Sad Monday

I am brief this morning.  My favorite cat, Hodge, died very early today.  He was the best cat ever and I am going to miss him terribly.  Today I just feel sad.

End of the Week

"With out friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods." Aristotle

I am feeling happy and satisfied this morning.  I am spending an evening with my girl friends tonight, eating and watching a movie.  I am looking forward to it.  S is leaving today for a weekend in Wisconsin with his son, so while I will miss him desperately, I am looking forward to a night with the girl friends and a day of staying in on Saturday and getting the house ready for next weeks Feast activites, a day with my family... a lot of them.  I am so happy that my sister and her family and my brother and his wife and one of his kids,  will be joining us for Thanksgiving.

I was checking my Real  Age tips this morning and I came across this tidbit about being saving your sick days and being happy.    So this morning I am thinking about how happy I am;  I have a fabulous family, fun friends, and I am in love, for real!  My physical health is in tune with my emotional health,  at least for today,  so all is right with my world.

Literature for Tuesday

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Lady of Shallott  Part I

On either side of the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road runs by
            To many-towered Camelot; 
And up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow 
Round an island there below,
            The island of Shalott.¹

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
            Flowing down to Camelot. 
Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 
Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers
            The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veiled
Slide the heavy barges trailed
By slow horses; and unhailed
The shallop flitteth silken-sailed
Skimming down to Camelot: 
            But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand?             25
Or is she known in all the land,
            The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
            Down to towered Camelot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary, 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
            Lady of Shalott."

Follow a team that wins!

If  you want to follow a team that actually wins,  come on out to the ice arena when the Illini ice hockey team is in town.  It is always an exciting evening.  This team knows how to play as a team and work hard as a team to win!  The 2008  ACHA National Champions (undefeated that season)  are great athletes, who represent their school well. 

The Illini defeated the Michigan Dearborn Wolves  9-1 on Friday and 10-1 on Saturday.  The Wolves played well, they just couldn't stop the Illini from putting it in the net!  The Illini power play was right on this weekend. 

So come an support a team that wins!

Monday Morning

"Never continue in a job you don't enjoy.  If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace.  And if you have that, along with phyisical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined. "  Johnny Carson

Well here it is Monday morning.  The work week has begun.  I am swamped with work, but at least I like my job.  

I could have used more weekend, however.  I managed to procrastinate the cleaning of the house until Sunday.  And of course it isn't nearly clean! I managed to twitter all day Saturday away.  Okay, so I did bag up some leaves and got some groceries.    I managed to get the bills paid on Sunday, after watching several films on tv.  I got the laundry done.   So it was fairly successful.

I saw two excellent hockey games this weekend.  Now it will be 3 whole weeks before the Illini are home again.  I toyed with the idea of driving to St. Charles  Missouri   next weekend to see th Illini play Lindenwood.  That should be a great matchup.  I could visit with my family and see the Illini play.   But,  I have a lot of work around the house to get done before Thanksgiving.  

So I will put my nose to the grindstone, get some excellent work done at my job and head home to work some more.  

Hockey Night in Urbana

Yes indeed   the  Fighting Illini take on the University of Michigan Dearborn Wolves tonight on the big pond.   J and I will be attending together. I am certain it will be fun!

My other thought for the day returns to Shakespeare:  Act I Scene V of Romeo and Juliet

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

I saw the opera by Gounod last night at Krannert Center.  It was absolutely wonderful, especially seeing it with Steve. The music was beautiful and the duets were perfect. It made me want to read the entire play  and watch the Zefirelli version of the film. 

Music and the Full Moon

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that , surfeiting, 

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall: 

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

Stealing and giving odour!

William Shakespeare  from Twelfth night

More Shakespeare, which is quite appropriate for my evening entertainment will be Romeo and Juliet, the opera by Gounad.   I have never heard it, but I am looking forward to a splendid evening with Steve.  I hope the U of I school of opera does as good a job with this one as they did with La Boeheme .

