by

Our Daily Thread 3-14-15

Good Morning!

Welcome to the weekend! 🙂

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On this day in 1757 British Admiral John Byng was executed by a firing squad on board HMS Monarch for neglect of duty.  

In 1864 Samuel Baker discovered another source of the Nile in East Africa.

In 1914 Henry Ford announced the new continuous motion method to assemble cars. The process decreased the time to make a car from 12½ hours to 93 minutes. 

And in 1943 FDR became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office.  

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Quotes of the Day

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

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“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

Albert Einstein

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Today is Johann Strauss’ birthday. This will wake you up. 🙂

 And today is Billy Sherwood’s birthday. From BillySherwoodHQ 

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Anyone have a QoD?

77 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-14-15”

  1. I wonder what kind of neglect duty warrants a firing squad?
    Usually, they just get relieved of duty.
    I think Britain was at war with France at the time.

    Good Saturday morning everyone…

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  2. Good morning, all, I’ve been awake since 1:50am – ugh. It’s going to be a long day. On the other hand I was able to pray for each and everyone of you!

    Roscuro: I pm’d you on Facebook

    I hope everyone has a great day today – I’m going to go pick up my cabinets! Yes, they’re finally in!

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  4. Thank you Kare. I always will take all the prayers I can get.
    I managed to get paid yesterday but now am back to being a 1099 employee so I had to put money into a savings account to pay taxes.
    Mr. P’s friends wanted him to stay a 3rd night with them. While at first I was a little miffed I was gracious about it. In the time we have been married I have been to Dallas, Baton Rouge, Idaho, and a couple of church retreats without him. He has only been to Tuscaloosa and back for a ball game without me.
    He should be home in a bit and we have a 4 year old’s birthday party to attend who put Mr. P at the top of his invitation list. I guess we can be the surrogate grandparents. He is adorable.

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  6. Good morning, everyone. What a beautiful header photo! Gorgeous colors.

    Thank you, Kim, for your tender and understanding comment on yesterday’s prayer thread. I was calling out from a very deep place, and you recognized that and responded with much love and tenderness. I can’t tell you how much that means.

    Thank you for all the prayers lately, everyone. God is hearing them, and they are yielding much fruit. My spirits are uplifted, and Thursday and Friday were both great days.

    Thursday evening I got some of my old drive back, and it was wonderful. My daughter sat on my bed, and we worked through her algebra while I was folding laundry. The feeling of peace that I was able to do what I needed to do for my family was incredible! (Even though I don’t particularly care for math.) 😉 It was a most enjoyable time.

    Yesterday it hit 70°, and the warm sunshine was so healing, too. And when I was inside, I made a lot of progress getting rid of stuff that was cluttering up my bedroom, and tidying and rearranging a few things in there so it’s starting to look like a pretty and restful sanctuary, rather than a storing house for various things from around the house that I don’t know what to do with.

    Ah, energy and progress!

    And I’ve found that my prayer life has just deepened, too. An unexpected blessing that has been borne of this trial.

    Your prayers are availing much, friends. Thank you seems so little. Just know I am very grateful.

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  7. I use Pi for a password on some things I don’t care about. Like Times-News website or shutterfly. , use
    Pi=3.1415928 (the last number is wrong in case someone catches on and thinks he has solved a password). But now you know how to get into my Times-News website.

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  9. We have had two days of rainy dreary weather. The sun is coming out and drying things up. I have all the window blinds open, letting in the light. I can hear some birds chirping. I really need to be outside today. It is supposed to be in the 70’s today.

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  10. Yes, it’s π Day. But next year will be the really special one, since 3.14159 rounds up to 3.1416. So next year’s 3/14/16 will be “the one”. But I don’;t think the world is going to end that day or anything.It is just going to be another average day. Of course, it could mean that dunces like me will understand all those theorems and be able to do the geometry proofs I could never get right in high school.

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  14. Hodge is good.

    We’re having a heat wave this weekend, temperatures will be 20 degrees above normal for this time of year — as in the high 80s and even having around 90.

    I’m off to take my friend in Montebello to Target today. She has a gift card that she’s been antsy to use.

    The GPS on my smart phone will get some use today, though, I have no idea where the closest Target to her would be and I’m generally not all that familiar with that area which is just southeast of downtown LA.

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  17. Hubby’s been tending to some things at the neighbors’ in their absence. When he picked up their mail one day recently, he saw they’d received some notice from the postal service about their mailbox being in disrepair.

