HURDLEs OR BUOYs?

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

 
Robert H. Schuller

Robert Schuller is one of my favorite writers. I have given this quote quite some thought. Life is full of problems. Not always big ones but it is easier to deal with life if you accept that that problems are the normal state of things. The 'perfect' life is not the norm. Life is a matter of dealing with one thing then the next.

In this sense problems are guidelines. Problems, and how we deal with them, shape our lives. Life is not fair. Some people seem to have bigger problems than others, but in the end we all have to deal with our problems as best we can - on a day to day - even moment by moment basis.

Perhaps a better word for problems is challenges. We all have our daily challenges. If we see these challenges as buoys - markers as we navigate through life, rather than great hurdles - some of our problems may not seem so overwhelming.

Begonia in my back yard

Where to begin? 

I am having some difficulty looking at what to write in this blog after having something new to photograph and write about each day during the holidays.


It is really about returning to the small things. My home. My garden.

So today I am turning to my toadstool collection. I have some lovely toadstools - ornamental of course - and some beautiful pictures done by my daughter R.

This is my favorite - it is just exquisite.

Toadstool picture by R

The picture is done in watercolors.

Detail of Toadstool picture

Detail of Toadstool picture

Detail of Toadstool watercolor.

 

Square Riggers

I did some shopping today and came across a magnet made to look like a square rigger sailing ship.

Magnet

I bought it for P:-). It matched the ship I bought him from a second hand shop just before Christmas, which was a model of the Bounty.

Model of the Bounty

 P:-) is very interested in sailing ships. He is especially interested in the James Craig a sailing ship berthed in Sydney.

The James Craig

Photo credit

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 Post Script: I went to the pathologist today for a routine blood test. A young woman with two small children walked out. She had a band-aid on her arm. A cap partially covered her hairless head. It was obvious that she was undergoing some type of chemotherapy. I thought about what I had written earlier about problems and guidelines. And I thought how easy it is to write something down but how little that writing means means when you see such a young woman, children at her side,  battling cancer and facing mortality.

Interesting sites

 1. 

Photo:homeDSGN

Click here to read about this barge conversion in Stockholm


2. 

 Click here to read about this burning gas crater in Turkmenistan.

3. 

 Click here to read about the artistic Stockholm subway system