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Our Daily Thread 1-1-15

Happy New Year!!!!

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 Quote of the Day

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”

Benjamin Franklin

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2 classics, with Andre Rieu, and bagpipes. What’s not to love?

And can someone please translate the first minute? Thanks. 🙂

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QoD?

Any resolutions? 🙂

91 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-1-15”

  3. It’s still 2014 on the left coast. But happy (pre) New Years.

    Resolutions? Hmmm. Well, kinda the same stuff that was on last year’s list.

    But when i interviewed a professor & personal change “expert” today, his point was that it’s all a “cumulative journey.”

    Small steps.

    We keep on keeping on ….

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  6. Found it. Happy New Year all of you folks that are already in next year! And soon to others and the rest of us. Resolutions? I might decide not to pick on Donna. But it is early yet so there is still time. And I understand it is very cold out in the dog park at night in Los Angeles. But not here where it is hovering around zero.

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  10. Ok, so this is weird. I am definitely going to bed. This is too much for my way overtired brain. How did you trick me into staying up two hours past my bedtime? You do know that little folk do not sleep in….?

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  11. I’m very layered.

    Are we keeping you up, mumsee?

    It is New Year’s, after all.

    And I figured you’d stay up late to shoot off some guns while yelling & riding some horses around — or something — in Idaho.

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  13. Happy New Year!

    “300 men without underpants! They come from throughout Europe and have traveled here only to play for you – give a big round of applause for the (name of bagpipe group not clear)! And now… ladies and gentlemen, together with our friends we will (play) a fantastic composition, it’s one of my favorites, it’s really very impressive. Listen, as we play for you… Amazing Grace.”

    Mr. Rieu actually speaks many languages – Dutch (including his native Limburgish), and (in order of fluency) English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.

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  14. My wife and I are in the middle of a two-year Bible-reading plan. Here are some uplifting words from Psalms 76-77 (NLT):

    “You are glorious and more majestic than the everlasting mountains. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? You are the God of miracles and wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.”

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  15. Happy New Year! Yes, we stayed up. But I’ve been awake for a while now and thought I might as well get up and hopefully I can go back to sleep after a bit. Five hours is not really “enough” sleep.

    Donna, that looks like quite a storm for S Cal–as someone who lived where it never snowed (I was 18 before Phoenix had its first snow in my lifetime), I can just imagine what that’s like for people who don’t even own the proper clothing, have never driven in it, have no snowplows in town, etc. Our snow when I was 18 made the front page of the paper and the editorial page (both a humourous editorial that never used the word “snow” and a cartoon).

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  16. I’m starting the new year . . .with either the flu or food poisoning.

    May this be the lowest moment of 2015!

    Happy new year, welcome back, Mr. Kessler.

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  17. Happy New year!
    Only, I notice it started exactly the same way 2014 ended.
    Except we have RKessler back. Welcome back R!

    Have you noticed that every time January comes, it gets cold?

    It’s impossible to get more first than Aj did this morning.

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  18. I started thinking about the off-hand comment I made about how the New Year started. So I went back into my records and found that on Dec. 28, 1958 I preached a sermon I called,
    “A New Year? Or Just Another”.

    I was a 28 year old seminary student at the time with a two month old son.
    We were having a tough time, financially, and didn’t know how it would turn out.
    We had lunch with this son and his wife at Chick-fil-a in Spartanburg yesterday.
    Linda showed us how to work the iPhone.

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  19. Praying for you Anony. I thought flu was respiratory and norwalk virus was similar to food poisoning, or was a type of food poisoning…..and miserable.

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  20. You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of that sermon on file would you Chas?
    We had a lovely evening with some people from church. Kudos to Paul. I know 4 of the people and am an acquaintance with the 5th. I didn’t know the other 5. Paul knows the priest and his wife and the woman I am only acquainted with–she teaches some of the classes at the Wellness Center. He easily stepped in an got to know everyone. Sometimes I have to stop and thank him for being so adaptable and easy going about things like that.

    Michelle? I hope you recover soon from whatever it is that is ailing you. Being sick is never pleasant but food poisoning is horrible and I hear this strain of flu is as well.

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  24. Michelle, I think RKessler explained in the past that it’s her husband and child in the photo. I’d assumed RKessler was a man until then, too.

    Why doesn’t this thread show up under “recent blog posts” in the sidebar?

    AJ, what body part of Mouse’s has the white that shows? I’m trying to figure out how she’s sitting, and I can’t.

