Sundays View

Oh my - It's Sunday - my gift to you day:

Gift #1:


Happy Birthday to Erma Bombeck - Wikipedia

The Bombecks were told by doctors that having a child was improbable, so they adopted a girl, Betsy, in 1953. Erma decided to become a full-time housewife, and relinquished her career as a journalist. During 1954, Erma nevertheless wrote a series of humorous columns in the Dayton Shopping News.

Despite the former difficult diagnoses, Erma Bombeck gave birth to a son, Andrew in 1955. The Bombeck family moved to Centerville, Ohio, into a tract housing development, and were neighbors to the young Phil Donahue. Away from her previous journalistic career, Bombeck initiated an intense period of homemaking, which lasted 10 years, and had her second son, Matthew, in 1958.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and I could say, "I used everything that you gave me."
- Erma Bombeck

"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." ~ Erma Bombeck

Gift #2
If I Had My Life To Live Over
by Erma Bombeck
The following was written by the late Erma Bombeck after she found out that she had cancer. I think this is a beautiful oem to remember.

If I had my life to live over, I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's".. More "I'm sorrys" ...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute... look at it and really see it ... live it...and never give it back.



Happy Birthday -Anais Nin - Wikipedia
I added her because almost every time I read one of her quotes - I identify with her in the nth degree. It's a personal thing . . .

Quotes:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

"...for no one has ever loved an adventurous woman as they have loved adventurous men."

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

"How wrong is it for women to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than set out to create it herself."

"I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not possibly born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

"Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them."

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing."

"Dreams are necessary to life."

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."