I am grateful for forgiveness.

I am grateful for clean, readily available water.

“How can we go on spending obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction, knowing full well that a minute fraction of these would insure that children everywhere would have clean water to drink? These are our sisters and brothers out there, not statistics.”

~Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Life is like a mirror, 

we get the best results when we smile at it.

I am grateful for choices about how to look at things, and what to do about them - 

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

~Cynthia Ozick

I am grateful for insights and possibilities.

I am grateful for a visit to the art museum.

I am grateful for rain - especially in the springtime -

I am grateful for the color purple -

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” 

~ From The Color Purple, Alice Walker

I am grateful for the food I have to eat.

I am grateful for possibilities . . . 

It seems that when problems arise, our outlook becomes narrow.  All of our attention may be focused on worrying about the problem . . . This can lead to a kind of self-absorption that can make the problem seem very intense.

When this happens, I think that seeing things from a wider perspective can definitely help . . . If you only look at that one event, then it appears bigger and bigger.  If you focus too closely, too intensely, on a problem when it occurs, it appears uncontrollable.

But if you compare that event with some other greater event . . . then it appears smaller and less overwhelming.

~ The Dalai Lama

I am grateful for jalfrezi curry.

Every Day is Earth Day

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. 

 ~Chief Seattle

http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement

Each year, Earth Day -- April 22 -- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. 

Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson's New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.

The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, andEndangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Gaylord recalled, "but it worked."

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. It used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.

Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to a strong narrative that overshadowed the cause of progress and change. In spite of the challenge, for its 40th anniversary, Earth Day Network reestablished Earth Day as a powerful focal point around which people could demonstrate their commitment. Earth Day Network brought 225,000 people to the National Mall for a Climate Rally, amassed 40 million environmental service actions toward its 2012 goal of A Billion Acts of Green®, launched an international, 1-million tree planting initiative with Avatar director James Cameron and tripled its online base to over 900,000 community members.

The fight for a clean environment continues in a climate of increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. We invite you to be a part of Earth Day and help write many more victories and successes into our history. Discover energy you didn't even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grassroots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to com

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” 

~  Barack Obama

I am grateful for what we can do, 

even when it seems inadequate and imperfect . . . 

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
~ Charles Dickens

“We only have what we give.”
~ Isabel Allende

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” 
~ Maya Angelou

“Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion. Do not concern yourself with how much you receive in return, just know in your heart it will be returned.” 

~ Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one's own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?” 
~ Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

“I like video games, but they're really violent. I'd like to play a video game where you help the people who were shot in all the other games. It'd be called 'Really Busy Hospital.” 
~ Demetri Martin

"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

~ Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

I am grateful for dancing lessons . .. 

"What a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner!"  ~ Colette

Sometimes I'm retroactively grateful . . . 

I am grateful for joy.

This is a practice I call Diligent Joy. As I focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-n-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me.

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefitting act, but also a generous gift to the world. . . . You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to everyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, from eat, pray, love

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 

~ George Bernard Shaw

I am grateful to discover places that are new to me - 

I am grateful for color

When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.

~ Meister Eckhart

I am grateful to be still walking through cemeteries instead of lying beneath them.

I am grateful for a beautiful spring day.

I am grateful to wake up and look forward to the day ahead.

I am grateful that spring is beginning

"Goodness, laughter, joy, caring, compassion, the things that you do and you help others do, those are going to prevail." 

~Archbishop Desmond Tutu

I am grateful for help - and goodness, laughter, joy, caring and compassion.

I am grateful for soap that smells good.

I am grateful for two feet to walk on.

I am grateful for toilet paper

I am grateful for courage.

Balancing Over the Bathtub

I am grateful for a silly cat who enjoys playing over the bathtub - 

 I am grateful for the cardinal and his mate who are my neighbors; often when I open the door, they come flying over to see if I've put out seed for them.  And sometimes in the spring, they bring a fledgling - 

We are grateful for catfood

"I survived the climb to the top of the tower"

We visited Indianapolis on Saturday and climbed to the top of the Soldiers and Saillors Monument.  I wish we'd taken the elevator: the stairs were narrow and shallow - people have to squeeze past each other coming up or down.  I was looking forward to getting to the top, because for some reason I thought there would be a parapet with fresh air.  There wasn't - just a tiny area by the sealed windows, crowded with people.  It was stuffy, stinky and claustrophobic.  Could hardly wait to get out of there.  

