In spite of our early morning temps hovering around 14 degrees, it actually did manage to get slightly above 40 by the time mid-afternoon arrived. Yes, it was quite nippy when I got out of my car at office early this morning, and having noticed more littering at the back alley, I went back out and picked it up and threw it in the dumpster, and just the short time I was out there, my fingers felt like icicles by the time I got back inside.
My contemplative session was much longer this morning, and mainly due to the extra time it took for me to wash my soul/spirit of all of this past week’s gunk it had accumulated. Now that I’m pretty much settled into my prayer regimen, I’m finding it much easier to get to the point of connecting with our Higher Power. I know I’ve said this many times, but once again I’m convinced that from bad things come good things as look as we look and/or reach for them. After so very many years, I managed to get back into contemplative prayer, and only because of the restrictions this pandemic was placing on my attendance of church Services. As I said before, I’ll likely start attending again once this pandemic is fully behind us, but certainly not in the same mindset I had prior to its arrival.
I needed to make several phone calls this morning as well as getting some documents emailed to a client of mine which I took care of before sorting thru this morning’s online news. The article that had me troubled the most, was reading that a new, and possibly more deadly strain of the China-virus has now hit the United Kingdom, and it must be serious enough to where many European countries are now banning flights from Great Britain. Just yesterday I read where there’s a much more deadly strain infecting South Africa, so here we go again. As of now, the virologists are remaining confident the vaccine that’s being distributed will also take care of it. Let’s hope they’re right.
Knowing our temps would be creeping up as the sun climbed higher, I changed my clothes and headed outdoors to do some work. I was bundled up enough to where it really didn’t bother me, and likely due to there being only a slight breeze from the north. I happily labored away for well over three hours until I realized that if I didn’t stop soon, I was going to be sorry for it tomorrow. I’m sure if I were physically performing some labor intensive job every day, I wouldn’t be having as many aches and pains, but when it’s only one day out of my week, it comes as no surprise.
Since I had some “free-thinking” time, I happened on the thoughts of that photo I posted last night which opened my mental door to many near-forgotten memories. Being one who often thinks outside the box, I couldn’t help wondering why males who’re retired don’t start sewing just like their female counterparts. Believe it or not, back a number of years ago, if you wanted a suit custom-made, you went to a tailor, and the tailors were nearly all males. I can remember in my youth there being a tailoring shop here in Mason City by the name of Guylas Tailor where people with money would go to have custom-made clothing. Then old ones in my family never had him make anything for them, but I did know several older men who did, and always pleased with his work.
I’ve not yet read or heard if our earth-friendly young are also going back to making their own clothes, but I do hope that gets started because for sure once they become proficient, the clothes they’ll be making, will out-last what we’re now purchasing in stores. I don’t even want to talk about how quickly my dress clothes wear out compared to those I purchased over 20 years ago. As most know fully-well, today’s clothing is poorly assembled and their fabrics are less than desirable. There still are a few companies out there that make good clothes, but you certainly pay the price for them, but unfortunately, there’s no brick and mortar stores in our area carrying their brands.
Speaking about men sewing, is just one more example of how in today’s world, all the more hobbies are gender restrictive which I find curious since everyone’s now saying men and women are all equals, yet still holding fast to their male or female roles in whatever hobbies or abilities they chose to explore and expand upon.
Having worked in gardens nearly my entire life and fully enjoying it, that too seems to be heading in the direction of a female dominated pastime. Oh, and Heaven forbid if you’d find a man who has a love for growing roses because that’s something most would roll their eyes over. I always have to laugh to myself whenever being sheepishly told by a male that he enjoys spending time in his flower garden. Some day I’ll have to post a black and white photo out of my precious album of a man working in his flower garden back somewhere in the 1920’s. Yes, it’s interesting to see how we’ve unknowingly allowed ourselves to be socially restricted from doing something which at one time hand nothing to do with gender. I’m now wondering if our mindsets are somehow being subliminally alter by our medias. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
Oh, and one more area just came to mind which happens to be cleaning. Back when I worked at a large bank a number of years ago, their three-person cleaning crew were males. Look at how it’s now automatically assumed that a given cleaning person is a female. What happened? As I told someone just this morning, I’d rather not hire someone to clean for me because I know I can do a better job. Here I go jumping out of a societal pigeon-hole again. Oh I just remembered, real men wash and wax all vehicles in their households. I think they need move their cleaning talents to their filthy showers.
As chance would have it, I had an opportunity to take the above photo of a rotting log. I felt it quite appropriate for tonight’s since it bears the resemblance of praying hands.
Tonight’s One-liner is: Let men firmly decide what they will not do, and then-after be free to vigorously do what they ought to do.
