by

Our Daily Thread 2-6-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1815 the state of New Jersey issued the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

In 1926 the National Football League adopted a rule that made players ineligible for competition until their college class graduated.

In 1952 Britain’s King George VI died. His daughter, Elizabeth II, succeeded him.

In 1959 the U.S., for the first time, successfully test-fired a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral.

In 1987 President Ronald Reagan turned 76 years old this day and became the oldest U.S. President in history.

And in 1998 Washington National Airport was renamed for President Ronald Reagan.

________________________________________

Quotes of the Day

“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

“Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.”

Ronald Reagan

________________________________________

Today is Natalie Cole’s birthday.

It’s also Simon Phillips’. From TotoVEVO 

________________________________________

Anyone have a QoD?

72 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-6-14”

  5. We are having a women’s retreat at church this weekend. The is a play on the Bay called Baytreat that is owned by the Presbyterian church in Mobile and they rent it out for different events such as this. We will be using a book about Eve, but it will focus more on the why of the sin. What happens to women that leave them vulnerable. At least this is what I am thinking we will study. I guess I will let you know Saturday night or Sunday. I know this will suprise many of you, but I am helping with the food. They wanted me to do a dessert, but I managed to talk my way out of that…I am doing a chicken dish that sounds really yummy and if it turns out well, I will share it with you. How could it now with chicken, prosciutto, half and half, and cream cheese?

    Thanks for the Natalie Cole AJ. I loved that album of her singing with her father. Technology eh?

    Many of you who are not married to huge college (Alabama) football fans may not know this but there was a kid that for some reason cannot fulfill his dream to play college ball. Nick Saban drafted him anyway and gave him a scholarship. (I am not sure of the details, these were the wrap ups I got last night when I got home) and a kid out of Daphne, AL has been drafted to play college football for Harvard. Having been to a Navy v Harvard game in my past, I can tell you there is a lot more going for this kid that football, so don’t expect to ever see him at the Super Bowl.

    Like

    Reply

  6. KBells, Mr P calls my Darling Amos a “couch pillow”. He assures me that getting Lulabelle has added years to Amos’ life because she irritates him until he plays with her.

    Like

    Reply

  7. Good morning, all. We have ice and snow flurries this morning, though nothing is sticking as it’s 34 degrees. My sister sent me a Starbucks gift card for my birthday. Better still, she promised to call a little later today, which will be a real treat! Becca sang Happy Burthday to me as soon as I awakened. It’s so sweet to live in a loving family…

    Like

    Reply

  9. Reagan’s comment is about to become true. But I was never in favor of renaming airports, or anything else, after someone. Let them start with something new. I never liked it when Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy. Idyllwild International became JFK, or Washington International became Reagan Airport. Give them something new.
    And Four Seasons Boulevard became Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Most of us still say Four Seasons.

    Like

    Reply

  13. H A P P Y 🙂 B I R T H D A Y 🙂
    🙂 🙂 🙂 A N N M S 🙂 🙂 🙂

    May God give you a fruitful year with much success with homeschooling
    May you and your family draw closer to God day by day. And may your mom and others in your family know the peace of God reconciling their relationships.

    Those are my prayers and wishes for you. You may blow out a candle on your cake to say Amen to those thoughts! 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  20. Mumsee – A snow-blower (aka a snow-thrower – actually, they may be slightly different things, I’m not sure) is a machine you push, & it sucks up & blows/throws the snow off to the side. Much quicker & easier on the back than shoveling for large areas, but still takes a toll on the arms & shoulders if used for long periods of time.

    My husband bought one years ago when we had to do our property, with its two driveways, & the property of the elderly lady across the lane. We don’t use it for every snowfall, but it does come in handy for when there is a lot of snow. (I can’t do much shoveling because of issues with my shoulder & back.)

    Emily actually loves to shovel, & looks forward to the snow so she can get out there & do that with Forrest, who has his own child-sized shovel (& loves to help with any work being done).

    Like

    Reply

  22. AnnMS Happy Birthday. If you are feeling a little down about being over 40, go read what Andy Rooney(didn’t) said about Women Over 40. It will make you laugh.

