The Friday Post ~ History of Events on 23rd March

Good morning and happy Friday to you.  How’s your week been?  Good I hope, or at least, very little to complain about.

My week has been busy and wrapped up in tiredness.  I’m not doing anything which burns the candle at both ends, but cooo…  I seem to suddenly find a drop in energy levels between 3pm and 4pm, and I’ll either fall asleep in my chair and catch 40 winks, – or on one day I actually made my way wearily to my bed and slept soundly until 7pm.  I’m beginning to think I should be living somewhere in Spain or Mexico, where they have an afternoon siesta!

Anyhooooo….  This  ‘On this day in History’  of lesson is going to be the last ‘On this day in History’ lesson for a while.  All schools have holidays and breaks to allow pupils some freedom and fun, and this Friday Lesson is doing just that.  But for today,  you’ve come dressed in your school uniforms and ready for some edumacation, so let’s crack on with it, shall we?

23rd March 2018

On this Day in History

1540 – Waltham Abbey is surrendered to King Henry VIII of England; the last religious community to be closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” – at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.

1839 – The first recorded use of “OK” (okay).  Okay, frequently spelled OK and occasionally okeh is a colloquial English word denoting approval, assent, or acknowledgment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK

1840 – John W. Draper takes first successful photo of the Moon.  John William Draper (May 5, 1811, – January 4, 1882) was an (English-born) American scientist, philosopher, physician, chemist, historian, and photographer.  He was the first person to take an astrophotograph;  he took the first photo of the Moon which showed any lunar features in 1840.

1857 – Elisha Otis’s first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.  Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) invented a safety device that prevented elevators from falling if the hoisting cable broke.  He worked on this device while living in Yonkers, New York in 1852, and had a finished product in 1854.

1889 – The free Woolwich Ferry officially opens in east London.  The Woolwich Free Ferry is a boat service across the River Thames, London, UK, which is licensed and financed by London River Services, the maritime arm of Transport for London.  The service is operated by Serco Group under licence from TfL and carries both foot passengers and vehicles.

The ferry carries more than one million vehicles and 2.5 million passengers each year. Occupants of vehicles (including drivers) are counted as passengers.  In depth website about the Woolwich Ferry

1888 – In England,  The Football League,  the world’s oldest professional association football league, meets for the first time.

1901 – Australian opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba, reveals the secret of her now famous toast. Melba toast is a very dry, crisp, thinly sliced toast often served with soups and salads or topped with either melted cheese or pâté.

The toast was created for her by chef (and fan) Auguste Escoffier, who also created the Peach Melba dessert. Melba toast is said to be derived from the crisp toast that was part of Dame Melba’s diet during the year 1897, a year in which she was very ill.

For the cooks among us:  Melba toast is usually made by lightly toasting bread in the normal way. Once the outside of the bread is slightly firm, it is removed from the toaster and then each slice is cut in half “longitudinally” with a bread knife to make two slices, each half the thickness. These two thin slices are then toasted again to make Melba Toast.

1903 – The Wright Brothers apply for a patent on their invention of one of the first successful air planes.

1909 – Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.

1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini re-formed his Fascist political movement.  Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism.

1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling act of 1933,  making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.

1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan)

1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States’ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).

1977 – The first of The Nixon Interviews  (12 recorded over four weeks) are videotaped with British journalist David Frost interviewing former United States President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal and the Nixon tapes.

1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative:  President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.

1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, killing 75, when the pilot’s fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot.

1994 – A United States Air Force (USAF) F-16 aircraft collides with a USAF C-130 at Pope Air Force Base and then crashes, killing 24 United States Army soldiers on the ground. This later became known as the Green Ramp disaster.

2001 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

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Born on this Day

1904 – Joan Crawford, American actress (d. 1977).  NB: The year of Miss Crawford’s birth has been variously identified as 1904, 1906, 1908 and 1909, the last being her own favourite.

1921 – Donald Campbell, British car and motorboat racer (d. 1967)

1925 – David Watkin, English cinematographer (d. 2008) – In Chariots of Fire, he helped create one of the most memorable images of 1980s cinema: the opening sequence in which a huddle of young male athletes pounds along the water’s edge on a beach” to the film’s theme music by Vangelis.

