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Our Daily Thread 2-22-14

Good Morning!

The weekend is here! 🙂

Today’s header photo is Mouse, our newest family member.

On this day in 1630 Quadequine introduced popcorn to English colonists at their first Thanksgiving dinner.

In 1819 Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

In 1860 organized baseball’s first game was played in San Francisco, CA.

In 1885 The Washington Monument was officially dedicated in Washington, DC. It opened to the public in 1889.

And in 1969 Barbara Jo Rubin became the first woman to win a thoroughbred horse race in the U.S.

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Quote of the Day

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_washington.html#QiZqkxJoTsC2EcXL.99

“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.”

 George Washington

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

George Washington

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewash146819.html#EWcKi3qgLXoMIXmK.99

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

George Washington

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewash146819.html#EWcKi3qgLXoMIXmK.99

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This one is a request from my wife.

From CrowderVEVO

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Anyone have a QoD for us?

86 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-22-14”

  1. hmmm… I got into the comment section to say good morning to you all, but, oh, okay, the cat photo finally downloaded. Quite the handsome lady! Enjoy your Saturday

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  2. Awwwwh! Look at the little kittycat.

    I always thought someone else’s kitten was cute.
    He/she will pounce from behind something and attack your toes as you walk by.

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  3. Mouse is Beautiful! I love the golden background color, and I saw the M on herforehead before I saw her name. Sorry to say that the thought crossed my mind that I hoped the M was not minature horns 🙂 . Bosley doesn’t have an M indicator but sometimes she is in the devilish mode of not wanting to stop bad behavior.

    I am so happy for you, A,J, and your wife because you two not only get to enjoy Mouse, but you get to enjoy your daughter enjoying her!

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  4. If you really enlarge Mouses’s picture and only see the center with her eyes and markings, she appears rather owl like. She will be a wise kitty. Good thing she’s a girl kitty so she won’t be a “wise guy.”

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  5. Thank you Janice, 🙂

    Our cat hissed at the kitten a few times, but they’ve been pretty good. The kitten hissed at her once too. A hissing kitten is amusing to say the least. It’s hard to play the role of tough kitty when you look so cute. 🙂 They’ve been good, and they’ll get used to each other soon enough.

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  7. Cute kitten, Aj! Congratulations! I love cats–unfortunately, Hubby doesn’t. We had a wonderful cat, Bailey, until about six months ago… when he met his demise…

    Becca had a friend sleepover last night. They played well together and were asleep by 9:30. She’s a sweet kid and enjoys many of the same things Becca does. L. spent the night at her BFF’s. L. has another horse show tomorrow. But, the good news is we now have our very own horse trailer!

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  8. I was trying to post this last night, but the blog wasn’t letting me. (Any of you who is familiar with Bill Gothard needs to go back and see some of the links on last night’s thread, by the way.) Here’s another Bill Gothard link, showing some actual material of his for teaching. Caution: probably not something you want to look at if you have sexual abuse in your background, as it isn’t very loving. http://www.recoveringgrace.org/2013/04/how-counseling-sexual-abuse-blames-and-shames-survivors/

    Donna, I went to that link you posted, and I’d actually read that (and possibly passed it on to others) a week or two ago, but hadn’t noticed the “atheist channel” thing last time. 🙂

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  9. Thanks, for the additional info on Gothard. I knew from the materials I saw that something seemed a bit fishy. What I saw was not in any way related to sexuality except perhaps in a far fetched sense as it showed the character traits of animals in a good way and made it aooear that the child should use those traits for modeling their life. At least that is what I remember of the books we were given. Well, animals are not the highest life form, and Jesus is our example. I know animals were used because children like to read about them. But animals do not know God and do not act under God’s commandments.

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  10. The one positive I saw in my family was previous to the Gothard training my brother had been quite hard to get along with and rebellious toward my father. The Gothard training did seem to nip that in the bud so my brother seemed to better accept and respect my father’s authority. My parents had nothing to do with Gothard. They were mainline Presbyterian, and I continued in that way, but my brother had become a Baptist. I guess I associated my brother’s involvement with Gothard as a Baptist thing.

