Begin It

What a difference a day makes. We went to bed at 11pm last night while the rain continued to fall; the thermometer said it was +10 degrees. We awoke this morning to sunshine, fresh snow and a thermometer reading of –10!!! What a country!

I read the Toronto Star on-line this morning and was shocked to read that the temp got up to +18 in the big city yesterday. +18!!!! That is just crazy for the middle of January. It hit +12 here in cottage country, but it was so soggy we didn’t get out for our walk. I did go tend to the bird feeders, but that is as far as I got.

We have been housebound for the past two days, but haven’t minded really. We both managed to get lots of work done inside while the storm raged or should I say drizzled, outside. John finished composing and printing the picture collages for our 2004 photo album and I kept busy reading, writing, and working on a project I have put off for far too long.

I have been collecting quotes for years and have hundreds of handwritten ones penned in a pretty marble covered journal with gold edged pages. I have dates and notes beside each one detailing where and when I found it, who I passed it on to over the years, when and why.

This quote journal is one of my prized possessions, and I enjoy leafing through it and gleaning fresh wisdom from old quotes each time I do. Sometimes a familiar quote becomes brand new, and it jumps off the page at me and says something it never said before. Or I find a quote there that I don’t remember at all.

I do have one problem with my treasured quote journal though. It is getting so massive and unruly I have trouble finding a specific quote when I want it. I usually put a quote at the end of every letter I write, or tuck one inside each greeting card. I know the quote I want, have a general idea of it’s location: i.e. it is in the bottom left hand corner of a page, or the top of another, but have so much trouble finding it when I need to. Grrr! Not a great system I know, and I spend more time leafing through the book than I want to when I am pressed for time.

It was past time to do something about this! I needed to put these quotes into a database so I could sort and find certain ones easier. Soooooo, I finally took the bull by the horns and made this my “work” project for this holiday at the farm. Yesterday I spent many happy hours entering data and putting some order to my quote journal. It felt wonderful!

The reward for a thing well done, is to have done it.
     (R.W. Emerson)

Amen to that!

We have company coming for the weekend, so the laptop will be put in a corner and allowed to gather dust for a few days. I will talk to you again on Monday. Hope you have a great weekend and continue to be surprised by January gifts. Unwrap and enjoy each one.

Whatever you believe is possible for yourself to do, begin it.
   (Oprah)