Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Today was my birthday, and for me, it's the start of a new year of life. I like that my birthday is about halfway through the year. It gives me a chance to restart my New Year's Resolutions. They're, of course, the same as they were at the start of the year:

1. Lose weight.
2. Write more.
3. Pray more.
4. Meditate more.
5. Just be better.

The usual, in other words. Been reading various books about changing habits and using the Miracle Morning program, but so far, I haven't found my groove. For some people, they say, it takes longer to set good habits. I guess I'm one of those.

Not surprising considering the years I've spent enforcing and living bad habits. The ruts in my subconscious must be deep. Canyons by now. Got to continue filling them up with new better habits.

This coming month will be spent on Blackbirds Third Flight. Time to put the book together. I need to make significant progress next week. I may have to shelf the Today in Art project on Facebook I've been doing until BTF is in the place it should be. Priorities, you know.

Otherwise, it's the usual chores, doctors' visits, and life. What's going on for you?

To-Do

A friend has been calling from Barbados to brag about his amazing vacation. But today, I had to tell him that his house had been vandalized.

Really sad.

Must be sure to remember to go and do that later.

Goober

So I was terribly, terribly hungry and wolfed down my supper. It was hard to stop to give the food time to settle.

"Why am I so hungry?" I wondered. 

"Because you only had two cups of coffee for breakfast and no lunch, you goober," I answered back. 

"No need to get insulting; I was busy, and sometimes I forget to eat even though I know diabetics are healthier with keeping a meal schedule," I replied to me. 

"That's why I called me a goober, you goober," I said. 

Sometimes I'm just not a pleasant person.

Needs a sountrack

Watching the sunrise. Hmm. It's okay.

Help Wanted

I need a maid! And someone to clean my house, too.

Important question

Why is my coffee cup so empty? WHY? It's enough to make me doubt the good will of the universe.

Yikes

"I do have a set of lovely blue eyes. I keep them in a jar in the fridge." -- Bad first date

Judge not less...

Just finished reading 142 writing contest entries. I'm supposed to be encouraging, but some of them need to be stopped. ‪#‎forthegoodofhumanity #grammar #spelling #storyflow #ohIamgivingup‬

It's Time

Sometimes you just have to stand up to people and tell them to their face, "Despite everything, you're still loved." ‪#‎standourground‬

Rant 413

Rant start.

Just read a blog post in which the author said women who are overweight were "not motivated" to lose weight and would rather watch TV than exercise.

Ahem.

Since I can't punch the author in the throat, let me instead praise women with a bit of heft.

I know many larger women who raise children, who work jobs, who sing in their church and teach Sunday school, who enjoy life and laugh a lot, who volunteer at shelters and soup kitchens and food pantries, who write poems and books and songs, and who can cook a casserole that will break any diet. They worry about their appearance and they walk and they diet and they do their best, but here's the thing: None of us are going to get out of this life alive.

So if they choose to have that cupcake, they don't need their fellow women attacking them. They already have a society that's trying to say they have to be perfect, and it's almost more than they can bear.

If you can't support them, then get off their back.

Rant end.

The devil's correspondence

Dear Ex-girlfriend,
When you say you still love me after all the lying, stealing, and general badness, that means a lot...a lot of what, I don't know, but it's a lot of it.
Sincerely,
Me

Often true

A rule of thumb that I have found often true: The phrase "I am not a racist, but..." is almost never followed by something I could imagine Jesus saying.

Not booking passage

In the new Star Trek trailer, they destroy the Enterprise...again. Is that three or four times now? That poor ship. Why would anyone sail on it? It's like the Titanic of space.

Wish List

I think I would like a self-driving car. It would be nice to be able to read or nap or watch a movie. People get upset when I do that now while driving.

Slow murder

Pinterest has been doing NOTHING except sending me diabetic UNfriendly recipes. Massively unfriendly.

I think Pinterest is trying to kill me.

Plain speak

Well, a news organization has announced it was laying people off as part of an "expansion plan." Huh. If they expand more, they may not have anyone working for them. And that isn't called expansion; it's called "closing the doors."

Query

And how be ye today?

Good?

Bad?

Upset that someone filled your house with happy chickens when you really wanted sad llamas?

Well, make do with your chickens. There are worse beasts in the world.

And they taste good fried!

Once in a yellow moon

I took this picture a while back with an old autofocus camera. Somehow, for a brief moment, it focused. Didn't do it in any of the other 30 shots. Go figure.

Another scan of flowers

A scan by any other name

This is actually a scan of a flower with the background (poorly) removed. I do like it, though.