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Our Daily Thread 9-12-14

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!

Today’s header photo is from Cheryl.

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On this day in 1914 the first battle of Marne ended when the allied forces stopped the German offensive in France. 

In 1916 Adelina and August Van Buren finished the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour to be attempted by two women.

In 1918, during World War I, At the Battle of St. Mihiel, U.S. Army personnel operate tanks for the first time. The tanks were French-built. 

And in 1979 Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox became the first American League player to get 3,000 career hits and 400 career home runs. 

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Quote of the Day

“A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does.”

Lewis B. Hershey

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 Today is George Jones’ birthday.

And it’s Gerry Beckley’s too.

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Anyone have a QoD?

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-12-14”

  3. Hello, all! Another 9/11 has passed, but some who were there were traumatized and probably relive it day after day.

    We’ve just had a pounding rain along with the boom booms to awaken everyone in a big way.

    One of the worship leaders/ singers yesterday at the Cry Out America prayer rally I attended was from the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church (Martin Luther King’s church). I need to find out if she has a CD. It was interesting to see one of our tax clients was a speaker/prayer warrior for the event. I think this was the first time it was held in our state capitol building. It was awesome to hear the shofar blown in that building!!!

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  6. Elvera used to wear her hair piled on top like Tammy. She thought it pleased me. She was relieved when I said I didn’t especially like it that way. It’s a lot of work to fix like that.
    I never cared for the style. I like long hair. But Elvera can’t wear it long because it bushes out.

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  7. Well there’s your QOD and this will help a lot of women!

    WHY DO MEN LIKE LONG HAIR?

    Mr. P met me when my hair was cut in a cute bob. He obviously liked what he saw at first so why did he immediately start asking me to grow it out after we got married? He also wants me to let it go to my natural (now mousy brown and grey) color. Ain’t hap’nin

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  8. I tried to post this last night, but our internet was down all evening.

    Roscuro, while I think that for the most part an adult living under the parental roof can be making her own decisions, I do think that being a dependent does mean that parents are still in authority in a different way than mere adults living together. It’s really a tricky line, and either side can “abuse” it. For example, I lived at home until I was 20. I did nearly all the housework (my mom cleaned her own bathroom and put the laundry in the washing machine) and I paid some rent (my income was low, and my rent was a percentage of my income, so it was low too . . . but it was a lot of money to me since I was saving to buy a car and thus be able to get a job that was past walking distance). My mom set a 10:30 bedtime for me, and I obeyed her even though, in reality, that was micromanaging me to have a bedtime, especially when I wasn’t really a dependent. (The money I gave her for rent wouldn’t have covered my housing expenses elsewhere, but probably did cover her actual expenses in having me under her roof, and I also did the housework. I didn’t have a car, but I also got myself to work and to church and anywhere else I wanted to go.) I think by the time a kid is old enough to get enough sleep and to get herself up on time, bedtimes aren’t necessary or helpful, though it’s perfect fair to ask that people be quiet after a certain hour.

    But yes, I do think that parents can say such things as “As long as you live in my house, you will go to church on Sunday” or “Yes, you’re an adult, but that doesn’t mean you can stop taking out the trash. You’re still a member of this household, and you still have responsibilities to it.” (If the child wants to negotiate for different responsibilities, that’s fair enough.) But children who are living at home for mutual convenience and expense sharing are on a different level than dependent adults. I know a single woman in her forties and her widowed mother who live together. I imagine they are completely mutual in their household arrangements, with the kinds of conversations housemates have: “You know, I always have liked washing dishes, and I know you don’t enjoy doing them. How about if I take responsibility for the dishes, but you do the sweeping and vacuuming. Would that work?” But I think adult children get to that level quicker if they are helping out voluntarily.

