Events and Inventions through the years!

http://media.photobucket.com/image/redwood%20tree/katysue/redwood_tree_rings.jpg?o=32

 I care for elderly people, for those who didn't know.. It often crosses my mind what all they have seen happen or invented, for better or worse, in their life times... My current client will be 100 years old in a couple of months.. A whole century old! In the last 100 years he has seen WWI, WWII, plus numerous others, the great depression and this current one, the end of segregation, and a ton of other events. He has seen the inventions of planes, cars, the bra, T.V., antibiotics, velcro, slinky, microwave, Polaroid camara, credit cards, fusion bombs, instant noodles, and that is only up to the end of the 50's... 

 http://media.photobucket.com/image/top%20ramen/BFlores7210/top-ramen-enhancement-reque.jpg?o=8

It makes me think of the things that have happened or been invented in my lifetime.. Of course, there have been a couple of wars. I was born in the midst of the Womans Lib Movement where woman earned the choice to work. I have seen the AIDS epidemic from start to where it is now with a possible cure, I survived not only the 80's but also the 90's. I have seen the rise of school violence including events such as Columbine and Thurston, leading to an almost ridiculous crack down on any type of infraction where it comes to even the possibility of a weapon or intent in schools.. I have also seen TV programming go from sit coms to reality TV.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/reality%20tv/cristyano/reality_tv.jpg?o=6

Closer to home I can find things that were not invented yet when I was little.. Razors have gone from disposable 1 blade razors to reusable multiple blade razors. Aerosol cans are still around but far far less so. How about Teflon non-stick pans? The reinvention of non stick pans. Computers, they continue to evolve. When I was a teenager the computer monitors were black and green and big... Now you have flat screens, that goes for TV too. Someone extremely computer savvy could talk "on line" when I was a teen ager, but now it is just voila, anyone is able to, and quickly. Remember dial up? It used your only phone line and took forever.. In my life I have seen the rise of cellphones, and laws to go with them. My mom was excited to get a cell phone when I was pretty young.. It was HUGE and there were limited towers thus limited signal... When I was little there were vinyls, then 8-track tapes, then cassette tapes, now we have CD's and Mp3's for our CD players and Ipods.  When I was young all we had were VHS tapes, now we have DVD's, not to mention Netflix and Redbox. I suppose I could say that I have seen the downfall of video stores too... 

http://media.photobucket.com/image/8%20track/keithkauspedas/8-track.jpg?o=14

Anyways, my daughter is nagging at me that I am writing too much, but it amazes me that just in the 34 yrs I have been alive that I have seen so much. I wonder if I live to be 100 what it might be like then? Maybe we will have implants that we can just download our music and movies to!?! I could come up with other weird examples of what might be, but I am getting the stink eye from the daughter... 

What do you all think? I would love to hear ideas from all 3 of you... lol

http://media.photobucket.com/image/invention/LipGlossJnkie/invention.jpg?o=7

Color theory

 [IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f184/skittleslove/color-9.jpg[/IMG]

As you can probably tell from my blog, I like color... This got me thinking.

Did you know that it has been scientifically proven that our taste buds change about every 7 years? So when you go to eat something you used to like and find that you no longer like it (or vice versa) it is probably due to the fact that you hit that 7 year mark somewhere between this time you ate whatever and last time. Of course, your sense of smell also plays a part in how you taste things, but that is not what this blog is actually about.

 [IMG]http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr118/catspjamas_/Color/Itten-Color-Wheel_RGB20copy.jpg[/IMG]

Color theory! It is the belief that a color can influence behavior, mood, and even action. For instance, take the color red. Red is a color of alertness and hunger. All emergency vehicles have red flashing lights and it is supposed to alert us to pull over. When you see the flashing red police car lights in your rear view mirror, you pull over... Well, most of us do anyway, there are those who run. When traffic lights turn red, it is to alert us to stop so that we don't crash into another car who has a green light. The color red (and yellow) is also supposed to illicit a feeling of hunger  or a desire to eat. Take McDonald's; do you think that it is so successful because of its healthy and amazing tasting food? Probably not! 

 [IMG]http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/qq125/jd99_photos/180px-Mcdonalds_golden_arches_sign.jpg[/IMG]

Unless I am traveling, I don't really eat there, but even my favorite fast food restaurant's sign has quite a bit of red in it... Wendy's.

 [IMG]http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj103/T_i_2007/wendys.jpg[/IMG]

Which, by the way, I have currently been on a red kick.. Especially red and white stripes, like the old fashioned candy canes. I think if I was to paint our fence out back, I would paint the boards red and white, alternating colors. I've never been particularly drawn to red, so this is new for me.. It started around Christmas 2009 but I found myself really really drawn to red this Christmas. My client's family put a tree up for him that had a string of green lights along with a string of red lights, with little bottles of Smirnoff vodka for the decorations. HOW CUTE!! Made me wanna go out and reproduce it next year, assuming I am still in a red kick...