    Like

    Reply

  23. Cheryl – I’m sorry if I sort of jumped on you last night.

    When we moved into our home 13 & 1/2 years ago, we were told that the neighbors plowed the lane, because they run a daycare, & they live at the end of the lane.

    Through the years, there have been various things that have happened to show us how petty & negative these people are. Years ago they threatened taking legal action against us because the water that was pumped out of our sump pump ended up in their yard. Unfortunately for them, they are in the lowest point of this sloping lane, so water just naturally finds them. We weren’t trying to make problems for them.

    But we got right on that, & spent $7000 to have a pipe run from the sump pump, through our yard (which had to be dug up for the pipe), to the brook right over the property line. That has also helped us stop having a flooded basement every time it rains hard. But they could have asked instead of threatened.

    Maybe they don’t have a moral or legal responsibility to use their plow, but it still seems to me that it is the “right thing to do”, especially when a few minutes of their time can save an hour of ours.

    Like

    Reply

  24. For those of you who missed it on the prayer thread last night, J’s MRI showed benign spots and she is very thankful. She said to tell you thank you for praying. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  26. Our neighbor plows our parking area – we share the street access drive. The first heavy snow after we moved here I paid him to do it, but then his wife was out the second time and said he’d do it for free. If it’s only 2 or 3 inches he doesn’t bother. But Tuesday’s prediction of “up to 7 inches” turned into a foot.

    Oh, and this is the third day in a row of no school as wind chills are around -25. It’s hard to get the students to do much listening after all these days off, so I am working on assignments to give them when we return. I am not going to fight them to listen when I can go around the room and help those that care enough to ask for it.

    Like

    Reply

  27. Peter, does your comment mean you will give the students worksheets and those that need instruction will ask and be willing to listen? Do you get to make your own worksheets or are you required to only do what is in the curriculum book? At the Common Core rally one mom was telling me about a teacher who was complaining that under Common Core she is no longer allowed to give instruction in grammar. Are you affected by Common Core?

    Like

    Reply

  28. This is an almost funny story about the neighbors.

    At the top of the lane, there is a post that holds the four mailboxes for the residents of the lane (two are ours). There is an apartment house right next to the top of our lane, which has a new owner. For some reason, that new owner took down our mailbox post & replaced it with a better one. All I can think of is that maybe one of his tenants damaged the old one, or something like that, because the post is on our lane & the mailboxes are only for lane residents, so he would have no reason to touch it.

    Anyway, Neighbors were quite put out by that (even though the new post is better than the old one), & moved their mailbox down to a new post by their house. The post office must have complained, because not long after, they moved their mailbox & its post back up to the top of the lane – several feet from the other mailboxes. (And there is an empty spot on our post where their mailbox should be.)

    It looks funny, as if their mailbox is being stuck up & not playing with our mailboxes. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  29. Peter – On Sunday evening, you mentioned watching Downton Abbey & Sherlock instead of the Super Bowl. We didn’t watch the Super Bowl, either, but I recorded those shows, as I usually do, for Chrissy & I to watch on Tuesday mornings when Emily takes Forrest to StoryTime at the library, so we can watch in peace.

    That episode of Sherlock was excellent, didn’t you think? Can’t wait for the next season to come around. (We’re one episode behind on Downton Abbey, but enjoying that as well.)

    Like

    Reply

  31. Thanks for all the good wishes–and especially for the prayers!

    Hubby and Becca made me blueberry muffins for breakfast. And, Hubby gave me a bottle of my favorite perfume, which I’ve been out of for four months! Becca gave me some beautiful blue placemats to match the new dishes I got for Christmas. And, eldest daughter, L., gave me a lavender Yankee candle –my favorite scent! My sister’s call was great–though much too short as we were suddenly disconnected. It was so sweet to hear her voice. They have visitors from home for the next month.

    Like

    Reply

  32. Ooooh! I love lavender, too. I use to have a big lavener plant by the mailbox but one year a col snap got it.

    Birds are noisy today. Sounds like spring is around the next page of the calendar. Bosley is fascinated by birds. Her tail keeps beat with birdsong.

