September 6, 2021 a thought for today, There would be no good fortune had misfortune not helped. Russian Proverb

This has been a pleasant Monday/Labor Day so far. I didn’t set an alarm. I got up leisurely and ran through the morning rituals in an easy-going way. Once all the emails were checked and news titles scanned I worked on the bulletin. The pastor for this week got me all the information I need yesterday, well before the day I begin the template, I appreciate that consideration. I was able to get the whole thing done in about an hour and a half. Then I moved on to some routine daily chores on the computer. 

Yesterday’s photo theme was “free choice” . There is so much to see and capture in a photograph. For me mood and other outside influences have something to do with what I choose to shoot. Today the traffic lights against the clouds filled blue sky caught my attention. 

I took a break to take another baby step toward bringing the plants inside. Then I put some potatoes and eggs on for potato salad. 

I need to start work on my Christmas calendar. I have the lap top set up to find many of my old files so I opened it today to leave open to use when I get a minute here and there. I normally don’t use the lap top except for special events. It is old and very slow but serves a purpose when needed (just like me ☺).

The weather is perfect for this gorgeous September day. I really should be outside enjoying it more. Hopefully we have a lot more of these before the winter weather gets here. 

Since I got the bulletin done today, I may run some errands tomorrow.

I had a second photo of the day for yesterday, that title was “made me smile”. A new dish washer was delivered to their house that day and the box was a happy attraction for Gideon. That made me smile and remember what fun it was to hide out and enjoy the solitude of a box bigger than me was.  

The word today is enjoy.  It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles Spurgeon. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Philip Stanhope. 4th Earl of Chesterfield. True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united. Wilhelm von Humboldt.  True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. Joseph Addison. Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire. Epictetus. Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment. Novalis. The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade. Anthony Trollope. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. Samuel Johnson.  Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity. Horace Mann. The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover. Joseph Addison. He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment, Carl Friedrich Gauss. A thing seriously pursued affords true enjoyment, Seneca the Younger. 

My photo of the day for today is "best part of my day''. I have several times of the day that are my "favorite". I have a "place" for everything to my way of thinking. and seem to need to have things done at certain times. Over time each of those "things" are important to me and claim that part of my day. But the beginning of the day is a favorite, a whole new day to be lived. Evenings are also good, a time to reflect on the day and rest. I shot this one as through the window so the lines of the screen give it a textured appearance.  

Here’s a little more history about Ohio, always a good thing. This one is about snakes and a relationship with Ohio. We don’t see to many snakes in the city, maybe a garter snake in a garden. However they still do live in Ohio as the article said there are several varieties of American rattlesnakes. The article talks about Lucas Sullivant when he came to Ohio in 1795. He grew up in poverty in western Virginia. He was a surveyor. As a note of interest, he lived a family named Treacle. There was a time that he named a creek in central Oho for them. He was able to do this because he was the member of a team who mapped the area from the Scioto River to the Miami Rivers (Virginia Military District). In 1795 on a surveying expedition he was interrupted when he was taking a nap. As the story goes a camp that he and his crew made awakened a panther and was killed when it prepared to strike. The commotion scattered embers from a fire that had been built. The next morning when Mr. Sullivant woke up he found that a large rattlesnake was coiled up in his blanket. Years later his youngest son, Joseph, wrote a story about the history of central Ohio and some of those stories were about snakes. He told about another occasion when his father encountered snakes. When Lucas was at a camp near the Marble Cliff quarries there was a “sickening odor”. It was discovered that the odor came from a “prodigious” number of snakes, mostly rattlesnakes. It is noted in the article that there are fissures and holes in the rocks along the river where the snakes came in the fall to set up “winter quarters”. The early settlers of Franklin Township had several “snake hunts”. It is stated that one of  the most famous snake dens was at the Marble Cliffs. At one point large quantities of dry wood and brush were placed in a cave where snakes were found and set on fire in the spring. It is said that hogs and bald eagles killed many of the snakes too. The article said that in exploring the area now you wouldn’t be able to find evidence of where the snakes once lived due to the dams that were built later along the Scioto. 

Hamburgers and potato salad for dinner, a sort of picnic for Labor Day. 

Joy

weeds and other distractions