Dear Neighbor . . .

 

FRIDAY, October 24th, 2025
Estate Lane, Nova Scotia
4*C/40*F mostly clear 

Dear Neighbor,

What a difference a few days of rain make.  The grass is turning green again and the fires have calmed considerably. It is almost difficult to remember that not so long ago we were getting ready to flee. I like this feeling better. All the leaves have fallen from the trees behind the houses across the way. The wind danced them all off the other day. Oh, but they were so beautiful to watch as they pirouetted their way down and about, across and under. 

Glenna has two scarecrows in front of her veranda, and they were also dancing to the tune of the wind. They made me smile.

One of my creations

I was having the funniest dream the other morning. I was in our mother's old house up near the Falls and looking out the dining room window. There were lots of birds walking around the yard.  Some of them were these birds and they had head feathers that looked like Queen Anne's Lace. They were so pretty and as they walked the lacey feathers were bobbing and waving.  I thought they were so pretty.  At least they were in my dream. I used Copilot to create something close to what I saw in my dream. It was fun watching it come together. I really liked the result.

And then I did this.

I was on a roll.  I loved this even more  . . .  I couldn't stop.

This very dapper crow popped out.  I so enjoyed creating these. Or should I say, inspiring copilot to create these, because I really didn't do anything except supply an idea.

Kind of fun, kind of scary when you think about the implications.  

I might print these out and frame them. I think they are really lovely.

 

(source)

 Lots of things we see online are not real anymore. You don't really know what is truth or what is lie. People can create anything they want to create.  They can literally put words in people's mouths and make it look like they are saying them. I have formulated a rule for myself to follow. If it looks too perfect. If it sounds uncredible. If it is too far-fetched. Then it is probably not real. You can no longer trust the things you see and hear to be real.

In some cases, it is really easy to figure out, but in others, it is not so easy and that is the scary part about it. Most intelligent people will know the difference and take that into account, but many will not and will believe the lie and then pass it on. It becomes their truth. And the lie spreads like an oil slick, coating everything it touches. 

There is a good side and there is a bad side to this technology. It is up to us, I guess, to figure it out.

 

(source)

"Comparison is the thief of Joy."

This is something that I have thought of or read about quite often. It is one of life's great truths. (Nobody knows who first said it. It is attributed to many.)  If you are constantly in the mode of comparing who you are with others, what you have with what others have, where you live with where others live, etc. then you will never be happy. There will always be someone smarter, someone prettier, someone thinner, someone living in a nicer house, driving a nicer car, with a better job etc.  What, who, where, when, how . . . will never be enough.  Comparison is insidious, odious, and very often the best way that we have to torture ourselves.

Consider instead a bed filled with flowers.  Many are of the same variety, but no two are alike. Oh, a daisy, is a daisy, is a daisy, but even each daisy has subtle differences. Does that make them any less beautiful or any less desirable?  Do the daisies even care that one might be taller, or one might bounce a little nicer in the breeze, etc.???

No. They simply get on with the business of blooming. Presenting their own best selves to the world, and do we care?  No, we simply enjoy looking at them and find each one beautiful in its own right.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself.  We should all be striving to better ourselves, to learn, to grow.  What is wrong, however, is beating ourselves daily with the stick of comparison. There is no joy in that. No peace. Bloom where you are planted.  Bloom with what you've got.  Be your best you. There is nobody else quite like you.  And that's okay.  You are magnificent as you are in all of your authenticity. Tomorrow you may do better, but for today . . .  just bloom as best as you know how.

 

 

(source)

I had found a photo the other day that I took many, many years ago on a farm visit down in the Yeo Valley in the U.K. I noticed another food blogger in it that I happen to be friends with now that I wasn't with at that time. I thought he might like to see the photograph, so I sent it to him. He replied with some remark about what babies we were then.  I responded with the statement, "I know. I just turned 70 in August."  His response, "wow"

I was not quite sure what to do with that.  It wasn't a "wow" that felt good to me. It was like a "wow, you are really old." He made me feel irrelevant in some way. I didn't like it. Agism. That is what it felt like. Agism.  I think perhaps somehow, I reminded him of his own advancing mortality, and he didn't like the way it looked? I am not sure. Perhaps I read more into it than I should have done, but I know how I felt.