    Hubby and 5th Arrow are now over at the neighbors, repairing their mailbox. He wasn’t asked to do it, but that’s just the neighborly sort of man my husband is — if he can help someone out with something that needs doing, he steps forward.

    I am counting my blessings.

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  18. Well my husband came in from his mini-vacation and went straight to bed. It seems he had to share a room with a man who snored so loudly hubs had to put his ear buds in and listen to music but could still hear the snoring…heheheehehe

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  19. Chas- click on the link in my post to go to a Greek online keyboard.

    Pie- my favorite is either chocolate or banana cream. Coconut cream is okay, too. Hmm, I wonder what a combination of the three would be like?

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  20. My favorites are Key Lime and Lemon Meringue. I have in the past made a banana split pie that was good, but as I have told you before I am not a big sweet eater. My weakness is red meat and potatoes. I can go days without eating meat, but when I do I want it to be GOOD.

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  22. The old Cajun Grandpa asked his grandson what he had learned in his first Semester at LSU T-boy answered I learned that Pi are square. Grandpa was taken aback and said “Son, Pi is round, Cornbread is square.

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  23. Peter @ 1:16. I get “Webpage cannot be found” It would be neat to be able to include some in passwords. (In addition to Pi, I have some complicated passwords for some sites.)
    (Wouldn’t a granddaughters name in Greek be neat?)

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  24. Chas: copy and paste this into the URL space in your browser- greek.typeit.org

    It worked when I tried it, but not with the http:// in front or the / after it. Σεε ιφ ιτ ωορκσ φορ ψου. (I got that line – “See if it works for you” – by typing on a normal keyboard on the website.

    Τηισ ισ αξτυαλλψ κινδ οφ ιντερεστινγ σεεινγ Ενγλιση ωορδσ ιν Γρεεκ λεττερσ. I know, it’s all Greek to me, too.

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  25. The sight is going to be a new addiction as you can use it to type in several scripts, then copy and paste them in any post. There is Russian – Руссиан; Symbols like these: ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣ ← ↑ → ↓ ✓ ♀ ♂ ☺ ☆ ± × ÷ · ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ½ ¼ ² ³ © ™ ® ° № § ∞ ‰. And other “fun” things (like Spanish accented letters, which I already know how to get).

    ✓ it out! 🙂

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  26. Hey, we could play cards on here! Or maybe compose some music, if notes can be made. I wonder if there’s a way to put them on a staff.

    Yikes, I have stuff to do. I’d better not check out that site just yet, or I’ll never get my shoe-shopping and grocery-shopping done. 🙂

    See ya later, all.

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  29. Πετερ, Ι γοτ ιτ.
    But i don’t know how to use it for my purpose. But it’s good to know.

    I took Greek in college, but forgot most of it. I have never used it.
    So, the above is not accurate Greek, it’s transliteration. Greeks wouldn’t have said that.

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  31. Well, R has unintentionally handed Emily a good case for sole custody, according to her lawyer. The two psych ward commitments last year weren’t enough, but this could make a case for her…

    R sent A, Emily’s new boyfriend, a private Facebook message (which A sent a screen shot of to Emily) going on about how he is in a biker gang, has “boys” from this gang all over the world, & he claimed he still has a physical relationship with Emily (no, he doesn’t). Then he ended that all by saying “You don’t mess with the family of a made man.”

    You all know that a “made man” is one who has killed for the gang or mob, right? (This is most probably just empty bragging, we doubt he’s actually ever killed anyone.) Emily’s lawyer says this is a threat, & could cause a judge to give her sole custody.

    Praying for wisdom in this. She hasn’t made up her mind yet if that’s what she’ll do, but she is leaning that way. It would be such a help, because with sole custody, she wouldn’t have to negotiate every little decision about Forrest’s life with R, who tends to reflexively want the opposite of what she wants.

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  32. This is all Greek to me.

    One of our church staffers posted the other day that a seminary he was applying to said his Greek academic credentials were too dated (10 years ago). He told them he was pretty sure the language hadn’t changed …

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  35. It’s blowtorch weather out here.

    LOS ANGELES >> The Southland is set to broil this weekend, as a rotisserie of high pressure over the inland desert pushes hot, dry air to the coast.

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  36. We didn’t have π for dissert. We had chocolate cake.
    I didn’t tell Elvera the significance of π day. If I told her she wouldn’t understand. And if she understood, she wouldn’t care.
    Tomorrow is the ides of March. I haven’t mentioned that either.
    Yes, believe it or not, we do have things to talk about.
    But not π or ides of March.

