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Our Daily Thread 12-17-13

Good Morning!

Only 8 Days Until Christmas!

On this day in 1777 France recognized American independence.

In 1791 a traffic regulation in New York City established the first street to go “One Way.”

In 1903 the first successful gasoline-powered airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the flight.

In 1944 the U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast which ensured that Japanese-Americans were released from detention camps.

And in 1969 the U.S. Air Force closed its Project “Blue Book” by concluding that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

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Quote of the Day

“Once a nation parts with the control of its credit, it matters not who makes the laws.”

William Lyon Mackenzie King

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First up today, some PianoGuys.

Next up, a request for David Meece.

And on today’s date in 1892 Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” was first performed. Some say it may have been tomorrow’s date, but I’m going with today.

The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

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Anyone have a QoD?

67 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-17-13”

  2. Today is (not so) Worthless Nephew’s Birthday. Last night I sent him a text with Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you. You look like a monkey and you act like one too! He texted back that it never got old. He is 27 today. I have recently told him that I am very proud of the man he has become. It took him a while to get there, but I am a proud aunt.
    Sometimes BG makes the exact same facial expressions of Nephew. Fortunately he was born a little old man. He keeps an eye on his Cousin Girl. Sometimes he will send me a text and tell me she can or can’t have or do something.
    I have lots of ground to cover today. I have to pick up and deliver checks from yesterday’s closing. I really need to attend a Heart Association Fundraiser meeting. I may have to show property this afternoon. I am supposed to be in Pensacola at 5pm for a Christmas party.
    I need to finish cleaning my house. We are just a little more than 24 hours out on Middle Son arriving. I have more door prizes to pick up for the company Chirstmas party and I need to clear my schedule to throw that together Thursday night.
    I have gotten about $700 worth of door prizes donated, plus one of our vendors paid for the location and another paid for the alcohol. All I really have had to pay for is the food. Not too shabby on a thousand dollar budget.

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  3. I’m always amazed how those little girls can dance around on their tip-toes. I’m sure they have special shoes, but still?
    And one of the guys standing like statues on the side moved. Did you see that? He moved.
    I would have moved first thing.

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  5. It’s just me and Kim today. Anonymous showed up on the prayer thread asking us to remember our travelers I hope the ones we’re thinking of are at their place by now.
    Chet Atkins has a song called “Together Alone”. I don’t know who wrote it, but it’s an interesting concept. But Kim has headed out to do things. Maybe it’s just me now.
    😦

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  8. I’m here, too. I have a surprise at home day. I don’t even think I’ll drive the car! I have time and space to be quiet, think, read, wrap gifts and do nothing with only a blog deadline.

    Luxury. A gift to me! 🙂

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  9. Kim – Since you are an only child, should I assume “(not so) Worthless Nephew” is your nephew through your marriage to George? If so, that is sweet that you still consider him your nephew.

    My one-&-only sibling, my brother C, not only doesn’t keep in touch with me, he also doesn’t have anything to do with his beautiful nieces, nor with his adorable grandnephew, Forrest. Forrest is three now, but C hasn’t seen him since he was less than a year old. 😦

    I love to hear stories of non-blood relatives who remain “relatives” after a divorce.

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  10. The days are humming along, going almost as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. I still have to do Christmas cards. Want to make cranberry stuff to have with a pork loin roast for a festive before Christmas treat. When I told husband, he said he’d like a pan of dressing, too. I said that would have to wait. Now if he wants to make it…nah, not gonna happen.

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  12. Well we took advantage of the snow day, and the Christmas tree is up and decorated. 🙂

    Simple, white lights, red bead garland, red balls of various shapes, and a collection of about 100-150 ornaments we’ve collected over the years.

    We skip the tinsel that cats eat though, for obvious reasons. 😯

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  14. You’ll post a photo on FB, right AJ? Or at least here tomorrow!

    I had a very restful night’s sleep, but got up a little later than I planned. As I opened my eyes, I saw the most spectacular red-sky sunrise out over the harbor (I can’t see the harbor, but I can see the sky above it!). We’ve had gorgeous sunsets and sunrises in the past couple weeks, they’re posted all over FB every day, especially the sunsets over the ocean and the sunrises with the harbor below. I guess it’s just pollution, or so we’re told, but it sure is pretty!

    But our very dry weather continues, although it’s supposed to rain on Thursday.

