The Saturday Morning Post - April 17

I try to remember to pause, to look up, to look down, to look right - left and ahead.  It is so easy to be focused on one thing, that we miss the wonders around us.  What an amazing ceiling, someone spent days designing it, months maybe years building it.  If I didn't pause to look up, I would have missed it, missed taking this image.  The rear screen on the camera I am using folds out and tilts 180 degrees.  I can point the lens at the ceiling, fold the screen down so I am looking straight ahead, seeing what's up without craning my neck, handy, my balance is passable but not perfect - never will be again. 

The Violets are blooming here.  They were one of my grandmother's favorites.  Violets for color, lilies of the valley for smell. The Violets were blooming 25 years ago this week, when she died. Each spring the Violets remind me of her. They grow here as a wildflower, as they did on the farm.  I miss her. 

Last Saturday on the way home from my vaccine appointment, I decided to avoid the expressway construction and drive home on the back roads, taking me though old Fairfax City, Virginia.  There is a quaint 3 or 4 block area with some building dating back as much as 200 years.  A parking lot with open spaces was there as I was waiting for a traffic light, so I parked and walked around.  There is a coin shop, I have not been in a coin shop in years.   I thought about it, opened the door and took a look around.  It was fun.  It feels strange to stroll through a shop. I bought a proof set for the year J and I moved in together, and a 10-Franc coin from the first year I was in Paris.  I still have cash, shops still accept it.  I have only withdrawn cash once or twice in the past year, I use to do that every week.  It felt good to shop, it felt good to support a local independent business.  

When I was about 10, my grandmother told me if I saved my pennies I would be able to go to England someday (her birthplace.) I have hundreds of pounds of pennies collected since then.  I have thought that one of my retirement projects might be to sit with a magnifying lamp, you know the ones mounted on a spring loaded arm over a desk, and sort them all by date and mint mark. That would keep me busy a couple of hours a day, for a few months.  The coin shop had 5-gallon plastic buckets of coins sitting on the floor that they are sorting by date, mint, and grade.  

I am in a busy work cycle, lots of things going on all at once.  I need to remember to take time, to look up, down, right, left and ahead.