    🙂

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  37. You are correct. mumsee. My name would be Πετροσ in Greek.

    Chas- all of what I typed was transliteration. Or should I say, “Αλλ οφ ωηατ Ι τψπεδ ισ τρανσλιτερατιον.”

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  38. I could spell that, Peter. 🙂

    We were talking about miracles a couple of weeks ago. There are some things unexplained that are not properly categorized as miracles, though they might be divine intervention. I mentioned my meeting of Elvera Collins and a blown tire.
    How about this?

    I was watching Fox News. They were telling about the 18 month old girl whose mother died in a car accident and the child was in a freezing river for 14 hours. Fox showed a video from a body cam of a responder. At the river, A fisherman saw the car and called 911. Responders were pulling the car out and noticed that a lady was dead. They heard a voice saying “help me”. That’s when they saw the child. She was unconscious and not breathing. But they performed CPR and took her to the emergency room.
    Two responders, BTW suffered from hypothermia. The child is ok now.
    No one knows who said “help me”. It definitely wasn’t the mother, nor the child. It is a big mystery. More than one person heard the voice.
    Who knows?

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  40. No pie here today…but we did have take out Chinese…math makes my head hurt…! 🙂
    I looked for that Shikai hampoo and cannot find it…I did purchase some clarifying organic shampoo made in Boulder…it seemed to do fine the first wash, but after that, it made my hair feel heavy and lifeless….I seem to be on an endless search for a good shampoo!!

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  42. Back from my shopping trip. Close to five hours by myself, and I rather enjoyed it. 😉

    Dropped off two bags of stuff at Goodwill that I had packaged up on my bedroom cleaning expedition yesterday and prior to that. Then I went into the store, looking for some nice springlike tops, and found two I liked and that fit well. Five dollars each.

    Went to Target looking for a certain undergarment that women wear on their upper body — ahem 😉 — found one, then got in line in the shortest express lane, and just as it was my turn to check out, I realized it was a male cashier. (The other express lane had a woman cashier.) If I’d been thinking, I would have gone to her line, rather than a man’s, with the item I was purchasing.

    Oh, well. He didn’t seem to think anything of it, so that helped me feel less self-conscious.

    And I got $3 off because I had a coupon for that amount off any purchase because on a previous shopping trip to the store, there had been a really long delay in checking out, so they gave me a coupon as thanks for putting up with the delay, I guess. It didn’t bother me, as I’m generally not in a hurry, but it’s a nice gesture that they give those things out sometime.

    Then I went and bought some athletic shoes. Only $62, so I am happy. And Nikes! I haven’t had a pair of Nikes since I got married. Those were one of my favorite pairs of shoes ever, and one of them got lost on my wedding day. I had worn them to the church, then changed into my wedding dress and shoes. After the ceremony, one of the Nikes was missing. I never did find it.

    I lost a good shoe, but the husband I gained that day WAY more than made up for it. 🙂

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  43. Right, we all know they don’t think anything of it.

    Now, Six Arrows, tell me why you would buy Nikes when you could buy Asics?

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  44. Sorry, Mumsee, I walked right past the Asics, over to the Sauconys, which I’ve had good luck with. However, all the Sauconys I could see in my size, a 10 1/2, which isn’t real plentiful, had really dark or bright colors, which are too not me. 😉

    About that time, a helpful salesman came along, asked me how he could help, and I explained what I needed, and that I’d like a white shoe if possible.

    He had one pair of Nikes and one pair of New Balances that he thought would work, so I tried them on, and the Nikes felt good, so that’s what I went with.

    When I need a new pair, I’ll not walk right past the Asics, but try those first. Sound like a deal? 😉

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  45. Oh 6 arrows…I just bought my first pair of Saucony’s running shoes…love them! I have always worn New Balance…but at TJ Maxx I found a size 5 Saucony…they are my new favorites…and they were less than 30 dollars 🙂

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  47. $30, NancyJill! What a deal! 🙂 Enjoy those Sauconys. Mine served me well.

    Kare, I’ve never heard of Mizuno shoes. Do you know if they’re in the States? I’m familiar with the shoes I mentioned here today, and Adidas, as well, but the name Mizuno is new to me.

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  48. I’m sure they must be in the States – we don’t usually have MORE choices than you 🙂

    Good grief – I pay over $100 for my running shoes! Cannot find them cheaper and I can’t mail order them because I need to try them for fit.

