W is for waste management

If you have someone or something that disposes of all your waste so that you do not have to burn or bury it.............be grateful. I know I am!

V is for vacuum cleaners

Yes the not so humble vacuum cleaner is my pick for the letter V.

I am very grateful that I own a machine that collects dust in such an efficient manner.

Vacuum cleaners have been around for just over 100 years and have come a long way since this early model.

Nowadays it's more or less child's play.

<><><><>

<>

<>

U is for ukulele

That's right folks........... I play the ukulele (a little) ............I only started this year.

 Today the ukulele is having a resurgence.

It's cross-generational.  

It's important.

 Don't believe it? Do a quick search on YouTube.

There's a lot happening with this four-string, two octave instrument.

 

I'm grateful for the ukulele because it's  

• cheap (I paid $30 for mine)
• fairly simple to learn (also on you tube)
•  a new challenge and
• even the mention of it tends to make people smile (if not simply LOL).

I simply feel happy when I play or hear the ukulele. If it has that effect on you........why not try it yourself?

T is for texting



I think texting is possibly the greatest step forward in communication since the telephone was invented in 1876 and before that, language itself.

With friends and family all over the world, face to face communication is just not possible most of the time. Skype and live messaging are good, but require the internet.

Texting on a mobile phone can be done basically anywhere, and any time these days (although I do draw the line at texting someone who is in the same building as you!)

Even the shortest text to someone says "I'm thinking of you." Making a phone call isn't always simple or easy. Texting is.

Perhaps I'm easily pleased but I'm grateful every time friends and family text me (especially my big sister who has taken to texting an abbreviated form of "good morning" to me in a variety of languages, just to keep me on my toes!).

I still like to spell words out and use punctuation - I'm old school- but I don't mind if others are not.

In fact, here's a list you can text me any time.

 <3                    “sideways heart” (love, friendship)
.02                     my (or your) two cents worth
2EZ                    too easy
2G2BT               too good to be true
^5                       high-five
*s*                     meaning “smile”
*w*                    meaning “wink”

S is for sleep



Life in the middle ages is often associated with an inability to sleep. I am grateful these days for knowing I have had a stint of three or four hours of slumbering bliss as I peer at the clock radio in the early hours of the morning.

I am also grateful for happy dreams and perhaps even more grateful when I wake up from nightmares.

Sleep is essential to good physical and mental health and I read that adults still need 7-9 hours each night.

I hope you enjoy these quotes about sleep.

Sleeping is no mean art:  for its sake one must stay awake all day.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche



Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth




People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.  ~Leo J. Burke


Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.  ~Fran Lebowitz



A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book.  ~Irish Proverb


And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
~D.H. Lawrence




Insomnia is a gross feeder.  It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.  ~Clifton Fadiman





If people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters.  ~Author unknown, attributed to Jim Davis



Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.  ~Thomas Dekker


People who snore always fall asleep first.  ~Author Unknown


The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.  ~F. Scott Fitzgerald


O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head.
~Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg - Her Dream


There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock.  ~Author Unknown


It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.  ~John Steinbeck


Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.  ~Author Unknown




All men whilst they are awake are in one common world:  but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.  ~Plutarch




The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep.  ~E. Joseph Cossman


Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge




I'm not asleep... but that doesn't mean I'm awake.  ~Author Unknown



The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.  ~Wilson Mizener

 

R is for radio

R is for radio. I would much rather (if I ever had to choose) live without TV than without radio.

In the middle of the night if I am awake it's the radio that keeps me company. On a plane I can nod off listening to music while movies and TV keep me awake.

Despite the multiple free TV channels I can access now, there is simply nothing to watch most nights. Not so for the radio. The majority of stations do not broadcast repeats of their programs, instead offering a “listen-again” feature accessible online. Many stations also make their programmes available as free downloads in the form of podcasts so you can listen when it suits you.

Radio caters to a wide variety of tastes, from literature to gardening and to all genres of music.  It is informative, intelligent and highly entertaining - an art form in itself.

I can listen to a local, national or international channel depending on the time of day and my mood and interests.

In times of emergency, such as during the flood in Brisbane at the start of the year, the TV screen was replaying dreadful images again and again while the  radio was providing essential information to those affected.

T.V. is also more subject to developing technology than radio. Now there's high-definition and bluray and an even more expensive generation of T.V. viewing is up for grabs: 3D.

In order to keep up with these advances, viewers are forced to purchase new equipment. Not so with radio.

I am grateful for radio. It provides me with all the information I need
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/
and a soundtrack to my life.
http://www.mygoldmusic.co.uk/
Long may it prosper.

Q is for quirky

It would be terrible if we were all the same!
I am grateful we're not.