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Our Daily Thread 5-9-15

Good Morning!

Welcome to the weekend.

Today’s header photo is from Cheryl. 

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On this day in 1671 Thomas “Captain” Blood stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London. 

In 1941 the German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by Britain’s Royal navy.

In 1961 Jim Gentile (Baltimore Orioles) set a major league baseball record when he hit a grand slam home run in two consecutive innings. The game was against the Minnesota Twins.

And in 1962 a laser beam was successfully bounced off Moon for the first time.

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Quote of the Day

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

Theodore Hesburgh

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Today is Hank Snow’s birthday. 

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Anyone have a QoD?

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-9-15”

  1. good morning everyone.
    Just checking in.
    I couldn’t open Hank.
    Hesburgh is right.
    Many years ago now, Chuck was early teens. We were all in the kitchen and I was smooching Elvera, You know, just a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
    Elvera pulled away and said, “Not in front of the children”.
    I said, “It won’t hurt the child to know that his daddy loves his mother”.

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  3. I always liked Hank. You can tell. that Hank does his own guitar work.
    Hank had a tough life. Born in Canada, he was abandoned by his family when he was about 12, he went to sea with some fishermen, then started in music.
    He wasn’t doing much until he wrote and recorded “Moving On”. He recorded some good work with Anita Carter. The sang well together.

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  4. Good morning everyone. What are your weekend plans?
    Last night we went to the Rotary Club Steak Cook off. There were some really good steaks so it was hard to decide who to give our one vote each to.
    Tonight a friend is having a birthday party cruise from 4 until 8. Can’t stay out long as her pastor and h I s wife will be attending. 😉
    Right now it’s just Lulabelle, Amos, me, and that first cup of coffee.

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  5. Two adorable granddaughters were here last night. After pizza they made themselves, we walked toward the shopping mall for ice cream.

    Three year old could not understand why, after wandering in the quiet neighborhood streets, we could not walk in the gutter along the sidewalk on the three lane street.

    She persisted in asking me what this “busy” street was and why she couldn’t walk in it.

    I thought I was patiently explaining, and then she just crumpled. We put her in the double stroller with her sister and she wanted to go back to our house.

    So no ice cream.

    Fortunately I had gelato at home which made us happy.

    She asked about a “busy” street again and I realized we had a definition problem. All ended well, but her mother may need to better explain.

    Tonight 3 couples from church are coming over for a dinner party. (So I’ll be cleaning all day) Salmon on the menu ( anyone want to suggest how to cook it?) and no post-par dial stroll along a busy street!

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  8. Michelle, I am sure the salmon you get there is fresher than what I get here, but sometimes it is a little strong. I have rubbed it in plain yellow mustard before, let it sit a while and then baked or grilled it. (Supposedly the mustard pulls the strong flavor out and make it milder)
    I have also used a recipe that made a maple syrup glaze for it. I know I can’t get to the notebook that I printed and stored the recipe in, but let me see if I can find it. It was really good.

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  9. Easier to find than I thought. I have made this lots of times and it is really, really good. Alas, Mr P doesn’t like salmon.

    Asian Salmon with Brown Rice Pilaf

    4 servings

    Ingredients:
    Brown Rice:
    1 tablespoon olive oil
    1/2 onion, chopped
    1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
    2 cups water
    1 cup short-grain brown rice
    1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper (optional)

    Salmon:
    1 tablespoon olive oil
    1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
    1 tablespoon grated fresh gingerroot
    1 teaspoon soy sauce
    1 teaspoon maple syrup
    2 green onions, chopped
    2 skinless salmon fillets (about 4 ounces each)

    Directions:
    For rice, heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and bell pepper; cook 3 minutes. Add water and rice; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 50 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Fluff with fork; stir in parsley. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Makes 2 3/4 cup rice. Meanwhile, in a pie plate or shallow dish combine oil, garlic, ginger, soy, maple syrup and green onions; mix well. Add salmon and turn to coat; let stand 15 to 20 minutes. Heat a ridged grill pan over medium heat until hot. Add salmon, discarding marinade; cook 3 to 4 minutes per side or until salmon is opaque and firm to the touch. Serve with brown rice.

