Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Saw this on Facebook this morning and couldn't resist sharing it. Cheers!

Oscar Pool: Only 4 more days to get your picks in!

Only 4 more days to enter my Oscar Pool and have the chance to win a $50 gift card to Amazon.

You can find all the details here.

Oscar Pool

My friend Alisen updated her Facebook status in the middle of the Super Bowl last Sunday with the following, "...awaiting my super bowl @ the end of the month....the oscars baby! This football stuff is for the birds." You said it girl! If it weren't for the ads, the Super Bowl would be of very little interest to me. But I LOVE the Oscars. I love the red carpet, the dresses, the jewelry, the speeches, the tears, the gold statues, all of it.

If you are as Oscar obsessed like me you are probably already making your picks so why not test you predicting skills against others and enter my Oscar Poll.  Fellow blogger Defective Yeti puts together this script every year and shares it with the blogosphere, isn't that nice of him. Click this link, fill in your answers and click the "Send Picks" button.

IMPORTANT: If I don't know you (meaning that we aren't connected through another site e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Blogger or we aren't friends in real life) please send me an email at jewellsinsea@gmail.com and let me know that you entered the pool and what name you used. This is very important to prevent an incomplete contest like 4 years ago. To this day I still have no idea who Ron R. is.

The person with most correct answers will win a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.  The winner will be announced on Monday, February 28th right here on my blog.

Good luck! And don't forget to tune in for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, February 27, 2011 on ABC at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Quizzical Wednesday: What part of Christmas?

You Are Hanging Christmas Lights

You are a hardworking and happy person during the holidays. It's important to you to make Christmas as big and bold as possible for your family. The holidays may not seem like much of a vacation for you, but that's totally fine. As long as you can bring some cheer to those around you, all the work is worth it.

What Part of Christmas Are You?

Blogthings: Cheaper Than a Therapist

Quizzical Wednesday: Cake or Pie?

You Are Pie

You are sweet, but there's more to the story than that. You're quite complicated.
Sometimes people don't appreciate you as much as they should. You are really quite special.

You are deep, thoughtful, and get better with time. You are subtle but powerful.
You are very traditional, and that's a good thing. You remind people of simpler and happier times.

Take the quiz: Are you Cake or Pie?

Quizzical Wednesday: What Office Should You Be Elected To?

You Should Be Elected Mayor

You're the type of person who will never forget where you came from. Roots are important to you. When it comes to what's important, friends and family always come first. You believe charity starts at home. You tend to know what's going on with everyone in your neighborhood. You aren't a gossip, but you are involved. You are proud of where you come from, and you're dedicated to making your hometown a better place.

What Office Should You Be Elected To?

Blogthings: Take a Quiz. Annoy Your Friends.

Quizzical Wednesday: Black or Orange

You Are Orange

You are quirky, hyper, and very enthusiastic. You are a total optimist, and you're always finding something new to be happy about. You love to be around other people. You're a very social person, and more than anything else, you are a truly playful creature. You're always off to another adventure, and you love it when others join you in your fun. The more the merrier! You're too busy following your dreams to let yourself get down. There's so much to celebrate in life. You like to focus on what makes you happy.

Are You Black or Orange?

Blogthings: A Fine Line Between Insight and Stupidity

Quizzical Wednesday: Pudding

You Are Chocolate Pudding

You are both mature and playful. You have two sides to your personality that are constantly dueling it out. Part of you likes all of the finer things in life while part of you is just like a big kid.

No matter what side you choose, you are always adventurous and dramatic. You take life by the horns. You are up for fun of all kinds, and it's hard for you to say no. You tend to go until you drop.

Take the quiz: What Flavor Pudding Are You?

Quizzical Wednesday: Life Stages

You Are In Stage VII

You may not be a full fledged adult, but you are in the same development stage as those in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.  You've reached the point in your life where you worry about stagnation. It's hard to keep growing and improving.

It's likely that you're going through some sort of "midlife crisis" right now where you're examining your life carefully.  If you are able to figure out what you want from your life, the years to come will be much more enjoyable.

Take the quiz: What Stage of Development Are You In?

Quizzical Wednesday: Bucket List

You Should Write a Book

You may not feel like you could write a book, but you actually have a lot to say. Just let it flow!
You already live in your own little world. You may as well introduce everyone else to it.

It's likely that you feel like you have a lot of baggage you'd like to unload, and writing can be cathartic.
By writing a book, you would feel a huge sense of accomplishment. And you'd have a legacy to leave behind.

Take the quiz: What Should Be On Your Bucket List?

Quizzical Wednesday: Fall Fruits and Veggies

You Are Pomegranates

You are exotic, well traveled, and well learned. You are also something of a foodie. You know how to whip up an amazing meal, and you never shy away from incorporating some seasonal ingredients. You believe in eating healthy foods, but you don't go too overboard with it. You know that you have a leg up by doing a lot of your own cooking. So there is room in your diet for plenty of fall indulgences... you just balance them out with fresh fruits and vegetables.

What Fall Fruit or Vegetable Are You Most Like?

