Celebrate Your Life

Mr. Dickie acting silly while celebrating his 75th birthday

If you can forgive the person you were, accept the person you are, and believe in the person you will become, you are headed for joy. So celebrate your life.
(Barbara Johnson in 100 Days Of Prayer For Women, p. 203)

******

I got a good workout yesterday.  I spent most of the afternoon working in the flower garden along the back fence.  I finished the project to clear out the wild raspberries and other weeds.  I didn't see any poison ivy this time.  I filled two garbage cans with debris, including one piece of pear tree root from the Bradford pear tree we took out several years ago.  Each time I find another piece of rotting root I think I've got the last one. The last project in this garden area is to set 13 red scalloped concrete blocks along the edge. The digging for this project is already done. We recently bought a straight edged shovel.  I wonder why I didn't make that purchase 30 years ago.  Interesting how having the right tool for the job makes things easier.

Dick Henthorn

19 September 2013

Values

Melva's African Violet - photo by Mr. Dickie

All we do and say should reflect our personal standards and beliefs - the values that affirm God's own life within us and within all other people and creatures; and that lead to the common good.
(The Christophers, Three Minutes A Day, Vol., 44, 8 May)

******

I was outside for a while today helping Melva clear the spreading grass from the large circular garden in front of the house. Lots of digging and pulling is needed to remove the long roots from the dirt. Melva shutdown the project when  about 2/3rds of the circle was complete.  The remaining part isn't so overgrown.  Another hour of work should complete the work.

A Conger researcher claims that Abigail Adelia Grant, who married Charles Curtis Conger was the niece of Ulysses S. Grant.  There was no source citation.  I couldn't find any information on the Internet to indicate that either of the brothers of U.S. Grant had children.  I wrote a post about the challenge for my genealogy blog.

Dick Henthorn

9 September 2014

Gardening

Gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe. (Thomas Berry in Touchstones, 1 May) 30 May 2012

It Goes On

In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life, "It goes on." (Robert Frost in The Book Of Choices by Mike Magee, M.D., p. 207)

If you don't want anyone to know it, don't do it. (Chinese proverb in The Book of Choices by Mike Magee, M.D., p. 216)

Today recall some of the people who have profoundly influenced your life. (Helen Steiner Rice, From The Heart, 7 April)

******

Melva worked in her garden yesterday. She was planting the canas which have been in the house in buckets all winter long. This morning I spent nearly one hour in the basement watering all of the plants. I'm trying to develop the habit of watering everything heavily on Monday.

Mr. Dickie
11/Apr/2011 8:55

New Photo Album

Constant dwelling on our troubles lessens our ability to see them clearly and make wise decisions. (after One Day At A Time in Al-Anon, 16 November)

******

Yesterday I set the mower blade as low as I could in order to cut the grass one last time before winter arrives. We gathered seven bags of clippings. Before putting the mower away I ran the engine until all of the gas was burned. It's my intention to not touch the mower again until spring.

Last night I created a new photo album on Facebook and uploaded fifty-one photos. The album is named, December 4, 2010. Any Facebook friend can see it. Folks who aren't on Facebook can request access and I can send a link to the album.

This morning I finished reading the book, "As Bill Sees It," written by Bill, one of the co-founders of A.A. I started reading the book, a page at a time, on the first day of the year. There weren't quite enough pages to take me to the end of December.

Mr. Dickie
5/Dec/2010 8:55

Indoor Gardening

When something happens to upset you and you are discouraged, try to feel that life's difficulties and troubles are not intended to arrest your progress in the spiritual life, but to test your strength and to increase your determination to keep going.
(Twenty-Four Hours A Day, 10 November)

******

Yesterday I spent about an hour watering all of the plants we have growing in the house. Melva brought all of the potted plants back inside a couple of weeks ago. Because the furnace is running and the air is dry it's very easy for the plants to wilt if we don't watch them closely.

Mr. Dickie
10/Nov/2010 7:55

Grand Ole Opry

No man is great who thinks himself so, and no man is good who does not strive to secure the happiness and comfort of others. (Woodrow Wilson)

******

This morning Melva and I went out to spread the remaining four bags of mulch on the backyard flower gardens. After we got the mulch on the ground I continued working along the back fence digging out volunteer raspberry plants and poison ivy. I also trimmed the tops all of the iris plants. To finish the job we are going to need several more bags of mulch.

