Clouds Of Incense...

2009-10-21T16:49:00.000+01:00

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me...

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28.. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

2009-10-13T20:35:00.001+01:00

Yayy! Grandchild Number Five arrived safely about an hour and a half ago! As yet un-named baby girl Smith, weighing in at 6 lbs, born at home 1 week early. Mum and daughter doing well... BIG congratulations to Wendy & Colin!

My lack of posts, Facebook, and more...

2009-07-26T10:21:00.002+01:00

Once again, I really must apologise for not posting any new entries for such a long time... my problem is that I'm just so busy living my life, I don't have much time to write about it!

Anyway, the biggest item of news is that we're now awaiting the arrival of a FIFTH grand-child, courtesy of Number-One-Son Colin and his partner Wendy - due in mid-late October - and if the scans are to be believed it's gonna be another girl...

In the meantime, Colin's firstborn (Lewis) is just getting over a bout of swine-flu... but luckily nobody else in the family seems to have caught it... yet!

Oh, and if you want to keep more up to date with what I'm up to, you can always check out my page on Facebook, which is at http://www.facebook.com/IncenseMan

2009-04-24T10:28:00.000+01:00

Yeayy!! Got a phone call just before 1 o'clock this morning, telling us of the arrival of out FOURTH grand-child! Lennon weighed in at 7lb 13 oz - congratulations Jamie and Jess!!

2009-03-13T10:51:00.002Z

Oh dear... I really have been very remiss... I've just realised that I haven't updated this page for over a year - oops!!

OK, here we go... the Incense Man clan continues to grow - we now have two grand-daughters (Bethany and Courtney), one grand-son (Lewis), another grand-son (probably to be called Lennon) due very soon, and yet another grand-child (as yet un-sexed and un-named) due in the autumn!!
You can see a few photos of the tribe on our Picasa page, http://picasaweb.google.com/incense.man

Other family news - The Elderly Mother has now had to leave her house, and is happily living in a residential care home... so hopefully no more phone calls for us in the middle of the night from neighbours, ambulance crews etc!

On the home front - our prospective move to the West Country has been put on hold, because of the current state of the property market... so I'm concentrating on improvements to our present house - little jobs like replacing our ageing central heating boiler, re-decorating, replacing various carpets, re-turfing the front garden, building a new garden shed (and re-roofing the old one), and generally getting rid of all the garden rubbish that's accumulated over the years. (There's a skip sitting on the end of the drive at the moment, almost full of god-only-knows-what!)

Ah well, that's QUITE enough for now... and I promise I'll try to post updates more regularly from now on!

Did the earth move for you??

2008-02-27T10:21:00.003Z

Wow! We had an earthquake!! And just in case you haven't heard or seen any news about it, you can read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

The wife and I had only been in bed for about 15-20 minutes last night, and were just dropping off, when we were rudely awakened just before 1 am by a strange noise... it sounded like a huge gust of wind, followed immediately by what sounded like something sliding down the roof of the house.

(My immediate reaction was that a roosting pigeon must have been been blown off its perch, and slid down the tiles.)

Anyway, I jokingly said to Chris "Don't worry, it was probably just another earthquake." (We'd had reports of a very minor local earth tremor a week or so ago...) So I was VERY surprised when I turned on the radio this morning and heard on the news that it actually WAS an earthquake!

And before you ask - I've checked the roof, and there's no sign of any damage caused by falling pigeons.

Catching up with life!

2008-01-10T13:15:00.000Z

SIGH... now I know I'm getting old! I've just realised that I haven't updated this page since last August - and that's not because there's been nothing happening to report, quite the opposite... I've been so busy dealing with all the s**t that's been hitting the fan, I haven't had any time to write about it!

So - what's been going on over the last 4-and-a-bit months? Well, I've had another birthday (although I've now had so many I try to forget them!), another wedding anniversary (very scary - it's 30 years now... equivalent to 2 life sentences - you get less for murder...), Number One Son has announced he's going to be a Daddy (so that'll be our third grandchild), Number Two Son has been on crutches, and in and out of hospital with a damaged anterior cruciate ligament (because he was the victim of a vicious tackle during a game of football), and Number Three Son has moved (again), this time to Lancashire.

Plus we've had continuing fun & games with "The Elderly Mother" - various falls, hospital visits etc... and add all the hassle of Christmas (personal and business)... so you can possibly understand why I've hardly had time to draw breath!

Still - it's a New Year and a new start, so maybe things will be a little easier in 2008... and I hope they are for you too!

Made up words...

2007-08-22T17:01:00.000+01:00

What is it with advertisers making up ridiculously over-complicated, unneccesary and nonsensical words at the moment? Haven't we already got enough perfectly good words in the English language, for goodness sake?

The two that REALLY irritate me every time I see them on the TV are:

"Scrappage" - in (I think) a Ford car commercial... what the heck is that supposed to mean? And:

"Terrorisation" - in a commercial for some god-awful film, which according to the blurb "contains sustained terrorisation"... aaaarggghhhh!!!!!