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  25. Just so you know…

    Should auld acquaintance be forgot
    And never brought to mind?
    Should auld acquaintance be forgot
    And auld lang syne
    For auld lang syne, my dear
    For auld lang syne
    We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
    For auld lang syne
    And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp
    And surely I’ll be mine
    And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
    For auld lang syne
    For auld lang syne, my dear
    For auld lang syne
    We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
    For auld lang syne
    We twa hae run about the braes
    An pou’d the gowans fine
    But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fitt
    Sin’ auld lang syne
    For auld lang syne, my dear
    For auld lang syne
    We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
    For auld lang syne
    We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
    Frae morning sun till dine

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  26. I have been under the weather, too. I did not get out to the beach to welcome in the new year. Husband hobbled out there with son. They said the fireworks across the water at Tybee Island (Savannah) lasted longer than ever before. I feel a bit better today. I woke up with a cough and congestion yesterday. Hope Michelle quickly feels better. I get to cook turkey and dressing today. We went to Hilton Head Library yesterday and got lots of used books. I found several to give to friends/family as gifts that match their interests.We also drove through the nature preserve.We use to hike the nature preserve so it is a bittersweet drive through it for me.

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  28. At a shop at Harbour Town the evening before last I pulled a Donna stunt. I was checking out a display of small little purses, trying to get one off when the display tipped and all the little purses slid off onto the floor. I looked around in horror and caught one lady chuckling to herself. Son felt sorry for me and got down on the floor to pick them up and put them back as they were. Of course at that point I pretended to not know him. 😉

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  30. Happy New Year!
    This is the last day of festivities/family gatherings for us. We had a large gathering on New Year’s Eve, as those of you on FB may have seen. Slightly smaller today, with another turkey dinner.
    My resolutions this year are to get my full practising license back, and to apply to the midwifery program. I will consider it a miracle if I do get accepted, as it is highly competitive. I’m just taking it one day at a time, ndanka ndanka (slowly, slowly).

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  32. See how my memory works? I read the real’s thank you to Tychicus and forgot he was in here. Oops. Sorry, the real, you are more real than that.

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  33. Speaking of purses…and we were…

    I purchased a new one yesterday. It is much larger than I intended it to be, but BG insisted it was the one I needed.(And she got back up from the older lady shopping next to us) I told her I could run away from home in it. It is “hard shelled”. It has a shoulder strap and handles. The center compartment is held together with magnets and it has pockets inside to hold various things. One is big enough to hold my cell phone, but if it does drop down in the purse it opens wide enough to find it. On each side of the center opening is a zippered section- so that the purse has three sections. It is large enough that a small computer or an iPad would fit inside It is taupe with gold hardware. BG insists that it is quite stylish.
    I may also have been hoodwinked since she readily transferred everything from my old purse to my new one and transferred everything from her old purse to my old one. 😉
    At least I got it for half price at TJ Maxx.

    I also got a Christmas tree at Hobby Lobby yesterday. It is a 7 ft pre-lit tree. Originally it was $499!!!! I got it at 80% off. Tax and everything was $109.

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  35. It was not marked off but it was free. Other than the cost of driving to the foot of the mountain and walking up and the hot chocolate we had to fix while we were out.

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  36. By the way, one does not hit the brakes on snow covered turns. One slows down for the turn before hand and then carefully turns through it. Brakes change the dynamics so you have no idea where you will be at the end of the turn.

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  38. Weird….

    Not you Mumsee, the post not showing. 😆

    I “edited” the post and updated it and now it’s showing at the top of recent posts, as it should.

    Who knows? WordPress is a fickle beast at times….

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  39. Of course not me. Who would ever think me weird? Other than the fifteen children who have had to live with me for many years and the husband who has lived with me a bit longer, and the neighbors and the church folk and the people in town and a few others…..

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  40. Flu is respiratory; noro virus (which often plagues cruise ships) is intestinal.

    I’m watching the Rose Parade, but missed the first 20 minutes as I couldn’t get up quite right at 8 a.m. … One of our reporters from our sister paper in Pasadena is out there covering it live, tweeting, I’d passed on cell #s for the Zamp family which she said she should have with her …

    But I’m afraid I missed all the opening Louie moments (grand marshal car & hometown city float), so I will have to watch the rerun after the live broadcast I suppose. But the city’s “Race Well Run” float did win an award for “Theme” — and it’s been fun to see bits and pieces of other floats I watched being put together a few days ago at the warehouse. I recognized some giant butterflies and other elements.

    And the bands are good, lots of fun for kids who get to come from out of state to march.

