75 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-9-13”

  3. I’m glad I don’t commute like my wife does. It’s not really good for the blood pressure. I just returned from taking her to work, 100 miles round trip. I don’t know how she does that 5 days a week. Yikes. At least it’ll be late tonight when I pick her up. No traffic then thankfully. She’s going to NYC for meetings today. At least they have a car service to take them in and out.

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  5. I know people who have long commutes and I don’t know how they do it, either. Mine is quite reasonable — about 15 miles each way — but I still wish I worked closer to home.

    For a brief period in my life about 15 years ago, I lived less than 1 mile from work. I was wonderful, I came home for lunch every day, did the grocery shopping sometimes on my lunch hour. But then work changed, transferring me out to the company’s main office in a city — where, of course, I used to live once upon a time.

    Seems like wherever I live, work winds up being somewhere else. If I move closer, the work location changes, always putting me about 10-15 miles away.

    Thankfully I don’t have to go into downtown Los Angeles (the “big city”) except on very rare occasions. I used to have to up there (which is about a 20+ mile drive one way, usually with lots of congestion as you hit the stretch of freeway(s) going by all the high rise buildings) every Monday to cover LA school board meetings back when that was my beat.

    Early shift today, cop calls. Bye all.

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  7. The warm weather is appealing about now.

    Here in Pa. we still have a R Gov., so for now at least, our guns are safe. As long as we keep the commies (NJians and NYers) on their side of the Delaware, we should be OK. I’d recommend a border fence, but I don’t think it would fly.

    🙂

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  8. I drive by a Weslyan church every morning. The minister always posts on the sign out front announcing the coming weeks sermon. This Sunday is the Christian Atheist. What do you suppose that is about?

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  9. Kim, he wants you to come and hear.
    I suspect he’s talking about Christians who run their lives in fear and doubt.
    It would be an easy sermon to preach.

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  10. The sermon is probably similiar to the series Dr. Pack preached during the Christmas season,
    The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
    Grinch of doubt
    Grinch of fear, etc.

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  11. Here’s a QoD: How long is your commute? (or your spouse’s, if you are a SAHM)

    Mine is 40 miles one way. Two days a week I add another 25 to the round trip by teaching a community college class. Makes for long days, but most (all but 4 miles) is highway driving.

    Oh, and I would think with all the rural areas of upstate New York, that total gun ban would be hard, wouldn’t it?

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  12. Here in SW Arizona it is going to get cold this weekend. We’re looking at 26 Sat and Sun am and 25 Mon and Tue. This means that I’ll have to make sure the trailer is drained and outside pipes are covered. Also need to make sure the antique tractors’ radiators are drained.

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  13. I mentioned this before. I never knew how far away my job was. It depended on the way I went. I usually took the long way around the beltway because it only took 25 minutes if traffic was good. Trip home was usually longer because of traffic.
    There was a short cut through Arlington with lots of traffic lights and a two lane bridge across the Potomac. It took longer.

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  14. Fuzzy face, there usec to be heat tapes you could buy to protect your pipes. I haven’t need any since I moved out of my house trailer; but I think they still make them.

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  15. My commute is really, really short, just a few steps from my bed or the couch to my office. 🙂

    What’s funny is that in Chicago I drove 10 miles each way to work, but did little other driving (I walked to church, and I usually shopped on my way home when I needed groceries), so I qualified for the under 7,500-miles discount. Then I went freelance, but started attending a church 18 miles away, and lived two or three hours from two siblings, whom I visited several times a year. My annual mileage went from 7,000 to 10,000.

    I don’t know how many miles I drove last year, but wouldn’t be shocked if it was only one thousand. I don’t drive to church (unless my husband is sick), don’t drive to work, and thus basically only drive to the store when my husband isn’t with me (and we often go together). But he drives a Prius, which gets twice the gas mileage of my car.

