Adjectives - Grow your vocabulary

Adjectives — descriptive words that modify nouns — often come under fire for their cluttering quality, but often it’s quality, not quantity, that is the issue. Plenty of tired adjectives are available to spoil a good sentence, but when you find just the right word for the job, enrichment ensues. Practice precision when you select words. Here’s a list of adjectives:
Adamant: unyielding; a very hard substance
Adroit: clever, resourceful
Amatory: sexual
Animistic: quality of recurrence or reversion to earlier form
Antic: clownish, frolicsome
Arcadian: serene
Baleful: deadly, foreboding
Bellicose: quarrelsome (its synonym belligerent can also be a noun)
Bilious: unpleasant, peevish
Boorish: crude, insensitive
Calamitous: disastrous
Caustic: corrosive, sarcastic; a corrosive substance
Cerulean: sky blue
Comely: attractive
Concomitant: accompanying
Contumacious: rebellious
Corpulent: obese
Crapulous: immoderate in appetite
Defamatory: maliciously misrepresenting
Didactic: conveying information or moral instruction
Dilatory: causing delay, tardy
Dowdy: shabby, old-fashioned; an unkempt woman
Efficacious: producing a desired effect
Effulgent: brilliantly radiant
Egregious: conspicuous, flagrant
Endemic: prevalent, native, peculiar to an area
Equanimous: even, balanced
Execrable: wretched, detestable
Fastidious: meticulous, overly delicate
Feckless: weak, irresponsible
Fecund: prolific, inventive
Friable: brittle
Fulsome: abundant, overdone, effusive
Garrulous: wordy, talkative
Guileless: naive
Gustatory: having to do with taste or eating
Heuristic: learning through trial-and-error or problem solving
Histrionic: affected, theatrical
Hubristic: proud, excessively self-confident
Incendiary: inflammatory, spontaneously combustible, hot
Insidious: subtle, seductive, treacherous
Insolent: impudent, contemptuous
Intransigent: uncompromising
Inveterate: habitual, persistent
Invidious: resentful, envious, obnoxious
Irksome: annoying
Jejune: dull, puerile
Jocular: jesting, playful
Judicious: discreet
Lachrymose: tearful
Limpid: simple, transparent, serene
Loquacious: talkative
Luminous: clear, shining
Mannered: artificial, stilted
Mendacious: deceptive
Meretricious: whorish, superficially appealing, pretentious
Minatory: menacing
Mordant: biting, incisive, pungent
Munificent: lavish, generous
Nefarious: wicked
Noxious: harmful, corrupting
Obtuse: blunt, stupid
Parsimonious: frugal, restrained
Pendulous: suspended, indecisive
Pernicious: injurious, deadly
Pervasive: widespread
Petulant: rude, ill humored
Platitudinous: resembling or full of dull or banal comments
Precipitate: steep, speedy
Propitious: auspicious, advantageous, benevolent
Puckish: impish
Querulous: cranky, whining
Quiescent: inactive, untroublesome
Rebarbative: irritating, repellent
Recalcitant: resistant, obstinate
Redolent: aromatic, evocative
Rhadamanthine: harshly strict
Risible: laughable
Ruminative: contemplative
Sagacious: wise, discerning
Salubrious: healthful
Sartorial: relating to attire, especially tailored fashions
Sclerotic: hardening
Serpentine: snake-like, winding, tempting or wily
Spasmodic: having to do with or resembling a spasm, excitable, intermittent
Strident: harsh, discordant; obtrusively loud
Taciturn: closemouthed, reticent
Tenacious: persistent, cohesive,
Tremulous: nervous, trembling, timid, sensitive
Trenchant: sharp, penetrating, distinct
Turbulent: restless, tempestuous
Turgid: swollen, pompous
Ubiquitous: pervasive, widespread
Uxorious: inordinately affectionate or compliant with a wife
Verdant: green, unripe
Voluble: glib, given to speaking
Voracious: ravenous, insatiable
Wheedling: flattering
Withering: devastating
Zealous: eager, devoted

45 LIFE LESSONS, WRITTEN BY AN OLD MAN

Tell me which is your favorite.