    Eee, I’m turning into one of those “parade” people — I usually don’t watch the Rose Parade, I’ll admit, it’s just one of those same ‘ol same ‘ol things that happens out here every year.

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  43. Cheryl, people in our local mountain communities (and those who visit regularly) are very used to snow — but this snowfall dusted some inland communities that are at very low levels and normally don’t see much if any snow in their yards. 🙂 Looked like lots of fun with crooked, wacky-looking snowmen sitting amid patches of grass & palm trees going on out there yesterday.

    But generally snow is voluntary & optional for us — you drive there if you want to see it, go skiing, it’s a 90-minute drive; otherwise we don’t really have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis (although I know some families who keep mountain get-away homes).

    Just to say they’ve done it, some folks will boast that they went skiing and surfing all in the same day. A bit of driving involved, but it’s entirely doable.

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  44. A colleague’s mom who lives in Arizona also had snow flurries yesterday, but she apparently lives in an area that does get some light snow most winters.

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  45. Mmmm, I’d say leaning a bit weird — describing mumsee. Not that we talk about her.

    And, yes, as I recall RKessler’s a girl, but the photo also threw me at first. 🙂

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  46. I will say the view of our mountains yesterday was gorgeous on my drive in to work — covered with snow. Just a few days earlier only the tallest mountain had a relatively small snow “cap” on it. Now the ranges are covered.

    And it’s a beautiful, sunny (if cold, mid 30s when it began) day in Pasadena for the parade — My grandparents from Iowa always loved watching the parade back in the day, I think it was just kind of amazing to them that the sun was actually shining, the flowers were bright & not wilting & there was no snow in the dead of winter.

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  47. Sounds beautiful, Donna. Fresh snow on the trees in the distance is a beautiful sight. One we are also enjoying as the nearby mountains are covered with fresh stuff. Sounds like a wonderful day for a parade.

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  49. I will survive!

    I’m pretty sure it was food poisoning–probably from the raw oyster appetizer. I was having trouble by the fourth course, skipped the fifth, and barely got the chocolate dessert down.

    Finally fell asleep after 4 and will not attend our friend’s “Ode to Cholesterol ” party this morning.

    The new year looks better in the light of day!

    If only I had a good book to read . . .

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  50. We have seen snow at least once on the beach at Hilton Head. Many years ago I lived on campus at Georgia Southern, about an hour from HHI, and we had a big snow, almost unheard of. Lots of fun on a college campus that mostly sees fog in the winter.

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  52. Mumsee is being very nice to me today.

    Glad michelle is feeling better.

    No, Kim, I don’t think I’ll be cleaning house today. But I do want to get out with my camera to see if I can get any snowy-mountains-over-the-harbor shots. We’ll see, depends on how clear it is out there — looks pretty clear though, so if I can get something good I’ll send it on to AJ.

    Nice piece about the riderless horse in today’s Rose Parade to honor Louis Zamperini

    http://news.usc.edu/72869/riderless-horse-traveler-to-honor-louis-zamperini-at-rose-parade/

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  53. Chas, nope, I learned it from watching good drivers (my folks) and listening in class (unusual for me) and it made sense so never thought it worth trying out. Nor can I recall putting a car into a ditch though I have helped others get out of situations.

    Donna, you are a nice person to be nice to.

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  58. good books are hard to put down. I started to bed early and then used my ipad to make a few comments in the secret room and then remembered that I had a book that I had never read on my ipad. Finally got some sleep around 3

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  59. Cheryl,

    That white spot is a big, fluffy white ball. It’s one of her favorite new toys. 🙂

    She’s kinda’ sitting/laying against the couch with all her toys pulled in close. Off frame is The Kitten, who Mouse is watching to make sure she doesn’t make a move towards her toys. Then she’d look down, play a little more, and then check the whereabouts of The Kitten. This went on for a while.

    We need to work on sharing this week with Mouse. 🙂

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  62. Michelle ,I’m not sure which question you’re answering, but Traveler was Robert E. Lee’s horse. Second most famous in the world. The most famous is Silver. The Lone Ranger’s horse.
    Famous for Southern boy, that is.

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  64. Aha, AJ, on the white toy. It kinda looked like a paw, but that didn’t make sense anatomically from what I could see, and I didn’t remember her having any white paws.

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  65. OK, I did a little cleaning in the bathroom and I cleaned in the kitchen last night … And I put one silver angel ornament in a bag of Christmas things that will be delivered back into the spare room.

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  66. This is the best “New Year’s Resolution” one can have:

    “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
    Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude…” Philippians 3: 10-15 (NASB)

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  67. 🙂 Peter

    Chas–When you say “SC” you’re thinking South Carolina. When I say “SC” I’m thinking–“the other school,” aka University of Southern California, arch rival to my beloved UCLA.