In the afternoon I watched a tape of the live GAC show Country Comes Home - the return of the Grand Ole Opry after the heavy flooding that took place in Nashville, TN in May. I thought Charlie Daniels and Montgomery Gentry stole the show with their rendition of The Night The Devil Came Down to Georgia. It's been a long time since I listened to any country music on either the radio or television. I knew the names of many of the performers but I wasn't familiar with their singing styles.

Mr. Dickie
12/Oct/2010 14:38

In The Muck and Mire

In the muck and mire of what we call life, there is death, and we have been in it so long we've grown accustomed to the stink. (Max Lucado, in His Miracles, p. 271)

******

Yesterday's highlights were trimming the edges of the lawn with my weed wacker and then mowing the grass. Late in the afternoon I went to Bethesda to pick up some items from Cyndi's apartment. She is moving out by the end of the month. It started to rain during the last two miles of the trip back to our house and then continued to rain all night long. I didn't unload anything from the minivan.

My high school friend, Thad, called in the evening. We had a nice visit.

Mr. Dickie
4/Oct/2010 8:46

Facebook

Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life. (Max Lucado, Grace For The Moment, 28 September)
3/Oct/2010 7:50

******

Yesterday, Facebook friend, Noel G. posted that The Grand Ole Opry was reopening after being closed by the flooding of Nashville a while back. Noel posted that on Saturday night, the 2nd, there would be a two-hour grand reopening show on the Great American Country (GAC) channel. I intended to watch the program. I also put a tape in the VCR. Shortly after the show began another Facebook friend, Jim, called. We had a nice long talk and I never got back to watching the show.

Melva and I did some fall yard work yesterday. Melva spread the mulch while I dug up two azaleas and pruned a lilac bush. It was a perfect day for being outside.

Mr. Dickie
3/Oct/2010 7:58

Fall Gardening

Thoughts are the thermostat that regulates what we accomplish in life. (Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom For The Way, p. 255)

******

Melva's busy spreading mulch on the garden. I'm busy making trips to the garden center to buy the mulch. The minivan can haul ten bags at a time without blocking the back window. So far I've purchased twenty-six bags. I think she used thirty-six bags last year. The other day Melva bought a couple of orchids at Loew's. She is going to attempt to nurse them back to health. I'm looking forward to watching the two poinsettias we nursed back to health outside this year. We had three and lost one.

Mr. Dickie
26/Sep/2010 8:06

The Grass Is Greener

Have patience for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace, God is awake. (Victor Hugo in Daily Guideposts - 1990, 30 July)

*******

I'm learning more about the Box.Net application. They give each user 1GB of free storage. I signed up many months ago and hosted two PDF files for the Wichita Class of '57. I think this application has potential for genealogy sharing because I can control who has access.

Last night, just before it got dark, I trimmed the edges of the yard and mowed most of the front yard. Because of the recent rainfall the grass got too tall before I could mow it. It got ahead of me. Even with a self-propelled lawn mower it was physically stressful. It's time to admit that I need to hire help.

I discovered a Zip disk that I can't read. That's upsetting. There is no backup of the backup. As with lots of things concerning computers and printers I just have to accept what happens. It's really not a very good way to store anything you really want to keep.

Mr. Dickie
20/Aug/2010 7:38

Water Everywhere

What is the best and most loving thing I can do?
(As Bill Sees It, p. 172)

******

Today there is a water main break in Rockville, MD. It looks like Old Faithful. We are lucky, this pipe doesn't impact our area.

Yesterday I resumed watering the outdoor plants. I see some damage from the heat and lack of water. I'm hopeful that most plants survived the water crisis. I had to use the Internet to find out when they lifted the water restrictions. I never saw the announcement in the paper or on television.

Mr. Dickie
8/Jul/2010 9:56

Something To Say

... we will be ... penalized if we presume in ourselves a perfection that simply is not there. (As Bill Sees It, p. 159)

******

Yesterday I discovered that I can back up my Google blogs by exporting them to an XML file on my computer. Of course, I don't know anything about XML files. Apparently the main reason for doing the export is to get a copy of the blog when you want to move your blog from one place to another. I learned that I can read the downloaded file with Internet Explorer. To get started I backed up my Obituary file.

