January 6, 2020 thought for the day: Everyone is weary: the poor in seeking, the rich in keeping, the good in learning. English Proverb

It has been one of those days that have gone from one direction to another. I had an early doctor’s appointment so I got up as Bob was leaving for work, 6:30am. I got some virtual visits done before I left at 7:30. After the appointment, which was very good, as a matter of fact, I started the rest of the day. Then there was a stop at White Castle followed by a short neighborhood cruise looking for the photo challenge for the day. I found a few that fit the theme for some later “darkroom” work.

January 4th photo challenge was “get in the photo!”, I’m not happy with this kind of challenge but I did it for the sake of belonging to the group.

My other photo group had a challenge for today too, “food”. I missed shooting and uploading to the challenge. So to mark it here for today I pulled one from my archives.

Lowell and Rebecca took me to Cap City for lunch after church yesterday and then for a visit with Sue. She is on the mend but there are still some hurdles. This has been, is and will be a long recuperation period. I don’t have the words to speak of how much time Rebecca has spent staying with Sue through the worst of this. She has spent hours on end with her, even spending the night for several nights.

When Lowell dropped me off, he put the wall hanging unit up for my TV. Bob and he worked together to get it done. I had to get a couple of shots of that, my two sons working together. Things are still slowly working into a new normal with the updates to the house and the uploading from the storage bin. I am resigned to the fact that we will still be completing the remodeling tasks in the spring.

Lowell stopped after I got home from the doctor’s appointment and just as I finished putting some work in on the bulletin. He moved some of the storage boxes to Sue’s room which still leaves a half dozen or more for me to sort through.

On January 5th the photo challenge was “confetti”. Before I went in to church I went to the office to pull a tray from the shredder. This makes my confetti shot for the day. This one is a good subject for using the algorithms in the Flaming Pair Flexify filter to generate a new art piece using the colors and shapes for a completely new image. Believe it or not it is hidden in this image.

I was so happy with myself when in the process of unloading I found the cables to my two extra external hard drives. I could hardly wait to see if they still worked after being packed away. They do!!! I am so tickled. There are lots and lots of old photos and memories.

The word is delight.  The mother's love is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities; it is an expansion of the animal existence; it enlarges the imagined range for self to move in: but in after years it can only continue to be joy on the same terms as other long-lived love--that is, by much suppression of self, and power of living in the experience of another, George Eliot.  By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent,  Ralph Waldo Emerson. Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition, Alexander Smith.  The aim of forensic oratory is to teach, to delight, to move,  Marcus Tullius Cicero. Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability, Francis Bacon, Sr.  Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul,  Johann Sebastian Bach.  All thoughts, all passions, all delights, whatever stirs this mortal frame, all are but ministers of love, and feed his sacred flame, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence, Arthur Schopenhauer. Let us savour the swift delights of the most beautiful of our days! Alphonse de Lamartine. It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory, Blaise Pascal.

Today’s photographic challenge is “outside”. This is one of the many shots I got on my “neighborhood cruise” earlier today. I found two ducks enjoying themselves and took several shots of them together and this one alone. I adjusted the background of trees with a motion blur filter to make it look a little surreal and dreamy.
 
I wore a fitbit a couple of time and tried for the 10,000 steps. It was rare for me to get to that goal. As I got older, I moved the goal to 5,000. That accomplishment was rare too.  But I tried.  The article I picked for today says it may not be necessary to do 10,000 steps a day. It may not be the right goal for everyone, it is a default goal set by experts. The article stated that: “Researchers traced the origins of the 10,000-step practice to a marketing gimmick from the 1960s...” One trainer interviewed in the article said that the 10,000 step goal should include 30 minutes of moderate exertion, meet guidelines for exercise by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which is 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week. He also recommended 14,000 steps for a losing weight program. The next statement is interesting, after an interview of 17,000 women between 66 and 78 people who walked 7,500 steps had a low mortality rate. Even 4,400 steps had a mortality rate lower than those who walked 2,000 steps. The article reported that the average American gets 4,000 to 5,000 steps a day. In conclusion any physical activity is better than none.

I think I am going to make creamed beef on toast and mac and cheese for dinner.

Joy