More memorable quotations

Another find when I cleaned the closets this summer: a page of quotations from Forbes magazine in the 1980s. Here's a few:

"Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age." ~ Albert Einstein

"Nothing ages people like not thinking." ~ Christopher Morley

"It is better to create than to be learned; creating is the true essence of life." ~ Reinhold Neibuhr

"It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done." ~ Oscar Wilde

"The constructive loafer uses his mind during the act of loafing, but he does not try to control his mind. In other words, loafing is educated day-dreaming. I do not plead for more loafing. I defend a reasonable amount of honest loafing as a tonic that is good for the body, mind, and spirit." ~ William Feather

Now I'm going to go do some loafing today. Maybe with scrapbooking products near me...

Memorable quotes

Thank you for everyone who votes for me! I do get the privilege of being the Guest Designer at Sketchy Thursdays this month. More to share later...

When I was cleaning out my closets earlier this summer, I found a pile of poems, letters, and cartoons that I had copied and kept. Some of them I want to share. Here's a lovely one written by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter :

Dear Pie:

I feel very strongly about your doing [your] duty. Would you give me a little more documentation about your reading in French? I am glad you are happy—but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.

All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly. If there is such a volume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a sonnet of Shakespeare’s in which the line occurs Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Have had no thoughts today, life seems composed of getting up a Saturday Evening Post story. I think of you, and always pleasantly; but if you ever call me “Pappy” again I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bottom hard, six times for every time you are impertinent. Do you react to that?

I will arrange the camp bill.

Halfwit, I will conclude. Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship…

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I in comparison to my contemporaries in regards to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Like, wow...

I mentioned cleaning out my closets has made me feel old. This is mainly because I found a box of stuff I've wanted to keep--memorabilia, if you will. Some of it has been a trip down memory lane, technology wise, but also fashion wise. Here's an example:


Various newspaper clippings I wanted to keep, mostly my name in the paper for various things growing up. The one on top was for All-State choir in Maine. Check out the dresses and the hair! Not me, BTW. My hair never could do that, though I desperately tried. (I am not sure what to do with these clippings--should I scrap them? Any ideas out there?)

Here's a trip down memory lane: mix tapes!

I love that I called one "Love Songs and Other Myths." I don't think I can get rid of these, at least because the list of songs reminds me of certain times in my life.


This one is funny: I have kept almost every paper I've written since junior high. When I discovered that, I bought a 3-ring binder and some page protectors to put them in.

The one up here? A paper on Invisible Man--which I now teach. I am a little nervous to read it. It's probably tripe.

My first driver's license and all my ID cards in college. Don't you love my perm? And that the driver's license was typed and laminated? After my photo was taken, they typed and laminated it right in front of me. This makes me feel super old.


This one makes me nostalgic. Write.click.scrapbook had a posting on friendship bracelets last week, and look what I found.

Back to the papers...remember dot matrix printers?

And along the same line, ditto machines?


Here's a treasure: my commonplace books. I never kept diaries, but since high school I've kept these books to write down quotations in. I have one by my bedside now; these 6 I finished since high school. They're not only a record of my readings, but they also show my thinking, based on the quotations I was drawn to.

And my trip through time with my commonplace books? The first one I wrote in different colors of magic markers.


Evidence of my religious scholasticism: this book is dog-eared and lightly annotated. Can you tell I was afraid of the public examination?

Another treasure: when I was in the St. Olaf Choir one year, we toured the Southwest, including California. While there, we met Betty White, who autographed my itinerary. Betty White, the coolest person in America right now. Nice!

Back to the "I feel old": Remember Apple Works? Here's the command codes for back when floppies actually flopped.


For some reason, I have all sorts of clippings for my parents too. That's them right there--aren't they gorgeous? Not sure what I'll do with these either, but I enjoyed this trip down memory lane, bad hair and all.

Closet cleaning

On my to-do list is something that's been a while in coming: cleaning out the closets.

This might not seem like a big deal, except we live in a split entry house--that means no basement, which means no storage, which means closets packed to the gills. Now is the time to clean those babies out and put stuff in three piles:

1. Must be kept at home, so back in the closets (or garage, but that too is stuffed);
2. Not needed at all, so will be thrown away or donated (we're up to 8 bags for Goodwill or ARC); or
3. Set aside to go into a rental storage closet.

I've been holding back on renting a storage unit--when we take stuff in, I try to get rid of stuff too to keep everything in balance. Still, we have stuff we want to keep and when we get a bigger house Someday--say, when the boys get too tall and start hitting the ceiling--then we will want to take this stuff out and keep in the home. I'm mostly talking about rarely used by important kitchen stuff (like my fancy salsa and chip bowl) and Books. Many many books, which we kept in a room until we had kids, and they are now in boxes.

In future bigger home we will hopefully have a library/game room, so the books have a future home. Just not in this home.

The best discovery when cleaning out the closets was the rediscovery of stuff from Derick's and my childhoods/college years. Derick found the title of the truck he'd bought and used on our first date. It was like he'd found the Holy Grail.

And me? I found all sorts of stuff that gave me a good day going through it all. I'll post tomorrow to show you what I found, including my very first driver's license. It made me feel old, but it also made me laugh. Can you say perm?