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Our Daily Thread 12-30-14

Good Morning!

We now have VideoPress for video. 🙂

I’m still figuring out the audio player option. But you’ll notice those pesky little ads at the bottom of each post are gone now too. 🙂

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On this day in 1460 at the Battle of Wakefield, in England’s Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was defeated and killed by the Lancastrians. 

In 1903 about 600 people died when fire broke out at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, IL. 

In 1953 the first color TV sets went on sale for about $1,175.

And in 1978 Ohio State University fired Woody Hayes as its football coach, one day after Hayes punched Clemson University player Charlie Bauman during the Gator Bowl. Bauman had intercepted an Ohio State pass. 😯

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Quote of the Day, from my favorite piece of his work.

“For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

Rudyard Kipling

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 A couple of Monkees have birthdays today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W83InivbUSQ&feature=player_detailpage

And it’s Jeff Lynne’s. From ELOVEVO

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Anyone have a QoD?

133 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-30-14”

  2. Jo, I applied for social security earlier this year and it was relatively painless. You can do it all online and I don’t remember there being many questions at all. I also don’t remember there being any that might be trouble for you. One word of warning, though, is that at the end it says your application will be reviewed in about two weeks but it’s more like two months (may have even been longer than that). So don’t start worrying if you don’t hear anything for a while.

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  6. Good Morning Everyone. I have to work on my professional goals today. I always have a hard time of that. Luckily I work for a company that listed Spiritual Goals at the top of the list. That would be an easy one. It’s the personal and professional ones that take some thought.

    I have to brag on my sweet husband. My alarm goes off at 5:30. He remains in bed until after I leave for work. This is a key strength to our marriage. I like my alone time in the morning. I like to ease into the day instead of going on sensory overload with noise (TV, radio, etc). Usually the dogs and I get up together, I let them out, start the coffee, let them in, feed them, get a cup, start getting dressed. This morning when my alarm sounded he told me the dogs had been out and my coffee was waiting on the bathroom counter. Then he didn’t get up with me. Such a nice treat this morning. Of course the traitorous dogs go back to bed too. Even Amos hops himself back up in the bed and snuggles in close.

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  7. Kim, sounds like the way we did it. My alarm sounded at 5:20 each morning. It was my goal to get on the beltway by 6:00. I usually did. Elvera got up when she heard the front door slam shut.
    Now, she usually gets up around five, and I sleep in until about six. On TTS, it’s about 6:30 before I get up.

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  9. Good Morning! Rise and shine and give God the glory glory! I am hoping the sun appears today…it is -9 and there is frost on the windows..the dogs don’t even want to go outside! The deer are out back and the squirrels are trying to scrounge something left from the bird feeders.
    Janice I remember thinking the Monkees were “old guys”….it’s all relative I suppose 🙂

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  10. Good morning. I get up at 5 on school days in order to have plenty of time to read the Bible before leaving for school at 6:30-ish. On my days off I get up at 7 or a little earlier. Mrs L usually sleeps until 8 or 8:30, so I still have that alone time.

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  12. Quotation of the day II:

    “This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.”

    G.K. Chesterton

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  14. I usually get up between five and six thirty. This morning it was six thirty. Gives me a few minutes before children get up at seven. Husband used to get up around seven thirty or so until I changed my dog from an outdoor dog to an indoor dog and told him I was doing it so he would have to get up and walk the thing. The dog is not allowed to wander around and is allowed on husband’s chair, my chair, and one couch where the children can snuggle with him. Now husband gets up around seven thirty or so…..But he walks the dog. I usually walk the dog a bit before that so the poor guy does not burst. Fortunately for the poor dog, he never whines or exhibits any unnatural dog behaviour. I suspect he knows how close he is to reverting to outdoor life and he is scared of Brutus so tries to remain invisible.

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  15. Grandchildren singing Christmas carols are the best…post them! Our niece posted a video on FB of adorable 2 year old singing Frosty the Snowman…priceless!
    I am guessing the photo on the header is a waxwing…and Cheryl was the photographer….beautiful!