    I think a father is “head of household” of his house, even when some in his household (including his wife) are adults. Not in a patriarchal way, but in the way that he has every right to have issues that are important to him be respected. (Let’s say he has decided no computers or TVs in bedrooms because of too much risk of porn. His kids might roll their eyes, and they might say, “But Dad, we’re adults, and we’re trustworthy.” He can choose to trust them, but he can also choose to keep that as a rule of the house. And those who don’t like it are free to set up their own households.) It still is the parents’ house. And especially if they pay the bills, all the more so. Actually, it works the other way around too. If Mom moves in with Son, then Son is free to say, “Mom, we have always taught our children that the f-word isn’t allowed in this house. I know you’re used to using it, but I’m asking you to make an effort to break that habit, because we don’t want our children hearing it and thinking it’s OK.” In that instance, it is his house, his rules. In his parents’ house he had to put up with such things, but in his own house he can insist she smoke outside and keep such language outside, and he can even insist that she not drink in his house or put her beer in the fridge. So could a daughter if the mother became a dependent of her daughter. If they get a house together, then the rules might be subject to more “mutual agreement.” (And even when one is a dependent, it is ideal to work things out mutually . . . it just is not required that the head of household change the rules to accommodate others.)

    Granted, I’m at the other side of this issue, with adult children who are dependents (and who mostly have “roommate-level” freedoms), but I don’t think that’s the only reason I think this. I think “Love your wife as Christ loved the church” and “Don’t provoke your children to wrath” come into play here, but that neither of those keeps a head of household from staying in his position. But please don’t think I’m saying that he has the authority to forbid her to get a part-time job or to move out; I do think that patriarchy carries authority way too far.

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  10. Re: long hair. It seems more feminine, and hair that moves can be quite pretty. (Chas, my husband doesn’t seem to like it up either. I’m worn it up around him only twice, once on our first official date and once for my birthday this year, and that is the only hairstyle that he didn’t say “I like that.” Granted, another one he told me is his “least favorite” of the ways I wear it, but he quickly clarified that it still is “a favorite” of my ways of putting it back, just his least favorite. When I put it up, he didn’t comment at all.)

    I’ve always liked long hair (on women, not on men), and always wished my hair would grow waist-length. The reality is, if it grew that long it would probably give me a headache, since it is quite thick. (I always get comments when I get it cut.) In college I grew it as long as it would grow, which is several inches past my shoulder. But at some point I got it cut a bit, and shortly thereafter a friend talked me into letting her cut it some more, and I told her not to cut much off. When I looked in the mirror afterward, I wasn’t pleased at all, since she had cut several inches, and it was just above my shoulders. But all around campus I got compliments, even from girls I didn’t know, so I’ve kept it shoulder length ever since.

    But every time it grows a couple extra inches and I look and see that it’s time to cut it, I regret it, because personally I want it long. So, a couple of years ago I told my husband I was thinking of letting it grow, and did he have an opinion either way? He didn’t. (Before we married, he did ask me to dye it, but the request was so traumatic I asked him to reconsider, and he was OK with me letting it be.) Anyway, my hair got cut two or three inches too short last March, so it had some growing out to do before it could begin to grow past the length where I had been keeping it, buy now (I just measured it), it is six inches past my shoulder and about six inches from the longest it has ever grown. (I didn’t realize it was a full foot past my shoulders back then, but apparently it was.)

    And yes, I’m 47. I’m at the age where women think long hair makes them look old. But it can work the other way too–today people just don’t expect middle-aged women to keep their hair long, so it gives a youthful air to her. Of course, my gray will work against that, but I’m not wrinkled and it doesn’t pull my face down.

    When I was putting together the book of photos for our family reunion, I was shocked to discover that every one of the women in my family (including those who married into it), with just one exception, has at least shoulder-length hair. One niece and one of her daughters have a bob, but the rest of us all have longish to long hair. And in my own generation (now 45 to 61), that is six women! The next generation is still in their twenties and early thirties, and their children are all under ten, and it is the oldest of my nieces who keeps her hair short. But in our generation it’s rather amazing that my sister and I and all four of our sisters-in-law keep our hair at least shoulder length, many several inches longer. (My mom always kept hers short.)

