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Our Daily Thread 12-20-14

Good Morning!

5 Days!!!! 🙂

Today’s header photo is from Kare.

*It’s now Sunday the 21st, so I believe someone has a birthday today.

Happy Birthday Linda. 🙂

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On this day in 1790 the first successful cotton mill in the United States began operating at Pawtucket, RI.

In 1860 South Carolina became the first state to secede from the American Union. 

In 1879 Thomas A. Edison privately demonstrated his incandescent light at Menlo Park, NJ. 

And in 1968 author John Steinbeck died at the age of 66.

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Quote of the Day

“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.”

Dale Evans

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 This one is a request.

And this one is because I like it. From King’s College Choir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0aL9rKJPr4&feature=player_detailpage ______________________________________________

Anyone have a QoD?

7,368 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-20-14”

  1. Can you imagine someone coming along & deciding to read all these comments from the beginning? I wonder how long that would take.

    Not gonna try it.

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  3. What? 4,000 and no hoopla loud enough for the rest of us to hear? You ladies really do take this seriously, don’t you.

    Oh, I guess that sentence should start with “Four thousand”. After all, an editor mentioned that the other day.

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  4. Here in Connecticut, we are getting some very light snow right now, but it’s supposed to switch to rain later. We’re supposed to get high, gusty winds with heavy rain for much of this afternoon & tonight.

    Haven’t had much snow this winter yet, but lots of rain. Either one is much needed & appreciated, as we’ve been in a drought.

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  10. This is my free evening. Every other night is busy this week. That rarely happens for me. Last night there was a meeting with retirement information. Three fellows came from the states. I also made a private appointment with one of them. Fun to see who is on the other end of those emails and to get some answers.

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  11. I did my first Barton tutoring today. It was horrible. The boy did not know me and decided to see what he could get away with. Not okay.
    Tomorrow will be different. I made a plan with the teacher and prayed about it.

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  12. Is that an example of: if at first you don’t succeed, pray about it?
    That is so typical of humanity, see what you can get away with, and so unhelpful.
    So, is this a prereader you will be working with, or one who has been trying for some time? I see my ten year old is still set in his ways of pretending he cannot do things and trying to get away with cheating. It is a long road, digging out those weeds.

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  13. Good thing you have the Master Gardener beside you, Mumsee.

    A couple of my friends are gardeners (not professionally, but by hobby), & they have often mentioned lessons the Lord has shown them through gardening.

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  14. This was a first grader and today went better. Trouble today was they switched the schedule and they didn’t tell us. So he missed PE and we could hear the rest of the class outside playing. I told him I would talk to his teacher and I did. Now we will meet after PE on Wednesdays. So he knows I will follow through on what I said.

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  15. Trust is important. It is hard when the others are out playing.

    I sent fifteen year old boy out this morning to take care of the new babies. I call him momma marc.

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  17. Mumsee – I’ve heard that often working farm animals are somewhat treated as pets, with affection.

    Have you read any of James Herriot’s books? (If you’re not familiar with him, but you may be, he was a country vet in Yorkshire, England during the 30s, 40s, & 50s, & wrote several books about his practice, such as All Creatures Great & Small.) He wrote that the Yorkshire farmers would never have thought of, or treated their work animals as pets, but often showed great kindness to them.

    One man kept a couple horses in a special place, & took special care of them. He insisted that they were not pets, but that they were old, had worked hard for him, & deserved their restful retirement. 🙂

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  20. Kizzie, yes, I have read and enjoyed his books and have them for my children to read. We try to treat our animals well and we are fond of them. We brought the horses out of the pasture this winter and put them in a hay barn and smaller pasture because one is old and has served us well. The other one refuses to go into the hay barn to get out of the weather but will go in to drive the older one out, we put up a gate so she could stay in during the worst weather.
    We fix up special beds for the cats and special accommodations for the goats and sheep. We bring the guinea fowl food to them at the bottom of their tree so they don’t have to walk in the snow. But we don’t view any of them as pets. Though some of the children view the cats as such.

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  22. I’d have been leaping for joy as a child if I ever got an excuse to get out of PE. Recess was take it or leave it (teachers didn’t generally let me read, and I had no one to play with so it was boring–walk around the playground looking for pretty walks, dig a hole and bury the pretty rocks, dig up the hole I buried stuff in yesterday, that sort of thing). But PE was actively in the “dislike” category. Potentially I might have had a different teacher and it might have gone better–I had the same one for my whole elementary and junior high career–but it wasn’t my thing at all.

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  23. Cheryl – I hated PE, too, especially in middle school & high school when they sometimes had the girls & boys playing volley ball together. The boys were so rough & competitive. But even the girls could be cruel to those of us who were not athletically inclined.

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  24. I ended up being excused from the last couple years of gym (as we called PE) due to dizzy spells I was having. Was not disappointed in that at all!

