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Our Daily Thread 1-30-13

Good Morning!

This weather is crazy. 32° yesterday, 62° today, and 44° tomorrow. It’s like 3 seasons in 3 days.  😯

Quote of the Day

“Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless.”    

Francis A. Schaeffer,    The Great Evangelical Disaster

Who has a QoD?

61 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-30-13”

  3. Does anyone have any interesting stories about funeral homes?

    Recently when my son and I went to a funeral we arrived about fifteen minutes before the service. I expected to find my brother with the family since he is very close to them. So son and I went into the room with the deceased and family. My brother was not there. We spoke with the widow and her son, and then the director of the service asked if all the members of the family were present. The word was given to be yes. So they started closing the door. I realized my son and I should not be in there since we were not immediate or very close to the family so I proceeded to leave thinking my son would follow. He, not being familiar with these types of things, just assumed I was going to look for my brother so he stayed in the room with the family. He had only met the widow once before. I went on into the service area and took a seat wondering what in the world my son was doing. In retrospect it is a bit amusing for the awkwardness of it all.

    The other story I have is about the seating arrangement in the visitation area. Mostly I have seen chairs lining the walls, but at one location the chairs were placed as if it were a theater with rows designed for the viewing. I had never seen that arrangement before. Even stranger was the name of the funeral home which was Deadman’s. It is in the Pelham, Tn area.

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  5. Janice, I go for the more absurd and strange. I was not there I simply state, but locally someone attended a wake at a funeral home and while there had a heart attack and died.

    I have written before about the most beautiful funeral I ever attended. It was my Aunt Gabriella’s. She knew she was dying from cancer. She planned her own funeral down to the last details. She had been paralyzed the last 22 years of her life. She had calla lillies as her casket spray, she was in the dress she had worn to her daughter’s wedding, the minister who had baptized her as a child conducted her service and another of my uncles (by marriage) sang a song that broke everyone there down. I was sitting between my father and one of his brothers. I felt shaking on both sides of me and looked over to see tears flowing down my father’s face. I lost it to see Jimmy (John Wayne) sobbing.

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  7. The other part of the above story is that as she was dying won of the last things she wanted to eat and could tolerate was watermelon. Twice a week her big brother (my father) would go buy a watermelon from a local farm stand, cut it up and take it an hour away to her and sit by her bed feeding it to her. What makes this story most touching is when you picture my father you need to picture John Wayne with a cross to Jimmy Dean’s song Big John.

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  8. We are supposed to have some really severe weather today. I had a horrible dream where I called in sick to work so that I could go get my hair cut. I went to someone new who was going to razor cut it. When she got finished my hair was less than an inch long all over my head. Not only did I look horrible, it was going to be obvious to the people that I work with that I had lied about being sick and I was going to have to face them. HORRID!

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  10. Kim, when I was trying to come up with a question of the day I thought of asking if anyone had any bad haircut stories! I got one from you without even asking! And it was a dream, too.

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  12. Days of cold weather followed closely by warmer weather always makes me wary. After a week of frigid temps, it’s positively balmy outside–and we’re under a tornado warning until this afternoon. Give me the chill and take the tornado, any day of the week.

    Re funerals, I’ve been to way too many of those in the past 6 or 7 years. There’s a routine that is usually observed. People are different, but I have found that when grieving, the loving-kindness of even a complete stranger can be helpful. And while observance of etiquette can convey respect, attitude of heart is much more important. So don’t stress over an innocent faux pas.

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  13. My first day at Lackland AFB, they marched us into a barbershop. The barber took clippers and cut all my hair down to 1/8″. They charged me fifty cents for that. I knew they were going to cut it, but fifty cents for a five minute cut was atrocious.

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  14. Kim, funny dream. 🙂 Some women, though, really can carry off the short-short boy-cut (whether by choice or necessity) with finesse. It works well on very few, however.

    I’m trying to restrain my use of the heater after I nearly died (speaking of that topic) after seeing my most recent gas bill. Sheesh! But I did flip it on this morning, the indoor temp was in the low 50s. It’s my “early” day at work, but I got my salad for lunch all chopped and put together last night, so that helped.

    It’s talking to cops and dog show owners, judges & handlers for me today.

