We Are Community 174
It has been a “normal” week and that is not all bad. For many years my life is planned around antique shows. The first is in March and the last in October. Antique shows are not all about sales but also about friendships, exercise, people watching, helping others and “getting out of town” for a bit. October used to have a show every weekend until I figured out that I could just not unload and reload in less than a week so gave up the last 3rd Sunday Market of the year. This year the Oct 3rd Sunday Market and Spoon River were on the same weekend anyway.
After show season Ben and I would plan for a time of vacation and rest. We had a condo rented for the entire month of November the year he passed so never got to try the long vacation thing.
This week I unloaded from the stoneware convention. Got every thing priced and put in place. Was also fortunate enough to have a customer bring in some stoneware for me to buy and got that priced and in place yesterday. That is all I got done this week and that is good because friends stopped by to chat and there were many customers some days. Rearranging the book shelves and dusting can wait. Dusting can wait for a long time it seems!
Summer turned to winter this week. We needed rain but my mind does not need so many cold and gloomy days in a row. Managed to get all my plants moved into the garage for the winter and that is not an easy task.
Last Sunday afternoon I drove to Bernadotte as I never get to drive the Spoon River Drive as I work it. Was interesting to see where the booths had been and the paths in the grass. Was also sad to note that part of the bridge is in a yard and not spanning the river. Perhaps it will one day find its place again.
When we moved to Plymouth, I planted a walnut tree in the yard because we had a walnut tree in our yard when I was growing up. Walnut trees are supposed to grow slowly and perhaps they do because we have lived here since 1978. Anyway, I was cleaning walnuts out of my three fish ponds this week and found dead gold fish in two of the ponds. It is my feeling that they cannot take all the chemicals in the walnut hulls. I have air pumps for each pond but that just does not seem to be enough. The tree also produces a lot of walnuts which I find to be a problem when walking or mowing the yard, but how does one cut down a tree which they planted.
I so tire of scammers. While I was in Peoria for the convention, I got a barrage of calls telling me I had won 2.2 million plus a new car. The first caller told me I won from Publishes Clearing House. Of course, I had not entered that contest. Within minutes four different people called me from different phone numbers to give me the good news. I did not answer even more of their calls. I also get almost daily emails stating that I have a package that cannot be delivered because of incomplete information. While on face book, I often get messages telling me how much they like my posts and want me to friend them. These messages are interspersed with flowers and hearts and even had one when I posted of my nieces passing. How crude can one get. Just wish these people would quit trying to prey on those of us who they deem to be senile just because we might have lived longer than 50 years.
Love, I am always “preaching” love. Often quote “love your neighbor as yourself”. One reading in this week’s Discipline noted that sometimes what that means needs to be spelled out more. It means loving those who do not look like you, those who do not think like you, those who do not vote like you, those who may not pray to the same God as you, those who do not speak the same language as you and especially today those who may not view sex as you do. I think my pastor must use the Discipline too because her words aligned with what I am writing today. “They will know we are Christians by our love” is not always true. I think it comes from Solomon that one definition of love is “not doing something which might cause another pain to get what we want”. This is as good a definition as any. If we all lived this definition there would be no wars and our world be a much kinder place.
Have a good week. Share Love.