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  25. Kizzie, my PE teacher was a sun-wrinkled old woman with her hair dyed jet black. Sixty? seventy? I don’t know, but it had been decades since she had done any of the things she was having us do. But she’d stand there and lecture 12-year-old girls that there was never a reason to have menstrual cramps; just exercise and they’ll go away. At the time, I was spending half a day each month vomiting till my stomach was empty and then continuing with dry heaves, and she sounded woefully out of touch with reality.

    At the beginning of seventh grade, I’d finally put my finger on my vicious headaches, realizing they were caused by being out in the Phoenix sun. Since then I have always worn some sort of hat in full sun or summer sun, but that wasn’t practical for PE. My dad said that yes, he got headaches from the sun, too, and that was why he always wore a hat. So Mom wrote a note excusing me from outdoor PE activities held before September 15, or something to that effect. My PE teacher was upset and asked why. (The note likely explained why, but even if it didn’t, Phoenix would still be having days above 100 degrees into September most years, so the reason should have been fairly obvious.) I said I got headaches from the sun. She continued to look at me with a look that said “that’s no excuse.” Flustered, I added, “I get headaches when I’m out in the sun. My dad does too.” Very sarcastically, she said, “Oh, so you want to be excused from PE because your dad gets headaches from the sun?!” It felt awkward, but I just stood there, since I had a note from my mom and knew she couldn’t do anything about it. We did sometimes have inside gym on those hot days early in the year, but I wasn’t going to have to worry about being outside playing volleyball when it was 108 degrees. I didn’t really care that she wasn’t happy about it, but I was annoyed that she was sarcastic and using dumb illogic.

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  27. My class loves PE. They were out there screaming with delight. Since I had a cold, I was inside quietly rejoicing.
    Came home before I’d eaten lunch. Took a 2 hour nap, went to the store to get eggs, came home for another 2 hour nap.
    Good plan.

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  28. PE is probably more fun when children are little. Once middle school & high school hit, it’s not so fun anymore for many of us.

    I do have one good memory of middle school PE volley ball, though. We discovered that although I wasn’t so good at the game in general, I was a good server, & one of my serves late in a game helped us win that game. 🙂

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  32. I liked PE best. All through school, as we got to dress in our red shorts and red and white striped shirts and run around outside playing interesting games. And do the rope climb. I remember in Jr High when the coach told me if I could climb the rope to the ceiling, I could get an A in the class. It was not until much later that I realized I always got an A in PE. But I did climb the rope to the top, every day we did it. Not being a very smart person, or a very social person, it was nice to be able to excel at something. Though I never did well at team sports, I did well at volleyball and basketball and dodgeball and all of those things in PE.

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  33. I hated the locker room. We always wore our undies for shower time and wrapped a towel around ourselves so the coach would not know. I suspect she knew.

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  34. Mumsee, I never took a shower in gym, always figured that in our school it wasn’t necessary or something because I don’t remember it ever being an issue. I only have the very vaguest sense that they even had showers. Recently my sister (who has a worse memory than I, overall) said that Mom got us excused from showering after PE, and she imagines it is because the girls’ coach had a reputation as being a lesbian and also a reputation for walking around looking at the girls while they showered. I really don’t think I knew either part of that, but it might help to explain why she was so angry when I got a note excusing me from outdoor PE in the hot weeks, if she was already having to put up with an excused absence from showering. Truth is, though, I had a serious problem with BO–I still have more than average underarm odor, with only one antiperspirant that actually works for me–and I cannot imagine that skipping the showers helped any. But skipping outdoor activities when the weather was so hot might have helped with the no-shower aspect!

    But when my sister said that, it added a layer of perspective to why eight years with the same PE teacher wasn’t all that helpful to my enjoyment of exercise. I did like it when we played soccer and I got to play defense, and I kind of liked volleyball (in junior high I was better than most of the other girls, but really only because they were so awful; my serves didn’t always make it over the net, but at least I never served a serve that went behind me, and many of the other girls did). But I despised tennis, basketball, races (I was dead last in the girls in my grade, except that one other girl would come in last when she didn’t see the race as important and I despised her for coming in last on those days since I knew she was faster than I was), indoor mat exercises, warming-up exercises, softball (I liked kickball, but alas they soon ruined it by turning it into softball), flexed-arm hangs, push-ups, etc. I wasn’t naturally good at it–only one of my five brothers is good at, or interested in, sports–and we had a bad teacher, and overall it was simply a class period to dread.

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  35. Oh, and I think it might have made things worse that the boys had a kind man they all seemed to respect and like, and whom they called Coach, in contrast with our unsmiling Miss H. When they saw him across the field, they’d yell “Hey, Coach!” and he’d respond in a very friendly manner. I wondered why we couldn’t have someone like that.

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  37. I cannot imagine being a teacher, especially not the way the children behave these days. Total lack of respect for the teachers and the other students in a lot of them. Not all, of course, but it must be hard for this school’s ninth grade teachers with a class of about twelve students, regularly getting in trouble for nasty note writing. Like my son.

