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Our Daily Thread 2-17-14

Good Morning!

And Happy Presidents Day.

Today’s header photo is from Mumsee’s place.

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On this day in 1801 the U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Jefferson was elected president and Burr became vice president.

In 1876 Julius Wolff was credited with being the first to can sardines.

In 1933 Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead three years after Chic Young’s popular strip first debuted.

In 1944, during World War II, the Battle of Eniwetok Atoll began.  U.S. forces won the battle on February 22, 1944.

And in 1992 serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison.

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Quote of the Day

“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”

George Washington

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Today is Gene Pitney’s birthday. He sang this song.

On this day in 1969 these two had a recording session in Nashville. This song is the only duet ever released from that session.

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Anyone have a QoD?

68 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-17-14”

  1. Good Morning All. Guess who messed up and got sunburned yesterday? Yep, you guessed it. The Sunscreen Queen forgot. Oh, but the sun felt so good.

    I have to say again how much I am enjoying these photos we have shared with each other. I sort of held my breath this morning to see what it would be. It isn’t fair to say I recognized it immediately.

    Question of the day comes from the history lesson above. Do any of you REALLY eat sardines? What do they taste like? I have never brought myself to taste one.

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  2. Good morning!

    Kim’s QoD: I loved sardines on saltine crackers as a child! I haven’t eaten them in 33 years…but thought they were scrumptious until age 10! If I remember correctly, they are very oily, with a strong fishy taste.

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  3. I don’t eat sardines – never have (my dad likes them though) I do like to play Sardines – especially with teenagers!

    Cheryl, from R&R yesterday. Yes, this is a picture hubby took one day. The lynx was on the road about 1 ½ miles cross country from our place and it hung around so we could get these absolutely amazing pictures. We’ve seen 7 lynx since we moved here in 2011 and feel very blessed as some who have lived around here all their lives have never seen one. I would love to see a cougar (from somewhere safe). Hubby has seen cougars in the wild – hair raising. He was doing the skidoo sweep behind a long ski race and a cougar ran across the trail in front of him – he couldn’t believe it! Nobody thought there were any cougars in the area! I’m glad it decided not to help itself to the stragglers in the race.

    I guessed the picture was of Mumsee’s area – so beautiful! I, too, wait with baited breath as the website comes up to see what will be the day’s picture 🙂 Thank you, AJ.

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  4. I didn’t think about it for R&R, but the upside of this snow event is that the ski trails around here love it. Especially true up around Boone. Skiing is the reason JennyK went to Appalachian State.

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  6. Happy President’s Day, all. I think the original intent was to honor Lincoln and Washington, since the day is set between their birthdays, and makes it such that there are not two federal holidays in one short month. But now it seems that people honor all the presidents. I’m sorry, but I’ll honor the office of the presidency, not the men, especially not the one in office now.

    Beautiful picture, mumsee. Now I can put your posts about the outdoor activities to a place. I first though it was one of the Coloradans. BTW- what is that plant in the foreground?

    Well, since it’s a holiday, I don’t have school today. But I have a feeling that with the freezing rain overnight it would have been cancelled anyway.

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  7. Yes, I do eat sardines. That is something my husband introduced me to since in his younger days he was quite a hiker (hiked from Geargia to Maine on the AT). I learned to eat them with saltine crackers.

    After having our son and he got eczema from milk, I looked for high calcium foods to feed him so he at sardines, too. I remember once at the pediatrician’s office that she could hardly believe I got him to eat them. One way was to mash them up with cream cheese and serve as a spread with crackers so it tempered the flavor of them.

    Now I use the ones packed in olive oil or spring water to get some extra fish and calcium into the empty nest. It is good for the folks who have oesteoporosis. Husband and I both have a touch of that. He has it partly because of taking med for hypothyroidism.

    So, yes, we eat sardines and give thanks for them. Hey, I could do an ad for the industry! I know I lost many readers early on with TMI. 🙂

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  8. Good Morning…I couldn’t guess Mumsee’s photo…I’ve never been to Idaho…but oh what a beautiful and serene place it appears to be…lovely! I,too, look forward to the new place of the day…this is so fun AJ!!
    I’m waiting in the hotel, preparing to take off this afternoon for home…I can’t wait to see my family…I’ve missed them so much. It was sad leaving Mom…she seems so lonely and lost…and she won’t come to Colorado to visit me….it truly pains my heart…. 😦

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  9. I guessed the picture for today to be from Kare. At least I got the North of Here right!

    Love that natural beauty, Mumsee. Nothing like that in my area. Thanks for sharing your spot of beauty for the day.

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  10. My mom loves sardines on saltine crackers and frequently eats them for a snack. I no longer enjoy them, but don’t think it’s weird to eat them. One of Becca’s friends likes them, which she thinks is weird because she thinks they smell bad, but she feels the same way about tuna fish, which a lot of people like.

