Since the famed inception of blogging...I have come to love the almost therapeutic feeling of letting go and sharing my thoughts. Blogging is a way for me to get in touch with my constant inner chatter and to try to make sense of it all and to also express myself..

"I find inspiration from many things and people. I hope you too can find inspiration here!"AD

Welcome to AmyDelaine.com, and Thank you for stopping by!

You can find my latest blog below, click on the Posterous Link;

1/1/2012 ~Happy New Year!

May all your Dreams come true this year and may everyday be bright and awesome! :-)

Some work~ :)

7/11/09

Some great Dr. Suess quotes for the day! :)

• I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

• You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own.And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go.

• Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

• Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way.

• My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It's the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz. You'll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond 'Z' and start poking around!

6/20/09 Some inspiration for the day!

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin quotes (English Naturalist and Author of the theory of evolution by natural selection. 1809-1882)

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

Charles Darwin

To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal.

Unknown

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.

Unknown

Change is the essence of life.Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.

Reinhold Niebuhr quotes (American theologian, 1892-1971)

Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.

6/19/09 This is so cute and funny~It's the simple things.

(This is not my foto, I found it for this specific blog since I do not have any fotos of tea cups yet! ;) Like the pic though.

Cup of Tea

One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me.
I was maybe 2 1/2 years old..

Someone had given me a little 'tea set' as a gift and it was one of my favorite toys.

Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I
brought Daddy a little cup of 'tea', which was just water.

After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home.

My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of
tea, because it was 'just the cutest thing!'

My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of tea for
Daddy and she watches him drink it up.

Then she says, (as only a mother would know...)

'Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to
get water is the toilet?'

6/19/09

Attitude

by Charles Swindoll

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

This is one of the BEST books I have ever known for insight, wisdom, and assistance into oneness with spirit so delicately but blunt.

6/02/09

The Sparrow at Starbucks

by John Thomas Oaks

It was chilly in Manhattan but warm inside the Starbucks shop on 51st Street and Broadway, just a skip up from Times Square. Early November weather in New York City holds only the slightest hint of the bitter chill of late December and January, but it's enough to send the masses crowding indoors to vie for available space and warmth.

For a musician, it's the most lucrative Starbucks location in the world, I'm told, and consequently, the tips can be substantial if you play your tunes right. Apparently, we were striking all the right chords that night, because our basket was almost overflowing.

It was a fun, low-pressure gigI was playing keyboard and singing backup for my friend who also added rhythm with an arsenal of percussion instruments. We mostly did pop songs from the '40s to the '90s with a few original tunes thrown in. During our emotional rendition of the classic, "If You Don't Know Me by Now," I noticed a lady sitting in one of the lounge chairs across from me. She was swaying to the beat and singing along.

After the tune was over, she approached me. "I apologize for singing along on that song. Did it bother you?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "We love it when the audience joins in. Would you like to sing up front on the next selection?"

To my delight, she accepted my invitation.

"You choose," I said. "What are you in the mood to sing?"

"Well. do you know any hymns?"

Hymns? This woman didn't know who she was dealing with. I cut my teeth on hymns. Before I was even born, I was going to church. I gave our guest singer a knowing look. "Name one."

"Oh, I don't know. There are so many good ones. You pick one."

"Okay," I replied. "How about 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'?"

My new friend was silent, her eyes averted. Then she fixed her eyes on mine again and said, "Yeah. Let's do that one."

She slowly nodded her head, put down her purse, straightened her jacket and faced the center of the shop. With my two-bar setup, she began to sing.

Why should I be discouraged?
Why should the shadows come?

The audience of coffee drinkers was transfixed. Even the gurgling noises of the cappuccino machine ceased as the employees stopped what they were doing to listen. The song rose to its conclusion.

I sing because I'm happy;
I sing because I'm free.
For His eye is on the sparrow
And I know He watches me.

Holy moment

When the last note was sung, the applause crescendoed to a deafening roar that would have rivaled a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. Embarrassed, the woman tried to shout over the din, "Oh, y'all go back to your coffee! I didn't come in here to do a concert! I just came in here to get somethin' to drink, just like you!"

But the ovation continued. I embraced my new friend. "You, my dear, have made my whole year! That was beautiful!"

"Well, it's funny that you picked that particular hymn," she said.

"Why is that?"

"Well . " she hesitated again, "that was my daughter's favorite song."

"Really!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," she said, and then grabbed my hands. By this time, the applause had subsided and it was business as usual. "She was 16. She died of a brain tumor last week."

I said the first thing that found its way through my stunned silence.

"Are you going to be okay?"

She smiled through tear-filled eyes and squeezed my hands. "I'm gonna be okay. I've just got to keep trusting the Lord and singing his songs, and everything's gonna be just fine."

She picked up her bag, gave me her card, and then she was gone.

Was it just a coincidence that we happened to be singing in that particular coffee shop on that particular November night? Coincidence that this wonderful lady just happened to walk into that particular shop? Coincidence that of all the hymns to choose from, I just happened to pick the very hymn that was the favorite of her daughter, who had died just the week before? I refuse to believe it.

God has been arranging encounters in human history since the beginning of time, and it's no stretch for me to imagine that he could reach into a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan and turn an ordinary gig into a revival. It was a great reminder that if we keep trusting him and singing his songs, everything's gonna be okay.

6/02/09

Another inspiring story; Anytime I get down in the dumps I will read this story.

The Survivor

"I'm moving forward."

Images from this article

Photographed by Shonna Valeska

"I really am feeling great. I have a lot more strength and am ready to move forward with a more normal life -- which is a tonic in itself."

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Photographed by Shonna Valeska

The Mannings on a recent summer day in Manhattan--taking nothing for granted.