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  39. Most of my children were able to learn respect for others, but not all, and being the teacher of some would be tough. But they keep on trying. Of course, when they go against what we want for our children, it just encourages the rebels to rebel more. For instance, we have never told son he could eat the “free” breakfast at school, though we qualify. Yet he does it all of the time. They are not going to turn him away. And if he did, students would supply him with enough junk food to be fine. Yet, if he went hungry a few times, he might decide that family had some value. But who wants to turn away a hungry child? They would have to really understand the game he is playing and see the benefit of turning him around.

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  40. It’s too bad you & Mike can’t give them some kind of seminar on dealing with children like yours. Would probably help other children & parents, too. Then again, they may not believe you. 😦

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  41. We do talk with them a lot and after many years of seeing our children grow, they are starting to grasp it. But that is only the few we interact with, the rest continue to see us as the crazy religious folk who homeschool all those poor deprived children. Maybe we can help them out by sneaking them a phone or something….

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  43. Things are changing here. The principal is no longer principal. She has been doing a lot of LAD work and will continue to do more and then going on furlough in June. A family is returning soon whose children need a lot of help. I may be able to take a deep breath as no longer being under her authority.

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  44. It is interesting to see how God works. Husband had a boss once that was driving him crazy. He asked God to move him or move the boss. Shortly after, the boss was moved from where we lived in Idaho to Madagascar. Husband, after a moment of being stunned, was quite relieved and able to do his work for the rest of our time there.

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  45. I once had a secretary in my office (department secretary, not my personal secretary, but we were a small office and her desk was near mine) who developed some kind of animosity to me. (I asked her if I had offended her in any way, and she said no.) Unfortunately she was also a housemate. After I moved out, I still had to work with her. At home she was moody and wouldn’t talk to me if she didn’t feel like it; at work she generally just ignored me, but she was professional enough to speak to me on work-related matters or to speak when other people were around.

    It was quite frustrating for me, but I wasn’t willing to leave a career-level job over what was really her problem and not mine. And then one day the main person she worked for (my boss) ended up being promoted and transferred to a different building, and he took her with him. It felt like an answer to a prayer I hadn’t consciously prayed. (I think some of my “What can be done about this dilemma?” was talking aloud to God, but I hadn’t ever asked Him to move her out of my life.) It was a huge relief, and even though I hadn’t consciously voiced it as a prayer, it felt like an answer to prayer, and I thanked God for it as such.

    When people’s birthdays came up, the editorial department took them out to lunch. When her birthday neared, I overheard other people talking about where we would take her, but no one thought to mention it to me. I silently decided to eat alone that day–I was not going to go to lunch and pretend to “celebrate” a birthday for someone who despised me with no good reason. (Once I had asked her if I had sinned against her or offended her and she said no, my conscience was clear–it was her sin.) I also wasn’t eager to spend money on such an event, paying for my meal and part of hers. The day of her birthday, someone came by my office and said we were ready to go out for the lady’s birthday, and I said oh, no one mentioned it to me (which was true) and I had made other plans (to eat alone), so sorry. A few months later she moved out of our office and I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. But that day I was so happy to have been accidentally left out of the discussion, and that felt like maybe God’s protection as well.

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  46. Cheryl – I had a very similar situation in the job I had before I had Nightingale. The receptionist turned from being a friend to seeming to hate me. Unfortunately, she was not professional about it. Part of her job was to take messages for us customer service reps while we were making our morning calls, but she stopped doing that for me. (We serviced McDonald’s restaurants, & had to take their orders between 8 & 11 every morning. It was often a push to get each day’s calls all in within that time.) So after the morning’s rush to get all those orders in, I had other calls to make, too, rather than having messages telling me what I needed to do. (It would often take holding on the line for a while for the manager to take the call or having to call back again & again before finally getting the manager.)

    I, too, asked what I had done to offend her, but she refused to answer. I apologized in a general way, saying I was sorry if I had done anything to offend her, but she didn’t accept it.

    When I left a Christmas card on her desk, she made a show of tossing it in the trash, unopened.

    Our supervisor did not like conflict, so she ignored the situation. It was causing me so much stress, & I was pregnant at the time, so I was finally convinced by family that I should quit, even though I had expected to work up into my last month. So I quit two months earlier than planned.

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  48. Funny you should say that, Mumsee. Yesterday I was thinking that I am kind of a hermit myself. (Or “my own self”, as Kim might say. 🙂 ) Sometimes I can go weeks without going anywhere except to church on Sundays. But it doesn’t bother me in the least.

    Well, sometimes it is a nice change of pace when Hubby & I go somewhere for a while. Our “dates” revolve around various kinds of doctor’s appointments. 🙂

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  49. I could probably be happy never leaving my property again, except for walks. I try to do that every day. Have only been to church once in the past three months. Interestingly, only one person has inquired if I am still alive. Guess that says what kind of conversationalist I am! Or I have a bunch of unnosy fellow church folk. Especially since I have not been away from church this long in about forty years.

