2019 - Day 279/86 - Sunday...Handsel...

This is what is left of the church in Bartlett that Joe Mac and Carolyn and I visited a couple months ago when they were visiting. A woman from Huntsville finds old properties like this and rehabs them and resells them. She was close to being done with this one and it burned one night. there was a big old two story house net to this church, and the paper said there was suspicion that someone set fire to the house and embers caught the church on fire. The church was (I think) over a hundred years old. What a shame.

The back is still not 100%, but it is better. It only really hurts when I try to get up. However, that did not stop me from getting most of the things on my list done today. I do have a new helper from Bartlett, so that is a good thing. His name is Armando, a very nice man, ready to help out, and that is great for me. The only thing I did not get done was power washing the Polaris. I/we did manage to drive over something in the Polaris, and now one of the front tires is flat. It's always something!


Handsel -- Noun. 1. a gift made as a token of good wishes or luck. 2. money given by a buyer to a seller to bind a bargain. After moving into their new home, Jason and Sarah were delighted to find a handsel, in the form of a gift basket, left on their porch by their REALTOR®.

Did You Know? According to an old custom in the British Isles, the first Monday of the new year is Handsel Monday, a day to give a small gift or good luck charm to children or to those who have served you well. As long ago as the year 1200, English speakers were using the ancestor of handsel for any good luck charm, especially one given at the start of some new situation or condition. By the 1500s, traders were using handsel for the first cash they earned in the morning-to them, an omen of good things to follow. Nowadays, it can also be used for the first use or experience of something, especially when such a use gives a taste of good things to come.