Z is for Zoom, Zoom

My sister and I are Zooming across the mountains today to go to West Virginia to spend time with family for a couple of days. The weather looks good and there should be redbuds and dogwood blooming along the way. Always a treat. 



So until next time, which won't be tomorrow because I've run out alphabet, 😄, have a great day.

Y is for Yellow

Y is for Yellow around and about the house.

I think this banana is perfectly ripe. My father would have agreed, but my mother would have said that it was almost rotten. Ward will eat them green or very ripe. What's your banana preference?

This is a very positive picture book about the possibilities of a day. Good pictures and simple words for kids and also, a great message for adults and kids alike. It's one of my favorites.

I snatched this magnet from my mother's refrigerator when we were cleaning out her house. Blue and Yellow (gold) are WV's state colors.

Double sided tape always says school projects to me. Many posters were made with this kind of tape at our house when Wally and Theo were in school. BTW, I learned from all of them that you get what you pay for with DS tape.

Speaking of school, these are scissors that Theo used in third grade. The pen on top is my new favorite. It writes with smooth purple ink.

This is one of my gardening reference books. Like most of the Dummies books, it gives good information in a clear, easy to read style. 

Dandelion and a tiny ant enjoying its nectar. Dandelions are so pretty. I wonder when it was decided that they were a weed?

Leaf scoops. These are handy for picking up any kind of debris around the yard. We bought them on an impulse several years ago and have never regretted it.

The groundcover, yellow lanium, is in bloom. With its varigeited leaves and yellow blooms I think it is quite pretty.

X is for eXhale

Upon wakening this morning, I got the sad news that my Aunt Debbie died last night in her sleep. Then came a big gasp. And an exhale before the tears started to flow.  My uncle had been sick for months and was recovering from one surgery and waiting to get strong enough for two others.  So, it was a surprise to hear that she was the one who passed.

My aunt never left my uncle's side during the weeks he spent at the hospital. After 63 years together, they still held hands in their matching wheelchairs and it made for a very sweet picture. She died at home sleeping beside my uncle, just where she wanted to be.

Aunt Debbie was a happy person with a great laugh and I always enjoyed being around her. Last year at a family gathering, she told a great story about when she and my uncle met that I shared with you. I'm going to share it again now as I remember Aunt Debbie's smile and laugh as she told the the tale.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

An Interesting Question

Last weekend I went to a family reunion on my father's side of the family. Besides the normal catching up, there was a theme throughout the day. How did your parents meet? This all started because I found a newspaper clipping in one of my mother's scrapbooks about my oldest aunt's wedding in 1948. It got me thinking that I had heard the story about how my parents had met, but none of the accounts of how my aunts and uncles first got together. I asked around and heard bits and pieces of stories from various cousins about their parents. However, I was able to get one of the stories straight from the source--Aunt Debbie and Uncle Alan.

Debbie and Alan told the story of when they first laid eyes on each other at a church Christmas play. Upon seeing my uncle standing at the back of the church in a leather jacket, my aunt declared that was the man she going to marry. It didn't seem to matter that her fiancee at the time was sitting right beside her. They wove a quite colorful story of the complications of fiancees and girlfriends with my aunt even telling my uncle that she was engaged, but only on weekends.

While I immensely enjoyed the tale of their first meeting and courtship, there was another part that I found even more interesting. My aunt asked each one of her suitors, including my uncle, a curious question, "If you were going to build a city, what would you do?" Among other things, Uncle Alan answered that he would design one like Washington, D.C., with a center circle and streets going out like spokes from there. I commented to my aunt that that must have been an acceptable answer and she said that Alan was the only one who ever gave her an answer. Her fiancee said she was never going to build a city, so it didn't matter.

Then I asked the obvious question, why did she ask about building a city? Aunt Debbie said that it told her if the suitor could make a plan and if they could dream about the future. I found that very smart of her to question her boyfriends in that way. It seemed to be a good test because she and my uncle have been married for almost 63 years now.

Rest in Peace,  Aunt Debbie.

X is for eXtra

X is for eXtra...

in that I need a little eXtra time to complete my blog post. We had a very busy day today and I'm ready for a little R and R.

So until next time, have an eXceptional evening.

W is for Work, Work, Work

When I was in high school, I used to babysit for a little girl named Rebecca. She was always fun and loved books and songs. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher and thought kids didn't need to read early, so Rebecca didn't read until she went to school. However as soon as someone unlocked the reading code for her, she was reading at an 8th grade level within a year or so.

