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Our Daily Thread 11-21-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1620 the Mayflower reached Provincetown, MA.

In 1789 North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1877 Thomas A. Edison announced the invention of his phonograph.

In 1922 Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve as a member of the U.S. Senate.

In 1942 the Alaska highway across Canada was formally opened. 

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, arrived in San Antonio, TX. They were beginning an ill-fated, two-day tour of Texas that would end in Dallas.

And in 1980 an estimated 83 million viewers tuned in to find out “who shot J.R.” on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas.

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Quote of the Day

“In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.”

François-Marie Arouet

Voltaire

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Today is Steven Curtis Chapman’s birthday. From Taylor Guitars

It’s also Christian Crowe’s of All Star United.

And on this day in 1960 George Harrison was deported from Germany after being told he was too young to perform with the Beatles.

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Anyone have a QoD?

105 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-21-13”

  1. I enjoyed touring the replica of the Mayflower. Hard to imagine it filled with all the crew and passengers. Thursday is almost over here.
    Had to help my students learn the meaning of the word ‘damp’ today. Of course that meant they had to get slightly wet!

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  4. Chas,

    The characters name was Kristin Shepard, played by Mary Crosby. She was Sue Ellen’s sister.
    She had an affair with JR and got pregnant but lost the baby. She then married a drug dealer, had another kid, and then got high on PCP and drowned in the Southfork pool. Her drug dealer husband then sold the baby to JR’s brother Bobby Ewing who adopted him.

    I had no idea the details were so sordid. No wonder I never watched it. 🙄

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Shepard

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  5. My old cat is chasing her tail. She does that in the morning sometimes. But most of the time she just sits on the bed and glares at anyone, man or beast, who isn’t Hubby.

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  6. Sounds more like a soap opera. I heard lots of talk about Dallas, but never watched it.
    When we lived in Annandale, we lived in a split level and the large TV set was on the lower level. You had to “go to watch tv” when you saw TV. There was a 12″ set in our bed room, but it was seldom on. So, unlike here, we never watched TV while eating or doing anything else but watching tv. We turned a small BR into an office for me. It was too small for the computer. So, I had to go out to use the computer too. There are advantages in that.
    Here the computer is TOO convienient. I can be reading, or doing something important. Next thing I know, I’m on a blog or playing free cell.

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  7. Recently they did a remake of Dallas with the younger generation. I tried to watch it but just couldn’t make myself.

    Downtown has Bradford Pears planted all along the sidewalks, for weeks city workers have been stringing thousands of white lights in the trees. Tonight they will close off the streets in the center of town and turn on the lights. The high school choir will sing Christmas carols and hot chocolate will be available. The downtown restaurants will have specials for the Tree Lighting. The trees will stay lit until sometime over in the Spring when the trees start to bud out and the city workers will take them all down until next November.

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  8. I wrote a blog post several years ago which includes a photo of my husband holding the tiller of the Mayflower–basically a long pole. Amazing: http://bit.ly/1e300oC

    I was out of action yesterday with a strange fever–no energy, burning up and I slept most of the day. I was so weak, my husband had to drive me to the bank so I could make some deposits for work. I stood in line propped up against a counter. No brain, no energy, no appetite, very strange.

    All I could think of is, “I need to give my heroine a mysterious fever like this since I now know how to describe it! 🙂

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  11. 😆 Our neighbor already has a Christmas decoration up. He’s a good guy. I know he doesn’t mean for it to look like Santa is hanging by his neck, but that’s the effect from here.

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  13. My husband laughed, too, Chas. We have the neighbor who puts up Frosty the Snowman every year and we always joke about Frosty having too much eggnog so that he becomes Tipsy.

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  15. Kim the event in your town seems totally fitting for ours today…it’s cold outside baby and we have 3 inches of snow thus far…a wintery wonderland…we are staying home..the roads are icy and people are sliding all over the place…and they didn’t call off school…nor even a delay…not worth it! I’m listening to Christmas music and putting out decorations bit by bit…today I think I’ll make a new wreath for the front door…

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  17. Janice, Olaski finished by saying what I was thinking while I read the article:

    “Wouldn’t it be better for elephants (and our national debt) to have sold that ivory, thus increasing supply, which means lower prices, which means less incentive to kill more elephants? We need tough anti-poaching measures and reduced economic incentive to break the law. Gestures that make us feel good don’t save elephants.”