1929 – Sir Roger Bannister, English runner

1935 – Barry Cryer,  OBE.  an English comedian, actor and screenwriter.

1946 – Alan Bleasdale, English screenwriter and producer

1953 – Chaka Khan, American singer

1957 – Amanda Plummer, American actress – daughter of actors Tammy Grimes and Christopher Plummer.

1962 – Sir Steven Redgrave  CBE DL, retired British rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000.  He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds.  He is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and the only man to have won gold medals at five Olympic Games in an endurance sport.

1965 – Marti Pellow, Scottish singer (Wet Wet Wet)

1968 – Damon Albarn, English musician (Blur, Gorillaz and The Good, the Bad & the Queen)

1971 – Gail Porter, Scottish television presenter

1980 – Russell Howard, English comedian

1983 – Mo Farah, Somali-English runner

1989 – Ayesha Curry, Canadian-American chef, author and television personality

1990 – Princess Eugenie of York.  Younger daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and of Sarah, Duchess of York.  She is eighth in line of succession to the British throne,  and has worked for the Hauser & Wirth art gallery in London as an associate director since 2015.

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Died on this Day and remembered here

1965 – Mae Murray, American actress, dancer, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1889)

2001 – Rowland Evans, American journalist (b. 1921)

2002 – Eileen Farrell, American soprano (b. 1920)

2011 – Elizabeth Taylor DBE, American-British actress, socialite and humanitarian (b. 1932)

2012 – Jim Duffy, American animator, director, and producer (b. 1937)

2015 – Lil’ Chris, English singer-songwriter, actor, and television personality (b. 1990)

External Links for more news on this day

• BBC: On This Day
• The New York Times ~ On This Day

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Time for a coffee and a slice of contemplation  . . .

Thought for the Day

A book was published in 1913 written by a lady called Eleanor H. Porter, which many of you will have heard about, read or even watched the film which was made based upon this book.  The book was called Pollyanna.

I can see some of you smiling already, – but for those of you who don’t know this book/film let me explain a little more…. 

The writer, Eleanor H. Porter originally trained as a singer, but in her later years she turned to writing.  She wrote books for adult readers, but she wrote mainly children’s literature books.  But Pollyanna was my favourite – both as a child and as an adult. 

Ms. Porter also wrote a sequel:  ‘Pollyanna Grows Up‘, because the book had become so popular.  There are other books, other ‘sequels’, but none of them are written by Eleanor, for Eleanor passed away just seven years after the first Pollyanna book was published.

However, she has left behind her a legacy of monumental proportions.  Not just in me, but in all children of the world who have read this book or had it read to them. 

To be honest, if it were up to me I’d make it compulsory in the first schools, second schools and high schools, purely because of the ‘Glad Game‘ which Pollyanna’s father taught her, and which the reader learns about by reading the book.

Pollyanna was an orphan.  Both of her parents had passed away (not at the same time).  Pollyanna was sent to live with her spinster aunt – a rather stiff, stern, crotchety woman who lived alone – except for a small ‘staff’ – a maid, gardener and a driver.  We do, at a later point in the book, learn that Aunt Polly was like she was because of a lost love.

Pollyanna and her bright, sunny, cheerful, joyous and loving personality, was to transform not only her Aunts life, but the lives of all the people who lived in the small town where she lived.  And she did it simply by teaching everyone she came into contact with:  ‘The Game’.

The Game is ‘The Glad Game‘.  It’s a game which Pollyanna’s father taught to her one Christmas time.

Pollyanna was hoping to find a doll in the missionary barrel which held all manner of things….  however, Pollyanna only found a pair of crutches, which she had no need of.  Naturally Pollyanna was a little disappointed.  Her father, seeing his child’s sad face, made up the game on the spot, and taught Pollyanna how she could look at every situation and find the good side in there somewhere.  And … in this case of the crutches, she could be glad about them, because, he told her,  “we don’t need ’em!”.

Armed with this Glad Game, her life was transformed, and also, the lives of all people around her.

When she moved into her Aunts house following the death of her father, Polly was late coming to the dinner table one evening and her Aunt said that she would be punished by not having the delights that had been prepared for dinner in the dining room, but instead, her punishment would be to have only bread and milk, and she would have to eat it in the kitchen with the servant, Nancy.

