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Jennifer Hudson: “You have to want weight-loss success so badly that no mountain, river, or ocean could keep you from reaching your goals. If you have that drive, passion, and commitment, there is no way you won’t get there.”

Misha celebrated his 3rd Birthday in the kindergarten today and after two years with ‘healthy’ treats (a ‘hedgehog’ with cucumber, grapes, tomato, a small piece of typical dutch cake (eierkoek), surrounded by raisins in 2012, and last year a fleet of Viking Ships filled with healthy goods (raisins, a banana, grape, cucumber and tomato), this years treat was a ‘not-so-hot-air’ balloon filled with fun ‘goodies’ for kids (a pencil, eraser, little drawing book, rubber stamp, small plastic toy and dutch ‘Jip & Janneke’ raisins). Misha had a great time giving, and all the kids loved it, as you can see from what they wrote on the heart that they gave him (in norwegian obviously 🙂 )…yeah, another great day, everybody happy! 🙂

Florida Scott-Maxwell: “You need only claim the event of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.”

David Shore: “People choose the paths that grant them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort.”

Emmet Fox: “There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open.”

Earlier this year a Swedish shampoo ad blew the world away, the same technique was used to show something completely different…confronting!

Evelyn Underhill: “After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.”

Trey Parker and Matt Stone: “Love isn’t a decision. It’s a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simpler, but much less magical.”

I came back home yesterday after an intense 2.5 weeks of traveling, partying, work, a wedding in Mallorca, Misha’s Birthday, more work with some insomniatic all nighters, a quick stop at home, more work, Kristel’s wedding and now home home with my angel…for a month, yay!! 🙂

I am really looking forward to spend quality time with Misha the coming period, three years old now so never a dull moment, I love it! 🙂 Quality time was also the visit to my 94 year old (!) grandma last week, it is always good to see her, and while life is not easy for her these days, I feel fortunate to have her around and being able to see and talk to her…below a follow-up to the four generations photo from 2011:

Josephine demott Robinson: “My one aim was to do a thing well and to excel if possible.”

Real Live Preacher: “There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’t really living without it.”

Fred R. Barnard: “One picture is worth a thousand words.”

Lin Yutang: “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”

Kahlil Gibran: “If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”

As an Apple fanboy (and heavy smartphone user 🙂 ) I couldn’t resist the temptation any longer and treated myself with a brand new iPhone 6! Or better said; I just ordered one and it should be delivered in 1-1.5 weeks! Pretty neat as I remember waiting for my old iPhone 5 to be delivered for nearly 2 months in 2012! A nice upgrade that corresponds with my iPhone ownership history of having a new one every two years (a trend which was only broken in 2011 when two iPhones got stolen at the Pohoda festival); I owned the first ever iPhone (which was released only in the USA, though it worked perfectly after a jailbreak 🙂 ), and then went for the iPhone 3GS (skipping the iPhone 3G). Both of them got stolen and I got the iPhone 4, then the iPhone 5 (skipping the iPhone 4S/’for Steve’) and will soon have the iPhone 6 (skipping the iPhone 5S), yay! 🙂

My ‘old’ iPhone 5 will become my ‘new’ dutch phone and I am not sure what will happen with the slowwww and sluggish iPhone 4. 🙂

Though first I will send the iPhone 5 for repair as it qualifies in Apples’ free battery replacement program after they determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 5 devices suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently…ha, ain’t that so! At the moment it lasts just a couple of hours on a full charge, and while some see me as a heavy-user, it definitely should last waaaayyy longer than that! 🙂

Bob Dylan: “When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it – don’t back down and don’t give up – then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks.”

Ben Stein: “The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.”

Jack Layton: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

Cecil B. DeMille: “The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

Albert Einstein: “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”