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  16. Hubby is in outside sales, so he drives a lot. He averages about 40,000 miles a year! Thank goodness for company cars!!! We also live about 20 miles from his office, but he doesn’t have to go there every day. Even as a stay-@-home-mom, I log about 10,000 miles a year –everything is so spread out in Houston.

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  17. I’m not quite as spoiled by my commute as some only have to pop out of bed, but I live only 3.5 miles from work. Takes about 7 minutes to drive.

    I like it. It’s one reason I haven’t been searching for another job…

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  18. Fuzzy Face- I remember growing up that the only times school was canceled was once when the outside water pipes froze (the drinking fountains were outside). In fact, it was one of those schools with no indoor hallways.

    The other time was when we got a lot more rain than usual and they canceled school because some of the foothill schools were cut off by flooding. On the day they cancelled, it was sunny and 60°. We joked that we had school when there was 7″of snow but got off on a sunny day.

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  19. From Drudge: Lance Armstrong apparently misunderstands about whom it is he has sinned.

    Lance Armstrong Will Ask Oprah for Absolution, Forgiveness in Interview

    I’m sure Oprah will forgive him and everything will be right with the world.
    Don’t laugh! They are serious.
    I laughed briefly, but remembered how sad it is.

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  20. Having just moved to Pa. and still working in Md., I changed my schedule to work from home on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My commute on Tuesday and Thursday is 60.9 miles one way, but it works out OK because after work on Tuesdays I stop to see my Dad (in Assisted Living) that’s nearby and after work on Thursdays I have dinner with friends from church (near where we used to live) and then we go to choir practice. I’m liking this schedule a lot. M, W, and F are a relief and on Tue and Thurs, it feels good to get out of the house. God is Good.

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  21. Today’s commute, several steps into the family room to write. Three days a week, I drive five miles (twelve minutes) to an office.

    Over on Breakpoint, Eric Metaxas is calling on folks to boycott and stand outside of theaters showing the #1 and #2 movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacred 3D and Django. He points out that it’s criminal such films–which glorify murder–are being viewed in drove three weeks after Newtown’s deaths.

    He’s got a point.

    I’m writing about praying in the middle of the night for those of you with insomnia: http://wp.me/p1ektw-O0

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  23. Yeah, Michelle, I say that the new and improved Hitman game is out too!!! I was stunned when I saw the commercial on TV.

    Insomnia? How did you know that I was awake for about two hours last night worrying about all sorts of things and remembering every slight that has ever been directed my way? It was all I could do not to cry.

    Of course in the light of day things aren’t as bad as they are in the middle of the night but my “inner child” for lack of a better phrase is still a little bruised this morning and the conservation in my head is that “you have thicker skin than this”.

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  24. I think we’re most vulnerable in the middle of the night–and there’s no one we can really call on except, well, you know who . . .

    I’m pretty sinful most of the time, but it seems magnified when the room is dark and my husband is asleep!

    xoxo

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  25. I gotta tell ya. With human relationship issues, when it rains it pours.

    I coordinate a small, home school Shakespearean theater group for teens, and I’ve had more “drama” over the past two days of auditions than I have in the last 9 years of running the WHOLE program.

    SIGH

    Confronted one mom who was quickly becoming one of THOSE theater moms. She was bullying a way through for HER child, and truly causing some seriously hurt feelings. And, I really confronted her (which is huge for me. I tend to try to smooth things, and –in this case — I actually went for plain, honest talk. I’m actually a bit proud of myself for not backing down. And — since we’re a Christian group — it actually worked out that she apologized and we had reconciliation. 🙂

    But, just after that, one of our more sensitive souls had his feelings all run over by one of the older teens who is acting as Stage Manager this year. So, I’m putting out the “my son may quit the program” fires this morning. 😦

    And, to top it off, the church we run out of is mostly older folks. So, anything the kids do (especially dramatically inclined kids) seems very loud, boisterous, and out-of-control to them (and seriously, this is a well-behaved group.) They had concerns last year (after 9 years of hosting us), that we weren’t treating their church carefully enough. SIGH (Seriously, I work REALLY hard to make sure that I treat that church with kid gloves, so this concern was a true blow to my own self-esteem.)

