Feed the Birds

Diane Porter took this photo of a Northern Cardinal in her yard. One of my favorite daily rituals is filling up the bird feeders on my windowsill. I live on the fourth story of a seven-wing brick institutional complex ( the convent wing!) A large maple tree stands outside my bedroom windows. I have three feeding stations on my

WPC Vibrant

This vibrant image is a quilt!  The artist, Caryl Bryer Fallert, designed it digitally and then turned her image into a quilt.  It won Best in Show at the American Quilters Society in 1995. The way she designed it , and her process of making it, is fascinating.  Go to her website and read all

Favorite Quote

I have about ten favorite quotes, but the one I can quote from memory, and the one that immediately comes to mind is: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” — Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani, as quoted in the Talmudic tractate Berakhot (55b.)   Some have attributed this

Optimism in the face of the blizzard

I took this from my window at 8AM today.  It is now 1PM, and much more snow has fallen.   The weather people predict two to three feet, and with the wind, the drifts are already that high. I am by nature an optimistic person, assuming good will of everyone to the point of foolishness and

Boring!

One of the best professors I had in college declared that “the true intellectual is never bored.” I , therefore, am not a true intellectual!  However, I have developed a behavior to alleviate my boredom:    I zone out.  My body might be forced to remain in the boring situation, but my mind has left the

Reason to Believe

    Bruce Springsteen isn’t the only one to write a song with that title. Tim Hardin wrote this one in about 1965: Reason to Believe                                              by  Tim Hardin If I listen long enough to you I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced While I cried

From Breath to Air

Today I’m reading about a book in Brain Pickings Weekly – a wonderful blog by Maria Popova. Each week she posts this compendium of really thought-provoking excerpts . A book by Paul Kalanithi – He’s a very successful neurosurgeon and at 36 is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Today, this, commenting on Kalanithi’s book: “Like the book

Three Wrenching Deaths

Probably I’m not answering this prompt in the way it was intended, but I can’ help myself. In the space of a week, three people MY AGE, who were excellent artists and beloved, have died. First, the musician: Davie Bowie,  age 69 Then, the American poet, C.D. Wright, age 67 Then, the marvelous actor, Alan

If I could go back

The photo is of myself in 1971, one year out of college and freewheeling around Baltimore. Today’s Daily Prompt: If you could return to the past to relive a part of your life, either to experience the wonderful bits again, or to do something over, which part of your life would you return to? I’d

Hearing “Yesterday”

   Paul McCartney, my teenage idol   While the world is grieving over the death of David Bowie, I express my sorrow at his loss, but my teenage years were filled with the Beatles and their music. I loved them all, and loved all their music, but my favorite was Paul McCartney. And my favorite