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  11. Yes, I was wondering what kind of tree/vegetation that is in Mumsee’s picture. The closest thing we have to that are the cell towers designed to look like trees.

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  12. I also wondered what kind of plant Mumsee has.
    Kim, sardines have a distinctive taste. You can’t be neutral about sardines. I like them but don’t often have them. I usually choose salmon instead.

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  15. Bosley is at the window behind my head. A bird is singing outside and Bosley’s tail keeps flicking around and thumping me on top of my head as I key in my posts. I think she could play percussion with her tail.

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  16. Peter: I’m with you on your view that the current President is not worthy of honor. I can hardly watch him on television. When I do, I can feel my blood pressure rising in response to his philosophies. The damage he has done will be felt for a long time. And, the spin and manipulation of his image by the MSM is reprehensible, IMO. It reminds me of the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Unfortunately, I believe it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. In HISD, only 19% of the fourth graders met proficiency standards on state tests. Many public schools are failing our kids at truly basic levels. With an illiterate and uneducated population that is growing exponentially, how is our country going to restore itself to greatness? I don’t blame teachers, I know their hands are tied. I blame the mammoth DOE — and the giant beauracracy public education has become. My best friend, a special education teacher, is drowning in paperwork, which takes away valuable time she could be spending working directly with the children. She does a lot if it on weekends and after school, often staying until 6:30, just to stay in compliance with all of the state’s ridiculous documentation requirements. She has fifth graders who can’t read who will still be promoted to junior high, even though the parents want the child to be retained, because it would negatively affect the school’s rating from the state!

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  17. I didn’t know Blondie and Dagwood were never married. I remember that one of the kids was “Baby Snooks”, but I forgot the other.
    Blondie was a stay at home mom in those days.

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  20. The flowers are hollyhocks. They grow to about eight feet tall and are planted just off of our deck. The picture is in July, they provide shade for the deck in August. Kim is the photographer. I tried but was not successful at sending in some photos. Thanks, Kim! The area to the right is where the mountain lion (cougar) and coyotes were harassing each other.

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  22. I guessed today’s picture right away 😉

    Dylan’s voice sounds surprisingly good in that duet. Apparently, he had quit smoking for a while when the Nashville Skyline record was made. Proof that he could actually sing 😆

    On Kim QoD: I used to eat canned sardines as a child. They were a special treat. I got grossed out by them when I started to recognize the anatomical parts that were still present. Now I prefer my fish to be cleaned and gutted. I would probably still eat them were it not for that, as my father raised us to like all manner of seafood. Well, except for squid…

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  23. I wondered what that plant was, too. I enjoy seeing the photos. Any from my place today would be very, very white. Snow is falling and covering the trees. It is piled up on the evergreens. The dark red apples are also all capped in white. The ground is piled high, with lots of indentations where the deer, grouse and squirrels make paths to come and eat.

    I hate any fishy tasting fish. I do like fish that is not actually fishy tasting. My husband loves Kipper snacks right out of the tin.

    michelle: my daughter, who used to post on here, made a darling Candy-land cake for her daughter a few years ago. You would have gotten off much cheaper with gum. 😉

    I got a good laugh out of the lynx and gang member sitings. 😀

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  25. I tried hollyhocks out in the forest…I must have done something wrong…they just wouldn’t grow for me….I do love them…my parents had them in their backyard…those flowers just make me smile…just about any flower makes me smile 🙂

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  26. Nice scenery. I’ve only seen Idaho in the winter (once a long time ago when I was in college).

    Cats flip their tails when they’re stalking something.

    Sardines: I bought some recently — boneless, in water — for the animals after reading it was a good way to add some omegas into their diets. You just mix a tiny bit into their regular food. They all loved it but I finished off the little can and haven’t bought more. I’ve never tasted them myself and they smelled much too strong to me!

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  27. You know, I live out here in rational California, but I’m a bit mystified. Can any of you enlighten me as to what that snake-handling pastor was thinking last night in Kentucky? Bitten by a rattler, turned the EMTs away and died.

    Doesn’t that look like putting God to the test to you?

    Isn’t that a sin?

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  29. So, I’m curious. Is President’s Day a national holiday or is it just one of those days that is written on the calendar but most people don’t do anything special for it? Ontarians get Family Day today, but the rest of Canada doesn’t have a day off.

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  31. Michelle, my understanding is that these snake-handling churches are attempting to claim the promise of Mark 16:18, “They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” They no doubt point to the example of Paul, who was bitten by a deadly snake while building a fire and didn’t suffer harm (Acts 28:1-6). However, these churches are missing the point. What Christ was promising was protection from real, unavoidable dangers while preaching the Gospel. Paul didn’t go out of his way to find a deadly serpent; he encountered it while he was doing what God called him to do. The churches who do handle snakes are trying to prove how spiritual and filled with the Spirit they are; they are showing off to gain the praise of men. The people who really experience the miracles Christ promised, encounter those miracles while quietly doing the job God gave them to do – and they don’t boast about it.

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  32. It used to be Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday but “they” decided it was not fair. We used to draw silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington in school, now they don’t have school. But we do.

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  34. Hollyhocks? Man you grow them big in Idaho. We have some behind our house, but they are scrawny things. Yes, they grow tall, but not thick stemmed. In fact, they are no thicker than a pencil.

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  35. Presidents’ Day is a national holiday, but not as big a deal as Thanksgiving or Christmas. What I find ironic are the universities (like my alma mater) that take off for MLK Day, but not Presidents’ Day, which honors Lincoln- the very one who set men like MLK free from slavery. Political correctness and all. We can’t honor the dead white guys.

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  36. I like sardines on saltines. I used to eat so many I’d get sick of them and not want them again for a while, but then I realized half a can is really all I want in one sitting, so I eat half one day and half the next, end both meals wanting more, and they still look attractive another day. In other words, small doses. But I do love them from time to time. (I usually only get them once every year or two.) I like tuna as well.

    I actually haven’t ever had any kind of fish I don’t like, except canned codfish. When I was a child we went to visit Hartford, where my mom grew up, and she saw canned codfish, which she hadn’t had since she was a child, so she bought a can or two. When she got home with it, she found from the company’s name on the label and called and had them ship a case of it. Periodically she’d make breaded codfish balls, which she fried in oil along with hush puppies. I liked the hush puppies OK, but absolutely detested the codfish balls. To me there wasn’t a hint of “fish” in them just an extremely strong taste fried in oil. I watched happily as our supply diminished over two or three years, and finally we had only one or two cans left. I think everyone liked them but me, but I hated them. When we had only a couple of cans left, Mom said she was considering ordering another case, but to my great relief she never did. I have no idea whether the codfish was something that could be made into a sandwich like tuna fish; I like cod as a baked fish, and I love tuna sandwiches. But those fried codfish balls were among the worst five foods from my childhood, maybe even worst two (mushroom omelettes would probably share the spotlight, and fried okra is up there too).

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  37. Peter, I have a hard time feeling any respect for Lincoln, because of his major disrespect for the Constitution and the states’ legitimate right to secede. He invaded a sovereign nation (The Confederate States of America) to force them into the USA and to force them to give up an admittedly immoral way of life, slavery. But it would be akin to Canada invading us and killing our people to make us part of Canada and to force us to give up legal abortion. Yes, abortion is wrong (worse than slavery), but that doesn’t give Canada the moral or legal right to force us to become Canadians against our will. Having formerly been part of the USA was not reason enough to consider the CSA to be still under Lincoln’s authority.

    But I’d gladly honor a national holiday for Washington’s birthday.

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  38. It takes a special kind of stupid to be a “snake handler”. I think it is blaspemous on severa levels. The serpent tempted Eve and the devil is oftern protrayed as taking the form of a serpent. To my way of thinking it is “dancing with the Devil”.
    I did use it once to get rid of a man. I was at a function with friends and a guy wouldn’t stop trying to call me and text me. My friend M said, “Good God, that man won’t leave you alone. Tell him your are at a tent revival and they are about to pass the snakes. You have to pay attention”. I didn’t hear from him for a while. 😉

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  39. Hey Roscuro – Family Day started in Alberta years ago and Saskatchewan has had it for several years now too! Federal workers don’t get the day off, however.

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  40. Hubby and I both have off today. We spent the morning watching “Aladdin” and eating French toast with the 3-year-old granddaughter. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

    IIRC, Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays were combined into one Presidents’ Day to allow for MLK Day to be a holiday.

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  41. Maybe so, Linda (re MLK). Ironically, the first MLK day was on Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which upset a lot of Southerners, if I remember correctly.

    Re: Snake handlers- They are just misinterpreting Jesus’ words about not being harmed when taking up snakes. I believe Jesus meant an unintentional taking up, such as Paul in Acts 28.

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  42. I finally got to go snowshoeing today. After 4 months of snow and seemingly endless cold. It got up to 19F today. It was so nice to be able to spend some time in the fresh air without freezing.

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  43. I appreciate Cheryl’s post at 1:24.

    When my son was in the third grade (in a Christian school) he had a great teacher (a seminary wife) who was from Illinois. My son loved her and my wife and I thought she was superb. However, when it came time to study the War Between the States, she sang Lincoln’s praises for three straight days, teaching all she had learned as an Illinois schoolgirl.

    Finally my son had enough. He was usually very quiet in class, but he had read some of his father’s books. He raised his hand and said, “I heard Lincoln liked to tell dirty stories and didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God.” To her credit, the teacher confirmed the accuracy of his report, and that ended the Lincoln lectures.