    Each serving: About 483 calories, 30 g protein, 41 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 22 g total fat (4 saturated), 71 mg cholesterol, 137 mg sodium

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  10. I’d be willing to give all my jewelry to someone named Captain Blood. He wouldn’t get much though. That’s reminding me of the doc who did son’s adenoid surgery when he was age four, Dr. Gorey. He also once had a doc with a wonderful name, Dr. Love.

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  11. Michelle, when I don’t know how to cook something, I pull up recipes from the internet until I get something I like. Or I put in a couple of ingredients to narrow down the options. Kim’s recipe looks good.

    Chas, when my husband and I were courting, I asked that he not kiss me on the lips until our official engagement (basically I didn’t even want to get started down the path to temptation); though there were a couple times that both of us wanted a kiss before then (and one or two times that he asked me not to look at him that way if I was asking him not to kiss me), we held off. One time a few days after we got engaged I was at his parents’ house, and they were all teasing me about asking him to take me back into Chicago at the end of the visit. (He hates Chicago, but I’d flown into and out of Chicago so that I could see friends there, since I lived there for 14 years.) His dad asked, “Where’s the love?” I looked at my husband (my fiance at that point) and went up on tiptoes and kissed him, and said, “There’s the love.” I think he was pleased that I kissed him in front of his parents, and they all stopped teasing me about Chicago.

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  12. These days I do fish in the microwave. I have also broiled or baked fish in the past.

    I use bottled olive oil and vinegar Italian dressing to put first into the baking dish, enough that I can swirl both sides of fish in it. After coating fish in that, I sprinkle on seasonings such as Nature’s Seasons or Mrs. Dash, some celery seed, some basil, some paprika and then I end with a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce.
    In the microwave I start at 50 percent power and cook for a few minutes and end at full power at the end. It all depends on how much you are cooking. I cook big batches I get from Sam’s, either Salmon or Talapia. I guess you can tell this is my own personal recipe made with what I keep on hand.

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  13. I mentioned last night that my gravatar is a closeup of the basket of flowers my girls got me for Mother’s Day! I asked my husband later if he knew they were doing it, and he said no . . . but then told me they meant to last year, but forgot, and they told him privately they weren’t getting him anything for Father’s Day either, for that reason, so as not to honor him and not me. That struck me as kind and sweet.

    Our first year of marriage, the girls hadn’t known me long, and I didn’t “expect” anything, so it made my day when the one in college called me to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. The next year, one was in college in Ireland for a semester, and the other was out of state in college, and I didn’t “expect” anything, and it passed without acknowledgment. Last year was the first year they reasonably “could” have done anything, and I hear now that they intended to, and this year they followed through.

    I have sweet girls, and I am blessed. It’s more important that I have sweet girls than that they acknowledge me on Mother’s Day, but it was extra sweet that they acknowledged me lovingly in such a way.

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  14. It has seemed to me for some time, Cheryl, that you have wormed your way into their hearts. I mean that in the best possible way–undoubtedly because you came in as a friend, not a rival to their mother’s memory and you have made their father very happy.

    Not to mention Misten, of course. 🙂

    Well done.

    Thanks for the salmon suggestions. I’ve been trying to decide if I should try something with the barbeque (remember how well I do with machinery and a barbeque qualifies as such in my personal experience), or just go with the tried and true, though more expensive, salmon with dill butter from Costco.

    We’ll see what I find when I get there. I AM making rice, though, and Kim’s recipe looks like an excellent suggestion.

    I don’t know what it is about my desire to try new recipes on guests . . . the thrill of adventure, I suppose!