In the meantime, she loved to have books read to her and had memorized many books even chapter books. She would say to me, "Let's read the book about horses," and then go to find it. Rebecca would return a short while later and say, "I can't find the book, but I'll read it to you anyway." And then she would recite the entire book word for word.

She especially liked the books she could listen to that had songs intertwined with the story. She delighted in acting them out for me. She would don her "performance hair" (a dish towel over her head with rubber bands to make pigtails) and her microphone hairbrush and perform an entire book. Besides reciting the story, she would belt out the songs in a strong voice. She was quite good, actually.

There is one song to this day that I still sing that I learned from Rebecca. It is one where Cinderella is lamenting about all of the work she has to do. The chorus and first verse are below:

Work, work, work
I try not to complain
Washing, mending, stretching, bending
Every day's the same

Once I was just little Ella
That's how it began
Now I am a Cinderella
Always in my cinder place with ashes on my hands and face, I am!

(Unfortunately, I was not able to find credits for this or the tune on YouTube to include for you. Maybe after I understand my smart devices a little more, I'll sing it for you some day.)

The great thing about this song is that it's a fun way to complain. It's easy to insert whatever kind of work you're doing as well as your own name and complain while singing a catchy tune. I do it all of the time. In fact, I was singing it earlier while I was doing the laundry. And I think I will do another verse when I go wash the dishes. :)

Until tomorrow, when X is for...?

V is for Vicki

V is for Vicki, sort of

While going to sleep last night, I composed an entire post for V in my head about names. I was going to talk about how trends in names seem to skip a generation but take on their own version when they reappear. For example, the nickname for Victoria was Vicki a generation or two ago. Now the nickname for Victoria is Tori. I had several other examples and personal experiences to relate about how I was named for a neighbor when they were getting ready to turn in the birth certificate. I was the third baby and the third girl in the family. They were sure I was going to be a boy and didn't have a girl's name picked out. And so on.  I've had a busy day and it's time to go to bed again. So as not to be writing a post all night in my head, I'm going to put a quick one out now.

Sometime during the day, I realized my personal example wouldn't work with my alias name, so I decided to go in a bit of a different direction. I'm going to give you a few statistics from the Social Security data base for names in the US.

 First some parameters.
--They have data from 1879-present, but most of it is only compiled through 2017
--Many people born before 1937 did not apply for a card, so that group is under represented.
--They only use the top 1000 names each year. This represents about 75% (plus or minus) of the data at any one time.
--Different spellings of the same name were counted as different names. For example, Kelli, Kelly, and Kelley were all counted separately instead as one name.

So what are the most popular names of the last 100 years (1918-2017)? James and Mary
How about for 2017? Liam and Emma

But the most important statistics for this post are below.

For the last 100 years here the rankings for the V names that made the list:
Virginia 45
Victoria 58
Vincent 95, the only V name on the boys side
(1 is the most popular and 100 is the least popular.)

If you like numbers and want to check out some of your family names or name trends, this is an interesting site to visit.  Be forewarned, that it's an easy place to get sucked in for some time before you realize it. Don't ask me how I know. :)

U is for Under or Over

It's been a busy day with a lot of brain taxing activities which have turned it to mush. So no Unusual posts today. Just a visit to the past when U was for Under or Over.

U is for Under or Over

or How does your toilet paper roll?

I've spoken about this issue before--how do you install a roll of toilet paper?  Do you put it on so it unrolls from the bottom or unrolls from the top? This seems to be an issue that generates much argument.

Google patents

Recently "new" data has surfaced* that some claim has important bearing on this under/over argument. The information comes from the original patent application for a roll of  perforated toilet paper by Seth Wheeler in 1891. The perforations were seen as an inexpensive way to help prevent the waste of paper. Before this, waste prevention was done by expensive holders that were awkward to use.

But it seems that no one these days is much interested in Wheeler's clever use of perforations to tear toilet paper. Everyone seems to be interested in the pictures that went with the patent. In those pictures, the paper is rolled from the top. The proponents of the over method say that this is definitive evidence that over is the correct way for a roll to flow.

However, the under proponents are holding fast to their beliefs. They are making arguments that the way the pictures were oriented was only to demonstrate the points of the invention and aren't necessarily an endorsement by Wheeler.

So the debate continues. Which side are you on ?