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  11. Rather amusing at this point to consider back in those days that while in college at Georgia State I was approached by a Moonie and came very close to going to their meeting where I would have been swept into quite a different kind of cult. Then brother would have been in the Gothard culy and I would have been a Moonie and my parents would have really been puzzled about how that all happened. I guess these days that the homosexual push on campuses is rather like a cult, too.

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  12. Even I have to admit that is a cute kitten. Of course, the problem with kittens is they become cats and cats need litter boxes. Litter boxes are what I am MOST opposed to. They are disgusting.
    AJ, your kitten reminds me of my cat Precious I had when I was 12 to 22. I loved him as much as I love Amos. Many of you will remember the Calico Cat I had about 3 years ago. Her name was Callie Leigh. She broke me of cats. She developed litter box aversion. If she was inside she was yowling to go outside and if she was outside she was yowling to get inside. You couldn’t ignore her, she ruined doors and carpets. My nephew house sat for me and ended up putting her in the dogs kennel in the garage at night. I did it a couple of times. I don’t know how she did it but the next morning when I got up she had gotten out of the kennel.
    I have to say that except for hissing and spitting at me Moe isn’t destructive. It’s just that I don’t want to fool with a litter box. Unfortunately she arrived declawed—good for my furniture but I can’t kick her out of the house.

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  14. I think maybe the Christian school I attended must have subscribed to these teachings
    I think I have told you before that I went back on the campus as an adult (I attended K-11) and the weight and oppression I felt were unbearable. I couldn’t wait to get in my car and drive away. 4, 9, 10, and 11th grades were pure he((. There is no better word do describe it. I hid under my bed and hid my uniforms in various parts of the house in 4th grade. In 11th grade I skipped school a lot but got away with it because they knew my mother was an alcoholic although no one ever said anything. Of course nerdy nerd skipped one school and went to public school with a friend so luckily I didn’t do anything too bad.

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  15. I shared this man’s story with you here on the blog before Christmas. There was a group in town collecting money to help buy him an electric or better wheel chair. Here is his update on Facebook. This is one of the reasons I love where I live. That people can see a man wrapped in blankets sitting on the sidewalk in fron of a nursing home and take action to help him.

    I cannot thank the community of Fairhope enough for all of your gifts during Christmas. The clothes that were given to me, the financial gifts , and the visits on the street and the ones that came to see me. I am truly blessed. I am now able to go to Greers and get some items and the chair is so comfortable. I enjoy talking to you and visiting. I am able to get around town and enjoy getting out. Please continue to speak. Thank you again for all you have done for me.
    Blessings to all of you, Charles

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  16. This came in a Daily Thoughts email we get:

    “Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter, levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies.

    “But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself.” – Jonathan Edwards

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  22. Excellent quote from Jonathan Edwards. He is a wise man indeed. The Christian witness to the world would certainly be much stronger if we all practiced more fully the esteeming of others as better than ourselves. I think we must all have our blind spots in this regard. This is an issue of pride and arrogance. It’s certainly an area that I need to pray about and ask God to search my heart and reveal any prideful ways in my heart that I need to pry out. He knows best the hearts of all people and offers the only lasting true cleansing of impurities.

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  23. Just tweeted that, Peter. Thanks.

    I’d be tempted to get a kitten (or two!) if the current 18-year old cat weren’t so miserable to live with. Husband wants a dog again, sigh.

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  24. The Sunday School lesson for tomorrow is on Balaam and that talking donkey. Once I heard my pastor say in regards to women preachers that he feels that if God chose to speak through a donkey that he could certainly choose to speak through a woman. 🙂

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  26. Peter, esteeming others better than ourselves was what we were studying last night at our small group Bible study.

    Oh and if you’d like we could always talk hockey? 😉

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  27. Good quote Peter, thanks.

    And what a cute kitten! I love how kittens spontaneously leap straight up in the air like they’re on springs. Hillarious creatures to watch, very entertaining.

    I’ve been lucky with Annie, she really is so good about the litter box when I keep her in at night. Cleaning it isn’t bad, the litter they make now make it pretty quick and easy — besides, I was already used to picking up dog poop so what the heck.

    I’m sitting outside on my patio with my coffee this morning as I’m still having to “supervise” Cowboy to make sure he doesn’t escape again. But now I’m the only one out here, Tess, Cowboy and Annie all went back inside.

