The faces and names
We once knew so well
Are now blurred and faded
From lack of use

Years have passed since
But still we can share
The memories of a time
Now long gone

So let us venture now
Down this abandoned path
And maybe we will find
New friends there

A recent discussion I had with someone regarding their labour day plans was met with a large amount of disdain - “Why would we wait for Labour Day?? We do work all year long”.

While I can admit they have a point about not waiting for a special day to undertake projects, it seems they also missed the part where Labour Day provides a willing source of volunteers to assist with projects allowing for perhaps even larger scale projects to be accomplished.

Sure people should be volunteering to help out communities and other groups during the year. No question about that. But the truth is many of us don’t. And Labour Day provides an opportunity for organisations seeking help to get some higher level attention and draw volunteers to them. It could provide a good recruitment starting point - suck in those helpful souls that show up to labour for you.

It works even at home. Should we wait for one day a year to do stuff around the house. Hell no! For most people all the stuff can’t possibly get done in one day. But, again, Labour Day is a good time to rally your troops to get to a project that may be larger than the usual.

My house project was emptying the washroom, cleaning the walls, stripping some of the damaged paint (water damage from hurricanes) and painting the walls with new bright cheerful paint including some more water-resistant paint in one area. Something that needed doing but not likely to get done on our average weekend day.

So let’s not discount the value of a dedicated Labour Day.

I got thinking about celebrations today. Not major milestone occasions like birthdays or weddings (tho of course wedding fever is in the air in my family), but the small things that often go unnoticed.

My mother got the cast off her arm this week having broken her wrist 5 weeks ago. It’s not fully healed so she still has to wear a splint but getting rid of the cast gives her back a certain amount of mobility. Worth celebrating? I tried tracking down the people who had been in Belgium with me on AFS over 10 years ago - I managed to find about 10 of them and have exchanged email addresses and restarted communications. How about that? Is that worth celebrating?

As children we rejoiced over every accomplishment as though we had walked on the moon. Every task successfully completed was call to show Mummy and Daddy and get a hug. But as we get older we lose that enthusiasm and only think of the big things as worthy of celebration. In the process I think we lose a little of ourselves.

Life’s accomplishments, like many other things, seem to follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of our life’s achievements are a result of only a small portion of the things we do. Those are the major moments that we have no problem celebrating. But what about the millions of little things that fill the rest of our life? The little things that help to make us who we are may in fact be more important than the one-off landmarks that we choose to let define us.

Just a thought.

Considering the official hurricane season is a couple weeks away, you would expect people to be prepared. I have no doubt, however, that today’s rain storm caught most people off guard.

Luckily, there wasn’t much wind associated with it (I don’t think) but the rain fell and fell and fell some more. Don’t know if we had as many inches as the Northeast U.S. has been suffering from but I am sure that we will hear about the flooding.

Of course, the comment I kept hearing was how we needed the rain after the drought we’ve been having but personally I would prefer more frequent lighter showers than the deluge we had today.

And the worst part was that I didn’t even get to have my nice cuddly day under the blankets because by 9 a.m. the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and the temperatures went right back up to the usual summer heat, now with the torturous humidity thrown in.

Looks like summer is truly here.

To laugh is to risk seeming foolish.
To cry is to risk seeming sentimental.
To go towards someone is to risk involvement.
To expose one’s feelings is to risk exposing one’s deepest self.
To present one’s ideas, one’s dreams to the crowd is to risk losing them.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk losing hope. 
To try is to risk failing.
But one must take risks because the greatest danger in life is to risk nothing at all. 
He who risks nothing has nothing, is nothing.
He can avoid suffering and sadness but learns nothing, feels nothing, cannot change nor develop, can neither love nor live.
Chained by his certainty, he becomes a slave, he abandons his freedom.
Only those who risk are free.

- Translated from French, Aunthor unknown