Dear Reader:

I have never given much thought to horoscopes and the signs of the Zodiac…except as light entertainment if the daily horoscope just happened to match my day or wish….but one thing I am pretty confident of…I am definitely a “Libra”…the balancing scales of the Zodiac.

Even as a child…there was always something pulling me back…if I got too off-kilter in life…whether the situation dealt with school, play, friends, boyfriends, hobbies, clubs, etc. An inner sense let me know I was spending too much time incorrectly and was off the given path…I needed to re-circle and find it again.

While taking my last few required educational courses at college…one bit of information struck a chord with me…and it has continued to be the best advice I ever got. We were studying early educators and philosophers of learning and teaching when we got to Aristotle’s famous quote: “Moderation in all things.” 

I can’t remember if any lights or bells went off when studying this Greek philosopher on any particular day…but my professor sure loved Aristotle and repeated that one piece of advice  numerous times throughout the course that semester.

Now at the age I am, upon reflection, it is probably the best advice on life and how to live it than any other adage. I wish, with all my heart, that there could be a giant banner with magnanimous colorful bright lettering that completely encircles our planet…(to the point that astronauts could practically touch the banner  in space)…with the words…

“M O D E R A T I O N   I N  A L L  T H I N G S.”

I think of all the bad things that flew out of Pandora’s box…the worst was greed. I disagree with the axiom….”Money is the root of all evil”…I think it is “Greed is the root of all evil.”

When we consider the “root” problems that give rise to wars, conflicts, economic depressions/recessions, environmental destruction, political scandals, etc. the culprit at the bottom of the layers of cover-up is always greed.

Man wants territories that don’t belong to him, or riches that come at the destruction of the environment we and all living creatures call home, inappropriate disbursement of life-sustaining supplies…creating the have and have-nots….we could go on and on.

We all wish for a perfect world…but until man can give up this need for greed…to take more than his share, to hoard what he has, to create a world that only benefits a  few….we will have to wait to the next world…to wait for the utopia we wish we had here.

Yet every day we can discover a way to make life happier/better by helping or giving away something to someone else, through friendships and strangers. We also must learn how to turn our days into bringing small bits of happiness into our homes  and then sharing that happiness.

We have had rain off and on for the past couple of days…the kind of unsettled days where it doesn’t seem like it knows what to do…one minute it is dark and cloudy, the next the sun is out…and then suddenly the rain starts pouring down again with the sun still shining.

* (I remember Grandmother Wilson used to tell me ‘the devil was beating his wife’ when it rained while the sun was shining). *Even to this day…I always remember that old wive’s tale and still feel like I did then…that devil wife definitely had sufficient cause for divorce!)

In between showers I decided to make my home a little happier yesterday with fresh flowers… like the ones in the title photo…using Honey’s cute little flower vases. It always puts a smile on my face to have little zinnias spreading their sunshine inside as well as out.

So until tomorrow…Let’s all try to keep our lives in balance…not overstepping our own needs for personal wants. “Moderation in all things.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The Dingles got home around 7:00 last evening and had a wonderful vacation…going into Boone on a nostalgic tour of their old stomping grounds in college…Appalachian State before heading home!

The last evening view from the mountains…

*The funniest thing: I have a hummingbird that is obviously enamored with the red cardinal bird feeder. It flies around and around it…sometimes barely touching its face before it flies off.

I can only catch a quick blurry photo through the front window and screen so it isn’t the best visibility but enough, hopefully, for you, too, to witness the love affair! 🙂