    So I’m back to work today, ready or not (I mostly am). Chas is right, staying busy and productive is a good thing. 🙂 I’m never retiring (not completely anyway), if I can help it. As long as my health and energy hold out, I’ll always have some sort of outside job, even if it’s part time, along with whatever freelancing writing work I can land and/or sell if needed. Not as much money as selling houses, but it is what I can & love to do. (I’m a horrible salesperson!)

    Now I need to come up with a bunch of stories for this week. (And this is a tough week, everything starts closing down for the holidays so sources are scarce.)

    One story I want to do in January is on the attraction of the “cowboy culture” in our horsey areas — one of our private stables & horse clubs is holding a class/workshop on cowboy music and poetry. 😀

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  15. Ah, I see on the political thread what may be my (reaction) story for the day — if that court ruling involves one of the Catholic groups that sued and is very prominent and well-known in our local area.

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  17. Love this, the story of the Charlie Brown Christmas:

    http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/12/merry-christmas-charlie-brown

    “… Schulz insisted on the scriptural content in the face of nervous creative partners and queasy network executives. ‘The Bible thing scares us,’ said one CBS vice-president after an early screening. Yet, Frank Stanton, then the president of the network, was supportive, though he would recall that some of his skeptical colleagues ‘thought I had really flipped.’ “

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  18. The Charles Schultz museum is here in my town and though I’ve only gone once (it’s a very cerebral experience, standing around reading cartoons), my favorite spot was his reconstructed studio/library. One whole section is Bibles and commentaries. A good, though flawed, man, Charles Schultz.

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  19. We hang on to anyone we’ve ever invited to Thanksgiving dinner in my Italian family. A cousin complained once, “you’re still inviting my ex-wife whom I divorced 30 years ago! You don’t think that bothers me?”

    Well, some like her better . . . and she IS the mother of your only child.

    This year she was the only member of that family branch to come!

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  20. Donna’s comment about seeing the red-sky sunrise reminds me of the saying I first heard from my grandmother.

    Red sky in morning — sailor’s warning.
    Red sky at night — sailor’s delight.

    Anyone have the story on whether or how that might be true?

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  22. Kim, I emailed you again today. No response necessary, as I know you’ve got a busy day going. 😉

    So, Michelle, why does your sailor swear it’s true? What happens on the red-sky morning days? Or maybe I don’t want to know. 🙂

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  23. 6 arrows: I think it is based on Jesus’ comment on how the Pharisees could predict the weather but couldn’t discern the signs of the times.

    The story is in Matthew 16:1-3:

    Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites![a] You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. (NKJV)

    Along the line someone made it rhyme in English.

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  24. Peter, I had completely forgotten about that passage! I know at one time when I’d read it I noticed the similarities between it and the rhyme, but I didn’t remember that today.

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  25. The saying is true. It is also true that depending on the phase of the moon, if you dig a hole in the earth you will either have too much dirt or too little dirt to fill the hole back up. There is a certain cold damp weather when the cows will “get down” and not be able to get back up. They call it cow killin’ weather. There are lots of old tales like that that have truth in them that have for the most part been forgotten.
    Perhaps Chas can remember more of them and share them with us.

    6Arrows I will check my email.

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  26. Another one is Blackberry Winter. I can’t remember what it means but Chas or others will know. And Dog Days of summer. I do know what a Three Dog Night means besides the name of a rock group.

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  27. It’s been snowing all day here in Connecticut. And it’s been very cold, only in the teens. Well, “very cold” compared to some of your towns, but not compared to Kare’s cold. But cold enough for me.

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  28. Listening to the radio on Sunday afternoon, there was a guest on the show who said he was saved when he listened to the Scripture read by Linus at the end of the special. I thought that was pretty cool 🙂

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  30. The “red sky at morning, sailor take warning”, is from observation of sailors in the northern hemisphere for generations.
    I can’t bring to mind any other sayings, but somebody mentioned “blackberry winter”.
    That occurs in the springtime when there is a cold snap in early May, or at the time when blackberries are coming into bloom. Apple and peach farmers hate it. Apples an Henderson county, peches in South Carolina. People an Avery county count the rings on wolly worms to predict the number os snows we will have.

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  31. The reason “Freedom from religion” and other secularists hate Christmas carols is because the gospel of Christ is broadly proclaimed in those carols. Nobody can escape it. You can avoid it the rest of the year, even Easter,, but not at Christmas time.