The moon is full, I saw it in the western sky this morning driving to work.  It had just a few light wispy clouds around.  Last night the sky was shrouded in clouds and I was sad not to see the moon. Perhaps tonight, a clearer sky and a chance to see the beautiful moon with my guy.

Literature for Tuesday

Today I am feeling like a bit of Shakespeare.  So here is one of my favorite sonnets.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments, love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come,

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Walking on clouds

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. "  Carl Jung

Well there are no words to describe how happy I am feeling this morning. The feelings of being with someone you truly admire and enjoy being with are the best and I haven't experienced them in quite a while.  Oh I have been out with a guy and enjoyed myself, but not the way I enjoyed myself with Steve this weekend. There is a deeper feeling of joy and a sense that he is a genuine person, who I believe I can trust.

He suits my personality quite well.  We enjoyed a museum, a concert, a dinner and a movie.

This morning I am walking on clouds!

I really hope this feeling endures,  and I hope he stays around for a long time. 

For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the earth, 

for the glory of the skies, 

for the love which from our birth

over and around us lies;

Lord of all, to thee we raise

this our hymn of grateful praise.   

Folliot S. Pierpoint

Driving to work this morning I was awestruck with the beauty of the earth.  I am adjusting to more light as I leave the house, with the end of daylight savings time, it is now light when I leave at 6:15am.  

This morning, I just smiled all the way to work.  I don't know if it was the wet spring, or the few cold days and then the warm ones,  but the trees are wearing the most brilliant colors I have seen around here in a long time.  Everything just looks so beautiful.  Before people get handy with their rakes,  the earth is blanketed in a brilliant quilt of reds, yellows and orange.  It is truly awe inspiring.   

The sky to this morning seems to be a blanket.  The clouds are carrying some rain, but the sun barely peeking through them this morning made the earth even more beautiful.   

So I raise a glass of cheer to autumn.

Weeks End

"He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate."  Henry David Thoreau

Plans for this weekend:   Visit the Lincoln Library and Museum on Saturday with Steve,  then attend the Sinfonia Da Camera perfomance of The Brandenburg Concertos.

 

Sunday,  Attend mass with the girls, fix Sauerbraten for supper,  attend the Sunday Salon Series Parker String Quartet,  meet Steve at home for supper and then a movie.

The mass, the music, and the company  will improve my soul's estate.  I hope to be fresh on Monday to do a good day's work.

Wednesday

HAPPY !

Thought for Tuesday

"Take it from Richard, poor and lame, 

what's begun in anger ends in shame."

"But in this world nothing can be said to certain, except death and taxes."

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."

"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals."

"Dost thou love life?  Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of."

from Poor Richard's Almanac    by Benjamin Franklin  

I thought it was fitting on this election day to remember a founding father and great American author. 

Life is good

"There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount." Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Ah, November,  one of my favorite months.   The earth looks so beautiful dressed for autumn.  I hear people talk of dying and the coming of winter.  I get exhilarated in autumn.  I look forward to the winter, then the coming spring.  Autumn is my absolute favorite time of the year.  

The weekend was packed with fun and excitement.  I enjoyed a good game by the fighting Illini hockey team on Friday.  I sat next to Snow White!   The Illini won 7-1.  Then I moved my firewood to the back of the house on Saturday morning and headed over to the Illini football game with my friend Sandy. It was a pretty exciting game,  but let's face it football just isn't hockey!   After the game I headed over to watch the Saturday night hockey game,  yes indeed the won 6-0.

I got a phone call from my guy just as I was getting home from the hockey game.  He invited me to see My Fair Lady in Danville, put on by the Danville Light Opera.  That was a lot of fun, especially since I was with him.  We then went for a nice supper at The Possum Trot Supper Club.  That was a real treat, 1/2 slab of ribs with hot sauce, grilled asparagus and a delicious salad.  We then shared a piece of chocolate peanut butter pie.  Yummy!

We went back to my place, watched some tv, then put in Moonstruck.  It was a very pleasant evening.  Looking forward to our next date!

So I had both quality and quantity of pleasures this weekend.   Life is Good!