There have been several back-to-back days of temperatures in the nineties. It's so hot some of the weeds are burning up. Yesterday, for the first time this year, Melva hooked up a sprinkler to the backyard hose and we watered three different spots for twenty-five minutes each.

Today Cyndi returns from a sixteen day trip to Panama. This morning she called her mother several times from the airport in Panama. She will change planes in Miami and arrive at Washington National around 3:30 p.m. if all goes well.

Montgomery County, Maryland, where Cyndi lives, is just to the west of our county. They always brag about it being populated by affluent folks. Now one of the county leaders has announced that they have run out of money. They can no longer rent portable toilets for use in the parks. This reminds me of the old expression, "We were so poor, we didn't have a pot to pee in." This leader has suggested that citizens sign up to sponsor one or more porta-pottys. She stated that you can have a memorial plaque attached to the potty you sponsor. What would you like your plaque to say? I thought up a slogan for the sponsorship campaign, "Sponsor a Loo for a Poo."

Wages are down, jobs are lacking. In the Washington, DC area many people travel long distances on the busses and subway of the Metro system to get to and from low paying jobs if they have them. Starting today huge fare increases go into effect. Isn't this asking folks who most need public transportation to shoulder the burden of keeping this mismanaged and money loosing system running? Go figure!

We used the gas discount offer from Giant grocery and Shell Oil for the first time yesterday. After spending $200.00 at Giant we had 200 points. This could be used to get a 20 cents per gallon discount on a one-time gas purchase. I filled the Toyota Camry with $35.00 worth of gas and received a discount of $2.63. No wonder all eight pumps at the station were occupied. I wasn't too surprised when I wasn't able to make the system work at the pump. I went inside and the clerk didn't have any trouble helping me.

Mr. Dickie
27/Jun/2010 8:39

The Flower Show

The measure of your life won't be in what you accumulate; it will be in what you gave. (Dr. Wayne Dyer, Staying On The Path, p. 52)

******

The blue and the pink hydrangeas are starting to bloom. We have about eleven of them in our yard, all grown from cuttings. In the dining room Melva has a pretty light orange amarylis blooming with two blooms. Under the carport awning the geraniums that we kept alive for several years are in bloom. There are two colors, pink and wine.

I'm working on a two-part genealogy project to extract two Baker families from my Yoho genealogy file. I'm doing this because a blog posting I made on May 16th about Isaac Baker generated a contact from a couple who has access to the research papers of Earl Carson. For the first time I was able to understand where he fits into the Baker family tree.

Mr. Dickie
30/May/2010 8:34

The Whole Nation Decays

(One of the TIFF images I converted to JPEG this morning.)

Nothing can be right when every man does what is right in his own eyes. ... When spiritual leaders fail to obey God and set godly examples, the church and the community suffer, and ultimately the whole nation decays. (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-by-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 153)

******

This morning I did my first "batch" conversion of image files in the Religion folder of the CD I bought the other day. It worked. The five TIFF images were converted to JPEG images. Now I can use them on my Google blogs.

Today I am feeling the affects of all of the yardwork I did yesterday. Melva is putting some MiracleGro on her tomato plants this morning.

Mr. Dickie
27/May/2010 10:10

Gardening

Serenity is like gravity, you can't see it and you can't touch it, but you can feel it. (As We Understood, p. 130)

******

Lunch today at the Red Lobster with former coworker, Bill Hamilton.

It's raining again today. The plants and grass all look lovely. The peonies are in bloom. The azaleas that were damaged during the winter are showing new growth. The ones transplanted in the fall appear to be surviving the shock of being moved.

Mr. Dickie
18/May/2010 8:56

Beautiful Spring

... when ... clear moments come, I am always left with a feeling that the truth which has been revealed to me is so obvious that I wonder how I could have missed it for so long. (As We Understood, p. 132)

******

This morning we are enjoying our flower garden. We installed the new plastic birdbath that Melva received from me as a Mother's Day gift. We got lucky and found one on Friday, while in Annapolis, when Cyndi stopped at a place selling lawn furniture and jacuzzis. We needed to replace a birdbath with a cast concrete top. Those break too often. Now we are watching to see which bird will come to the new birdbath first. Because it's shallow it's going to be interesting to see whether they like it for getting a drink or taking a bath.

