Basement cleaned and the third day of cleaning accomplished

 I do love my routine although I can also readily change it if I need to do that; a loss of routine doesn't affect me very much. I always welcome Thursday though as it is my first day of work and today I need to do the Blake Newsletter - again it will be short as the book dominates my thoughts. 

Holy Week and today is Maundy Thursday. I love all the services of this week and will watch what I can on YouTube. My sin of omission is always with me as I simply do not go to be with the Church community and at 80 that will not change. It took me a while to accept that but now I am there and it is the way that my life will flow from now on unless I happen to move and find a Church nearby and can fit myself into it. 

Mostly I like my life without people that are not related to me. I can manage it very well and I am sure that I am not the only person in the world who is a hermit by choice. It isn't that I dislike people; I simply do not want to be part of that life cycle that sees one constantly with people and never really have in actual fact. The years that Edward and I spent together I found great happiness in our solitary trips to the north of Ontario and those long canoe trips in the back woods. It was fantastic and the memory remains with me. Our time with children was equally marvelous but I didn't want people around me if I could avoid it. But I did do my wifely thing and help Edward with whatever it was he wanted to do with his time (if it was practical for me). But if he wanted to go without me I let him do that and was content.

 But I distract from Holy Week and the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf as a people in order that we would change how we thought way back then and accept the basic two commandments that God gave to us. Love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (Mark 12:30) and love our neighbour as ourself. Neighbour being the whole world really and that would be peace in our time. That wonderful elusive state that the world has sought for all of my life and the beginning of my life was a time of reflection on a dreadful World War that left so many of our youth dead on a battle field of one kind or another. One of my brothers (next oldest to me) was named after a young man beloved by his friends which included my parents who died in that war and there were so many others. The lists in our schools, in our churches in our government buildings of all those lost youth who gave up their young lives tossing the torch to those who were left to carry life on after the war was done. But how to reach that plain; that has been the great human desire all of these years of my life. Jesus showed us the way and God willing we will find it in a way that leads to full peace. God has always been with us through these many many centuries of life and I always feel as I search backwards in time looking for hints of my lines, I think on God and all that He has given to us - Homo sapiens as we are called. Where we go in the future is unknown but our thoughts and dreams are once again with a crew of four flying to the moon on this day. I watched as the maneuver was made to take them out of Earth orbit and on their path to the Moon. 

Drinking my tea and soon the solitaire puzzles and on to the day.  

And the second day of cleaning completed successfully

 A rather busy day as it turned out which included my blood work for the Ontario Study and that is also completed. Just the basement to do now and will soon get the robot doing its chore. Breakfast will follow that setup. 

Still no work on my books but I have been busy contemplating none the less. The days fly by quickly at the moment but now into April there will be a slowdown and I will get some work done. 

Cold here although spring did arrive but in general we are still somewhat covered with snow into April most years. But the warming trend is starting as the nights are not as cold. NO budding or sign of any flowers. Sometimes we will see that but I did not replace the bulbs lost when the fence was redone. Should try and do some of that this year in the fall. 

Moving still in my mind but will not happen for a couple of years likely. 

Solitaire puzzles all completed and time to set up the robot and have breakfast.  

Cleaning first day completed

 On to the second day of cleaning. One can feel April coming in the air as there is that sniff of winter past. Raining today perhaps icing not sure yet. Time will tell. 

Cleaning the main floor today but will start later. I will do the bathroom first and scrub the bathroom floors and then vacuum. The last usually will be done first this week. 

No work done yesterday at all. Cleaned pretty much the entire day. 

Solitaire puzzles next.  

Walk down memory lane

One of the very first things that my eldest daughter and I did when we first moved to where we have lived ever since (nearly 48 years ago now) was to take a walk around this large block that we back on. At that time there were sidewalks all the way except for one of the streets that bordered on one of the four sides. But it was easy to walk along the side of this road so not a problem. That was 27th April 1978 and it is a 2 km  walk. We loved that walk and did it every day until she went to school that fall for four year old kindergarten as a tuition student at the Roman Catholic School. Gradually we moved to different walks but I have always considered it good for children to have a hearty walk every day before lunch. We repeated that memory walk (she remembers moving here so also the walk) yesterday along with an additional 2.4 km around the other large block in our neighbourhood that links with that block. Walks down memory lane are important sometimes I think and often enough we do not have opportunity or time to do such things sadly in this busy world. At that time many houses were still being built along the various streets. Our own street just had the first seven built on it on the one side. They had been the show houses I think originally. 

Not much work done as my eyes are still recovering from our marathon game time. Just two chapters left to go (thirty seven chapters in all in that game). We might get that done this week; time will tell as my daughter is very busy with her work now. No skiing this year but lots of good walking. 

