There is a lot of wisdom out there on how to live your life and how to recognize its twists and turns. Many, by now, famous quotes and sayings to enforce it can be found. “Life is happening” – a quote originally made by Allen Saunders in 1957 – he was a journalist, cartoonist and writer – and his quote became famous when John Lennon included it in his song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” in 1980. “Such is life” buy Ned Kelly, an Australian bushranger and outlaw, who is supposed to have muttered those words before he was executed by hanging for shooting police officers during a standoff. The quote: “There is no such thing as a normal life, there’s just life … now get on with it!” dates to the Movie Tombstone from 1993 – it was given by Doc Holliday in response to the character Wyatt Earp asking

It has been several months since I started learning Spanish in an online language school. It continues to be an interesting endeavor – sometimes elating and sometimes frustrating, the latter one especially when I cannot remember the vocabulary we learned and used in reading and talking exercises prior. The exciting part is that the process of learning a new language opened new ways of remembering other languages I learned in the past – often in conjunction with comparisons – as to grammar in general and specifically as to word order and the proper tense of verbs depending on what I am trying to say or write. Sometimes, when I am looking for a word, it sure pops up in my head in one of the other languages. On occasion it ends there and google will have to come to the rescue yet sometimes it becomes a stepwise process, where one

It has been a unusual winter here in the Northwest this year so far – warmer than usual temperatures, so that the moisture that came our way plentifully in December settled mostly as rain rather than snow. When finally, two feet accumulated on the ground I pulled the trigger – full of anxiety since that was also the first time out in the snow since I insured my right foot. Stomping through the woods towards our favorite spot – Todd Lake – felt so exhilarating and even though I could feel my ankle at every step it was not to a point that it became worrisome. So much light! Sunshine, white snow and a few flurried clouds in the sky. And as the distance covered grew, so grew my confidence. At the end there was a tired happiness and determination to check out also my other winter sport disciplines –