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Photographed by Shonna Valeska

"I really am feeling great. I have a lot more strength and am ready to move forward with a more normal life -- which is a tonic in itself."

Here's another milestone: Tyler is into football and Lauren is the one who taught him how to tackle.

A Long Road Back to Health

September 2006, and Lauren Manning looks terrific.

Striding across the lobby of a Manhattan high-rise, she exudes the confidence she once routinely projected as a senior vice president and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm that lost 658 people on September 11, 2001. That day as she entered the building, a fireball raced down the elevator shaft and blasted her back out, burning more than 82% of her body. Doctors gave her just a 15% chance of surviving.

"I really am feeling great," she says by way of introduction. "I have a lot more strength and am ready to move forward with a more normal life -- which is a tonic in itself."

Normal life doesn't yet include resuming her business career, but it does encompass ordinary activities that once seemed unattainable. Like walking her five-year-old son, Tyler, to his new kindergarten class, or racing after him in Hudson River Park as he speeds away on his Razor scooter. With the help of a specially fitted Velcro glove, Lauren can now hold a tennis racket. "I can't serve yet," she says, "but I'll figure that out." Adds her husband, Greg, "Here's another milestone: Tyler is into football and Lauren is the one who taught him how to tackle."

Now 45, Lauren cannot believe that five years have passed since 9/11. Tyler was just ten months old when his mother dashed out of their Greenwich Village apartment on her way to work. She was running late. Greg -- then a senior vice president, director of sales and marketing with Euro Brokers, and now a vice president of intellectual property with Cantor Fitzgerald -- had an 8:30 a.m. conference at Tower One's Windows on the World. But he missed the meeting because he, too, was running late. If everything had gone as planned, Lauren would have been on the 105th floor and Greg would have been on the 107th when the plane hit.

During Lauren's long road back to health -- an excruciating process she once described as pushing a rock uphill every day -- she's endured more than 25 surgeries, including skin grafts and scar revisions to her back, face, and hands. The physical breakthroughs have been hard won. She's finally shed the stifling pressure garments she wore 23 hours a day to keep scar tissue from forming; last year she finished five years of rehab treatments.

"Life Doesn't Get Any Better"

She still works with physical and occupational therapists, who help stretch her delicate hands, devastatingly seared on Tower One's hot metal lobby doors. Susan Scanga, one of her therapists, says, "Lauren was so badly burned that there's not much there except scar tissue and bone. To me, it's a miracle she even has hands at all. Still, she looks you in the eye and says, 'I don't have bad days.' "

Lauren sees parallels between her son's first five years of life and her own five-year journey back. "Tyler's gone from a carriage to crawling to walking to a scooter to learning to ride a two-wheeler," she says.

Simultaneously, she's had to learn how to sit, stand, walk, drink from a cup, and use a knife and fork.

Recently, Tyler has made his own discovery of what his mom went through that terrible day. In September 2005 he watched his parents appear on the Today show. Shortly after some 9/11 footage rolled, Tyler asked his mother why she ever went into the building that day. "I wish you hadn't been hurt, Mommy," he said.

Lauren and Greg work hard to give their young son the right messages. "We tell him that some bad guys did a bad thing, and that's how Mommy was injured," says Greg. They offer Tyler reassurances that it's not going to happen to him, and that his parents will protect him no matter what.

Are they planning to have any more children? Lauren's quiet reply: "We would love to."

In the meantime, they're enjoying what they have. It's the unplanned pleasures they truly value. Tyler has gotten into playacting, and he'll suddenly suggest a script. "You be the princess," he'll say to Lauren, "and I'll be the knight. Caleigh [their dog] can be the dragon." With that, they're off.

Lauren smiles as she tells the story. "Life doesn't get any better," she says.

5/30/09

Friends-

• A true friend has no ulterior motives. They just like you for who you are, enjoy your company and are happy to be a part of all events in your life, good and bad.

• Real friends won't conveniently become "busy" when you need them.

• A real friend will be there for you when you need someone the most. Others will shy away from bad situations that come your way.

• A simple friend expects you to always be there for them. A real friend expects to always be there for you!

• Who finds a faithful friend, finds a treasure. -- Jewish Saying

• "A faithful friend is the medicine of life." -- Apocrypha
  

• Friends are like melons; shall I tell you why? To find one good you must one hundred try. -- Claude Mermet

• A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.-- Walter Winchell

• "A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17, 17.
  

• "Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity dividing and sharing it." by-- Cicero (44 B.C.)

• "Friends show their love in times of trouble..." -- Euripides (408 B.C.)

• "One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives." -- Euripides (408 B.C.)

• "A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else." -- Len Wein

• It's the ones you can call up at 4:00 a.m. that really matter.-- Marlene Dietrich

• Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. -- Sicilian Proverb

• Good friends are good for your health.-Irwin Sarason (Someday I will know)

• Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence. -Sydney Smith

• Most people walk in and out of your life. But only friends leave footprints in your heart.

5/29/09

I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.

Cary Grant

"If I confront my biggest fears and dare to go after everything in life I have dreamed, then I have succeeded already in completion of that dream before it has even transpired"

Amy Delaine

5/06/09

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children we do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

5/02/09

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away ;)

5/02/09

Quotes for the day

There is no education like adversity.
Benjamin Disraeli

Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man, to fit him to meet the contingencies of this life.
French Proverb

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.
Henry David Thoreau

Misfortunes often sharpen the genius.
Ovid

Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one's abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.
Horace

Obstacles are great incentives.
Jules Michelet

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better.
Proverb

It is the surmounting of difficulties that make heroes.
Louis Kossuth

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage, and with the best you have to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt