33 thoughts on “Rants and Raves 1-5-13”

  4. 😦 I typed out a long post on tablet and it lost it before I could post
    😦 It also keeps telling I haven’t checked out through Google so I can’t play Words with Friends
    🙂 There are so many free downloadable books for it .

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  6. 🙂 A new year.

    🙂 New beginnings. A brand new chance to get things right that we didn’t get right last year.

    🙂 I’m making a concerted effort to keep my head down and not join in the complaining at work. More changes are being announced next week by the people over us. The changes probably won’t be good in our view. But what can you do?

    🙂 Politics in this country being what they are right now, and my work situation being what it is right now, it is a good reminder that my help comes from the Lord (alone).

    🙂 A new 4-week Sunday night class (the many faces of God) begins this weekend, I’m looking forward to it.

    🙂 I’m loving our weather: crisp, cold — more rain expected tomorrow and maybe Monday as well.

    😦 OK, one rant: I still have to take down the Christmas lights & decorations. I’m one of only about 2 houses on our block now that turns the lights on at night still.

    🙂

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  7. 🙂 Forrest loves to help with everything. He helps his mommy with laundry, washing dishes, & cleaning up toys & such. Of course, he’s only 2, so sometimes his help isn’t so helpful, but is appreciated nonetheless.

    🙂 How many 2 year old American boys ask for a cup of tea, & can say, let alone like, “quinoa”? He is so cute as he carefully drinks from his tea cup (herbal, non-caffeinated, of course).

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  8. Karen, love that quinoa thing. He sounds so sweet and it is so important to let him help, even if it isn’t helpful.

    Donna, I haven’t taken my Christmas stuff down, either. I have been doing some deeper cleaning by shredding old paper documents etc. no longer needed. I refuse to take down anything before New Years, anyway. I will have to do it soon, but hate to do it. Not because of the work, but it all looks so pretty.

    🙂 Family gatherings.

    😦 Family gatherings. Why can’t some people who know very well you disagree politically, just let things be? Why can’t some people find anything to discuss other than politics?

    🙂 Les Mis today! I can’t wait. It is one of my favorite books and movie subjects.

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  9. 🙂 Coffee on a cold Saturday morning. The dogs have taken over my bed (as they do every morning at this time after I’m up and they’ve eaten — they don’t sleep on the bed when I’m in it at night, but they do enjoy a late morning nap in the bedroom, which I allow since all other furniture is off limits to them).

    🙂 The cat’s outside on her morning rounds.

    😦 But I will need to get moving at some point. There’s so much around here to do …

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  11. 🙂 Donna’s idea of cold. What is it, Donna, 50°? Try 38°. That’s what it is here now, and that is warmer than earlier in the week when the high was 19°. Yeah, warm by Canadian standards, I know.

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  13. We are still waiting for that 33 they were talking about a day or so ago. Though some is dripping off the roof so it is warm up there. I might want to go sit up there. Or I might not.

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  14. 🙂 New Year!

    🙂 On track with the Bible readings!

    😦 Hubby getting very tired from the long overnight and weekend hours, and has little time to do anything other than sleep and go to work. He likes to keep busy with things at home, and he’s been out of his element not being able to work on projects around here. He only has time for that if he shortens his sleep hours, as he frequently has to be back at work within 9 or 10 hours of getting home (and has a 30-minute commute one way).

    😦 Having a hard time finding my rhythm at home when hubby’s comings-and-goings are so much different now.

    🙂 Thankful that these hours are temporary, maybe only for another week or two.

    🙂 Sickness in the household appears to be gone; short-lived and affecting few.

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  15. 🙂 Enjoyed Les Miz, but also were bowled over last night by The Impossible.

    😦 Story in The Imopssible–about a family during the 2004 Thailand tsunami–was challenging. We had to watch parts between our fingers!

    🙂 A week off from work. No family home. I’m going to spend it praying, thinking and dreaming. Feeling very blessed by this gift from God!

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  17. 🙂 I too am “on track” for the new year, in Bible reading (haven’t yet done today’s, thanks for the reminder) and in doing my daily tidying, and also starting on other things I want to work on this month/this year.

    😦 Did not sleep at all well last night, nor did my hubby (he has been fighting sinus headaches) and when I took an unusually long nap today I realized I might be getting sick.

    😦 I started out yesterday in quite a funk, 🙂 but my wonderful husband took me to the mall (not “to spend money” but to get out and to walk a bit, since we’re kinda snowed in and can’t exactly go walking on our street).

    🙂 I bought a digital camera book; I’ve been wanting one, but didn’t really know how to choose one. So I looked through one that was marked down to a good price, looked through it and liked it, and checked the copyright date to be sure it’s current enough to be helpful with newer models of cameras (it’s 2011, same as the camera, so should be perfect).

    🙂 Meanwhile I’m delighting in being able to take bird photos for the first time ever. I’ve tried, nearly always unsuccessfully, since I got my first camera when I was 12. I’ve been able to get pictures of a few large birds (such as great blue herons) or birds that are fairly close (pigeons that are being fed), but not, say, a bird in a tree ten feet away. Yesterday I got a good photo of a chipping sparrow that was in the snow in front of our garage; I was inside the kitchen. But the photo has details down to every claw on the bird. It isn’t professional quality bird photography, nothing close; but no camera I’ve had in the past could come close to getting such an image. (I’ve also gotten lots of pictures of other birds the last few months.) The tradeoff is that I can’t really get good close-ups anymore, with this camera, but my husband’s camera does those beautifully, so we have everything covered between us.

