September 4, 2021 a thought for today, The word is silver, the silence is gold. Russian Proverb

The weather is turning cooler. This is a sign for me that I have to start the process of moving the house plants from their “vacation” home to back inside the house. It isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. Some will need pruned, some will mostly likely need transplanted and/or split, all will need cleaned of dead leaves and all will need sprayed with my homemade pesticide. All of this is going to require tending to one or two a day. I have some larger plants, like the rubber tree and Norfolk Island pine that are getting too large and difficult for me to take care of so I will be putting them out by the street for anyone interested to take. The philodendron and pothos are overgrown. I have taken cuttings on them and will give the parent plants away. The hanging spider plant and the two Boston ferns are way overgrown. They will be split leading to half kept and half given away. I guess I am “down sizing”. 

On September 3 the photo of the day theme was “I use this every day”. This is my corner of the house. I do use it every day. I would be lost without my computer. The only thing that I use every day and would be lost without is my camera/cell phone camera. 

I got the corner where the houseplants, my indoor garden, resides for the winter, prepared for their return. I have a splash proof mat placed under where the larger “floor” plants reside. There is a table for the smaller portion of the garden and a floor lamp with grow lights. I got that part done this morning. 

Another thing that is going to have to be done soon concerning my “garden”. My hibiscus bush became a much larger “bush’ than I expected. It is completely eclipsing my lilac bush. I didn’t give planting the two so close together the thought I should have before the fact. I am going to have to have one or the other moved this fall. 

Yet another thing I was able to get finished this morning was binding the coloring books I have been making for the kids at our free Saturday meal at church. We have had some of the adults interested in the coloring pages as they wait for the message and meal so I added an advanced coloring page, they are more detailed than those for the youngsters. 

The word for today is endure.  The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much. William Hazlitt. Endure and persist; this pain will turn to good by and by. Ovid. Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low. Henry Ward Beecher. The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. Marcus Tullius Cicero. What is without periods of rest will not endure. Ovid. Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Endurance is patience concentrated. Thomas Carlyle. The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. Charles Dickens. Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial, Francis of Assisi. Men are born for each other's sake, so either teach people or endure them, Marcus Aurelius.

The photo challenge for today is “fave jewelry”. I don’t wear jewelry often. When I was a nurse, I used a watch day and night but not now. About the only thing I use is the cross on a fancy hair pin every now and then. 

I thought this article was interesting. I like stories about how animals round out family life, large and small. A “sociologist and research assistant professor”, recently did published a report on some study he did about pets becoming a part of a family. The pandemic brought a lot of this kind of happening more to the forefront. There was a surge of abortions for emotional support during this time. But her study also draws on “the demographic trends in households from previous years”.  One way that she describes the phenomenon is how people develop their identities having to do with different cultural habits and roles within society. People “negotiate” with each other on how their roles will conform. In this assistant professor’s study she found that in families where there are no children companion animals fill the role of a child.  Emotional and psychological characteristics are formed in the care of the pet. The article went on to share that older adults with grown children take on a “care taking” roll for their pets. Some take on the roll of “grandparent” to their grown children’s pets. In families with both children and companion pets the kids “tend to see the dog as their confidant”.  The article stated that the information was carefully researched and is  “supporting” evidence for “her claims”. The article went on to say that this study isn’t of  importance to some people as an essential part of family living. Another point of view that was mentioned is that “ researchers acknowledge that this definition doesn’t necessarily account for every configuration of what people consider meaningful familial relationships.......We have broadened our scope of how we define families”. The person sharing that opinion also said these kinds of studies also referenced other family configurations involving couples who live together and multi-generational families.  This same person agreed that “pets are a meaningful part of people’s families”. 

I am leaning toward coneys for dinner. 

Joy

I just like the red against the gray