Quirky Quote Contest

The contest is over, and the voting is on! Click here to view all the quotes and vote for your favorite ones, if you so wish. Two votes/day till April 6th.

You can find my quotes on nr. 37 and nr. 38

And here are my favorite wise, silly, quirky ones:

beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.
~miss piggy

share your M&Ms. there are bags and bags of them all over the place. if you give them one of yours, even the green ones, you will not be lacking. honest injun. now apply this to time, concern, touch, interest, and being vulnerable.
~ hugh elliott

From Life on the rocks

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.
--Helen Keller
From Backyard Bookworms.

Courage is endurance for one moment more…" ~Unknown Marine Second Lieutenant in Vietnam
From Devildog family.

I am not going to reproduce this one here, but it is funny. It's from Escapades unlimited.

This is such a peaceful quote. It is from I was born 2cree8:
"A person's worth is contingent upon who he is, not upon what he does, or how much he has. The worth of a person, or a thing, or an idea, is in being, not in doing, not in having."
-- Alice Mary Hilton

This is quite true:
The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
- Oprah Winfrey

And finally, this one from Halfmoon Happenings:
"I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic. "

Stephen Covey

Quirky Quote Contest

As one can participate to the contest with two entries, I am now posting my second one. To view my first quote, please click here.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else".

Judy Garland

Quirky Quote Contest

Julie of So Much to Say, So Little Time, is hosting a Quirky Quote Contest. Click here to find out more, and here are the rules:

The rules are:

1. Post your favorite quote to your blog by midnight on Saturday March 31st, in an entry entitled "Quirky Quote Qontest Entry" and link to it using "Mr. Linky" below.
   Your quote may be from anywhere - a song, movie, book, famous speech. The quote can be political, religious, politically incorrect, and otherwise controversial - but please keep it family friendly. (Hey - my kids and friends kids occasionally read this blog! They are usually bored to tears - but sometimes they read and even comment!) The quotes do not have to be quirky as the contest name suggests.
   
2. PLEASE READ OTHER ENTRIES PRIOR TO SUBMISSION - the second submission of same quote will not be eligible.
   
3. I will host a voting time from April 1^st – 6^th – so come back and vote for your favorite quotes.
4. Post on your blog and put up a button if you like about the “qontest” and tell others to come and enter – if they comment here (on this post) and mention that you sent them I will add another point to your entry and tally it as another vote.
   
5. You may enter this contest twice - every other contest says only once, but why be like the rest! So a two quote limit for you - but please post them as separate entries for my sake!
   
6. Contest winner will be announced on Saturday, April 7^th

My favorite quote:

"I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God".

Queen Elizabeth,
Christmas speech, 2002.

*For my second favorite quote, please click here*

TV and Movies

There are days, and there are days...
There are days when all I want is to see something light, to help me kick off my shoes, not having to worry much, free to sip my lemonade and never mind if I lose a phrase or two.
And there are days when I want to follow a serious discussion to get my brain working.

What I do not like is reality TV. Too depressing for me. I strongly believe it is a degenerate kind.

I like watching some political debates when participants are eloquent and their speech is structured, proof that their mind works and they have sorted themselves out.

In comedy I like quick, sharp dialogue. I appreciate the British sense of humor. Mr Bean for example, or Yes, Prime Minister are among my favorites.

I quite like Oprah as a person, but as for the show, it depends. More often than not I'd rather read O than watch the show. Too scratch the surface thing, but quite OK late at night!

Another kind of TV show that I like is interviews and book presentations. The French do that extraordinary well, and I am grateful to TV5 for that! They also do some heated debates and they are great at it, too.

I like going to the movies now more than I used to as a teenager. I've recently seen The Queen with the amazing Helen Mirren and I'd love to see Marie Antoinette.
300 is in a class of its own. I think it is a rare film, not to be missed.

Celebrating Carnival

It is this time of the year again, when our spirits are set loose, giving us the freedom to dream, to express ourselves and to help us find out who we really are and what we really want to be. There is no other time like the Carnival. And there is no psychologist or self-help guru who will deny the importance of pretending, of make believe, of acting, for the release of the psyche.

As a child I was split between the urge to join in the celebrations and the restrictions imposed by my traditionalist religious family. I was petrified by the thought of joining in, and I have yet to truly reconcile myself with Carnival, its meaning and practice, although I have learned to allow the kids the joy of dressing up and having fun.
To this day or even more in our days, zealots deny the Carnival as a remnant of ancient pagan religious practices. If we look into Linguistics, Carnival is derived from the Latin and to Christians it indicates the beginning of the meat-free period before Easter (Lent), an opportunity to purify our bodies and souls in order to accept the joyful message of the Resurrection.

As a religious festival, Carnival goes even deeper in time, to the Dionysia, a Greek festival in honor of Dionysus, son of Zeus, god of release of the soul through dance, enacting, and wine.


Despite the restrictions imposed, the festivity survived, masquerading itself, as most of the ancient lore, and reached us some thousand years after the legal institution of Christianity as state religion in the Eastern Roman Empire.

In many Greek villages traditions are strong to this day. No wonder, since the word pagan indicates country folk who clang onto their traditions and refused to change them. They dance to the sound of divine pipe music and they move around making the bells produce wonderful mountainous sounds.

The "old woman", the Crone, is one of the most important figures of a traditional village Carnival, and a favorite among boys.

In times of trial and hardship, Carnivals came handy. During the 400 year Turkish occupation, the Greeks would dress up and communicate with each other, organising insurrections and safeguarding their identity. It is at the time that Carnival really got its Christian tint, as a means of distinguishing the Christian-Greek from the Muslim-Turk.

The Carnival has inspired important painters, such as Nicholaos Gyzis (1842-1901) who painted this "Carnival in Athens". Look at the naughty boy to the right, frightening the young woman in the white head scarf.

In the cities children dress up in modern costumes of current heroes. Spidermen and Zoros are a common sight these days. Girls dress up as princesses and fairies.

D is getting dressed this year as Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean.

So, come on, join the fun. Whether you will be keeping the Lent, fasting or not, do something to allow yourself to taste what is beyond the everyday and the ordinary.
Dress up, be naughty, sing and dance and be child like.

This is Carnival!

Love Unconquered

"Love, unconquered in the fight, Love, who makest havoc of wealth,who keepest thy vigil on the soft cheek of a maiden; thou roamestover the sea, and among the homes of dwellers in the wilds; no immortalcan escape thee, nor any among men whose life is for a day; and heto whom thou hast come is mad.".
(Sophocles, Antigone, 442 B.C.E.)


I have a small daughter who is beautifullike a gold flower.
I would not trademy darling Kleis for all Lydia or even for lovely Lesvos.


Immortal Aphrodite, beautiful-throned,
wiles-weaving child of Zeus, I beg you, Queen,
do not torment my heart with sorrow and pain
but come and help me again as you did before
when having heard my pleadings from far away
you left your father's golden palace
and yoked to your shining chariot swift, lovely sparrows
that brought you over the dark earth,
moving their thick-feathered wings
through the sky's bright ether.
Quickly they arrived; and then you, Goddess,
with a smile on your unaging face you asked me
what is wrong with me this time
and why I am calling you again
and what my wild heart wishes again.
"Again whom must I persuade into the harness of your love?
Who isn't treating you well, Sappho?
For if now runs away from you, soon will pursue you,
if not accepting gifts from you, soon will offer,
if not in love with you,
soon will love even if you no more care".
Come to me now again, release me from this pain.
Everything my spirit longs to have fulfilled, fulfill,
and you be my ally.

Heureux! qui près de toi, pour toi seule soupire,
Qui jouit du plaisir de t'entendre parler,
Qui te voit quelquefois doucement lui sourire.
Les Dieux dans son bonheur peuvent-ils l'égaler ?

Je sens de veine en veine une subtile flamme
Courir par tout mon corps, sitôt que je te vois :
Et dans les doux transports où s'égare mon âme.
Je ne saurais trouver de langue ni de voix.

Un nuage confus se répand sur ma vue.
Je n'entends plus: je tombe en de douces langueurs;
Et pâle, sans haleine, interdite, éperdue,
Un frisson me saisit, je tremble, je me meurs.

(Sapho 7th c.B.C.E.)

America, America

I watched this lovely documentary that had me in tears.

After three years of research and study, director Maria Iliou, in collaboration with historian Alexander Kitroeff, currently present at The Benaki Museum in Athens a photographic exhibition plus a documentary looking at the history of Greek emigration to America, based on newly discovered visual material gathered from archives throughout America.

The photography exhibition (100 photographs from American archives and 1 from the Benaki Museum) and the documentary, which includes previously unseen film clips and photographs, provide the public with "time regained" concerning the visual history of Greek presence in America.


It was a deep, honest and beautiful look on the subject. There were interviews by some famous Greek-Americans, like the writer Geroge Pelecanos and Senator Sarbanes, Artemis Leontis of the University of Michigan, author of: Greece: A Traveler's Literary Companionwho spoke about her mother's quest to be accepted as a female student, Elias Kulukundis of the shipping family, author of The Feasts of Memory: Stories of a Greek Family, but most of all photos and narrative about the human experience.