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  17. Makeitman, for me personally, it’s more important that a spouse do “his end” of the tasks than the extras. My husband takes out the trash, and he agreed before we married that he’d clean the toilet as long as I remind him when it needs to be done. A couple of times he has done it without being reminded, and I like that. When I cook an extra big meal (like the turkey I roasted yesterday), then he does the dishes, and sometimes he does them other times too. But if I had to choose between him taking out the trash (or mowing the lawn, in that season) and washing the dishes, I’d choose for him to do “his task.”

    For me, I really don’t think I’d like it if he never did the dishes. Though I see them as “my job,” I like a break from it. (We don’t have a dishwasher.) But a lot of women today fight for men to do half the housework, and they don’t think it’s fair if he doesn’t. (Mostly because she has chosen to work 40 hours a week. Now, if her husband insists that she work 40 hours and she’d prefer not to, then I think she’d have a point about the housework. If she’s choosing to work 40 hours when she could work 20 or not at all, then I think she can’t turn around and assume that her choice to work automatically gets her a “pass” on keeping up the home!) I really think that trying to get men to do 50% of the housework is a losing battle that’s guaranteed to keep both spouses unhappy. He probably won’t do it, and probably won’t do it up to her standards if he does (though my husband does them well), so why fight about it? And yeah, if he does manage to prove how good he does at the womanly stuff, she likely will see him as less of a man and less virile, so both of them have lost again.

    But hey, I’m one of those outmoded women who thinks feminism is bad for both parties, because it goes against the way God wired us. And I say that as a woman who doesn’t particularly like housework and isn’t that good at it.

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  18. I’ll do the dishes once in a while, take out the trash every week, and even clean “my” bathroom. And, of course I make a big deal out of it when I do so…. You expected any different from a guy who works 45 hours a week, and whose spouse is a full time housewife?

    Seriously, I’m thankful for a wife who keeps my life from turning into a giant hairball. And who has put up with me for the past 28 years.
    I denigrate no part of that.

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  19. That actually was the point of my helpmeet question yesterday. I feel like I’m working three different jobs these days and my husband also works hard, but from home and then is free in the evenings. I finally said to him yesterday, I’ve got a huge load of bricks pressing down on me and you’re playing computer games in the evening, couldn’t you pick up some of this burden for me?

    He’s a good guy. He finished dinner and asked several times how he could help. Which is a mercy because I’m screaming through a proposal and then I have to/get to write a first chapter on what could be a very exciting novel . . . due ASAP! 🙂

    In other self announcing news, A Log Cabin Christmas Collection is being rereleased in September–which means I’ll have four books releasing this year. Does anyone else see pressure gauges going up?

    But also, gratitude–when I have time to think about it! 🙂

    So, rejoice with me! And pick up your dishes! 🙂

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  20. Haircuts–if you could see my hair, you’d know I have little experience. But, one hairdresser told me he was halfway through a haircut in San Francisco in 1989 when the big earthquake hit. His client ran out of the salon and he never saw her again–but he always wondered whatever happened to the left side of her hair! 🙂

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  21. Thanks for your comments, MIM. They’re good reminders that I, as a full-time homemaker can be doing more for my hard-working husband. After having read The Five Love Languages recently, I’m pretty sure my hubby’s love language is acts of service; it would bless him for me to keep that in mind (and actually live it).

    The quote of the day was timely; I’ve been witnessing to a Mormon at another site, and have prayed that my confrontation would be both loving and truth-filled.

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  22. On the blog name, so far Hubby likes “needles and noodles” the best.

    We had tornado warnings this morning and they delayed opening the schools.

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  23. Our funeral homes all have the chairs facing one way and the casket or pictures etc. in the front. No chairs hugging the walls. I don’t know if one way or the other is dominant in different parts of the country.

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  24. The only time I’ve tried witnessing to a Mormon was the time we went on a follow up visit for a visitor. We got the wrong house or wrong address or something and ended up at the home of a divorced ex-Mormna and her children. She still believed but because of her divorce was no longer a member like her children. They invited us in and we had a nice civil conversation.

