Monday Miscellany

 

Liam wanted to be outside with me while I cleaned the deck yesterday. 

But every once in a while Mom likes to go solo with projects. 

For some reason, without doggie help, the projects move along a little faster. 

Since he couldn't be outside with me, he sat on the couch and kept that Border Collie eye on me. 

Such true blue pals, they are!

This is Echo, Bridie's litter mate. 

Every once in a while Griffin, Bridie's former owner in Concrete, Wash., sends me photos. 

I thought this one was particularly nice with the lovely daffodils.

I saw this item on Twitter this morning and thought it looked like a pretty good breakfast and last supper for third class on the Titanic almost 110 years ago.

This menu was offered on the day before the Titanic sank. 

The offerings included marmalade, and that reminded me how much I like marmalade and even made it once.  

Gotta get some oranges and whip up a batch. 

I wondered what was on the first class menu. So, I looked it up. 

 

 

I guess that's a pretty good spread for last supper too, although I don't know if I would eat everything on the menu.  

It's nice to know from the third-class menu that incivility would be reported to the stewards with badges on their arms. 

 

With the cold air and wind of yesterday and today and the potpourri of weather---none of it very comfortable---I'm wondering how long it will take for the first of my daffodils to open.

Seems like last year we got a warm spell, and they were here and gone with almost the blink of an eye. 

So, at least, there's the joy of anticipation.  I noticed last night that my hyacinths are pushing upward and showing off a little color.  

As I await the opening of my first daffodils, today seems like a good time to repeat a story that I love.

  It's about daffodils, but the narrative also sums up how to approach seemingly insurmountable challenges---one step at a time. 

If we do, in the end, there can be both beauty and supreme personal satisfaction. 

Reading the story below every once in a while serves as a good reminder.

 

The Daffodil Principle  Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

	Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next Tuesday, " I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. "I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!" "We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils." "Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience." After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that said, "Daffodil Garden." We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was a simple one."50,000 bulbs," it read.  The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman.  Two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958." There it was, The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun ~ one bulb at a time ~ to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time ~ often just one baby-step at a time ~ and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world. "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!" My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way.  "Start tomorrow," she said.