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  58. Yesterday was payday. I got more pay because I asked them to end my retirement savings, saying that I would put it in my own retirement account instead of using theirs. But, then, to see the funds in my account and then deliberately choose to put them aside into an IRA, took a bit of discipline. I am doing the Financial Peace course and realizing that I need to put funds where they need to go. Interesting….

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  60. I went through a Dave Ramsey book or two in the past, and gave them as Christmas gifts to growing up children. But I don’t do the finances around here. Works well all around.

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  61. Around here, eighteen year old had whatever cold was going around and now fifteen year old has it. But they both stayed well away from the rest of us and we may have gotten off without getting it. That would be nice.

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  64. Hey, silly question, but if you ask your child, “What do you want for your birthday meal?” does it come with the assumption “Tell me what dish that I make that you would like?” My older daughter has asked for Swedish meatballs, which is actually a family recipe . . . from her father’s side of the family. But I don’t like meatballs and even pick around them if I’m dishing up spaghetti, and I’m not inclined to make them. I asked her younger sister if she has made them and if she wishes to do so . . . but her younger sister is likely to be away at college next year, if she decides this is a wonderful birthday meal to ask for every year.

    If she’d grown up in my home, she wouldn’t have been eating Swedish meatballs at home. Her grandmother makes them, and I think her aunt makes them, so she’d be getting them periodically, but it just isn’t a meal that interests me or that I’d be adding to my repertoire. If my in-laws were dead and my husband asked me to make them for him, I’d do so, but I’d be inclined to make a big batch and freeze most of them. As it is, when I serve him meatballs, they are frozen ones. This just isn’t my specialty, nor do I want it to be. Am I being selfish, or is it fair that when I offer to make a meal, I’m not really offering to make any meal she might think of, but actually offering to make her something that I already know how to make? (When it was her husband’s turn to ask for a birthday meal, he said “beef” and I chose the cut and the side dishes. I’m OK with her being more specific than that; she could, for instance, ask for chicken and dumplings and not just “chicken”–but I make chicken and dumplings. This isn’t one of my recipes.)

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  66. I asked my younger daughter if she could make it, and she said she could. I’m inclined to think that if she asks for it again, I could give that answer (8:58). Thing is, I’m just not sure what is the “typical” expectation. I would never have considered the possibility that “birthday meal” might include something Mom had never made. But then, not only did I have the same mother all my growing-up years, but we didn’t live around extended family and eat their recipes. So family recipes were meals that Mom made!

    I just don’t know if I’m being selfish or lazy to assume that the invitation is only for dishes I myself make. If everyone else has the same “understanding” with their children, then I’ll consider it is a fair enough limitation. My mother-in-law doesn’t eat poultry (chicken or turkey), but she still made it for her husband and children, so it seems like “that isn’t something I eat” is a lame excuse. But the thing is, I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t have a meat I dislike (others don’t like ham, or beef, or seafood, besides my mother-in-law’s poultry). This is just a specific dish that isn’t my thing. And it isn’t as if she won’t ever get it if I don’t make it–she makes it herself, and so do others in the extended family.

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  67. In our house, we make what you ask for. It is only once a year and it is part of the birthday gift. And part of making the person feel special. If you don’t make it, then you learn. At least she didn’t ask for Beef Wellington?!

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  68. You offered, she asked, you make. If you don’t know how to make it, tell her she can have it but she needs to be in the kitchen, teaching you how to make it. You can eat the rest of the meal and you will have shown her a wonderful thing.

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  69. Cheryl – For us, it’s something one of us usually makes, or we order out. A lot of grocery stores these days have special foods like that for sale already prepared.

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  70. Kizzie, when I make meatballs for my husband, I use the frozen ones. It just seemed funny to use the frozen ones for the “main dish” of a birthday meal–especially when she herself makes them from scratch.

    Growing up, Mom would ask us what we wanted for our birthday, and we’d either name a fast-food restaurant or a favorite dish that Mom made. It would never have occurred to me to ask for something that she didn’t make (such as lasagna). When I married my husband, the first two times I asked my mother-in-law what to bring for a holiday meal, she said “green bean casserole.” The third time she requested that (through my husband) I finally thought, “This isn’t going to work!” So I finally said I don’t eat green bean casserole (or anything with onions in it) and I cannot stand the smell of it, especially the clean-up, and I’d rather bring something else. So she mentioned an alternative. It’s just a little weird to have everyone say, “This is such an excellent green-bean casserole” when I’m thinking, “Please, please eat it all–I don’t want any of that garbage in my fridge!” In this case, Swedish meatballs are an “ethnic” dish and I’m not Swedish . . . I’d rather let the Swedes make it.

    Anyway, I guess next year I’ll be more specific, asking if she wants chicken or beef or pork, and then if she asks for a specific recipe I can either tell her sure, or that really isn’t anything I make. In the meantime, her sister has said she can make it, so we’re covered this time.