*Recently, I have seen this picture on several social media sites. This also happened last year at this time. Of course, it's not new data since it's been around since 1891.

T is for Telephone

Recently, I saw a YouTube video of two 17 year old boys trying to figure out how to use a rotary  telephone. I had never thought about how different smart phones of today are from dial phones of yesteryear until I saw the video below.  And I had never really thought about how many logical ways you can try to dial a phone number with a rotary phone.

Watch the video below of the young men's attempts and see what you think.



After seeing this, I wondered if my kids knew how to use a rotary phone. Theo said that he had never used one before but knew how to use them from seeing them in movies and on TV. Wally said the same thing, but actually realized he didn't after watching the video.

The whole thing was very amusing to me and thought that it just must be the younger generation with the lack of knowledge. That was until I saw the sign below in the waiting room of an office.

I guess those boys weren't the only ones who didn't know that you needed to keep the receiver up to make a phone call on older phones. :) Do you still use a dial phone? Do your kids know how to use one?

S is for a Sundry of Things

So, what have I been up to recently besides writing a blog post every day?

Here are a Sundry of things.

My niece as a young teen.
 A lot of things have
 happened since then
including her engagement.

--We had a Splendid Easter day with Ward's family. There were four generations there with the youngest being 16 months old. She was charming everyone with cuteness while the oldest one, Ward's father at 85, was delighting everyone with his stories and jokes. A good time was had by all especially when our niece announced her engagement.

--Things Sobered up a bit this morning when I attended the funeral for a friend's father. It was a different kind of service for me with the first part being performed by his Mason brothers and the second part being preformed by a rabbi. It was a meaningful experience and inspired me to want to do more good in the world.

--Our deck in the back is South facing and is too hot to use most of the time. We want to put a roof on it to help both with the heat and the rain. We've just gotten our first estimate and we're in a bit of sticker shock. Let's just say that it's going to cost more than we sold my parent's house for.

--Speaking of which, the closing for my parent's house was last Monday and all went well. It's bittersweet and when I think about all of the memories, I get a bit teary-eyed. However, I'm glad that we no longer have that responsibility to worry about. The new owners have great plans for it and I hope they enjoy it as much as my family did.

--Ward's eye is Showing improvement and today all of his restrictions got lifted. Hooray! He's one happy man.

--Spring is still painting its way through my yard. Here are a few of the latest developments.

The lilac bushes are blooming now.

And the crabapple trees are in full bloom.

This catbird has been around singing all kinds of songs.

And the bluebird's nest has been lined and there are two eggs in it. I anticipate more to come.

I have a few more things to do before I can Settle in for the evening. So long until tomorrow.

Thankful Sunday, April 21, 2019

I am thankful for Easter because it reminds us that all things are possible.

R is for Rules

There are rules for just about everything. Some are important for safety. "Don't touch the high voltage wire." Some are important for order. "Please wait for the next available agent." And some don't make sense. "Don't wear your hat inside."


I was having a discussion with a co-worker about this nonsensical rule the other day.  One of our coworkers was wearing a hat inside and my friend was appalled because she considered that to be rude. I said that was the rule that I grew up with, but I thought it was relaxing a bit, especially with billed hats. I had seen a lot more people wearing a billed hat inside without much notice.  Well, apparently I'm wrong because according to  Levine Hats and also, the Emily Post Institute, it's still not okay for a man to wear a hat inside unless it's indicated for religious reasons. Actually there are a lot more rules about hat wearing than I realized. You can see them at the end of the post.

How did that rule ever get started in the first place? Once again, Emily Post gives some insight to this question. She said that knights would lift their visor or remove their helmet to show that they were friendly. Failure to do so could result in battle. It's hard for me to believe that a practice from over five centuries ago is still influencing what we wear on our head, but I read it on the internet so it must be true.

Also according to the Emily Post Institute here are the rules for hat wearing. See how many you follow. It looks like I follow most all of them.

