Today, I am grateful for trees. I love them for their beauty, their shade, and shelter they provide to wildlife. I am also rather partial to breathing the air that they add oxygen to. I am very lucky to live in the woods, where I have only to look out the window to see trees. I find it calming to walk in the woods, too.
Here are a few photos I’ve taken of trees. (Most of these are near me in Massachusetts, but one photo is from New York.)
Today I finally decided to delete the Facebook app from my phone. It was using more and more space on my phone, until it was gradually crowding out everything else. It turned out that the version of the app I was using was caching every single thing I was reading. So each article I opened through app was taking up space on the phone. (I was using an older version so as to avoid some privacy issues that people had complained about with the introduction of a separate Facebook messaging app.) In the last few days, I was reading more and more articles, until my phone reached capacity. I couldn’t take new photos without deleting apps. And then I’d run out of space again, and delete more apps. Finally, I decided that I just needed to break from it, and delete the app.
I realize that this is a good allegory, as all the articles I’ve been reading have also been crowding my brain, and I may be effectively deleting other mental applications as I work to process all of the election news. (Of course, I can and do still check Facebook on my laptop, and have continued to read articles and follow links there, but it’s a bit less all-the-time-always-in-my-pocket-always-in-my-face.)
Now I can take photos with my phone again without regularly running out of space. And taking photos is one of the things that brings me enjoyment. I like it that I have a pretty decent camera always in my pocket. (I like taking photos with my big camera, too, but it isn’t generally as handy. Also, the hard drive on my laptop is so full that I can’t import the larger files the camera produces without deleting stuff from my laptop. Sigh.)
The photos in this post are some I took a few weeks ago at our local diner. (A few weeks ago, my phone still had room to take photos, and my head was still full of optimism about the election.)
And on to my daily-ish gratitude. This post reminds me that I am grateful for photography, and the accessibility of digital photography. I love being able to so easily capture moments from my life. And I especially love being able to document the beauty that I see in the details of the world around me.
And since I skipped my enumeration of gratitude yesterday, I will offer a second serving. I am grateful to be alive in this age when so much information is available at our fingertips. While it is a double-edged sword at times like this, which overload us with news and opinion, on the whole the web (or the internet, in all its incarnations and implementations) offers us the power of knowledge.
I’m too tired tonight to write, and am turning in early. I had an extra 3 children last night and today, and am feeling a bit fried. Instead of anything of substance, here is a photo of some of the pancakes I made this morning.
I find myself feeling grateful for some of the things I have already enumerated (especially the sleep one), so I will attempt to serve up a double helping of gratitude tomorrow. (I didn’t want to skip posting, though, as I know it is too easy to let one skipped day turn into…months. And there is still too much to say.)
Tonight, a wise friend sent me a message that I really appreciated: “I want to remind you that you should put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.” I have been spending a lot of hours the last couple of days thinking of ways that I can do more to help more people. So many people are hurting and scared right now. But I shouldn’t beat myself up for taking a bit of time to regroup and recoup. I can only help others if I have not passed out for lack of breath.
Tonight I am grateful for friends. It has been immensely helpful to me to talk with like-minded friends (and family members) in the shock of these election results. And I appreciate that friends, even those who don’t share my political views, have checked in with me to express their compassion and concern. I am very lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life, near and far.
I’m still in shock about the election results. I have oscillated between feeling defeated and deflated, and feeling resolve to roll up my sleeves and get back to work and do more. I think I will need a bit of time to recover.
Today, I was very grateful to have my children here with me. Really, I am grateful for them in so many ways. This morning they helped me to pull myself together, because I didn’t want to pass on to them the levels of fear and despair that I was feeling.
I voted today. I didn’t have an appropriate pantsuit to wear, but I did carry my Woman Card in my back pocket. Now, watching the election results roll in, I am sick with worry. I am baffled that things are this close. I’m going to have to go to bed and hope for the best.
Today, I am grateful for the right to vote. It was a hard won right, and I don’t take it for granted.