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  16. This morning I left the children indoors and did the chores myself. It was cold out, around zero. I am eating a fresh lime off of my lime tree. It is only the 30th so there is still time. As mentioned, it was cold out but not so as to say very cold, like in Los Angeles in the dog park at night where the ocean breezes really make it colder.

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  17. When I was a kid, hearing Frosty the Snowman used to make me cry (the part where he melts).

    Mumsee, you have an indoor dog? The rat terrier? He has a thinsulated coat & sweater, too, I hope?? Those morning walks must be a little chilly, even compared to our LA dog park climate.

    I’m waiting for the brilliant Apple people to call me, I set up a call-me appointment for 7:45 but it’s now 20 minutes past that. Sigh. They did indicate the call would come “around” that time, but I’m wondering if I got missed somehow. I’ll keep waiting …

    How’s that phone working out, Chas? What color did you get? 🙂

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  19. An indoor dog that’s allowed on the furniture?

    Mumsee, are you feeling OK? Have you been to the doctor recently for your checkup?

    Misten has never been allowed on the furniture and has never tried. My childhood cocker would sleep on the couch if no one was in the room; we caught her at it a few times–she’d always jump down when she knew someone was coming, but not always fast enough. Well, one day Misten and I went to my brother’s house, and she knew his dog was allowed on the furniture, so she just casually hopped up on the couch herself, as though in that household the rules changed. She was taken down immediately, but the fact that she even tried surprised me.

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  22. Barney is an indoor dog. He is a rat terrier. Because my big dog, Brutus, has had a change in behaviour and has become aggressive toward him, he no longer shares a run with the big dogs. For the past nine years, he has slept on top of Betty so warmth in the winter was not a problem for him. He can no longer do that so he had to become indoor. My husband, though he leaves all animal business to me, has always thought it would be nice to have a little lap dog. So now he has one. Due to his arthritis, he cannot get on the floor so the dog comes to him. To be trained to be a proper lap dog, he had to be on my chair so I could train him. He benefits from the attention of the children and is therapeutic for them so he is allowed on the covered couch with them. He only gets on my chair when he needs retraining because I do not want a lap dog. He knows where he is not allowed and knows where he is allowed and where he is allowed by invitation. I am happy. Husband is happy. Dog is happy. And children would be happier if only I would let the cat in as well. That is not happening, though he was allowed in the ceiling for a time.

    When it is not actually cold around here, Barney spends a lot of his time on the front porch keeping the chickens off. He does have a sweater that one of the children purchased for him but I don’t make him wear it.

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  28. My nephew the soccer player is moving to the team in Montreal and things are completely up in the air. His parents flew home from Christmas was his fam last night and brought with them the dog, Rambo (Who has his own FB page, BTW), until the soccer family figures out their living arrangements OR leaves Canada–so, anywhere from six weeks to two years.

    As his parents already have three dogs, I suggested perhaps my son who bought my old house could “borrow” Rambo and solve several problems.

    Everyone is excited at the prospects–though, note, never tell the four year-old a secret–except Rambo got injured the day before in-laws left their son’s house. He should not be with the other dogs–who know him and would want to play–because he needs to take it easy on his leg.

    This is a pure bred Boston Terrier, btw.

    Three young, excited adorable grandchildren . . . my husband and I volunteered to foster Rambo until he’s healthy (yikes! What am I thinking?), about six weeks.

    It’s up in the air at the moment, but the adorable grandchildren are just so excited about getting a dog.

    We’ll see.

    Families.

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  30. I thought it was a wax wing, but I never saw one live before. I got one shot and off it went.

