February 3, 2024 You cannot cure a wound by striking it gently. African Proverb

The first photo a day for yesterday was “winter wonderland”. We didn’t have this much snow this year (so far). This was taken a couple of years ago at the park near my house. 

The second upload was “starts with O”. I chose for my image this time, the microwave “O”ven and the “O”pen door.

The last upload for yesterday was “books”. I have had the book theme in my “assignments” before so I try to choose a different set of books each time. 

Life today. I got a “frameo” for Christmas. I just had the time to finish setting it up yesterday. Natalie, my granddaughter, got it partially started when she gave it to me. I wanted to put four people on it, I would like a fifth but I haven’t asked them if they would want to join me in this adventure. Anyway, I am loving it. It makes me feel like I at least see parts of their lives in pictures especially the little ones, the ones growing without me every day. The only problem is it’s not interactive, though I will talk to it (them). I have short virtual calls that help with that. I write letters to my family every other day in hopes they will know me better. So when my great grand children, who I am watching on the frameo, can read they will be able to “see” part of my life. I have the frameo on all day. As I glance up, I see something they are doing and see them happy or maybe sad....but I am “there” (sort of).  

My first photo of the day for today is “starts with the letter J”. This time I chose as my prop a box of mason “J”ars that I use for my hydrophobic house plant garden. 

I also had another proposition that I am happily thinking about. I have had an invitation to go to Florida to visit one of my “away” families in May. I am envisioning it. Should all stay well in my life (thinking of age, as is necessary at this part of my circle of life) I will be going. I have been allowed to take Sweet Pea with me. 

Today is grocery pick up day. I made a larger than normal list today. I was running low on paper goods I like to keep stocked up....plates, towels, and TP.....Sweet Pea and I have that out of the way now. After circling around parking lots a bit looking for photo images, we stopped at McDonalds where another cashier wanted to let me know how beautiful Sweet Pea is. She also gave me a tip, when I buy the hamburger for Sweet Pea I don’t have to get it on a bun.

The sun is out and very very welcome today. For the moment ..... my life is perfect. I have my frameo going, my favorite kitchen show on tv and have some photos to work on. Also making things a little smoother for me in my volunteer part of life, someone else is trying to fix a facebook situation. It is a problem that happened before my venture into facebook for church and is one I don’t have the wherewithal in my “bag of tricks” to fix.  

The next upload for today is “low light image”. There a part of a shopping mall near my home that has awnings that overhang extending from the structure to the curb causing some heavy shade on an otherwise sunny day. That is the coincidence for today’s image. 

The word today is write. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Benjamin Franklin.  Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. John Adams.  I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation. Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. Anacharsis.   Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers. Hans Christian Andersen.  Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. Martin Luther.  If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old. James A. Garfield.  All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Robert Louis Stevenson.  Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. Aristotle.  If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things. Henry David Thoreau. A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill. Jane Austen.  I have proved by actual trial that a letter, that takes an hour to write, takes only about 3 minutes to read! Lewis Carroll.  How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. Henry David Thoreau.  

The third image upload for today is “superbowl Sunday”. Well, that was a hard one for me to imagine. I don’t have footballs around the house any more and no “football game” type snacks on hand today. I put together the only thing I could think of. I opened my tablet to the Peacock streaming service and pulled up a football game show then added the snack bag and some sprite. The best I could do for now. 

The article. Amazing what we can learn instantly from our modern encyclopedia (Google). And if we read between the lines effectively the more we learn, things we didn’t set out to know. This article came from the Curious Kids site and was written by an Assistant Professor of History. The title is: Who created the alphabet?” It is a “millennia-long story of the ABCs.” It starts out mentioning how the letters don’t necessarily need to be laid out in the order of A-B-C, look at the computer keyboard or a typewriter. She interestingly states that she likes “why” questions as apposed to “who” questions “because it’s actually really rare for a single person to change the world”. It usually happens with teamwork and collaboration. I learned in this article that “Our ABCs, known as the Latin alphabet” and that it took millions of people and thousands of years to “ultimately” agree on when and which letters to use. She begins describing letters....they are symbols like emojis. They are shapes and they can change sounds in different languages. For instance H is for “ha” in English but in Russian it is “en”. I also learned this, that in America the Z is called “zee” but in Canada, the United Kingdom and other places it is called “zed”. Alphabets reflect sounds. “The first alphabet was invente4d in ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, and was developed to record religious texts.” According to the article that’s were its name “hieroglyphs,” or “sacred carvings,” comes from”. Hieroglyphs are difficult to write quickly because they “often take the form of animals, people or day-to-day objects”. Over time a “simplified form” was created. It came about that the Egyptians developed “a way to record sales or send letters that would be clear to those who could read it but mysterious to everyone else”. The article got into the use of vowels, consonants and the letter ‘J’. The Phoenician people and the Egyptians used only consonants. As the early “alphabets” grew the Greeks adopted vowels. The letters that we use today “took their final form in Italy”. The earliest example of the Latin alphabet comes from “the sixth century BCE, 2,500 years ago”. In that period the Latin alphabet didn’t have the letter “J” it was written as “I” and was pronounced as “ya”. The “J” came along in the 1500s in Europe, that was “two or three centuries after the “W” was added, during the Middle Ages”. The author ended the article with a statement talking about  what may happen as time goes on “the alphabet may have to adapt. It won’t be the first time.”

Hamburgers and shoestring fries (in air fryer) for dinner. 

Joy

    open and airy with a line of light poles against a gorgeous blue sky and fluffy white clouds