1. put up my Christmas decorations
2. do my laundry
3. study4 months ago

1 finish my laundry

2 study for my mid-term

3 spend a couple of hours with the family.5 months ago

1 clean the kitchen counter

2 get to the store.. and don’t forget my list this time :P

3 study for my last mid-term5 months ago

1 make that phone call

2 memorize all the vocabulary

3 get to bed early 5 months ago

1 Fill out and mail the rebates

2 Get a good overview of the rest of my chapters

3 Take a walk5 months ago

1 Make a bank deposit

2 pick up my glasses

3 know my vocabulary and have material understood through ch 5 .. tried.. but couldn’t do it5 months ago

1 Have a nice family time

2 Don’t over eat

3 Leave plenty of time to study 5 months ago

1 get out early... Done

2 do then paperwork and get it in ... Done.

3 Study ...Done6 months ago

1 Study for my test ... Done.

2 Call Marvin ...Done.

3 Wash and put away my new dishes 6 months ago

1 Study make flash cards ... Done.

2 Spend time with my family ...Done.

3 Clean that corner ... Done6 months ago

this goal is one of the reasons I’m back
I’m getting a late start today, but I still haven’t finished what I wanted to do today. I still have time. Soooo…

1 finish my laundry ... Done.
2 clear off my bedside table ... Done.
3 study

YAY me 6 months ago

For the heart:

1. Meander, reflect, and take some photos
2. Catch up on some reading
3. WRITE: on journal

Chores and the in-betweens:

1. Laundry
2. Sort out recycling
3. Grocery 9 months ago

^{“Badger’s footsteps” image via wikimedia commons}

“Something I’ve not done
is following me
I haven’t done it again and again
so it has many footsteps…”

. 9 months ago

^{image via http://karmacrandall.blogspot.com/2010/07/blue-sky.html}

. 9 months ago

^{bee on lantana; image via wikimedia commons}

386

Answer July —
Where is the Bee —
Where is the Blush —
Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July —
Where is the Seed —
Where is the Bud —
Where is the May —
Answer Thee — Me —

Nay — said the May —
Show me the Snow —
Show me the Bells —
Show me the Jay!

Quibbled the Jay —
Where be the Maize —
Where be the Haze —
Where be the Bur?
Here — said the Year —

. 10 months ago

^{image credit: Hoboken Real Estate News website}

“Summer has set in with its usual severity.”
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Boy, has it ever!

. 10 months ago

BE HAPPY AND SMILE: do things that make me happy and give me joy.
BE IN ALIGNMENT: good, positive and beautiful thoughts and feelings.
CONCENTRATE ON THE THINGS I WANT.
ALLOW OR LET THINGS FLOW.
DETACH, LET THINGS GO, ALLOW ANYTHING OR ANYBODY be,do or have.
BE THANKFUL AND APPRECIATIVE. 4 years ago

^{PRC95-44b Hubble Wide Field Image of “Star Birth” Clouds in M16; image source nasa}

“Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.
....
Like emptied idiot masks, sin’s loves and wars
Stare at me now: for in the night I broke
The bubble of a great world’s jest, and woke
Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.”

- Excerpt from The End of Fear, by G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936)

.
note to self: a quote to ponder…

“My Life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.” ― Anne Morrow Lindbergh 10 months ago

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness”
- Sigmund Freud

“Work is love made visible.”
- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Tell you what I like the best -
‘Long about knee-deep in June,
‘Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, – some afternoon
Like to jes’ git out and rest,
And not work at nothin’ else!”
- James Witcomb Riley, Knee Deep in June

. 11 months ago

^{June berry or serviceberry tree fruit – image via annarbor.com}

Now that the bright red berries lend
Color to the June berry tree
My need is urgent to befriend
Denial and austerity.

I touch the fruit with lips of wish
And with the fingers of soft words,
And leave them, a delicious dish
In taste and substance to the birds.

- Jessica Powers, Richer Berry (excerpt)

A friend here has a June berry tree and I’ve tasted muffins that she made from the fruit – they tasted like blueberries. Last week at the local park I got a chance to pick and taste a different type of June berry – wild raspberries – but I left most of them for the birds or whoever else finds them. It brought back memories of childhood berry picking.

. 11 months ago

^{image: postcard of Augusta canal, approx 1875; source – www.georgiaencyclopedia.org}

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj

Notes to self:
I did make some notes so I can reconstruct what I did and didn’t do. Not a good week for this goal. Avoidance is probably not flow, and I was avoiding some things that still need to be done… 11 months ago

^{Macadam country road image via wikipedia}

What joy have I in June’s return?
My feet are parched — my eyeballs burn,
I scent no flowery gust;
But faint the flagging Zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me “dust to dust.”

- Thomas Hood, Ode Imitated from Horace (1844), st. 2.

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|2|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|1|
|Wed.|:|Y|:|3|
|Thu.|:|Y|:|2|
|Fri.|:|Y|:|2|
|Sat.|:|?|:|- went refrigerator shopping but could not make up my mind| 11 months ago

^{image of Salvador Dali’s “exploding soft watch” via onlineclock.net}

“How did it get so late so soon?
It’s night before it’s afternoon.
December is here before its June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?”