It sounds suspiciously to me as if that ill-educated buffoon George Dubya is being employed on the side as an advertising copy-writer... God help us all!

Rihanna - Umbrella

2007-07-26T10:24:00.000+01:00

Dear Rihanna

I'm sure you're really a very nice person... but that Umbrella song REALLY gets on my nerves.

It's a very uncharitable thing to say... but may I suggest you stick your Umbrella-ella-ella up your bottom-ottom-ottom.

Thank you!

Fave flicks confirm sad sense of humour...

2007-07-10T13:07:00.000+01:00

I spent a happy couple of hours last night watching two of my all-time favourite films that happened to be on the TV, one after the other...

"Spinal Tap" rapidly followed by "Porky's".

Oh dear... what an unfortunate insight into my mind!

HUGE thanks to all at Stoke Mandeville!

2007-07-06T11:22:00.000+01:00

Hurrah! After almost 4 weeks in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, The Elderly Mother is now back at home, complete with fully-functioning new titanium hip joint. (As a result of which I think she may now have to be referred to as Robocop... I wonder if she'll understand if I start calling her "Murphy"? Probably not!)
So, a massive thank you to all the staff at Stoke Mandeville for looking after her so well - we really couldn't have asked for more.
(She even had a visit from Princess Anne while she was in there - now that's what I call service - although to be fair PA was there to officially open the new wing of the hospital, not just to visit Robocop... heh heh heh...)

Elderly Mother etc...

2007-06-22T14:52:00.000+01:00

Well, here we are, it's the day after the Summer Solstice (and no, I'm not at Glastonbury this year) and its almost a month since my last post! Sorry, there's been rather a lot happening...
Most of the hassle we've had has been with "The Elderly Mother", who's been having health problems for a little while now - and she's managed to fall over (and not be able to get up again) several times in the last few months.
Well, that last time she did it she broke her hip... so she's been in Stoke Mandeville Hospital for almost a fortnight now, where they had to operate to replace her hip-joint. However, the good news is that she's getting along very well - in fact she should be having her stitches removed today - and she might be going home next week sometime.
(As you can probably imagine, we've been visiting her almost every day, so we haven't had a lot of time to do anything else!)
Our worry now is that she won't be able to cope any longer, living on her own as she does... so we're trying to persuade her to move into sheltered accommodation, where there's always someone on call in the event of any further mishaps... easier said than done!
Anyway, I'm probably going to be taking Granddaughter-Number-One (Bethany) over to visit here a little later this afternoon... which should be fun!

Another Bank Holiday weekend...

2007-05-25T15:05:00.001+01:00

I can tell it's a Bank Holiday weekend - the weather's looking decidedly dodgy! Ah well...

Now I really should be taking advantage of the break from work by starting on a bit of DIY around the house - there are loads of little (and not so little) jobs that need to be done, as we're planning on putting the house on the market sometime fairly soon, with a view to moving down to the West Country - somewhere along the North Devon / Somerset coast would be nice, but we'll just have to see what we can afford when the time comes!

However, it doesn't look as if I'll have time for any of that this weekend... we've arranged to visit Chris's Mum in Wiltshire on Sunday, and my Mum in Bucks (as it's her birthday this weekend) on Monday... so that only leaves Saturday, and by the time we've done our shopping and any gardening that needs urgent attention, there just aren't enough hours left in the day!

Still, I suppose there's always NEXT weekend... ;o)

Number-Three-Son's Wedding

2007-05-13T18:46:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a little while since I've had time for any new postings... mainly because we've been busy with the final preparations for our youngest son's wedding - which has now finally happened!! So congratulations to Jamie and Jessica... and let's see how you get along as Mr & Mrs Smith (it can be a real pain booking a hotel, take it from me!).

Anyway, the wedding was on Friday... you can see a few of the photos here... so we got home from the reception at about 10.30 that evening, slowly resurfaced on Saturday morning, then had a leisurely pub lunch with some friends who'd also been at the wedding.

Back to normality today - the weekly grocery shop at Asda this morning... then tie-dyeing a batch of T-shirts this afternoon!!

The ear-worm of wisdom...

2007-04-17T10:06:00.000+01:00

Hmmm... I've now got an extremely annoying ear-worm (you know, one of those little snatches of music that you just can't get out of your head) bugging me...

I heard the new single "Real Girl" by Mutya (ex Sugababes) on the radio this morning, and was playing "spot the sample" - the curse of the ex-local radio presenter - in this case the song's producer has borrowed the string section from the Lenny Kravitz hit, "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over."

BUT (and it's a big but) the question is this... did Lenny Kravitz also lift that bit of tune from somewhere else? It sounds frighteningly similar to The Nolan Sisters, "I'm In The Mood For Dancing."! (AAAARGGGHHH!!!! MAKE THEM STOP!!)

[And your musicalogical thought for today: Discuss the topic "Is sampling a sign of this generation's musical and moral bankruptcy, or just the producer having a laugh?"]

Well, that's Easter...