    There’s a message in this, I’m sure.

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  29. Annie has now joined me. But since I’m sitting in her usual outdoor favorite napping chair, she decided to climb a tree. Now she’s on the patio roof above me. Sometimes when she’s up there she’ll peer down at me and meow, her face upside down.

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  32. Yes, anon often is me. I can’t seem to keep my password going on the Ipad, so I don’t bother. Curious, my cursor on the computer doesn’t pick up half the time when I click on comments . . . so if I’m not around, it’s mostly likely because of technological difficulties.

    What else? It’s not like these aren’t appliances, right? 🙂

    I snatched part of Peter’s Edwards quote. I never know what to put on Twitter, so when I find interesting pithy quotes, or excellent tweets, I use the quotes or retweet the tweets. Part of having a (small) presence! 🙂

    We saw Monuments Men last night and enjoyed it. It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it had good lines and it was both shocking and fun to recognize the paintings lying around in the mines!

    I actually toured that salt mine at the end of the movie when I was a teenager. I remember my dad telling us the story. I’m writing a blog post about it for Tuesday (and gloating that means I can write off the price of my ticket . . . every loophole counts!), though struggling a little with the hook.

    The movie asks an interesting QOD: is a work of art worth a man’s life?

    🙂

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  34. I was interviewed the other day by a young man working on . . . well, I probably can’t say yet, but it had to do with prayer. He asked me to tell him about my prayer life.

    Go!

    I chatted for probably half an hour telling him story after story, but what surprised me was
    1. not only do I appear to pray all day long (no surprises), but I’m involved in quite a few prayer groups during the week–whether intentional or spontaneous.
    2. How often I talked about being led by the Holy Spirit when I prayed. He came back to that several times–that I didn’t use a formal way of praying, but seemed to “rif” on the subject needing prayer.
    3. He had never heard of a phone prayer chain and asked me lots of questions. He was quite taken aback when I mentioned I first heard of the Challenger explosion (which probably happened before he was born, yikes!) through a call down our church prayer chain.
    4. He was was quite interested in how that same prayer chain operated in regards to healing. I explained that we finally reached a point of praying “for the healing the person needs most,” because it felt odd to be praying for healing for people we knew were dying.

    I’ve used that prayer frequently over the years because I’ve come to think that often God brings/allows difficulties in our lives so that we can face things we might not have considered before. So, an illness is challenging, but it also might be an opportunity for us to humble ourselves and ask for help–that kind of thing.

    Or a serious illness might be an opening to an estranged relative,

    5. He was charmed to learn we pray for Gambia on Wednesdays . . . 🙂 And was particularly interested in how the prayers are posted each day. So I told him.
    6. At the end, I asked him if he had anything I needed to pray about for him. Well, he had been thinking about that prayer for the healing the person needs most. He had this need that had been bothering him and distracting him, but maybe he needed to be healed in a different area?

    🙂 Don’t you love it?

    I need to go read up on yesterday’s Bill Gothard stuff. Ciao.

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  36. Sobering information on Gothard. My husband benefited from his teaching as a teenager and just recently found his notes. He went to throw them away and it opened onto notes about what causes a young girl to become a harlot.

    He was shocked to see described a young girl in his Sunday school class for whom he’d been praying–the life she’s living now that will set her up for disaster later.

    It caused him to pray for her more and with different eyes and to get her uncle and step-grandfather more involved in this poor girl’s life. She’s also got a small prayer team of non-relatives praying for her. The situation is rife with ominous gloom.

    Except, the girl loves her Sunday school class, adores my husband and while she gets held accountable in the class, always comes back with an apology because she wants to learn about God. She must be nine or ten now and her divorced parents are, of course, walking disasters.

    I read a story like the one Donna posted from Pathos and I wonder what on earth that board of directors is thinking. All the signs are there for potential problems–have none of these well-meaning parents, pastors, home schoolers learned nothing from all the sexual harassment training that has been out there for decades?

    I want to trust people, too, but as the boy scouts proved thirty years ago, you have to have two-deep leadership. Don’t we all know that we are vulnerable to temptations? Why would any one be considered above that?

