Heart ice cubes, coffee shop,Bounce,patio

 

Fun for ice tea, this is a heart ice cube tray which I like to use.

Above is me at Shrine Coffee, plenty of room for social distancing, the ocean is across the street, and the gardens are extensive. Here you see my pandemic long hair, no hair cut for over a year. After this photo was taken I did dare to go in for my first hair cut in eons.

Above is Bounce getting a sun bath on my patio, you can glimpse my 5 foot tall pink rose bush in the background, and below are petunias on the patio.

Just wanted to share a few things from my summer days. How is your summer going? I know my friends in Australia and Africa are enjoying cooler months now as the year there cools down.

"All Along You Were Blooming" poems and my pitiful left knee

 I just happened to find and buy a poetry book by Morgan Harper Nichols. The book looked like it would be a treat and a spirit lifter, and it is. I read that she has 2,000,000 social media followers and she is admired for her poetry and her art. The book I bought is her "All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living" and I am very pleased with it.

Above is the young lady who is the gifted poet. Here is her book cover:

Here is one of her poems that is very meaningful to me.

In case it is hard for you to read: There will be days when you do not feel fearless, and you choose to get up and go out to sea anyway.

And my friend, let me tell you, that is what it means to be brave.

It is that gentle shove toward the water that says "I will go, and I will go afraid."

It is not a feeling. It is not a thought. It is that inward wind that pulls you out of sleep and says "I will go forth with all I have now: a breath, a dozen steps, and a pocket full of fears,

but no matter what tries to pull me back, I will find the strength to be here." 

This is a nice size smaller hardback, maybe six inches tall, full of Nichols' art and poems. It would make a nice gift book for anyone or for you; you deserve a treat too.

 

Poor poor pitiful me! On June 8 I took Bounce on a leisurely walk and came home and was standing in front of the closet when my left knee went out. Terrible pain. I think this is connected with growing so old. I was not moving. My knee just went! I could only hobble, three inches at a time, saying ouch with each step. What a night. All the next week my knee has been healing, aided by rest and my answered prayers.  That night and all the next day Bounce stayed close by, looking worried as I moaned and limped. He is a true companion. Be well my friends. 

Update on June 25: I got 4 x-rays of my knee and it shows arthritis. They say this is pretty common in people 65+. I am going to sign up for physical therapy.  One thing I will say about my insurance (Medicare plus Supplemental Insurance) is that all this is paid for, here in the USA.

Annie Johnson Flint, Gifted Poet and Blogging Question

 

I recently discovered a poet and hymn writer, Annie Johnson Flint, who wrote deep and yet easy to understand poems. Her book "He Giveth More Grace" contains 100 poems that are a delight to read. On Kindle her books are about 99 cents, a bargain price. Above she is in a wheel chair due to extreme arthritis from a young age. She wrote by hand with hands terribly twisted and painful from arthritis.

Annie lived from 1866-1932. After treatment when young at a sanitarium she moved in with a family named Flint and became part of their family.

Above is the book "He Giveth More Grace" that I bought, these 100 poems are all appreciated by me; here is one of them:

Thy Strength and My Day

Give me Thy strength for my day, Lord

That wheresoe'er I go,

There shall no danger daunt me

And I shall fear no foe; 

So shall no task o'ercome me,

So shall no trial fret,

So shall I walk unwearied

The path where my feet are set.

So shall I find no burden

Greater than I can bear,

So shall I have a courage

Equal to all my care;

So shall no grief o'erwhelm me,

So shall no wave o'erflow;

Give me Thy strength for my day, Lord,

Cover my weakness so.

Annie Johnson Flint found her inspiration for this poem in Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."

When I face challenges, which happens more and more now that I am a senior citizen, I love these reminders of good courage, "there shall no danger daunt me".  Well, the words are helpful at any age.

BLOGGER QUESTION. How can I add those little buttons some of you have with each of your posts so that people can click on a button to leave their opinion? Buttons that say Like, Funny, or other comments. A blog friend asked me to add this feature and I can't figure out how. I hope one of my helpful followers will enlighten me. Thank you blog friends for letting me know that this option of buttons that say "like", "funny" etc. is no longer available on blogger. 

Also, something awful has occurred, my blog roll has disappeared! I loved that list of all the blogs I follow, and I used it to check out blog posts if I haven't seen a post from a favorite blogger in a while. Very big loss for me!

Quotes and Pictures to Share

 I gather funny and serious quotes and pictures to share. Here goes.