Pollyanna was absolutely thrilled to bits and couldn’t thank her Aunt enough!  She explained that she loves bread and milk, and she loves Nancy too, so to be able to eat bread and milk in the kitchen with Nancy was a real treat!

Pollyanna teaches this very same outlook to other people around the little town.  She teaches the invalid, Mrs. Snow, the Glad Game (which takes some considerable time as Mrs. Snow is a real grouch!) …  and eventually Mrs. Snow is playing along and enjoying life again.

And it’s this ‘Glad Game’ which is my thought for the day.

Something which happened recently made me put the Glad Game to work…  and that’s why I’m thinking about it today. 

Some of you may have read Pollyanna … but if you haven’t, or haven’t read it for a while, I urge you to go and borrow a copy from your library, or even buy the book, so that you can learn for yourself about the ‘Glad Game‘, and see if you can put it into practise in your life. 

Every situation you come to,  every problem you find yourself with,  has something in it to be glad about.  It’s that elusive ‘silver lining‘ that people talk about;  sing about;  make movies about!  Find the good in a situation and SNAP!, suddenly the situation doesn’t seem quite as daunting as it did before!

And, once you get used to playing the Glad Game, – teach others how to play it too.

I promise you, that although it’s a simple philosophy, it really does work.

Transform your life …  and then go and transform other people lives for them by teaching them ‘The Glad Game’!.

You, have a great  ‘Glad Game‘  day.

Sending you much love, from me in my corner, to you in yours.

 

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The Friday Post

Hap-pee Friday!  Where has this week gone?  How very dare it rush past in a flash!  If it’s going to come and visit, then a week should surely hang around long enough for tea and cakes!  I’m coming to a conclusion that weeks have no manners what-so-ever.  The arrive, don’t wipe their feet, don’t take their coats off, and they leave without saying a word, don’t thank you for opening your home to them and don’t even say goodbye.  No … they just up and off, leaving us with yet another Friday.  How VERY dare it!

Anyhoo …  before I get into edumacationing you, I’ve learned some fun things this week and I thought you might like me to share them with you:

I’ve learnt:

• Lions can get hair-balls the size of footballs.  Thankfully I don’t have to clean those off my carpet.
• The letter Q was illegal in Turkey for 85 years.
• Wherever a leaf is in the world, its internal temperature is always 21oC.
• A popular way to cure impotence in the 14th century was to wear your trousers on your head for 24 hours.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?  LOL.

Right .. enough of this giggling.  Let’s get you into the classroom and start your expensive edumacation!

On This Day in History

1558 – Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England, – England’s first queen (also known as ‘Bloody Mary’), dies and is succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth I  (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death.  Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess,  Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.  The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her brother, Edward VI, cut her out of the succession. His will, however, was set aside, and in 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, the Catholic Mary, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

1603 – English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial. Falsely accused of treason, he had been offered a large sum of money by Lord Cobham, a critic of England’s King James I, to make peace with the Spanish and put Arabella Stuart, James’s cousin, on the throne. Raleigh claimed he turned down the offer, but Lord Cobham told his accusers that Raleigh was involved in the plot. Sir Walter Raleigh or Ralegh (c. 1552 – 29 October 1618), was a famed English writer, poet, soldier, courtier and explorer.

Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne. Little is known for certain of his early life, though he spent some time in Ireland, in Killua Castle, Clonmellon, County Westmeath, taking part in the suppression of rebellions and participating in two infamous massacres at Rathlin Island and Smerwick, later becoming a landlord of lands confiscated from the Irish. He rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth I’s favour, being knighted in 1585, and was involved in the early English colonisation of the New World in Virginia under a royal patent. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, without requesting the Queen’s permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset.

In 1594, Raleigh heard of a “City of Gold” in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of El Dorado.  After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for allegedly being involved in the Main Plot against King James I who was not favourably disposed toward him.  In 1616, however, he was released in order to conduct a second expedition in search of El Dorado.  This was unsuccessful and the Spanish outpost at San Thomé was ransacked by men under his command.  After his return to England he was arrested and after a show trial held mainly to appease the Spanish, he was beheaded at Whitehall.