    I don’t know what happened to it, but when I was a kid; that was in the 1930’s, my mother had an ivory dresser set. A comb, morror and hairbrush all made of ivory. I think the morror broke and the set was thrown out. But I’m not sure of that.
    It would be valuable today. Lots of things that were trivial then are valuable today.

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  20. We have a huge candle, about 100 feet tall, that lights up. They do lights on the lamp posts too. It’s in the circle in downtown, they actually build it around a monument. The lighting is the Friday after Thanksgiving.

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  21. Lee is now wondering if he didn’t clearly hear from God about taking this route. At the time, he thought the great fear he felt upon waking every morning prior to signing the papers was from the enemy. Now he’s wondering if that was from God, trying to dissuade him from buying the route.

    At the time, I didn’t have the usual “niggling”, as I call it, warning in my gut I’ve had in the past when a plan was not of God. However, there was a lot going on, & in some ways I felt kind of numb to the whole thing. But when the truck was thrown into the deal at the last minute (the seller was desperate to get it off his property), I thought that seemed like God’s favor.

    How do you determine the difference between unfounded fear & God’s warning? Somehow, I don’t think God’s warning would involve fear in a cold sweat, but am I wrong about that?

    The route has turned out to be not as lucrative as he thought it would be, we have a lot of “business debt” from buying the route, & are kind of just getting by. He gets up at midnight, works very long hours delivering the products, & then has ordering & paperwork to do. And he even has to go out on his days off for a few hours to “pack out” (making sure the shelves are full). He’s 58 years old, & the loans will all finally be paid off when he’s 68.

    Sometimes he gets very, very discouraged & down. As we prayed together recently, he expressed that, every now & then, he awakens with a feeling of dread, not wanting to face the route & its deliveries, “…& that’s just not like me. It’s not like me.” He is not afraid of hard work or long hours, but the added pressure & stress are really wearing on him.

    We have no idea what the answer is. If he sold the route, he doesn’t think he would get what he paid for it, which would leave us with considerable debt to pay off. And how is a 58 year old man supposed to find a job that pays well enough these days?

    (More on prayer thread.)

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  22. Good morning. Either I slept wrong or I was online too much yesterday (or maybe both), but I have a stiff neck and shoulder today. Lots of hot button topics lately, both here and my other usual online hangout (discussing birth control and abortion at the other one). I need a quiet day with my arrows today.

    You all have a blessed day.

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  23. Karen, I’m so sorry. I was a bread truck mechanic in another job. I watched those route drivers work from the wee hours of the morning until almost dark… And when they had to buy the routes, I said that’s the last thing I’d ever do. If you figure the hourly pay, then you get a really clear picture.

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  24. Yesterday I asked about a book on child rearing. I took a look on our bookshelf. Turns out we have a book similarly titled, but it’s by a different author: Train Up a Child; a Guide to Successful Parenting, by Nancy Van Pelt.

    That one I can recommend.

    It was curious to me that yesterday we had one detractor and one supporter of the Pearl’s book on childrearing. Made me realize that one has to read these things for oneself, and determine one’s own opinion.

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  25. Chas, I loved the kids-in-the-pumpkin-patch pictures. 🙂 Amazed, too, at all the big alligator decals (I know, it’s a football thing).

    It rained much of the night last night, which was a wonderful sound. We so need it. And now my car will be clean, too!

    michelle, are you feeling better? Sounds like flu symptoms.

    Karen, I’m so sorry for the stress and uncertainty. That’s a tough one. The crazy hours alone would do me in, but I’m guessing he had that kind of shift when he worked for Hostess. I’ll be praying for direction.

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  27. Karen, I have not heard anything lately about the tenants situation. Would they be able to help out with the paperwork or something with the route business as a way of “bartering” for rent payment?:

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  28. Janice – Not really. Emily can help with the paperwork, & I intend to eventually take it over, but the ordering (which he does online) is something he has to do himself.

    We & our tenants have an agreement that they will move by the end of January. As I mentioned on the prayer thread, I am hoping – & praying! – it will be sooner than that.

