Miscellaneous Collection by Gretchen
Seniors Week 2018
Celebrating a Queensland for All Ages
Seniors Week provides the opportunity for older Queenslanders to explore programs and services, events and activities, connect with people of all ages and backgrounds from 18-26 August. Celebrate the many contributions older people make in our communities. Visit https://www.qldseniorsweek.org.au/
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
To quote Mr Whitehead in full "...For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities” ― Alfred North Whitehead. A witty comment or would he have thought the same of IT in the 21st century e.g. Wikipedia and social media?
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
“No compulsion in the world is stronger than the urge to edit someone else’s document” said Herbert George Wells, and I know the feels––Herbert is better recognised as H. G. Wells, an exceptional English author, satirist and biographer (21 Sept 1866 – 13 Aug 1946) who famously wrote The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds and The Time Machine.
I can understand how the fingers of Mr Wells must have itched, his brain must have misfired and his breath must have been shallow as he read a paragraph which badly needed editing. Indeed, I often wonder how some books (or e-books) get into print when it is glaringly obvious they need a bit of trimming and correction.
Just recently I read an e-book with blurb announcing an award, author kudos and high sales. Undeserved as far as I’m concerned. Why? The author had no idea of descriptive body language. The best he could do was “He frowned”, “She frowned”, and for variety “He scowled”, “She scowled” until I deleted the book at “She wrinkled her brow”.
How did this get loose and launched on the general reading public? I’m sure Rule 101 is “If in doubt, substitute ‘said’ and let the dialogue do the work”. Don’t repeat yourself. Unpublished as I am, I guess the writer can sneer and say “Well, I got the pay cheque and you didn’t” but I can retort with “Have some integrity.” Or go back to writing classes.
It’s easy to think “Not all publishing houses are that blind” but, oh, many are. If you haven’t read a book with an error, you haven’t read enough books. Pathetically, hardly a week goes by without my subconscious editing a typo or tidying a sentence. I will never know how efficient I am, whether I am right or wrong, but, man, it makes me feel better!
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
“Growing old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you have not committed”
– Anthony Powell, English novelist.
I love the homey words and clean, familiar lines of Rachael Flynn’s artwork. She lives on a cattle and sheep farm in a locality called Piambong which is about 25km north-west of Mudgee, NSW, Australia. Her calendar (above) features rural farm life with a quirky theme and seasonal recipe each month.
Website http://www.redtractor.com.au/
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Interpreted Programming Languages Functional Programming Languages
Compiled Programming Languages Procedural Programming Languages
Scripting Programming Languages Mark-up Programming Languages
Logic-Based Programming Languages Concurrent Programming Languages
Object-Oriented Programming Languages
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Platitudes, rather hippy dippy and old hat, short sugar-coated sentences designed to bolster the ‘feels’ of a younger generation. Look again. Each line creates an emotion, a memory jog, that tingle of happiness to the down-surge of sadness. Regret is there, the wince for things done wrong, then the smile for laughing out loud when you get it right. Basic universal rules for living.
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
THIS GLOOMY LITTLE QUOTATION WAS AT THE BOTTOM OF MY COMPUTER SCREEN ON JANUARY 2018 COURTESY OF FIREFOX:
“The nearest star is 4.25 light-years from Earth which is why most wishes take at least 9 years to come true.”
IT WON’T STOP ME!
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
When I was a kid we used to say “Pinch and punch for the first of the month” and I don’t know why. A lot of our practical jokes involved physical actions which resulted in the receiver going “Ow, ouch” and glaring fiercely while rubbing their arm.
This beautiful calendar art was created by Sue Zipkin, produced by Hopper Studios, and I will be sad to see it go. However, its final words are encouraging “Embrace Change”. How many of us will actually do that next year?
“A year from now you will wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
♦ What if my dog only brings back the ball because he thinks I like throwing it?
♦ Your future self is watching you right now through memories.
♦ If poison expires, is it more poisonous or is it no longer poisonous?
♦ Which letter is silent in the word “Scent,” the S or the C?
♦ Do twins ever realise that one of them is unplanned?
♦ Why is the letter W, in English, called double U? Shouldn’t it be called double V?
♦ Maybe oxygen is slowly killing you and it just takes 75-100 years to fully work.
♦ Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty.
♦ The word “swims” upside-down is still “swims”.
♦ One hundred years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone has cars and only the rich own horses.
♦ The doctors who told Stephen Hawking he had two years to live in 1953 are probably dead.
♦ If you replace “W” with “T” in “What, Where and When” you get the answer to each of them.
♦ Many animals probably need glasses, but nobody knows it.
♦ If you rip a hole in a net, there are actually fewer holes in it than there were before.
♦ Please note I am only the purveyor of these words of weirdly wiseness.
♦ When 22/2/2022 falls on a Tuesday, we’ll just call it “2’s Day”.
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (1869-1948) said “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems” and “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it” because who knows what is around the next bend…
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Daydreaming is my addiction. “Well, if one’s going to daydream, one might as well make it a good one, don’t you suppose?” says Danielle Paige.
My biggest vice is the real estate section in Brisbane News or weekend supplements. I drool over million-dollar homes, daydreaming how I would rearrange the décor, or daydream about refurbishing an old mansion. Of course, I enjoy daydreaming about being effortlessly rich, benevolent, eccentric and having a chauffeur to drive me everywhere. Until Lily Amis reminds me “Daydreaming is a way of escaping from reality. But you can’t avoid the reality forever! Sooner or later you have to wake up and face it!”
Still, my mind wanders no matter what, usually while doing domestic tasks. My focus regularly trails away into the realms of daydream when I am reading, writing or watching a movie. As Neil Gaiman says “You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.”
A cautionary note comes from Jasper Fforde who says “My mind wanders terribly. I’m not wholly annoyed by my daydreaming as it has been of immense use to me as regards imaginative thought, but it doesn’t help when it comes to concentration. And writing needs concentration – lots of it.”
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
P.S. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) a 20th century architect said “Une maison est une machine-à-habiter” or “A house is a machine for living in”.
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
Quote from G. K. Chesterton who was an early 20th century British writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, art and literary critic and biographer. Apart from many works, Chesterton is well known for his book series of Catholic priest-detective Father Brown, currently produced for television by BBC One.
He also said “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
“What I do for my work is exactly what I would do if nobody paid me”…
Gretchen Rubin is an American author, blogger and speaker and has written several books including “The Happiness Project”, “Happier At Home” and “Better Than Before”.
The only thing Gretchen Rubin and I have in common is our first name. When I was growing up, my name was a burden among all the Anglo-Saxon children during my school years. I was never ashamed of my first name, just upset with people when they couldn’t come to grips with it, and I didn’t understand why people had so much trouble pronouncing it. Now, thanks to the global village, it’s a cinch.
As for working, I’ve always worked for financial reasons and if the job was a good one that was a bonus. From insurance, travel, advertising, promotions, administration and library positions, I am now at the stage where I am free to pursue my writing career. I can sit and pound away on the keyboard to my heart’s content and nobody pays me.
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
