June 5, 2025 a thought for today, Blessings never come in pairs misfortunes never come singly. Chinese Proverb

One upload for yesterday was “messy”. On my outing on Wednesday one of the places I passed was this spot. I couldn’t help stop for this image to fill the its challenge. 

The next upload is “shouldn’t be here”.  This image covers two of the items for this challenge. The ladders for one should be in covered storage. The other is the weed beginning to use them as support. 

The last upload for yesterday was “my choice” which is another of the “doors” series. This one is a nearby church with one of its several red doors. 

Life today. Well, when I woke this morning and looked out my window where my new “garden” sits on the window ledge, I saw a young bird sitting in my “garden” flapping his/her wings like they do when they are taking a bath. I have fresh soil in spots that would most likely feel good to roll in. However, I have newly “sewn” seeds there too. Hopefully they were as happy for the stimulation as he/she was. A pleasant moment like that is worth having a garden no matter how small. After we shared a fleeing moment he/she flew off to new adventures.

The first upload for today is “something in my junk drawer”. I have a couple of these, junk drawers, in my house. This is one of the “milder” ones. 

I got to church to do the printing before the others coming to move the food order from Mid Ohio got there. It was good to be able to chat with them as they came in. The computer was more cooperative for me this morning and booted up in a reasonable amount of time. Everything went smoothly even laying out the most current Upper Rooms along with the bulletins. I was done is good time and even had a quick smile and moment with the crew helping to unload the pallets as I passed them.  

The next upload for today is “mother” and this is my mom. She is gone from us for now so I am using an old photo of her. I shot this image from a hand painted image of my mom with my dad. 

On my way home I had a stop at the bank for lawn care money. Then dropped off mail and a stop at Kroger to pick up one of my meds. While out and about I got two of my photo shots for the day. 

Now it’s time to start the laundry, water the gardens and move to the “darkroom” for photo work. Life’s adventure goes on.

The next image is another of the “my choice” challenges. It is another of my “doors” series.  This is one pair of the many doors in our church. 

The word today is borrow. Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. George Washington. The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. Charles Lamb.  A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. Horace Mann.  Sunlight fell upon the wall; the wall received a borrowed splendor. Why set your heart on a piece of earth, O simple one? Seek out the source which shines forever. Rumi.  I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing. Michel de Montaigne.  We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Chief Seattle.  Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. William Shakespeare. The borrower is a slave to the lender and the debtor to the creditor.  Benjamin Franklin.  Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to both borrower and lender. Robert Green Ingersoll.  Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,--what ample borrowers of eternity they are! Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower. Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington. The rich is the one that rules over those of little means, and the borrower is servant to the man doing the lending. Solomon.  

The last challenge photo for today is “hand/paws”. This is Sweet Pea showing off her manicure. This is my group were there is a challenge four times a month.

Article: I was attracted to this article in its connection of art to our way of thinking and carrying from one generation to next and the next and the next. I feel myself an artist more than perhaps at the very lowest on the totem pole of “artists” but still making statements about life as humble as my efforts may be. Not to mention my feeling of gratitude and marvel that a person of such power and influence can use art to further carry and pass on his life’s messages. The title is “What a sunny van Gogh painting of ‘The Sower’ tells us about Pope Leo’s message of hope. The first line in the article tells how Pope Leo XIV “referred to Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sower at Sunset” and called it a symbol of hope.” in his first general audience. He related the painting to Christ’s Parable of the Sower, a story in the Gospel that speaks to the need to do good works”. Each word is like a seed. He said that the “soil” where the “seed”  is planted is “the world, the community, the church.” Pope Leo further said that in van Gogh’s painting the ripened seed had grown and was the “image of hope”. In the article the painting and van Gogh were further talked about. The painting in question, “Sower at Sunset”, was created  in 1888 Arles in southern France. It mentions that the painting “reflects his optimism”. Van Gogh wrote to his brother explaining the beauty of the colors he used and how he felt about each of the colors and their purpose. For instance the “Immense lemon-yellow disc for the sun”. Van Gogh painting was inspired by another artists painting called “The Sower”. Van Gogh used his own feel and tough to create his version and to transfer his feel of the dark figure “set in the midst “of a landscape transformed by the sun.” The article mentions that Pope Leo said of the painting “in the center of the painting is the sun, not the sower, [which reminds us that] it is God who moves history”, the sun warms the earth and ripens the seed.  From what I read in the article the painting and other historical events, some in the field of art also, as well as some of Pope Leo’s thoughts around it and them likely helped the him chose the name Leo. 

I am leaning toward taco salad for dinner tonight. 

Joy

                                 brick wall