Illinois ladies facing bc

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done—this is how I desire to waste wisely my days. -Thomas Dekker

A mother is not a person to lean on,
but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Once you accept and rejoice in your authenticity, you begin
to see things as YOU are. You begin to see the authentic self
is the Soul made visible. Godspeed on your journey to wholeness.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Creative gratitude is an attitude. It is magnetic and will draw good to you. It is good therapy, a road to happiness.Thankfulness is a way of living more fully. Be thankful for your health and you will have health in more abundance. Be thankful for the love you receive and it will be increased. Be thankful for your success and you'll open doors to further achievement. Be thankful for your friends and more friends will come to you. Be thankful for beauty and you'll experience it more deeply.Creative gratitude is a force for harmony and goodwill. It brings people together in love and understanding. It is high on the scale of creative qualities to be practiced day in and day out in our moment-to-moment contacts. -Wilferd A. Peterson

Yesterday, between the storms, we made it up to 77F even by the lake. So nice I took the long way home from the dermatologist up in Lake Bluff (no floods, but effing construction on every road). Today is the season's first "Allergy Action Alert," for tree pollens. I'm supposed to stay indoors--not hard to do, as it's not even going to make it up to 50F here by the lake. No rain again till early evening. Except I have prescriptions to pick up, as well as buy plastic garden markers to denote the herbs & flowers I want the landscaper to save. Tomorrow may reach 70 and no rain all day.

So I decided to cowgirl up and attack the grime & scale built up on the portafilter on my espresso machine. Went looking for the little toolcase that holds the cleaning stuff for it and--YEE-OWCH! Back spasm. Calmly bent from the knees to retrieve a fresh canister of the cleaning powder, then popped a baclofen and two Aleve (which I hope won't kick up any reflux) and went to do three piriformis stretches, which seemed to relieve it. Sitting here with a heating pad--hope my back stays unkinked long enough to finish cleaning the portafilter, which is soaking right now, and to do my errands.

Tomorrow is Chalet Nursery's "Edibles Event," featuring tomato, pepper & herb plants, container-gardening soil, and lots of guidance. Hope I can get up & out in time for it. It's finally safe to plant outdoors.

Living in the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causes you to bump into people not going your way.

Edna Ferber

An oldie but special to me.

You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth: the greatest peace and the grandest love. You are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself as these things. Choose now to know yourself as these things always.

Neale Donald Walsch

Ethics grow out of the same root as world- and life-affirmation,
for ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what
gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that
good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life,
and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil. Affirmation
of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that
manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to
other life. From an inner necessity, I exert myself in producing
values and practicing ethics in the world and on the world even
though I do not understand the meaning of the world. For in world-
and life-affirmation and in ethics I carry out the will of the universal
will-to-live which reveals itself in me. I live my life in God, in the
mysterious divine personality which I do not know as such in the
world, but only experience as mysterious will within myself.

Albert Schweitzer

This is for all you Chicagolanders:

I live just south of Jesuit-Approved College Antics, at the intersection of Cabbies of the World, Nerds and Brunch Country.

Enjoyed your map of the city, ChiSandy.

Jackie, Thanks for keeping the Illinois thread going.

My 10 year cancerversary is Monday. Feeling lucky and grateful.

Huge congrats Navy on your ten yr. Monday. Although I originally saw this on another thread ( about DISH ) you will be a Double Dish Monday. D.I.S.H. stands for Damn I'm Still Here and I hope you are here and well and happy for a long, long time staying in NED status. Enjoy Monday big time.

Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.

Gail Sheehy

The best portion of a good man's life
is his little, nameless, unremembered
acts of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller

Seek To Understand, Rather Than To Fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie