A bit bogged down!

"Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always another appointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to be notched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes, and completely forgotten to step back and see what we've accomplished."

— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

 
Hey all!
 
So sorry for the lack of posts lately.  I have been beyond bogged down with a lot of wonderful stuff, like Special Olympics activities such as their 2010 Summer Games in Davis, CA.  As work has been gearing up, I shifted focus to those priorities, as well as spending quality time with my family.
 
I promise to get another freebie friday post up soon - and I look forward to participating in all the wonderful memes, such as vintage thingie thursday - soon!
 
Hope you all are having a wonderful summer - and that if you let yourself get bogged down, it is only in good stuff and not stressful.
 
Now, carry on bloggin' folk!

Pray you, love, remember...

Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.
-William Shakespeare

It is Vintage Thingie Thursday over at The Colorado Lady's blog.  I decided to share a picture (sorry for the blur - taken again with my blackberry!) of a vintage fan that I have on my desk at work.  I got the fan in a lot of three (equally beautiful) fans on eBay a couple years ago.  At the time I thought I might resell them through The ZNE Store - but once I recieved them, I couldn't bear to part with them.  These delicate paper fans were marketing premiums for the Hotel Statler in the early 1900s.  Yep.  This fan is over 100 years old.  Hard to imagine. 

The first Statler hotel was built in Buffalo, New York and offered 300 rooms and bathrooms (it was later expanded to 450 rooms and baths). The Buffalo hotel was very successful and led to a chain of hotels in other cities.

Rooms were originally available at what seemed a very cheap price, leading many other hoteliers to predict the failure of the Buffalo hotel. The opening night price was as low as $1.50 for a guest room, leading to the slogan "A Room and a Bath for a Dollar and a Half." The hotel had a line of credit available of $500,000, but was so successful from the beginning that Statler never touched the line of credit.  The Hotels Statler Company, Inc., was sold to Conrad Hilton's (Hilton Hotels) in 1954 for $111,000,000 in what was then the world's largest real estate transaction.  (Source:  Wikipedia)

Have a great Thursday everyone!  Jump on over to The Colorado Lady's blog to see more fun Vintage Thingy Thursday posts!

The R Word

You know, I spent a lot of time looking for images or quotes that would illustrate the point.  In the end, I don't think it could be any more straightforward than what you see above.

Think about it.

Soeren Palumbo Fremd, a teenager in Illinois has thought about it a lot.  He shares his thoughts better than I ever could - here.  Take a moment to watch it all the way through.




As many of you know, I work for the Special Olympics.  I love what I do, and I love what the organization is doing.  One of the things I love is that the job has given me a lot of pause to think about my preconceived notions about:  self respect, dignity, developmental disabilities, and societally acceptable cruelty.

My thursday blog theme is THINK.  I hope you will take a moment to think about this topic, today.  I'd love it if you would share your thoughts.

xoxo - Chel