Alba, yes, you are indeed serving the greater good. It's genuinely dreadful when one sees the incredulity on bozo's faces, ' Oh look, there's an *ss, look what she's doing for zero compensation, bet someone's pulling the wool over HER eyes. " a. Yea, and those types say the same thing about driving past car accidents and b. Like we care, you couldn't pay me to care what anyone thinks these days, much less the drips of the world. It IS the Greater Good which is THE thing, I don't think God wants us to do anything to our vast disadvantage but if it can be pulled off, what a blessing, thank you. I'll validate the bejeesis out of this, for what it's worth.
Sheila, yes, SO, so many remain bitter on their divorces, stuck in the hate loop for decades after the fact. I dated a GREAT guy, his one 'thing' being this wacko tendency to devolve into diatribes about the ex, the divorce, and things which happened IN the marriage. His children told me that even later, when they were at school, he'd send them long, hateful emails all about their mother and how awful she was. ( she was a typical female going through a nasty divorce, witchy and unreasonable ). I DO remember having a deliberate good deed where I kept an eye on those girls for a little while, if from a distance. I'd dumped the father-had zero intention of listening to this for the rest of my life. He finally actually comited suicide! Bitterness run amuck. I think now thinking about it, one of my acts of kindness today will be to 'friend' the girls on FB, which is awful for me but I'd like to see how they are.
Yesterday's kindness was indeed what I said, to post photos I'd taken on Find A Grave. It might seem teeny, recognizing dead folks, but to people who really NEED that connection with the past, it's a great deal. Find a Grave is awesome. You can find so, so many relatives on there, and if you can't, you can request someone else look. It's too long to get into, but going there, you'll see. If someone lives in Alabama, for instance, they can request someone living where I do to please try to find their grgrgrgrandmother's grave, please post a photo on the memorial. Well, I did that for I think 5 different people, it felt good.
Grateful my knowledge in various historical realms are helpful to others.
Grateful I had time to get some new painting in yesterday.
Grateful the political pendulum seems to be swinging back in our nearby city. Harrisburg is just a very pretty, historical city, the previous mayor made it just stunning and bright. It's now down at the heels, filing for bankruptcy, awful to drive through. The new mayor is not just inep, she's REALLY unpleasant. Google Harrisburg Linda Thompson Scumbag. She gave a press conference last week, called people scumbags. Anyway, it's been pretty awful to watch, I really AM grateful this little pearl of a city may find it's way back to where it should be through a new mayor very soon.
I tried to take a Kindle audio app with me to help meditate, and this timei t did not work. I found it distracting instead, so turned it off, just listened to the woods music. This seems to be getting stronger for me, it's nice. Is this the result of this whole mindful practice evey day? I did my 3 miles. Because of the poor dead deer in that field along my regular route, I've had to change my route until someone clears it outa there. NO idea why no one has, since it's right smack in the middle of a farmer's main field by hi home. I just have a tough time passing the smell, iew. Anyway, it's also a tad distracting for meditation purposes changing he route. I was just SO used to the old one.
A positive experience. This is an interesting portion of the challenge, isn't it? Things you might not have thought of as an experience, much less positive, stand out to you all of a sudden. I'm going to stick with sitting and posting those things on Find a Grave. In doing so, I kept coming across many, MANY memorials folks had left at the sites dedicated to relatives long dead. It's more than touching and makes you deeply thoughtful. Being connected with one's past, I think, gives you genuine, invisible but awfully real ROOTS in life. Your entire purview can change because of identification with what your ancestors stood for, sometimes died for, where perhaps they came from and trying to ascertain perhaps what their lives were all about. It was lovely to read the little notes people left with their 'virtual' flowers, the thanks left for the vets ( I tend to do this, I generally create memorials for Civil War vets I come across in cemeteries ), the respect along with the love in these messages. It's a GREAT website, of course you won't find every, single grave in the world but boy, are they trying or WHAT? It also costs zero, another advantage.
I think I hit them all, time to turn the page, lick my pencil and begin the next one.