Above is me, frazzled, after reading the news, and seeing our country's push in a bad direction. Protests turning violent, President pushed off of social media, mass out of control illegal immigration, threats to free speech, ignoring God, the list is long.

A humorous take on Covid above.

The above makes me smile!

I am in a Zoom group for 8 local ladies over 55 who are encouraging each other in this time of pandemic. We had never met each other before joining the group; I heard about it in a tiny mention in the newspaper. One tip I shared with the gals is that sometimes my To Do lists get overwhelming so I write in JOY on the list. Remember to take a half hour or so each day to relax, or the new word I like, chillax. Below is a sample of a To Do list of mine. Do you see that I wrote a reminder to Brush Bounce's teeth? Yes, who knew I would brush my dear pup's teeth each night? He is a sweetie and well worth it. Remember to Chillax each day.

And remember to write JOY on your day's activities when you can.

My post in which I whine related to libraries, plus Clematis vines and cat book ends

 

Above photo shows the Boston Public Library.

I don't often whine here but I got something in the mail today, the alumni newsletter from where I graduated with an M.L.S., which provoked this post. As some of you know I am a retired librarian, a career I enjoyed. A nice career for a book lover, at least in earlier years. Now it is very much involved with computers. What annoyed me in the newsletter was when I read that the university where I got my Masters Degree in Library Science has dropped the word Library from its school name. When I graduated it was School of Library and Information Sciences.

I know, don't push the river, but my alma mater's new school name is Information School. Not a whisper of Library to be found. I guess nowadays we Information Workers (formerly known as Librarians) could be working in a drafty warehouse surrounded by computers and nary a book or library user in sight. I wonder when the term librarian will disappear, replaced by something like IS Worker. Information School worker. To my mind, librarian is a noble calling and a word that evokes the joy and the power of books.

Being a librarian I researched and see that 7 well known American universities have made the school name change to Information School with the nickname of iSchool. There is now an international group of 77 universities that have made this name change to iSchool, dropping the word Library.

 

Public libraries often still value physical books, and putting those books in the hands of people. But the wave of the future has arrived in many universities. The one where I worked threw out all the books on one floor to turn the floor into study areas. I am glad that happened after I retired, I would have refused to do that, staff had to throw the books into dumpsters.

Enough of a whine on this subject. Thanks for listening, I feel a teeny bit better. To thank you for reading the above, here are some photos I took in my garden today. The first photo of my purple/red clematis shows my hand so you can see the flower size.

Above is my orange Clock Vine (Thunbergia), from India, and my purple clematis. This clematis has two petals on each flower vs. six petals on the red/purple in the other photos. I pulled out my graceful cat bookends as I am decluttering books, and put them on display on my kitchen table. Have a great week and stay well, my friends.

My kitty, chair made new, Mayan Jaguar lettuce and petunias

 The sun was creating a glow around the fur on my cat, Fluffy. I can't figure out how to crop this photo and make the remaining closeup of the cat larger.

Above is the chair I spray painted this week, with special Krylon Fusion for Plastic paint for plastic. Below is the same chair before I painted it. The paint color I used is Blue Hyacinth.

I really do not want to throw out plastic chairs and mine have lasted for a decade with an occasional repainting. 

Do you think veggies can be pretty? I had to buy this lettuce to plant when I saw the dramatic name "Mayan Jaguar Lettuce", plus the six plants look like a bouquet to me.

On the same visit to the garden center I bought these two petunias plus two alyssum to plant in a pot. Plus I added two more petunias to two hanging pots.

My first coffee shop visit in a year, beautiful gardens there

 I visited a coffee shop for the first time in a year, and picked a new shop run by volunteers, which is surrounded by gardens and located right along the Pacific Ocean. This was my first time here, and I think it will be my go to coffee shop. 

Note the large patio and the wisteria on the left side of the building. The coffee shop opened a year ago, during the pandemic. That is a hopeful act indeed.

The fountain on the patio. There are only four tables on the huge patio so people are widely spaced.

Above are two different sculptures of Joseph; his face in this sculpture is very kind and thoughtful.

This area is dedicated to Joseph as he holds a tiny baby. I understand from reading the plaques that families who lost a baby through miscarriage or abortion visit here for comfort.

I walked and walked and got my steps in, after I enjoyed a large latte at the coffee shop. This is a healthy and beautiful environment, and the outdoor patio offers an ocean breeze and no people squeezed together. I am glad I discovered this shop. I almost went to a national chain store downtown with a tiny patio. In these pandemic days I chose this coffee shop, staffed by volunteers. Anyone else have a favorite coffee shop?