span of a cabbage. But me? I’d like a wife, a family.” “Didn’t you already try that once?” Luke asked, sitting back in his chair, relaxing a little bit since the attention had shifted to Aiden’s life. “Oh, yeah—I tried hard. Next time I try, I’m going to see if I can find a woman who’s not certifiable and off her meds.” He grinned. “Really, that’s what happens when you ignore all the symptoms because she’s such a friggin’ miracle in bed, it causes brain damage.” He shrugged. “I’m on the lookout for that.” Luke grinned. “She was hot.” “Oh, yeah.” “She was worse than nuts.” “Nightmare nuts,” Aiden agreed.”
― Robyn Carr, Temptation Ridge

“What I resent most about the foster care system is that workers never made any genuine effort to reunite me with my family or at least help me to develop a relationship. I feel like I haven't been at home for 5 years because home to me was a little rundown farmhouse where I lived with my father and my brother. If child welfare systems are really in the business for the welfare of children, then my only advice would be to treat them as you would treat your own children.”
― Lori Carangelo, Chosen Children 2016: People as Commodities in America's Failed Multi-Billion Dollar Foster Care, Adoption and Prison Industries

“As Isaac Newton observed, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. When writing your first draft, being busy is key. It may feel frustrating at first, but having daily writing periods curtailed by chores, family, and other distractions actually helps you get the thing done. This is partly because the hectic pace forces you to type with a fleet-fingered desperation. But it’s mostly because noveling in the midst of a chaotic life makes “book time” a treat rather than an obligation. It’s a small psychological shift, but it makes all the difference in the world.”
― Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

“Come on, Melinda. You can’t avoid it forever. We both know you’re pregnant.” “Ugh,” she said, accepting the cool, wet cloth. She pressed it to her face, her brow, her neck. She didn’t have any more to say. But Jack knew. There had been tears, exhaustion, nausea. She turned watering eyes up to him. He shrugged and said, “You eased up on the breast-feeding, popped an egg and I nailed it.” Her eyes narrowed as if to say she did not appreciate the explanation. He held out a hand to bring her to her feet. “You have to wean David,” he said. “Your body can’t completely nourish two children. You’ll get weak. You’re already exhausted.” “I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she said. “I’m barely over being pregnant.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t. Because you haven’t ever been pregnant.” He thought this would probably be a bad time to tell her that he did so understand, since he had lived with a pregnant person and listened very attentively to every complaint. “We should go see John right away, so you can find out how pregnant.” “How long have you suspected?” she asked him. “I don’t know. A few weeks. It was a little tougher this time….” “Oh, yeah?” “Well, yeah. Since you haven’t had a period since the first time I laid a hand on you. God, for a supposedly sterile woman, you certainly are fertile.” Then he grinned, fully aware it would have got him smacked if he hadn’t been holding the baby. She whirled away from him and went to sit on their bed. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Well, he’d been expecting exactly this. There’d been a lot of crying lately and he knew she was going to be mighty pissed off. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and pulled her close. David patted her head. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not delivering this one. I want that understood.” “Try not to be cute,” she said through her tears. “I think my back already hurts.” “Can I get you something? Soda? Crackers? Arsenic?” “Very funny.” She turned her head to look at him. “Are you upset?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry it happened so soon. Sorry for you. I know there are times you get damned uncomfortable and I wanted you to get a break.” “I should never have gone away with you.” “Nah. You were already pregnant. Wanna bet?” “You knew before that?” “I wondered why you were so emotional, and that was a possible reason. I never bought your whole sterile thing. But I don’t have a problem with it. I wanted more kids. I like the idea of a larger family than the three of us. I come from a big family.” “There will not be five, I can guarantee you that,” she said. Then she bored a hole through him with her eyes. “Snip, snip.” “You’re not going to blame this on me, Mel. I suggested birth control. A couple of times, as a matter of fact. You were the one said it could never happen twice. And then explained that whole business about not ovulating while you’re nursing. How’s that working for you so far? Hmm?” “Screw you,” she said, not sweetly. “Well, obviously…” “I’d like you to understand I wasn’t relying on that breast-feeding thing. I’m a midwife—I know that’s not foolproof. I really didn’t think it possible that… Shit,” she said. She sighed deeply. “I just barely got back into my jeans….” “Yeah, those jeans. Whoa, damn. Those jeans really do it to me. No one wears a pair of jeans like you do.” “Aren’t you getting a little sick of having a fat wife?” “You’re not fat. You’re perfect. I love your body, pregnant and unpregnant. I know you’re trying to get me all worked up, but I’m not going there. You can try to pick a fight with me all day and I just won’t play. It wouldn’t be a fair fight—you’re out to get me and we both know it. Do you have appointments this morning?” “Why?” “Because I want to go to Grace Valley for an ultrasound. I want to know when I have to have the house done.” *”
― Robyn Carr, Whispering Rock

