The google doodle often sets the tone for my day...I like to figure out what the doodle is about, especially if it is not obvious.

Today is the 50th anniversary of JFK's inaugural address; a speech that I will never tire of listening too.

Yesterday, Sargent Shriver, first director of the Peace Corps, died.

So many good programs have grown out of the Peace Corps, all with the idea:

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can for your country" JFK

Peace Corps - " a program that builds peace and friendship by sending Americans to work for human dignity and human welfare in the third world." Peace Corps website

So today, a nod to the spirit of volunteerism.

I am not what people call a helicopter parent. I just miss hearing about the daily doings from my daughter who went off to college two weeks ago. So I read the online campus newspaper to keep up with the action. I watched a two minute piece on the freshman convocation, class of 2014; the band played, the President spoke, the glee clubs sang, and my eyes welled up with tears.

The President of the college urged students to leave their “comfort zones,” and take risks. The purpose of your education, she said, is to make students familiar with the process of exploration and the mistakes and missteps that accompany it.

She went to say: “Find that part of you that will take a chance on an idea or an ideal, the part of you that is willing to fail … Our job is to help make this willingness for risk and invention become second nature to you, so that your idea of success includes some failure, so that you allow yourselves to become uncomfortable as you try new things.”

I love this advice for young people. You never know what you will find out about yourself or your world unless you just go for it...explore new territory... dig deep ... take a leap ... the net usually appears and if not, well you learned something. To our next group of leaders and doers. Cheers and hurrah! xo m

Marshmallows on the brain - 

Paris Breakfasts just did a wonderful post on Marshmellows - jump here

These marshmallows look delicious

Next time I go to Aux Delices

I am going to buy a package.

If you want a laugh, then listen to the TED talk 

 about success and marshmallows and instant gratification.

I highly recommend it:

 entertaining and enlightening

The weather has finally turned,

the wind is from the southwest.

Daffodils - a welcome sight after the long, cold winter.

And Susan Boyle's stardom continues to grow

Talk about Spring and Rebirth

Hooray for Susan Boyle

She will be singing on Oprah soon

and talking with Larry King

and she has a fan site: Susan-Boyle.com

Read the lyrics:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high,

and life worth living.

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid

When dreams were made and used,

And wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung,

No wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hopes apart

As they turn your dreams to shame.

And still I dream he'll come to me

And we will live our lives together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms

We cannot weather...

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I'm living

So different now from what it seems

Now life has killed the dream

The dream I dreamed.

Success 

is peace of

mind which is a

direct result of self

satisfaction in knowing 

you made the effort to do the

best of which you are capable.

John Wooden

A STAR IS BORN

YOU MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO

click link here

I tried to embed this video clip but the embedding feature was disabled.

Trust me,

this you-tube clip is worth watching.

Susan Boyle performed on April 11, 2009 

on Britain's Got Talent Show

and 3 days later this you-tube video clip had 3.7 million hits

(and growing rapidly)

I also listened to John Wooden on Swissmiss

click on link above

good stuff