Will I always live here now; I have no idea. I would like a smaller place actually and that would be a good move but it will wait for a bit longer probably. When we had lived here about ten years Edward decided he wanted to buy a new house up on the hill. There were a lot of new singles but the yards were so tiny and what sold this house to us was the huge back yard. So he contemplated and looked at all the houses with the girls but they all preferred where we are and here we are still and that was many years ago now. 

So today is cleaning day and I shall begin shortly. Palm Sunday service was yesterday at Church and the choirs as always were excellent. I have been to so many Palm Sunday services in my life but to me Lent and Easter capture my Anglicanism and commit me to it again and again year after year. I like the way that we celebrate the Life of Christ, His death and resurrection. As a young child I understood clearly the beliefs of my Church which remain unchanged through the centuries really. The Celtic Church in England moved to the Celtic Christian Church in England and evidence of this Christian Church in England can be found  at the Council of Arles in 314 AD which was attended by the Bishop of York and the Bishop of London and others. This Council of Arles was held in Gaul (now France).  The stories of Jesus passed quickly throughout the known world in these early days and there are many stories still repeated about Jesus and the early Christian Church. 

Exercises all completed with about 3000 steps, 1 hour 15 minutes, cardio load of 33 and 378 calories burned. Heart rate from 49 to 147 with 2% peak, 13% vigorous, 46% moderate and 38% light. It is a good way to start the day and I do tend to feel energized. There is nothing that is too hard for me to do but if one hasn't done exercise one should consult with a doctor before taking up vigorous exercise for sure at the age of 80. 

Solitaire puzzles to do next and then start the cleaning process. Although it does sound like I love cleaning I just love the organization that keeps me from having to clean in a panic! 

How far back can we trace humanity?

 The knowledge of the ancients has gradually been filtered down through our history but not entirely; there are still unknown areas particularly when an unexpected skeletal remain is plucked from its hiding place and viewed in the context of modern life. When I was a child we had barely scratched the surface; ideas about Neanderthals have completely changed from those childhood stories. Why they disappeared or in reality were absorbed into an ever growing Homo sapiens crowd as this new species moved across the face of the Old World. Then suddenly new digs revealed that even in those ancient times the new species moved across into the New World as we tend to see the separation between Europe/Asia/Africa/Oceania and North/Central/South America and the islands that belong to that section of the world. All of this has happened in my lifetime as one could visibly watch the length of time to circumvent the world reduced incredibly from those days when I first set my feet on the ground and walked free with a pair of glasses on my face at the age of 18 months. Gradually as more and more people test their DNA we become more and more aware of just how much Neanderthal is present in Homo sapiens and most interestingly where it is not present. 

Yesterday was somewhat of a thinking day; I thought about a lot of things actually as the day passed. My eyes were tired from playing this game my daughter introduced me to and we both have a control panel and work together to achieve particular tasks. One in particular was most difficult as one had to land a space ship upright on three platforms which were successively smaller and smaller. I would have given up; at 80 I do not care if I succeed in such pastimes. But I would be spoiling the game so we hung in there and accomplished that task which took us on to the next chapter which was short and the chapter after that also short and now we have two chapters left and I do look forward to the end of this game. It is the first time I have ever played an entire game and may well be the last. Time will tell. I am not really a gamer. I like playing my daily Solitaire Puzzle. I like doing Sudoku puzzles but beyond that my interest just doesn't go to gaming. 

While my eyes strengthened through the day I did think about humanity and where we are headed? Taking up Artificial Intelligence for the reasons that industry is galloping ahead is so that they will make more money although if one looks carefully at the effect of new science on economics it always costs more and the return diminishes as a product of that extra cost. Just because the size of industries has grown so radically this past generation in particular one gets deceived by the financial statements for these conglomerates and doesn't really see into the actual cost of incorporating new ideas particularly Artificial Intelligence. I do see a value in it; it could be a life saver particularly in some types of work like mining where human life becomes much frailer against artificial robots which can tolerate so much more than a frail human body. 

The pollution in our world is affecting the ability of the human species to reproduce and one does think that that will only get worse so that a new baby becomes a much rarer happening and hence will be seen as a much more important event than it is now even. 

The human existence has been one of constant learning and improving; it is built into our genes to always head towards something that works better; is more efficient and creates a better life for all peoples of the world. We can not know what peoples will survive into the future. It is a mystery. God in His wisdom gave us all the ability to work hard, be efficient and productive. It is exciting to consider what life will be like in 2100 and there are now people born who will, God willing, be there in 2100 to record it and watch as their progeny, God willing, move on into the 2100s continuing with this beautiful earth and the better life that has come to it by the ingenuity and the wisdom of the peoples who survive. But we always have to work at that eventual outcome. It pretty much never just happens.