Men
Hats can be left on…

• Outdoors
• At athletic events (indoors or out)
• On public transportation
• In public buildings such as post offices, airports,  and hotel or office lobbies
• On elevators

Take hats off, including baseball caps …

• In someone’s home
• At mealtimes, at the table
• While being introduced, indoors or out (unless it’s frigid!)
• In a house of worship, unless a hat or head covering is required
• Indoors at work, especially in an office (unless required for the job)
• In public buildings such as a school, library, courthouse, or town hall
• In restaurants and coffee shops
• At a movie or any indoor performance
• When the national anthem is played
• When the flag of the United States passes by, as in a parade

Women

Fashion hats (not baseball-style caps) can be left on…

• In someone’s home
• At luncheons, weddings, garden parties
• At religious services
• At a movie or any indoor performance
• When the national anthem is played
• When the flag of the United States passes by, as in a parade

Take your fashion hat off…

• Anytime it blocks someone’s view, such as at a wedding or in a theater
• Indoors at work

Remove baseball-style (unisex) caps…

• In someone’s home
• At mealtimes, at the table
• While being introduced
• In a house of worship, unless a hat or head covering is required
• Indoors at work, unless required for the job
• In public buildings such as a school, library, courthouse, or town hall
• In restaurants and coffee shops
• At a movie or any indoor performance
• When the national anthem is played
• When the flag of the United States passes by, as in a parade

Cancer patients are exempt from hat rules. They may keep their hats or caps on at all times if they wish

Q is for Quack

or A  Duck's Quack doesn't echo and no one knows why?

or Does it?

I was brainstorming with Miss Landers for a topic for the Q post and she suggested the Q is for Quack theme. She said I could talk about why a duck's quack doesn't echo--something about the reverberation chamber in a duck's head. Wow. That was interesting and something I had never heard of. I had a topic, "Why does a duck's quack not echo?" Now for a little research.

It turns out that I was not able to figure out why a duck's quack doesn't echo because it can under the right circumstances. An acoustics professor from University of Salford in England did the most quoted study proving that the quack statement was indeed quackery. Snopes reported on the falsehood in 1999 and MythBusters did a experiment in 2003 that busted the myth.

Now the interesting part is no one is quite sure where the myth came from or why it was proposed. But it has certainly propagated over the years. There was even a British game show on from 2014-2017 with that name. Have you heard about the echo-less quack before? Did you think it was true? If you did, did you have an explanation for it?

Another day of Live and Learn for me.

P is for Plants and Pets

Plants and pets, two things that don't mix well. At least from my experience. I have had six cats during my adult life and all of them have loved to nibble on plants. Nibble, nibble. Throw up. Repeat.

I thought maybe when they were kittens, they would grow out of it, but they didn't. When I tried to grow seedlings for the garden, they would eat them. After we put the seedlings behind netting, they would dig at the netting until they could get at the seedlings and eat them. I finally told Ward to not buy me any more flowers because of the battle with the cats. It seemed no matter where we put the the flowers, the cats would somehow manage to get them and do the nibble, nibble, throw up routine. It became evident pretty fast, we needed to be very careful that we didn't have any plants that could be harmful to them because they couldn't leave them alone.  We tried growing grass for them to eat several times to no avail. That they would pull up by the roots and then string dirt around the house.


We finally started to put our plants potted and otherwise behind closed doors--usually in an extra bedroom. Then it became our problem with out-of-sight, out-of-mind and we let more than one plant die that way.

Christmas cactus before cats

As time went on and we decreased our number of cats from four to three, things seemed a little better. That's why I agreed to take a very large Christmas cactus that Ward's father was giving away. It was nontoxic to cats, so why not? The first week in residence, the cactus was left alone. Then I started to notice bite marks in the leaves. Later I noticed pieces of it laying here and there. Soon it was necessary to also banish this plant to the extra bedroom behind closed doors if there was going to be any chance for it to survive. However, anytime the door was accidentally left open, we would find more pieces and parts around the house.

Cactus after cats

We are slow learners, but we finally realized that this was a battle we weren't going to win. Then I had an idea. I would have a terrarium with a secure lid for my bit of inside greenery. And guess what? It worked. I finally have a little green growing in a place I can see every day. No more nibble, nibble,... And all is right with the world.

Terrarium before cats (Lid removed for photo.)

P is for a Perfect solution to my Pets and Plants Problem. 

Terrarium after cats. (Lid removed for photo.)

O is for Onomatopoeia

Do you have any words that you just like the sound of? That you find fun to say? Onomatopoeia is one of those words for me. Maybe it's all the vowel sounds or the way it trips along off the tongue with those short syllables. Or maybe I just like the concept of what onomatopoeia represents--a word that is defined by the sound it makes, such as thud, cluck, or woof.