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  49. I’ve mostly worn Nikes the last 25 years or so, but in Nashville Adidas were cheaper (was it Adidas?) and I found they were OK too. New Balance didn’t work for me at all when I tried them on. Next time I need new shoes (it will probably be about two years) Nike would probably be my first choice again. But I don’t like anything too gaudy, so black shoes with orange stripes and the like get bypassed.

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  50. I like New Balance. For one thing, where I buy them they say “Made in the USA”. Other places have NBs made elsewhere. Too many small towns around here have lost shoe factories to China and other countries. I would like to see them return, so I try to buy US made. I especially avoid “Made in China” since most factory workers there are only a little better off than slaves.

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  53. I know the flowers in the header probably aren’t fake, but every time I open it I think they are, and think AJ is waiting for someone to notice they are. . . .

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  54. Why was Caeser told to “Beware the Ides of March”? What is it about the Ides? Do any other months have Ides?

    I spent a good portion of my younger life selling shoes. It used to be easier to fit shoes when most were made in the USA. You measured their feet on the Brannock and pulled the shoes. Now you just try on shoes until one doesn’t hurt or fall off. Once again, we have lost customer service.

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  55. Until the Red Hat Society ruined it this was my motto and goal:

    When I Am Old.

    When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
    With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
    And I shall spend my pension
    on brandy and summer gloves
    And satin sandals,
    and say we’ve no money for butter.
    I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
    And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
    And run my stick along the public railings,
    And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
    I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
    And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
    And learn to spit.
    You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
    And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
    Or only bread and pickle for a week,
    And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
    and things in boxes.
    But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
    And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
    And set a good example for the children.
    We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
    But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
    So people who know me
    are not too shocked and surprised,
    When suddenly I am old
    and start to wear purple!

    Jenny Joseph

    I would like to add that I will also start wearing SAS shoes. http://www.sasshoes.com/women-s-shoes
    They are ugly as homemade sin, but they feel like a little slice of heaven. When I had to stand on my feet 8 hours a day selling shoes I would often go in the back, pull a pair and wear them on carpet for an hour or so. ( Yes, the owners of the store knew we were doing it. Who do you think taught me to do it?)

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  59. I didn’t know that this history went with this song or perhaps I did a long, long time ago, but as often happens these days one song touches me at church. Today this one was the communion song and really got to me so I have share it with you this afternoon before I go sit in the sun.

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  65. Just took off my boots because my feet hurt! Went to church twice today: great choral music at Westminster Carthedral and seven hours later at St. martin’s in the field but it felt more like a concert than a worship service. Intellectual floss for sermons, too. 😦

    Great dinner with our godson, though!

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  66. The shoe saga continues here today, both on the blog, I see, and in our household.

    When I told 6th Arrow the other day that I was going to be buying a new pair of tennis shoes soon (we just call them tennis shoes generically, not because they’re used for that purpose), she said, “Then you’ll have three pairs!”

    Except I had only planned on keeping two pairs.

    My Sauconys were my old, beat-up pair I only wore around home. My Propet shoes were for going to town. I told daughter that when I would buy a new pair, then they would become my town shoes, and my Propets would be my home shoes. The Sauconys, with large rips in several areas of both shoes, would be thrown out.

    Well, she looked a little distressed by that, but I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.

    This morning, she walked into my bedroom and saw the old Sauconys in my wastebasket.

    She told me that maybe I could just keep them. I explained that they were so worn out, and I didn’t need them anymore, and no one else could use them either, so we should just toss them instead of having them lying around taking up space.

    Serious expression on her face. Maybe you could put them under your bed.

    Why are those shoes so important to her? I wondered.

    And then I realized, she’s seven years old and those are probably the only shoes she’s ever seen me wear around the house her entire life. I’ve had them a long time, and maybe to her, it’s like throwing away a piece of mom.

    I don’t know. Maybe I’m analyzing it too much.

    But I ask her anyway, Do you want to see if there’s room under my bed for them? (I have a lot of stuff under there.)

    Her face lights up and she runs down the hall.

    Half a minute later, she’s back, saying, “Guess what I found?!”

    Some little toy she hadn’t seen for a long time.

    I wondered if she forgot about the shoes. I walked to the bedroom. No shoes in the wastebasket.

    I lift up the bed coverings on my side of the bed to peer under the side. No room for shoes there.

    Then I go to the foot of the bed. Bingo. Just enough room for two old shoes, placed in a very wide V.

