December 20, 2020 thought for the day: Plan your year in the spring, your day at dawn. Chinese Proverb

The church service was nice this morning. There was a bit of a problem getting the live streaming going but just a few minutes were missed. 

There is nothing especially timed for today’s agenda so it is on the relaxed side of things as I like on a Sunday.

Yesterday’s photo theme was titled “two colours”. This one was quick for me I turned in my desk chair and saw one of my very old garden books. The binding is written in yellow colored font and the book its self is green. I sectioned the book with its title off from the rest of the image and converted the rest to black and white. 

I have been having one heck of a time finding the ink I need to finish my calendars. Every place I stop there is a note where the ink is suppose to be that says “out of stock”. I get that same response with online ordering too. It must be a very popular version of the ink cartridge. Anyway, that is going to make my Christmas calendars a late Christmas gift. I should have started working on them much earlier. I think it is an “artists” creativity mood. It didn’t hit me until early December this year instead of earlier on in November. 

The church newsletter deadline was typically this week on the calendar but due to the holiday I am not going to be able to get to it so I let the folks know that we will be a week later this month. That takes some of the pressure off of getting things done on time to have a relaxed holiday even though it is going to be in the abbreviated celebration compared to what we are all use to due to the infamous pandemic rules of the day.   

Today I had two photos for the day. The first is titled “ three colours”. I drove around looking for
images to fit this title. I found some outdoor Christmas decorations that almost made it but it turned out there were more than three colors in each as were some of those I shot of the playground equipment at the park. This one fit. There is a boarded up building a mile or so from the house that I pass often. As shown in the photo the plywood panels are painted in three different colors. Again I separated the colors from the rest of the background. 

The word today is quality. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature, Marcus Aurelius.  Well done is better than well said, Benjamin Franklin. Make the workmanship surpass the materials, Ovid.  The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it, Abraham Lincoln.  To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions, Marcus Aurelius.  It is quality rather than quantity that matters, Seneca the Younger. We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature, Robert Louis Stevenson. The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way, Aristotle. Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior, Juvenal. It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth, Henry David Thoreau.  Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides, Victor Hugo. Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves, Henri Frederic Amiel. Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts, James Russell Lowell. Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee, Marcus Aurelius. Permit no hour to go by without it due improvement, Thomas a Kempis.  Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know, Desiderius Erasmus.   

The second photo today is titled “an electric light”. My first thought was of the Christmas tree lights. That was an easy one. 

Perhaps there are new ways to celebrate the holiday. This is disconcerting to those of us who don’t take to change readily on the other hand through the years we look back at the “new ways” or “new normal” that have come down the pike, like giant balloons in a holiday parade. The giant balloons had to be new at some point in time, maybe even so bit they were frightening to some. This article is titled “New takes on holiday traditions”.  Families are finding ways to make holiday magic, some have found ways to keep special traditions alive. One way is relating how four singers stood in the sanctuary at a safe distance from each other and standing in front of empty seats. Sweaters have replaced the choir robes and cameras are recording this event. They used a “duckbill” mask especially designed for singers. During their rehearsal they tried and tried again until they all felt it their songs sounded right.  One thing choir members have tried is to record from each of their homes then an audio/visual team put it all together. Another area of the Christmas season is baking cookies. One family chose to do it as a family of twenty members participating by using zoom to do it together.  One of the participating persons was a seven-year old who got excited as spread sprinkles on one of the cookies her mother had piped with icing. Then she held if up so all of the other family members on zoom could see her master piece. Everyone oohed and aahed as it sounded over the laptop. One of the family aunts said, “We want to do something that feels as close to normal as possible. To not have it would be like throwing in the towel, and we don’t want to throw in the towel.” Another of the family members said they want to keep the holiday as special as possible. There were chuckles and “ribbing” as all the family continued to make the Christmas cookies. Also added to the festivities were mistakes that were noted and talk of favorite recipes and memories of past holiday decorating adventures. Some of the advantages of having it with zoom was having more family members join in the decorating tradition also there was less clean up than having several members together in one kitchen. Another of the holiday celebrations is the giving thanks. This year the Thanksgiving day meal was carried out with a Champagne toast held in a driveway. Some families held the Thanksgiving day via zoom also. 

It is going to be tacos again tonight for dinner, seems it has become another pizza night. 

Joy