The First Rule of Blogthings Is: You Don't Talk About Blogthings

Quizzical Wednesday - Fall Leaves

You Are Assertive and Adventurous

You approach life boldly. You believe the world is your oyster, and you're very self-assured. You are apt to take risks, but you don't see them as risks... because they usually pay off. You are a helpful and heroic person. You like to take charge of situations and make them better. People should avoid getting in a contest of wills with you. You'll always win - and it's not pretty.

The Autumn Leaf Test

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

Quizzical Wednesday: Indoor or Outdoor Person

You Are an Outdoor Person

You love spending time outside, and it's likely you've crafted your lifestyle to maximum outdoor activities.
You probably live in an excellent climate (or intend to). And you are also probably physically fit.

Of all the types, you are the most likely to be the happiest. Being outdoors really raises people's spirits.
So go ahead and spend as much time outside as you'd like. Just remember to protect yourself from the sun!

Take the quiz: Are you an Indoor or Outdoor Person?

No Left Turns

My absolutely delightful, lovely and wonderful mother sends me an approximately 3 email forwards per day. I read them all. I very, very, very rarely forward something along unless I know a specific person/audience would find it especially compelling.  I NEVER forward chain type email even if it means that I will have bad luck for the rest of my life, lose my hair and have no friends. I no longer find is annoying to receive the emails because I know that my mother is at work and thinking of me enough to add me to the list and that makes me happy.

With that being said you have to know that the following is really special if I'm sharing it on my blog.  I loved the story below.  It was sweet and I loved the sentiment, but I really loved the rule about "no left turns" as that has been one of my Mother's rules for over 20 years.

In 1988 or 1989, neither of us can remember exactly, Mom was on her way home from work in downtown Salt Lake City to our home in Holladay.  She took the same route that she had taken for years but unbeknowns to her a change had been made to the timing of one of the stoplights on her way.  She made her left turn at the time when she thought the light had changed and was hit by oncoming traffic.  Thankfully the only things injured were her pride and the car.

A few months I was in the passengers seat of her car while running errands and she made a right turn from a business that we visited frequently.  She had always turned left when leaving before, our home was left, I was confused so I asked her what she was doing.  She calmly declared that she had given up left turns.  To this day she will play her errands so that she can avoid making left turns and not end up too far out the way.  

Now onto the story....

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and former president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.

He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull----! she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that.

But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?"

"I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."

"What?" I said again.

"No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

"Loses count?" I asked.

"Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."  My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer."

"You're probably right," I said.

"Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.

"Because you're 102 years old," I said..

"Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet"

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns."

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it and if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it."

Quizzical Wednesday - Color my Birthday

Your Birthday is Teal

You are the likable type. You find it easy to be popular. You're very charming and attractive. You may come off as superficial to some, but you can't help but be a little vain. You look good and you know it! You are a perfectionist, and you hold yourself to high standards. You tend to beat yourself up for mistakes. Even though you don't fail often, you are afraid of failure. Success is key to your self esteem.

What Color Is Your Birthday?

Blogthings: Waste Time at Work!

Quizzical Wednesday - Adventure!

You Crave a Cultural Adventure

Life has gotten a bit routine for you lately, and you'd like to broaden your perspective. You want to learn and grow from your adventure. You want to know the place you visit as well as your home town. You are an open minded and curious traveler. You're all about immersing yourself in local customs, no matter how foreign they are. Whenever you're in a new place, you try to speak the language, eat the food, and meet the locals. After all, that's what traveling is all about!

What Kind of Adventure Do You Crave?

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

Quizzical Wednesday - Needs

You Need Expression

You're the type of person who has a lot to express, and you need many outlets. You love to create - whether you're writing a novel or just putting together an amazing outfit. You are a deep thinker. You understand the world well, and you are in touch with your emotions. And you don't like to keep your insights to yourself. You love sharing what you know with the world, even if it's in a very abstract way.

What Do You Need Most?

Quizzical Wednesday: Marilyn or Audrey?

You Are More Like Audrey Hepburn

You are classy, stylish, and charming. You are the true definition of grace. Some people may think you're a pushover, but they have no idea how tough you can be. You tend to draw people in with your mind. You are an intelligent and witty flirt. You are effortlessly gorgeous and naturally appealing. No one would accuse you of trying too hard.

Are You More Marilyn or Audrey?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

Quizzical Wednesday: Madonna Song

You Are Ray of Light

You are optimistic and hopeful. You can't help but see the light in every situation. You are able to see things from a more spiritual viewpoint. You have the gift of perspective. You respect the cycle of life. You know that you will experience both joy and pain. You try to realize that you are just a small part of something infinite.

What Madonna Song Are You?

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

Quizzical Wednesday: Pen or Pencil?

You Are a Pen

You are a very precise and detail oriented person. You don't make many mistakes. You're the type who can risk writing in pen. You like making things permanent. You are decisive and focused. You know what you want, and you go after it. You like to be in control, and you don't really care for change. You like to count on yourself.

Are You a Pen or a Pencil?

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything