Service

I am planning a short talk on "Service" and came across this great site.....

12. Offer Help – If you reach out to help others, you transform yourself from victim to survivor. People who have tasks and responsibilities to do during a disaster have a higher survival rate than those who don’t. If you don’t have an assigned task, helping others, even in small ways, increases your survival chances. Just offering a stabilizing shoulder can be enough. Give yourself some small responsibility if there’s no one to help. That responsibility can help you survive in the face in amazingly bad odds.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/20/1038355/-14-Important-Survival-Attitudes

I really like this for the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) section. Helping others is usually beneficial for the helper.

Basic drawing apps

I have been having fun doing a doodle a day on the iPhone.

These are some of the results.

Louise Parker illustrations

I have just seen one of Louise's pictures published in a magazine and I am so excited about seeing the next one in April.

I love the stylized figures and the detail. It is also has gentle humour.

This is a very small sample of her work. I hope you enjoyed it.

Mary Sarah

Heidelburg & the Vaal Dam

Heidelburg is a pleasant town south of Springs in Gauteng. Since I now live in the East Rand this is the area I'll explore first. We were looking for a charming coffee shop to have a leisurely breakfast Saturday morning. Instead we found this cake shop next to the local crafts and gifts shop in a lovely old house. We bought pies ( I had rib pie) and other homemade treats and took a drive to the Vaal Dam.

We had a picnic under the shade of a tree on the grassy banks of the dam. What a beautiful afternoon, very relaxing.

There was only one sluice gate open that day but two days later they had four open. The river was running strong.

The cattle just walk across the road with no warning. I like it. This was in the village of Denyssville on the dam. Looks a great retirement place.

Along the river on both sides are bunches of small holdings with large houses. One side is in the Free State and the other in Gauteng. If anyone owns one of these, please invite me for a holiday for a week!! Along the road were tiny ponies and this little donkey and it's parents. Mama immediately came to investigate me taking pictures of her foal.