    Now, I’ve got to get the angels under control before I do anything else! 🙂

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  15. trying to get my courage up to spend one more day in this very unfinished basement going through my two filing cabinets that are down there. Discovered one more full drawer. The good part is that there is a large recycling dumpster in the church parking lot, so I don’t have to haul it anywhere. Feeling rather sore though

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  16. I had never been a fan of salmon, although my dad used to catch it quite often on the great lakes. That is until my SIL made us some of his from Alaska. We love it barbecued with just soy sauce and brown sugar. There are many recipes online. It is simple, but wonderful.

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  17. Fabulous bird there. How can anyone think God wants his people dressed in drab colors, when we see how He dressed the world in brightness? Then he gave us the calming color of the sky and the vibrancy of the green trees. How beautiful He must be!!

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  18. Today is a hair cut & errands — and some crumpling as I’ve had a very busy week.

    I’ve had several meetings, some in the evenings, to cover this week & I think I wound up writing 7 stories M-F, including a desperation (very short, throw-away) piece for Mother’s Day. The story I wanted to do, on the female veterans who got homes this past week (we’ve written about that a lot, but I thought it would make a decent little Mother’s Day feature) never happened as the sources I needed to set it up never would return my emails or calls. Sigh. Editor was hammering me by yesterday, I gave him something short, he said, by the way, it needed A1-worthy main/lead art to go with it also (which wasn’t happening). He was unhappy.

    I did the best I could as I already was writing another story yesterday for the weekend as it was. But there’s always that sense with him that you’ve failed yet again. And he’s one of those editors who tends to say (a lot) more negative things to his reporters than positive, so on bad days it can compound a “mood.” We’re all sort of used to it, but sometimes it just doesn’t help. Our overworked events calendar person said to me the other day that he never says anything positive to her at all. Ever.

    We’re all running as fast as we can.

    There are just too few of us trying to do too much these days.

    We’re in line to get a couple interns this summer I think — they can be a great help in picking up some of the extra stories we’re either missing or simply don’t have a lot of time to do.

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  20. I dreamed there was a rooster in my backyard. The dogs were chasing him and I was trying to catch him before they did as he apparently belonged to the neighbors.

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  21. Thanks, Michelle and 6 Arrows. I had thought for many years of the possibility of marrying a widower with children, and I had foster kids for a while, and even multiple weeks of being a camp counselor, so I’d had the theory and the practice of loving/mothering children who weren’t mine biologically. It seemed to me it made the most sense to figure I had full “mama” responsibility, but should have no expectation that they would think of me that way. (Respect me, yes–that was mandatory. But see me as mama? Voluntary.) I waited about a year ever to say ” I love you” (though I said it in notes to them), because I know that when someone says it, there is some pressure to “say it back,” and I needed to know they could comfortably do so. Within a few months of my initiating saying it, they were initiating it. And when I heard them introduce me as “stepmom” with affection in the way they said it, I knew it was much more than “this is Dad’s wife.” (And when a friend of our older daughter’s recently met me and told me “she really loves you–she said the first year was kinda hard, but they really love you,” it was sweet to hear it from a third party.)

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  22. Re the photo: last year I was thrilled to get photos (at the zoo) of displaying peacocks, but for some reason, I didn’t see any of the white ones displaying. (The zoo seems to have quite a few more green ones than white ones. But I saw four or five green ones displaying, and statistically should have seen a white one too.) I like the green ones better–green is my favorite color, they are so very colorful, and I love the iridescence–but the white ones have an elegant beauty of their own. It’s hard to think of them as male, though–the white train looks too much like a wedding dress!

    But when this one displayed in front of a tree covered in white blossoms, the scene looked like Oriental art. And being all white, he seems to glow.

