Expect nothing and appreciate everything.

1. Trust your gut. Really. If you think he likes you, you're probably right. If you think he's cheating, you're probably right. If you think she's going to be your new BFF, (this time with feeling!) you're probably right. 2. Sunscreen. Always. SPF 15 indoors, SPF 30 outdoors. I've been wearing sunscreen everyday since I was 19 and I still get carded. I think this actually has more to do with the bouncers hitting on me, but I'd like to share the credit with my good friend Oil of Olay daily moisturizing lotion with SPF. 3. If you're lying in bed worrying about it, get up and write it down. If I don't do this, my night will quickly devolve into cyclical thoughts of doom and anxiety. Just get out of bed, write down the thing that you're worried about, write down a few ideas to deal with it and then go the eff back to sleep. 4. Processed carbohydrates and sugars are yucky. It's not hard to switch to wholewheat bread and noodles ...

Blue Holes   Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevationthat get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

Here’s a funny fact. Join your two hands as shown on left. Let’s start : The thumb represents your parents. Now try seperating them apart, and they’ll easily open. They easily seperate because you are not destined to live with your parents forever. Now join the two thumbs back together. Next, separate your index fingers and they will open too because these fingers represent your siblings, and they’ll also lead their own lives in the future. The middle fingers represent yourself. Next separate your pinky(little) fingers. These fingers with open as well because, they represent your kids, who will also have a different life from yours, eventually.   Lastly, try opening your ring fingers. You can’t right, this is because the ring finger represents both you & your spouse & no matter what you’ll remain together for the rest of your life.

Africa’s rhinos face their worst poaching crisis in decades with sophisticated organised crime syndicates killing more than 800 animals in the past three years, conservationists said yesterday. The two horns on each rhinoceros sell for high prices on the black market in South-east Asia, where they are believed to have medicinal properties. Vietnam, where the horn is ground down for medicines, is repeatedly implicated in the South African poaching trade. The Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature said poaching of the two different species of African rhinos is on the rise in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. South Africa alone lost 333 rhinos last year and has lost more than 70 this year so far, according to IUCN.

Eventually, you’re going to find that one person that you’re going to settle down to. They’re going to make you change your bad habits and your ways. You’re going to want to spend every moment with this person, and you’d do things you never thought you would ever do for someone. It’s not called being “whipped”, it’s swallowing your pride and breaking your morals for someone you feel is truly worth it.

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.  -- Henri J. M. Nouwen

The recent weather at Noahs Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol seems to have had a warming effect on the relationships between some of the animals. The zoo’s male giraffe Gerald has amused visitors and staff by making close friends with the zebra family. The family of three Chapmans zebra - named Zebedee, Zara and Zelda - and the giraffes share a spacious paddock in the African continental section of North Somerset’s award-winning family park.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  - Mark Twain.

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine v...

When I was a little bitty kiddy, about five, my Dad began a process … anytime somebody came and said something to us, my dad would say, "You remember what he said, honey girl?”  I would tell my father what the person said until I got so good at it that I could repeat verbatim even long presentations of what the person had said. And he did this all the time. Finally, one day there was this old gentleman, Richard Thompson. I still remember his name, he lived across the street.  And every time my Dad started to mow the lawn, there came Mr. Thompson. And so I would stand out there. Dad says, “You might come and listen to this man, honey girl.  He’s pretty interesting.”  And so I listened to him, and then my dad would say, “What did you hear him say?” And I would tell him. Well, eventually I was repeating all the stories he liked to share with my dad verbatim.  I knew them all by heart. And my Dad says, “You’re getting pretty good at that.  But ...

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period. 2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life." 3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work." 4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. 5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned. 6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will ...

1. At least five people in this world love you so much they would die for you. 2. At least fifteen people in this world love you in some way. 3. The only reason anyones would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you. 4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don’t like you. 5. Every night, someone thinks about you before they go to sleep. 6. You mean the world to someone. 7. If not for you, someone may not be living. 8. You are special and unique. 9. Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you. 10. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it. 11. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look: you most likely turned your back on the world. 12. When you think you have no chance of getting what you want, you probably won’t get it, but if you believe in yourself, probably, sooner or later, you will get it. 13. Always remember the compliments you recieved. Forget the rude remarks. 14. Always...