    Mouse and Nosey only got one gift to share for Christmas. It just happened to be a plastic stocking stuffed with lots of little toys. They’re big fans. 🙂

    Grandchildren singing Christmas carols huh? Sounds adorable to me. 🙂

    Send it to me, I’ll put it up. I mean really, who doesn’t love kids singing? 🙂

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  36. Bible study Fridays (twice per month): Alarm set for 6:30, usually out of bed by 7:00. (Not a morning person am I.) Out the door around 8:00 (or try, with varying degrees of success, to be).

    Sundays: Alarm set for 7:30, usually pretty prompt in getting out of bed when the alarm goes off, if I haven’t already woken up naturally and gotten up. Out the door by 9:00.

    All other times, no alarm. (How do you make the poison emoticon?) 😛 I get up when I wake up (or a bit after; I often like to lie in bed a bit and think about my day before my feet hit the floor).

    Hubby has his own alarm clock on his side of the bed and sets it to whatever he wants for the next day, if he wants to get up at a specific time. Most days, though, he, too, just gets up when he wakes up, and doesn’t bother with an alarm.

    The realities of living with a second-shift-working hubby. I’m good with that; my “time clock” has for probably most of my life been synced with that go-to-bed-later, get-up-later rhythm.

    Works well for us.

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  38. No alarm here though some children have been known to set one now and then. I tell them if they need an alarm, they are not getting enough sleep.

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  40. An interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed. It takes my barber 20 minutes to cut a head of hair.
    It doesn’t matter which head. It takes a bald head 20 minutes like the rest. I can understand that it might take almost as long because most of the cutting is around the ears. But it takes just as long.

    You’ll had to admit this is just as important as…………
    Watch it Chas!

    🙂

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  41. In Chicago I had to work at 8:00 and work was half an hour away, so I couldn’t help it, I had to get up at 7:00 a.m. (Shudder!) I succeeded in that by choosing (and ironing, if necessary) my clothes the night before, making my lunch the night before, showering the night before, and eating breakfast at my desk at work at 9:30 or so. Friday nights I stayed up as late as I wanted, reading a book, but other nights it was 10:30 or 11:00.

    In Nashville I stayed up till roughly 1:00 in the morning, occasionally 2:00 or even 3:00. Then I got up about 9:00, not with an alarm except Sunday. I hate alarms and generally consider it success to wake up just one to two minutes before it goes off–that allows me my full sleep, but I wake up early enough to turn off the alarm before it makes any noise.

    I married a man who was used to going to bed about 9:00. He asked if we could meet in the middle, and a month later we happened to find out I’d moved my bedtime back to midnight and he’d moved his to 10:00–we each were halfway there. We have found, though, that years of getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 made his body used to that, and he has a hard time staying up till 11:00 with any sort of consistency. So . . . if he stays up till at least 10:30, then I try to go to bed with him and stay. If he goes to bed earlier than 10:30, then I lie down with him for a few minutes and then get back up–and on those nights I am sometimes up till 12:30 or 1:00. If I get to bed by 11:30, then usually I wake up about 7:30 or 8:00. I don’t use an alarm at all anymore–my husband wakes me on Sunday morning. (I can’t read the clock from bed, and he’s already up, so that works for both of us, and neither of us ever has to set an alarm.)

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  43. Hey, AJ, did that waxwing really have an orange tip to its tail, or did you notice? I remember seeing somewhere that occasionally they do, though I was thinking it was in Hawaii or somewhere. I haven’t seen enough waxwings to be anything close to an expert, but the ones I’ve seen have all had yellow.

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  44. We get mostly Bohemian waxwings here.

    We are just getting ready to discuss something really important on here. We just have not yet decided which one.

    How about cremation? Is that desecrating a body or a wise way of disposal?
    How about whether or not Christians are free to…….