    One thing I’ve always appreciated about Billy Graham is he insisted on rules for how he would travel. He never dined alone with a woman, always had men pick him up and so forth. My own husband had a window put into his office door when he took a major position in the Navy–not because he feared for himself, though acknowledging temptation always exists, but because there was no reason for secrecy.

    He also encouraged his female admin assistants to enter often and not leave as long as there was a woman meeting with him.

    That was a secular position.

    So, what’s up with the church leaders?

    Our pastors all have windows in their doors, same reason. Anything to do with kids involves two adults not married to each other if possible. That’s just sensible–and it seems to me something Gothard himself would have recommended 40 years ago.

    Satan roams as a lion about the land hunting lambs. 😦

    Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you should shelve your brains at the church door.

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  37. Another quote from the Heaven workbook by Alcorn: “Earth is an in-between world touched by both Heaven and hell. Earth leads directly into Heaven or directly into hell, affording a choice between the two. The best of life on earth is a glimpse of Heaven; the worst of life is a glimpse of hell. For Christians, this present life is the closest they will come to hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to Heaven.”

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  38. Michelle’s QoD: The short answer is no. However, that really looks at the surface of the question – what the question really is asking is, should we not make every effort to ensure that the memories of the past are not wiped out by the hand of tyranny? Art, which encompasses visual art, music and literature, are integral clues to past human experience. They help us understand and learn from the past.
    When I was in West Africa, one of the tragedies I witnessed was the lack of records from the past. Mostly oral records survive – there are few artifacts and no writings from the days before Arabs and Europeans began to write about the area. Only in the last couple of centuries have the local languages begun to be written down and there are few books written in those languages. Myth and superstition grew easily in such a vacuum.
    There are times that a work must be destroyed because it is causing more harm than good, like Hezekiah destroying the bronze serpent of Moses; but Israel still had a written record of the serpent, so the memory of it was preserved. I remember reading how some of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto preserved a written record of events there and buried it so that even after the Nazis wiped them all out (which they realized would happen) the memory of what happened would be preserved.
    The Nazis sought to wipe out memories by stealing art work or banning music by Jewish composers or the plan to blow up all of Paris’ monuments as the Allies advanced. The Resistance and the Allies made every effort to see that those memories were preserved and we in succeeding generations are grateful for their efforts.

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  40. Roscuro, you so eloquently put into words what I could not form into coherent thoughts on the question.

    I am remembering a VBS craft we once did which was to make mancala games. In researching the game I found that it was an African game that the slave owners in America would not let them play here. It would remind the slaves of home and their old life. Mancala is a counting game. It could even be considered a type of art from a culture. Isn’t it like, symbolically if not physically, ending a person’s life to remove all they knew in their past life and make them a slave? In such a situation, I think some of the older slaves might have thought it would be worth the punishment to share the love of their favorite game with the young. Who knows if some slave may have been beaten or killed all over a Mancala game. Mancala, the counting game, can not answer the question of what is a life worth.

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  41. These are all interesting points. We’re studying Exodus in Sunday School, and I keep reminding folks that the Israelites had been in Egypt for 400 years–think Jamestown, Virginia founding. They had no written records, all they had was their oral history. Is it so hard to understand why God had to make himself visibly known to them?

    Is it not understandable why they would fall back to their memories of Egypt when they became frightened or hungry, no matter they were slaves?

    And what did it mean NOT to be a slave if that’s all your family has known for 400 years? God needed those 40 years in the desert to teach them how to be free–and then, of course, that knowledge passed to the generation that had never known slavery.

    Because of the metaphor of Egypt being Sin and God removing the Israelites from sin into freedom, it helps me to think about those who are saved, yet slaves to something like drug addiction. How hard that must be to grasp freedom, understand freedom, want freedom for the sin, and yet slip back into known patterns.

    The miracle is that because of Jesus, we can be forgiven time and again, we are removed and saved from our sin–each time we fall back. That’s a grace and mercy we need to cling to, even when we’re helping people climb back out of sin.

