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Our Daily Thread 11-25-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1783, during the Revolutionary War, the British evacuated New York. New York was their last military position in the U.S.

In 1850 Texas relinquished one-third of its territory in exchange for $10 million from the U.S. to pay its public debts and settle border disputes.

In 1867 Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. 

In 1884 J.B. Meyenberg received the patent for evaporated milk.

In 1920 the first play-by-play broadcast of a football game was aired in College Station, TX. The game was between the University of Texas and Texas A&M.

And in 1986 President Reagan and Attorney Gen. Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to rebels in Nicaragua. National Security Advisor John Poindexter resigned and Oliver North was fired.

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Quote of the Day

“It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated… it is finished when it surrenders.”

Ben Stein

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Today is Amy Grant’s birthday, so here she is with Michael W. Smith.

It’s also Bev Bevan’s.

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Anyone have a QoD?

39 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-25-13”

  1. Somebody in this house overslept this morning. And we’re still waiting on ol’ slowpoke.
    I was going through old pictures, writing on the back who the people are and situation. I couldn’t figure out this group. So I gave it to Elvera. She didn’t know either. She said, “It must have been in 1967 because that’s when I had that dress.” 😯
    😉

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  4. KBells,

    New Mexico? Or maybe Missouri. Both I think, but who knows?

    Does that answer your question? 🙂

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1850

    “The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas, avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict for four years.

    The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions.

    Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, over which it had threatened war, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transferred its crushing public debt to the federal government, and retained the control over El Paso that it had established earlier in 1850, with the Texas Panhandle (which earlier compromise proposals had detached from Texas) thrown in at the last moment.

    California’s application for admission as a free state with its current boundaries was approved and a Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35° north to provide a Southern territory was not approved.

    The South avoided adoption of the symbolically significant Wilmot Proviso[1] and the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory could in principle decide in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty), even though Utah and a northern fringe of New Mexico were north of the Missouri Compromise Line where slavery had previously been banned in territories. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their existing settlers were non-Southerners uninterested in slavery. The unsettled southern parts of New Mexico Territory, where Southern hopes for expansion had been centered, remained a part of New Mexico instead of becoming a separate territory.”

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  5. Linda, I can’t remember when I had which piece of clothing. I just know which ones I have had for a long time and I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that I can still wear them. 🙂 😦 Same faces Chas made.

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  6. Finally I think I am on here. I posted earlier, but nothing took. I kept getting internet explorer cannot display the page. Frustrating. Finally I just rebooted and hope the problem is gone.
    Pumpkin pies are cooling and it is time for bed.

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  8. Another chilly morning here. I like Mr. P’s friend. He is an easy houseguest to have.

    I have lots of pictures that I don’t know who they are. I have a few clues but most of the people who could really tell me are now gone. Perhaps I will upgrade that membership to Ancestry dot com and figure some of this stuff out. I tried once but it became confusing because wives died and husbands married sister in laws.

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  10. Good Morning…it is 24 degrees and lightly snowing…we haven’t seen the sun in four days and it’s getting on people’s nerves….we like the sunshine here and when we don’t see it for a while, well, some people get a bit testy !
    I’m like Elvera…I date photo’s by the clothing…I really should have written the dates on photos…now it seems everything is on the computer and is automatically date stamped….I do miss developing the film and picking up the package of photos..but, I don’t have to throw away photos any longer…I just hit “delete”!

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  11. It’s very, very cold here.

    I definitely “get” dating a photograph by an outfit. Or a hairstyle, hair length or eyeglass frames. Or shoes. 🙂 Such a female thing, I guess.

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  12. Donna,

    Cold in Cali? Really?

    Try single digits like we had this morning. 😯 What you folks call cold we call Fall here in the East.

    It’s not as bad as Kare’s -24 the other day, but it’s still cold.

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  13. Our electricity was out yesterday from 3:00 in the afternoon to 9:00 in the evening. It was very cold & windy outside, so we all bundled up as much as we could, & brought out the candles as dusk came on.

    R, whose power was still on, called from where he lives a couple towns away, having heard about the outage, & insisted that Forrest stay at his place overnight, because the temps were going to be very low at night. But of course, he needed Emily to drive Forrest over there (about 1/2 an hour’s drive), & she needs to pick him up again today.

    Sadly, Forrest said he didn’t want to stay at Daddy’s house, & when Emily dropped him off & had to leave, he cried. Breaks a Mimi’s heart!

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  16. Hmm, I generally wear clothes for a number of years, and so you’ll see me in photos fifteen or twenty years apart wearing the same clothes. I’ve even had a couple portraits made wearing a sweater we bought when I was in junior high. But I suppose if I had an outfit I actually don’t like very much, I might end up wearing it only a couple of times and then giving it to someone who likes it better.

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  18. Kim, I can’t wear the same pants or skirts I wore twenty years ago (or three years ago, for that matter), but I can wear blouses or sweaters I wore thirty years ago, as long as the shoulders weren’t snug. I can barely get into the “jacket” of my wedding dress from just two years ago for that reason, but generally sweaters still fit. I still have a sweatshirt I bought to go to college (1989) and still wear it quite often.