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  48. Here’s a buying suggestion (just $6 if you add it to an amazon order that will get free shipping) for those of you who have any interest in identifying birds. We have one in our home and another one in our car–my husband bought the second one for the car, since he liked it so much. Though it doesn’t necessarily have every species in a given state, it has most of them, and is a great way to narrow down what bird you are likely to have seen. I’m linking to the Indiana guide, but they have them for other states as well. (I once owned the Tennessee one, and I bought the Alabama one for my sister’s family.) My husband and I just identified a northern harrier from this guide on our way home from somewhere. It flew in front of our car, and I whipped the guide out of the glove compartment and had the bird identified in a few seconds because we’d gotten a good view of its tail and its rump.

    Here’s the guide: http://www.amazon.com/Indiana-Birds-Folding-Familiar-Naturalist/dp/158355145X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419971459&sr=8-3&keywords=indiana+birds

    It definitely shouldn’t be the only bird guide you own, but it’s better than trying to look through several hundred birds, some of which don’t visit your state, and it’s also small enough to take with you. Once you have a tentative ID, you can look at a more thorough guide and check to see whether your first guess was correct. But we’ve ID’d a lot of birds with this one as the first look. (We also have Stan Tekiela’s Birds of Indiana, and he has guides for several states. That one has more detail on each bird, including some field notes that can be very helpful. But the folding guide is an excellent way to get an overview of birds in your state and compare “what it might have been” side by side. A field guide that has all the western or eastern birds, or all the birds of the US, is helpful, too, since birds don’t always stay in the states where they’re expected to be seen, but I think if I absolutely had to choose just a general field guide or just a guide to my state, I’d find the state one more helpful.)

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  50. Cremation…my brother is adamant that it is wrong. I think it is okay if people in the family are in agreement. I probably would not go that route because brother feels so strongly about it.

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  54. I wouldn’t be “adamant” that cremation is wrong, but neither do I believe it is the best method of disposal of a body. Burial is more respectful and more in keeping with our belief in resurrection.

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  56. WHOHOO! Newsletter done and sent off for checking! Now to go order a new sewing machine that is only on sale until tomorrow. Have to go to a friends since I haven’t gotten my new sim card and can’t make long distance calls.

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  57. Nice field guide link, Cheryl. Too bad I don’t live in Indiana.

    Oh, oops. Never mind.

    I’ve seen Stan Tekiela’s name before. I wonder how that is pronounced — like tequila?

    We have mostly Audubon Field Guides, both the larger guides and some pocket guides, as well as some Roger Tory Peterson guides. Somewhere I’ve got some cassette tapes of bird songs, calls, etc, too, put out by I don’t remember who.

    I got a gift from some piano students many years ago, a Peterson field guide entitled Feeder Birds: Eastern North America, which had a nice checklist in the back of the book to mark which species of birds one had seen, and a small space to take notes on those species. I see both species of waxwings mentioned on this thread today are listed (Bohemian and Cedar), but I’ve never spotted either of them.

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  58. Don’t you just hate it when you’re at a table where half a dozen conversations are going on, and you can hear all of them but you aren’t really involved in any? (That’s what this “room” looks like this afternoon.)

    Remember how I made a turkey a couple of weeks ago because I wanted leftovers? On the menu tonight: turkey soup and blueberry pie. 🙂

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  59. Yum. I’m coming over, Cheryl.

    (Looks like maybe I could buy myself an Indiana field guide after all, since I might see some birds on my way to Cheryl’s house for supper.) 😉

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  63. Re: Cremation. I believe my God is all powerful enough that cremation doesn’t matter. It isn’t a pleasant thought. I regret I don’t have a designated spot to “visit” my father and place flowers or whatever, but I followed his wishes.

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  64. Even with cremation you can still have a burial spot.

    Did the story on the Polar Bear ocean swim set for Jan. 1.

    Now I’m frantically working on my new year’s resolution story, reading and talking to people about how to use spread sheets & lists & “vision” boards.

    Did I mention that this might be the coldest Jan. 1 for the Rose Parade in a long time?

    We are all drinking hot drinks and staying wrapped in long scarves.