What moved me most was the insight into the daily lives of those people who were leaving behind their homes and families in search of a better life, people who were not forced expats, bandits or fortune chasers, but in a way the elite of their breed. They may have been poor in the strictest sense, but they were dreamers and seekers. Perhaps that is why they reached the top in less than a century.

All those stories remind me of the oh so many stories I've heard over the years from my own family. So many hopes and so much hard work for all that we find today so easy and take for granted. If you haven't come across it, you may want to see the 2004 film adapted from the book by Ioanna Karistani: Brides (Nyfes) by Pantelis Boulgaris, the story of a mail order bride, one of 700, aboard the SS King Alexander, who falls in love with an American photographer. Here is one my favorite lines: The photographer, Norman Harris (Damian Lewis) asks Niki, one of the brides "Where are you from?" and she replies "I am from a place I will never see again".

Some other interesting films are the masterpiece of Elia Kazan America America (B&W), the story of this great master's family Odyssey to its promised land.
And the funny to the extreme My Big Fat Greek Wedding of 2002, by Nia Vardalos that will have you laughing to tears.

For this week's Blogging Chicks Carnival on Sunday I am posting one of my family's immigration stories on my writing blog Kazantzaki Street. I always think with a certain tenderness of all those people who made possible everything we are today.

What I've learned from blogging

It all started with a link at a raw food forum. She was a future mummy who had began her raw journey at about the same time I did, but she was far more funny and eloquent about it! She also was a future mummy looking somewhat familiar. She had expressive brown eyes, and a rather shy if not quirky smile. I took to liking her and reading her every entry. I soon found out that Esther was a Greek expat, living in the U.K. Wow!
Things in common began taking shape. She had a web site, selling her exquisite, all natural home made soap! My grandfather and I used to make soap together. What do you make of that? And she had a blog! Oh my!
I had read about blogs, but did not know any real people who actually blogged. Writers and motivational speakers, coaches and miracle workers who want to teach you how to sell, if only you buy what they sell while selling themselves, and so on and so forth. But what would a real person would write about? Off I was to her blog. And there I was hooked. Esther's writing was so compelling. I did not know how to write like her, but I was tempted.

At about the same time I had met over the phone a wonderful, soft spoken lady, called Erica Miner. She encouraged me to keep a personal diary and suggested I blog as a means to psychological and emotional healing.

This is how it all began.

What I have learned from blogging is Community by Choice. The feeling that you can actually let go and be as serious or less serious as you want, and as childish, trivial or superficial, and nobody will mind. Write about this and that and share your thinking with people who have similar interests, experiences and anxieties and may understand.
Sometimes it's scary, because I don't know what to write about, that may be remotely interesting to anybody else. I often think what I write is not of interest to anyone else but me, so I may as well keep it private.

Then I think of all the interesting people I have met during these months. Ladies of faith, commited to interpret their lives by their beliefs. Ladies of the world, experiencing places with new eyes. Mothers who are busy and tired, resourceful and grateful. Moving people, funny people, sisters in arms in the journey of Life on planet Earth.
And I am grateful for all of you, and for blogging, and for this day, and, thank you all.

Spoilt for Choice

Have a moment to spare (OK, so to speak), do not know what to write about, and feel like something lighthearted would do, like an entry to a locket diary, for example.Here are some ideas from Crazy Hip Blog Mamas' Carnival. If you feel more adventurous you may submit if you wish by the dates given.

Jan 24th: "Who's your favorite role model and why?".
Jan 31st: "What parts yourself do you hope that your child gets from you?".
Feb 7th: "Famous moms you want to meet".
Feb 14th: "Nifty Valentine ideas to make with kids".
Feb 21th: "The best Valentine's Day I ever had was..."
Feb 28st: "Funniest parenting moment".
Mar 7th: "What was your favorite t.v. show when you were a kid?"

If on the other hand you feel like meditating on the meaning of life, or feel like sharing your blessings or praying within a community, Sallie and fellow Christian ladies host The Carnival of Beauty. Here are some of the topics for the next few months.

February 7: The Beauty of Creativity
March 28: The Beauty of Being Made in the Image of God
April 4: The Beauty of the Resurrection
May 9: The Beauty of the Holy Spirit
May 16: The Beauty of Sunshine
June 20: The Beauty of Babies

Laura at I'm an organizing junkie has this so sensible idea for us to organise the weekly menu AND share ideas with each other.

Finally, do stop by at 5 minutes for mom for Tackle it Tuesdays and Wordless Wednesdays. And don't forget to wear your best (and funniest) for The Ultimate Blog Party in March!

Be fine and have fun!