Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

Well they might get delivered here but the package would probably be "damaged in transit."

CLC - lovely to "see" you again - hope all is well.

I love the shoes...and llike GG wondering if they DO leave an imprint - wouldn't THAT be fun.  Bet someone copies the idea, and produces so they do....

The senior center where I volunteer makes an effort to create community with support groups, interest groups, craft groups, etc. We have such a good program that people come from other parts of the city to participate. Kind of takes the place of a church for me. I'm with you. I would like a church without the religion.

Yes it's hard to maintain "community" in rural areas, with an ageing population. About 15 years ago Canada Post decided to stop using small post offices - ours was in the dining room of an older house in our village - and people did gather there. Instead we got green metal boxes, with locks, outside. community dissolves a bit. We drive everywhere else to shop in box stores and malls. In old times (before me) there were general stores, and people did congregate there. No more. In some malls they actually took away the comfortable benches, so people (old people who went looking for something to do) could not even sit! Luckily, in Canada, tim Horton's donuts came along and that is our national gathering place, because they are everywhere. Groups of seniors yakking and having coffee - how lucky, but how strange that modern corporations have done their best to wreck community for the sake of efficiency. Not sure if that's true but...sometimes local pubs keep community thriving, at least if they are hospitable to females on their own. some days I just long to be able to amble out the door and down the street to an outdoor cafe where we can sit, have a drink and watch the world go by but no....we've all got to get in our cars and drive somewhere  - but where? there are groups - seniors, yoga, exercise, the pub if you drink - but i do believe we need more, where the main thing is just to be able to hang out.

and it's not just seniors who have no place to hang-out.  When I was a kid everyone would take their car to the local park and spend the day waxing it and showing it off - no more.  It seems that everything that people used to do that was free and fun - for any age - has become either illegal or simply impossible.  Frustrating.

Glad you liked them flannel

we're house hunting in a very desultory fashion.  Right now we are renting a townhouse.  I am SO JEALOUS of everyone who has a garden or is planning one.  For a very short period of time we considered buying a townhouse, but we both realized that we really want a bit of ground - enough for a simple little garden and some flowers.  But not enough to exhaust us (our last place was a couple of acres and I could never keep up with everything - don't want that much again)

where we are right now we have nothing - not even room for a pot.  In the front is a small square of ground (about 2ft square) that we are not allowed to change in any way.  There is no balcony.  We can open a sliding door at the other side of the house, but cannot step out.  There is a gate in place at the door which overlooks the driveway for the townhouse garages.  We would never purchase something such as this, but it was the best we could do when in a great rush to find a home once we realized ours was truly going to close.  We have another 7 months on the lease and do not intend to be here once the lease is up.

Hubby is looking harder than I for a new place - preferably land where we can build what we want - but that is a little more costly and we are both looking to be extremely frugal - so who knows what we'll end up with.  Maybe nothing....  As my husband tells me each morning, the adventure continues. 

We have.  Unfortunately, they are far more expensive than we expected.  Right at this instant, I think he's narrowed things down to either a home in Olympia (would be built by the developer), or a lot much closer to Seattle that he happened upon - if we get that one, we'll probably (possibly?) go with a modular.

It's been way too long since there was a post on this thread so I thought perhaps a picture would be worth a thousand words. 

thanks, notself, a very, very, very timely reminder of what we all need to learn/know, by heart

now I have to find out who the author is....thanks again.

eta - very interesting young woman http://justinegraykin.wordpress.com/about-the-writer/

I'm glad to see this thread active again.

Sunflowers, the allergy meds keep my sneezing down to an ok level and my breathing's ok but my eyes itch and burn like crazy. I have dry eyes to start with so between the allergens irritating my eyes and the allergy meds drying my eyes out even more it's not pretty. I use eye drops all day long and when I go outside for awhile I then use an eyewash followed by eye drops. I'm really hoping for an early frost.

sunflowers - the mind, what's left of it, boggles....the mind may be smaller, but it's deeper....

I love the Flying Spaghetti Monster prayer!