    End of sermon. I really need to write . . . 🙂

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  42. Michelle – on your musing about IBYC/IBLP/ATI and how parents could be so blind:

    We were taught not to question the leadership. Bible verses taken out of context were used to guilt us into not listening to a bad report, even a report of abuse; interfering in such a case was condemned as ‘taking up an offense against a brother’; and one could only bring concerns to authorities in the form of a ‘proper appeal’. I grew up with those concepts and believed them. I personally know a peer in the program who was abused [this was confirmed by confession of the abuser]; but her parents failed to protect her because they followed the these teachings and continued to associate with the abuser. She even made an appeal to Gothard (not knowing what he was really like) and he refused to interfere.

    That being said, the whole premise of the program is based on a false gospel. It promises moral, financial, and spiritual success from following seven basic principles. That is totally and completely anti-Biblical. The Christian walk is not formulaic, nor is it the purpose of the Christian life to attain success. Our purpose in this world, to quote from the catechism, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Material provision is something God grants or withholds based on His purposes in our lives (Job 1:21). Moral purity is never assured – we do not reach perfection in this life and we must continually draw on God’s power to resist temptation.

    Janice is somewhat accurate in her description of the life of those in ATI. As a adolescent, I was so entangled in legalistic guidelines of how to please God that I nearly gave up hope. I was a hair’s breadth from a complete mental breakdown – my family noticed that I was beginning to behave strangely and tried to help me by giving me more of the same materials. It was the humble preaching of an obscure pastor in a tiny church which helped me understand the grace of God. I memorized the book of Galatians, and came across the list of the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) and realized that following Gothard’s Principles had created that kind of fruit in my life. I walked away from the program’s teaching, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned how widespread that fruit had been.

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  43. I remember attending the Gothard conferences as a teenager. Thankfully, our youth group seemed to pull the good out and leave behind the rest.

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  44. Thanks for sharing, Roscuro.

    I didn’t grow up in a Christian home; I became a Christian at 15 at a charismatic Lutheran Church that focused on an orderly worship using the Holy Spirit and checking everything against the Bible. Because I came into the church with an “outsiders” point of view, I felt free to accept and reject (albeit quietly) what didn’t make sense to me.

    That’s one of the reasons I didn’t attend the Bill Gothard Basic Youth Conflicts conference held every year–even though our church encouraged the teenagers to go and took them.

    We had some authority issues and plain silliness in our church (girls should not get their ears pierced because “that’s what gypsies do.” ???), and because our pastor wrote the book The Christian Family, we were instructed on submission and recognizing authority.

    I accepted what made sense and released the rest. It was a Lutheran Church so grace reigned supreme.

    I married, however, a young man from that church and we had to work through the authority and submission issues over the years, complicated and simplified because of his military training. It has always made sense to us that someone has to “be in command,” but because my husband was a submarine officer, we had the life lesson of a Commanding Officer and an Executive Officer.

    On subs, those two men often hold the same rank, but one has to be in charge to make the ultimate decisions while the XO needs to be prepared to step in as needed or if the CO is incapacitated.

    Once we grew up enough in ourselves and our marriage (married at 21 and 22), we took that line. He made final decisions after much input from me. But it took us awhile to reach that point.

    I guess my question would be (another question of the day!), how do we as a church help people to see the truth about Jesus/God/Holy Spirit as found in Scripture? I’m a gatekeeper in my job–I see a lot of queries for Christian living books. I’ve been shocked at how Biblically unsound so many writers are and how pig-headed they are about their point of view.

    God tells us, “come now, let us reason together.” Should that be where people turn when confronted with things that don’t make sense?
    (Which is not to say you can come at spiritual things through common sense alone; we’re all weak and fall short of the glory of God and misunderstand)

    I think it goes back to something we’ve discussed before–that so many of us parent out of fear. We take that verse, “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it,” and hope it’s a talisman. If we focus on shoving all that Scripture that will not return void, into their hearts, we’ll get a good outcome right?

    In reality, “it’s freedom Christ who has set us free, stand firm and do not allow yourselves to be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

    Our fear can enslave us. But Jesus’ perfect love casts out all fear. How can we encourage our fellow believers into that freedom from fear and slavery?

    BTW, got your lovely card today, Phos. 🙂

    Have I written my 1000 words for today, all on this blog? Back to Egypt. Someone’s death has just been revealed . . . 🙂

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  45. Wow, that was quick delivery! I only sent it on Tuesday.