2007-04-10T13:52:00.000+01:00

I hope you had a good Easter break... I actually managed a little time to myself, amidst all those "little jobs" that needed doing!
The lawns are now cut, and a couple of hedges... the car even got a wash! No decorating got done though unfortunately... still, there's plenty of time left for that.
Now I've just got to catch up with everything at work!!

Happy Easter!

2007-04-06T08:20:00.000+01:00

Hooray! It's Easter! That means I get a 4 day break from work... but now I have to do all those little jobs around the house and garden that I've been putting off since last year. Mow the lawns, redecorate the hall, cloakroom, kitchen and bathroom... holiday? What holiday?
We've got a few other little jobs to fit in too - looking after grand-daughter number two (Courtney) today while her parents go and view houses to rent in Northampton, then later today we need to do our grocery shopping, and this afternoon my mother's coming to stay for a few days... tomorrow is Chris's birthday, so we're off out to dinner with some friends... and on Sunday we're driving down to Wiltshire to visit Chris's mother, and coming back on Monday...
Hmmm... doesn't look like I'll have much time for all those jobs! Ah well - Happy Easter!!

Everything always happens at once...

2007-03-29T10:09:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a remarkably busy few days since I last had a chance to update these messages... at the weekend, it was Courtney's (our Number Two grand-daughter) first birthday - so we had a house full of family on Sunday for her party.
Then Monday and Tuesday were hectic with work - packing and despatching our Incense Man orders from the weekend, and receiving deliveries of new stock - and on Wednesday we had a sudden urgent call to go and help my elderly Mother, who'd managed to fall out of bed, twice in the space of about 6 hours!
She couldn't get up off the floor, but she managed to crawl to the phone to summon help - luckily she only lives about 15 miles away, so we could get there in 30 minutes or so...

Instant karma's gonna get you...

2007-03-23T09:44:00.000Z

Grrrrrrr!... I'm sorry to say that there's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Incense Man office this morning - and it's all down to a certain Japanese printer manufacturer, who for the sake of my karma will remain nameless!
OK, the problem I've had isn't really that big a deal... but very irritating - I MUST calm down, or I'm sure that bad karma will come right back and bite me on the butt!
(The problem arose when I installed a new ink cartridge in the printer... which then kept insisting there was NO cartridge installed. After re-installing it about six times, it STILL wouldn't play ball - so I had to use ANOTHER new cartridge - which worked fine, first time. What REALLY gets me is the fact that the cartridges are £10+ a pop... so I hope I can get a refund for the dodgy one!)
OK... think calm thoughts... and chant a mantra... hmmm - should I go for the Simpsons-inspired "trout" mantra, "Homer loves Mindy, Homer loves Mindy...", or the more traditional "lotus" mantra, "Om mane padme hum, Om mane padme hum..."?
Heh heh heh...

Busy, busy, busy...

2007-03-20T20:42:00.000Z

Wow! Where does the time go? Well, I know where it goes really... it gets worked to death! I've been spending so much time just getting on with running my business (the Incense Man website) that I've had no time to add to this page... until now.
The main problem I've had has been with Royal Mail - trying to start franking all my outgoing mail, and then getting them to come and collect it... it's taken 11 days for them to arrange, with me chasing them every 2 - 3 days... sorry guys, that's not terribly efficient!
On top of that, I'm continuing "de-cluttering" my house, in preparation for putting it on the market in late Spring - not only is it easier to sell a more "minimal" house, it also means you've got less stuff to be packed and taken away when you actually get round to moving... and anyway, it's a good excuse for a clear-out of 20 years worth of accumulated odds and sods...

Oily Sunday

2007-03-11T14:33:00.000Z

A VERY oily Sunday... I've just spent a couple of hours trying to sort out an oil leak on my car - and now I KNOW I'm getting too old for all that laying on the drive nonsense - I could barely get up once I'd finished! Still, hopefully the problem is now fixed...
Next job for this afternoon: Decluttering my bedroom cupboard - I'm gradually working my way through the house, getting rid of 20+ years worth of accumulated stuff that I really don't need any more...

The junk of life.

2007-03-08T12:17:00.000Z

Isn't it amazing how much "stuff" you accumulate over the years? And of course most of it eventually ends up in the back of a cupboard somewhere, or stuck in the garage gathering dust and cobwebs... and you don't realise how much you've got until you're thinking about moving house.
Well, I'm in just that situation, and desperately trying to get rid of a lot of my clutter - aka the junk of life - so I've been posting loads of items on my local Freecycle website (with varying degrees of success), and I've just taken boxes and boxes of stuff to my local Cancer Research charity shop. (There's a bit of self-interest there... as a smoker, there's always a possibility that I might need their services at some time in the future!)
I suppose that now the weather's improving, I should think about having a stall at a car-boot sale too...

2007-03-07T21:59:00.000Z

Well... at last I've been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century... I've actually decided it's time to write a blog! I'll try to keep my posts fairly lucid... but I'm sure you'll let me have the odd rant from time to time - after all, I'm old enough now (fifty-something) to qualify as a grumpy old man...