September 10, 2023 a thought for today, Before you plan to improve the world, look around your own house three times. Chinese Proverb

The fist upload for September 9 was “made from wood.” I looked around for something that I wanted for this image. I finally decided on the table legs on this vintage gate-leg table. 

It’s been a long week, with lots of sympathy messages and expressions of compassion, love and support. I am so grateful for all who have shown us these thoughts. Working through the emotions are another level of experience. I missed church for the second Sunday in a row which saddens me because I also need the weekly renewal. But for now I need to be alone or with immediate family for this early time in the grieving process. Hopefully next week I can venture back to a closer to “normal” schedule. Bob was my constant companion for sixty-one-years. I have lost a child with the gentle soul who loved life and lost a huge part of my life. 

The second upload for yesterday was “still life.” I don’t think there is much of anything that is more of a still life than this poor smacked orange barrel. 

Today I am moving along step by step. It will be a quite and lonely day. I think I will tend to my houseplant garden....that will bring some solace and peace as well as a bit closer to my higher power. 

My first upload for today is “a man-made pattern”. I have a rug in the living room that is full of all kinds of patterns. I also have a foot stool covered in this pattern. I felt that is was much more suitable for this offering. 

A word for today is grace.  Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected, Jonathan Edwards.  You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore. You need more help than you know, Rumi.  A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation, Francis Bacon.  Beauty and grace command the world, Park Benjamin.  Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter, William Shakespeare. Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider. Saint Augustine of Hippo. Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind. Francois de la Rochefoucauld.   One of these days you who are now a babe in Christ shall be a father in the church. Hope for this great thing but hope for it as a gift of grace and not as the wages of work or as the product of your own energy, Charles H. Spurgeon.  Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace, Thomas Watson. Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity, William Hazlitt.  Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not, Henri Frederic Amiel.  The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it, Giordano Bruno.  

A second upload for today is “what I am watching.” I was “watching” traffic go by
as I waiting in the drive through at McDonalds.

Another upload for this date was “back alley.” I know “back alleys” are a little on the messy side. So I found that the sky today added a more interesting part of the image. 

This article is by one of my favorite writers for the Columbus Dispatch. He has and shares an interesting outlook and common events in life. Here is one of them. In this article he is writing about things he is tired of. It is his “semiannual (unless I forget) list of trends, fads, crazes and troubling developments that I wish would go away.” The first listed is “shows about rich people behaving badly.” He claims he is “witness” to appalling billionaire behavior as in Trump, Musk, Snyder, Murdoch and other “moguls” and “heirs.” He prefers to “turn to fiction.” The next on his list is “clean windshields.” In his words, “back when the planet was healthy, you couldn’t drive from here to West Jefferson without amassing an impressive collection of smashed bugs on the windshield.” His feelings are that it is an ominous sign cars are arriving where ever it is they are going with many more “insect carnage” than in earlier times. He mentioned in the article that scientists have two ways of looking at this occurrence. One thought is that “bug splatters are down precipitously.” On the other side of the coin the bug splatter is not due to slanted windshields, more likely due to fewer insects “not a good sign for our ailing planet.” Number three on his list is “world record attempts.”Some of the attempts at the world records are “largest piñata, heaviest ball of cheese, loudest burp by a woman.” He went on to say on the subject “(Disclosure: In a long journalism career I have written about the World’s Largest Meatball, World’s Largest Irish Dance and World’s Largest Potluck, just to name a few.)” Another on his list is “the names of generations.” In this class of people are Baby Boomers, Millennial and GenZ. He says keeping track of when each names generation begins and ends is of real importance in clues to “identity and outlook.” Lastly he comments “I’m also tired of rising house prices, campaign war chests, destination weddings, bucket lists and those TikTok videos where people smash eggs on their kids’ foreheads.”

I’m not sure about dinner tonight but most likely hamburgers and fries. 

Joy

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