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  23. Donna,

    “Today is a hair cut & errands”

    Already done, both of ’em. 🙂
    —————————————-

    We love salmon. You can do so much with it. You can flavor it with just about anything. Salmon is also on tomorrow’s Mother’s Day menu per request, possibly with some littlenecks too, if they have some fresh ones in the morning. 🙂
    —————————————-

    I got 2 kinds of birds this morning that I never got before. One looks like some kind of finch, but more orange than gold. Only got one shot though. The other I’m still looking to identify, but there were 2 of them and I got some nice shots of them nest building. Once I saw them, I’d move a couple feet closer every time they flew off for more straw. By the time I finished I was only about 20 feet from it and they continued to fly in and out. I didn’t want to disturb them, so I didn’t get any closer. Plus with the zoom, I didn’t need too. But I know exactly where they are, and I’m hoping to be able to get some shots of the little ones later, again, without disturbing them. 🙂

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  24. Couple good books coming out this summer, including “Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel” by Russell D. Moore, one of my favorite present-day Christian social commentators. Release date is in August but you can pre-order now through Amazon.

    From Amazon’s summary page:

    As the culture changes all around us, it is no longer possible to pretend that we are a Moral Majority. That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What’s needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it it’s power in the first place.

    We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let’s do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down.

    The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that’s no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let’s act like it. Let’s follow him, onward to the future.

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  26. I am at the library so I can see that fabulous header from Cheryl. Wow! Just wow.
    Somehow I envision that bird being part of The Nutcracker ballet production, maybe in the Dance of the Snowflakes scene. 😉
    Janice G.

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  28. Donna, we have a little different setting of that hymn in our hymnal. It looks like this version I’m posting, but verses 3 and 4 are reversed, and verse 2 is replaced with these lyrics:

    “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
    But trust him for his grace;
    Behind a frowning providence
    He has a smiling face.”

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  29. Not sure why that is played three times through when there are four verses, but oh well. Maybe one verse should be sung a cappella. 🙂

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  30. Just got asked to perform my Bartok piece again (which I did at the piano show a couple weeks ago) at next weekend’s program at the same venue. The organizer of next week’s show was in the audience at the piano show, and believes my solo will fit in well with the show she’s planning. So she emailed the previous organizer to ask her about whether I could play.

    I hope it works out that I can, and I’m pretty sure the date and time will work for me. I’ll have to check with my husband when he gets home, but I don’t think anything is going on.

    Oh, I would so love to perform that music again! 🙂

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  31. A question for the ladies (& for any gentlemen here who might use nail polish 😉 ) – Didn’t nail polish bottles used to have their brushes go down to the bottom – or very near the bottom – of the bottle? It is annoying that the nail polish brushes don’t go that far down anymore, & after a while, it is hard to get enough of the polish.

    Or am I just imagining that the brushes used to reach farther into the bottles?

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  33. I’ll have to check to see if the hymn is in our Trinity Hymnal — I don’t recall ever singing it, but it may be there!

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  36. My 7:13 comment about the number and order of verses is based on the current hymnal our church uses. I bought a copy to have at home, but also have here the hymnal that we used previously. In the older book, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” contains all six verses in exactly the order shown in your 10:35 link, Donna.

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  40. Karen, I think the last time I did my nails was for my wedding, thirty years ago, LOL. I don’t recall how long the brush was. It seems I recall there was a small metal ball that rolled around when you shook the bottle to mix the color? I think what you may be able to do is to set the bottle on its side and let the polish settle and then open the bottle from that position(tilted slightly) to get to the rest of the polish. That is what I do with things like that. Of course, you could just be wasteful and throw it away and get a new bottle! 🙂

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  41. Bosley gave me a cuddle and a meow for Mother’s Day. She’s such a thoughtful one to do that every day! I bet she would even share her bowl of food with me. Then I could have salmon breath like she does. Make my day complete!

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  42. The dogs got me up at 4:30 to go outside. They rattled their tags on their collars. Amom Goodboy took care of his business and came right back in. Lulabelle Bad Dog ran around the yard like a crazy thing barking. Her human was not happy with either of us when she woke him.
    Right now we are snuggled on the sofa,

    Last night was really nice. It was a friend’s 45th birthday, so her husband planned a party and a boat ride. Most of the people were friends they have made at church. I was her one work friend. We ate dinner in a large gazebo overlooking on of the back bays, then we all loaded up on the boat for a sunset cruise. It has been a long time since I was on a boat that large. Some of the church members started teasing the pastor about having church service on the boat. I told him I would attend if they did that. Then someone suggested they have a baptism in the Bay during the boat cruise/church service. He laughed and said, “We just spent $2,000 on a baptistry and you would have been happy to do that!
    All in all it was a really good time.

