two interesting books...

Just a couple I found this week that look very interesting -- I've checked them out from the library so can hopefully report on them soon...
The Flexitarian Table/Peter Berley and The not so big life : making room for what really matters / Sarah Susanka.

More later...

more about the Free Cycle adventure

So, I'm still tired (or tired again, is more like it) but I wanted to elaborate on why I posted the "Free-cycle" post. When the person I bought this condo from moved in June, she left me a cupboard on the screen porch (which I was happy about) full of paint and gardening stuff and junk (which I was not happy about!) I finally got around to cleaning it out this past weekend -- it's been too hot out there when I have thought about doing it before -- and I found it was even more full of old paint and other junk than I remembered. So, I figured I would have to cart the paint over to the recycling center in Fort Mill. But when I was taking a break in the afternoon I was poking around on the web, and something I saw there reminded me of Freecycle, a site I had heard about in the past, where some people give away things they no longer need, and other people ask for things they need in case anyone has that to give away. So I joined the Rock Hill and the Charlotte Freecycle groups, and posted an ad offering the paint, etc., on the Rock Hill site. I didn't know what to expect, so I didn't get my hopes up, but I received five responses before the day was out, and have now given away most of the paint and all the extra painting paraphernalia and the excess flower pots that were in the cupboard! And the rest is promised. Now I am trying to think of other stuff to give away... Maybe somebody will want some of my surplus math books :-)

Free-Cycle

Check out the link above. I'll explain later, but now it's time to call it a day and turn off the computer!

Yom Kippur

A poem in the prayer-book I was using at Temple Beth El during Kol Nidre last evening:

Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
and youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
and ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to desecration
and then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength or
from strength to weakness
and often back again;
From health to sickness
and we pray to health again.
From offense to forgiveness
from loneliness to love
from joy to gratitude
from pain to compassion
from grief to understanding
from fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat
until looking backwards or ahead
We see that victory lies not
at some high point along the way
but in having made the journey
step by step
a sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey;
A sacred journey to life everlasting

By: Rabbi Alvin I. Fine

very bumpy re-entry...

Tutors, too, have been known to sleep on the job. This is particularly a problem after returning from a trip to a place three time zones away...

Will Friday never get here???

Sphere

First Math Club meeting for this school year went well yesterday, for the most part. My porch has new screens now. The office is emptier (the porch furniture is back where it belongs at last!) and I'm getting through some backlog of paperwork. Progress -- something to be happy about!
Oh, and about the title of this post: there is a lot more information here.

Rock Hill makes the funnies!

Thanks to Marsha for giving me a "heads-up" about this comic. I'm a little behind on my newspaper-reading due to crazy/full schedule, prep for upcoming Math Club meeting, and other responsibilities...

Tomorrow I get to stay home all day (I think) and I hope to clean up this place and do some hard thinking about and arranging for next week, when The Schedule will be thrown into chaos by my mom's birthday celebration. And maybe there will be time for a nap in there somewhere... and the screen-fixing guy will be coming to replace the torn screens on my screen porch, which is almost useable now that the weather has cooled down to the low 90's! :)

Can't think what else to write at the moment...it's past my bedtime!