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  25. Michelle, before we married I explained to my husband that my work is definitely “ebb and flow” and that there are seasons I’m used to (as a single) doing little more than working and sleeping, that meals are taken at the desk and simply and the dishes stack up for a few days because I have a deadline.

    So now, married, I’ve had a couple of times I’ve told him, “This is one of those weeks that, if I was single, I’d have a sandwich at my desk instead of stopping to eat.” He’s OK with me making something very quick (canned soup or a sandwich) and not doing the dishes right away. (I’ll do them when I need a “break” or he’ll do them, whichever comes first.) Sometimes he will make a meal to give me a break. (He has two or three meals he likes to make, so he finds that a good excuse.) Since we need my income (which isn’t exactly large anyway), he’s fine with being flexible. And for me, I can’t work at the computer nonstop anyway; so even at heavy deadline season, I need my 10- or 15-minute breaks. Other seasons (like January), my load is light.

    I don’t think it would be good for either of us if I was working 60 hours a week every week, though. I do think my husband is supposed to be my first priority, and I’m committed to that.

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  26. I like the quote and believe it. The living it out is the challenge. Jesus certainly challenged the lies floating around when he was walking the earth, yet did it in love. Paul certainly challenges lies in his epistles and yet wrote one of the greatest discriptions of love to be found. Impossible without God’s help. We can renew our minds, spend time in prayer and practice loving so as to grow step by step better at it, yet we need God’s help and wisdom in each encounter. I struggle with it myself. It shows me how great is God’s mercy and grace to me.

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  27. Five inches of snow overnight…it is beautiful in the Forest this morning! 🙂
    Two weeks ago I took on a job outside of the home…it was exhausting and I had no desire to clean, cook, wash laundry etc when I came home…..Paul didn’t like coming home to an exhausted wife who didn’t feel like preparing his evening meal… (I did vacuum and clean the wood floors when I returned home…we have two dogs…that is one chore I could not ignore!) The kitchen is always clean, beds are always made, bathrooms always clean…however, after working outside of the home, my “normal” chores were daunting to me….
    Needless to say….I quit the job and went back to being a “sub”….I am now looking for something else in the school district to fill some time during my week, but not so much of my time that it takes all of my energy so as I neglect my tasks at home.
    Paul works hard….I do not expect him to take up my tasks….he does clear the drive when it snows, he takes out the trash, he executes the designs I envision for our home…he’s a great husband and “helpmeet”….I love housework…but, not so much when I work outside the home…. ( oh…and I happen to be OCD…kind of like Mr. Monk ) 🙂

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  28. 6Arrows…

    Hey, if there are children at home, it’s a whole different ball game. Husbands need to remember that the job isn’t done until at least the kids are in bed. So they need to help out, because their wives have been on call ever since they got up… so if they come home and play computer games or read the paper, or watch sports while mom is washing dishes or changing the diaper, in my opinion, they deserve what ever grief comes their way. I confess… I deserved it on many occasions.
    In my situation, you have to remember that the kids are grown up and out of the house. Keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. At least til the grandchildren come along. Which, doesn’t seem to be happening. 😦

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  29. Looks like we’re under a tornado watch here… I figured as much with the weather getting warm and humid in the middle of winter.

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  31. Kim, that must have been me. I just finished doing the bathrooms. Elvera can’t get down to do a good enough job on parts of the bathroom. Also, when the kitchen floors need a serious cleaning, I get that too.

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  32. We are being pounded by rain at the office now. I hope the weather will not be too bad. We heard there were 100 cars overturned on I75 north of Atlanta/

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  33. Now I really have seen everything. My rubber stamp with a “praying for you” theme was bought when I was single and definitely is a first person singular (“You are in my thoughts and in my prayers”) and I was looking to see if I can find one with just “Praying for you” (plural or singular), since my husband is consistent with praying for people.

    Anyway, googling “praying for you stamp” brought me this link:

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  34. I must be the real odd ball here. I love taking care of the kitchen, doing dishes and keeping the floor clean. I do other stuff to help Cindi around the home when I am there. Since I am getting older, I prefer snuggling and having Cindi near me more than making love.

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  35. You’re not an oddball Joe.