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h115/yamirose/cane.jpg[/IMG]

My main question though, is why do we have color preferences? When I was younger, I had about a 2 year purple stint. Everything I wore was purple or had purple in it.. Or some variegated shade of purple.. I even had purple jeans. Purple, purple, purple. I would have been ecstatic had the whole world been made up of shades of purple... While I still like the color purple, it is not my favorite color, by any means. I have gone through many color phases, many of which were black. The black, I wore because I was either depressed, uncomfortable with my weight or a mixture of the two. Maybe black is a "confused" color. I hate to think of it as a depressing color. I mean, there are people who are "goth" that wear lots of black, but aren't necessarily depressed, just confused... or maybe even uncomfortable. I could see black signifying confusion and discomfort. I mean, if the lights go out all of a sudden and it is pitch black, most people feel confused or uncomfortable... Those might recede a bit but until the lights come back on, there is still some of both. Try going to the bathroom in the pitch black dark. If you are like me, and don't often keep the TP on the roller thing, you can find yourself plenty confused and uncomfortable trying to find it in the dark!

But in all seriousness... Is the color theory related to our color preferences? Or, is it something else like our taste buds that change every so often due to some scientific reason. A chemical change in the body? Hormones? It is an interesting thing to ponder, in my opinion. I wonder if there has been any study done on it? I am sure that there are more pressing studies to be done before this one gets hit upon, like actual health and human nature studies... but, who knows, they have done far less impressive studies as well. I guess, we will just have to wait and see... assuming, of course that it hasn't already been done...

Until next time!!!

Having a Path

Life takes us places we don't expect. For instance, my mother had an adult foster care home and while I enjoyed visiting with the people she cared for, I never really thought about doing a similar job. Yet, here I am, doing in home (theirs, not mine) care giving. At the moment, my only client lives an hour away and I work a 48 hr shift. I mention this because 48 hrs out in the middle of virtually nowhere, gives one ample time to do many things, thinking included. I have been thinking a lot lately. My husband has been a philosophical Buddhist for many years. I have waffled back and forth with the idea. While I appreciated the basics that I knew of it, I never really committed to the practice of learning all that can be learned. I suppose it was because of laziness, more than anything or maybe it just wasn't the right time. I am ready now. I need to do this, for many reasons. I need to do it for me, my family, and (as corny as it may sound) for the world. All of those things are interconnected and I fail to see how becoming a better person for everyone can be a bad thing. I am just one fiber in the fabric of life. I know that I will not be able to fix all the tears, holes, and frayed seams. I hope that strengthening my little thread will help others strengthen theirs and it will spread like a ripple started by a pebble.

I used to be a very selfish person. I still have selfish tendencies, but nothing like they used to be. When I was young I would see documentaries on famous people who had died and they would interview all their friends, family, and colleagues. Those people would say beautiful things about the individual who had passed. I wanted that. I wanted to be famous so that when I died, they would make a documentary about me and say beautiful things about me. The problem with that dream was that it was a selfish dream. It was all about me me me. I, no longer need or want to be famous. I DO want to be great. Even if I am not recognized for whatever deeds I do, that make me great. Although, I will admit there are times I struggle with this at work.

I was raised Catholic. Buddhism, in the eyes of those who understand it, is not a religion, per se. Buddha was just a man, like Jesus, who had a higher understanding of things. Just like Jesus, in Christianity, people choose to follow Buddha's teachings. There are definitely differences between Buddhism and Christianity, but they are more alike than a lot of people realize. I have found less inconsistencies in Buddhist writings, than in Christian ones, which is something that has always kind of turned me off of following a Christian belief system. One of the bigger differences of the 2 belief systems, is what life leads to. In Christianity, when one dies, they either go to Heaven or Hell. In Buddhism the goal is Enlightenment, which looked at abstractly could be considered Heaven. However, the path to Enlightenment is not a one life time thing. One is reborn as many times as needed, to continue learning, until they reach enlightenment. On one hand, this seems a mighty long, tedious and nearly impossible task. On the other hand, it seems so very simple and oddly obtainable. I'm, sure I am but a fledgling soul, with lifetime's to go, before I reach enlightenment.

It is ironic, in my opinion, that the person that I think of when I think 'enlightened', wasn't even Buddhist; she was Catholic. Mother Theresa. There is a reason the Catholic Church nominated her to be recognized a Saint. It is a shame that more people, of any religion, or belief system, are not more like her. Like the Dali Lama, she was truely great.

So, my choice to delve into Buddhism to learn, grow, and in an effort to be great, is born. 

[IMG]http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac267/andrew_riley/D90/D90_Sample-2.jpg[/IMG]