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  71. I think that if she were living at home and she asked me to make Swedish meatballs sometime, or for a birthday meal, my response might be different. If she were her current age, in her twenties, I might be inclined to point out that I don’t actually like them and plenty of people in our extended family make them, and she makes them herself. But I’m not all that confident a cook, and not all that inclined to make something for a special meal for a “one-time” meal. In other words, if she was a little girl and we lived far from her grandparents and she told me that she really liked her grandmother’s Swedish meatballs and could I make them, then yes, I’d learn to make them. But to make them for the very first time (and only time) for a special meal, when it’s an ethnic food and several people in the family already make them . . . I’d rather let that be “their” thing. (It wouldn’t make sense for her to ask my mother-in-law to make my recipes; it makes sense to ask me to make my recipes, and my mother-in-law to make her recipes. Now, if my husband were telling me that he just loves his mother’s Swedish meatballs and wants me to learn to make them, that would be different–I’d make big batches of them, freeze them, cook a few at a time for him and something else for me.)

    Anyway, we’re covered, because our other daughter will make them, and next time I’ll make clear that I am talking about the main dish, not the cake, and that I’m asking for what type of meat she wants (and, within that type of meat, a dish I actually make, and one that isn’t too expensive or complicated for the time period chosen–it would have also been impossible to make a turkey, for instance, since we plan to eat at noon on Saturday).

    The funny thing is, when I asked her what she wanted me to make, she said, “A chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.” I said, “I mean what kind of meal.” She laughed and said, “Cake and ice cream!” And then she said she’d get back with me, and a few days later her husband e-mailed me. I told my husband later that we need to get the fixings for a cake, and he said quite definitely that she is married and it is her husband’s responsibility to make a cake. I was willing to do that one–personally, I rather assume most husbands don’t make birthday cakes for their wives–but my husband thought it would set a bad precedent if we accept the responsibility for this one, and that I needed to send that back to her husband. I said well, since I wasn’t actually offering to make a cake, I could do that. But it seemed to me that the understanding of “What do you want for your birthday?” with an open-ended reply is also setting a bad precedent. (She could, for example, have asked for an expensive or exotic dish. If she asked for lobster, I wouldn’t be cooking lobster–too expensive, too tricky to make, and it involves cooking a live animal and I won’t do that.)

    At any rate, another lesson learned about the different ways families do things, and the need for greater clarity when making an offer. And we have the dinner covered, the cake sent back to her husband since my husband told me to do so (though I am making cookies this week, and I think I have a cake in the freezer, so one or the other of those will serve as dessert–I just won’t make a cake, as my husband wishes me not to do so). I will make the side dishes she requested, our daughter will make the main dish, they offered to bring wine, and we will have dessert.

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  72. And speaking of “precedent,” I had noticed that virtually every time our son-in-law has joined us for a meal, whether before they married or after, we have had wine, when in “real life” we open a bottle or two a month. So when they were coming for Christmas presents–but NOT Christmas dinner–I thought it was an excellent time to keep it casual and not have wine. I put sparkling juice in the fridge and my husband said wine would be good, since it’s Christmas, and he added a bottle. I was too busy with preparations to say anything at the time, so once again we offered wine . . . (And then no one drank the sparkling juice, since the wine ended up being offered as though it was the real option and the sparkling juice was just there in case anyone wanted it.) But a few days after that, I told my husband I was actually deliberately not having wine for once, not wanting to set a precedent of wine with every meal we host.

    This is their next time to come over, and our son-in-law offered to bring wine, so I guess we’ll have wine this time too. But now, next time we have them over, I have to deliberately choose a meal that doesn’t invite wine, and we need not to offer wine, because no, I don’t want that as a precedent. Nothing wrong with serving it on occasion, but not every meal. So I told my husband that I’d deliberately chosen sparkling juice as something Christmassy and fun, something the future grandchildren might end up looking forward to, and that we needed not to be offering wine every single time. And he agreed, once I explained!

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  73. Glad that is settled. We don’t offer meals, cakes, or gifts to grown children. Though this last Christmas, when we had a bunch come by last minute, we did manage a gift each. Thermos’s were the thing.

    My grape vinyard, is not totally up and running yet so I don’t drink yet.

    My hops vines have not taken off either, so I don’t even make beer.

    And I never did get started with bees, so no meade even.

    How was your birthday, Jo? Did you get older, wiser, and more mature? That is my goal.

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  77. Well, I don’t know about you all, but I tried keeping this thread going for Jo, to let her know she is loved. If she is not going to be here anymore, I suggest letting it die.

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  79. Maybe we should try to keep it going for a couple weeks, in case she comes back? Sometimes people get annoyed or angry or hurt, & go away, but then come back after a bit. I did that once, long ago.

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  86. My dad would turn a century in April (and my in-laws are both 80, or almost), I will be a half-century in June, and one of our daughters is recently a quarter-century. I think that is a pretty neat juxtaposition of milestone birthdays (and add in both in-laws turning 80 in the same 12-month period, though one was last fall and not the first half of this year).

