I'm currently in between writing projects. I have some stories I want to tell but I feel the need to take a bit of a break. Because of this, I'm also trying to clean my apartment. I say trying because when it comes to cleaning, it doesn't take much to distract me; last night I found the typed excerpts from my grandparents love letters to each other.  They met in 1917 when my grandfather was in charge of a vacation bible school and my grandmother was one of the volunteers. They feel in love and by the end of the summer, they were secretly engaged.  What continues to surprise me the most about the letters isn't their simplicity or the references to things we take for granted, it's the language they use. We just don't talk like that anymore. Our communication has been reduced to text messages, quick emails and online chats. To give you a sense of what I'm talking about here is an excerpt:

I love you dearest. Does that make you blush? I've told you that several times I think and yet for my part it is continually new because language is inadequate for me to express my deep affection for you. It  will take a life of long years filled with devotion to you and with many caresses and kisses and love-services, to, in any way adequately express my heart. I want you to know tonight, that my soul is full to overflowing with devotion to you. All that I am or hope to be, dear, I lay at your feet and hope and aspire to make you the happiest woman on earth.

Yeah, I'd marry him too.

 My grandparents spoke often about their feeling about World War I. To them, it was just the war. My grandfather was a chaplain in the army and in late 1918, he was on his way to France when the influenza epidemic hit. This epidemic had a worldwide impact- more people died from it, than from the war. The census from this time shows that the average life expectancy at the beginning of 1918 was 51 years of age; by the end of the year, it was 39 years of age.

 Thank the Lord these days are soon over. Yesterdays two Procedures repeated. I'm seeing men die at night. I see their eyes bulge in the death struggle, I hear their groans and delirium ravings, I know their desire to hold onto life, But in vain use that cough has nailed them into death's cold Sweat... I'm realizing that our religion of character and Jesus As Master and Pilot is OK and good enough. It works. Among the older men who have been inoculated in youth with "the blood of Jesus" of course want the other kind. Our churches have failed.   ust for this reason I guess they have tried to place a religious cloak of   An old time hue on changing humanity and it doesn't harmonize or fit.

 I never did get back to cleaning my apartment. Maybe I'll do that this weekend.

I had just placed the change from my pocket on my coffee table when my cat, Lucky, jumped up on the table and with one swipe of his paw knocked the quarters to the floor. Then as I watched, he held a quarter in his mouth, walked across the room and deposited it under a rug.  He followed this same routine with the remainder of the quarters. This raises many questions. First of all, what did he need the money for and secondly, how long has been doing this? I need to clean under my bed who knows what he's stashed under there.