Yesterday proved to be a fairly laid-back day.  We got things done but in a casual manner.
There were a couple of things we had in mind to do.  Fix the seating area of some chairs.  Fix the back of a couple and buy a final set of chair leg covers to enable some chairs from home to slide properly.
Merril is the great fixer of such things.  I provide the grunt work.  For example. for the bases that needed fixing I removed the base from the chairs (unscrewed them), got rid of unnecessary light material and passed them on to Merril.  When she had cut and stapled the material into place I reattached the bottom to the chair.  I then put the chairs in the car and we took them to the church and put them in place.
Every chair is done now.  All have new base material.  We were quite pleased with ourselves to have gotten just the right amount of material to have done 50 or so chairs.
One thing that is happening that requires a different solution is the material on the back of the chairs is giving way in some instances. Merril fixed them and I still do not know how after examining them.
Anyway the upshot is all chairs have been attended to.  The five to go back are the last lot in the foreseeable future.
To get the leg covers we took a trip to Bunnings. Merril knew exactly what isle we were looking for as she had gotten covers the day before as well.  We also needed more industrial stapes.  After that we went and had something to eat.  Then I needed to set up our church for the Sunday service and Merril looked at the audio as we have a new system.
After we had finished we came home and did what we had to do to complete all the tasks we had set ourselves.
An ordinary day but we achieved a few things which is good.

It seems if I dwell on something long enough thoughts about it come to me.  I was drawn to what was said in a James Clear email. "There are two ways to grow: by adding or by shedding. Do you need to add something or do you need to shed something?"
I was asking myself if I thought that was true and I thought about plants.  It is true in my dealings with them.
Often I need to add to the soil.  There can be one element missing that is vital to growth and health.  Once I discover what that element is, and add it, the plant grows happily.
The same with me I reckon (not eating say “lime”). It is true figuratively.  There are things I add to my life from time to time as I know they are missing.  The addition of it is good for me and helps me grow as a person.
By the same token there comes a time of pruning.  Where excess growth is cut off to make way for stronger, healthier growth.  The plant does not know it yet but I intend to cut off growth on a pot plant.  I see it healthier and stronger as a result.
When that happens to me it is never pleasant mind.  I see it in the yard.  We recently had trees pruned big time.  It was a case of “what have we done.” The yard looks sparce and bare.  But that was only for a while.  The trees came back and the growth looked good  and the trees healthy, and growth no longer got in our way.  A win for the trees and a win for us I reckon.
Again I see that as something I need from time to time.  Growth as a person is good.  Yet sometimes it is unruly.   Sometimes the best thing that can happen is pruning.  I am stronger as a person, can direct energy to where it is needed most, and have greater potential.
Adding or shedding may not be pleasant, but done right it is always beneficial.

I was wondering what to write about today and was just idly looking up a quote book.  The area I came across was manners.
There were a couple of quotes in there I really liked.  One by a George E Bergman I laughed at.  It was about tact.  “Tact is the art of making guests feel at home when really that’s where you wish they were.”
I guess I was interested in that as it is something still there but not highlighted really.  I think the Mirerriam-Webster said it well when it referred to manners as “the outward manifestation of personality or attitude.”  Why I like that is I think manners are inherent in a personality.  A person either has good manners or not.
I like one thing I read by an Emily Post. “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.  If you have that awareness, you have good manners no matter what fork you use.”  I would put one caveat on that.  A person needs to have more than an awareness – though that is the start.  The awareness needs to be acted on.  It is one thing to know what to do, and another to actually do it.
There was one I really like by a Freya Stark, “Manners are like the zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal of value to everything else.”
Manners do add hugely to relationships.  I was talking to someone yesterday and they said they turned around the normal way of processing something.  (He was talking about dietary needs but at the time I thought that has great application to other things.)  What he did was to instead of highlighting a need for something he highlighted what was right - with an emphasis on building on that.
It is funny but that reminds me of table tennis coaches taking on older players who may have done something a certain way for decades.  The emphasis is not to unlearn bad habits but to build on good ones.
I feel the same way concerning manners.  It may be a waste of time to highlight what is not and better to reinforce what is.  And I have found that encouraging the good in me encourages more good it me.