    I just went for a walk around the property. I surprised a rabbit from underneath the woodpile. It was moving too fast to get a picture, even if I had my camera.

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  46. I also received a lovely card today. We went to see Monument’s Men today. I enjoyed it. I was relieved when one of the men was given a blatant opportunity to cheat on his wife, he didn’t. I hope that isn’t too much of a spoiler for some of you who may go see it.

    I grew up with a vision of an angry, vengeful God. I was worthless and undeserving of love. Nothing I could do would please God. There was a LOOONNNGGG list of things we couldn’t do. I was hounded to bring a rosary to school for the bonfire so that we could see the demons screaming as they were burned. They played music backwards so we could hear the “backmasked” words, “Satan he is god”. It was in an Episcopal church that I first heard that God loved me. I turned my back on religion for a long time, but the thought that God loved me brought me back.

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  47. I got the card, too, than you roscuro.

    So the poor dogs were locked in today and the funeral went longer than anticipated (with lots of visiting afterward and then dropping someone off at work with more visiting). So when I got home & opened the door I knew there would be work to do. A certain scent in the air …

    Thankfully they choose the linoleum floor at the back of the house to have their accidents, but this one took a while to clean up (and I just threw away the throw rug, not worth trying to clean). Poor babies. Give me a litter box any day compared to that mess!

    Grateful for Pine Sol. Now I have several windows open to air the place out.

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  48. Michelle, all I can think of at the moment that overcomes fesr and that form of slavery is to abide in Him and let Him abide in me. Like you said, perfect love casts out fesr. God is perfect love. If enough of Him is abiding in a person then there is no room for fear. One very effective way to have Him in the heart is to memorize His word after reading, studying and meditating on the meaning of the Scripture in context. I need to do more of that myself. Does this get at what you are thinking about?

    Sometimes when people are afraid, they just have to go ahead and do whatever it is and trust that they are in God’s company. Of course I am not speaking of doing something that would be outside of His will. It helps to know that when we are weak He is strong, that His strebgth is made perfect thriugh our weakness☆His light shines brightly through our weak and transparent frames.

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  49. I got the card too, Phos–thank you. It was a good mail day–two handwriiten cards (one from a teenage girl in my church thanking me for the Valentine) and a package (a book of my sunset photos, with the one that was on the blog a few days ago being the cover image).

    Donna, your dogs can’t hold it a few hours? I’m so blessed with Misten. Except when she has had diarrhea (rare) or been sick, she basically can hold it. A few times we’ve heard her pacing at night and one of us has gotten up to let her out, but I’ve never seen her have an accident since she couldn’t wait, not since she was less than six months old, except when she is sick. (When under stress, like with a vet who wasn’t very gentle, she has wet, but that really is different, and I suspect the smell of other dogs having done the same thing might well be present!)

    She did, however, get out again last night, the other side of the yard this time. That made it necessary for my husband to work for two hours (and me maybe 45 minutes of that) to deny her access to that fence. And I really had no idea how deep the snow is out there. I knew it was several feet deep in a drift near the house, and obviously it’s several feet deep next to the fence. But I was sinking to my knees in parts of the yard I’d thought to be only inches deep. We have a bare patch in the very center of the yard now, but otherwise it probably averages two feet deep in our whole yard, and that’s without any decent accumulation recently.

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  50. My dogs are good overnight (though sometimes Tess will jump up on the bed to let me know they have to go out, but not often). And they were good yesterday for 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon. I was gone for 4 hours today and I guess it just hit wrong with their later feeding schedule. But it’s the first accident since I’ve been confining them with the fence issue, so not too bad.

    Talked to the neighbor on the other side of the fence, but she’s going through a horrible divorce right now and says her ex-husband has left tons of stuff in the yard so you can’t even see the fence from her side (I originally thought I could look at the other side of it to try to figure out where the escape route was).

    So back to square one for me. But she did explain a little bit about the construction of the fence and the history (her parents owned the house before she did) so that gave me a better idea of the issue I think. She said the fence is very old (1950s) and she thinks before they lived there a cut-through trail was created by kids that ever since has been a regular passage way for raccoons, skunks — and a stray border collie apparently. But she thinks the place is on the south corner while I think he’s been getting out more near the center of the fence, so who knows.

