Enjoy Your Season

I was paging through a book of quotes the other day when one struck my fancy. It was a French proverb:

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.

I gulped when I read that, shook my head, and agreed! My wise mother said more than once “It’s the zeros you have to worry about”. She was talking about when one is facing a new decade in life. This year would have been a new decade of two zeros for her! But she didn’t experience those zeros, for she’s now in heaven.

I love autumn, but I know winter’s just around the corner

Autumn closes out summer and previews winter–the black and white season. Don’t you love autumn? I do! The colors are so brilliant–just as the photo at the top of the page shows. I love autumn, but I know winter’s just around the corner. When we take our walk, I always carry my phone to capture any colorful scenes and I was rewarded with a few.

: I think this is a dogwood tree. Look at those berries or seed pods.

My hands are not as strong anymore.

This week I decided it was time to re-cover my kitchen chairs. They were a shabby cream color and were becoming a dirty, smudgy grayish color. I told Jim I wanted to re-do them. In the past, I’d recovered my dining chairs several times. Just five years ago, I was delighted to find the exact fabric covering my couch available for purchase, so I recovered my dining chairs to match. I did all of it by myself–for I was by myself. This time, though, I had Jim to help. As we were tugging and pulling to stretch the fabric neatly into place before stapling it, I realized I couldn’t have done the recovering by myself anymore. My hands were simply not strong enough. These hands that diapered babies, grand babies, played the piano and violin, typed (on a manual typewriter, mind you) 80 words a minute, picked berries as a kid to earn extra money, cleaned my home too many times to even count, are not as strong anymore.

Keep learning new things.

That’s why the French proverb caught my eye. And perhaps why autumn is my favorite season–I’d like to think I’m in the autumn of my life–probably approaching winter. So what do I do with that quote? Realize I should make use of every moment. Not waste so much time. Keep learning new things. I like the following quote: