Why Elephants and Hyacinths?

It's May and it's Monday--a new month and a new week, something that always motivates me!  So here I am, beginning a blog, mainly to keep myself accountable to those things that are important to me.  If you read blogs and like mine, welcome.  If you don't, that's OK, too--I need the journaling to keep me honest!


Why Elephants?  Because I am using Brian Klemmer's book Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time as I begin this blog.  Brian died on April 7 of this year, but the impact he made on so many lives, including mine, will never die.  I guess this is my own small way of honoring that in my life--by reading this book once again, and this time--FINISHING IT!!  I know the first chapter by heart practically, but how many times can you think about your choices to be coffee in life--changing the boiling water of your circumstances rather than becoming limp like a carrot or hardened like an egg?  I choose coffee today!


Why Hyacinths?  Love them--their beautiful color, their delicious smell, and the poetry they have inspired.  As an English major in college many moons ago, I was so touched by these lines:

Hyacinths to feed thy soul

"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,

And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."           

--Saadi (c. 1210-1290)

Blogging is my hyacinths and my coffee today.  Carpe diem!