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  51. Maybe Cowboy and Misten are trying to run away together. They could have plans to meet somewhere say in Montana? And then live happily ever after … As the Roy Rogers song goes, Don’t Fence Me In.

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  54. poor little seven year old has been sniffling and sneezing and coughing all day. It is like there is a cat in the house…. oh, wait….never mind….

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  55. I just got a lesson in sushi making from second sibling and her fiancé. Their idea of a date seems to be cooking together. I have to say, they make good sushi. And, no, they don’t use raw fish.

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  56. Well said, Roscuro about the value of art in relation to man. I know much art during the holocaust was done in defiance. Such acts help men keep their souls from dying, in a sense.

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  57. Cowboy doesn’t have a very reliable recall, unfortunately, not like Tess (the good dog who doesn’t run away from home). But it’s a thought — maybe the lady would let me give it a try.

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  59. The kitten is getting comfortable. She’s getting over her shyness. She just spent the last hour playing with Liz and Cheryl. She likes balls with bells, but she loves a feather tied to an elastic string best. She was cracking us up. She’s now upstairs getting ready for bed with Liz. She’ll hopefully be trying out her new bed Liz gave her. 🙂

    The older cat didn’t hiss near as much and she shared her water and food. She just stood about 3 feet away and watched. They’ve been within a couple feet a bunch of times and so far no problems, except the occasional hiss. She plays with stuff some, but she’d rather sit and watch Duke (Yes, she really watches. I think the little people amuse her.) while sitting on my lap than play. She prefers petting. 🙂

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  60. Donna, I know Misten is unusual on the “potty” front. I was really glad I didn’t hear what the experts said about puppies until AFTER I got her and knew they were wrong where she was concerned, but I read that a puppy can last overnight one hour for every month of age plus one hour, I believe it was. Maybe it was just one hour per month. At any rate, she should have lasted two to three hours overnight when I got her at eight weeks. Instead, she lasted five hours during the day, minimum, and at night after the first two weeks she would stay in her crate without complaint the whole night. (Initially she’d whimper once during the night and I’d take her out, and that was it.) But I would not have had the courage to get a puppy, especially during the winter, if I’d read that first, since I have bad enough insomnia.

    With Misten, I took her out on-leash this morning twice, and she peed the first time and went poop the second, and I knew she wouldn’t need out the rest of the day (though she might want to go out, and it was barely possible she’d even go potty again if she did go out). I couldn’t leave her alone eight or ten hours for a workday because she’d get lonely, but if I have to leave her that long occasionally, I just make sure she goes before I leave and then I know she’s good for at least 12 hours, 24 if she has gone “both ways.” (Though I’d never leave her for 24 hours, of course. But occasionally I’ve left her for ten or more.)

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  61. Well Amos has Lulabelle trained to go in her crate at night after they go out potty. He escorts her, hops up on the sofa and waits until they both get treats. I truly couldn’t have down it without him. 😉

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  62. Thanks, the real Cheryl. Took me all day to get the time but I really enjoyed that song. Uplifting and encouraging in my life right now. Good way to end the day. Guess I will go get my flashlight and boots and coat and go lock up the goat kids so we can milk in the morning. I will let Jake out so she can guard the grounds and hope to look up to see the stars and praise God. But with that song on my mind, clouds will be fine, I can still praise Him.

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  63. Since y’all are on the subject of animal bathroom situations, the most amazing thing once happened. Many years ago I brought home a puppy from a litter being given away at the store where I worked. She shared a room with a cat while I was at work. I would tape giant black trash bags to the floor for the dog to go to bathroom during my work hours away. The litter box was also on that area. One day when I got home there was a perfectly centered pile of doggy poop in the litter box. I always wondered how the cat managed to get the dog to do that! Soon afterwards I had a fence installed in the back yard for the puppy.

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  64. Bosley is at least part vegan. She likes corn kernals and baby lima beans. At the vets office she would have nothing to do with the kitty treats they tossed at her. I’ll just carry a can of corn with me next time. 🙂

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  65. Well, that was pleasant indeed. No stars but lots of feather soft kisses of snowflakes as I looked up on a (relatively) warm spring night. Beautiful. The kids were all in their little pen, the moms all out of it. Jake was happy to bark at the night time intruder, whoever that might have been. Very quiet and peaceful, but I could not stay long as I have four children in the house and they bear watching.

