We have a beautiful spring-like afternoon here in Saskatchewan. Our temperatures have risen above 0 C and the cats are loitering outside in the sunshine. A sweet promise of days to come.
After December’s side-track, I’m again working at my ATCUSS* goal. This week I’ve been doing more cleaning/tossing out in my sewing room, as well as some minor mending. (*ATCUSS: A Total Clean-Up of my Sewing Space.)
We live in a mobile home and there’s just not much room to store things — never mind half-finished things. Ungrateful soul that I am, some days I look around and think:
Stuff, stuff, stuff!
Where to save it?
Where to store it?
No, stuff it. Stuff it!
Blessing from Heaven:
those green garbage bags!
Snow falls anew on prairie cities; mercury plummets. Planes depart daily from prairie airports, carrying snowbirds to southern destinations. The brave, the tough, the broke choose to enjoy the winter wonderland. 😉
In other words, you may get lucky and find that second bird in the bush. Or, while you’re chasing that one, this one you have may escape and you’ll have none.
Like the gambler who’s just won fifty dollars. If he puts it in his pocket, he has $50. If he bets it again, he may end up with $100, or he may lose it all.
This can get into even higher stakes, as when employees go on strike for higher wages. They may win the dollar per hour increase — or the boss may close down the shop, which will put them all out of work. Or they may get their pay increase after weeks on strike, but lose three or four thousand dollars in wages in the interim. When put to a vote, they may rather opt for “the bird in hand” and be content with their current wage.
Here are some responses people gave: — What we actually have is better than what we wish we had. — She went with a sure thing. — She made the safe choice instead of stretching for more.
And this practical example:
—She didn’t love Harry, but she figured he was better than nothing. (Poor Harry!)
Here are my suggestions: —Best grab the first bus. The next one might be full.
—Better one eye seeing something than two eyes seeing nothing.
This brings to mind the story of Ali Baba and the Forty thieves. The brave young Ali Baba dared to speak the password, “Open Sesame,” and explore the cave. What he discovered was a stash of hidden treasure.
I have two different caves, one being the spare bedroom that I’ve appropriated for my sewing space. I’ve been working at cleaning that up. The other is right here at my desk. But rather than treasure, you’ll find half a lifetime of saved scribbles, loose and in cheap coil notebooks, that need to be gone through.
Ali Baba would have given up in despair.
This reminds me of an account I once read, the confession of a none-too-neat homemaker. She finally saw the light one day when she arrived home from some outing to find a police car in her driveway. An officer met her outside her door to explain the situation:
“One of your neighbors saw a stranger enter your house through a window and called us. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’d best be prepared: he’s completely trashed the place. I know it’ll be hard, but you’ll have to go in and have a look around, tell us if you notice anything that’s missing.”
It was a lot harder for her, after having a look around, to swallow her pride and tell the officer, “Doesn’t look like anything’s missing. Everything is just as I left it.”
Last winter I made a start at cleaning up all my scribbles and made a small dint; now I’ll renew my efforts while it’s -35 and I don’t want to set foot out of the house. So be prepared for a sudden gush of haiku, other micro-verses, and tidbit tales here on my blog.
Ali found a heap of treasure hidden in a deep dark den; in my cave, a heap of scribbles — a life of plying pencil and pen.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is STATIONARY and I found the perfect photo on Pixabay to illustrate this concept. Where do you think these fellows were going when they were turned to stone?
Meatle — Pixabay
As the prompter mentions, STATIONARY is one of those words easily misspelled. Many a time I’ve see writers mistakenly use this spelling when they really meant the STATIONERY you write on, or vice versa.
Not quite as glaring, or open to misinterpretation as when someone writes “The hunter bagged a dear,” when they mean, “The hunter bagged a deer.” English is like that — you gotta watch out.
This morning I’ll start with a cup of hot coffee as I check the weather. Likely the school children will remain stationary in their beds for an extra hour this morning, too, as school is often called off when the temp goes below -40ÌŠ. And Environment Canada tells me that it’s -30ÌŠ C with a wind chill factor of -43ÌŠ – for US readers that’s -21ÌŠ F with a wind chill factor cooling us down to -45ÌŠ if we happen to venture outdoors. Here on the prairies we call that COLD.
We don’t have an attached, heated garage, so at this temp our automatic garage door won’t work — which means we tend to stay home whenever possible. If we must go somewhere Bob has to disconnect it from the mechanism and operate it manually with the cord and muscles to lift the door.
The temp is supposed to hit -27 CÌŠor -17 FÌŠ by this afternoon, a negligible difference. If we didn’t have warm houses on days like this we may well be as frozen as the fellows in the photo – but picture about 20 cm/ 8″ of snow everywhere to give the true impression.
Wishing you all a lovely, sunny day and a good cup of coffee.