We observed four baby mockingbirds at the top of our next door neighbor's tree. Both parents were busy feeding the babies the whole time we were outside.

Melva transplanted the red White House tulip bulbs from her circular garden in the front yard to a better spot in the backyard. She also transplanted a volunteer Rose of Sharon to near the backyard fence. We are trying to fill in a spot where we recently lost a Rose of Sharon that had been there for many years.

We have two cages where we share blocks of suet with the birds. One is in the backyard hanging on the clothesline pole. The newest is just outside the kitchen window, under the carport awning. It spun around because it wasn't installed properly. This morning I cut two pieces of wire and hooked the basket to them. That stopped the rotation and immediately two or three birds were able to hang on the cage at the same time. Even the male and female cardinals were able to get something to eat. The two mockingbirds came, one right after the other, once they noticed that I'd corrected the spinning problem.

We both enjoy watching the shrubs and flowers blooming and the birds as they come to feed. On the other clothesline pole we hang a bird feeder given to us my our neighbor, Jim. Right now the iris and the columbine are in bloom. Some of the azaleas still have fading blossoms. It's a wonderful time of the year.

Mr. Dickie
10/May/2010 11:50

Gardening

There are so few who will take the time to face themselves and to face God; and how can a man meet the temptations, stresses and strains of life unless he has thought things out and thought them through. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians, p. 14)

******

Rain is predicted for today and the next several days. Yesterday, to get ready for the rain, I spent several hours working in the yard. I trimmed around the edges and then mowed the yard. I gathered two bags of grass. I also picked up a bag of maple tree seeds from the gutter in front of our house and the one next door. In the evening Melva planted two more tomato plants. We are both enjoying the blooming azaleas. It's sad to see the damage that the winter snow did to the azaleas. Without putting myself in too much danger of falling I was able to reset two nails in a short piece of gutter that fell off the back of the carport. This didn't fix the problem. I think I'll need to hire someone to go up on the roof to do the job right.

The Washington hockey team lost the game last night. The series will now go to Montreal on Monday night.

Last night I recorded the Susan Sarandon episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?". I have my fingers crossed that I got it on tape. I want to watch the show without watching all of the commercial breaks and the review after each commercial.

Mr. Dickie
24/Apr/2010 8:27

Crank It Up!

Let's not fall into the error of thinking that we have made a wrong decision just because we are sailing into high winds. (Erwin Lutzer, His Miracles, Day 73)

******

Doing yardwork yesterday reminded me just how much work is involved in maintaining even a small yard. I was only "up for" spreading one bag of fertilizer on the grass. It's time to put gas in the lawn mower to find out whether I'll be able to get it started this season.

Friends and family, in the U.S.A. and Panama, have been laid off work. They have no idea whether there's a chance they will be called back. It's ironic that the price of food, gas, and almost everything else continues to rise when the economic situation shows little or no signs of improvement. Is it possible that our leaders are lying to us?

Mr. Dickie
7/Apr/2010 7:57

Is That All He Did?

When the beauty of a person's character is impressed upon us, it leaves an image which in turn reflects through our own actions. So look for beauty of character in those around you. (Twenty-Four Hours A Day, 11 March)

******

This morning, rather than posting to blogs, I went outside to bag up yard debris that I wanted to put out for pick-up on Friday. I didn't get around to preparing this posting until almost 8:00 p.m.

Today I attended the twice-monthly meeting of the computer club. One of the members gave a very nice talk about how to use the program called, Macrium Reflect. This program is used to make an "image backup" of a computer hard drive. The speaker backs up his computer to his external hard drive. He prepared thirty-three slides for his talk. The Senior Center lets the club use the new projector at our meetings.

After the club meeting I stopped at two of the big-box hardware stores in Bowie to shop for items on a list. I had to go to two places because Home Depot doesn't stock birdseed or suet anymore. I did manage to find four of the five things on my list. At Home Depot I bought Milorganite fertilizer for the lawn and three pairs of leather gloves. We both wish I'd done some prior planning about those gloves. It wasn't much fun doing the yard clean up when our fingers kept coming out of the old gloves that should have been discarded last fall.

Mr. Dickie
18/Mar/2010 19:50