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  44. Janice – Yeah, I tip the bottle to get as much as I can, but it annoys me that I should have to do that. Ah, if only all our problems were such little annoyances.

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  45. Kim – Could you not go back to sleep after letting them out? Heidi rarely wakes me early (because Lee lets her out before he leaves for work in the wee hours), but when she does, I can usually go back to sleep, or at least rest & doze a bit. But every now & then, something happens that causes me to be wide awake, & then there is no going back to sleep. (There are other times that happens without Heidi’s help. 😦 )

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  48. Had a good message this morning from one of our elders who preached on Philippians 4:4-7, noting that this speaks about our subjective (not our objective) standing before God as believers.

    Live as if you are what you are … that line struck me about how we’re in Christ already — objectively speaking — and now we are to grow in that sanctification (that usually is rather slow and halting and never is *complete* this side of heaven).

    As an aside, he mentioned that his mom was a strict Catholic from Trinidad, his dad a Swiss Mennonite when they somehow met (their first date was to a theater to watch a Micky Mouse cartoon, with her 7 brothers sitting in between them).

    Then, after they married, they both became Pentecostals.

    So he decided to become Baptists growing up — “just so we could sit down.”

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  51. I have a question. I am watching you tube videos, learning about all the features on my new sewing machine. It is too expensive to watch these when I am in PNG. Can I download them to my computer? And, if so, how do I do it?

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  52. Jo, I’m not the computer expert, but I don’t think you can download You tube. You have to access it each time. You can download ITunes, but you have to buy the music.

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  53. This has been a good day. We prayed with other Christians, looked at Hebrews in Sunday school, and during church my husband led worship and my younger daughter played the piano. The pastor’s wife had sat with me during Sunday school, and since we have short pews (with room only for four), I told her that during church one daughter would be playing and thus there was room for her to stay with us. When my older daughter came in and sat on the pew (at the end), the pastor’s wife said, “Do you want to sit next to Mom?” and she said, “Yes, it is Mother’s Day.” (The girls don’t call me “Mom,” but I don’t think it bothers them if someone else does.) It turns out all three of us were wearing green skirts (me and the girls), so we made a nice threesome.

    After church, lunch with my in-laws, which was very good (though probably too much food–I took smaller portions of everything than I usually would, and declined one or two items, and it was still more than plenty). A nap with my hubby in the afternoon, and then younger daughter suggested we have her birthday cake. (Her birthday was yesterday, but the cake hadn’t “set” yet yesterday.) So we went out to the kitchen to eat it, but before we got to the cake, one of the girls told me they hadn’t given me everything yet–the flowers had to be early since florists aren’t open on Sunday, but they also had a small gift. She handed me a card with a truly sweet note on it, and then a package containing some of my favorite chocolates. I got to tell them they are precious to me and that it has been a privilege getting to know them and love them.

    As my husband said later, probably most stepparent relationships never get to this level. My heart is full. I waited so many years to be a mom, and we all acknowledge the first year was a bit rough . . . but it’s so sweet to love and be loved by the children I longed for all my life. Years ago I determined that since I wanted children so badly, I had to be careful not to marry unless I found the man that I wanted more than I wanted to have his children. But I’ll admit that the dating website profile shot of a handsome man with two sweet-faced daughters was a big part of my attraction to this family from the very first day, and these girls have been an excellent addition to the deal.

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  55. Happy Mother’s Day. It started with mandatory drug testing on the boys and ended with a phone call from daughter explaining how she had another car accident. This time totaling her car but she and the other driver are fine. Her car was only five hundred dollars so totaling did not take much but there was probably at least three thousand in damage.

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