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  11. Here’s a QOD: I have a friend who is a cancer survivor with some physical issues (including arthritis), and yesterday she worked hard cleaning her son’s bedroom and she was in pain afterward. Her son is a teenager, 13 I think. I told her that I don’t see how his bedroom is her job, and she told me that ALL the work in the house is the job of the wife and mother, though she may choose to give kids chores. So . . . what is your take on such things? Not talking about does the man have any responsibility for the housework (though if you have an opinion on that, feel free to offer it), but who has the responsibility for the work in the home, and how do you decide that?

    My fun Friday plan is going out to lunch with a friend, so I won’t weigh in on this myself for a few hours.

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  13. Humming bird fight!? Awesome photo, Cheryl! 🙂

    Yes, all men seem to prefer long hair. I had very long hair in college & beyond but have generally aimed for shoulder lengthy, sometimes slightly above, more recently. Shoulder length hair works for almost everyone, I think, and I’ve gone back to including a few long layers to give it more shape & bounce.

    I still don’t have to color my hair, for some reason I’ve been very slow to go gray, but my once brighter red hair has become a lot more subdued. 😦 It still looks red in the sun, but indoors it’s taken on a much more brown hue. Oh well. It’s a small price to pay, really, for not having to mess with artificial color.

    Some older women can carry off the very-long hair look, but they are few and far between. Case in point, Hillary Clinton’s hair looks SO much better now that she’s wearing it shorter again.

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  14. Shoulder length works well, too, since it’s still long enough to quickly tie back or up.

    I don’t intentionally “wear” my hair like that really, but I do love the option of tucking it all up in a pony tail or tucked-under ball so it’s off off my neck & out of the way for a little while here and there during the course of a day or when I’m at home doing housework.

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  16. Adult children. I consider all of the fifteen and ups to be adults therefore they are called young adults. They are capable of holding a job, maintaining a home, keeping their finances balanced, helping their neighbor, etc. But if they do something stupid that gets the attention of the law, they lose that. They are expected to shoot for being in their rooms at 8:15. They generally shut their books by nine thirty. But that is because I need my sleep and go to bed at 8:30.
    The older adult children no longer living at home, I try never to give them advice, even when they ask. Something I learned from my parents. They have been raised, they know what to do. Now I need to let them do it. When they come for a visit, they know I need my rest so they try not to keep me up too late and are respectful by heading off to their rooms when I go.

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  17. Could be an interesting day for us, rumor has it our newspapers may be formally put on the auction block soon. There’s a nationwide conference call with all the company’s top management starting in about 5 minutes and rumors have been swirling for 24 hours now.

    Such a rock-and-roll business we’re in …

    (About the prospect of being sold — again — a colleague said to me yesterday, “Well, it couldn’t get any worse.” Ha.I told him I can’t count the number of times I’ve said that in the past 10 years — and it always gets worse! Crazy how that happens. 😉 )

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  18. Cheryl, I was talking with my mother about the ongoing discussion, and she would disagree with you. She stated that living with an adult child is based on mutual respect. As she put it, if another, unrelated, adult came to live in her house, having no where else to stay, my mother wouldn’t be telling her things like when to go to bed. My mother speaks from experience, as she lived with her parents before she was married (she was a school teacher) – and from what she has said, she was treated very autonomously, even choosing when and where to go to church.

    Her family came from the lower British class, where multi-generational families existed for survival – my grandparents always had at least one married child living with them until they died, and my aunts and uncles have all provided similar shelter to their children when necessary. When my eldest sibling and her husband and child had to come and live with us for half a year, my mother emphasized the importance of letting them be an independent family unit. My father does agree with her as his pioneer farming family also had extensive experience with multi-generational living – as I said, it is more how he sometimes comes across than his real intent – his mother and grandmother had to have their husbands build them separate kitchens in order to live together.

