monday miscellaney

Here we are already greeting the fourth of March--where in the world do the days go? I had imagined sneaking in a project 56.0 update at the end of February, and zoom! Speaking of snipping (last post) I guess February took a hit and lost a few days. I wonder how that month was chosen to receive the annual trim?

Today is my grandmother's 111th birthday. She's no longer with us, but her influence in my life is so woven through my being that she truly is with me every day. I talk to her occasionally. She was incredibly wise, and in spite of sometimes suggesting that I could do better in certain aspects of my life (she was right), she had a tender and gentle heart full of compassion.

A brief project 56.0 update:

I've been reading like a fiend! Since finishing Dating Jesus I polished off a short little work on Templar random acts of chivalry, and I'm a chapter short of  the end of Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House, by Bud Krogh. More on that in a sec.

I'm plugging along on my cross stitch effort. Some days I just zoom along with my head down, and other days I barely manage to stitch two lengths of thread. I think that has more to do with the strain on my eyes than anything else. In spite of having my eyes checked just a few months ago and with a new prescription for the computer, my "off the rack" reading glasses just aren't doing the job any longer. While painting a couple of weeks ago, and now while doing close work on canvas, I'm wearing two pairs of glasses simultaneously so that I can see. I even upgraded a pair of reading glasses to the next level of magnification, but...

Such joy, aging.

I'm afraid I haven't added any more items to my list of 56 items. I had better get creative soon!

We had some flurries over the weekend. Except for rooftops and cold places (like the top of the grill) there wasn't any accumulation, but I loved watching it come down. Snow makes my heart glad.

Back to the book. Bud Krogh was part of the Nixon administration and headed up what was called "The Plumbers," whose job it was to investigate some specific leaks that Nixon thought imperiled national security. The book came out six years ago, and I bought it after hearing Terry Gross interview Krogh on NPR's "Fresh Air" program. I was impressed by the revelation shared during the interview that his value to act with integrity led him to plead guilty to a particular crime with which he was charged. It was that aspect of the interview that led me to buy the book, and I rediscovered it while we've been shifting books and their cases in the process of our floor re-do. All this was connected to the Watergate investigation, a period of our history that I barely remember because politics totally bored me in those days. It's interesting to read about it through the particular lens of Krogh's story. It's particularly interesting to read Krogh's almost dispassionate perspective of Nixon, given that in my family he garnered no respect whatsoever. The book isn't political. Instead its focus is to reveal how loyalty can obscure the greater context in which we live and make decisions. Whether or not we recognize the conflicts that are inherent in so many of the choices we are called upon to make is indicative of the degree of our integrity and our capacity to hold ourselves accountable for our choices. Thought-provoking stuff.
 
All in all it's been an interesting read, and I'm eager to set my sights on the next book I'll take up.

What are you reading, and what do you recommend?

Have a good week!