Summer house

I want one of these...if you can't tell, it's a Russian Summer house with mosaic walls and beautiful stained glass! I'm not sure what other people would use them for, but I'd put plants and a comfy reading chair in it :)

original photo here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russianjohn/4667122268/

empty.

We must empty ourselves, therefore, of the immoderately high faith we have in ourselves. Often it is so deeply rooted in us that we do not see how it rules over our heart. It is precisely our egoism, our self-centeredness and self-love that cause all our difficulties, our lack of freedom in suffering, our disappointments and our anguish of soul and body.

-Tito Colliander, Way of the Ascetics

Traveling...

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.


-G.K. Chesterton


El viajero ve lo que ve, la turista ve lo que vino a ver.

El propósito del viaje no es pisar tierras ajenas, sino pisar la tierra natal como tierra ajena.


-G.K. Chesterton

Work Rant.

Dear John Smith,

I know you are the only one with your name in your office, department, building, etc. BUT you are not unique or special, I assure you. When you fill out a form with a request for information and then put your email down as "John Smith" instead of johnsmith98@abcxyz.com I cannot send you an email. I CAN look in my outlook contacts for Smith, John and see approximately 368 people. The "advanced find" in outlook yielded no results when I tried to narrow the search by City, Office, or Company. Just thought I'd let you know what took so long getting your information back to you!!

Best Regards,
Jen

Beautiful Paper Sculptures

Check it out here...


http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html

(These have been given to libraries and have literary themes...)

Dedication/Vocation

"If you ask a twenty-one-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, "Nobody's." In his youth he has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat...[Artists] possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not poweful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited them; the field's complexities fired their imaginations. The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules. They learned their fields and then loved them. They worked, respectfully, out of their love and kowledge, and they produced complex bodies of work that endure. Then, and only then, the world flapped at them some sort of hat, which, if they were still living, they ignored as well as they could, to keep at their tasks."

Annie Dillard, "The Writing Life"

careful...

[The writer] is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know.

Annie Dillard, "The Writing Life"