THOUGHTS FROM DIANNE...

I’m supposed to be blogging the alphabet this year, and by now I should be up to the letters H or I , but I stopped at B . That’s because I’m a dawdler, which would be a good blog to post under the letter D , except today, I’m combining two letters, C & D , and blogging about cats and dogs , and other pets that make our lives better.  According to WebMD, pets help lower blood pressure and lessen anxiety. They also provide some benefit in boosting our immune system. When my mother was in hospice care at the end of her life, my Dad would take their little dog, Butch, a 15 pound Schipperke, in to see her every afternoon. That hour or so, when Butch was snuggled next to her in bed, was the only time in her day she was pain-free. Did that make her life better? Yes. Besides the physical relief she received, she simply got to cuddle with her dog, and that made her happy in her last days.   There are also the social barriers to consider. Do you really think dog parks ar

                                         “Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis.”                                                     (Whatever advice you give, be brief.)                                                              ~Horace, Arte poética I’m on the second letter of my Year of Blogging the Alphabet, and when I thought about what I wanted to use for the letter “B”, blessing automatically came to mind. Plus benevolence, babies, baggage and a whole lot of others. So when the word BREVITY kept pounding me, I tried ignoring it because, after all, what’s there to say about brevity? It’s brief . George and Noah (that’s Merriam and Webster) describe it as: shortness of duration; shortness or conciseness of expression. It’s from the Latin brevitas , for brief and was first used sometime in the 15th century. So, in sticking to the meaning of this word, this is where I should probably stop. But, I’m a writer, and stopping (or being brief) is against my nature. Still,

               aaaaaaaaaaaaaa         a             A        AA         a        a             aa           AAA          A                 aaa               a       AAa          aa     AAAAAAA   a       A           a      aaa      aaA         a           aAA      I’m going to blog the alphabet this year which, for me, is a pretty hefty investment since that commits me to 26 blogs in 2017. But I’ve been very good on Facebook, not expressing opinion about much of anything, even when I’ve had plenty of words and opinions. I don’t engage in debate or argument, though. That’s just me. Everybody’s entitled to what they want to believe, and I sort of subscribe to the ‘live and let live’ philosophy. But as good as I’ve been on Facebook, I do have some thoughts, and while they might not fit as well with the alphabet, I’m going to give it a try and keep my fingers crossed that I actually have 26 blogs in me. (Admittedly, the X week scares me.) So, let’s get started with t