What's interesting is the sounds for different things are different in different languages. It we hear a bell clang, whether it is here, in Japan, or Germany, theoretically all of our words for that sound should be the same or at least similar. But it doesn't usually work out that way. For example, here are a few examples of what a dog says in different languages:

US--ruff-ruff, woof-woof, arf-arf, or for a little dog--yip-yip, yap-yap.
Albanian--ham-ham
Burmese--woke-woke
Hindi--bow-bow
Lebanese--haw-haw
Polish--hau-hau

So there's quite a variety in just those few examples, and we can't even agree on the sound in our own language. But do you see the one thing they have in common? The dog always barks twice.

Onomatopoeia is also a device that can be used quite effectively in literature, especially poetry. I think no one did this better than Edgar Allan Poe. So in honor of National Poetry Month, here is his most famous poem using onomatopoeia.

The Bells       

Hear the sledges with the bells-
                  Silver bells!
  What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
          How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
              In the icy air of night!
          While the stars that oversprinkle
          All the heavens, seem to twinkle
            With a crystalline delight;
                Keeping time, time, time,
            In a sort of Runic rhyme,
  To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
            From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                  Bells, bells, bells-
  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

                        II

          Hear the mellow wedding bells,
                  Golden bells!
  What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
          Through the balmy air of night
          How they ring out their delight!
            From the molten-golden notes,
                  And an in tune,
            What a liquid ditty floats
  To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
                  On the moon!
          Oh, from out the sounding cells,
  What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
                  How it swells!
                  How it dwells
            On the Future! how it tells
            Of the rapture that impels
          To the swinging and the ringing
            Of the bells, bells, bells,
          Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
                  Bells, bells, bells-
  To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

                        III

          Hear the loud alarum bells-
                  Brazen bells!
  What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
          In the startled ear of night
        How they scream out their affright!
          Too much horrified to speak,
          They can only shriek, shriek,
                  Out of tune,
  In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
  In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
          Leaping higher, higher, higher,
            With a desperate desire,
          And a resolute endeavor,
          Now- now to sit or never,
        By the side of the pale-faced moon.
          Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
          What a tale their terror tells
                  Of Despair!
        How they clang, and clash, and roar!
        What a horror they outpour
      On the bosom of the palpitating air!
          Yet the ear it fully knows,
                  By the twanging,
                  And the clanging,
          How the danger ebbs and flows:
          Yet the ear distinctly tells,
                  In the jangling,
                  And the wrangling,
          How the danger sinks and swells,
  By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
                  Of the bells-
          Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
                Bells, bells, bells-
      In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

                        IV

          Hear the tolling of the bells-
                  Iron Bells!
  What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
          In the silence of the night,
          How we shiver with affright
    At the melancholy menace of their tone!
          For every sound that floats
          From the rust within their throats
                    Is a groan.
          And the people- ah, the people-
          They that dwell up in the steeple,
                  All Alone
          And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
            In that muffled monotone,
          Feel a glory in so rolling
            On the human heart a stone-
          They are neither man nor woman-
          They are neither brute nor human-
                  They are Ghouls:
            And their king it is who tolls;
            And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
                  Rolls
              A paean from the bells!
          And his merry bosom swells
            With the paean of the bells!
          And he dances, and he yells;
          Keeping time, time, time,
          In a sort of Runic rhyme,
            To the paean of the bells-
                  Of the bells:
          Keeping time, time, time,
          In a sort of Runic rhyme,
            To the throbbing of the bells-
          Of the bells, bells, bells-
            To the sobbing of the bells;
          Keeping time, time, time,
            As he knells, knells, knells,
          In a happy Runic rhyme,
            To the rolling of the bells-
          Of the bells, bells, bells:
            To the tolling of the bells,
          Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
            Bells, bells, bells-
    To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

This is only one of the many versions (8 at least)  that have slipped into the world. Poe adapted it a number of times but this is the most common..The original idea for The Bells, is believed to have been given to Poe by his friend, Mrs Shew. An earlier draft, (titled, The Bells, By Mrs. M. A. Shew.) Contained only two stanzas, totalling seventeen lines and read..

N is for a New Show Everyday

My sons, Wally and Theo, lived their first years in Houston where the weather was either hot and humid or cold and rainy (with a little bit of just right thrown in). Meaning they really never experienced four seasons. Snow was an oddity as was the burst of growth that happens every spring in a distinct, four-season climate. So they were mesmerized by these changes when we moved to Maryland. Their first spring here, they would come home from school every day and say, "Let's go see what we can find in the yard. " We would then scour our two acre yard that backed up to pasture and woods to see what we could find. The boys were constantly amazed by how much things would change from day to day. And so was I since I had been away from four seasons for 15 years myself.