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  20. Re: long hair- Women should wear their long enough and dress like a woman so we can tell they are female. Men can have longish hair as long as they dress like a man. If I have to guess then the person is not proper. Personally, I like women with hair below the shoulders, or at least with a bow or something in the hair that looks feminine (especially if for health reasons they lose their hair). Men’s hair should never go below the collar/shoulder area (unless they are an undercover detective/spy in a hippie commune). If a guy insists on longer hair than that, he should grow a beard to make it obvious who he is.

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  21. Anonymous (I’m pretty sure that was Michelle) last night mentioned using “I” statements. I do try to do that much of the time.

    Really, we are blessed with the current arrangement. The frustration I mentioned yesterday is really a small part of the whole, & something I will address soon. Emily helps out with many things, such as yard work, including doing most of the shoveling & snow-blowing in the winter (She loves doing that stuff!)

    She is making plans for renovating portions of our house when she is making some money in a few years, & has also talked about taking care of us in our old age.

    (Part of my prayer for my husband is that he will be blessed with a job lucrative enough for us to do the renovating that needs to be done.)

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  22. Long hair. What is long? Seems people with short hair think it is long and people with long hair think it is short.

    I have a neighbor with waist length hair, kept nice in a long tail or braid. He is my age, a farmer, and an Iraq vet. You could not mistake him for a female. He also works with the Nimipuu in the casino and their tradition is long hair for all.

    I have known women with what I consider short hair and they think it is long and in need of a cut.

    My own is whatever length it is. It stays behind me so I cannot see it. It is kept long enough so it is almost no trouble, definitely not fashionably long but probably about below the waist. And I hear it turns grey and then back to brown. I don’t know, my eyes don’t see well enough to discern. My husband loves me. I don’t particularly care what anybody else thinks about it.

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  23. Cheryl – As for long hair looking nice, it really depends on the kind of hair a woman has. I had long hair for a while when my girls were younger, & it really didn’t look nice. My hair is kind of frizzy-ish, for one thing. I tried keeping it in ponytails or buns, but still had a halo of fuzziness around my head. Plus, the heaviness of my hair kind of flattened it somewhat, not looking particularly attractive.

    My hair now is kept in a short-but-not-too-short kind of style. It has layers to it, which give it body & fullness, & bring out the natural curls & waves my hair has. It looks much prettier than when it was long. Sadly, in the past few years, my once very thick & lush hair has thinned out considerably. My current cut gives it a fuller look.

    Emily has smooth, slightly wavy hair that looks great long. And that’s how she wears it. Her problem is that as a student LPN (& later as a working LPN), she is supposed to keep her hair back in a bun. The problem is that her hair is so thick & heavy, even the kind of heavy duty hair ties break too easily in her hair. So she has considered going for a shorter cut, but that decision would be a hard one for her to make, because she does love her long hair.

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  24. My hair has grown out from a short cut. My hairstylist got pregnant, got married, and moved to Hawaii. I have not made time to go to a new person. At this age I do not think it matters to husband if my hair is long or short, but I feel certain he would not like the shaved head look unless chemo at some point demanded it. He use to like it long. It is too thick for it to be so long as it is now. I need to do something about it, but now that it is almost time for cold weather, well…it seems rather foolish to cut it short when it is such a good head warmer. I am still trying to decide.

    I think of long hair as pretty, and short hair as cute. Perhaps men see it that way, too, and they like pretty more than cute?

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  25. I wrote a short true story that will be included in the Divine Moments at Christmas book. The book is being compiled by Yvonne Lehman, and as far as I know it will be out for this Christmas season. 🙂 Thanks for prayers.

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  26. Re – Long hair: I have grown my hair to about halfway down my back, but it is so thick and curly that I get headaches and feel so hot in the summer. I cut my own hair while in Africa and it was much more comfortable to keep it very short. Like Karen’s daughter, I had to keep my hair off my collar when I was studying nursing. It was about shoulder length, so I had to pin it up. Even at that length, it was heavy and I had to use a lot of clips or pins to keep it in place.