The monument is fantastic, but I would recommend skipping the trip to the top.  If you want to go, take the elevator.

"It is about 21 feet  shorter than the 305-foot tall Statue of Liberty."

I am grateful to have made it to the top - and even more grateful I wasn't stiff and sore the next day.


The Indiana Soldiers and Sailors Monument is a monument located on Monument Circle in the center of Indianapolis. It was designed by German architect Bruno Schmitz and completed in 1901.  Bruno Schmitz brought with him Rudolf Schwarz. Schwarz was sculptor for the statuary groups "War" and "Peace", "The Dying Soldier", "The Homefront" and the four statues at the corners of the Monument that represents the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Navy.

At the top of the Monument is an observation deck that can be reached by stairs at no cost or by elevator for a $2.00 charge (elevator brings you to the level just under the observation deck, with 30 additional steps). The staircase contains 331 steps, 330 of which are numbered. 

The Circle is the standard symbol of the city of Indianapolis, and the flag of Indianapolis is an iconic representation of Monument Circle.

The Monument was erected to honor Hoosiers who were veterans of the American Revolution, territorial conflicts that partially led up to the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the US Civil War, and the Spanish American War. 

In 1902 the cost to build this Monument was (US) $598,318. It has been estimated that building a similar structure today would cost over $500,000,000.

It is about 21 feet (6.4 m) shorter than the 305-foot (93 m) tall Statue of Liberty.

Indianapolis was founded in 1821, and the city's layout was platted by Alexander Ralston, whose design included a circle at the center of the city. The circle, a 3-acre (1.2 ha) plot surrounded by an 80-foot (24 m) wide street, was originally called the Governor's Circle because it was to serve as the site of the governor's residence. The Governor's Mansion was built there in 1827. However, due to the mansion's public location and poor construction, no governor ever lived there, and it was torn down in 1857.

As Indianapolis grew and developed after the Civil War, the area became a popular meeting place and was designated Circle Park. In 1884, a statue of Oliver P. Morton, governor during the Civil War, was dedicated at the center of the park.

Many times after the Civil War suggestions were made for a monument to be built to honor Indiana's veterans. Action was finally taken in 1887 when the Indiana General Assembly made a $200,000 grant and formed a Monument Commission.  Seventy designs were submitted in the international contest, of which two were chosen for further consideration. The commissioners then unanimously chose the design called Symbol of Indiana by the Prussian architect Bruno Schmitz, who was named supervising architect and paid a commission of 5% of the monument's total cost.

The cornerstone was laid on August 22, 1889. Inside it is a copper box containing a list of all Indiana soldiers as well as newspapers, the Constitution of Indiana, a national flag, and other related paraphernalia. Ceremonies included a speech by President Benjamin Harrison, the firing of artillery, and a parade. It was the first monument dedicated to the common soldier. The structure took twelve years to complete, and more funds were required. The legislature appropriated an additional $160,000 and raised over $123,000 with an additional property tax. 

In 1893 the circle was renamed Monument Place. The Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monument was formally dedicated on May 15, 1902. After a parade of flags with veterans of the Mexican, Civil, and Spanish-American Wars, General Lew Wallace was the master of ceremonies. Poet James Whitcomb Riley read his poem "The Soldier". John Philip Sousa had composed a march for the occasion entitled "The Messiah of the Nations". 

In 1918 a museum opened in the basement of the monument with equipment and artifacts from the Civil War. Flood lights were added to the surrounding candelabra in 1928. 

Since 1945, the monument has been decorated for Christmas, and in 1962 it was first decorated as the "world's largest Christmas tree", with garlands and cables of lights stretching to the top.

A series of repairs to the Monument began in September 2009. Angled windows, which had allowed some rain to seep in, were replaced with vertical windows, and steel supports for the Victory statue were replaced.

Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

I am grateful for dancing lessons - and a trip to Indianapolis -