I’ve been doing a lot of walking these last few months. Mostly, I take my two legs on a daily morning walk with my four-legged companion. Yesterday, I went on a walk around a neighborhood in a neighboring swing state. Tomorrow, my legs will help walk me into my local polling location, where I will cast my vote for the first woman president of the United States.
A photo from a morning walk.
Me at the Manchester, NH Democratic Party headquarters, getting ready to canvass.
Tonight I am grateful for having legs that can carry me places, and for the ability to walk for health, enjoyment, and working towards social good.
The time has come once more for the Pants Republic to change its pants. Another 4 years have passed since the re-electon of Corduroy O’Bloomer to the Seat of the Pants government after his first election 8 years ago. This year, after another embarrassing fashion show, the Pants Republic’s two major fashion houses have chosen their candidates: Pantsuit Linen and Doubleknit Trousers.
Pantsuit Linen is a garment of a feminine cut as yet not seen covering the Seat of the Pants Republic. Pantsuit Linen is well known to the public eye, known first nationally as the First Raiment to previous Pants President, Twill Linen. Pantsuit, as her supporters like to call her, has also had other important roles in the National Pants Governement, both as elected garment, and as an appointee to the O’Bloomer Wardrobe. Pantsuit has long fought for the representation of skirts and shorts in the Republic’s wardrobe, as well as access to laundry care for all.
Doubleknit Trousers is known to the public eye for more for his showiness and his attention-grabbing appearances in commercials and catalogs, rather than for any material contributions to Pants society. Trousers boasts of having deep pockets and the best tailoring, but his claims have been unsubstantiated due to his refusal to show either his pattern or content tags. Many are unimpressed by the flashy gold stitching of Doubleknit’s style. While his fans claim his tendency to come unzipped in public show that his pants are relatable, others have been embarrassed and offended by what lies behind the zipper. It has been shown on many occasions that Doubleknit’s orange polyester fabric is threadbare, that it snags easily, exposing the tacky and often indecent fabric of his lining. His tendency to come unravelled at the slightest provocation is not only unflattering, but has demonstrated that his cut is unfit to cover the Seat of the Pants Republic.
Both candidates have been accused of breeches of decorum, and many rumors fly. Doubleknit was responsible for weaving rumors that O’Bloomer is a muslin and was sewn abroad, in spite of the manufacturing documentation to the contrary. Doubleknit has further torn the Pants of the Republic apart through giving priority to Pants of the traditional cloth and color of the Old Chaps Club, and devaluing pants of more diverse origins and hues or imported styles. On the other leg, many Doubleknit supporters question the integrity of Pantsuit’s construction, in spite of decades-long inspections of her fabric, thread, and stitching. Pantsuit’s sturdy tailoring has stood up to many attempts to shred her fabric, but she has not shown herself to be impervious to stains on the fabric of her character. Many feel that she has revealed too much of the warp and weft of the Pants Nation’s Undergarments, and much attention has been paid to her Briefs. Her biggest detractors argue that she should be belted.
Overall, the Pants of the Republic are stretched thin and uncomfortable around the waist, and all are ready for this election to be over. Shopping for pants is often demoralizing, but it has never been harder to for this nation to find a pair of pants that fits all.
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Tonight I am grateful for laughter, and thankful that I can still find humor in these stressful days of the US election.
I have a confession to make. One of the things that has kept me from blogging this past year is that I have reconnected with a past love: reading books. Before I started grad school, I used to always be reading something for enjoyment. Once I was in grad school, I felt like if I had time to read, it should be dedicated to reading journal articles or dissertations and other papers related to me studies. I would occasionally indulge while traveling, but I read very few books for fun. Fast forward to last fall, when my graduate studies were finally finished, and I picked up a book for fun. And then another and another. If I didn’t have so many real-world obligations, I’d happily sit around and read 12 or 14 hours a day. But, the reality is that I have the real-world obligations, and I feel obligated to tend to them. So, I mostly only read at night. So, tonight, instead of writing more here, I will keep this short, and go to bed and snuggle up with a book.
And because I hate to post without photos these days, I will leave you with a few images from my visit to the Trinity College Library in Dublin from May, 2014.
Tonight I am grateful for reading and for books.
collecting tokens 