January 18, 2020 thought for the day: Think before you speak but do not speak all that you think. Chinese Proverb

I like Saturdays but this one is becoming a pain. I am very touchy about my computer programs. When one of the most used files goes down, I am a real bear. That happened today. The program I am using to write this document is giving me problems. It seems to have lost the save function. I have wasted time trying to get it fixed. It hasn’t happened yet. I am working on a backdoor kind of solution. I will get what I can done so that I can back off for a while and decide how to get it working back at normal.

The photo theme for January 17 was “green on pink’. I was thinking how on earth am I going to find that subject. I went to the store yesterday and was thinking as I was heading there maybe some kind of produce would work. But when I got to the store I had other things on my mind. It so happened that we had emptied some storage containers with the empty ones ready to be taken to the garage. One was bright pink, there was my background. I have plenty of green house plants to they ended up as my subjects.

It is dreary and misty outside but not nearly the problems that were predicted last night. They were predicting snow and sleet. We have the freezing conditions but not the snow or sleet.

I am trying to get the last box unpacked today so that I can have the living room straightened as much as possible. Sue is due to come home from the rehabilitation center tomorrow. I would like for things to be out of the way as much as possible.

I got a report from my doctor yesterday. When I was there last Monday the blood work that had come back while I was there looked good. But there was one test that took twenty-four hours to come back, that is the one he contacted me about. My iron level is half what it should be so he is putting me back on iron pills. It is a little down heartening but my mood is on the low side anyway at the moment. Just hope it doesn’t lead to a full blood transfusion as it did the last time. Whatever will be will be.

Lowell just stopped. He didn’t stay long bu it was good to see him even for that little bit of time. It also brought my mood up a bit.

Next week starts the two busiest in my month, with food pantry and meetings and the church newsletter as well as the bulletin. With Sue coming home it will be some readjusting how we spend our time too. Life is so interesting. I am one of those people who stiffen at the prospect of “change” in anyway. On the other hand it offers some spice to life and most times opens new directions and views of life.

The word is difficulty. If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart, Socrates.   Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest, Epicurus. Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle, James Russell. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered, Thomas Aquinas. Difficulty shows what men are, Epictetus. You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them, Therese of Lisieux. Creation,' in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence, and that it made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some preexisting Being, Thomas Huxley. 

Today’s photo theme is “mirror”. When we did the revisions on the house, we took down all of the mirrors. One was put back up on the mantel and I had a hand mirror in the bathroom So I had some thinking to do. I settled on this one. After the darkroom work I realized the focus wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked but it was the end of the day and I was multitasking with the darkroom and the kitchen. So I made up my mind this was going to due for the day.

This article caught my eye because it is close to home. There is the area of the Hilltop that has fallen into some hard times. The article today touched on a program that is being formed to try to clean up the neighborhood and bring it back to a nice neighborhood. There was a meeting for the public at the Glenwood Community Center this week to discuss the plan and get feed back. The Linden neighborhood was worked on in 2018 and is a model. One of the plans is to use Rhodes Park a mixed use portion of the community. Part of it will be directed toward better transit. Another part of the project is to raise money to build a preschool next to the Highland Elementary School. It is hoped that if/when the improvements take place the desire for betterment will extend further along to corridor through the Hilltop community.

It’s going to be left overs for dinner tonight.

Joy