1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.
1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him).
1827 – The Delta Phi fraternity, America’s oldest continuous social fraternity, was founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
1855 – David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe.
1869 – England’s James Moore won the first cycle road race, an 83 miles race from Paris to Rouen.
1880 – The first three women to graduate in Britain received their Bachelor of Arts degrees at London University.
1882 – The Royal Astronomer witnessed an unidentified flying object from the Greenwich Observatory. He described it as a circular object, glowing bright green.

1903 – The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for “majority”) and Mensheviks (Russian for “minority”).

1911 – The Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the first African-American fraternity at a historically black college or university, is founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

1922 – Britain elected its first Communist Member of Parliament, J T Walton-Newbold standing for Motherwell, Scotland. He eventually joined the Labour Party.

1945 – Britain’s H J Wilson of the RAF set a New world air speed record 606 mph.

1950 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was enthroned as Tibet’s head of state at the age of fifteen. Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub is the 14th Dalai Lama. He is the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamshala, India. Tibetans traditionally believe him to be the reincarnation of his predecessors.

The Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader revered among Tibetans. The most influential figure of the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat Sect, he has considerable influence over the other sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese government, whose occupation of Tibet in 1959 forced him into exile, regards him as the symbol of an outmoded theocratic system.

Tenzin Gyatso was born fifth of 16 children to a farming family in the village of Taktser, Qinghai province, China. His first language was the regional Amdo dialect.

He was proclaimed the tulku or rebirth of the thirteenth Dalai Lama at the age of two. At the age of fifteen, on 17 November 1950, one month after the Chinese army’s invasion of Tibet, he was formally enthroned as Dalai Lama. He thus became the country’s most important spiritual leader and political ruler.

In 1959 the Dalai Lama fled through the mountains to India following a failed uprising and the effective collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement. He had at first, in 1951, ratified under military pressure a Seventeen Point Agreement to coexist alongside China. In India he set up a Tibetan government-in-exile. Among the 80,000 or so exiles that followed him Tenzin Gyatso strives to preserve traditional Tibetan education and culture.

A noted public speaker worldwide,Tenzin Gyatso is often described as charismatic. He is the first Dalai Lama to travel to the West, where he seeks to spread Buddhist teachings and to promote ethics and interfaith harmony. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.. He was given honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and was awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.

1953 – The remaining human inhabitants of the Blasket Islands, Kerry, Ireland are evacuated to the mainland. The Blasket Islands (Na Blascaodaí in Irish – etymology uncertain: it may come from the Norse word “brasker”, meaning “a dangerous place”) are a group of islands off the west coast of Ireland, forming part of County Kerry.

They were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population. The inhabitants were evacuated to the mainland on 17 November 1953. Many of the descendants currently live in Springfield, Massachusetts and some former residents still live on the Dingle peninsula, within sight of their former home.

The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and, thanks partly to outside encouragement, a number of books were written by islanders that record much of the islands’ traditions and way of life. These include An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.

Cathedral Rocks at Blasket Islands

The Blasket Islands have been called Next Parish America, a term popular in the United States.

1955 – Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into the water supply.
1959 – Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty-free goods in Britain. London Heathrow followed soon after.

1964 – Britain said that it was banning all arms exports to South Africa.

1967 – Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports he was given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells his nation that, while much remained to be done, “We are inflicting greater losses than we’re taking…We are making progress.”
1968 – NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a game to air a TV special, “Heidi,” on schedule. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Oakland Raiders come from behind to beat the New York Jets 43-32.
1969 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

1970 – Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre. William Laws Calley, Jr. (born June 8, 1943, in Miami, Florida) is a convicted American war criminal. He is the U.S. Army officer found guilty of ordering the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War.

Of the 26 officers and soldiers initially charged for their part in the My Lai Massacre or the subsequent cover-up, only Calley would be convicted. He was seen by some as a scapegoat used by the U.S. Army for its failure to instill morale and discipline in its troops and officers. Others, knowing nothing about his education or background, sought to excuse his actions because of his allegedly low intelligence and cultural background. Many saw My Lai as a direct result of the military’s attrition strategy with its emphasis on “body counts” and “kill ratios.”