    Like

    Reply

  36. Karen, I didn’t mean to beat you up last night, either. But it sounds like your neighbors don’t really feel like they have friends in the neighborhood, for whatever reason, and aren’t inclined to plow unless they themselves need to get out. As someone who won’t deal with snow unless I have to, I have some sympathy for that.

    Like

    Reply

  37. I forgot to wish that young ‘un a Happy Birthday. So there here is, Ann: ¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

    Karen O- I recorded the shows for D3 who wasn’t home Sunday. I re-watched Sherlock with her last night to get it all strait. It was, indeed, the best so far, but rather intense and in a few places, confusing. And having Moriarty come back is going to be interesting for sure.

    Like

    Reply

  38. I like shoveling snow when we lived in CT. We had a long driveway and an old snowblower that seldom worked. As my husband usually was out to sea, most of the shoveling fell to me.

    The boys, of course, were under five.

    I remember crystal Friday nights with them tucked in bed and me out shoveling snow. The quiet of the dark night with the white snow were so appealing. I often would shovel the entire .2 long driveway, getting my exercise and the magic of snow. The most snow we got in six years was 8 inches–I parked at the bottom of the driveway for a couple days on that one until a teenager could be paid to shovel.

    It always reminded me of vacuuming–my favorite chore–because you could see where you’d been when you were finished.

    Today, I’m thrilled because we had a gentle rain all night and more rain–up to 6 inches, please!–is slated for this weekend.

    I left the window open just to listen! 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  39. Now I know what a snow blower is. Sounds like it is as hard work as a roto tiller. Ugh. And probably as noisy as a leaf blower. Ugh. But I imagine they are quite useful.

    Like

    Reply

  41. Oh, I see you posted while I was researching for you. Yeah, a roto-tiller that not only tills the snow but throws it out of the way, but not as annoyingly noisy as a leaf blower. Those things should be outlawed.

    Like

    Reply

  42. Happy Birthday precious Ann!! I hope it proves to be a most blessed day of celebrating our Lord’s most wonderful creation of YOU!! 🙂
    It got to -20 last night….we are at 0 heading for a high of 20..brrrrr

    Like

    Reply

  43. Happy birthday Annms!

    So mild-mannered Cheryl beat up mild-mannered KarenO here last night? With a snow blower? (whatever that is). I always miss all the fun.

    I apparently need to bring a shovel if I move to Idaho.

    Love Downton Abbey. And the long-awaited 6th season of Doc Martin debuts tonight.

    So I’m listening to/watching the port meeting from home online this morning, but they’re in between items that I’m interested in, finally got some ‘downtime.’ Lots of talk of right now of channel dredging and maintenance taxes and wharfs and terminals.

    Like

    Reply

  44. They sell snow shovels here. I am warming up. I had to come downstairs to turn the oven on for dinner. Dinner is already in the oven, waiting to get warm. But it is cold between upstairs and downstairs so I am warming up before heading back. Upstairs is our schoolroom. It is up over the garage in an unattached room so we have to run across the porch between house and school The porch is covered but it is still only about five degrees out and we don’t dress for the run. Inside the house it is up to sixty one but in the schoolhouse it is closer to seventy. Guess I will go back up and join the children!

    Like

    Reply

  45. My husband likes to use a snow machine, because it leaves lower banks, than it would with a plow. We don’t have a plow, but most people around us do. The neighbor will scrape the very end by the mailbox every so often. It builds up and can get hard as ice. That was never a problem when one of the neighbors was the county plow driver. Once he retired, the end of the driveways and around mailboxes has never been done as it should be.

    We have a very long drive way and shoveled it by hand for years. Now we would not be without a mechanical means to do that work. The snow blower works well for sidewalks and trails to the birdfeeders, too.

    Years ago my BIL commented about all those who died during or shortly after shoveling snow. It isn’t always a good thing to be doing.

    Like

    Reply

  49. Happy Birthday Ann. 🙂

    I’m too disabled for shoveling. But I do have a little snow blower that pulls itself right along. Works perfectly. I still hurt when I’m doing it and done, but shoveling is not happening. It was wet from ice and rain after 5 inches of snow yesterday so the blower wouldn’t work. Thankfully my neighbor cleaned all 200 feet of sidewalk, and I just cleaned the steps. That was bad enough. I still hurt. That blower is the best 50 bucks I ever spent.