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  91. No, it’s my first time. I heard of a “secret room” and it sounded so much like a secret garden or a magical wardrobe, that I just had to seek it out. There are no white witches are there? :–)

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  97. Yes, it is.

    Are you familiar with the Motel 6 radio ads, Mumsee? Each would end with the folksy-voiced man saying, “I’m Tom Bodett for Motel 6, and we’ll leave the light on for you.”

    The other night, Nightingale & Little Guy were out for a while. As I went to turn on the front lights, I said to Hubby, “We may not be Motel 6, but we’ll leave the light on for you.”

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  103. Ok, she knows where we are if she wants to visit. And she has several folk’s emails from her newsletter. We can continue to pray for her. God knows her heart and her needs. But I think I will stop on here. It has been fun but did not turn out as I hoped it would. My fourth daughter did point out to me that I am lousy at relationships. I agreed. This is yet another evidence of it. But I won’t worry about it, I am who I am and I am sorry to offend people. But I will continue to do what I do. See you on the other side.

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  105. Mumsee, I don’t think anyone offended her. I’m assuming she was having a bad day; how she responded to that is “on her.” She may since have realized that the internet is not a healthy place for her to hang out, or she may feel embarrassed to come back. We will welcome her back if/when she returns, but she is an adult and she makes her own choices. I hope she comes back, just as I’d hope that a teenager who yells “I hate you all!” and slams the door comes back–partly because I’d worry about whether the teenager is OK and partly because he needs to make it right that he left in a huff.

    But you wouldn’t feel guilty about the teenager’s choice to leave, and you needn’t feel guilty about a middle-aged adult’s choice to leave. Do continue to pray for her, and if you have her e-mail address, drop her a note and tell her we miss her and we care. But you are a valued part of this community (as was she) and her leaving is not your fault.

    I’ve been ready to let this thread go at any point, though, myself. I was personally pretty much just helping it along to its two-year anniversary.

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  106. After we reached 4000, I was hoping we’d get to 5000. But if everyone is getting tired of it, I won’t keep it going myself. That would just be silly.

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  108. I had sent her a Facebook message a few days ago, but it doesn’t look like she’s seen it, although she has been on FB since I sent it. But sometimes FB neglects to show the little checkmark that indicates a message has been seen, so maybe she has seen it.

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  109. I’m not sure if this is the end of this thread, but if it is, maybe this music is the appropriate way to close it. It is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 26, known by the name Les Adieux, or The Farewell; Goodbye. Interesting, though, that the three movements are named, in order, The Farewell; The Absence; The Return. So I guess if this isn’t the end, and anyone or a number of people return to this thread, this music works for that, too.

    0:00 Das Lebewohl (The Farewell): Adagio – Allegro
    7:02 Abwesenheit (The Absence): Andante espessivo
    10:14 Das Wiedersehen (The Return) Vivacissimamente

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  117. Neat this thread is still going! I was wondering if “Les Adieux” would be the end of it, but it looks like the order of the movements was predictive: the farewell wasn’t permanent; there was an absence for a few days, and now some fine folks have returned. 🙂

    Glad you liked the music, Debra (and all who did)! I can find music for just about any occasion, and if I can say it with music, that’s my favorite way to express myself. 🙂

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  118. LAST! (I think that’s what got this thread going past about the day two mark — people trying to be last.)

    Here’s to another 4,000 comments! 🙂

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  120. Thanks, Kizzie. I didn’t comment on this thread for over a year, I think, but it’s nice to see you guys (well, mostly ladies, but a couple guys, too, now and then, I think) helped to keep it going! And now it looks like we’ve got some relative newcomers to this corner of the WV world! (Hi Debra and DJ! And Kevin was here not too long ago, too, right?)

    Onward to 5000? 🙂

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  122. Coming to this room and not knowing whether anyone is home or not reminds me of something I used to do when I was 9 or10. In the summer, I would ride my bike in the church parking lot which was up the street from my house. I rode until I was exhausted and parched from the heat. Our church had a good drinking fountain in the foyer 15 or 20 feet inside the door, and occasionally I would slip in and sneak a good cold drink of water. I knew I wasn’t really supposed to be there alone, so I was usually very quick.

    I can remember a few times wondering if I was really alone there or if God was in the church too, even though no one else was there. One day, after I drank from the fountain, I decided to find out. I walked into my Sunday School room and just stood there. “Yep,” I thought, “He’s here.” Then I walked into the kitchen–“yep, He’s here.” I walked into my Wednesday night classroom, and the other rooms on that floor, and it was the same in every room: “He’s here”. Then I went back to the foyer to the double doors of the Sanctuary. I cracked one door open to peek in, but it was so dark that I was too afraid to go inside. Then I remembered that I really wasn’t supposed to be there anyway. So I ran out.

    As jumped on my bike and rode off, I felt very satisfied knowing that God was in all the rooms, no matter who else was there. Even if it was just me.

