August 17, 2020 thought for the day: Forgiveness hides a pleasure that you can't get back from revenge. Persian Proverb

Today seems to be a downer day. I guess it’s a catch up day after a busy and rainy, off and on, weekend.

We had two parties this weekend. Saturday we went to William’s first birthday party. I am so glad I am still able be there for that. I was even more happy to see how his grandma and grandpa ooozed with pride and love for him.

On August 16 the photo challenge was “I value...”. I thought of all the things in my life and thought how can I choose one thing to show “I value”. It dawned on me to show what I valued most at this point in time and had the photo I needed for this “assignment”

On Sunday we celebrated Rebecca’s belated birthday with her favorite raspberry ice cream cake from Graeters Ice Cream. We had more moments in another good day and more fun with William.

I have to get down to business this week. I need to get the bulletin done and I hope to get forty second requests out for information to the church directory that I am trying to put together. Hopefully I will get more updates back so I can finish the directory in a few weeks. I also hope to get the newsletter down to the last minute additions for next week.

The word for today is life. Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound, Herman Melville. No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence, Thomas Carlyle. Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences, Robert Louis Stevenson. Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today, Martial. Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature, Seneca the Younger.  Govern thy Life and Thoughts, as if the whole World were to see the one, and read the other, Thomas Fuller.  Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. Emily Dickinson. One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. Sophocles. Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts, Gautama Buddha. 

Today’s challenge is “finished”. That was a more difficult idea to envision than yesterdays. Generally one finishes several things in a days period of time. I had just made bologna salad for my lunch. I was finished making it so that turned out to be my choice of images for the day.

I glanced at the article today, it looks a little on the light side of the news so I wanted to share it.  I liked the part in the title that mentioned the butter cow at the Oho State Fair. The lady who wrote the article said when she heard the fair had been canceled she didn’t think of the fried Oreoes or turkey legs or the view from the top of the Ferris Wheel or the midway it was about the buttered cow. When she was younger, she wished that she could do that, carve/build the cow. Her dreams came true this year with the information that encouraged folks to “craft” their own butter cows. The Dispatch had their own sculpting contest also. There were videos on line to help. She bought two pounds of butter and clay sculpting tools, and a wire for the “skeleton”. She gave a step by step guide to how she proceeded. First she made the “skeleton”. Then she “squished” the butter and layered it on the frame. She put the “cow” in the freezer for twenty minutes. After that she began with the sculpting tools. To her chagrin she realized that the wire forming the “skeleton” was to thin. She put it back in the freezer and worked with the sculpting tools again. Finally she felt she was finished. She took photos of her creation and planned to put them on her social network.  She thought of some of the questions that would be asked, like why is the body so long, the head so small and so on. She forgot about it and left the cow in the freezer. She decided she wouldn’t try that again and hope that next year and visit the butter cow there.

I think we will have hamburgers and baked french fries for dinner tonight.

Joy