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  28. Re: adult children at home- We charge a minimal rent which can be exchanged for doing chores around the house. As for rules, as long as they are under my roof, they know they are to follow certain rules. But we don’t give them a bed time.

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  29. Slight breeze, clear skies, about 70 is the forecast for this evening.

    Why does it matter? Because I got free tickets at mid-field for tonight’s high school football game. 🙂

    It’s the home and season opener and the weather is gonna be perfect.

    Thanks Lori and Ralph! :).

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  30. Chas, I remember hearing Megan Kelly once say how awful she *really* looked without all the makeup etc. But I’d find that hard to believe, though I’m sure the makeup and hair stylists they have make her exceptionally striking. Few people look good first thing the morning.

    As for hair and clothes, women should wear what they want. 🙂

    (Shoulder-length hair in my mom’s day was considered “long” — in my era, “short.” In truth, it’s medium length; but again, women know what they look good in, and that varies depending on age and other factors, so really men should just let women do what they know how to do best.)

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  31. There used to be a time when women, like my grandmother, wore long hair for religious reasons. My grandmother never cut her hair for any reason. She rolled it up into a knot and put it on the back of her head somehow.

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  32. Donna, the green room does wonders. But some, like Megyn Kelly, Shannon Bream and a few others are naturally beautiful. But, as a group, the girls on One America News all seem to be around 20. They all have long hair, probably extensions. Both Megyn and Shannon are 43.

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  33. I haven’t watched One America. I do find it refreshing to see some of the women on CNN who aren’t in their 20s and blonde. 🙂

    I posted a link the other day to Elyse Fitzpatrick’s new book where she suggests that women are often pressured to adopt external standards (in the Christian world, that might mean everyone with long hair and wearing jumpers) imposed as extra-biblical requirements.

    Jumpers are fine, I wore them once, back in the day. But so are jeans if that’s what one is comfortable wearing. 🙂

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  35. Another reason to let my hair keep growing is that when it gets cut off it can go to Locks of Love for cancer patients. My hair is thick enough to make two wigs. [ 🙂 ] [ 🙂 ]

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  36. I’ve been following with interest the discussion on here the last couple days about parenting young adults, though I didn’t have time to weigh in on it yesterday. Still don’t have much time; maybe later — it’s a great discussion, and there’s more I’d like to say, eventually.

    Fun conversation on women and hair, too. 🙂 I get mine cut about 0-1 times a year. I haven’t cut it at all this year, and it’s currently about 10 inches past my shoulders (the longest part; it’s not all one length.)

    I don’t “do” my hair; I just comb it once a day and let it do what it naturally does. I never pull it back into a pony tail or bun. For some reason, that hurts my neck, even if I don’t do it tightly. And, anyway, my face is rather long and narrow (like the rest of me 😉 ), and having my hair very short or pulled back emphasizes the shape of my face more, which I don’t like. I look better wearing my hair down, as it has some natural wave to it (and even more so in humid weather) and tends to draw the eye outward, making my face appear wider.

    I just like the natural look — no makeup, no hair accessories, no coloring my hair, even now with gray appearing on top. I’m sort of earthy that way, and my husband rather enjoys that, too. 😉

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  38. I really have mixed feelings about adult children in their parent’s home. That is because each case even within a family is so individual. I don’t believe in a blanket rule. A lot of young people can not find suitable roommates or else they have a lease and someone moves out leaving them hanging with the rent. That happened several times with me. So I have a heart for young folks who get stuck with too much due without enough income. I also had a situation when an employer in the interview said I would be paid at a certain level, but once I had left my former position, the new job did not pay what it was suppose to. Those are just some of my own personal experiences. I know it is all a learning curve when people are in their 20’s. I advised our son to try to do without a roommate if he could until he got to know people and see if anyone would be a good fit. Sometimes a place in the parent’s home is preferrable to some roommate situations. I have a friend whose nephew had roommates in a college situation who were involved with drugs and the nephew, not involved with drugs, could have faced prison when the others were arrested, but I believe he got a warning before that happened. Living with one’s parents can be the most wise and responsible situation for some.