    And, when we went to vacuum yesterday? We hit the “on” switch, heard a terrible noise, and then the beater brush stopped working. And, no … we checked, it is not the belt. 😦

    So, while we didn’t do *anything* to the vacuum, I greatly fear we will be blamed for breaking the vacuum. So, I have to call the (very) old gent who watches (patrols??) us, and let him know about the vacuum today. Prayers that we won’t be blamed, or that he’ll just let me replace it without holding blame over our heads (we always replace anything we damage … but our budget won’t take too many hits, as we run on a shoestring. So, it does bother me that I might have to replace the vacuum to keep peace, even though we did nothing but hit the “on” switch. SIGH)

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  26. And, with all of this, I haven’t slept well (hardly at all) that last two nights. So, please forgive me if I get snippy (which I’m not planning on, btw!)

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  27. Yea!!!! The church tells me that the vacuum was ALREADY broken, and they had just forgotten to tell us.

    Phew! SIGH of great relief. 🙂

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  28. Drama, gotta love it.

    Thinking about sermon titles that might not play so well on a *cute* church sign. One of our recent sermons was titled “Total Depravity.”

    Although now that I think about it, it might have drawn some curiosity seekers, who knows. 😉

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  29. QOD on commute – I have been spoiled most of my life to have short commutes. I grew up across the street from the elementary school, and a few blocks from the high school. I didn’t own a car until I was past 30. Until I was 35 I lived no more than five miles from work and could walk, bike, or take the bus.

    Then I took a job that had me commuting from home in Pasadena to Woodland Hills, 30 miles away on LA freeways. That was murder. I don’t know how people (including my dad) do that routinely their whole lives. After six months we decided to move to a spot three miles from work. I’ve sometimes regretted that because we had been so deeply rooted in Pasadena.

    When we moved to Michigan I limited my job opportunities by looking only for jobs in or near Ann Arbor, but I found a good one and have lived within six miles of work ever since.

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  30. QOD from Chas on Esther — who is the hero? I can’t choose. Esther would be the obvious answer because she put her life on the line. Mordecai saw clearly what was needed and took the initiative. God, though never mentioned, was as usual working all things out for his purposes.

    What’s your answer, Chas?

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  34. Kevin, my hero is Vashti. None of this would have happened if Vashti had been willing to expose herself to the king’s party guys.
    It takes lots of nerve to tell the king no in those days.

    I have several examples that king Ahasuerus was a real dunce. Not just that he canned his wife, whom he obviously loved.

    One example, “Here’s my ring, it rules the nation. Do whatever you please.”

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  36. Perhaps the church with the “Christian Atheist” sign is hosting the author of the book by that title. I found the book rather disappointing because I expected a book about people who believe they are Christian, but who have wandered into secular lives by the norms of everyday living [and how to get back to a God-centered life], but it was another one problem per chapter book.

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  37. Chas- I’ve never thought of it that way, as far as Vashti being the “hero”. And Ahasuerus wasn’t the only king with a “stupid” problem. I could not imagine saying “whatever you want, up to half my kingdom” as Herod (and I think one other king) did.

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  39. After God, I would say the hero is Mordecai. He is the one whose righteous behavior sparked the enmity from Haman. He is also the one who raised Esther to be the kind of woman who would response the way she did in a time of crisis. He is also the one who made her look beyond herself when the crisis came. He is also the one who devised the plan to get around the whole can’t change the law problem.

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  41. Good Afternoon, Y’all!

    Commute about 6 miles each way. All country roads, often see as many other cars as I can count on fingers. I like this arrangement much more than when I drove in and out of Nashville each day…

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  43. Peter, it’s my understanding that “up to half my kingdom” was a formal nicety, probably in the same league as “O King, live forever.” None of them really meant either one.