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 not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
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 things that matter.
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. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy. But it’s all 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. Overprepare, 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 but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
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. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
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. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Sometimes rest is all that is needed. This weekend was a much needed break from all the other stuff and just a little bit of RUN, REST and PRAYER. I had been feeling quite drained the last week or so.

RUN:
Saturday my wife and I ran 6 miles (not together)....we are not the same pace and I listen to music the entire time with Runkeeper.

REST:
Then a bit of rest on by heading down to Knott's Island (first time there since we have lived here for 18 years) wasn't anything but wine and picking. Honestly my knee was hurting so I didn't want to wonder around an orchard and pick apples. Decided to take the ferry over to Currituck but had to wait an hour for it to arrive.....I am not a patient soul, but I did.  Then we realized (after the hour), that we read the sign wrong.....summer hours....another hour......sorry, no more patience......head back.

PRAYER:
I am preparing to teach the adult class at church on Sunday mornings so I began working on some of my lessons and my wife and I prayed for all the "things" in our lives and all the "people".

It was relaxing......can I do it all over again?
Have a great week my friends.

It Is Not A Race...It Is A Chase

I have been doing a lot of running lately. Actually it is more like jogging....at a slow pace for some. Saturday, I did 7.5 miles but truthfully had to walk a bit of it because my knee was giving out. The month of August I ran nearly 50 miles.  I am getting there.  All of this running was to keep the weight off, be healthy, control my diabetes etc. However, there are times that I feel I am CHASING not really RACING.

I have used the running analogy on everything.  You can apply it to your spiritual life as described in Ecclesiastes 9:11 "I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."

or

1 Corinthians 9:24 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."

or
  2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

There you go, my sermon for the day. Good stuff to apply to our lives. You can add so much more when it comes to your health, work, stress, rest, comfort, etc.....there isn't anything (I don't think) that you cannot compare running to. It is a self challenging opportunity.

But what I have been feeling isn't running.  Running (in my mind) is running towards a goal. I feel like there are times in my life where it has gone from running to chasing.  I seem to be chasing that goal. Almost as if it is an ever moving target. A target that avoids being hit. A target that may never be hit due to the many obstacles that continuously obstruct my goal for reaching it.

I have gone through nearly 47 years of my life and have pretty regularly and continuously focused on goals that I want to reach in my life.  A bit of a perfectionist thing. Things I want to do, places I want to go and yes even the materialistic goals of having things I have always wanted. Too many times I find myself thinking...."wouldn't it be nice..." Even the bible tells us that we should be content in the state we are in, but sometimes that is difficult to do.  The villains of our mind and body keep us chasing the goals even if they appear too distant.

You know, I would like to have a nice house.  I would love to live in a house that I actually designed from scratch....foundation up! Not one that is constantly the ever evolving money pit in a lackluster neighborhood. However is seems that once you fix something or repair something or build something...the next day (ok, the next few days) it breaks, or something else breaks.  After all, I am an architect. Is that so bad to want? Always chasing the goal of completing this race.

You know, I would love to paint and do artwork again. Easy task that doesn't involve money, however it involves time. Time that seems to slip away each day as all the other tasks takes a forefront to my attention. And then it is the challenge of okay, I am ready to paint.....what do I paint?......I don't know what to do. Or maybe it is even the villain of procrastination.  That one pops up ever too often while we are chasing this race.

You know, I would love to travel and see the world.  Maybe even take some time off to do a little camping. There again the time villain pops up. It is difficult to get way from the office, housework, yardwork or the money villain. The money villain takes all the fun away. We were hopping to get away to Bolivia this fall to see my son and then run over to Machu Pichu. Unfortunately the villains of time and money ganged up on us.  Chasing the race.

You know, I would love to design some really exciting structures. My work has seen some success.  After all we have been around for 13 years. Enduring some of the recent economic struggles is somewhat success in itself. But for an architect, achieving a bit of immortality within their work is a common goal. We study great a famous architecture for years and then expect to only design something that will probably last only a few years.  That is the frustrating chase. It is the patience chase. It is the endurance chase. It is the prefectionistic chase.