    I do all the cooking and most of the cleaning. My wife has bad asthma and cleaning products have a very bad effect on her. Or so she says….

    😆

    I’m kidding, it’s very real, I’ve seen it happen and I don’t like it. So I do it. But I love the cooking part. It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work too. But it’s got great rewards too. I get to eat, and I can control the menu.

    🙂

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  36. I enjoy cooking too. Anymore though, I have to be extremely careful for Cindi. Her stomach is very sensitive these days. Just about everything gives her fits in the stomach or aggravates her arthritis.

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  37. I have been a stay-at-home mom for 14 years. My youngest is in first grade. I do most of the housework, although I do have a woman who does the deep cleaning once a week, which I realize is a huge luxury. We have a pretty traditional split on maintaining the house. He does everything outside and I handle the inside! Sometimes, he’ll prepare dinner on the weekends if he’s in the mood to grill, which I love! Very little clean-up and tasty, healthy food. Hubby also helps out a lot when I have migraines, doing everything from picking up a few things at the grocery to fixing the seven-year olds hair! He is super supportive of me when I’m not feeling well. It sounds like most of the men on here are supportive of their wives.

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  38. I feel a little guilty about having a weekly housecleaner, but she started as our full-time nanny when I was incapacitated by severe, frequent migraines. Now she’s been with us for seven years and is like part of the family. I would genuinely miss seeing her and I hate to clean house. But, I do have a lot of free time now that both kids are in school full-time. I need to volunteer more, but sometimes am afraid to commit to something in advance when I don’t know if I’ll be sidelined by a migraine.

    My brother-in-law was laid off from Google last week. SIL is not currently working. They have two small boys (4 and 2). They lost all their savings when their condo went into a short sale last year. They are not believers. Please pray God would use this difficult time to draw them to Him.

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  39. AMNS Have you heard of intra-cranial hyper tension? I friend of mine has suffered migraines for years. She started having some ision problems and the opthamologist caught some spots that suggested this which can be treated various ways. Hopefully they have caught it in time so that she will not have any permanent vision problems.

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  41. KBells — hey! needles & noodles! I recognize that one 🙂 (Shameless self-plug.) 😉

    AnnMS — I wouldn’t feel guilty about having your weekly housecleaner. It’s not what she does for you, it’s who she is to you. You’re maintaining a very special relationship, and life is all about relationships. Enjoy the connection you have with her without guilt. 😉

    MIM — thanks. Yes, it’s a different game when children are at home, particularly when they are very young — infants, toddlers, anything involving diapers, potty training, you know 😉

    On the other hand, we’re past the diaper stage in our household and into the TWO LOOSE TEETH stage 🙂 with the youngest arrow. As the children get older (and two of them have reached adulthood) and are increasingly less dependent on me as far as getting their physical needs met, I am freed up to do more of the things I had to let slide when there were babies and toddlers in the house. And setting a good example with my own work ethic is very important. What I SAY to the children makes less of an impression on them than what I DO. They take note of example more and more as they get older.

    My husband has been a hard worker his whole life. It’s natural to him, almost to a fault; he can’t relax until the work is done, but the work is never done. So it’s hard for him to just let things go sometimes. 😦

    I, OTOH, let too many things go. I was not trained in a good work ethic growing up, and it’s been a struggle changing the bad habits that got ingrained in childhood, and seeing the disparity between my husband’s work habits and mine.

    I was able to overcome the bad work ethic to a degree each time I had a baby. Babies take a lot of work (and you know that 😉 ), and I spent a lot of time with my babies (except 1st Arrow for his first three years, as I worked outside the home nearly full time). But as each child grew to be less dependent on me, I found myself slipping back into my leisurely ways. Having a new baby (my children are mostly about 3 to 4 years apart from one to the next) always made me feel like I could make a fresh start at being better about serving others rather than myself.