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  20. So is anybody dealing with this storm now, and how bad is it? It should arrive here tomorrow into Wed.. They say a lot of rain south and east, but we in the Lehigh Valley always ride the ice snow line. We’ll see. I have rock salt, so I’m good either way.

    As long as the power doesn’t go. I hate when that happens.

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  21. It was funny recently when I wanted to show someone a picture of my mother from when our family had a portrait done for her church directory. My son was probably five in the picture. Anyway, this year, 2013, I was wearing the same jacket on the day I was going to show the picture of my mom and I had the jacket on in the picture (son is 24 and a half now). Some clothing is timeless. I was surprised a few years ago when one of the girls in Sunday School class said she liked the jacket. That made me thinik that I had made a good choice in keeping it. I took the shoulder pads out of it to update it. I think it is the only thing I have been complimented on by one of the younger set.

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  23. Here it is still not cold, I will freeze at Christmas. However we got some torrential rain last night. So nice. It hadn’t rained for a week or more and the gravel had come up out of the roads making it very difficult to walk the hills. No paved roads on centre and it is interesting to see how much the roads change depending on the rain. But… no ice to deal with! Just mud and rocks! 🙂

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  24. When everyone is relatively prosperous, “vintage” may be in style.
    When everyone is poor, you don’t want to be seen on old clothes.
    I wore old clothes anyhow. Elvera did too. Her aunt bought some cloth and made dresses for Elvera’s two sisters and her. Three girls wearing the same dresses. As Elvera grew up, she had to wear the older sister’s clothes. She went through high school in the same dress.
    She is very sensitive about clothes now. Always has been.
    You can see why. Not only was her family poor, they were backward socially.
    Her younger sister is worse than she is. She always wants to be on the edge WRT style.
    Mine family was poor, but always knew what it was supposed to be. My dad stayed poor trying to keep up.
    Elvera and I never worried about keeping up.

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  25. Emily asked three people to write brief letters of reference for her admission into the school where she will be studying to be a practical nurse (LPN). (Her goal is to then go on to be an RN, & then a lactation consultant.)

    As she was putting them together for her appointment at the school this morning, I asked if I could read the other two (I wrote one).

    I wish I hadn’t read my sister-in-law’s letter. It was an emotional punch in the gut.

    In trying to show Emily’s intelligence & perseverance, related to her studying for & being awarded her GED with high honors (which equals a state high school diploma), SIL wrote, “Ineffectively homeschooled, Emily…”

    That really wasn’t necessary. It is partially true (Emily was a challenge), but it still wasn’t necessary. It really wasn’t.

    And it hurts.

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  27. Karen, my dear, sweet Karen, there is a book called Safe People by the same author as Boundaries. The authors are Christian and come from a Christian point of view but this book helps you identify who is your life is a “safe” person and who is an “unsafe” person. A therapist recommended this book to me several years ago. I am recommending it to you. You need to block the unsafe people from your life and only interact with safe people.

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  29. Guess, I am not sure why your SIL wrote that, Karen, except to hurt you and possibly ingratiate herself with YOUR daughter. Both are wrong reasons and say a lot about her. There was no reason such a thing was needed, no matter what her supposed reason. You have a right to be hurt. The Evil One knows what hurts you. Take it to your Heavenly Father. He understands. Your SIL obviously needs prayer, too. My sympathy to you.

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  30. Karen, I agree with Kim. Ask yourself why your husband’s sister is important in your life.
    I wouldn’t mention to anyone else that you were hurt by that. Especially not SIL, Emily or your husband. For SIL, it gives her ammunition if she wants to use it because you told her what sort of thing hurts. Not husband nor Emily because it creates an issue where there is none.

    I see no way you can gain anything by making an issue of this. Be thankful that Emily can get into the LPN program. Try to forget it. But be on your guard for similar things.
    She may not know that you know what she wrote. It wasn’t directed toward you.

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  31. As much as it grates me to say this, we really do teach people how to treat us. SIL has aimed her poison arrows at you many times before and has hurt you. She continues to do it because SHE CAN.
    Several people on FB have recently posted a trite little saying about it is none of your business what others think of you. Burns me up! Especially because it is mostly true.

    You have lost your brother. Accept it and don’t let it rob you of your joy.

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  32. A different possibility on the reference: I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your SIL; myabe it has always been iffy and she pokes at you. But I personally try to look for an option of what might have been a positive reason someone did something. (For example, after my brother-in-law died, their pastor quoted something my brother-in-law had said, and my sister said, “My husband wouldn’t have said that, since he didn’t believe that.” She thought the pastor was lying. I suggested maybe someone else had said it, and the pastor mistakenly remembered it as something her husband had said, and my sister thought that a very real possibility, and a better option since it would mean her pastor hadn’t been lying, just accidentally misattributing.)