And year after year, spring does it again--puts on a new show every day.

Here's the show I saw recently in my yard.

The grape hyacinths have started to bloom. These should last for a while because there are still several budding stalks hidden in the leaves.

We have two pear trees. This one is loaded with blooms while the other one is sparse. These blooms suggest that there's hope we will get a few more pears than last year when we got only two from both trees.

Aunt Martha and Uncle Billy gave me some red twig dogwood branches to start my own shrubs. So far, so good. I hope they continue to grow.

Leaves are joining the blossoms on the ornamental plum tree.

And also on the forsythia bushes.

The crabapple trees are budding.

As are the dogwoods.

The nandinas don't show much activity yet. You can tell that birds don't like nandina berries.

The quince bush is in full bloom. The bush was a very straggly with only a couple of blooms when we were first here. We trimmed it up to give it one more chance before we removed it and the bush must have know what we were thinking. :)

The plants aren't the only things that have been busy.
This bluebird nest is almost done. 

M is for Monday Musings

Here I am halfway through this A-Z challenge and I'm finding it as difficult as always. As per usual, I'm doing this in a reactive way, instead of a proactive way. In sort of a panic, so to speak. Posting goes something like this.

What's the letter for today? What can I write? My mind starts running through different words beginning with that letter. I even use a speller/divider book that was my mother's to read lists of words that begin with the letter. I write down a few words that might have some possibilities. However, my mind is usually blank as I stare at the list of words, so if anyone is around, I offer to let them be a guest blogger for the day. I've never gotten anyone to take me up on that offer, but they do offer suggestions for a relevant blog post. I get some interesting ideas from that, but most of them would take more time to develop than I have.

Along about this point, I realize how tired I am and want nothing more than to go do something else. And I usually do. I'd like to say that I then go and accomplish some of the other more important every day things that need to be done, but sometimes I just go watch TV and pet the cats.

I finally decide on something to write about and start doing research. I search the internet for information like for idioms that begin with I.  I search my blog for posts that may have related to the topic in the past and think about how much of the old material I should repeat. I, also, think about a personal experience to add to the topic where I have to find the balance of being meaningful, but not revealing too much information about myself or my family for privacy reasons.

And then I finally start writing. Sometimes it flows, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, I will write the post in one sitting and but usually I don't. If I don't, it's commonly because I don't have the mental energy to write a cohesive post. That's when I walk away again.

Eventually, I start writing and complete my text. Then it's time to find some pictures. Occasionally, I can take one right then and insert it into the post or I can use one from the past. At times this is from my blog and at other times it is from the thousands of picture files on the computer.

Then, after some proofreading, I hit publish! And that's that. Except for when I keep finding mistakes during my proofreading until I eventually give up or when Blogger gets persnickety and the spacing is way off. And that usually takes a long, aggravating time to correct.

I'm guessing that you never knew that my simple little posts were so laborious for me to write. Remind me again why I do this A-Z challenge every year? :)

L is for Librariies

My love affair with libraries began when I was very young. While reading was important in my family, there was no money to buy books, so naturally the library was the place where we got them. My first library was in an old storefront that had two rooms and was a short walk from our house. My sisters and I often walked there together.

I can remember going to the library before I was old enough to go to school when Mrs. Simon and Mrs. Garrett were the librarians. I thought they were about the nicest people I'd ever met. At that point in time, my signature was rather sprawling even for just my first name and they let me use the entire card to sign out a book. I felt very important when I did that.

The town library continued to be important after I went to school. Because of funding problems, my school did not have a library. Each teacher had a small bookcase in the back of their room and that's where we got our school library books. However by 8th grade, the school finally built a library and I got to help set it up and work in it. Handling all of those brand new books was great.

As time went on, I had less time for leisure reading. The high school teachers had books for us to read as part of the curriculum and those took up much of my time. However, the town library was still an important part of my high school years. Every Monday night kids would meet at the library to do their homework. The gathering was more social than academic and it was great for me because this was a place I could meet with the popular kids that was acceptable. (It seemed that the popular kids were not usually at the library, but at a drinking party somewhere--not something I was interested in.)

