Houses

Every morning I'm at home, I drive my son to school (about 2 miles away).  These days he actually does the driving to the school and I drive back home without him.

This morning as I re-entered our development, I passed the woman who just moved into the house on the corner closest to mine.  A frail, elderly woman had been living there for years, and then a month or so ago she and her visiting nurse and meals-on-wheels no longer appeared.  Next, new stakes at the property corners showed that the property had been surveyed and then I saw evidence that the garage had been cleaned out.  Now toys are in the yard.  This is the first I have seen the woman and preschooler headed out in the morning.

As I drove the last quarter mile home I looked at each house on my street and mentally surveyed the ones I was familiar with on the adjacent properties.   A handful are owned by retired widows and two or three are retired couples.  Every single other house save one is empty all day as the parents of the children in the homes are working every day.  I guess that's the way it is these days, but how lonely it must be compared to the neighborhoods of a few decades ago. 

I certainly wish I had more time to just be at home with family.  Maybe my new neighbor feels that way too.  I see she's one of "us"--out at work all day.  I wonder if that one stay-at-home mom, now that her kids are both in school, notices how empty the neighborhood is during the days.  I imagine the widows and elderly couples notice it more.  The home is "the heart of the family" some say...I wonder if these lonely houses feel that way.  

Have a comment? Advice? Random observation? I'd love to hear it. Click "COMMENTS" just below.

Changing Again

I've been off for a while. Mostly, it's because I just didn't feel this blog was going anywhere. (Even though I've been collecting photos and stories...a black widow spider from my garden, freezing serrano and cubanelle peppers, butterfly photography...but...no motivation to post them.) 

I was also cast into doubt one day when I showed a friend the blog and her first impression was "Boy, that's BUSY!"  So maybe it was too "busy;" it's not really meant to be an artsy space per se.  I also wondered if it was taking too long to load after I realized that at one time I had 4 "feed" followers and that decreased to 1.  Hence the revamped, simplified look I created last night.  (By "created" I mean I selected a new template and tweaked the colors and layout a little bit.)

In addition, after over a year, I was/am discouraged by the minimal readership--although I am so happy with my new friends who follow me--and I am reaching into different areas generally to try to impact the world. It makes sense to me right now to spend more time in the "real" world looking for "it" than in the virtual world.

I recently saw the following Edmund Burke quote: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."  It has become one of my many goals to not be this person, meaning, I need to get out there and DO more, where ever I can.  If I have time between working on my big goals, I'll try to post some more--which will probably increase when the weather gets bad.  Until then, keep striding toward your own goals!

Have a comment? Advice? Random observation? I'd love to hear it. Click "COMMENTS" just below.