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|2 – late-in-the-day excuses: oh, my aching back & head…|
|Tue.|:|N|:|- no good excuses…at least my aching back and head were much better…|
|Wed.|:|N|:|- no good excuses…at least I sat at my desk for awhile & sorted through some papers.|
|Thu.|:|Y|:|2 – making a new beginning, but then something unexpected came along… |
|Fri.|:|Y|:|2 – change of plans late in the day…|
|Sat.|:|N|:|- came down with a headache – 2nd one of the week – at least my back was fine!...| 12 months ago

^{Al Hirshfield’s portrait of Hal David; image via the Official Hal David web site}

What’s it all about, Alfie?

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
then I guess it’s wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
what will you lend on an old golden rule?
As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there’s something much more,
something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
and you’ll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

- Hal David, who was awarded the prestigious Gershwin Prize last week along with his song-writing partner, Burt Bacharach. (I heard this song on the radio as part of the news report and it kept on playing in my head ever since.)

Here, Hal David names his own personal favourite of the many Bacharach/David songs from their so-called golden era:“Without a doubt, it’s ‘Alfie’. I think that lyric comes closest to expressing my own particular philosophy of love and how to live your life. Every writer sets out to achieve something with their lyrics but various things can conspire against you during the writing process to make you lose sight of the initial emotional intent. But with Alfie, more than any other song, it just fell into place beautifully.”

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|N|:|- if I get the garbage all taken out tonight, I think I can count my 3 things as being done, even though I didn’t make a list.|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|2|
|Wed.|:|N|:|- busy with book group & talent show.|
|Thu.|:|Y|:|2|
|Fri.|:|N|:|- off to a very slow start this morning… |
|Sat.|:|N|:|- taking FOREVER to type up meeting minutes – finally done!| 12 months ago

^{Ailanthus altissima, aka “Tree of Heaven”, native to China and Taiwan, considered invasive in the United States; photographed in Chicago by John Delano of Hammond, Indiana – image via wikimedia commons}

“There’s a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps. It grows up out of cellar gratings. It is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly…survives without sun, water, and seemingly earth. It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it.”
. . . .

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time. Then your time on Earth will be filled with joy.”

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|3|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|2 – finding joy when I discovered my refrigerator/freezer had quit working is quite a challenge!|
|Wed.|:|N|:| – shopped for a fridge and still recovering from sticker shock…|
|Thu.|:|N|:|- needed to spend some time reviewing my calendar for the rest of this week & next, and I did get that done…|
|Fri.|:|N|:|- up really early helping out my friend, and busy the rest of the day|
|Sat.|:|N|:|- today as I write this, I feel like a failure at this goal, but I was awfully tired from the day before, and I did manage to transfer Ashley to her new owner, and to remember a commitment at church in time to complete it, and to petsit for Arnie & company, and even find joy along the way…| 12 months ago

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

^{photo credit: wikimedia commons}

Refusing at Fifty-two to Write Sonnets

It came to him that he could nearly count
How many late Aprils he had left to him
In increments of ten or, say, eleven
Thus:sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five.
He couldn’t see himself at ninety-six –
Humanity’s advances notwithstanding
In health-care, self-help, or new-age regimens –
What with his habits and family history,
The end he thought is nearer than you think.

The future, thereby bound to its contingencies,
The present moment opens like a gift:
The greening month, the golden week, the blue morning,
The hour’s routine, the minute’s passing glance –
All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this?
At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks.

- by Thomas Lynch, undertaker

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|3|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|3|
|Wed.|:|N|:|- Not much done – did get cat food & go for a walk|
|Thu.|:|N|:|- Trying to go through old papers & purge…lots of emotions!|
|Fri.|:|N|:|- Just getting through the day…|
|Sat.|:|Y|:|2 – Off to an extra-early start; needed a nap but never took one – worried about my cat…| 13 months ago

^{Detail of Flora from Primavera Botticelli, c. 1482 – image source}

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|3 – wow, a productive day!|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|3 – meeting & errands day|
|Wed.|:|Y|:|2 – book group & leftover errand day|
|Thu.|:|N|:|- excuses: gloomy day, tiredness, the blahs & the blues, but I did get to a meeting even though I didn’t want to go and took notes even though I didn’t want to do that|
|Fri.|:|Y|:|2 – accepted an invitation to dinner|
|Sat.|:|N|:|- busy day of church lady stuff…| 13 months ago

^{La Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, image via wikimedia commons}

|DAY|:|Y/N|:|DONE|
|Mon.|:|Y|:|3|
|Tue.|:|Y|:|2|
|Wed.|:|Y|:|2|
|Thu.|:|Y|:|2|
|Fri.|:|Y|:|2|
|Sat.|:|N|:|made some progress on 2 things I’ve put off for days… | 13 months ago