Today was good. I pulled weeds (barely made a dent but did it) I figure every time I go out in the yard and work I am reclaiming my hope that I can regain a decent yard space - that it isn't hopeless. I am empowering myself just a little and that feels good. I also had help Saturday. my friend Shawn, who is an arborist, came over and looked at the towering half dead tree that is scaring me that it might fall on the house or on someone and he offered to do the cutting down work as a gift - so that we will only have to pay a manageable sum to his assistant. He went a step further and asked if we had a lawn mower - we don't have a working one - real comedy of errors with family lawn mowers this summer) He said he had seen a lawn mower at a garage sale down the street and we walked down together to look at it. He bought it himself for $20.00 and said his assistant would use it to mow our lawns once before he took it for the use of a nonprofit agency he supports. This takes a huge load off my mind and also reaffirms my faith in human goodness (though I've long respected Shawn's goodness).

I also cleaned bathrooms today and felt good to be able to make surfaces sparkle. I have neglected so much.

Tonight Ruth and Chris and I had supper with Marie and Bill (in celebration of her birthday) . Food and conversation were rich and sustaining as I expected and drew strength from. It was fun to see Marie's recent painting projects - and especially her first original - not based on another work - painting in progress. It makes me smile every time Bill describes his wife as a painter - and it's the truth. This is a side of her she has development since our friendship started almost thirty years ago, and I love to see her delight in it. I just realised our friendship is older than either of us was when it started.

Marie did something really great regarding birthday presents. She suggested that friends make donations of cash to The Capital Area Food Bank, which has been stressed because of a need to feed both victims of recent hill country flooding and aid workers. She, and all of us, are impressed that the food bank can convert each dollar into 5 meals - so our gifts go a long way. For more about the food bank see http://www.austinfoodbank.org/

Looking up food banks I found this quote "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank you Marie for offering us an opportunity to serve and to celebrate you at the same time.