September 9, 2020's thought for the day: You can't put "thank you" in your pocket. Jewish Proverb

As I was falling asleep last night, I was making a list in my mind of things I wanted to get done today. I started out with a bang but as the day has gone along and I am checking off this and that I am realizing I am going to have to put some of them on a back burner. I over extended the idea of how much time each thing takes and the time I have available.

I got the message done for Saturday, the envelopes printed and some labels made. While multitasking in that area of tasks I squeezed in clearing an overstuffed refrigerator and starting the dishwasher.

On September 8 the photo challenge was titled “home”. That leaves several areas to find a suitable image, both inside and outside the house. There is one corner that is my ‘most’ favorite. It’s where all of my health-giving plants live during the late autumn, winter, and earliest spring. In the late spring and summer they regenerate in the lazy, hazy days in the early morning sun into twilight and the darkest night.

I have a busy day tomorrow with the usual Thursday list of printing. I am also going to a luncheon at noon. A few members of my literary club are going to try for a small gathering. We haven’t seen each other in over five months.

I have some baking to do that I would like to put off from today to tomorrow but I think that would be a mistake. I had better get to done.


The word is middle.  Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, Aristotle. The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them, Henry David Thoreau. The middle path is the way to wisdom, Rumi.  In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way, Stendhal. Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending, Anne Bradstreet. A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end, Aristotle.  Virtue lies in the middle ground, Jose Rizal. Thirty spokes are joined in the wheel's hub. The hole in the middle makes it useful, Laozi. Most safely shall you tread the middle path, Ovid. In everything the middle course is the best; everything in excess brings trouble, Plautus. As a man passes into middle life, or beyond it, autumn, it has been said, whispers more to his soul than any other season of the natural year. It is not difficult to see why this should be, Henry Parry Liddon. Not too isolated, not too many relationships, the middle, that's wisdom, Confucius.

Today’s theme is “good stuff”, another wide-open subject for images. It’s like something you would put in a gratitude journal.  I needed something quick, I had overextended myself and hadn’t left much time for thought and deliberation. It a tiny part of my neighbor’s garden, something like a “hidden garden”.

This article looked interesting and I didn’t see much else worth sharing again today. It is always interesting for me to see how people adjust to major turns in their lives. This article is about veterans lives when they return home. An artist who has painted veterans from all over the country is contributing work to the National Veterans Memorial and Museum starting on September 18. She wanted to show them out of uniform this time. There will be a trucker, a firefighter and others such as a boxer, an astronaut to a homeless man.  When interviewed about the project she said: “The only criteria I had was they had been honorably discharged. I wasn’t going for the high-ranking officers or those who had won medals. I wanted the average everyday man and woman who had raised their hands and offered to serve their country.” She has been to all fifty states to find her subjects, traveling at her own expense. She was born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. She was able to find veterans by visiting small town chambers of commerce, where everybody knows everybody. Then she would talk to the veterans as she sketched and photographed them. She wanted to use a trucker and to make it even more interesting a woman, a woman veteran. She found one in Lima, Ohio, a marine whose husband was a former Navy SEAL. There was another member of the family to include in the portrait, the marine’s per dog, Angel who has traveled with her.  She painted a Native American from South Dakota, a firefighter in Oregon who has post-traumatic stress disorder. She painted a homeless vet with his dog in California forest. She took a “backpack, camera and a bog of dog food” when she met up with him. There is a bit more to this part of the story in the article I am referencing. After the exhibit in Columbus it will travel to Huntsville, Alabama and Washington, D.C. The article said that this exhibit will appeal to art lovers as well as people who know little about art.

Chicken croquets and mac and cheese for dinner tonight .

Joy