My Blog's Door is Always Open Even When I'm Gone

When MyOnlyPhoto Blog is taking a short break, then I guess Story Blob Blog is too. I will be back shortly, for main message, please read my explanation here. Thank you all for your patience. Anna :)

A Tragedy or A Blessing

I read this little story 'A Tragedy or A Blessing' a few days ago, and I would like to share it with you today. The story is from the book by Glenn Van Ekeren - 'Words for All Occasions, Quotes, Stories, Anecdotes, Poems, Fables, Proverbs and One-Liners'.

'Years ago in Scotland, the Clark family had a dream. Clark and his wife worked and saved, making plans for their nine children and themselves to travel to the United States. It had taken years, but they had finally saved enough money and had gotten passports and reservations for the whole family on a new liner to the United States.

The entire family was filled with anticipation and excitement about their new life. However, seven days before their departure, the youngest son was bitten by a dog. The doctor sewed up the boy but hung a yellow sheet on the Clarks' front door. Because of the possibility of rabies, they were being quarantined for fourteen days.

The family's dreams were dashed. They would not be able to make the trip to America as they planned. The father, filled with disappointment and anger, stomped to the dock to watch the ship leave - without the Clark family. The father shed tears of disappointment and cursed both his son and God for their misfortune.

Five days later, the tragic news spread throughout Scotland - the mighty Titanic had sunk. The unsinkable ship had sunk, taking hundreds of lives with it. The Clark family was to have been on that ship, but because the son had been bitten by a dog, they were left behind in Scotland.

When Mr. Clark heard the news, he hugged his son and thanked him for saving the family. He thanked God for saving their lives and turning what he had felt was a tragedy into a blessing.'

I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did. This brings me back many years ago when I entered first year of university. First year was a total disaster. Not to go into too much details, I had to change my educational path. There was not much of a change, but on the end I ended up taking slightly different courses than I anticipated on the first place. I was disappointed that I lost some time, but you know if my path was not altered, I would never met my loving husband - yes I met my husband in school that very next year and we both ended up graduating from the same profession, and got married. My story may not be that tragic, but still who knows what would happen if I did well and continue my education as I anticipated - however, I don't what to know, I am happy with the final result. Our paths in life get altered for reason, I believe; and unfortunately altered paths seems bad at times, but if it wasn't altered, then sometimes we find that things could have been worst, and sometimes we will never know.

Look Around You

Look around you and tell me what you can see. Just take this one minute and observe. Here are my observations, I see my laptop front of me, typing this post. I am surrounded by the office portable desk walls, sitting on the chair. There is phone beside me, and if I am ready to switch to another software on my screen, any second I will reach for the mouse. Around me, I also have cut outs from the magazines and clipped to the wall. Do you want to know what it is? I am going to tell you - there are three photo cut outs of the apples, green apples with one red in the middle. I liked this photo so much that I cut out three of them and surrounded myself with. I also have other two photo cut outs of the ostrich, one says FLEXIBLE SOLUTIONS. Now let me tell that this ostrich is bending forward and looking between its legs - quite flexible, but I don't see flexible solution - so I find it funny even if I know this is just a metaphor. The second one says BE AHEAD with ostrich running really fast that you cannot see what's on the background. Could he be going 100 miles per hour, possibly, may be not in real life, but with today's digital editing - definitely yes. And the last photo cut out is something about genetically altered fruit flies, I will not go into details, but the head line states Buzz Off! Don't worry it is nothing to do with people visiting me, I like when people visit my cubical and talk to me, but I found it kind of entertaining to have it on my wall. So what else I can tell you about my surroundings, not much just a standard office setting. So would you say pretty boring, but for me nothing is really boring once you have access to the Internet, or start thinking how all this started.

Now you may ask - what's the point of all this blobbing. Well I am confused. Why? Let me explain, I started to read this book by Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything. By the way, it is currently lying on my desk beside me and then when I go home it goes with me to bed. However, when at work, when I think about my projects, I find myself looking at it, not really thinking, just looking. To tell you the truth, I started to read this book a long time ago, and then I ended up reading something else. It was no point to continue now, so I started to read over again. Well I am only few pages into the book, and these pages revoked something that I recently started to question. How do we know this and that? What I mean is - when we talk about universe creation, star formations, evolution, birth, good food or bad food - how all this has happened or is happening - and believe or not we make things, we discover things. And then is us - intelligent human beings. The world of unknown, because all are just theories unless there is real data to support, even though author on the end has explanation for everything. Therefore, just enjoy the life and enjoy the beauty of nature, the beauty of life - ask questions, but don't expect the right answer, it is all too complicated to figure it out.