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  44. Question for you: Does anyone have experience with the letters wearing away off a keyboard . . . and how you can “rewrite” them? My husband thought maybe a white paint pen would do it, possibly with it being sealed with clear fingernail polish. Well, the paint pen definitely didn’t last (just about two days), and we don’t really want to do the sealing if that isn’t the best thing to do. Anybody do anything that worked?

    (I type many hours a day, some days; I’ve typed several books, and multiple other things. I’m a fairly fast typist, but stil sort of a hunt and peck girl–sometimes I look at the keys and sometimes I don’t–and having a few letters missing is a nuisance. If I lose many more, it will be more than a little inconvenient. So it’s pretty much redo the letters or replace the keyboard, and I know from experience that keyboard lettering is no longer made to be permanent.)

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  45. Cheryl, I do not have experience with letters wearing out, but you may be able to use some stick-on letters from the dollar store as a solution. They come in various sizes, and there are usually at least 3 sets in each package.

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  48. My commute is 45 miles, mostly country/highway. Time is about 1 hour. The last place we lived my commute was 1 block and my husband’s commute about 4 blocks – of course the town was only 2 blocks by 6 blocks!

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  52. Cheryl, I saw your response to me regarding the question I asked late last night on yesterday’s thread, and I have responded over there. Thanks.

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  53. When my husband and I first married, I was just out of college, and we lived in the city where he was employed. Two months later, I got hired in a school district 90 minutes away, so we moved to a town about halfway between our jobs. I commuted 45 minutes north and he 45 min. south.

    About six months later, my husband got a different job and had a very short commute (not more than 10-15 minutes south of where we lived). Then, about six months after that, we moved farther north so my commute wouldn’t be so long, so I had about a 15-minute commute and hubby 30 minutes. That was so much nicer for me! When I had the 45-minute commute, I would leave at 7:00 a.m., teach until 3:15 p.m., then give 2 hours of piano lessons at the school, and return home at 6:00 p.m.

    Now, of course, my commute is short — about as long as Cheryl’s. 🙂 Hubby’s is about 25-30 minutes, and this spring his workplace will be moved to a different warehouse that is only about 10-12 minutes from home, and about one minute from 1st Arrow’s workplace!

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  54. So I relented.

    Listening to all the scary radio news stories about the flu, I stopped off at the pharmacy on the way home and got a flu shot. Probably too little too late, but it was free so I figured what have I got to lose.

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  55. TJ’s commute is either to the couch or across the back field to the church. Twice a year he commutes several hundred miles each way for a regional (!) meeting and once a year we go to Flat Rock, NC for our national meeting of our denomination.

    Praise for those of you who knew us before—Grace has finished our state early intervention program (simply by turning three next week). The next step would have been services through the school system, but her evaluation showed she no longer required services since she had no measurable delays (other than her feeding disorder).

    We go back to the feeding clinic for another three weeks in February. .

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  56. Donna,

    It appears my wife was the smart one. She got the shot. My daughter and I didn’t. My daughter is pretty much over it. I’m just getting started. Yay me.

    😦

    And I’m about to leave to go pick up my wife, another 100 miles round trip. Yay me again.

    😦

    Then it’s Nyquil and a warm bed for me.

    🙂

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  58. Yes, feel better AJ, hopefully you’ll just get a mild case of it. The pharmacist told me the shot takes about 2 weeks to be effective (I’ve heard 3 weeks elsewhere) so hopefully I won’t get exposed until it takes hold.

    I rarely get the flu so sometimes I think I feel overconfident. But my number eventually will come up again. 😦 And it is a miserable thing to have. 😦

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  59. Oh, and I had a Mumsee Moment earlier today. A radio news report said it was “warm” in NY today, 50 degrees.

    Ha, I thought. Warm? I think not.

