Began organizing my book collection on the second floor of our home yesterday. I moved the three shelves above into place and cleaned them a bit.

I began unblocking the upstairs cupboards. As I removed the books I put them in order by author.

As a bibliophile this work is a sheer pleasure for me. I love my old books.

The multi-volume collection of Benjamin Franklin’s writings never fails to remind me of my grandfather Ben Jenkins who always seemed to me to be cut of the same cloth as the famous American Ben.

I remember reading (and probably still own) the one volume paperback abridged version of Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough.

 

I found the multi-volume version at a Herrick District Library sale. That’s also where I purchased the Ben Franklin volumes. I spent a couple hours yesterday dusting and sorting books, stopping occasionally to browse through a volume. It will be good to get them back where I can find them again.

My goal right now is to unblock the upstairs cupboards and make a path to our second guest bed so if need be someone can crash there on Thanksgiving.

I think this is doable

Eileen is formulating a plan for the future. At this point she is definitely going to quit her job. She will probably retire sometime after the first of the year. She will have to wait thirty days before applying to be rehired part time in the Children’s department. She goes back and forth about the desirability of returning. She loves the work, but the working conditions are onerous enough that she is tired of it. Last night she said she might never even apply for the part time gig. I encourage her to take off as much time as she can convince herself to take off after she retires.

This will impact us financially. But I’m pretty sure we can easily pull it off. As a retiree she will receive $300 a month toward health care insurance. If she continues with the policy from the library the monthly bill will be $1k. My boss, Jen Adams, has expressed interest in seeing if the church can kick in another third or so. This is only a possibility. That would pull the amount down to a more reasonable monthly insurance bill. Also, there’s always the Affordable Care Act. I heard on the radio yesterday there are 42 providers on the Michigan scene.

But the important thing is that Eileen moves from despair to happiness. We have always been a bit poor until the last few years. I will return to watching the pennies more carefully and this will most likely work out fine.

One of my altos is a professor of nursing at Hope College. Wednesday night she brought a couple of singing bowls to demonstrate to the choir and me the idea of vibrations in the body centers.

Since attending Professor Brad Richmond’s lecture on choral technique, I have been incorporating some of his ideas about choral singing. An important one is the resonance of not only the sinus cavities when singing but the entire body. Professor Richmond is tapping into the notions that a vibrating resonant approach to singing helps increase ones overall health as well as singing voice.

I loved the fact that choir members were saying they could feel the vibration of the singing bowl in their bodies. Some of them felt the Heart bowl my alto activated for us in their chest and other places. Very very cool.

The professor of nursing pointed out that the chakra energy points are related to the acupuncture points. How cool is that? Chakra I believe is Tibetan in origin.

1. Coursera.org

If you were wondering where to access free online college courses, this is one site.

2. BookBub Offers Daily Deals on Free or Discounted Ebooks

Daughter Elizabeth put this link up on Facebooger. I haven’t checked it out thoroughly yet but it does look interesting. Thanks, Elizabeth!

3. Black Author wins Copyright Case for Matrix movie | Jason Skywalker’s Blog

Son-in-law Jeremy (husband/partner to Elizabeth, both of whom are living in Beijing) put this link up. Thanks, Jeremy!

4. How Doctors Die – Showing Others the Way – NYTimes.com

Dying when one sees it coming is truly an art.