Garden Visitor

So, is he going to eat my berries and peck my tomatoes??

Prom

The Rocking Chair on the Front Porch

Chapter 10 of To Kill a Mockingbird starts with the line:

Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty.

Then the paragraph goes on to explain how all the other kids had parents who were much younger, parents who could play football or go fishing or hunting or work in the garage.

"Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty."  I busted a gut laughing when I saw it.  Why?  Beats me.  Sympathy, maybe? 

Would it be so bad for people (including me!) to think we CAN'T, instead of expectations that we should keep up the energy-level and accomplishment-level of younger folks?



Several weeks ago I was having hamburger cravings alongside a recognition that I was trying to accomplish more than was accomplishable.  So I gave myself permission to serve hamburgers every night for dinner.  Not interesting hamburgers -- no.  Just plain old boring patties on a slice of bread.  Wow -- what a relief!  Now, as it turns out, we haven't had hamburgers every night, even though we've had them a lot.  Somehow, the lowered mealtime expectations have relieved some stress.  The next step is figuring out how to connive myself into lowering other expectations of myself.