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  31. Karen, a few weeks before my wedding I woke up a few times with worried thoughts running through my mind: What if I don’t like being married? What if I don’t enjoy sex? What if being a stepmother proves too difficult? What happens if he is much harder to live with than I anticipate?

    It never occurred to me to ask whether the fears were from God or from Satan; rather, I went through what I knew to be true (that this was a good man, that life isn’t always easy but that wasn’t why I was marrying, etc.). I knew that bridal jitters are common, and looking at them realistically helped me to set them aside.

    I can’t even tell you how many times just in the last two or three weeks I’ve had this conversation with someone, or heard (or read of) someone saying, “This seemed to be from God” or “He told me God said this . . .” and now it isn’t clear.

    My parents sometimes took circumstances as proof that God wanted us to do something, or didn’t want us to do something. But I really just don’t think God works that way. Absolutely He can clear a path, or He can close a door. But He tells us to weigh things out and seek counsel, not to seek “shortcuts” of having Him make the decision and tell us what it is. If it’s clearly sin, then we are not to do it. But sometimes it’s just a matter of is this the best decision, or not. For that, we can find principles in God’s Word, but not specific advice. We are told to seek counsel. Weighing options, writing lists of pros and cons for various options, asking advice from experts, those are tried-and-true ways to make good decisions.

    But sometimes the most careful decision ends, in our eyes, badly. A fiance dies a week before you were to marry him. A new home burns to the ground. You try for years for a baby, and end up with a stillbirth. God doesn’t spare us from trials.

    But may He give all of you patience in this trying time, and may your husband have wisdom as to the next step!

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  32. As you all knowl, this time of year we get ready for lots of people to come to our house for the annual Christmas dinner. It is on 30 November this year.
    I have been busy at it, I got the downstairs ready for her to put up the Christmas decorations.
    And Elvera is making goodies for everyone.
    I am the official taster. 🙂

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  36. Karen, I read your post early while I was at work and was mulling over how to respond to you. I logged in and found that Cheryl did a good job of it.
    I was always taught that you did the will of God by doing the will of God. You take what you feel are the right steps and you pray that you are taking the right steps. Sometimes you tell your friends you have a decision to make and ask them to pray that you make the right decision.
    I, myself, have never gotten a clear answer from God saying I should or shouldn’t do something.

    You and Lee prayerfully made this decision. I have faith you will continue to make the right decisions as you move forward.

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  37. I find that one of the ways I determine His will is, after much prayer and some counsel, do I have peace. I find that He gives perfect peace when it is His leading. That’s not to say I won’t dish up a bit of worry later, but His peace is evident.
    Even praying for I shop and having peace about buying or not buying. It is a wonderful thing.

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  43. Breaking News!
    The wolly worms are forecasting a hard winter for the mountains this year.
    Some around here trust the wolly worms and pinecones more than meteriologists.

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  44. About discerning God’s will on any given decision — what Cheryl said.

    We pray, we make the best (and most biblically informed) decision we can. (And that doesn’t always mean the path will be an easy one, but it certainly doesn’t mean we’ve somehow gone against what God wanted us to do).

    Typically it’s only when we look back that we can see God’s hand in a particular course we’ve taken and how it was woven into the bigger picture of our lives.

    http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/gods-will-and-your-job/

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  47. I don’t like this “reply” feature thingy. It’s easier, & less time-consuming, to read comments in line rather than keep going back through the thread to check for replies.

    Don’t mess with perfection, AJ!

    If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or, as I once accidentally said it, If it ain’t fixed, don’t broke it. 🙂

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  50. An acquaintance of mine posted a plea for help or a suicide note on FB today. I just read he has been found and is OK. He is currently sleeping. Not sure of the details, but you should have seen the 200-300 posts to him from friends begging him not to do anything stupid.

    Unfortunately the Holidays see to get to people. He has served in Afghanistan. Not sure what the details were, but please keep JH in your prayers and that he will know he has lots and lots of friends who care

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  51. we are going to start preparations tomorrow, for our early Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I think there are going to be around thirty here. I am glad my children cook.

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  56. What a mixed up thread this is today. I would call it jumbled numbers, but according to the top, this is 98. Since it is still only close to 5 pm here, I will take my time. 🙂

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