    70 is warm; maybe 60+ if the sun is shining. But 50 degrees? Uh-uh. Don’t think so. 🙂

    Then again, as I’ve said, it’s all relative … Your warm is my cold.

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  60. Donna, about once every March after we moved to SE MIchigan, I’d have the following exchange over the phone with my Dad in LA:

    Me: It was pretty warm here today, it got up into the 50s.

    Dad: It’s pretty cold here today, it’s down in the 50s.

    Then we’d both laugh. My warm was very much his cold.

    The funny thing was that Dad had grown up accustomed to real cold in eastern Pennsylvania. But he moved to LA in his early 20s and never went back, not even for a visit. In later years he joked (I think) that he couldn’t even take his trash outside if it got below 60. 🙂

    We supposedly have one of those warm 50’s weekends coming up. I look forward to it!

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  61. Donna, around here we’re all atwitter because it’s supposed to be into the 50s later in the week. But considering the average January high in Phoenix is 68 (69 by the end of the month), I have a hard time getting sufficiently excited when we get above 50. It seems kinda basic, like being allowed butter on my toast.

    But a lot of the snow finally melted today (grass! dirt! lookie!), and the rest should melt by the end of the week, so I’m happy. And we may actually make it to 60 Saturday (current predicted high 59), and I would appreciate that.

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  63. My mother-in-law can hardly stand it when it gets above 80 F. And she is the one still wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts long after the temperatures have dipped to points where people have put away their summer things and gotten out the fall clothing. She usually stops wearing shorts after the temperature gets below 40 F. 😯

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  64. Kevin, I have friends from back east who have moved here and now “feel” our cold as being truly “cold.” They’ve become southern Californians when it comes to weather.

    It seems we adjust somehow (and weirdly, when I’ve been in the midwest or east during winter, I know it’s really cold (for me) but it’s not uncomfortable which always kind of surprises me — not sure the *coldest* weather I’ve ever been in though, I’m sure there are temps that would have me whining!).

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  65. 6 Arrows, I have a very warm-blooded friend who lives in tank tops almost year-round.

    She will give in and put on a short-sleeved T-shirt during the winter, though. 🙂 So when it gets cold I always tease her that it’s “T-shirt” weather.

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  66. Kevin, my mom grew up in Connecticut. She lived her last four decades in Phoenix. One time late in her life she commented about how when she was a child she would get up before her dad lit the fire in the morning, which impressed her dad. (Her brothers didn’t get up until the fire was lit.) After I got off the phone I thought, Wait a minute? Mom?!

    I hated talking to her in January when I lived in Chicago. She’d always ask, “Hey, how’s the weather?” and I just didn’t want to tell her. (“We finally got up above freezing today, 33 degrees, first time in two weeks! They’re saying it may be 40 by the end of the week!”) She’d come back with, “Well, we had 75 today, but they’re saying 82 for tomorrow.” Thanks, Mom. I love you too.

    One time when I was a child, my uncle (Mom’s brother) called from Chicago and told us they had a wind chill of -65. He said, “I bet it’s 65 above there.” My dad helpfully went outside to check, and came in and assured Mom that yes, it was indeed 65 in Phoenix, so she passed on the report. Know how many times in my Chicago years I wondered what on earth I was doing in the -65 climate of that conversation? (And yes, I experienced wind chills of -65, times I waited for a bus half an hour in that level of cold.)

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  67. Cheryl, :O and :D.

    I had no idea it plunged to -65 anywhere in the 48 states. I guess the wind off Lake Michigan must get pretty brutal in the Windy City. I suppose the worst wind chill in my 15 years here was probably around -30.

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  69. Donna, the winter that I was student teaching, we had a severe cold snap that lasted I think at least a week, week-and-a-half, where daytime temperatures didn’t get above zero F. I remember a lot of days during that spell where temps were in the teens or twenties below for a fair portion of the day. When the mercury finally climbed past 0 and into the double digits, it felt like “T-shirt” weather! Positively balmy. 🙂

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