3:56 AM, out here early with a mug of hot & black. F rom the spread of clouds way offshore,  sudden, random bursts of lightning, some blinding, most distant, none close enough for thunder to make it to 7H porch. Although it often occurs to me to make it so, this isn't meditation Time, it's more reflection Time, memory Time. I'm one who, as John Bunyan wrote of himself in, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," has much to repent over my years, but I consciously, deliberately have no "if onlys" because if I'd taken any one of other diverging roads in Frost's yellow wood I'd not be out here on 7H porch watching the lightning this Friday morning late in life.  Enjoying, what? twenty-two more days of being an octogenarian.   Who'd have thought! +++++++++ Life changes: I'm a spectator now, aware of having become a member of the audience after years onstage. We twirl with it as the world turns, and then we look up and around and rea...

  Last evening, we clicked on to the HNEC Facebook page and enjoyed live the service of installing our new rector. Under forty with a young family, children in our school, "may there be mutual blessings in the years ahead" is my prayer. +++++++ Healthwise, Linda and I both seem much improved this morning. The POD includes going out for something we both agreed on, I don't remember what it is, and stopping at the downtown postoffice because we've not checked our mail in over a week now and the box will be jam-stuffed with, especially, catalogs.  +++++++ Yep, +Time has degenerated from whatever it originally was, which was my daily health updates fifteen years ago, to an assortment of thoughts off the top of my head. Seems like I've started opening a day's post with nonsense then trying to phase into something thoughty, like my preps for a discussion/reading of the Gospel according to Mark, starting Sept 7 with the adult Sunday school class at HNEC. I have my fi...

There is lightning. The first flash I saw was way off to the east and south of me, toward Port St Joe, but also now and then lighting the sky from the other side of the building, to the north. When it's daily occurrence to go inside for something, come back outside with it and sit down only to realize that you didn't bring what you went inside for but something else entirely, and go back for it hoping to come back with it this Time, you know you're living the standard joke about old age. That it happens as a regular part of minute to minute living makes you realize that you ARE the joke. The thing is, getting to the point that it no longer bothers me.  Computer, glasses, a leftover cabinet door from the kitchen renovation that I saved to use as an outside table for the grill, now using it to block off that obnoxious streetlamp that's  sitting on the Bay's edge shining right in my face. Hah! The threatening squawk of a wading bird in the Bay just below me, seven stor...

  This summer cold is slow receding for both of us. With plenty of food stocked away in the pantry and freezers, we're not getting out at all. Decent meals, including shrimp thawing for a treat salad at noon dinnerTime today.  Underwhelmed with the flood of calls, texts, letters, and emails seeking the recipe for my homemade from scratch chicken noodle soup, I've decided to print it here anyway: In a large pot on the stovetop, two quarts chicken stock, bring to boil toss in four or five handfuls German egg noodles, continuously stirring gently, allow to cook eight or ten minutes until well beyond al dente (this is soup for people under the weather, I want soft, soothing noodles, not chewy) shake in garlic salt and garlic pepper powder.  turn heat to medium after checking expiration date and deciding to use anyway, open large can Campbell's creamy chicken noodle soup and empty into pot. stir slowly until well integrated add four or five tablespoons Victoria's Last Bit...