#Project365: Live Today

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with [Perry]?"

#Project365: Don't Cheat Yourself Out of Today

You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you, but now you’ll never know.” 

― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

#Project365: Learn, Prepare, and Live

“The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.” 

― Thomas S. Monson

#Project365: Conquer Life

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” 

― Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation

#Project365: Best Preparation

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.” 

― Albert Einstein

#Project365: Dance!

“Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of always focusing on how far you have to go.” 

― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass

#Project365: Live For Today

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.” 

― Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown's Little Book of Wisdom

#Project365: Make This Moment Vital

“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” 

― Martha Graham

#Project365: Time

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.” 

― Benjamin Franklin

Some new items available!

#Project365: Glory

“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” 

Some new items available!

#Project365: Enjoyment

“I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.” 

― Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

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#Project365: Cherish Now

“We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends, and living our lives.” 

― Maya Angelou

#Project365: Live in the Present

“Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has yet to come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.” 

― Ida Scott Taylor McKinney

#Project365: Toes

“She worked her toes into the sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of silicon against the tender flesh between her toes. That's life. It hurts, it's dirty, and it feels very, very good.” 

― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind

#Project365: Abraham Lincoln

“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” 

― Abraham Lincoln

#Project365: This Sunset

“Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you do will change that. Today you are alive and here and honored and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it's beautiful; yes? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again; never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.” 

― James Clavell

#Project365: Live in the Moment

“Why not just live in the moment, especially if it has a good beat?” 

― Goldie Hawn

#Project365: Golden Hours

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.” 

― Horace Mann

#Project365: Expectations

“Nobody knows how things will turn out, that's why they go ahead and play the game...You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it's hardly ever what you expect.” 

― Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts

#Project365: Moments Like These

“A life is measured by moments like these.” 

― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

#Project365: Here and Now

“The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need.” 

― Ann Richards

#Project365: Balance

“The proper, wise balancing

of one's whole life may depend upon the

feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.” 

― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

#Project365: Life

“What matters is what we do with the life we have.” 

― Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places

Special Issue: State Boulevard Reconfiguration

Another end of an era...the Brookview neighborhood surrounding Spy Run Creek has flooded time and time again. Building on a floodplain has serious issues to begin with; but climate change, urban sprawl, and extreme weather has made this a problem area for many years due to street flooding and worse. Here is a Google Maps view of the area with a red line around the houses taken out. West State Boulevard will be straightened out and the bridge over Spy Run Creek will be raised to prevent West State from being closed during floods each year. Several years had record flooding in the neighborhood due to mainstem river flooding downstream; especially in 1978, 1982, and 1985, and record flooding in 2013 on the creek itself along with innumerable times before and thereafter as well. 

Over the years, the City of Fort Wayne has bought out many homes which used to stand along Spy Run Creek and demolished them to make room for green space. In fact, the entire block of Westbrook Drive that used to exist between West State Blvd. and North Clinton St. was removed after homes along it were demolished to make way for the new higher bridge that transports North Clinton Street over Spy Run Creek. This wider view shows more detail:

Here are the details of the reconfiguration, and here are pictures of the remaining houses as they were prepared for demolition:

Right now, this is what the neighborhood looks like; these shots taken from Eastbrook Drive just south of State Blvd.:

These shots were taken on State Blvd. east of the demolished area looking west:

One final shot looking north from Eastbrook Drive at its southern terminus:

One can barely recognize the area now without any houses there. It looks rather barren and alien and I can't help but feel a sense of sadness at what was. However, the good thing about this project is that these homes will no longer have to suffer constant flooding. The neighborhood will have more green space as well, and improved traffic flows will create less of a bottleneck condition for commuters. Last, but not least, I am really looking forward to completion of the Pufferbelly Trail running along the west end of the neighborhood!