    Anyway, how is this for a possibility: When references have been written for me, I usually have never seen them, nor have any references I’ve written been seen by the person I was writing the reference for. Is there a possibility your sister-in-law wrote the reference thinking that only the company would see it? In other words, that she was just writing something she believed to be true, not writing something she meant to be hurtful? I’ve said of someone in my own life that she wasn’t a very good homeschooling mom, but it was just factual not insulting. It simply wasn’t her strength, but she had so many other strong areas that to comment on one weak one isn’t to condemn. And if schooling is “ineffective,” it really could well mean it wasn’t the right type of schooling for that student, not that the teacher was a bad teacher. My own younger brother is brilliant, but learned to read quite late since his mind works differently and his teachers weren’t sure how to teach him.

    Again, if your sister-in-law is willfully mean on a regular basis, this might be just one more thing of many. But if she is usually kind, then that might be a way to give her the benefit of the doubt and limit your own sense of hurt.

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  33. On another note, we had a bit of good news today. Maybe. Somebody went onto my dad’s property and stole a bunch of wood but they were caught by a neighbor. The police found them and confiscated the wood. My dad does not burn wood so was trying to think of what to do with it. My brother suggested it would be a big help to us (it would be as things have not gone according to schedule since the summer events. We are low on firewood so it would be a big help to us. His land is too far for us to drive and spend a lot of time getting firewood, but since it is already cut and off the property into easier access, we can do it without a large financial outlay. As one child said, that is an answer to prayer!

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  34. Too late, Chas, as I already mentioned it to Emily & to Lee. (SIL is my brother’s wife, BTW.) But I will not tell SIL I read it.

    Kim, in recent years, we would only see each other a couple times a year, & communicate via email occasionally. Through the years, we’ve had a loving relationship, but with some tensions. SIL has said some hurtful things throughout the years. But usually when we all got together for family celebrations, we’d have a lot of fun.

    Although I agree that we need to keep some emotional distance from “unsafe people”, I also think that as Christians we can’t isolate ourselves from them, especially when they are related to us. God often works in us through our difficult relationships. But of course, it probably depends on just how unsafe they are.

    Kathaleena – Thank you. I spent some time this evening talking to Father God about it, & asking Him to help me forgive her.

    Cheryl – I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. SIL had mentioned what she sees as my failure as a homeschooler in an email to me several months (or over a year?) ago, & she has been occasionally critical of me in the past. She may not have expected me to read her reference, but she knew it would be in the open in my house, so there was a good chance I’d see it. But even if she thought I’d never see it, it still strikes me as quite unnecessary, to say the least.

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  35. I just got to read the posts and as a former homeschool mom I take offense regarding that judgemental statement made about a sister in Christ. So many factors play into homeschooling and it is only an indication of ignorance that someone could make such a statement. Even as mainstream as homeschooling is, I still hear the same old criticism about socialization. I have come to the conclusion that some people can only justify their own choices by putting down the choices of others. When these ridiculous comments are in our pathway the best thing to do is sprinkle them with salt to make them palatable and then add a spoonful of sugar to counter any bitter after taste. Also a prayer for the blessing of forgetfulness helps, too. The true ineffectiveness in the overall picture is the SIL’s ability to see the whole picture and judge correctly.

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  36. Janice, I would think that a person who would say “ineffectively homeschooled” wouldn’t assume all homeschooling was ineffective or the adjective would be redundant. She was saying that it didn’t work for this child (whatever the reason). That’s how I would read it. In fact, if she had said “Homeschooled Emily had a deficit” I would assume she was saying bad things about homeschooling, but “ineffectively homeschooled” suggested that it would also be possible to say “effectively homeschooled.” It’s like the difference between those who say someone went to a public school (or “government school”) just to prove that their education had to be bad–I have such people in my family–and those who mention it simply as a fact.

    Karen, I’m sorry she has been critical, and it hardly seems helpful. What can you do about it now, even if you did do it badly (in her opinion)? One might as well tut-tut “if only you had homeschooled like we did, your kids wouldn’t have had those problems. Maybe, maybe not–but can we change the past?

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  37. Sorry, “the adverb,” not the adjective. Homeschoolers can blame such errors on my public school education (grades one to eight), public school defendants on my years outside the public school (kindergarten in a private school and high school by correspondence), and atheists can blame my Bible college degree. . . .

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  38. Cheryl, I was not taking it as an offense to the quality of all homeschooling. I was taking it more as an offense in the general way of all homeschooling moms being under the greatest scrutiny because they are such an easy and obvious target. With all other schools there are layers of educators to filter through along with the President of the nation on down in the public schools, but homeschool moms get the whole pile of blame for whatever people get it in their heads to see as a deficit in the child. My son is quiet therefore some would say he lacked socialization because his mom homeschooled him. That is the kind of thing I am offended by. People do tend to pick on homeschool moms. My heart goes out to them.

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  39. Janice, that’s probably largely true. But the tide is turning and homeschooling is more and more being seen as a sacrifice by the mom that (frequently) results in a much better education. Definitely not everyone should homeschool, and not every child will do well with that option, but for many families it is the best option.

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