How appropriate.

I was just checking up on my blog-pal Angela Hemming's site and I came across this terrific quotation:

"The human body essentially recreates itself every six months.
Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place.
You are not who you were in September."
-- Donald Miller

Given that I feel like a completely different person these days, these words had a definite resonance.

Thanks for sharing this, Angela!

Wise words.

"After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you really do have worth." - Veronica A. Shoffstall

There is joy in the spring.

Today is Victoria Day, the unofficial beginning to the summer season in Canada.   Oh, sure -- it's still spring -- but this is when we finally start to trust that winter is behind us and put the snow shovels in the basement for another year.

I've decided that this is the summer I begin composting.  We have a cart that the city will empty every two weeks, so it's really just a matter of  learning what should go in it and hauling the cart up and down the driveway.  We already recycle what we can at the blue bins in the grocery store parking lot, so this is the next natural step.  As someone who is interested in the preservation of (and has a spiritual connection to)  the Earth, this has been on my Day Zero list for a while.  So today it begins.  On the refrigerator, I've posted lists of what can and can't go in the compost cart, so that Hubby and I have some guidance until we get the hang of it.

After we came back from the recycling bins today, Hubby, Piper and I spent some time wandering through our backyard.  For the last ten years or so, it's been left au naturel, partly because it's too bumpy to run a mower over (and too big to weed-whack), and partly because Hubby believes that mowing lawns is bad for the environment.  (I don't know if he really believes it, or if he's just poking at me and his tongue is firmly in cheek, but he started a Facebook group about it, so here's his free plug. :))

Among today's discoveries: forget-me-nots growing among the thorns of the rose bushes, rampant buttercups, tons of dandelions, a snail on the compost cart, and several MIA tennis balls ejected from the groundhog den by its occupant.

It was nice to spend some time outside and just be.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, beginning with an academic appeal hearing at the university (#95 on the Day Zero List).  After that, I need to make an appointment with my doctor, update my résumé, and figure out what to do next.  I might wander by the high school, too -- not only to visit old friends, but to see if they have any use for me in the next three weeks, since I still have my substitute teaching permit.  I'm not sure what the next year is going to look like, but today I came across a quotation that pretty much sums up my life's philosophy.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children; to leave the world a better place;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's all gonna be okay.