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  45. I found a workbook based on the Heaven book by Alcorn. It is a six week study. I think I will get engaged with it. In the introduction by Dale McCleskey: “In this book we’ll see an exciting yet strangely neglected truth—that God never gave up on His original plan for human beings to dwell on earth. In fact, the climax of history will be the creation of New Heavens and a New Earth, a resurrected universe inhabited by resurrected people living with the resurrected Jesus (Rev 21: 1-4).”

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  46. I really like what Alcorn has done in his research. It sounds quite plausible to me. If I am wrong, I am fine with that. God knows His plan and will bring it to pass.

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  51. Kim, you are on the right track about the blasphemy involved with the snake-handlers. As you can imagine, snake bites are not an uncommon occurrence where I was. The traditional practice was to go to a marabou to have a charm to reduce the power of the venom. The team several times has had to persuade people to get medical attention instead of just relying on the charm and thus helped to save lives. When I read the account of the pastor refusing medical care, it reminded me strongly of those situations. Satan never changes his methods of deception – he just switches cultural contexts. I have no doubt that the snake handling group in America thinks itself more sophisticated than animists in Africa. Yet the end result is the same. And, people in Africa have the sense to try to avoid snakes.

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  52. It is goat milk pancake time again. And goat milk pudding. And goat milk on cereal. And a nice tall glass of cold goat milk. And warm goat milk at bedtime. I do like goat milk.

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  53. Janice, I have never read Randy Alcorn’s book. Those ideas came mostly from discussion with family and friends. Several of my family members, all Christians, suffered slow, lingering deaths from cancer. I think their steadfast hope as death approached helped us to look beyond popular sentiment and stereotype to what eternity was really like.

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  54. Mumsee, how about goat milk yogurt? When my family kept goats, my mother would make yogurt. None of us children liked the strong taste of goat milk and the formation of yogurt just accentuated that taste. After a few attempts to choke down the stuff without gagging, we all refused to eat it. My father, on the other hand, loved the stuff, especially with honey. My mother’s yogurt making didn’t entirely go to waste however. I saw her do it so often that I was able to make my own yogurt in Africa. I used cow’s milk. Actually, the villagers would not drink goat milk. They said it was bad. I sympathized with their perspective, but it made it difficult to teach mothers who didn’t have enough breast milk to use goat’s milk (which is the next best kind for newborns). I remember getting incredulous stares from one mother and grandmother when I told them to do that through a translator.

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  55. My goats rarely have “that” taste. It is sweet and refreshing without being as fatty as cow milk. And my plan was to make yogurt today but I used so much for the pudding, I only had enough for the pancakes. Tomorrow will be yogurt day. I suspect, because my goats are pastured and don’t get much in the line of tasty herbs, their milk tends to be quite tasty. But I know what you mean by the strong taste.

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  58. Roscuro, I basically meant that you referenced the same Bible verse for your conclusions. I am always impressed by how detailed and well thought out your comments are. You are so knowledgeable and I sometimes wish you could be a friend for my son.

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  59. Mumsee, yes, snakes may be eaten. One of the employees teased me about eating snake after they dispatched a python. The young boys of the village will kill, cook and eat practically anything. But I don’t think they would eat the venomous snakes. I remember when I showed an employee one of the baby mambas I killed, he warned me not to touch it, even though it was clearly dead.

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  61. Last night I was reading in a 40 day devotional by Kathi Macias which I am suppose to review. The last devotion I read took me by surprise when part of it went into what we had discussed yesterday about Cain and Abel. She wrote about that because the boys would have heard the stories of the garden and how God had sacrificed animals to get their skins to make coverings for their parents that the boys would have known the necessity of shedding blood for a valid sacrifice. Maybe someone else mentioned that point of view yesterdsy, too.

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  62. Thank you, Janice. I appreciate the questions you ask – they give me an opportunity to organize my thoughts. I do try to interact with my age group. I attend a Bible study for a college and careers group – they are currently studying Romans – and put in my two cents worth when it is appropriate. I confess that I often feel a little out of sync with them – I am approaching the third decade mark, which makes me one of the oldest in the group. It is strange to realize that I am no longer a college age kid and I see more gray hairs all the time 🙂

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  65. I looked back at yesterday and saw Kataleena wrote some about the blood sacrifice but not the part about the boys would have heard the stories of God sacrificing the animals for their skins.

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  66. Roscuro, I know that group appreciates your wisdom. My son is 24 and one of the youngest in the combo graduate/PhD program so I imagine the majority of his fellow “peers” may be about your age. I think he has felt a little intimidated by only having had college experience whereas others have had work experience and world travel. My son has lots of work experience but it was all on the college campus.

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