One of the books on the Intention Table is Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. I decided to flip through it today, and I came across this gem:

“Chapter Eleven: Don’t try to saw sawdust.”

He then goes on to tell of a man named Fred Fuller Shedd who was editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Mr. Shedd was addressing a graduating class and “asked, “How many of you have ever sawed wood? Let’s see your hands.” Most of them had. Then he inquired, “How many of you have ever sawed sawdust?” No hands went up.

“Of course, you can’t saw sawdust!” Mr. Shedd exclaimed. “It’s already sawed! And it’s the same with the past. When you start worrying about things that are over and done with, you’re merely trying to saw sawdust.”

This snippet was all too apropos as I have been fretting a bit thinking that maybe that email I sent that has not gotten a reply might have loused up the opportunity I was saying yes to, maybecthe recipient now regrets her offer, maybe she thinks I am a spastic nerfbag…and…and…and…

No wonder it’s so cloudy in here that I can’t see! I’ve been trying to saw sawdust!

I am grateful for the wit and humor of two men now long gone who said exactly what I needed to hear today. I am grateful for the medium of books so that this wisdom is available to me, grateful to those who taught me to love reading, and grateful for the ability to laugh at myself.

Sawing sawdust. Lol!

Your post is encouraging, Diane, though it prompts me to admit I had a Snowtrum earlier today. We were headed out in the single digit weather to go to acupuncture. I slid a bit on a patch of ice under snow, and that did it. I was grateful not to have fallen, but the scare must have jarred loose my gratitude chip or something. I am beyond ready for the White Witch to be defeated!

Our little library in the town south of us is tiny but helpful. While they do not have much there in stock, they have access to a whole State library system of goodies to order! It was a bit hilarious trying to see if I could get hold of any P.G. Wodehouse books I had not read. It took the librarian quite a search and struggle to get them in.

I, too, am under several layers and waiting for the pellet stove to get rolling. Though many folks leave it going 24/7, I am not yet comfortable with leaving it going while we are gone, so it is about 56F in here. The cat just joined me — I think he is freezing, too!

Perhaps we can implore the patron saint of Canada to take back their weather?

I am so thankful my husband hads been around during this cold snap. There have been a few little hiccups with the pellet stove that I did not know how to handle. He just zips right on in and fixes whatever it is, whereas I am more along the lines of standing there pleading with whatever device it is to “Just work, please, don’t you want to work?”

I loved reading the Narnia series in the order Lewis wanted them read. How they all built up to the last book was intriguing and moving. His view of heaven in The Last Battle was so deeply thought provoking, but I think my favorite book of all is The Horse and His Boy. ❤️❤️❤️

I had heard of the St Joseph tradition, but I simply could not bear to bury the poor man in the yard possibly to be scratched up by curious chickens.

Instead, I put a statue of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt that I love in the window facing the direction of the town we want to move to. Then I light a little lamp underneath it each night as dusk falls and allow myself to pause a moment to feel the comfort of knowing St. Joseph cares and is helping even if I do not see it yet. After all, no one knows more than St. Joseph about wanting to move quietly and to where one feels safe and peaceful!

Take good time for you to recover, Cara Anna. Sometimes it circles back around because we try to do too much too soon. What is the favorite soup for illness in your area? Chciken soup seems universal, but I also grew up on homemade tomato soup. I often will have my husband order chicken vegetable soup from the local Chinese restaurant with extra ginger, scallions, and garlic. Helps so much! He is wonderful to care for me when I am ill, but he has not yet mastered the art of soup.

Hope you feel better soon!

Yes, early days. The hole their passing leaves is immense. Grieve in your own way and time. It takes as long as it takes. What a bittersweet honor it is to walk with them to the end of their path.

For some reason, your poem reminded me of a story that touched my heart. It was the reverse of yours, where the dog was losing the person instead of vice versa. That kind of thing always plucks my heart strings because I have had many dogs live to old age, and I know how attached they are to us, as we are to them. They grieve when they lose their people as we do when we lose them.

There was a woman in the midwest who was, as I recall, a nurse in the geriatric realm. When an elderly woman had to go into care, she knew her beloved dog was going to be homeless. She was shattered, of course, and it was adding to the strain of her injury or illness. This nurse saw this and wanted to help them both. The end of the story was that not only did the nurse find that dog a home, she wound up starting a local rescue for animals and elderly people in a similar situation. It made the newspaper there, and I saw it online later. What an angel to both dog and human!

I am getting teary just typing this. So sweet and special is the long loving bond between us and our old fur friends. They do give us everything in your poem and more. Thank you for sharing.

Cara Anna, one of the books on the table is an old classic by Dale Carnegie called, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” The fascinating thing to me is that it was written between 1937-1944. What a time of worry and fear! It makes me think maybe he has much good to say born of living through that time.

It is like how Michael Singer wrote The Untethered Soul while he was going through a very hard time with his company being investigated for fraud or something like that. He had done nothing wrong, someone else had, but it was still a strain and process. And then he wrote about how not to get immersed in the emotion of the moment but rather observe. Wow.

I love reminders. They function as encouragement to keep allowing positive change in our lives!

Mangled is the perfect word for what so often happens to resolutions! It made me laugh in resonance.

I see your name — do you have Springers? We just lost our nearly sixteen year old rescued Springer at the end of August. We rescued her when she was about three months old. She was an incredible dog. We referred to her as our “Dog of Decided Opinions.”

I have no doubt that once we move, in time, she will “send” us another dog to join the pack, maybe even another Springer. Every dog we love and lose eventually has sent us another dog with some sort of interesting reminder of the one we lost. Not the same in any way, but still a certain something that is hard to explain. And every time, we honor the life of the one we lost, and never stop missing, by being willing to love again.

I think many of them are angels, actually. They perform many of the same tasks but with the ability to get closer to us than anything twelve feet high with five sets of eyes could. ????

The saying, “Some have entertained angels unaware,” might apply to everyone who ever owned a dog or cat — whether they realized it and treated them accordingly or not. That is not to leave out other animals — I’ve know some very angelic horses who were able to speak with my spirit and vice versa, and who were sent to me at specific very needed times. Even though they did not belong to me, they were mine. ????

Have you tried using white spelt flour, Manda? It is different than whole wheat but very nice!

I used to bake, but as we can no longer eat wheat, the habit died off. I used to make a Maple Oatmeal loaf that perfumed the whole house!

Gluten Free baking is a challenge, too, as my husband and I cannot handle sorghum and can only do a little tapioca starch. As both of those are often used to give a semblance of elasticity to gluten free baked goods, it is tricky. Products made from mostly rice flour tend to taste like drywall and have a 2.3 second window before they become inedible. If you ever developed a gluten free line that actually tasted good, held its tastiness, and did not have the texture of a roofing shingle when toasted, you would be (hee hee) the toast of the town! (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

The most enjoyable snow is definitely the kind one need not drive in! We got caught out on Christmas Eve on slick roads as the snow started just after we got to our friends’, unbeknownst to us. I must say I am hoping that this arctic Narnia is the big shebang for this winter and that more moderate temperatures will be the rest of it.

It is all relative, isn’t it? Yesterday, we were out, and it was about 17F. It was cold, of course, but it did not seem quite so seventeen-ish as we had recently had -1F.