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  18. 🙂 Remaining 2 strings of indoor garland w/beads dismantled. Outdoor lights tomorrow, then I’m done.

    😦 Sure is a lot more fun putting it up than taking it down.

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  22. Pelicans. California Brown Pelicans.

    That’s what my latest story was about. We had some nice pictures to go with the story, one from a former photographer of our paper who has an amazing talent for photographing marine life, including seabirds.

    I still remember a bunch of us eating on the waterfront years ago when this photographer just kept hand-feeding chips, whatever, to the gulls & other seabirds that flocked right to him.

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  23. 🙂 Coffee on a Sunday morning. 🙂

    🙂 Up early, finished Day 6 of the Bible readings. I plan to go over a couple of the passages again later today, though, using a study Bible with some extensive footnotes.

    🙂 We’re starting a 4-week class tonight on “The Many Faces of God.”

    🙂 The de-decorating continues. Last night’s project: the dogs. Off with the red jingle bell collars, on with January’s Scottish plaid (Tess red/black, Cowboy blue/green). I miss the sound of jingle bells, though. The cat always jingles, however.

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  25. Chas, there was a holly bush in the backyard at the house I grew up in, it was so pretty. We also had a plum tree, an orange tree and a banana tree (which was a constant nuisance and often a haven for more ants than I’ve ever seen).

    The orange tree, by the way, designated both the pitcher’s mound and 2nd base in our backyard ball games. 😉 The clothes line was 1st base and the banana tree was 3rd base.

    Home plate was right in front of the covered patio.

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  27. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/01/headlines-of-the-day.php

    Anecdotal, but this does touch on something I’ve noticed through the years as well — the insistence that Republicans/conservatives are “angry.”

    You don’t see Democrats or the left often characterized as “angry” in the media (yet the left are those who often post literal death threats to politicians they don’t like on Twitter and other Internet sites). I’ve never heard such anger as I did when Bush was in his 2nd term. The anger being unleashed on left-leaning radio stations then was downright scary. I didn’t think he’d survive to serve out a full second term.

    And yet is is conservatives who are painted as always “angry.” Really? It’s a caricature that’s repeatedly pushed.

    I know a lot of conservatives and I wouldn’t call any of them angry, even when they lose. 😉 Frustrated, disheartened at times, determined as well — but generally more accepting (and much less emotional) than liberals tend to be when they lose an election.

    Well, whatever, but back to November.

    How exactly do we explain all the polls — including Gallup, liberal + conservative sponsored polls — just days before the election that showed a hairline-close race?

    Yes, some commentators on Fox went out on a (cracked, as it turned out) limb by saying with full confidence that Romney would win (some said in a landslide). I may have hoped they were right at the time, but the polls clearly weren’t showing anything like that.

    Personally, I went into election day without a prediction. I thought that while Romney probably/maybe had the edge (just based on how dismal the past 4 years under the incumbent had been for most folks, frankly), that the race was too close to call.

    And Fox’s polls, by the way, also showed what every other poll was showing — that this was looking like it would be a neck-in-neck finish right up to the end. Virtually an unpredictable race.

    So what happened? Obama had a better ground game? Late deciders (though there were very few “undecideds” left according to those polls) broke for Obama? Polls just aren’t very reliable anymore in this age of cell phones, etc.?

    I’m not convinced that Nate Silver’s call of a strong Obama win, btw, wasn’t more of a fluke in this instance. But maybe I’m wrong & he’s on to something, who knows.

    But why were virtually all of the established (and usually reliable) polls essentially wrong, why did they all miss calling this one?

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  28. 😦 Rant: My post above should have gone on the political thread. Sigh.

    That 90-minute nap must have muddled my brain even more than normal.

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  31. 🙂 You two only have about 300 days before they go back up, you know.

    🙂 Got to attend church and Sunday school this morning (the way I felt yesterday, I wasn’t sure).

    🙂 Heard the first “Love you” from one of the girls. (Happy tears time.)

    😦 The kitchen has quite a pile of dirty dishes. (I don’t wash them on Sundays, and I didn’t wash the last batch last night.) My hubby often does them Monday morning, but I can’t “count on that” nor take advantage of that.

    🙂 My hubby seems to be feeling better, at least a bit, after fighting a sinus headache for six weeks. He’s finally on the right track with treatment.

    😦 We had to skip our monthly church dinner, after planning to attend, because so many people at church were sick, and we just dare not take the risk added to other health issues we’re battling.

    🙂 But my heart is smiling tonight.

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  32. “You two only have about 300 days before they go back up, you know.”

    Cheryl, that is an excellent point — and the strongest argument yet for just leaving everything be!

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  33. 😦 I’m looking a box of outdoor lights — 3 strings — that are hopelessly tangled after being taken down from my porch overhang.

    I’m really going to hate myself next year …

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