July 29, 2025 a though for today, Old promises are left behind. Maori of New Zealand 

An upload for today is “chasing light”. One of my external hard drives houses a huge amount of my archives. There is a problem, it fade in and out as to my being able to pull it up. This is one of the images I have from the past when I was a much younger photographer and using a much larger camera. 

The next upload is one of my sister’s paintings. This was also created when she was much younger and had a lot more energy. 

The last upload for yesterday was “my choice”. This is another of my “partial” series. 

Life today. It is starting out to be a day of accomplishments in the easy kind of style. Although it is also a food pantry day and we can seldom tell if it will be busy or smooth or anything in between. 

I am getting a start on things that need to be done on the computer and around the house before I leave for church.

Andy has come by again to put some more finishing touches on the deck. There are still things on it that need finished. Small finishing touches. One I am considering in a deck fence. 

My first upload for today is “flat lay” (a shot taken directly from above, looking down on a scene arranged on a flat surface). This is some of the cooking utensils out of my drawer. 

We are in for some more heat and rain today and tomorrow. It looks like we will get a break in the heat in a few days. 

.....I am back at my deck chair and finishing up the letter and the photos. Pantry was medium today, not to crowded and not really low on visitors. I think we served about 25 families today. 

My next upload is another of the “my choice” and another of my “partial” series. This is the recycle pick up day in front of my house. 

The word today is excuse.   It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. George Washington. Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Henry Ward Beecher.  Any excuse will serve a tyrant. Aesop.  Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible. Thomas a Kempis. The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse. Benjamin Franklin.  And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. William Shakespeare.  Every vice has its excuse ready. Publilius Syrus.  Never ruin an apology with an excuse. Benjamin Franklin.  A lie is an excuse guarded. Jonathan Swift.  If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse. Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet.  Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast. Henry David Thoreau. 

The last challenge upload for today is “j is for...”. I chose j is for jam. This is the jam I use on my McDonald sausage and biscuit. I make a “half sandwich” with the sausage on one half and make a quick “dessert” with the other half and my sugar free grape jam. 

Article: I am a reader, I love reading. So when I saw this article I wasn’t sure I wanted to address it. I don’t want negativity in the genre of reading. But I decided it must be looked at for the growth of knowledge and wisdom. The title to the article is “Do you really need to read to learn? What neuroscience says about reading versus listening.” It begins by saying that there are probably some kinds of books some where near you, in your house or other building. “You’ll still find books today, even in a world filled with podcasts”. It goes on to say that in reading a book or listening to a recording “the goal is the same: understanding”. It also says that the comprehension between the two is different, “listening doesn’t provide all the benefits of reading, and reading doesn’t offer everything listening does”. In the reading process the brain works to match the letters on the page to the speech connecting them to sounds and meanings. While listening the brain “works at the pace of the speaker” and the listener has to “rely on the cognitive processes” like memory to “hold onto what they just heard”. The brain has to take in the tone and context the understand the meaning. I was interested in seeing that many people “assume that listening is easier than reading, but this is not usually the case”. It further says that research shows that “listening can be harder than reading, especially when the material is complex or unfamiliar”. The author said that her “research shows that genre affects how you read”. Fiction involves “social understanding and storytelling”, while in nonfictional reading the brain works with “strategic thinking and goal-directed attention”. I was also surprised to read that “reading difficult material tends to be easier than listening from a practical standpoint, as well”. In the reading process if you have difficulty to understand you can “revisit” it later, and reading allows for “jumping around in the text”. On the other side listening “allows the brain to extract meaning without the difficult process of decoding”. The article goes on to mention that another “thing to consider is engagement. In this context, engagement refers to being mentally present in processing information”. Sometimes people may be doing other things as when they are listening that of course you can’t do while reading. In one research project where college students read or listened to a podcast it was determined that “students who read the material performed significantly better on a quiz than those who listened”. In the research was learned that some of the students who listened to the podcast were “multitasking”, like clicking on computer key, so focus was not totally on the main subject.

Maybe quick spaghetti for dinner tonight. 

Joy

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