    Now I’m 50 years old, the babies are probably done coming 😦 and my husband needs me to serve him more than ever with his horrendous work hours. It’s the loving thing to do, and it’s doable, but boy is it hard some days. 😦

    The children need homeschooling, it is true, but the oldest two school-age children are able to see to a lot of their education independently. So I am homeschooling mainly only the youngest two (and quite informally with the youngest, who is five). In other words, I do have time to be doing things for my husband, and many children to whom I can delegate tasks to assist in the running of the household, that we may take pressure off my husband. However, we fail sometimes, and when things don’t get done around here that my husband thinks should have been done, he’ll do it himself. He assumes a large share of the burden the times we fall down on the job, and it’s hard on him, despite his having gotten used to working hard all his life. He’s showing the effects of all that wear-and-tear, and I’ll be darned if I can motivate myself to CONSISTENTLY work to ease his burden. I didn’t think I’d still be struggling with this at my age and the ages of our kids. 😦

    Sorry so negative.

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  42. My husband and I are oddballs I guess. He has a problem with his C-6 and C-7 vertibra in his neck which makes some work difficult to do. So I do most of the yardwork, plumbing, heavy lifting and mechanical stuff (think about the crazy positions you have to get in for some of that) and he does a lot of the dishes vacuuming, etc. It all works out. I cook dinner M-F, but he loves to cook so he does it on the weekends.

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  44. Husband and I don’t split the work either. Neither of us has time for a perfect house and we both pitch in where we see a need. He has allergies so I do the yard work and animal care, but most of that, like the house work, is just supervision. If there is a child in the house over ten years of age, the parents don’t need to do house chores. Though they can if they want.

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  45. Crazy weather here too. Yesterday it was very warm (a couple of cities around here set records). Today the schools closed due to snow, though the storm wasn’t as bad as predicted – the rain didn’t turn to sleet during the night the way they feared and the snow accumulation was less than predicted. But it was nasty driving to work this morning, before the snowplows had been through on the highway.

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  46. Oh, and that balmy weather yesterday (that’s how my co-worker described it, though I don’t think 50’s quite qualifies) was two days after churches were closed due to ice Sunday morning.

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  49. Beautiful video you posted this morning, Kim. I just watched it now, and it was nice and peaceful for late in the day.

    I always lose it, too, when I’m at a funeral and see someone else crying, especially someone who is usually composed. I try not to look at anyone, to try to keep relatively composed myself, but it never works. I hear someone crying, or I see or feel shoulders shaking in front of or next to me, as you said. Then it gets to be too much.

    I should just try to be myself, but I think I get too emotional, and then I try to suppress it. Probably not a good idea, but it’s instinctively what I do. 😦

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  50. AJ- at least your getting warmer. It was 65° here yesterday, a record that was 30° above normal. And the “low” two nights ago was 53! Today the temp dropped all day and is now at 25°. Tomorrow night it is supposed to be 1° with a -10 windchill. That is over 60° drop in two days!

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  52. 6 Arrows,

    I don’t see a pic in Cheryl’s post, just the link.

    Peter,

    Yeah, 62 today, but now rain all night, 42 tomorrow, and high 20’s Friday. My knees and shoulder are killin’ me. They don’t like hard swings in temperature.

    😦

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  57. 6 arrows: I, too, tend to be “overly-emotional”. I cry easily. I rejoice easily. My kids sometimes tease me about it. I try not to cry, but a little still leaks through and my voice becomes shaky — you know the drill. Often, I’m crying tears of joy, not sorrow. Things just seem to touch me so deeply. I’m a sensitive soul. I sometimes wish I were a bit more stoic, like my husband. Perhaps we balance each other out in our extremes.

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  58. Thanks for all of the kind words regarding my guilt. I guess it just seems like such a luxury when I know so many people who are struggling right now. However, our “nanny” really counts on the income from us, so it’d be hard on her for us to let her go. And, truth be told, it’d be hard on me. She’s picked up my kids on her day off when I had a minor emergency and this weekend she’s keeping the kids so hubby and I can get away for the weekend at the ranch. We’re celebrating my birthday a little early. I’m really looking forward to it!

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  59. I guess everyone is sleeping. I should be, but I’m not sleepy at all. Everything is quiet at my house, but I’m wide awake. 5:45 is going to come too soon tomorrow morning….

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  60. Oh, yes, Ann, I know the drill 😉 Family read-alouds get to be killers sometimes, too, if I know something sad, or very moving and joyful, is coming and I’m the one doing the reading. I usually have to have someone else read at that point. 🙂

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