    That white horse . . . they used to ride it on the sidelines during the football games. UCLA fans would pull dollars out of their pockets and wave them in time to the USC fight song–signifying, then, how much more expensive it was to attend the private school across town.

    My parents, UCLA graduates, were so partisan against USC that the one time I visited the campus while in high school (for information sake, if only to see the “other side”), my father didn’t speak to me for three days.

    So we jib at USC, though our knee jerk negative reaction has tempered ever since a family member married a professor there and her hospital saved my dad’s life the first time. My own daughter is thinking of attending PA school there, and so, alas, the blue and gold blood will dilute just a little bit.

    So, maybe that horse wasn’t Traveler, can’t quite remember, but Zamperini’s knee jerk positive reaction to all things Trojan . . . well, it’s the only problem we had with him. 🙂

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  68. Well well…I’ve been wandering around the back halls looking for you all and I just gave up….no secret rooms that I could find…and I couldn’t find today until just now…..I’m not liking this game of hide and seek…seems I’ve been appointed “it” and you all are very good “hiders”!! Found ya…and now one of you all is “it”!! 😛

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  69. Nancyjill, go to the list on the right that says top posts and pages and go down to 12-20. That is the secret room. If you can’t find it, go to archives. Then to december 20 and we are the our daily thread that is at six hundred plus comments. See you there!

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  73. Gotta figure out if turkey is okay to cook. It was frozen and oven ready type which son and husband bought. I usually buy fresh. Did not realize what type they bought. It has only been in the refrigerator, not the freezer, since it was bought on Sunday. Hmmm….I thought I would take a break from grocery shopping. Maybe not such a good idea.

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  76. Baylor is losing, and I don’t have the heart at the moment to tell husband I need to throw away the turkey breast I was going to fix for our dinner. 😦 It is the human condition.

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  77. If it was my husband, he would cook it. I would be the one thinking of tossing it. But it was frozen, then in the fridge for four days? Should be fine. You might want to rinse it with water and soda but it should be fine. Just cook it to the correct temperature.

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  78. The horse was Traveler. Very moving.

    USC was for rich kids. UCLA was kind of pricey for many of us as well, but not nearly like ‘SC.

    We were the working class “state university” kids; it was cheap in those days, not as much so now I suppose. 🙂

    I remember meeting a TV reporter maybe a year ago out at a crime scene and he was so excited to hear I’d gone to “state” (because he did, too). He said those working class roots had paid off well for him in his journalism career.

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  79. OK, so I finished Day One of the Bible reading plan, and I also took notes in a daily journal book I bought (one page per day) just for that purpose in hopes it may help me stay on track more. ? We’ll see.

    I was reminded that man & animals were vegetarians in the beginning, before the flood. And I’d noted in one of my Bibles that Gen. 1:26 reminds us that we are to be good stewards of God’s creation.

    Today was easy, of course, because I’m not working and had time to spare just hanging out. But give me credit for this: I did have to resist the urge to take a nap instead …

    I should probably get the dogs out to the cliffs for a walk before hitting the dog park. But I feel like a slug today.

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  81. Husband was a bit surprised by my saying I wanted to go out for our seafood dinner tonight. My plan was to stop by the grocery and pick up another turkey breast on our way back to the villa. As it would happen, the doors were closing early at the grocery just as we arrived. Son is in the know about my plan to get another bird that won’t be foul. Husband will find out when it’s all cooked and not just after a team he was rooting for lost. Son figured out what I wanted to pick up at the grocery store without me even telling him. Our seafood dinner was very good. We always check out the assortment of cats hanging out. I asked a worker how many there are and was told they have seventeen.

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  82. I started into my One Year Bible today along with a women’s devotional journal, A Gentle Spirit. Also this week I started an excellent Bible study workbook, Disciple ‘ s Prayer Life by T W Hunt and Catherine Walker. I saw that T W Hunt died recently. He was at one time a prof at Southwestern so I was wondering if Chas may have known of him. I love this workbook study so far.

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  83. It was very cold again at the dog park. But we’ll start warming up soon and should be in the high 60s, low 70s by early next week …

    I’m also starting a new devotional — I’d bought it a few months ago and have used it sporadically, but now I think it’ll be my go-to one for the year. “New Morning Mercies” by Paul David Tripp

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  86. Thanks Yapamom, Same to you! Well, not the part about almost never speaking up. Having an almost entire thread to myself is not really quiet.

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