A teacher I greatly
respected wrote this poem in my friendship book when I was eight.
Her name was Miss Sayer and she was beautiful, like an angel with dark curly hair and kind green eyes.
I have never forgotten her words.
You tell on yourself by the way you walk
By the things on which you delight to talk
By the manner in which you bear defeat
By so simple a thing as how you eat.
A family who eats together, stays together... can't see any elbows on tables here, just great, perfectly mannered dinner companions.
Twenty rules that I grew up with during meal times.
1. Always say grace before eating.
2. No elbows on the table.
3. No chewing with your mouth open.
4. No putting your fingers on the blade
5. No bolting down food.
6. No reaching across the table.
7. Keep your elbows tucked in when eating
8. No scraping knives on the plates.
9. No turning over your fork to pick up peas.
10. Finish all of your vegetables before dessert.
11. No calling dessert pudding.
12. Always ask for things to be passed and always say please and thank you.
13.
Always show appreciation to your mother for cooking a lovely meal.
14. No leaving the table until asking permission, using the words, please may I be excused.
15. Always do the dishes, never leave any in the sink
16. Always eat dinner at the table except on fathers Rotary night when fish and chips on your knees infront of the television is ok
17. Don't slip pieces of meat to your cat who is sitting beside you under the table.
18. Don't talk with your mouth full
19.Don't slurp soup
20. Speak when spoken to and don't interrupt adults conversations.
Honesty seeds
To my mind the things upon which you delight to talk (and by inference write) are way more important than having perfect table manners, although I suppose they are important if you are at a formal function.
I do appreciate people however who have well behaved and polite children, they are so much easier to teach.
You never know who will be reading your posts...cyber space is just one huge field of possibility...so be careful what you write.
My mission statement is to keep it positive, keep it simple, keep it uplifting, keep it free from cynicism and keep it creative.
And don't nag about things that don't matter like how many peas are piled up on your fork.
"Happy wife, happy life" is another saying I stumbled across the other day and I believe it to be the truth in our house.
My husband has certainly found it to be so.
Holidays are sacrosanct, leaving Rotorua to have fun times and smell the roses instead of the sulphur helps with creativity.
Holidays are great for combatting stress.
Who has time to be stressed when you can breathe in fresh salty air?
Ohiwa Harbour Holiday; I recommend the camping ground.
So much fun and it's so quiet in the off season and it's reasonably priced.
Creativity Quote of the Day
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Mother Teresa
As long as you as an individual... can convince
yourself that in order to move forward as best you can you have to be
optimistic, you can be described as 'one of the faithful,' one of those
people who can say, 'Well, look, something's going to happen! Let's just
keep trying. Let's not give up.
Tom Hanks