    Sometimes my son, now 25, seems open to advice from me…when he calls and asks me about something 🙂 . But if I suggest something, well…it’s a fifty percent chance I should have not said anything. I think he is getting better at understanding if I give advice it is because I do have his best interest in mind, and it’s not that I just want to control him. I guess because he was an only child, and I homeschooled him, he saw that I had some good ideas about things and some ideas that did not always work out so well. For that reason, I do not want to get offended if he does not take my advice. He has a good head on his shoulders and has the ability to think of more possibilities than I could in many arenas.

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  39. Roscuro, definitely anyone in the home needs to be treated with respect. And I don’t think adult children should have a bedtime–but then, I don’t think a bedtime is necessary for a 16-year-old who is responsible, including getting herself up on time.

    I think 18 (or 21) is an arbitrary age for adulthood–it isn’t age that makes someone an adult. My husband relaxed some household standards when the girls got to high school (before I entered the picture), others upon graduation. For example, they now can tell us that they are spending the night with a (female) friend, not “ask” us if it’s OK. But he still is the head of the household. Right now, the girls do the dishes; I do the housework and most of the cooking, but they wash the dishes. It would be fine if they wanted to suggest a different “division of labor,” but washing the dishes is “less than their share” (especially since they do not currently pay rent) and not an onerous expectation. But before that was specifically their part of the household responsibility, sometimes after a meal that I’d put extra work into, my husband would say, “I need you girls to do the dishes.” (Sometimes he’d wash the dishes himself, but in the evening he doesn’t usually have the energy to wash dishes.) It was really his way of saying, “It isn’t fair to expect Cheryl to spend two-and-a-half hours cooking dinner and wash the dishes too,” and he also didn’t want to just hope someone did them. As head of the household, that seems perfectly fair.

    I don’t think the comparison to roommate situations is the same, at least not between young-young adult children and parents. With a case of a middle-aged adult choosing not to make a separate household, then yes, it would be about the same. But I had lots of housemates during my single years, and the relationship wasn’t the same at all. Though several of them were my friends or became my friends, it was largely an economic partnership–it’s cheaper to share a household than to live alone. I’d tell them I needed them to take out the trash sometimes, but in all the roommates I ever had, only one did so. (She took it on as her responsibility, knowing I didn’t like to do it.) The others just didn’t do it, and I had no authority to say, “Listen, I know you don’t like to do it, but it’s something that needs to be done and it’s your turn.” I simply did it. When it’s family (even my husband), I feel free to remind, “The trash is full and a little smelly.”

    A child who willingly takes on an adult share of the household responsibilities, and eventually an adult share of the financial load, is in a different situation than an adult child who needs prompting. But the adult child who needs prompting should be prompted, because he has a responsibility to the household. And anyone (even an adult) is to some extent under the authority of the head of the household. But NOT to the extent that the patriarchy movement would have it, where a 25-year-old man still living at home is not allowed to hold his fiance’s hand if his father says he can’t and a 25-year-old woman has to ask her father’s permission to do pretty much anything.

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  40. Here is a link to a book needing reviews from dog lovers. It looks really good. To get it or any of the other 640 books they are giving away this month, some paperback and some ebooks, you need to join the main site at http://www.bookfun.org and then join the Readers Only group. Here is the link for the dog book. http://www.bookfun.org/group/will-work-for-free-books/forum/topics/sponsored-by-carpenter-s-son-why-dogs-are-by-tana-thompson-30-pb

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  41. Jo, if you read this, you can get the ebooks where you are but not the paperbacks. I enjoy doing the reviews. I have a lot needing review right now so I have only asked for two so far from this collection being assigned Monday. They do like for you to be on the chat with the authors and members on the once a month book give away. It is by internet and happens at 8:00 p m (EST). They probably make allowances for differing time zones.

