Well here it is, March! At last! We awoke to a winter wonderland, a few inches of snow fell over the course of the night, to sparkle this morning in the sunlight. We had thought to go out for a walk today, but opted for a day of food preparation instead, so as to avoid any possible ice underfoot.
Bread baking and Split Pea Soup making passed the hours pleasantly.
Yesterday was spent moving furniture around. This provided an opportunity to sort through some belongings, clothes in particular. If a piece of clothing holds together and fits comfortably, it stays. A few items went into the trash, they were well past any hope of being useful to humans. A full grocery bag of lightly worn, no-longer-fit clothes, was gleaned from the cupboards, and it will go to the women’s shelter.
Virtue: conformity to a standard of right : morality.
Source: Mirriam-Webster
The keyword, in my opinion, in this definition, is the word “right”, as in correct. Who is to say what is right? How does one know what is right? Who sets this standard by which the virtuous establish their claim to virtue?
Two possible standard bearers are external, or internal standards.
There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of external individuals and groups claiming the right to define right for themselves and others. A lot of people rely on them as guides.
Many people rely on internal beacons of what is right to guide their path in life.
And then there are people who rely on both, simultaneously or sequentially.
Personally, I find the concept of virtue is of limited value, it can take up shop just about anywhere. I think Hitler believed himself to be quite virtuous, and he seemed very sure that his definition of right… was right.
The human characteristics that I find valuable are things like kindness, compassion, honesty, and similar recipient-oriented attributes.
Worldly
Weather
-5°C
Date: 1:00 PM EST Sunday 3 March 2019
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.9 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: -4.8°C
Dew point: -7.5°C
Humidity: 82%
Wind: SSE 16 km/h
Wind Chill: -11
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Virtue is choked with foul ambition.”
William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616
Henry VI, Part II, Act III, sc. 1
[Ambition of the external arbiter of virtue, or an internal virtue rooted in ambition.]
I think a day making soup and bread sounds diverse me!
Damn autocorrect. *Divine
Mmm split pea soup and homemade bread is perfect for the winter!
Birdie, it was a lovely day! Eating soup and bread was fun too!
Autocorrect is a curse upon us!
Sandy, split pea soup and homemade bread is definitely comfort food! We won’t need comfort food much longer I think, so it is good to enjoy it during the comfort-food season!
I agree with you on what is valuable attributes. Enjoy your comfort foods!
Thanks Joan! We are like minded!
I’m so ready for March! And the advanced forecast hints that this might be our last week of extreme cold. I hope so! When it comes to normal, normal temps would be very welcome.
We had quite the weekend. We were up until 8AM Sunday morning as we lost first our internet and TV, and then our heat too! We called an electrician because one entire side of our fuse panel was out. He moved our heat over to the working side of the panel and then called the electric company. Turns out that one of the two underground wires for our electricity had broken, cutting off supply to half our panel and also taking out the 240 service that our stove and dryer required. So the electric company has attached a mini transformer to the side of our house until they can dig up the street and replace the wire. And they had to do the same for our 2 neighbors as the line fed both their houses, too.
I guess the line broke late enough, about 12:30, that the neighbors didn’t notice any change. We were just going to bed when it happened.
Teri, I don’t wonder you are are ready for Spring! That is great that the electician came and got the heat going again, the rest could probably wait, but not the heat! This is new one for me, never heard of part of a panel going out. Interesting though, to have an electrical transformer attached to the side of your house!
I have to work a little to feel virtuous when I don’t go outside every day because of the weather. Ice, wind, cold, etc … so I make myself go, dress for it, but still there are days when I don’t go as far as I’d like to or “ought” (for fitness’s sake) … and it’s rare that I don’t go at all, even to the end of the driveway. But it happens and isn’t the end of the world.
Sometimes it’s just wise to stay home and indoors. Lots of people don’t; they’re out at night, driving relatively long distances, when it’s colder than 30-below. Guess they think nothing will ever happen to *them* — only other people will have vehicle accidents or breakdowns and be stuck out in the boonies in dangerous weather. There’s more than a little bit of “can’t-miss-anything-ness” in the human character.
We lost a local woman over the weekend, found frozen after leaving her vehicle stranded. Such an awful, awful thing. To me she was only a friendly acquaintance who worked in one of the stores in town, that’s as far as I knew her, but the news still felt like a punch in the gut and I can’t stop thinking about her today and what she must’ve gone through.
I also knew a lady who slipped on ice in a city and hit her head and never woke up again, died a couple days later. Staying in and off icy streets is smart of you both. -Kate
Kate, I know you dress for the weather, so there isn’t much that keeps you from your daily walk. It won’t be too many more weeks though, before the snow will melt and the first signs of spring will arrive!
I am so sorry I’ve been away for SO long! I used to receive notifications of your entries but no more. I will look for a place to sign up. So now I have to catch up on life north of the border! I love love love pea soup, BTW. I used to make it from scratch but like with many other things these days, I take the easy way out and get some nice canned pea soup by Annie’s.
Bex!!! Glad to see you here again! I see one of the updates on my software omitted the sign up option, I’ll look at that over the next couple of days and see what I can do to remedy the situation. Annie’s makes good pea soup, gotta have pea soup one way or another!