“It is more realistic to think about the spiritual needs of family and self as a starting point for social transformation than to begin thinking we can change Hollywood. The magnet of materialism is keeping people too busy to hear about spiritual change. In addition, the power of the Machine causes people not to hear what we have to say. The Machine is influencing a greater part of our lives than we think. To make Self each person’s own best spiritual project is to avoid the crush of the gigantic modern Machine. Ritual enables us to live a life that is much closer to what our souls aspire to. Industrial”
― Malidoma Patrice Somé, Ritual: Power, Healing and Community

“I enjoy almost everything I do, perhaps because when I don't enjoy something, I don't do it. I enjoy writing; I enjoy teaching; I enjoy having a family to live among. I am neither a feminist nor an antifeminist, because it seems to me that we are first human beings and after that men and women. Human beings have, so far, proved interesting enough to keep me busy just trying to figure out what might be right and true about them.”
― Cynthia Voigt

“Her father doesn’t like me.” “He doesn’t know you yet.” “He knows I’m deaf and that I’m all tatted up.” I look down at my arms. Every single tattoo means something to me. I wouldn’t erase them if I could. Paul shrugs. “And neither of those things makes you bad for his daughter.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Getting her pregnant, on the other hand…” He lets his thoughts trail off. “He brought her ex-boyfriend to New York to live with her. That’s why she’s here at our apartment.” Paul purses his lips like he’s whistling. “Sorry,” he says, when he remembers I can’t hear whatever noise he’s making. “That’s shit.” “She refused to stay there.” “Good girl,” he says with a smile. “I knew I liked her.” “Her father is going to be a problem.” “Win him over, dumbass,” he says. “You’re smart. You want to succeed. You’re talented as hell. And you love his daughter. He’ll get over the tats and you not being able to hear.” He motions absently toward his ears. I’ve been deaf so long that my family doesn’t see it as a handicap. Neither do I. I push to my feet. “I’m going to bed.” Paul arches his brow at me. “None of your fucking business,” I grouse. But I rub his head as I walk by, and he shoves my hip to get me away from him. “Love you, dumbass,” I say. “Love you better,” he replies.”
― Tammy Falkner, Smart, Sexy and Secretive

“Later, large numbers worked on the railroads, performing the dangerous tasks that white workers refused to do, working (and dying) in snowslides and landslides. That is how the phrase “a Chinaman’s chance” originated. Although Chinese could not become citizens because a federal law, passed in 1890, reserved naturalized citizenship for “white persons,” there was stoop work for them to do. As times got harder, however, white workers began taking out their frustrations on Chinese workers. In 1860 an estimated forty thousand Chinese miners were driven off their claims by whites. In the wake of the 1873 economic depression, white workers in the West exploded in anti-Chinese uprisings, beating and attacking Chinese laborers and merchants and destroying their homes and businesses. From then on, no Chinese felt safe either in person or property. Confronted with this hostility from whites, Chinese workers in the West left the labor force and headed East, developing means of self-employment along the way. Because laundries and restaurants could be worked by the whole family and required relatively little knowledge of English and an outlay of only a few hundred dollars for equipment, Chinese became laundrymen and restaurateurs. By the mid-1890s “chop suey” had become popular in the United States, and cartoons of Chinese laundrymen saying, “No tickee, no laundry,” were a familiar feature in American newspapers.”
― Grace Lee Boggs, Living for Change: An Autobiography

