April 2, 2020 thought for today: What is the use of a big wide world when your shoes are too small? Serbian Proverb

We put together another small special church bulletin to help get through the time in our shared history. I pulled Bob along with me this morning to do the printing and mailing. I was able to get it all done well before eleven o’clock, that is the time of a mail pick up where I drop them off

As I mentioned before, way back in my earlier blogs, each month we have a theme for our photos and each day is an idea for a photo fitting the them..This month, April, is called “month of gratitude”. It is open for us to choose a photo each day that is something we are grateful for. Yesterday was “my house” more fittingly my front porch.

We stopped for our now customary Thursday brunch at White Castle. Then we headed for home for whatever the rest of the day has in store for us. So far that, what was in store for the day,  has been a little time on  google researching for ideas to keep my busy brain full of this thing and that thing. I get a fresh education on many things when I immerse myself in this kind of search. It was also time to get the laundry started. When I went down to move the washer load to the dryer I encountered a stopped drain and sudsy water backing up. So that had to be unclogged (with Bob’s help).

I started a zen garden last summer. It is a patch in the side yard filled with gravel and three rocks that had specific Japanese meanings. Well, I moved the rocks away last fall but the gravel is still there. I planned on having Bob move it away so that he would be able to mow easier. My plans for the garden didn’t go as I had planned it so I gave up. One of the reasons for the “failure” was I don’t have the kind of energy I wish I had but my body says “ain’t going to happen”.

I plan to mark some of my favorite plants rimming the yard and house, my “garden”, so that Bob will not mistake them for weeds and weed whack them down. I hope to do some putting out stakes tomorrow.

Bob likes to wear shoe covers to mow the back yard, we have two dogs....get the picture?  So I ordered them a couple of weeks ago but we haven’t gotten them yet. He had some left from last year but they have gone missing. Anyway, when I re-checked the order, I found that they aren’t expected for delivery until mid May. It finally dawned on me why....they are part of the ppe for our health care workers.

The sun is shining and I just caught the sound of my front porch wind chimes, one of my favorite sounds of the spring and summer.

Today the second day of the month of gratitude my choice is “signs of spring”. This a daffodil in my back yard leaning over and nearly kissing a brick in the patio.

The word today is faces. Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face, Victor Hugo.  If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one? Abraham Lincoln.  Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you, Walt Whitman. A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants, Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the faces of men and women, I see God, Walt Whitman. If a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is a letter of credit, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton. For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen, John Dryden. Commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality... Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism, Abraham Lincoln.  The wind in ones face makes one wise, George Herbert. I often laugh at Satan, and there is nothing that makes him so angry as when I attack him to his face, and tell him that through God I am more than a match for him, Martin Luther. Faith pulls the black mask from the face of trouble, and discovers the angel beneath, Charles Spurgeon. All other creatures look down toward the earth, but man was given a face so that might turn his eyes toward the stars and his gaze upon the sky, Ovid. Beauty does not lie in the face. It lies in the harmony between a person and his or her industry. Beauty is expression. When I paint a mother I try to render her beautiful by the mere look she gives her child, Jean-Francois Millet. When you speak of heaven, let your face light up...When you speak of hell well then, your everyday face will do, Charles Spurgeon. 


Todays article is another idea for a way to pass the time in the stay at home time. It is about having pillow fights to release tension and bring on laughter. In the first paragraph ‘.... No kicking, biting, scratching, punching or hair-pulling. Here are the essentials: Yelling, screaming, tackling, wrestling and hitting — with a pillow....”. This was the idea of a lady from California who was home schooling her own fifth and third graders and that of teaching her law student remotely and all the disheartening news of the internet and computer. She and her children would take a break at intervals to have the pillow fights which would last fifteen minutes. The didn’t have to be any disinfecting processes that followed any outdoor activity. It helped to release frustration, fear, sadness, and anger. The practice apparently has some “danger”. There was an occasion when one member got smacked in the face with a fast moving pillow. There has been stoppage to how we shop and how we run in the park, a rumor that there would be no leaving without permission but we continue to have the pillow fights. “When the timer on my phone goes off, we’re done: sweaty, out of breath, exhilarated.”

We are having salmon patties and hash brown potatoes for dinner.

Joy