Age. It catches up with us all. We will all be (if we are lucky) 70 one day. Being 70 doesn't make you irrelevant or invisible. Being 70 and still active and able to participate in life in a positive way, to still be able to work, to still be able to enjoy things despite the increasingly achy bones, to still be able to contribute, etc. is a good thing, I think. But, then again, I am 70. I was young once upon a time. But I am better now. I know more. I've done more. I have more to give and a wealth of knowledge to be shared by dipping into my well of experience.  I still have value. I still have relevance. 

 

(source)

Something funny. I had just done my scripture study last night. I watch a guy on YouTube with it and follow along with the scriptures on my phone app.  I had finished and put my phone down to give Nutmeg a scratch behind the ears.  All of a sudden I could hear a voice saying, "hello"  "hello" "hello"

I realized it was Cindy.  I picked up the phone and put it onto speaker. I prefer to talk on it on speaker. There is nobody here for that to bother or interfere with. I said to her, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear the phone ringing!"  She said, "I didn't call you, you called me!"

Pocket call. I had pocket called her without knowing it. Never mind. We had not really had a chance to talk all day, so this was our chance.  The cosmos knows.

 

(source)

“The night walked down the sky 

with the moon in her hand.”

~Frederic Lawrence Knowles

It dawned on me yesterday that it will be Hallowe'en in just a few more days. 6 to be exact. I've always loved this quiet stretch before Hallowe’en. The evenings are darker, the air has that sharp, chilled woodsmoke edge, and the house starts to take on a completely different feeling as the leaves jump from the safety of their branches and begin to skitter up and down the street. 

The weather took a turn this week and has been wet and windy.  This has been most welcome to me.  I opened my front door yesterday and the leaves blew in.  Wonderful October . . . 

When I was younger, I loved the bustle of Halloween. The costumes, the decorations, the sweets,  the lights. When my own children were small I loved to take them out Trick or Treating. This was a chore that always fell to me as my husband always had to work on Hallowe'en, him being a policeman.  It was hectic and fun and I cherish the memories. 

I find a different sort of joy now in these last days before Hallowe'en. There is a joy in the gentler magic . . .  flickering candles in the window.  Warm baking smells of cinnamon and cloves. Thoughts about old wives' tales and stories.  Bees hovering close to the ground and other things. There was wisdom in those old tales and sayings. I cherish them now, even if many of them really have no basis in truth.  (Back to truth again.)   True or not, they carry a sense of comfort in the saying . . . 

And October, Autumn . . .  Hallowe'en . . .  it all speaks comfort to me.

The turning of the wheel of the year. Slowly turning down towards the end, in a way that it always has done. It never changes.  There is comfort in the sameness of it all . . .  a wonderful sense of security to be valued and embraced.

 

(source)

The cleaners are coming for their second time today and Dan is coming later on to help with the garden. Signs of being 70, I guess. I can no longer bend down to do things like this, no matter how much I would like to be able to.  In some ways it makes me feel ashamed that I cannot, but in others I recognize that is just time.  I spent my younger years always taking care of other people, not paying a lot of attention to my own care. This was my folly. I should have spent a bit more time on me.

Anyways, people are coming and I need to get on about my day.  Sort a few things out before they descend, make my bed, etc.  I must close this now as much as I would like to carry on.

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

☾ ° ★° * 。  

• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*I don't know much

about being a millionaire,

but I'll bet I would be

just darling at it.• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★

~Dorothy Parker• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。*

• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。*

In The English Kitchen today . . .  Enchilada Casserole.  It's simple. Delicious. Vegetarian. Sized for two. 

I hope that you have a wonderful Friday.  Be happy. Be blessed. Be safe. Whatever comes your way, don't forget!

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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿

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And I do too!