March 3, 2020 thought for the day: Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature, are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds. Traditional Proverb

We must have had a lot of wind with the rain last night. I heard the moaning and groaning and the dogs were restless. So it was a toss and turn night.

The theme yesterday was “alone”. I had to pen the dogs up because we had a visitor who doesn’t understand a dog’s body and vocal language. So it was most comfortable for all for them to be in a segregated space for the time being. Sweet Pea, my mini Australian Shepherd/Corgi was sitting and staring at me with her mournful eye technique and I couldn’t pass up the shot that presented itself at the moment. 

I got the information in an email this morning that I needed to finish the bulletin. So that’s what I did at the start of today’s agenda. That was after the usual virtual visits.

I am going to do a little more cooking than usual today. I was planning to make a cream cheese lemon pie but realized when I checked the recipe that I didn’t get the right amount of ingredients. So I will have to put that one off until I get to the store again.

As I was waking up this morning, I thought of a whole set of things I wanted to put on today’s agenda. Somehow they evaporated from my thinking mechanics. I will regroup on them after I get the croquettes and soup made.

The word today is embrace. Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires, Laozi.  Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course, William Shakespeare. His love was like the liberal air, embracing all, to cheer and bless, William Wordsworth.  We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another, Lucretius.  As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still, Seneca. The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not, Thomas Carlyle. Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go, Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



Today’s challenge is “hands”. Since I am alone in the house for now it had to be my own hands. They are most often on the keyboard so that had to be my choice. It could have been my hands as I crochet, another frequent pastime or cooking, both of which would be more difficult to shoot.

Columbus State is important to a lot of people in Columbus. The article today brings up the facts that there are a lot of areas of the campus that are desperately in need of repair. The university is asking for Franklin County voters to approve a bond to cover the expenses for the needed repairs. The plan covers money to address the maintenance and upgrades as well as new spaces and upgrades to classrooms and labs. The article mentioned how important Columbus State is to the job market. There are those who oppose the tax request and say the Columbus State is a state-supported college and “attracts students from all of Ohio’s counties”. They state that it shouldn’t be Franklin Country’s job to support the whole project. The article goes on to say that 75% of all Columbus State graduates’ work locally. Many Columbus businesses have supported the college in the past. On the list are: Columbus YWCA, the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, Columbus Urban League, NAACP Columbus, the Columbus Partnership, Nationwide Insurance, American Electric Power, Cardinal Health and L Brands. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I am making ham croquettes from my mom’s old family recipe along with homemade vegetable soup.

 Joy