You know, I should just keep reminding myself that today...I am in a good place.  Today I should live right where I am.  Tomorrow will come along and then I can deal with tomorrow. Today, I woke up healthy, fresh and alive.  That is a good thing.  Today, I have shelter over my head that keeps be dry and warm. Today, I have a little bit of achy knees because I was able to run 7.5 yesterday (ok, mostly 7.5) That is a good thing. Today, I have time (if I choose to take it) to paint a picture, mow the lawn (if it isn't raining again), fix something broken in the house (again), or even just sit and enjoy the company of my beautiful bride.

You know, CHASING isn't that bad after all.  If I stop, where will I be? If I had stopped long ago, would I even be here? If I don't keep chasing......will I ever keep up with each of these races? I guess I just need to go back and read the scriptures again... Hebrews 12:1, "...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Have a great day my friends and I will see you all out on the racetrack!

To Go Where No Man Has Gone Before.....

Yep, you got it right....STAR TREK. I am a bit of a Star Trek Geek. I grew watching and rewatching all the episodes when I was a kid.  I think my sister was the original geek in the family as she found it first as a favorite. But that was about it, once she introduced me to it, I was hooked. Let me start off by saying I am not as geeky as some of those who go to every convention or where t-shirts with the slogans plastered on them.  I am just a regular fan of the show. Others are big fans of the Star Wars or Doctor Who, which is fine.  I am certainly not bashing the other Sci-Fi favorites as I like them as well. Star Trek just struck a cord with me more. So Happy 46th Birthday to the Enterprise crew!

There have been some amazing episodes and "fictional inventions" within the story lines that I have always thought were an absolute must for real life. I figure it is just a mater of time before our science fiction turns into science reality. Seems like reality follows close behind. If we can dream it, we can build it.

Some of my favorite concepts from STAR TREK:

1. UNIFORMS
One concept I thought was unique is the color coded uniforms.......er shirts. So they are just shirts but I liked the principal behind them. Some of the females characters wore dresses with the same color scheme. However the limited color range should have been expanded to add a few more like maybe purple or green. However Captain Kirk did wear a green version in a few episode but the primarily colors were the Blue, Gold and Red. This may give me an ideas for some gifts!

2. LIVE LONG AND PROSPER
Spoke had the greatest quote of all time. Well maybe it was more of a Vulcan thing but he said it all the time. Out of all the struggles and turmoil we endure in our lives isn't it great to just imagine this thought. Forget about everything else....just live long and prosper....what else really matters. Some we can tell ourselves everyday when the humdrums draw us down a bit.

3. FOOD REPLICATOR
What else is there to say? Whatever you are hungry for you plug it in and it makes it for you.  Piping hot, cold whatever it is it comes out of the same little window.  Awesome.  Sometimes I imagine my microwave as a food replicator and speak into it for some Talaxian Spice Stew or even a plate of Klingon Chech'tluth....whatever those are. Did you know that the word replicator was created on Star Trek?

4. ALIEN WORLDS

How about all the alien life forms? It is just crazy how many different "beings" they ran into within the galaxy and beyond. Andorian, Cardassian, Ferengi, Klingon, Romulan, Talaxian and of course Vulcan. Some of them were really out there but many of the aliens just had big eyebrows or spots painted on their faces. What a weird universe they introduced us to.....and Captain Kirk had to fall in love with everyone one of their women......really weird!

5. MEDICAL TRICORDER
Ok, Dr. McCoy (Bones) was always a gumpy man.  I think he inherited it straight from his ancestors (the Hatfields and McCoy's). But he did have the coolest medical gadgets. The multi-functional tricoder could do everything and it could do it immediately. Gather samples, analysis and submit a remedy in a matter of seconds. No more waiting at the doctor's office to be seen. Some one please invent this thing.

6. THE TRANSPORTER
Now this is got to be the greatest thing. No more travel.  Just "Beam me up Scotty!" Can you imagine rather than driving long distances, traffic jams, airport hussel and bussel.....we just step into a transporter machine and presto we are there! Just rearrange my molecules an put them back together again in the correct order please. (Better than Willy Wonka). This would be wonderful!

ok, my friends.....enjoy your day.....and you got it....LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

Today's Quote

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to return."
Da Vinci