    Like

    Reply

  50. Why do you hurt? How fast does it pull itself along? You understand, I am getting older and my children will be growing up and moving out. It may be entirely in my hands and I want to know my options.

    Like

    Reply

  59. And do you believe Peter when he says it is quieter than the leaf blower?

    Misquoted (or misunderstood) again. When I said “not as annoyingly noisy” I meant that the sound is not the higher pitched whirring, but more like a lawn mower sound. Loud, but not as annoying.

    Janice- I forgot to answer your question @ 10:05 AM. I do not have to follow the textbook curriculum, or whatever someone else says. One advantage to being the only teacher in my area is that I can adapt worksheets, which I do, using the textbook provided materials as a starting point. So far, Foreign Language is not affected by Common Core, but I am expected to follow a different model when it comes to evaluation that the principal does every two years.

    Like

    Reply

  61. I have the ultimate Doggie Door Horror. It happened this evening. I went to work this morning. Mr. P went to Pensacola. I came home and the front door was wide open. (36 degrees here) . I panicked. Luckily Amos was resting on the back of the sofa, Lulabelle was in her crate, and the cat was on the bed.

    Oh and nothing else was missing.

    Like

    Reply

  63. I also have a hard time with circuses and zoos. I understand the idea of introducing folks to the animals, but…… On the other hand, we raise our meals here.

    And I don’t think I need to tell you that if your animals live outside of your home, you don’t need a doggie door.

    Like

    Reply

  64. Mumsee, lots and lots of “my” animals live outside my home. The birds and the rabbits we feed live in our yard, or even outside our yard. And we don’t have a doggie door for the one animal that lives inside, because she tells us when she needs or wants to go outside.

    Speaking of which, we have two rabbits (at least) coming occasionally to pick up some of the free sunflower seed we’re spreading on the ground for juncos and any other birds that prefer to eat off the ground. One of them lives under our deck, or at least it used to. Whether it can get under there with all the snow, we don’t know. One is a fully grown rabbit and one about two-thirds its size, so either the big one is a female and the small one is a male or the smaller one isn’t full-grown. (I know that females are bigger, but I doubt they’re that much bigger. But I also can’t picture rabbits having a litter in late December or in January. I think that this one is a younger one, though.)

    Anyway . . . tonight Misten asked to go outside, so I let her out, and I saw that one rabbit was next to the garage, on the other side of a big snowdrift from her, and thus out of her sight since she’s shorter than the drift. The rabbit just froze, hoping not to be seen, but I tried to tell her run, go get the rabbit, and she didn’t know what I was saying so she just stood there like a collie on a log. Well, the little one was there too, but I didn’t see it right away. After 30 seconds or so of the big rabbit freezing and Misten standing there, the little rabbit panicked and ran. He went right past the big rabbit and then across the snow (and I really thought Misten might see him then). My husband came and tried to urge Misten to run, and then the big rabbit backtracked and went under the fence, and Misten finally saw it–but she saw it too late to cut off its access to the gate, which was what I was trying to get her to do. (Not to be mean to the rabbit, because it can run across the snow quicker than she can. Basically the rabbit had to leave anyway, so Misten might as well get some joy out of it.) Well, the little rabbit was flummoxed, and went back across the stoop a couple times, even banging into the glass door my husband was holding open. And Misten spent the next 15 minutes patrolling the yard looking for rabbits, but she had missed her one chance when she didn’t run when I told her to.

    Earlier in the day Misten walked across to the highest drifts and stood, gazing across the fence that her mind told her she should be able to access. She’d done it before, and with the new snow she was actually higher than the fence and could easily look across it. And the trench my husband dug with the snowblower looks deceptively like a place she could walk across. But, alas, she had tried it and found it too soft for crossing. She could only gaze and yearn, knowing the snow was whiter on the other side of the fence but she could not reach it.