“Life

Choice Chance Change.jpg

Often in life we read motivational quotes that inspires us in our daily lives. But recent enough I had to make a Choice to take a Chance in order to create a Change. Being given opportunities in life is great but every opportunity impacts the 3 C’s of life. There is a time for everything & a season for everything under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1). As the old saying goes “never get busy making a living that you forget to make a life”. You are free to make the choices in life but you are not free from the consequences. Some of the questions I had to ask myself were:

Where would I be in five years if i keep on this direction?
What if today was my last day?
Am I who I want to be?
What am I willing to risk with my decision – family, love ones, friends, career, education?
What I really want in life?
Sometimes the “wants” aren’t always our best option but our “needs” are. Giving up some of the “wants” may lead to better successes in life be it in career, love & life.We must walk by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith leads us beyond ourselves; it leads to God. When you take the lord in your choices believe you may the best is always yet to come.

Fuel By God – Susan Samaroo”
― Fuel By God - Susan Samaroo

“There are, by the way, I will note, some politicians who suggest that some people in this country are lazy and don't want to work. I don't believe that. I think Americans want to work. Americans want the self-respect that comes from going to the office, from working, from providing for your family, from working to achieve the American dream.   Do some people give up? Sure. Can you give in to hopelessness? Yes. When you keep banging your head against a wall over and over again, trying to get a job, and you don't get anywhere, it is only natural for people to feel despair. I want you to think of the millions of jobs we could have but for small businesses that are not growing, not expanding, not creating those jobs.   Another”
― Ted Cruz, TED CRUZ: FOR GOD AND COUNTRY: Ted Cruz on ISIS, ISIL, Terrorism, Immigration, Obamacare, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Republicans,

“A company that can’t sell what it makes can’t stay in business. Eventually, inevitably, the marketplace will collapse and a global depression will hit that will make the last depression look like good times.” Kelly”
― Georgia Bockoven, Another Summer: A Beach House Novel—Love, Loss and Family Reunions

“There is a famous parable about a man who lived in a cottage by the sea. Every morning, the man went fishing and caught just enough fish for the day. Afterward, he would spend time playing with his son, take a siesta, and enjoy lunch with his family. In the evening, he and his wife would meet friends at a local bar, where they would tell stories, play music, and dance the night away. One day, a tourist saw the fisherman and his meager catch and asked, “Why do you only catch three or four fish?” “That is all my family needs for today,” the fisherman replied. But the tourist had gone to business school and could not help but offer advice: “You know, if you catch a few more fish and sell them at the market, you could make some extra money.” “Why would I want to do that?” the fisherman asked. “With the extra money you could save up and buy a boat. Then, you could catch even more fish, and make even more money, which you could use to buy an entire fleet of boats!” “Why would I need so many boats?” queried the fisherman. “Don’t you see? With a fleet of boats, you could sell more fish, and with the extra money, you could move to New York, run an international business and sell fish all over the world!” “And how long would this take?” the fisherman asked. “Maybe 10 or 20 years,” the businessman said. “Then what?” the fisherman said. “Then you could sell your company for millions, retire, buy a cottage by the sea, go fishing every morning, take a siesta every afternoon, enjoy lunch with your family, and spend the evenings with friends, playing music and dancing!” How many of us today are like this businessman, blindly chasing what has been in front of us all along?”
― Tom Shadyac, Life's Operating Manual: With the Fear and Truth Dialogues