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  33. Due only to senility, I posted two comments on the “Political Thread”. What happened is that I was inspecting the thread when this came to me, and I forgot where I was. So, both comments are reproduced here as one.
    I heard on the radio that the full moon we’re having now is called “The Cold Moon”. I don’t know why other than it is near the solstice. I know why the “Harvest Moon” has it’s name. At that time of year, the full moon rises about the same time the sun sets, and it is bright enough that the farm hands don’t have to quit harvesting. That is important because the harvest must be brought in quickly.

    You may, or may not, know that the reason the full moon is so bright is that the albedo of the lunar surface is such that the light from the sun is always directed back toward the direction of the source. Different from a mirror in which the angle of the reflection is the angle of incidence.
    Isn’t it amazing that God has such things figured out?
    Miracles around us all the time and we don’t notice.
    p.s My word processor thinks “albedo” is a misspelled word. But it is correct.

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  34. I’ve wondered where the term “Indian summer” came from, referring to unseasonably warm days in the fall? Do you in the South use that expression? Your temperatures seem like Indian summer to me almost the whole year round — except when it’s the “dog days” of summer, I guess. 😉

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  36. Three dog night means that the weaher is so cold that you need to sleep with three dogs to stay warm. I imagine it is a really old saying. Guess I should look it up.

    I have not had a good situation for using the Internet
    lately. Maybe soon I will have a bettdr way to be online.

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  39. Yes, Indian Summer is warm days in the Fall.
    I used to know what a “Blue Moon” is, but I plumb forgot.
    Albedo is a real word. Used mostly in astromy, defined as: “The proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface.”
    I just remembered, A blue moon is the second full moon in the same month.
    Hence, “once in a blue moon”. Very seldom, but it can happen. Even in February.

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  40. The youngest two arrows have been busy building houses today — houses out of presents. They stack them up in different arrangements, sometimes making a bridge-like structure which they can crawl under and live under, all hunched up, for a little while, before building a new house. Oh, what fun it is in those years before double digits. 🙂

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  42. Can a blue moon happen in February? I thought lunar cycles were every 29.5 days. I might be wrong on that, though. I probably shouldn’t argue with a man who mapped the moon. 😉

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  43. Nine-year-old boy and six-year-old sister who are best buds.

    I keep checking for reports on Phos and Jo, too. I hope we hear something soon.

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  54. I think it’s going to be hard to sleep tonight, wondering if Jo and Phos have made it safely to their homes. A good time to pray, though, when insomnia strikes.

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  56. From Wikipedia…“The official commentary included in the CD set Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1964–1975 states that vocalist Danny Hutton’s then-girlfriend June Fairchild suggested the name after reading a magazine article about indigenous Australians, in which it was explained that on cold nights they would customarily sleep in a hole in the ground whilst embracing a dingo, a native species of wild dog. On colder nights they would sleep with two dogs and if the night were freezing, it was a “three dog night”.”

    BTW, the group is still recording & doing live appearances.

    And…

    “An Indian summer is a heat wave that occurs in the autumn. It refers to a period of above-normal temperatures, accompanied by dry and hazy conditions, usually after there has been a killing frost. Depending on latitude and elevation, it can occur in the Northern Hemisphere between late September and mid November, though the term is used as widely as early September through January. The term is applied to any heat wave, though it is also used for a purported singularity (periodic pattern).”

    My work here is done. Good night! 🙂

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  58. Long time no hear 3 Dog Night. With them playing their music, a person would never get any sleep on three dog night.

    When it is really cold down here in the south, I do sometimes use that phrase and I guess I have known it zince high s hool because of that band. See all the typos? I don’t want to go on the prayer thread andpost a prayer that is all messed up. 😦

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  59. Yep, 3 Dog Night — I remember hearing (or reading) the explanation of how they got their name in an interview when I was in college and they were really popular.

    I only have 2 dogs, but since I live in Southern California, 2 are enough. 😉

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  61. Janice, thanks for the heads-up on the Sproul Kindle offerings — I’ll double check but I think they offered those for free before and I nabbed them then.

    Can’t go wrong with Sproul. 🙂 Or with “free.”

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  66. Just to let you know, I am home in California and too tired to stay awake. My daughter and grandson surprised me and met me at the airport, I was expecting my good friend, but so much better to see my family. Made all four standby flights. Thanks for praying

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