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  66. So. mumsee, you say the children are in the house bear watching? Let ma ask, why do you have a bear in the house but don’t allow smaller animals?

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  67. So is this a “pet-potty” thread now? 😉 Delightful.

    Cracked me up that Mouse was “getting read for bed.” Kitten PJs ?

    I think dogs get used to a schedule and do well with it. Mine are used to coming and going as they please through the doggie door, at least through the day.

    mumsee, good idea about bringing Tess with me to the other woman’s yard (if she’ll let me).

    There were 3 big newfies — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_(dog) — at the dog park today, all owned by one of our local beach lifeguards I hadn’t seen there in a while. His newest is “Lola,” a young black-and-white dog with a GIANT purple harness who gave Cowboy a little bit of a hard time when we first got there, but finally backed off.

    We also had the two beagles whom I hadn’t seen in some time, owned by a school teacher. The dogs are getting up in years but still spry.

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  68. Last Sunday was glorious with sun and warmth–I accidentally got sunburned. This Sunday the rain and thunder woke me and it is what is around for most of the day. Oh well, I can stay inside and finish cleaning the house this afternoon.

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  72. Good thing I chose to come home early from church. I just did Sunday School. Bosley was staying confined this morning in the bathroom where I put her for safety when I go out. When I opened the door I did not see hrr anywhere. Finally I heard her meow. She had gone up into the hole in the cdiling that we had not sealed from when we had a plumbing issue with the bathroom on the upper level. I decided the best solution was to get a broom for her to drop herself down onto (knowing how some cats like to ride on brooms and all 🙂 ).
    She would put her front paws forward on it but not bring down her back legs. I was afraid her legs were caught up in something and I was having visions of her hanging down by her legs and yowling. Thank God she did decide to hop fully on board the broom. So much for my false sense of safety for this curious and energetic cat. Next stop for her was playing with the blind cords in the bedroom. I usually put them out of reach but didn’t this morning. She seems to have a homing device for Big Cat Troubles for a Little Cat as I have labeled this syndrome. AJ, I hope you do not discover Mouse to have similar genetic makeup!

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  74. yes, we live on the reservation and the bear is considered a helper so therefore, much as the cows in India are allowed to wander freely….

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  75. Glad Bosley is ok — cats have an insatiable curiosity. And the agility to go most anywhere.

    It’s fence day for me, we’ll see how this goes …

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  78. I probably should thank you all again. Your donations to Phos was my wedding present, so thank you. As I told you then this wasn’t our first rodeo and we didn’t need a things…although the cards, the ladle, and the silver platter were very much appreciated, you could not have spent your money buying us a gift and made me any happier than by donating to her year in The Gambia.
    I wish I could do it all over again to donate to another missionary.

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  79. Our cat, much older than Boz at the time, got into the wall surrounding the new bathtub when it was installed. You should have seen the look on the contractor’s face when he came into Bible study that night and we said, “okay, how do we get our cat out of the wall?”

    (We went under the house).

    She was fine. He’s never gotten over the ribbing . . . 🙂

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  80. Well, we’ll see if the fence holds. After several hours of pounding steel rebar poles into the ground and shoving 17-pound pavers behind them to try to close up the gap, I think the most likely problem areas have been addressed.

    Meanwhile, I’m soaked with sweat, still picking thorny twigs out of my hair and I didn’t realize until I’d gotten home from my 2nd supply run to Home Depot that I was sporting quite a prominent dirt mustache. Nice. Why didn’t the clerk say something? Never mind, I guess it’s one of those things you’d try to ignore on a customer. What could you say?

    Now for the test to see if Cowboy mangoes to get out again. If so, I’ll be ready to throw my hands up and just hire someone to fortify the entire fence bottom, one end to the other.

    Debating whether I could take a quick shower and make it back to church for the 6 p.m. class ….

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  84. Wait a minute, Mumsee, you feed your bear mangoes? And you rag on us for having smallish inside pets? (Misten isn’t small, but next to your bear she’d look small. In fact, she might look snack-size.)

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