During my college years, I was consumed with classes, and libraries faded to the background except for an occasional study session or to find a book to read in the summer. During this time, a new library was built in my hometown. The building was beautiful with beamed ceilings and fireplaces and that's where Ward and I had our wedding reception. Decades later, that library is still the place for many events in the town.

In the years to follow, Ward and I spent a lot of time in libraries with Wally and Theo. They were always excited by the limitless supply of books as were Ward and I. Then one day at a soccer game, one of the moms said that she was leaving her job at the library and a couple of weeks later, I had taken her place. Twelve years later, I'm still there and I'm happy.

I Love Libraries.

Other Random Library Thoughts

Apparently, there is not a limitless supple of books in every library because Ward read every single book in his junior high library.

The hardest part of my job is not being able to spend all of the time I want to perusing books I come across. They are not paying me to browse the collection all day long. Sigh.

When I first started working at the library, Wally and Theo would quiz me about what was the most interesting book I had handled that day. Everyone concluded that there is a book about most everything.

K is for Kindness

Our neighbor is helping Ward install a new mailbox post. An act of kindness.

I think people are inherently kind. It's in our DNA because it helped our chances of survival at one point in time. If we were kind, we would be more likely to be included as part of the group that provided food, shelter, and protection.

Oh, there are times when someone is having a bad day when they aren't showing their kinder side, but I think that is more the exception than the rule. To prove this point, I asked a few people for examples of little acts of kindness that they had done or had had done for them recently. At first some weren't sure they had anything to say, but with more thought, they had a lot to say. I think this means that kind acts are so much a part of our everyday life that it takes a minute for us to remember them. Here are a few of the examples I got. (For consistency, I am writing all of these as if the person were the recipient of the kindness.)

--I was getting ready for my first high school dance and was having a problem tying my tie. My neighbor helped me tie it.

--I had been having some difficult days at work and one of my coworkers showed up with balloons to brighten my mood.

--I was stretching to reach something off the top shelf at the grocery store and a stranger helped me reach it.

--I had been to an auction and a stranger helped me carry my purchases to my car.

--I had my baby in a backpack and his shoes fell off. A stranger jumped in and helped me pick them up and then volunteered to carry some of my other things.

--I was having problems with my homework and my neighbor sat down with me and figured out the whole lesson.

--I hadn't been feeling well for a while and a friend brought a meal to me and did the errands I needed done.

--I had been feeling really down since my husband died, and a friend called.We had a long talk and I felt much better when we were done.

--I couldn't find a quarter to get a shopping cart at Aldi's one day and a stranger gave me one.

--I asked the neighbor to borrow a tool for some plumbing I was doing and he not only lent me the tool, he helped me with the whole job of installing the hot water heater.

--I got a book that I had mentioned once that I would like to have from a friend completely as a surprise.

--"I had been staying with friends for a couple of months while I was recovering from a knee operation. Yesterday I packed up all my stuff drove back to my house. One of the friends with whom I was staying, packed some cookies and raspberries in a container and hid it in my car. This morning when I was thinking, "Woe is me, I have no food in my house! What shall I eat for breakfast?" I discovered the wonderful gift. There has rarely been a finer breakfast than chocolate chip cookies with raspberries."

--There is a remarkable woman and her family who live on my street. The woman is battling an aggressive form of cancer. As a thank you to the neighbors for all of our support, they threw a block party. The party was an example of great cooperation and kindness for all involved.

--I was at a market with my mom and I was really bored. A big guy (teenager) organized a game of tag for us. It was a lot of fun.

Yellowstone National Park

And now an example of my own. A couple of years ago, Ward and I were vacationing in Yellowstone National Park. Besides enjoying the breathtaking scenery, we noted what a good mood everyone was in. Even in the crowded areas, there was no jostling for the best vantage point or annoyance with the line for the bathroom. This good mood extended to helping each other when people were trying to get a picture of their family or themselves with beautiful scenery behind them. In one of these spots, I was trying to get a picture of Ward with a waterfall behind him when a young man offered to take our picture together. We gladly agreed. After he had gotten a couple of pictures, a woman offered to take a picture of our whole family and insisted that the young man join us in the picture. At that point, it was just easier for him to join us than try to explain what was really going on. So we got a nice picture of ourselves with a kind young man who was our "son" for that time. We all smiled as one kind act led to another--with a twist.

Have you done any random acts of kindness recently or had any done for you?

This is an updated version of a post I did several years ago. Kindness seemed like a good topic to visit again.