“When Bindi, Robert, and I got home on the evening of Steve’s death, we encountered a strange scene that we ourselves had created. The plan had been that Steve would get back from his Ocean’s Deadlist film shoot before we got back from Tasmania. So we’d left the house with a funny surprise for him.
We got large plush toys and arranged them in a grouping to look like the family. We sat one that represented me on the sofa, a teddy bear about her size for Bindi, and a plush orangutan for Robert. We dressed the smaller toys in the kids’ clothes, and the big doll in my clothes. I went to the zoo photographer and got close-up photographs of our faces that we taped onto the heads of the dolls. We posed them as if we were having dinner, and I wrote a note for Steve.
“Surprise,” the note said. “We didn’t go to Tasmania! We are here waiting for you and we love you and miss you so much! We will see you soon. Love, Terri, Bindi, and Robert.”
The surprise was meant for Steve when he returned and we weren’t there. Instead the dolls silently waited for us, our plush-toy doubles, ghostly reminders of a happier life.
Wes, Joy, and Frank came into the house with me and the kids. We never entertained, we never had anyone over, and now suddenly our living room seemed full. Unaccustomed to company, Robert greeted each one at the door.
“Take your shoes off before you come in,” he said seriously. I looked over at him. He was clearly bewildered but trying so hard to be a little man.
We had to make arrangements to bring Steve home. I tried to keep things as private as possible. One of Steve’s former classmates at school ran the funeral home in Caloundra that would be handling the arrangements. He had known the Irwin family for years, and I recall thinking how hard this was going to be for him as well.
Bindi approached me. “I want to say good-bye to Daddy,” she said.
“You are welcome to, honey,” I said. “But you need to remember when Daddy said good-bye to his mother, that last image of her haunted him while he was awake and asleep for the rest of his life.”
I suggested that perhaps Bindi would like to remember her daddy as she last saw him, standing on top of the truck next to that outback airstrip, waving good-bye with both arms and holding the note that she had given him. Bindi agreed, and I knew it was the right decision, a small step in the right direction.
I knew the one thing that I had wanted to do all along was to get to Steve. I felt an urgency to continue on from the zoo and travel up to the Cape to be with him. But I knew what Steve would have said. His concern would have been getting the kids settled and in bed, not getting all tangled up in the media turmoil.
Our guests decided on their own to get going and let us get on with our night. I gave the kids a bath and fixed them something to eat. I got Robert settled in bed and stayed with him until he fell asleep. Bindi looked worried. Usually I curled up with Robert in the evening, while Steve curled up with Bindi. “Don’t worry,” I said to her. “Robert’s already asleep. You can sleep in my bed with me.”
Little Bindi soon dropped off to sleep, but I lay awake. It felt as though I had died and was starting over with a new life. I mentally reviewed my years as a child growing up in Oregon, as an adult running my own business, then meeting Steve, becoming his wife and the mother of our children. Now, at age forty-two, I was starting again.”
― Terri Irwin, Steve & Me

“Irregular relationships among a royal family and its adherents were a matter of course; often a matter of business; and only occasionally a matter of love.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, Queens' Play

“This was a media beat-up at its very worst. All those officials reacting to what the media labeled “The Baby Bob Incident” failed to understand the Irwin family. This is what we did--teach our children about wildlife, from a very early age. It wasn’t unnatural and it wasn’t a stunt. It was, on the contrary, an old and valued family tradition, and one that I embraced wholeheartedly.
It was who we were. To have the press fasten on the practice as irresponsible made us feel that our very ability as parents was being attacked. It didn’t make any sense.
This is why Steve never publicly apologized. For him to say “I’m sorry” would mean that he was sorry that Bob and Lyn raised him the way they did, and that was simply impossible. The best he could do was to sincerely apologize if he had worried anyone. The reality was that he would have been remiss as a parent if he didn’t teach his kids how to coexist with wildlife. After all, his kids didn’t just have busy roads and hot stoves to contend with. They literally had to learn how to live with crocodiles and venomous snakes in their backyard.
Through it all, the plight of the Tibetan nuns was completely and totally ignored. The world media had not a word to spare about a dry well that hundreds of people depended on. For months, any time Steve encountered the press, Tibetan nuns were about the furthest thing from the reporter’s mind. The questions would always be the same: “Hey, Stevo, what about the Baby Bob Incident?”
“If I could relive Friday, mate, I’d go surfing,” Steve said on a hugely publicized national television appearance in the United States. “I can’t go back to Friday, but you know what, mate? Don’t think for one second I would ever endanger my children, mate, because they’re the most important thing in my life, just like I was with my mum and dad.”
Steve and I struggled to get back to a point where we felt normal again. Sponsors spoke about terminating contracts. Members of our own documentary crew sought to distance themselves from us, and our relationship with Discovery was on shaky ground.
But gradually we were able to tune out the static and hear what people were saying. Not the press, but the people. We read the e-mails that had been pouring in, as well as faxes, letters, and phone messages. Real people helped to get us back on track. Their kids were growing up with them on cattle ranches and could already drive tractors, or lived on horse farms and helped handle skittish stallions. Other children were learning to be gymnasts, a sport which was physically rigorous and held out the chance of injury. The parents had sent us messages of support.
“Don’t feel bad, Steve,” wrote one eleven-year-old from Sydney. “It’s not the wildlife that’s dangerous.” A mother wrote us, “I have a new little baby, and if you want to take him in on the croc show it is okay with me.”
So many parents employed the same phrase: “I’d trust my kids with Steve any day.”
― Terri Irwin, Steve & Me