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  123. Neat story, Debra. I can picture my 6th Arrow (she turns 9 1/2 this month) doing something like that, going on a quiet exploration of our empty church, if she had the opportunity. (Except we’re out in the country, and church is 11 miles away.) 🙂 Oh, and the doors are always locked now, except during worship.

    I’ll admit you had me on the edge of my seat, though, as I read your post, wondering if some human was suddenly going to pop in on your excursion. 🙂 I could see your quotation marks, with my peripheral vision, before I got to them, and I was telling myself as I read, “Someone’s about to say something — don’t jump!”

    Me and my silly imagination. 🙂

    But what a comforting thought, to remember God’s omnipresence.

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  127. I’m OK with letting it go. I’ve been checking in periodically but not posting–it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone around who wants to keep it, and we already had a farewell song. 🙂

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  128. I think instead of a piano solo farewell for this thread, maybe what we needed was a group song. You are hereby invited to sing along with me — all voices welcome. 😉

    See you on the other side of the secret room, friends. It’s been fun, but, as for me, I’m calling it good here, being ready to also let this thread go.

    ♫ Happy trails to you! 🙂 ♫

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  152. School starts back up on Wednesday the 5th. Not too excited about going to all day Kinder. And I can’t find my drawing books. Where or where…..? I have quite a collection. Hmmmm…. were they in a tub? did I loan them out? My memory of such a minor thing from a year ago is not working too well. Maybe my aide knows.

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  153. An aide would be a handy memory aid. Are the children ready for all day now? It seems a long time for attention spans that are busy learning about their world.

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  155. I like the way Jo’s school did it, half-days for 3/4 of the year, and then they transitioned to full days at the end of the year. Maybe it will keep first grade from being as big an adjustment? But overall I think half days are plenty long enough for kindergarten. It’s just part of the reason I determined a long time ago that if I was blessed to have children, I’d homeschool for at least kindergarten. (I figured probably kindergarten and grades one and two and then play it by ear after that.) Especially for boys, that is simply too much time in academics, with a good part of it sitting still.

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  156. A friend homeschooled her kids for kindergarten, then sent them to school for first grade. The youngest three of her five children were boys, and the arrangement worked well for their family.

    I went to a one-room school from kindergarten through the end of third grade, at which time it closed — one of the last country schools in my home state to still be in operation (early 1970s). Anyway, kindergarten was held for only the last two weeks of the school year. I suspect that was to see how ready a child might be for the rigors of full school days a few months hence. (Though I don’t recall the length of the kindergartener’s day. Maybe it was not full days, but half days. I imagine if a child couldn’t handle two weeks of half days very well, that would be a good indication they wouldn’t have the maturity to do well with full days for 36 weeks or whatever, starting only a few months after the kindergarten experience.)

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  158. I’m not sure if I am ready for all day. The rest of the teachers have at least one afternoon when they don’t teach as the class has what we call specials, ie. library, PE, etc. However I don’t have any afternoons where I can leave early. Can’t complain as I had half days all year. Perhaps I am spoiled.

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  159. Got another interesting email from the school today. Something about a health curriculum dealing with child safety, sorta like ‘just say no.’ Trouble is, kinder has never been a part of the health curriculum and there was no notice.
    Also, I do not want to teach it.
    Maybe I should go read the curriculum, but I don’t even want to do that.
    Feel like I got hit by something again with no notice.
    Did I already say that…?

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  160. Jo – I need time to process changes to my routine, or new things that come up. If Nightingale is going to work an extra day, I’d like to know about it at least a couple days in advance to mentally prepare. Unfortunately, she sometimes gets called in last minute, so I have to try to go with the flow. Any kind of changes in my life (unless they are changes I specifically wanted) make me unhappy for a while.

    Spontaneity makes me nervous, even if it’s something that will be fun.

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  162. Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. I think it is a good time to go clean the chimney.

    Delighted to have the fifteen year old daughter and ten year old son, successfully milking the goats!

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  165. We managed to get all of the chipping done and put the chips around the fruit trees and grapevines. Of course, there will always be more branches to chip so it is not like we worked our way out of a job. But it was fun to have everybody working toward a goal and see it happen.

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  167. Got all my curtains washed, haus meri ironed them, I think, and then I got them put back up. One of those things you have to do before you leave so that your home is ready for the next person. Won’t be much time after school is out, so it is nice to take care of it now.

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  169. Those that rent homes do. I own my place and it truly feels like home to me. But we have to make our homes available to rent when we are gone. And we get the rent money, minus some. Last time my home was not rented. This time my friend is, hopefully, coming. I will probably just have her pay cost by reimbursing her.

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  170. Sounds like somebody has something organized and that helps.

    Always an adventure living in a foreign land. But a worthwhile one.

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  173. Do you keep stuff stored in your place when it is rented to the fill in person?

    My sister used to save the letters I sent her from Germany. She said she was going to make them into a book. But when she died, my sis in law cleaned things out for brother in law and that all went away. Oh well, I thought it would not be a very interesting book but she was into that sort of thing.