    She’s relieved, and my old Sauconys have found a new home under my bed.

    I don’t know if she’ll ever look under there again, but they will be there if she does.

    And I’m OK with that.

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  67. The columbine are lovely! That variety is supposed to grow here (wild, I think), but except for seeing them in my sister-in-law’s garden, I haven’t seen them.

    The snow is really melting! It’s supposed to be around 70 tomorrow and then back down for the rest of the week, so my husband and I are planning to take advantage of our chance for the first walk of the year. Crazy that we have to wait for mid-March to have even a decent walk, and I don’t expect any spring color (blossoms, buds on trees). March to me is supposed to be spring, not this good-most-of-the-snow-is-gone nonsense. But hopefully the birds will be in a good mood and the weather will be pretty enough that it will feel like early spring at least.

    A lot of people hate February; I don’t. It seems so short that getting through it feels like progress, and you can tell the days are getting longer. But I detest March, in the Midwest anyway. It’s the month that should be spring but isn’t, and is instead just soggy, dirty snow and mud, and without even the promise that April is right behind it and April will for sure bring spring. It isn’t till June most years that I can breathe and say, “Finally, it’s warm.” And we may not see flowers and tree leaves until May, and I have a really hard time with that. Phoenix spoiled me, and my years in the South reinforced that spoiling. It is supposed to be spring by now.

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  68. Why was Caeser told to “Beware the Ides of March”? What is it about the Ides?

    My theory: The soothsayer was only warning Cæsar of the plot to assassinate him. There is nothing inherently bad about the Ides. The word “ides” was the Roman word referring to the middle of the month.

    But according to http://www.vox.com/2015/3/15/8214921/ides-of-march-caesar-assassination, the warning was a myth:
    “On February 15, Spurinna said he found a bad omen: a bull without a heart (it’s unclear if the bull was a genetic abnormality, a shocking sign, or a soothsayer’s poetic license). After that, Spurinna told Caesar to beware for the next 30 days, not just on the Ides of March. It wasn’t a lucky prediction but rather a calculated assessment of Rome’s political climate.”

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  69. Cheryl, I used to wonder why so many story and school books talked about spring starting in March, when spring doesn’t really start until late April/early May. It has only recently occurred to me that those books were written in more mild climates.

    Michelle mentions Westminster so casually, one would think it was a commonplace to attend there 😉

    Shoes – My rule is to own as few pairs as is possible, and pay as little as possible for them (without buying absolute junk).

    Beautiful columbine, by the way.

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  70. Roscuro, I grew up in Phoenix, which has a totally different seasonal look than most places. I used to plant sunflowers just about every year from fourth grade on, and I learned by trial and error to plant them by February. If I planted them in March, they didn’t get very tall, since they would start blooming when it got hot, no matter how tall (or short) they were. Planting in February assured a couple of good months of growth before the heat hit.

    When I moved to Chicago, I was expecting that snow would be on the ground constantly from November through I dunno maybe early March. I was very, very pleased to find out that snow doesn’t stay on the ground continually. But I was very displeased to find that trees are without leaves for a full six months of every year, sometimes longer, and that in late April the bulbs would finally be poking their heads up . . . but most years they would freeze before they got a chance to bloom. I find this time of year extremely frustrating, and finally handled it by taking a trip for a week or so to see family in more southern climes (at that time my mom was in Phoenix, my sister in South Carolina, and my favorite brother in Georgia; my mom is now with the Lord and my sister in Alabama), and by the time I returned to Chicago I would know that spring is coming soon and I can put up with the last month or two.

    One time when I was in third or fourth grade, we had a substitute teacher, and she used some poems with us. One of them was about robins being a sign of spring . . . which they never were in Phoenix. The robins actually migrate to somewhere in the fall, you know! I was in my mid-twenties (a college student, maybe a graduate) before I ever heard a robin sing. I was on campus when I heard pretty birdsong, and looked around to see where it was coming from. I traced it to a robin (it was a song I’d only heard mockingbirds sing) and was momentarily surprised, and then I laughed at myself realizing that yes, robins are known to be songsters. I just had never heard them, since before college I only saw robins in the fall when they don’t sing, and in my college days I didn’t hear much in the way of birdsong since I was on an urban campus without many birds.

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  74. Happy Anniversary Karen and Lee….I am jumping in here trying to see what ya’ll have been up to today….the columbines are stunning….I do have some growing around here somewhere….it will be nice to see them reappear this summer 🙂

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