Let's All Relax!

Sometimes life demands that we just stop running around and take a nice walk.

I think today is a perfect time to do just that!

Anyone care to join me?

A nice story...

This is a lovely story of a couple of events remembered fondly by Marc Haynes. I'm not a James Bond fan, but always thought Roger Moore was a charming man.

Keeping monsters at bay

This is a lovely story. A little girl in North Dakota couldn't sleep because she was afraid of monsters, so a pharmacist prepared a special spray to get rid of them!

Dogs with big hearts

Warming our hearts in these cold days

A very special nurse

A little black cat was taken to an animal shelter in Poland in a bad way. A serious upper respiratory infection led the vet to consider putting the poor animal to sleep. Then it started to purr, so the vet reconsidered and initiated treatment. Not only did Radamenes pull through, but he became a valuable asset to the shelter:

Once Radamenes regained his strength, he started to befriend the other animals at the shelter. The shelter staff noticed he was particularly fond of animals who had just undergone major surgeries or procedures. Sometimes when you’re sick, all you need is a loving cuddle or a warm hug to help you through it. This is where Radamenes comes in. 

Super cute story

A dad from County Durham, in the north of England, helped his five year-old daughter write a letter to the police chief after a conversation about police dogs.

Eliza must have been really happy when she received this:

Chief Constable Michael Barton is a nice guy, don't you think?

Some heartwarming photos on a cold day (for some of us)

Not everybody is facing terribly cold weather, but these pictures will certainly warm any hearts, anywhere:

Adorable with attitude

There's a thing on Facebook about a little boy called Anthony who's sick in hospital. The little guy loves dogs, so his parents created a page on FB asking people to post photos of their dogs on their page so they could show them to Anthony and cheer him up. The appeal went viral and Anthony is getting photos of dogs from all over the world. Somebody posted this picture of chocolate Labrador Jake with his new companion, Piper. Jake looks puzzled, but little Piper is full of attitude...

Mushy reflections about people and blogs...

Feeling mushy today...  Some of these give us food for thought (and make me mushier?) 

I'll share my own thoughts. 

This modest blog has kept old friends together and welcomed new ones in a warm and comfortable environment, which is completely different from our previous home, where things used to get heated due to the person who was the focal point of that blog. A troll got lost the other day, ended up here and left some pointed comments, one addressed to Mrsgunka and the other to Amy. When I started fearing that she would stay put being nasty to my readers, I wrote her a comment explaining that here we discuss nice stuff, without any room for haters, and invited her to chill out and take a mental health break. She disappeared.

I see so much ugliness around other blogs and think how we behave so differently here... Most of us go back a long way and feel as if we actually know each other. Of course some people got very close and friendships flourished, a few readers met in "real life" and became firm friends. These days it is perfectly possible to be friends on the internet as if we were in the same room. We live in the age of instant communication, where email, chat rooms, Skype and social media facilitate interactions in the blink of an eye!

There are opportunities to be nasty or nice 24 hours a day. I'm proud of this little corner of the internet, where we thrive on the respect we have for each other. I post bits and bobs that capture my imagination and sometimes the discussions become very animated, with people sharing their own experiences, photos, their joys and their sorrows. Sometimes the topic I post falls flat and people chat about other stuff. It's all fine. The important thing is to keep the communication channels open. Some topics interest some of the readers while others feel indifferent to them. The same goes for the contributions that are posted in the comments, not every topic is to every single reader's taste. I suppose it's like going to a party. I make a welcoming speech (the main post), everybody says hello to each other, then smaller groups form, diverse conversations happen, people are free to move around and strike conversations in another group. If somebody finds a particular conversation boring, there's always another, more interesting one, nearby. We don't go around shouting and being rude when we don't like a topic, we just move on. If we disagree with somebody's opinion, we say so, honestly and respectfully. We also pull each other's legs and the gentle banter keeps things lively, specially when the sports season is on...

We're a group of old friends, but there's plenty of room for new ones. The more, the merrier!

The troll couldn't cope with kindness, civil interactions and mutual respect. She declined my invitation and went puff! in cloud of her own poison. We got on with our nice party, having a jolly good time.

That's why I feel mushy... I love this blog!

Getting emotional...

Mrsgunka shared this video and I became quite emotional watching it. The music is upbeat enough, but the children got to me... Thank you, MrsG.

Lost and found

Amy sent us this lovely video. Thank you, Amy!

Mwaaah!

No words needed

Playing tag with a friend

This video is incredibly sweet. Have a sweet weekend, everybody!

Staying positive

Amy sent us some examples of people being helpful to each other. There are more positive than negative things going on around us, but they don't get reported very often (and sometimes we forget to pay attention).

Thank you, Amy.

Amazing story from Ireland

Get a box of Kleenex, animal lovers...

Ubuntu

I saw this on Facebook and I think it's quite inspiring.

An anthropologist devised ​​a game for some children of an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit next to a tree and told the children that the first who came to the tree would win all the fruit. Given the signal, all the kids came out at the same time and holding hands! Then they sat down together to enjoy the reward. When the anthropologist asked why they had acted that way, knowing that one of them could have all the fruit for themselves, they replied: Ubuntu, how could one of us be happy if all the others were sad?

UBUNTU in the Xhosa culture means "I am because we are"

Giving

I saw this on Facebook and thought it was really nice. It made me think of this modest blog....



Today my mom would have been 92. She was the most giving person I've ever known...