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  65. Donna, thanks for the Ligonier reading plans link. I almost didn’t click on it because I had already determined what my Bible reading plan for 2015 would be (and started on it yesterday, as I wanted it to begin on a Monday, and I was finished with my 2014 plan by Christmas).

    However, I did click on your link, and am glad I did, because I found something there that supports my “second” reading plan quite well.

    What’s my second reading plan?

    Well, before Christmas, a package appeared under the tree, which was labeled by one of the children, “For Mom & [6th Arrow].”

    I was intrigued. What was in that gift for my 7-year-old and me?

    When the time came for gift-opening, we opened it up.

    It was an ESV bible. A lovely volume my husband gave us for youngest daughter and I to share. So we snuggle in the living room and read from it together.

    The plan I had determined for myself for 2015, before I knew I was getting an ESV, was to read the book of Jeremiah, which has 52 chapters, doing one chapter per week.

    I wanted to read the “chapter of the week” from six different translations, one each day Monday through Saturday. There were three translations that I had already owned (the Geneva Bible, KJV, and NIV), and three which I didn’t (at that time) own (NKJV, ESV, and a Norsk Bible), which I planned to read at BibleGateway.com.

    But when I got that new ESV for Christmas, then I started to rethink the Bible plan I’d determined, thinking I might select a different plan and go through my new Bible in a year.

    In the end, I decided I would stick to my original plan, and will let 6th Arrow determine a pace for our reading together out of our ESV.

    And the cool thing about that link, Donna (sorry this comment is so convoluted 😉 ), is that there is a colorful chart for the “go at your own pace” plan listed at Ligonier that I know 6th Arrow is going to love! I copied the PDF for that plan, and we can just mark off the little boxes for each chapter we read. Perfect! 🙂

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  67. 6 Arrows, waxwings are fruit/berry eaters, so they’re more likely to come to fruiting trees or shrubs in your yard than to feeders. Apparently they sometimes come to the fruit you can put out for orioles (I forget whether I saw them listed as coming for grape jelly or orange halves), but they won’t come for sunflower seeds or suet, as far as I know.

    First time I ever saw them, my sister had a yard full of trees, including some that bore fruit. She hadn’t planted the trees, nor did she harvest the fruit. She had eight or ten of these colorful birds in the tree right outside her kitchen window, and I said with amazement, “You have cedar waxwings?!” and she said, “Oh, is that what they are?” They really are lovely birds, and the fact that they often arrive in flocks is a nice touch, too. (We did have one young female–no red “wax” on her wings yet–coming to our yard several times this summer, but the other two times I’ve seen them have been in their usual manner, coming in flocks.)

    Blueberry pie in the oven, turkey soup on the stove.

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  69. I generally see waxwings in flocks, some of them rather large flocks. They have a distinctive sound which is beautiful to me and I perk up from what I am doing to look around when I hear it because the waxwings are back! They do love fruit and we have several dogwood shrubs (not the big flowering kind, the ideal fruiting kind) which they attack in the late summer. They also enjoy the crabapple tree and the junipers. They brighten my life.

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  70. You read my mind, Cheryl. I was wondering, as I typed, what waxwings eat.

    Neat link, Kim.

    In addition to the Bible reading plans I mentioned above, I have also started a book that has six short readings per week for the whole year, written by Charles Colson with Nancy R. Pearcey, entitled A Dangerous Grace. I found the book last summer at a library book sale in our area. The readings are taken from Colson’s BreakPoint commentaries.

    Thought-provoking, challenging readings despite their brevity. I am enjoying reading one each day after my Bible reading for the day.

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  71. Cremation: I used to have the opinion that cremation was somehow disrespectful to the remains, but after seeing death and life quite a lot around here, my views have changed and that actually seems a respectful way of dealing with things. And not something insurmountable for God or all of those folks killed in fires or explosions or lost at sea or whatever would be up a creek without a paddle.

