Blooming Amaryllis

The amaryllis blooms are really nice today, with such a brilliant red color to them, something to bring a little cheer to the house.  Maddie was home today, and that brought cheer too!  She was doing her online work today for school, something she got all finished up by the time we needed to head out to taekwondo.

It was so cold outside tonight, although it was a normal kind of thing for this time of year.  It just felt shockingly cold because we have been so acclimated to higher temperatures lately.  But we were fine inside the taekwondo studio.  Maddie was back to using her own sword for practice, and we were all talking with the Edges and a few others about doing a routine at KidPak in a few months for our return to the "Kung Pow" martial arts series when we head back that way.  Maddie was sparring with combat sticks,  which you may recall are called bahng mahng ees.  Spell check loves that word.  Anyway, she was doing really well with those.  She's quick to strike, but she's also very evasive, a smaller target that's able to contort herself backwards and down low just enough that the target area for opponents is very limited, all while the combat stick is still lurking in front also as a defensive tool.  She's gotten very good at that, and enjoys it.

Today I was working on a few KidPak things like letters and such, but we were also continuing the DeSantafication Process, taking down Christmas decorations, ornaments and trees.  And organizing the basement as we went along doing so.  Tomorrow should be a pretty productive day on that front. 

The birds are returning to the feeders in back in greater numbers, and just yesterday Mom was noting that she hadn't seen any nuthatches on the feeders yet.  As if an answer to prayer, sure enough, she saw a nuthatch on there today.  But the cardinals had been there frequently, along with the mourning doves, occasional finches, a determined chickadee, and the usual visits by the tufted titmouse gang.  

Tonight we had the fire roaring in the fireplace once more, and we were watching "Raya and the Last Dragon" again, perhaps a start to our Asian-themed movie series, something we try to do each year as the Chinese New Year approaches.  Of course, it's not just a Chinese New Year, but a Lunar New Year celebration.  Raya is a great movie though, one of my gifts for Christmas in fact.  We spent about an hour after that just watching all the special features on there.  This movie was quite the accomplishment, with everyone working on it from their homes during the pandemic.  It was great to see how productive people could be during a pandemic.  I love it.  I remember doing so much writing during that time, a sort of defiance within that wanted to be productive in the face of this force telling us all to stay home and sit there.  

Anyway, tonight we read, and then we prayed after that.  Nothing is on the calendar for tomorrow, although we'll have a good productive day cleaning up at home, and picking up a new product for me - a new watch to help monitor my heart rate.  Today I was walking on the treadmill again, listening to old Sherlock Holmes radio broadcasts while watching a POV walk through a Japanese village for a little over a half hour.  Technology is amazing.  Starting tomorrow, I'll be able to keep a record of all this, and keep up with the heart rate too.

It was a late night tonight when we sat to read.  I didn't realize it was so close to midnight.  We can all sleep in tomorrow, so that's okay.  I was in bed afterwards, and I'm so hooked on this book about President Grant.  He's not even the general we know he becomes yet, as he sits on the sidelines pondering the results of the 1860 election.  Buchanan is President and Lincoln is elected, and that's the last straw.  Half the country is ready to dissolve the Union.  As I read at this point in the book, half the country is against the other.  The closing portion of Lincoln's first inaugural address is the President's hope, prayer, and begging for unity:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Oh my gosh, these words.  How I wish we heard more of this today from our leaders today, using their positions and words to use words that bring healing and unification.  But of course that's not happening.  In fact, as we listen to speeches this week, the overall rhetoric seems to be just the opposite.