This post may be lame, and there may be not substance here - but look around you - all this stuff, ideas, theories - its amazing. Yes, I am lost in my thoughts, but the more I think about it, all is just too complicated to figure out, yet it works - lol now!

Love Is In the Air

Since today is the Valentine's Day, I thought I spread a bit of love around my blog to my blogger friends, and the rest of the world. I am not sure if everyone celebrates the Valentine's Day, but I don't think you can reject a free love, lol. It does not have to be Valentine's Day to love someone extra special, it should be every day; however, that day is the day to emphasize how important love is. I know we are being bombarded with marketing schemes to buy diamonds for love ones (my birth stone is diamond), buy chocolates, buy flowers, and some go to extent to buy material gifts. It this all necessary? In my opinion not, but don't get me wrong if you like to celebrate this day and surprise your love one with special appreciation gift, yes by all means; however, my point is you cannot buy love from the store. So I like my Valentine's Day simple - I don't need extra gifts to love my husband extra special on that day, may be today I will blob to my husband, wow its been 15 years together, and soon 10 years being married. Sometimes I just look at him, and I feel like we just met, all brand new, yet inside it feels like we been together all our lives. So since we work together, this time hubby cannot hide any special gift for me. Well on the way home he is taking me to the local supermarket to purchase flowers, it will be fun - we both laughed at the idea - however, the biggest surprise is that from year to year he is so consistent no matter what, and never forgets, and that is what makes me happy! Happy Valentines Day to you. Let me close this post with this favorite quote of mine: 'My love for you is a journey; starting at forever, and ending at never.' - by Anonymous. BTW I love giving credits to the Anonymous individuals, lol.

Live & Learn From The Fish

Live and learn from the fish - what's this all about? This is a story for this post, and it is coincidental that it lines up with one of the posts form my blogger friend Kathy from Photography by KML blog, who has this really beautiful photo of her blue Beta fish - just in case you never seen this type of fish. The story is not just about the Beta fish, as you will find out. However, this is a fish with personality and fish that needs attention. Let say, I don't have any big pets in my house like a cat, dog or bird, and it is not because I don't like them, it is just I don't have the time to take care of them or spend time with them. About year ago, I did research on birds in captivity, and every article I read the emphasis was that you just don't put the bird in the cage and let it sit there, you really need to spend time with them and play, otherwise, they will get depressed, and eventually you know what happens, either the bird becomes really unfriendly or eventually moves on with other life.

I currently have two beta fish, one red and one blue. I find, and this is just my little statistics results, but the blue beta's are more friendly and more excited to see you when you around. Don't take this idea into your head, this is my opinion based on one red and two blue beta fish. You will agree, not a big population to have data on. However, lets move on with the story. Both beta fish are very exciting fish to have, they get excited when they see you, they like to eat and crunch their food, they try to jump out the tank - something you would not expect from the fish, at least something I would not expect from the fish.

These past few months, I have been busy, go to work, come from work, eat, rest, turn computer on and then rest for the night. Between, in the morning, I would quickly feed my betas, drop the food and leave. I know they get excited to see me every time, but I just have to run. Believe or not, sometimes I forget to change the water too. I admit, this is the side of me I don't like because I know if my fish is not getting attention, something is wrong, I am not managing my life properly, I am probably neglecting every one else around me, never know may be some bloggers feel like that to due to my reduced blogging visits.

The story continues, my negligence finally surfaced. Last week I noticed that the blue beta was behaving abnormally. The fins would not spread out as usual. The body was tilting to one side. I right away changed water, and really noticed that my healthy blue beta was sick now. It wasn't swimming, it wasn't eating, and even would not puff on his red beta friend. The red beta knew something also, because soon as I put two small tanks side by side, the red beta would not puff back on the blue one at all - would just rest on the rocks and look at his sick friend now. I said to myself, they are communicating. Suddenly I am different, I am very attentive, I am sad, I am angry that I neglected my fish. Now I am there every 15 minutes to check on him. He is weak, he tries to float but he cannot because his one side is tilting to one side. How do you safe fish, the worst comes to my mind, I lost my hope?

Its been few days now, and to my surprise the beta fish is getting better. It is still tilting to one side, but tries hard to get up and eat, and actually swims with excitement to see me. I am happy now, however, I definitely know that I failed, I failed to give my best to someone who always was excited to see me.

This is a story about fish. However, live and learn. I will not stress enough that our relationship with others need maintenance. When one gives you this carrying smile, please give it back. I gift that we have, and believe or not a gift animals have too.

Addition: After 2 weeks of suffering my blue beta fish died [February 16, 2008]. I know it is only fish, but I will miss him.