    And my husband plans to go and redig the trench tomorrow, while the snow is still soft, to be sure she doesn’t regain access and also to make sure he won’t have to go through packed snow again. When he did it earlier this week, he was snowblowing the bottom of the drift a little ways, and then backing up the snowblower and hitting the icy upper crust with a shovel to make it fall, and doing that repeatedly across the yard and alongside the fence. And he did the trench next to the fence double width to make sure she couldn’t jump across.

    Like

    Reply

  65. I wasn’t scared about coming in, maybe I should have been, but I have good neighbors, just not any that closed my door! I was worried about my animals. After that everything was good

    Like

    Reply

  66. Mumsee,

    It moves pretty slow, but steady. Just walks right along. It’s a small Toro. You can turn it with a couple fingers.

    Now in answer to your other question….

    I herniated discs in my back years ago. My back has never been the same. It can go out without any provocation.

    Then 6 years ago I was hit head on at 50mph by an elderly man who passed out from low blood sugar. We were on an overpass with nowhere to go and he came completely in my lane. I couldn’t turn into his because of other cars in front and behind him, so I got whacked. Bad. Injuries to both knees, my right shoulder, had 2 surgeries on that, chest injury and cuts, bruises, and assorted ailments. Spent a year doing rehab and physical therapy 3-4 times a week. The knees and shoulder feel as bad as ever due to arthritis, and now my left arm has acute tendonitis from overuse trying to compensate for the loss of motion and pain in the bad one, and probably a rotator tear. I used to be right handed, and my left arm isn’t as useful. And I have a bone chip floating in my knee that will need surgery eventually. I still have a couple drain and injections to go first. I’m not doing that until I have too. And now I’m having hip pain and problems too. It’s all very tiring some days. I never seem to get a day without something hurting.

    Well, you asked….. 🙂

    Oh wait, forgot one. There’s some kinda swelling in the tendons in my right wrist that causes pain so bad if you lift something that you drop it. The doc told me the name, but I forget.

    But I’m good. I’m trying to approach it as simply my cross to bear, and to not be so angry about it all. That’s not always as easy as it sounds when you have constant daily reminders, but I’m workin’ on it.

    And it could always be worse. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  67. ouch. That can lead to depression, you know. But you do know that. Husband is just getting familiar with constant pain. Not something I would wish on anyone. But, the good thing is, your daughter gets a full time dad willing to see to her homeschooling and that is a wonderful thing. And we get the blog which is encouraging to all of us. Thanks for using your time well.

    Like

    Reply

  69. Thanks Mumsee. 🙂

    And yeah, depression, I know…. 😦

    Tell Mike I understand, and that you do get used to it somewhat. You adjust to not being able to do stuff you could before. To be frank, it sucks though. But you learn what hurts and stay away from it. I’ll be praying for him.

    And I know that like me, Mike is blessed with a wonderful wife to help him. That’s huge.

    Without Cheryl helping me I’d be in trouble. She has honored the “in sickness” part of her vows and then some. 🙂 I am blessed, and thankful, and yet awful at expressing that. I need to work on that.

    Like

    Reply

  70. Thanks Aj, for putting my frustrations in perspective. I will try to remember to pray for your days.
    Praises that the autoshop called just as I got home to tell me that my van is fixed. So I wil walk down there shortly. After being stuck in three different spots the last three days! I finally sent someone to the autoshop with my keys and they fixed it. I had loaned it to the school the other day and heard they hit the underside pretty hard.
    Huge praise: I just got an email that my passport is already back with my new visa in it. Wow, that is amazing. At times it has taken almost a year, so getting it in less that a month is wonderful. Still many more to go, but mine, for some reason, was one of the first.

    Like

    Reply

  71. Thanks for all the fun birthday wishes! It truly was a wonderful day, spent with my beloved family. I feel very blessed. Obviously, I’m having some trouble sleeping tonight…but, other than that, life is good.

    I can sleep in in the morning (if Becca doesn’t wake me up), as L. Isn’t going to school. She has a three hour placement test tomorrow afternoon for the private school we’re hoping she will attend in the Fall, and I want her to be fresh for it. She will be testing from 1:30 to 4:30 CST.
    Prayers for her would be greatly appreciated!

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Peter L Cancel reply