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  174. That’s too bad, though, Mumsee, that those letters were thrown out. You might have enjoyed re-reading them, or someone else might have enjoyed them.

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  175. Yes, I have a locking cupboard to store things in. This time my friend will be here, so not quite so important. Folks that own a home, usually have a room set aside. Others may rent a storage shed. It is a lot of work before you leave.

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  177. It is difficult, I am sure. Takes more than just advance planning, but advance work as well.

    The letters would have been fun, but I miss my sister more.

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  179. Bicycles??? Sounds like fun, especially as your area looks to be relatively flat. Did you just get new bikes for you and Mike? The real question is, “Did you actually leave the property to get the bikes? as in go shopping?”

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  181. Actually, we were on the way home from a trip up to Moscow to visit my dad. We stopped at the bike shop to drop off fifteen year old’s bike that he had demolished. Again. To be repaired again. At his expense. Again. And, as husband was leaving to take the bike in, I was sitting back to continue reading the Return of the King and casually mentioned to him that I was ready to buy a new bike. So he came out a few minutes later with one picked out. I test drove it and said he needed one for his arthritis. So, we got two. The children all have bikes and I allowed mine to be disintegrated (it was about thirty years old) as it is so hilly around here, I was not able to go with the small folk and I cannot leave them alone. Now they are old enough to ride with me and it has become an option. To leave the house, one must go up a very steep quarter mile, than down and up again. And so on. But I am ready to give it a try. I enjoy biking.

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  182. wow, I am impressed that you were so spontaneous. Okay, I will ride with the grands in Boulder. pretty sure that Katie has an extra bike or two.
    How many gears does your bike have?

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  184. That was exactly my question. My last bike had a nice large gel seat. This one does not but they are replaceable. And it was not quite as spontaneous as you might think. I love being outside and I enjoy biking but it has been difficult here with all of the hills and all of the foster children we have had. A lot of them are in the toddler to young child range and it is difficult enough to ride a bike without pulling a bike trailer. Though I had one when the oldest children were young and we did get one for here but by then I was too tired and the bike was beginning to show signs of age as well. Now the young ones can ride along side or push their bikes up the hills and I have been thinking of getting one for the past three years. But I knew if I mentioned it to husband, I would have one within three days. He is that way.

    This is a twenty one speed. My last one was also. I think I only need three speeds but sometimes those extras do come in handy.

    But it was also supposed to be an encouragement to husband, who used to ride bikes to work for years. Now he gets very little exercise and exercise is supposed to help in so many ways.

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  185. Mumsee – Over the past few years, Hubby has developed arthritis, & it has slowed him down considerably. His knees are especially hard-hit, so he wears knee braces to keep them in line, so to speak. (I don’t think arthritis is the only problem with his knees, though.) He’s been thinking about getting an old bike out of the basement to do some riding. Maybe that’d be a good idea.

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  190. I’ve tried planking. It is very hard. Maybe I should try for several seconds each day, & see if I can increase my time gradually. But I’ll probably forget to do it. We’ll see.

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  192. One of my mothers is not happy with me. I told her her son jumped on someone at recess and was wrestling him. Wrestling is great, but not at school, so I sent him to the office. It is the third time he has jumped on someone in a week. The first time they both needed stitches. The second time he was sitting on a large, concrete culvert and a girl pulled on his foot, so he jumped on her. She feels that missing recess is bad for him as he needs to run around. Right, but we need to protect the others. I had to buy an ice cream bar to recover.

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  193. And I have the opposite complaint. The teachers are too soft on my children. They have mentioned that they tell me how my children are doing because they know I will follow up for them. That is a good thing, if only they would follow up on their side. But so many just want to be friends….However, in the past couple of days, I have received comments from a couple of teachers saying what a remarkable transformation has occurred in fifteen year old this year. There is great hope.

    The plank. My understanding is that is for baking salmon. I do one hundred pushups three times a week but my pushups are rather like modified planks. Not a lot of depth to them and I don’t get on my toes. Ouch.

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  195. So, will this open in a new room?

    Oh, so pretty and springlike! I love the cherry blossoms! Who brought the daffodils? Oh, and was it a child who brought the dandelions in? (Oh, of course it was you, Mumsee. They are kinda pretty, but . . . )

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  197. Thanks, Mumsee. I feel that she is lenient and she is feeling I am harsh. I did speak to the principal and she said don’t let it bother you, what you did is right. He knows the rules.
    Nice to be affirmed. And, if there are any problems, it is good to keep her informed. We have yellow slips to write up incidents. I almost never do, but this boy has now been written up three times in a week. Once by another teacher.

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  198. I was hoping that getting stitches that first time would be enough!
    Mom was also upset that the little girl who pulled on his foot didn’t get in trouble and he did for jumping on her. Not quite the same thing…..
    The girl is very little.

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  199. I am hoping that the ants will soon find the poison that I oh, so nicely put out for them.
    I had an ice cream bar yesterday, a Magnum!, and they found the wrapper sitting next to me on the counter in no time.

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