1970 – Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
1970 – Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

1973 – Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors “I am not a crook”.

The Watergate scandals were a series of political scandals during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted in the indictment of several of Nixon’s closest advisors and ultimately his resignation on August 9, 1974.

The scandals began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. Investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and later by the Senate Watergate Committee, House Judiciary Committee and the press revealed that this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and carried out by Nixon’s staff and loyalists. They also revealed the immense scope of crimes and abuses, which included campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations. This secret fund was also used as hush money to buy silence of the seven men who were indicted for the June 17 break-in.

Nixon and his staff conspired to cover up the break-in as early as six days after it occurred. After two years of mounting evidence against the President and his staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in a Senate investigation, it was revealed that Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes revealed that he had obstructed justice and attempted to cover up the break-in. This recorded conversation later became known as the Smoking Gun. After a series of court battles, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Nixon that the President had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied.

With certainty of an impeachment in the House of Representatives and of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned ten days later, becoming the only US President to have resigned from office. His successor, Gerald Ford, would issue a controversial pardon for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.  Click here for the link to the New York Times story

1989 – Riot police arrest hundreds of people taking part in the biggest show of public dissent in Czechoslovakia for 20 years.
BBC News complete with Video footage of the news from that day

2000 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills 7, and causes millions of SLT (Slovenian Tolar – the currency of Slovenia) of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.
2003 – An ex-soldier who served in the Gulf War was found guilty of at least one of the Washington sniper killings in October the previous year.
BBC News story complete with Audio from the court room
2003 – Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th governor of California.
2004 – Kmart Corp. announced it was buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.

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Born on this Day

1887 – Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, English soldier who was a painstaking planner, which contributed to his most successful battle in North Africa when he broke through Rommel’s lines during the Second World War. ‘Monty’ was also a superb communicator, which assured his popularity with his men.

1923 – Mike Garcia, American baseball player (d. 1986)

1925 – Rock Hudson, American actor (d. 1985)

1937 – Peter Cook, British comedian (d. 1995)

1934 – Fenella Fielding, English actress

1942 – Martin Scorsese, American film director

1943 – Lauren Hutton, American actress

1944 – Danny DeVito, American actor

1951 – Dean Paul Martin, American singer and actor (d. 1987)

1960 – Jonathan Ross, British presenter

1960 – RuPaul, American drag entertainer

1980 – Isaac Hanson, American musician (Hanson)

1981 – Sarah Harding, English singer (Girls Aloud)

 

Thought for the Day

Isn’t it funny (?) how people go searching for happiness, travelling the world, or buying things that they feel will make them happy . . . and yet  . . . their happiness is there all the time.  They just have to sit for a moment and go inside themselves and look at what they have.

Try it.  When you are done reading this, close your eyes and sit quite still for a moment and ‘see’ all the people you love surrounding you.  See all the blessings you have in your life:

• The place where you live
• Your family and friends
• Your pet(s)
• Your job
• Your television;  your computer;  your kitchen equipment which enables you to make a drink and cook food to eat.

Think about these things and more.  And then … imagine that someone or something suddenly takes it all away from you.  Everything – gone.  Forever.  Washed away by some sort of hurricane.

How would you feel?  What would the feeling be like to be totally all alone in the world with no one who know you.  No one who YOU know.  No one to talk with except strangers in the street who don’t know you and who are rushing past you every day, without giving you a thought or care.

Now imagine that I come in and one by one, I give everything and everyone back to you.  One by one, the people you love and who love you, walk in through a door and back into your life.

Bit by bit I give you back your home, your kitchen equipment, your clothes … everything.  All those things that you take for granted, every day in your life.

Your family, friends, pets, your car …  everything.  All suddenly back.  Just when you thought you wouldn’t ever see them ever again …  there they are.

Can you get an idea of how that would feel?

Now …  why are you looking for happiness in things that you don’t have …  when your happiness is right there all the time.

Stop searching for your happiness.  You already have it.  All you have to do is ‘see’ it.  Recognise it.  It’s all around you.  Right there.  Right now!

Wishing you a great, and thoroughly blessed day.

Have a wonderful weekend.  Sending you squidges and love ~