Random thoughts

So, today, I don't have anything specific to post on............but I do have some half-baked thoughts.
The first amorphous cognation (is that a word or a neologism?) circles the purpose of this blog. Since I don't have a real audience, I can't target my audience's needs and interests. My intended audience is family and friends, who naturally are a diverse group, without a particular common interest, like genealogy or fossils or synchronized swimming. In fact, their most prominent characteristic is that they are related to and/or care about me and my family. But.......(did you guess that there was a but coming?)...I'd like to create a blog that mainly considers my very personal interests, which I have detailed in my profile. Home life, home dec, various needle pursuits, and most things old-fashioned or "vintage". But also, perhaps a bit divergently, I have an interest in delving into topics facing Christians (particularly Lutherans) in 21st century America. With regard to artsy/craftsy pursuits, I wish I could blog like Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy or Lucy at Attic24. But it occurs to me that I am not actively, daily pursuing these activities that I love. And such blogging is at least 50% staging, styling, taking and uploading beautiful fotos. Oh, how I wish...... Since I am working at an office M-F and can really only take the kind of pix I want to take on sunny weekend days and I have a lot of work to have a reliable camera at the ready (and know how to use it to best advantage), for the time being my blog won't be all that I want it to be. Now, having said that, I have overcome one obstacle to blogging. I don't need to have amazing fotos in order to sit down and tap out a post. At least, not yet....
Another concept, I always think about to one degree or another is Discipline. How getting closer to a goal involves discipline. How discipline is really a tool, and absolutely indispensable in striving toward any outcome (worthwhile or not, after all, probably even Hitler exercised discipline). Having discipline doesn't make one virtuous, but it does make one effective. I have for years been interested by the idea of mental discipline. And by that, applying discipline to choose what to think about. We all do it every day, some with more success than others. When in the classroom, mental discipline allows us to concentrate on the lesson at hand. If we have mental discipline, we are not at the mercy of fickle Interest. We probably have all experienced only marginally attending to a lecture because that day at that moment, something more commanding has diverted our interest. Sometimes, our emotional life can take hold and occupy our minds, even though we have committed our bodies to be present and participating in school or work or whatever it may be.
I am a born daydreamer. I have always known this to be true. I entered the first grade in 1968, when I was 5 years old. I have a November birthday, and had done very well on school readiness testing, so I was placed in the first grade on a provisional basis, I guess. Apparently, I would be re-evaluated partway through the year, perhaps to repeat first grade, or something. I was more than ready to start school, at least from a learning perspective. I was reading far above my peers, and my teacher assigned to lead (!) a reading group, I went to Mrs. Hastings' class for Math, as she had a higher group or something, and when it was time for spelling tests, I was sent to the library for independent reading. My teacher was Lillian Marks, and to us kids, she was older than dirt. Not meaning to be rude, or disrespectful, but really she was older than my grandmother. Of course, I now realize that my grandmother was 48 at the time, and my great-grandmother was probably 72. Mrs. Marks was probably about 60 or more, as I think she retired soon after teaching my class, I think. In those days, report cards were issued 4 times during the school year, and each report consisted of a narrative paragraph that the teacher probably typed on the report card herself. She always had lovely things to say about me, and for that I am grateful, and no doubt it deepened my teacher crush on her. That is not to say I was her pet. I was far too shy and quiet, and she had her hands completely full with probably about 30 students in the class, and more than her fair share of hooligans. But I was happy, and I admired her, simply for being The Teacher. I have always cherished one thing she said about me on the narrative..."She daydreams a bit, I think." Now, in retrospect, I think she was observing some attention deficit, but it was so kindly put. I wonder what a first grade teacher would do with me today. Would I be identified and evaluated? Would I have repeated 1st grade or not have started until the next year when I was 6-going-on-7? Would I have cultivated the mental discipline not to daydream? Probably not, I haven't yet............
I wish I had my 1st grade foto ready-to-hand to post here, just for fun....