BALANCING OUR CHOICES

Today we're doing online grocery shopping.....my favorite.  Our order will be ready for pickup at 4:30.  I've had exceptional luck with this way of shopping.  Honestly, for me, it's easier to compare prices online, cuz it shows all that's available.  Grocery aisles are menacing to me.  Just don't enjoy being cuddled by grocery carts and indecisive shoppers.  Then there are those who go to the grocery store not only to buy groceries, but to talk to other shoppers.  Funny how we're all different.  The last place I care to visit is when I need to concentrate on restocking the cupboards.

The prices of groceries are just sickening.  My frugal nature demands concentration on bringing home the best bang for my buck.  Of course, this is with a lifelong money perspective that started in 1967 when I bought a shopping cart full of groceries, including meat, for $15.  Today I'd be hard-pressed to fill a cart for $150.  

It's that business of keeping things in balance.  Buy the sale items, veer away for the name brands.  Like all else, budgeting is a life skill, one that is more necessary now than ever.  Balance is the foundation to everything, in my world.  I've learned that one must be moderate in order to enjoy life in abundance.  We can't have everything and do everything we may want.  I learned that when I was a little girl.  

PUPPY and FISH

Gotta share something that feels almost spooky.  Here is a zentangle that came into existence by me simply adding one doodle after another.  Then I took a closer look at my drawing, and I saw a side view of a puppy's face.  Honestly, there was not one thought of creating other than a tangle, yet look how the eye is positioned and also the ear.  The bottom spiral even looks like a puppy's paw.  

A voice inside my head told me to turn the sketch book sideways, and when my eyes settled on the tangle they saw a fish.  The puppy's ear is a fish's pectoral fin, the puppy's muzzle is a fish's dorsal fin, and the puppy's tail is the fish's tail. 

This is 100% accidental.  This is what I call the fun of creating.....sometimes we surprise ourselves.  What I considered a meaningless doodle, actually turned out to be a duo doodle.

Yesterday I took my brain on vacation.  My brain and I watched 2024 Hallmark Christmas movies on You Tube.  Even movie theaters are a thing of the past.  What a luxury to lean back in my retirement recliner and watch movies on my Chromebook.  Who'd ever have thunk that the day would come when I'd be surrounded by such comfort.  I don't take anything for granted, if possible.  

They say (whoever they are) that we can offer our ordinary daily actions up as prayers.  When I crochet, when I doodle, when I work on any project, I offer each stitch and doodle as a prayer of gratitude.  Rarely do I pray to ask for anything, but mostly thank for everything.  Maybe the puppy and fish are the result of prayer doodles.  Something more to ponder.

TOPPINGS

In keeping with autumn, we're having chili for tonight's supper.  Actually, the season has nothing to do with chili, cuz we eat it year around.  For me, it's not only a bowl of soup, it's the base on which to add cheese, diced onions, black olives, green olives, sour cream, hot sauce and Fritos.  

For some, food plays important roles in the seasonal holidays.  It's part of the human celebration of life and special events along the way.  Sadly, there are places on earth where people aren't as fortunate.  And, that makes me extremely sad.  What would that be like?

During these times of uncertainty.....it's good to remind ourselves of just how much we are gifted, rather than let our minds get swept away with political brooms.  If someone would ask me if there was ever a day in all of my years that I didn't have food to eat, my answer would be NO.  Every day of my life I've had food, shelter, water, and never one day did I wake up and not feel loved by someone.  If that isn't being blessed, then I don't know what is.

Life wasn't designed to lavish us with glitz, glitter and glamour.  If we have the basics to sustain life comfortably, that's being blessed.  Every single topping beyond that is a luxury.  All we really need is less.

GONNA MAKE YOU HUNGRY FOR A NECTARINE

• 
  October's birth flowers are the cosmos and marigold.  Cosmos are colorful flowers that bloom in the summer and continue into early autumn.  Marigolds are the ultimate deer-repellent plant.  
• Jack-o'-lanterns were inspired by the Irish folk tale of Stingy Jack, who was doomed to roam the earth at night after making a deal with the devil.  To guide his way, he lit a piece of coal in a carved-out turnip.
• One of the pleasures of October is putting on one's favorite hoodie.  My closet has several hoodies, cuz it's probably my favorite attire.  It's sweatshirt weather!
• 
  October's birth fruit is the nectarine.  The word nectarine means sweet as nectar.  Like peaches, nectarines were first cultivated in China and were also cultivated in ancient Persia, Greece and Rome.  Trade routes took the nectarine through Greece, where residents thought nectarine juice was so tantalizing they called it the drink of the gods.  Nectarines are not a hybrid of anything.  They're simply smooth-skinned and have been around as long as fuzzy peaches.  Nectarines are identical to peaches with the exception of one gene, and that difference makes peaches fuzzy and nectarines smooth.