Gratitude list for April, 2017

I love two-ply toilet tissue! Yep, once I bought some one-ply, which was on sale and made myself use it up. Awful stuff!

I love my patrons of pottery.  Friendly folks (some of them friends before purchasing my pots) to whom I feel so grateful for their support of my ideas in clay.

I'm grateful for a safe cozy home, which totally meets my needs.  Just look at all those pots! It's great to have these built in shelves!

I continually am grateful for my health, which is right now at it's best in maybe the last 5 years.

And friends who are interested in similar things to do, from a Spanish class to going to pottery shows, to walking along waterfall trails, to sharing about goddess interests, to reading similar books.

Family of course, is up high on my gratitude list.  There are at least 4 relatives having birthdays in the next couple of months, and they are all so wonderful and talented.  I wish we lived a bit closer so I could hug them and talk with them all in person more often!

Facebook is surprising to add to my list, because that's my information source for much of what is happening with family members.  I also like sharing some of my own interests and meeting new folks who contribute their ideas which they have in common.  I honestly avoid confrontational discussions. It's my choice.

Internet, which is the source of much of my communication these days...not only Facebook but emails, and Ancestry research.  I'm sorry now there is less privacy here, but actually had felt like "big brother" was already watching over my shoulder whatever I shared. Google has collected my words for years in order to shoot some advertising my way.

Being able to write a blog daily! About whatever I'm doing, or am interested in. And there are a few other folks who also write blogs that I visit almost daily...it's another great community of people with very diverse interests!

Living in an environment which is beautiful and has clean air and water, and access to a senior recreational site including a COA lunch site where I get low cost nutritious food Mon-Fri, and can walk to get some exercise or join an exercise class to keep healthy.

Having animals in my life which give pleasure and are not too high maintenance...I don't do a thing for the Canada Geese or Mallards except enjoy them. My own tropical fish (guppies) have spawned a fish with a disability, it looks like scoliosis.  She has survived and thrived for several months, so her strength outweighs the disability.  I've never seen anything like that before.

My cat needs to sometime have surgery to remove the little cyst on her chin.  Unfortunately, even with some assistance from the local Humane Society, it's too costly for my income at this time.  And the vet refused to offer me a time payment plan. (Since I don't have credit, I can't obtain the credit plan they do offer.)  I can pay the bill from my last year's stay in a hospital by monthly payments over 2 years, but not a vet.  Strange attitude for health care providers. But we don't get health insurance for pets either.  Mixed bag.

I'm grateful to be an American.  I've been able to vote, make choices as to my own lifestyle, and even support others who don't have my views but know that this freedom is the important thing, not the decisions they make.

I'm grateful to have a public library which provides so much of my ongoing education and entertainment!

I'm glad to have transportation which is reliable. And roads that are mostly reliable! And gas that I can afford...though I'm all for reducing reliance on fosil fuels.

Did I miss anything?  Yes, at least twice as much as I have listed.  And this has taken about 20 more minutes than I thought it would.  Now the chores around home are calling me...so I guess I've procrastinated enough for today.

Today's Quote:

“I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.” Stephen Hawking

Life and beauty

If you are an artist, or creative in any manner, you know how the appreciation of beauty can hit you. 
Maybe you learned about it from looking at a sunset, or listening to a bird.  But the beauty that is created by nature, or by a person through a painting or a symphony, lets our lives be a bit richer.

Panther, Kalanchoe, Geranium in window

I think it's also important for the continuation of life.  Maybe not for a single individual, or even a single species, but that's something scientists and Darwin might argue.

For me beauty isn't just the frosting on the cake of our lives, but something that allows us to pause and move from simple survival strategies to a place that gives us a reason for being.

Simple survival...food, shelter, comfort, safety from enemies that would do us harm, health enough to provide the things we need, and then some sense of why we are.  That's where I think beauty speaks to us. We need intellect in order to appreciate more than just the survival instincts. .

Lavender, Amaryllis

Now that many of us have tightened our seat belts for a bumpy ride that we're imagining about to happen, we need to know that our survival is intact.  And we need to know that art and nature are in tune with our survival. Are they? Well, the good news is that they are not totally subject to the whims of any political entity.  Yes there can be rules made (laws?) and enforced (I'm reminded of Robert Motherwell.) But there is also the sense that as long as one person survives to see that sunset, or to smell a rose's fragrance, or to hear some bird, or the breeze in some tree...then beauty survives as well as life.

Does beauty itself help the continuation of our species?  I guess I have to have faith that there will always be beauty...even the thought of it can survive when we live in the bleakest environments.

Today's Quote:

When we understand how precious each moment is, we can treat each breath, each moment, as a newborn baby.

Michelle McDonald