“While I lingered about the old village and the lake, with the water lapping on the shore and the wind whispering in the big pines, I felt for a moment that I was back in time among the Ojibwe families going about their business.”
― Barry Babcock, TEACHERS IN THE FOREST: Essays from the last wilderness in Mississippi Headwaters Country

“Life turns on small choices.
A last-minute decision to take a shortcut over a snowy pass.
A shrugging dismissal of the odd-looking man in the long coat standing off to one side.
A decision to postpone a physical exam till a less busy time.
A word spoken with the best intentions.
Looking back, after the lives are destroyed, the blood spilt, the families shattered, and even the courses of nations changed forever, the mistakes that started the doomsday clock ticking down often seem minor, even innocent-even virtuous. So easy to make.
David Eller would give anything-no, everything-to go back and undo those mistakes. But life does not give us that chance. Like everyone else, he has no choice but to dangle from the hand of that clock, trying in vain to pull them backward as they tick inexorably toward zero.”
― William Carmichael, The Missionary

“I flew back to the States in December of 1992 with conflicting emotions. I was excited to see my family and friends. But I was sad to be away from Steve.
Part of the problem was that the process didn’t seem to make any sense. First I had to show up in the States and prove I was actually present, or I would never be allowed to immigrate back to Australia. And, oh yeah, the person to whom I had to prove my presence was not, at the moment, present herself.
Checks for processing fees went missing, as did passport photos, certain signed documents. I had to obtain another set of medical exams, blood work, tuberculosis tests, and police record checks--and in response, I got lots of “maybe’s” and “come back tomorrow’s.” It would have been funny, in a surreal sort of way, if I had not been missing Steve so much.
This was when we should have still been in our honeymoon days, not torn apart. A month stretched into six weeks. Steve and I tried keeping our love alive through long-distance calls, but I realized that Steve informing me over the phone that “our largest reticulated python died” or “the lace monitors are laying eggs” was no substitute for being with him.
It was frustrating. There was no point in sitting still and waiting, so I went back to work with the flagging business.
When my visa finally came, it had been nearly two months, and it felt like Christmas morning. That night we had a good-bye party at the restaurant my sister owned, and my whole family came. Some brought homemade cookies, others brought presents, and we had a celebration. Although I knew I would miss everyone, I was ready to go home.
Home didn’t mean Oregon to me anymore. It meant, simply, by Steve’s side.
When I arrived back at the zoo, we fell in love all over again. Steve and I were inseparable. Our nights were filled with celebrating our reunion. The days were filled with running the zoo together, full speed ahead. Crowds were coming in bigger than ever before. We enjoyed yet another record-breaking day for attendance. Rehab animals poured in too: joey kangaroos, a lizard with two broken legs, an eagle knocked out by poison.
My heart was full. It felt good to be back at work. I had missed my animal friends--the kangaroos, cassowaries, and crocodiles.”
― Terri Irwin, Steve & Me