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  43. BTW, on the “adult children” discussion, I had a friend tell me that in her opinion the woman in the home is fully responsible for the home’s care. She can pay to have the work done, she can do it herself, or she can have her children do part of it, but it is fully her responsibility. My response is no, everyone in the home (even a two-year-old) has some responsibility to the home. The wife and mom should shepherd it, and I think her responsibility is greater than her husband’s and her children’s, but all have responsibility. I think that when families have just one or two children, and automatic appliances to wash dishes and clothes, and store-bought clothes and food, then women can allow their children the luxury of laziness. (BTW, Roscuro, I am sure you are not lazy around your home, so I’m not talking about you.) But if I had six young-adult children (giving us eight adults in the house), would it really be all my responsibility (including the kids’ bedrooms and bathroom)? No, it wouldn’t be. And it isn’t now, with only two.

    But with the increase of internal responsibility comes greater freedom from external pressure. Thus, a child who is old enough to be a responsible adult is also old enough to be treated like a responsible adult. Most young people get there gradually, not all at once. But different children develop adult maturity at different ages. The 30-year-old shouldn’t be allowed to leave his dirty socks all over the living room because he is too old to be told what to do; if he needs to be told what to do, then he isn’t too old. But he can get the reminders to stop by (1) doing it without needing to be reminded or (2) moving out. Ideally, he has become a responsible adult long before that, and his parents are able to treat him as such.

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  44. I should clarify the bedtime issue: they have to be out of the living area when the eight year old goes to bed at six thirty because he sleeps in one end of the dining room. They can be outside or in their rooms or gone to whatever. Generally, what happens is, I put the younger ones to bed and as the thirteen year olds are taking showers and getting ready for bed, I step out on the deck for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Within sixty seconds the five older have pulled up buckets and chairs around my deck and are engaging me in deep or shallow conversation. We touch on what they have been up to all day, their thoughts, world events, etc. The thirteens join us for half an hour, then they go to their beds. Our conversation continues for another hour and then they say good night. I generally go walk the dogs. But I do need a few minutes alone so I don’t generally allow any to go with me, though they volunteer. And then I come home and go to bed to start the whole thing over again.

    Having a reasonable bedtime has helped tremendously in keeping everybody in good spirits and willing hearts. It makes for a very peaceful family. On the days they feel they are not getting enough rest, they often say goodnight early and head to bed at seven or so. The others stay up. So there is flexibility, but with respect.

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  50. You’re assuming I’m good at technology, AJ. 😉 I’m not a registered user, and apparently I need to be to “Like” posts. I tried registering with WordPress when you started the blog, and I couldn’t get on here. Now I’m afraid if I try to register again, it might kick me off here. 😛

    So I’ll just “Like” things the old-fashioned way. 😉

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  53. Cheryl’s QoD at 10:26 a.m.:

    No, I don’t think the work inside the home is only the wife and mother’s (either to do or to delegate). And I do think a 13-year-old is capable of cleaning his own room.

    My grandparents had a neat, non-traditional way with certain things. Though they were traditional in a lot of respects, it was my grandpa who always did the dishes after my grandma started having a lot of trouble with excessively dry skin on her hands. And when I went down to their house, if one of them was working in the garage, standing at the workbench fixing something, it was most likely to be Grandma. 😉

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  54. When our children were teens, we still had them in their rooms by 8:30. They didn’t need to be in bed until later, but I needed the space – our house was quite small and teenagers just get bigger and bigger. Now I love to have them at home when they visit 🙂

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  55. I imagine your children did get quite a bit “bigger and bigger”, Kare, since you shared recently about being, 5′ 11″ was it? 😉

    I have a friend who is quite tall, I would say probably 5′ 10″. Her husband is tall, also, over six feet. Their older son is now about the tallest male in our church (of over 1,000 members). He is 6′ 5″.

    Did I mention he’s 14 years old? 🙂

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