Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Another weekend approaches and I am reminding myself that I still need to update my blog to add the right photos to not just one but two "Photo Challenge" posts. Actually, I haven't even posted the second Challenge post yet - even though it was supposed to be on my blog some five days ago - and still need to do that. How bad is that? I promised myself and my readers / visitors that I'd post photos every weekend yet haven't done so. Which means I've let myself down, and my readers and visitors too. As I go through my emails and read articles online, I try to gently nudge myself towards my laptop's "Pictures" folder. That's where the photos live once I've downloaded them from my camera onto my laptop. That's where I need to go. That's where I need to direct my attention. Yet knowing I need to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. I'm not usually this bad with sticking to my promises, with following ...

The past few weeks and months, I've been spending a lot of time on my blog and on Twitter. Reading Tweets, reTweeting them, posting photos and links to articles I'd read online, sharing some of my views and opinions with the world. I use my blog to share photos and use Twitter to read and post about what's going on in the world. Oh, and I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends! Of course I also use email to stay updated on current events and to keep in touch with family and friends, however I use social media more. Until I stopped doing so for a few days. Last week, I decided to take a break from the world of Twitter, blogging and Facebook. Partly because I've been playing Grand Theft Auto V on the PlayStation - it's addictive, that game! - and partly because I wanted to spend more time reading books than posting and sharing on social media. And also, because spending so much time online doesn't always feel 'right' any more. I'm not th...

The bird photos have been posted. Here are the duck photos... There's something about these first two photos that makes me want to quote a song. Oh you know what, I will - It's a great song that always makes me smile! It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right With your hands on your hips  You bring your knees in tight Okay, after the second line the lyrics no longer match the photos, so I'll stop quoting Time Warp lyrics from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Although, now that I'm quoting lyrics I might as well keep going... It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right With your hands on your hips You bring your knees in tight So, lyrics. Unless Dakota Moon want to sing "I want to be a duck" instead of "I want to be an eagle," quoting Another Day Goes By doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Although, neither did quoting Time Warp with regards to ducks. So, what if we just p...

The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone My rating: 5 of 5 stars Enjoyed reading this book and checking out the recipes. Before starting to read, I already agreed with a lot of what Alicia Silverstone says about the way we eat, what we put in our own bodies and the way we (humans) treat, use and abuse other living beings. A lot of what this book explains makes sense to me and sounds very logical. Still, I'm not an expert on nutrition or anything like that, so judge for yourself! I highly recommend reading The Kind Diet, if only because it's important that we all think about what we eat and where our food really comes from. View all my reviews Goodreads may not be the place to share my thoughts on eating meat or consuming dairy, however my personal blog - most definitely the right place! I'm not much of a meat-eater myself. Would say I'm about 95% vegetarian, actually. If not more than that...

These words were written thousands of years ago, in a book known and read by millions upon millions over the years - possible the most well-known book in the entire world. This knowledge is not something we only figured out yesterday, so to speak. How sad that humanity still doesn't seem to get this basic truth. “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath . . .” — Ecclesiastes 3:19 (A Quote from the Bible / Tanakh) The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable Providing a little more context: I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all c...

“All of our current environmental problems are unanticipated harmful consequences of our existing technology. There is no basis for believing that technology will miraculously stop causing new and unanticipated problems while it is solving the problems that it previously produced.”  —Jared Diamond The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable If we don't find ways to deal with the impact we are having on our only home, what will we be left with? What kind of a planet will our children and grandchildren be left with? Planet earth is beautiful, breathtaking, amazing and stunning, yet our greed and our quest for more more more are destroying it. Will we ever figure out that the world we have is perfect as it is, without feeling the need to destroy it, wreck it and turn it into an ugly concrete jungle? We think of ourselves as the smartest and most evolved beings on the planet, yet prove time and time again that we are irresponsible, greedy and destr...

Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop My rating: 5 of 5 stars I very much enjoyed this book and loved reading more of the adventures of the well-written characters in this series. Meg's development was very interesting to read about; getting to know more of the Others was lots of fun and the way the blood prophets learn to find their place in the world made me both happy and sad. I would love to live in this world and get to know the many Others who inhabit it. The way the Others see the world makes so much more sense than the way the humans live and makes me wish humanity in the real world thought more like the Others in this book. Loving the land and living in harmony with nature and each other makes so much more sense than attempting to destroy, dominate and control both the planet and other beings. I wrote this last month about the same book and thought I'd include it in this review: Brilliant. Awesome. Amazing. Heart-wrenching. Sweet. I love Anne Bishop's work and the intri...

“I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.”  —Ed Begley, Jr. The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable

It scares me how little we care about what we are doing to the only home we have. We Blew It: A Time Line of Human Impact on the Planet http://t.co/eOKSYaJ5A1 pic.twitter.com/cveFm9XXI8 — VICE (@VICE) May 8, 2015 We fight. We argue. We use. We abuse.  We waste. We pollute. The next day, we do the same thing. All over again. Will we ever learn to care about the future of our planet and the human race?