September 21, 2020 thought for the day: Aim high in your career but stay humble in your heart. Korean Proverb

This has turned out to be an eventful Monday. I had a list of several things I had planned to get done today but some are going to have to be put off for a day or two. 

On September 20 the photo challenge was “music”. I don’t have a lot in that line around the house and I wasn’t able to make a mini photo safari today. The quickest thing that came to mind was my church hymnal. I opened the book to one of my favorite hymns, Spirit, and made the image.  

We had a person come to give us an estimate on replacing the furnace and one coming tomorrow. Lowell was here to help decide what we are going to pick. Thank goodness, I am not good with those kinds of decisions. That “interview” took a little longer than I had expected. 

Before that I finished one section of the bulletin. After the interview I got back to the computer and started work on the newsletter. It looks like I am going to have to find some “fill”again this month. I am not getting much help with articles from others. Oh well, I think I can put together a pretty good newsletter anyway. 

I started some multitasking after that by starting the beef in the pressure cooker for the beef stew. I also took a few minutes to look for the photo of the day. 

This is another of the four days of the month that I have a second photo a day. This theme was “farm

related”. Well, I am not raising chickens or pigs or any other farm animal, though sometimes I would like to.  I took a carton of eggs out of my refrigerator....that’s the closest I think I could come at the time. 

Mick, my grandson, had surgery today so I was waiting for a report on the out come and how he is doing. Lowell called to let me know Mick’s surgery went fine and he would be home later today probably for now lifting, driving and lots of other activities for the next several weeks will be limited. 

I keep working and crossing my fingers that this computer can limp along for a little while longer. I had put some files in the cloud that I will want to move to a new computer when the time comes. 

The word for today is modesty. Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue, Joseph Addison. Modesty is the conscience of the body, Honore de Balzac.  He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good, Confucius. Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature, William Shakespeare. Modesty is to merit, as shades to figures in a picture, giving it strength and beauty,  Jean de la Bruyere. Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return, Seneca. Conceit spoils the finest genius and the great charm of all power is modesty, Louisa May Alcott. Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person, Horace.  Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority, Marcus Tullius Cicero. A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions, Confucius. Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world, Gustave Flaubert.  In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent, Socrates. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error, Benjamin Franklin. 

The photo theme for today is “shiny”. We had a sunny day so all I had to do was go on a walk with shiny objects on my mind. I have a few wind chimes that were enjoying the touches of the sun. 

 There are a couple of subjects combined in this one article. The first is about the AmeriFlora that we had here in Columbus few years ago. According to the article, I didn’t realize this, the AmeriFlora exhibition saved the Franklin Park Conservatory along with the “fate” of a German  Village Engine House, No. 5. “AmeriFlora was a world horticultural exhibition that celebrated Columbus the explorer (and his namesake city) on the 500th anniversary of his New World voyage”. It took a lot of work and special arrangements and ‘fund-raising’ from municipal, county, state, federal and private sources. There were designers, contractors and others who had to follow strict codes. There was a loss of money for Franklin Park as it had to b e closed for a good bit of time for the set up. As with many things is life there were pros and cons. While Franklin Park lost some money at the time there were improvements to World Park and ultimately saved the “19th century Franklin Park Conservatory. The other story in this article is about Engine House No. 5 on Thurman Avenue in German Village. This building was constructed in 1829, then replaced in the 1960s. An entrepreneur who was known for turning renovated historic buildings into restaurants came along. He turned the aging engine house into a “quirky venue”. The waiters slid down a brass fire pole holding trays. In the basement was a bar called the Spot that used a Dalmatian as a logo, the name denoting the spots on the Dalmatian. According to the article the restaurant “thrived” for two decades. Here’s an intriguing bit of information mentioned in the article: the entrepreneur who designed the restaurant and his wife along with another couple disappeared in 1993 while sailing. The restaurant closed and was vacant for a while. It has been renovated as an office space. 

I am making beef stew in the pressure cooker (the ‘old’ style, on top of the stove burner)  for dinner. 

Joy