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  72. I am also looking forward to reading the book of Jeremiah in Norsk (the Norwegian language). My MIL is of Norwegian heritage, and I thought it would be kind of neat to become a little more familiar with a foreign language, so picked that one, as I saw it on the list of foreign translations at BibleGateway.

    I just looked up John 1:1 in the Norsk language. Interesting to compare it to the English words (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.)

    In Norsk: I begynnelsen var Ordet, og Ordet var hos Gud, og Ordet var Gud.

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  76. I have a journaling Bible I want to start using this year. How crazy is it when you buy one of those and then are afraid to make the first note??

    My 20+ year-old Bible is really marked up and I love it. Starting with a fresh one, though, is somehow daunting …

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  80. Cheryl,

    It looked orange. I wasn’t sure if it was or not, but I checked my book and thought it was from what I found there. It was much further away than the nice clear shots you sent me.

    Their body style and head crests make them look like small cardinals of a different color from far away.

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  89. Behind but jumping in, as usual…

    Last night I was very grateful for my indoor-&-allowed-on-the-furniture dog. I had some kind of sickness that had me feeling miserable – the kind of thing where your tummy feels so painful & nauseated, you’re sure that if you move an inch, it will all come up. Then I got very, very cold, especially my hands & feet, even though I was under my usually-very-warm comforter.

    Then Heidi crawled her way under the comforter & sheets, & cuddled up next to my feet & lower legs. I pressed my poor freezing feet into her, & that helped them start to warm up.

    Well, I guess the sweat that I broke into about an hour later also helped warm me up, but I could have done without that.

    Oh, I also had Rudy, the Little Kitty with the Big Personality, cuddled up to the other side of my legs. 🙂

    (Felt better this morning.)

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  90. Glad you’re feeling better, Karen.

    Littlest Arrow, my ESV Bible-reading partner, decided that she wants to go through the Bible chronologically, which is the way Third Arrow read through her bible this year.

    It’s unlikely we’ll go through the Bible in a year, but that’s not necessary, anyway. Tonight Littlest One wanted to take turns reading Genesis 1. She started, and when she got to the end of verse five, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”, she decided it would be fun if I would read about the second day of creation, she about the third, and so on.

    So we did. She’s a very good and enthusiastic reader. It’s quite enjoyable to hear her read.

    And she put a smile on my face when she got to verse 11, part of the third day, and read, And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetarian…” 🙂

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  92. I see “Our Daily Thread 12-20-14” is at the top of the “Top Posts & Pages” column. Maybe everybody is over there and won’t see what I’m doing here. 😉

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  97. Day 1 of my big project went much better yesterday than Day 2 did today, you might surmise. Things went pretty well this morning, despite my waking up with a headache, but it was worse by noon, and continuing with the second part of the project proved kind of challenging when not feeling too well. Cleaning out an over-stuffed closet isn’t much fun under those circumstances.

    Although I did get a pretty big bag full of things to take to Goodwill. So something got accomplished anyway.

    Tomorrow will be better, I feel pretty confident saying.

    Did someone sneak in and get 100 while I was typing all this?

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  111. Someone was very busy? I would say that “b” should be changed to a “p”, and an “h” should be added in somewhere, like right before the “y.”

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  113. ok the real, how come Six was allowed to make fifty nearly immediate comments and when I tried to make two, I was sent to my corner? How much did Peter L pay you?

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  118. Wow! It is COLD. I just walked the dogs, it’s still sprinkling a little bit and in the 40s.

    Did I mention there is a freeze warning for LA County?

    And that this will be the coldest Rose Parade day, like, EVER? In history??

    And there is now more snow in our mountains.

    But we are tough.

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  121. I am just glad to hear it is not very cold there today. And sprinkling you say? As in rain? Do you know that when rain freezes, it becomes sleet?

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  124. I do hope the roses don’t freeze Donna…our daughter and her family always attend the parade and say it truly is something to behold…stay warm…drink plenty of warm liquids…dress in layers…don’t forget your hat and mittens…and a scarf always comes in handy! 🙂

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