January 1, 2023 a thought for today, Fear increasing age, for it does not come without companions. Latin  Proverb

My first upload for yesterday, the last day of 2022, was “best part of 2022". There were so many “best parts” that I decided to do a composite of just some of them. 

Starting a new year, a fresh new beginning. I didn’t stay awake to bring in the new year as I use to do. I just can’t stay awake that long anymore but I lay in a dozing state listening to others bringing in the new year with loud expressions of one sort or another.....I guess I am an old fogey.

The second upload for yesterday was another composite to try to fit “a thought for next year”. Here again I gathered some photos from my archive that I think I would like to see come about in the next year too. Like, good food, clear skies, beauty in nature, happy and comfort. 

The only thing on the agenda today was church. It is always refreshing for me by the time I leave church. A big part of it is being with the others. 

We had a short meeting after church today to take care of some business. I am a little impatient in meetings when discussions go beyond and some times well beyond the business that we are there to take care of especially when the meeting is an “emergency or special” meeting....not the monthly scheduled meeting. There’s my old fogey mentality again or is it the teacher called experience rearing it’s argumentative head.  

I am going to sit back and enjoy the rest of this new years day and the refreshing and restoring  of church. 

The first upload for today is “hello”. The only thing I could think of was a sign for the word hello. On further thought it was a wave of a hand. I used Bob’s wave as my model. 

The word for today is words.  The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action, George Eliot.  The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows, Charles Caleb Colton.  Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been, John Greenleaf Whittier.  "As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence, Benjamin Franklin. Words so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them, Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Our words have wings, but fly not where we would, George Eliot.  The oldest, shortest words 'yes' and 'no' - are those which require the most thought, Pythagoras.   Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder, Rumi. Words kill, words give life they're either poison or fruit you choose, King Solomon.  Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within. Alfred Lord Tennyson.  The fewer the words, the better the prayer, Martin Luther.  It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read. Thomas Jefferson. 

The second upload today is “new years eve”. My best choice was of something that showed this date like the date and time on the computer screen and a calendar page. 

I caught sight of this article and was interested in what a “fabled frost flower”is so now we’ll all know. The title of the article is “Fabled frost flower formations spotted in Shawnee State Forest”. The Shawnee State Forest is the “largest contiguous forest in Ohio”. The author of the article was visiting there and started out on a walk at dawn one morning when within minutes he spotted a gray fox. He wondered and thought that maybe the fox was an omen for the chance of “good things to come”. His visit to the forest and the morning walk was to find a frost flower. Mentioned in the article was that the day before this walk there had been scattered rains making the ground wet. Before the walk the temperature dropped to 12 degrees...perfect for the formation of frost flowers. Now for a description of the frost flower, a delicate ice sculpture. Ice forms around the base of certain plants. In the article the “primary producer of frost flowers is a “little mint called dittany ( Cunila origanoides ). It is common in Shawnee State Forest.” The article stated that the frost flower doesn’t look like much from a distance. Up close is the way to see it. It is formed of “wafer-thin icy curlicues resembling ribbon candy”. These curlicues form at the base of the mint plant’s stems. Like snow flakes no two formations are alike. Apparently they are so fragile that slight movements close to the sculpture such as moving vegetation near it will cause it to shatter. The frost flower begins to form while the host plant is still “drawing water upward into the stem....cold air freezes the liquid.....creating longitudinal fissures .....new water is forced from these cracks creating the....icy artwork”. Early rays of the sun in the morning will melt the art work. Some other Ohio foliage that can be purchased to try to “grow a frost flower”, are Canada frostweed, white crownbeard, and wingstem. As the author’s walk continues the “frost flowers liquefied”. The last sentence in the article is “Apparently, that gray fox was indeed a good omen.”

Don’ t know what it will be....taco bell, KFC, Josie’s or Ding Ho for dinner. 

Joy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Since 2022 has ended these are my two composites of all my photos of the day for December.