I tried to pillage this one from Niki's blog, but she went and gave me permission. What's a pirate chick to do? Thanks Niki. Love you!

By Regina Brett The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.   It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here's an update:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get
busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20 . When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years,
will this matter?"

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends
will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don't ask, you don't get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift. 

Julie's Pirate Thought for the Day...

Yes I am a pirate
And it's never ever too late (No disrespect, Jimmy)

Today's brainiac journey is about being a Christian Pirate
I love to rape, pillage and plunder
But my Shepherd always makes me give the booty back

If giving and then taking it back makes you an Indian Giver
Does taking it and then giving it back make you an Indian Pirate?

I wonder about these things...

For the prayer warriors who stood with us for Mitzi's kids, Jake is home recovering, and Courtney came through surgery with flying colors. Thanks to all who have prayed and expressed concern and support. Nobody says it quite like Mark, so I invite you all to visit his blog and take a peek into some pirate hearts.

Love you,

Brat Jewels

http://www.blogitude.com/2007/01/22/tough-kid/

It's like taking a piece of your mind, and trying to infuse someone else with yourself without being too terribly distorted in the process. It's a little frustrating knowing that you're probably not really going to be understood. Of course, having a captive audience helps. Where's the duct tape?

Is communication really all it's cracked up to be? Is it really possible? I'm not sure, but I think it's our best chance of helping one another heal when we've inflicted pain. Some call words cheap, but I think words combined with like actions can be our greatest avenue for loving one another.

"More than Words" just started playing. How funny! It's on my playlist. Maybe it was the inspiration all along.

When I tell you all that I love you, I mean that I am your captive audience. I'm amused, and worried, and laughing with you, and crying. Something about MySpace has opened a new way of bonding for me. I remember who I believed you all to be from your profiles, and who I discover you to be when we are marauding together. You all are my greatest adventure. Thank you for trying to infuse me with pieces of you.

Since I'm working while you're sleeping, I'll be stalking you on Myspace. See ya Wednesday night!

That's all I have to say about it.

Well, actually I have a lot to say about it, but I'm not gonna, because that would involve name calling.

What is up with myspacevideocode dot com? If I hear the jingle to yahoo one more time, I may flush my speakers. It's the beginning of a new year. I'm tweaking my profile, and I want to add a playlist. Is that too great a request from the musician's guild? I want a playlist that plays in random order so visitors don't have to hear the same tired tune every time they come around. I want my videos to autoplay, and play continuously through the playlist (rather than visitors making an entrance to silence and having to push an arrow, after finding it of course, if they want to hear the music I would enjoy sharing with friends. I'd enjoy a reasonable selection of music, and I don't want to pay one red cent for giving free promotion to artists on MY website. Don't even think of trying to call this free entertainment. This is free advertising, free promotion, and BFI and ASCAP can kiss my lily-white southern grits. Pfffffft!

Many paeans have been written to the Pisces woman, for her mystery, her gentleness, her compassion, her elusive charm, her pregnant silences, and she may be, indeed, the archetypal feminine.  The lovely, gracious princess of the fairy-tale castle, waiting for the suitor to rescue her and cherish and protect her, is modeled on Pisces.  The Pisces woman has a unique ability to make a man feel terribly masculine, because she seems so often to need protecting, cherishing, and tenderness.  Because she has such a changeable range and depth of feeling, she often gives the impression of being slightly unformed.  It brings out the Pygmalion tendencies in any would-be artisans.  Many men think they can shape her into what they choose.  In part, it's true.  The qualities of devotion and gentleness and softness are in abundance in many Piscean women.  But blank slate she's not.

Like the Pisces man, she's unfathomable, and possesses a soul which no one can ultimately reach.  Although eager to please and rarely argumentative, she also has the gift of defence through submergence.  Now you see her, now you don't.  She may physically disappear, usually with a lover; but more likely she'll be physically present and simply psychologically disappear, gone to the underwater realms or to someone else in fantasy.  It's a very peculiar feeling when she's gone.  No one home.

Romanticism runs very high in the Pisces woman.  She expects, and needs the poetry and tenderness and style that any fairy-tale princess merits.  Starve her of these and you will drive her either to another lover or into herself, where she may transform into the martyr.  Provide them, and your princess becomes a queen.  Simple, yet astonishingly difficult for many men, since Pisces, as a watery sign, seems to attract airy types who believe they can impress her with their sparkling intellects, and long for the exhibitions of feeling she herself provides without realizing they must give in exchange.

And make no mistake, the Pisces woman, if she is disappointed, will not hesitate to deceive.  Remember Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton?  Being good to her isn't enough.  You must enter her dreams with her.  Ignore them, patronize them, and you do so at your own risk.  There is a strong theatrical element in the Pisces woman.  She has a unique gift for getting herself into the most dreadful dilemmas and crisis which no one could possibly sort out, and then going about among her friends asking for advice which is never taken since her need to suffer and sacrifice is fed by the dilemma.  A perplexing creature.

But meet her in later life, and all the compassion and wisdom which come from having seen the seamy side of just about everything yield a glow and a richness which is far more meaningful than the unshaped marble which Pygmalion sees in her late teens and early twenties.  In this, the last of the signs, the Wise Woman emerges - with all the instinctual wisdom of her sex and all the human insights of her sign.  Often she is almost mediumistic, preferring to shelter herself from life because this gift is so dubious and so difficult to bear.  There is also more than a touch of the witch in Pisces; whether it is white or black depends on whether she has been badly bruised, and how badly.  A Pisces woman gone wrong is a vampire, playing on the fantasy life of others, and draining their strength.  Never underestimate her, because she may be inarticulate or reluctant to explain herself.  Neptune is an enigmatic god; to love him is to love the ocean, for all its moods and changes, its anger and its peacefulness, its destruction and its beauty.

http://songsdomain.tripod.com/pisces/page6.html