Snack Choice

(I ate them both)

I'm afraid as we head further into tax season, I am going to end up with more daily pictures that involve my desk. Things are shaping up to get really busy, really soon.

In the meantime, Peter is leaving for  a four day trip to Seattle tomorrow and I am gearing up to paint Miss E's room so things will be busy in a very non-work way for a few days.

Since this is short, I am going to put up a quote I have been thinking about a lot lately. Yes, I know this is by some sort of Christian evangelical but nobody get excited. OK?

"Are you prosperous in the world? Have death, sickness, disappointment, poverty and family troubles passed over your door up to this time and not come in? Are you secretly saying to yourself 'Nothing can hurt me much. I shall die quietly in my bed and see no sorrow.' Take care.


"You are not yet in harbor. A sudden storm of unexpected trouble may make you change your note. Set not your affections on things below. Hold them with a very loose hand and be ready to surrender them at a moment's notice. Use your prosperity well while you have it; but lean not all your weight on it, lest it break suddenly and pierce your hand."


                          -J.C. Ryle

Now, we are by no means rich but we are fortunate in many other ways and we are having a good year. Which is a bit ironic because one of the things I have been working on the most is holding on with a loose hand so to speak. Being aware anytime I feel feelings of greed or selfishness or want/need of possessions.  It's hard to explain, I have typed about 5 different paragraphs trying to explain it but I can't seem to get it down right. Let's do a few quick (hypothetical) examples:

1) I'm out to dinner with a friend, she orders a slightly more expensive thing than I do. Instead of simply offering to cut the bill in half, I haggle away to save $4.

2) I hold onto a piece of furniture that was expensive to start with but I don't like it and it doesn't fit in our house at all.

Letting go. It makes me feel better. I've also been trying to be more generous and kind with my family and with strangers. And trying to help out with those I love more and hopefully someday that will turn into helping out those I don't know as well.

This is all super hard to explain and I don't feel like it's coming out right but I want to teach my kids that life is a flow. Don't get too carried away by good fortune or bad. I see that we are having a (mostly) fortunate year but that many people we know or care about are not. In the last few months, people we know were diagnosed with cancer, a woman I work with died very suddenly, and families we know are affected by grave illnesses and deaths. It could be us, it could be anyone. I just hope if it is us, that we handle it with the same grace that we handle a year of fortune.