70 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 10-3-15”

  2. Kim is awake. Sleeping on the sofa isn’t good if you have been doing movements you aren’t used to for two days.
    Right now I don’t care what they eat. I will go get Hardee’s biscuits for them this morning.

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  3. It’s seven, Kim’s time and time for the guys to roll out and get to it.
    No sergeant is as mean as a woman arranging her house.
    But it’s worth it.
    Hardees!

    One good thing about a house trailer is that you hook up the whole mess and move it.
    But you do have to secure things. You would be amazed at the amount of work that goes into moving a house trailer.
    The worst part is setting it up when you arrive.. In Spartanburg, the ground wasn’t level. You can always tell if the house isn’t level because the door won’t close.
    Let the guys do the lifting Kim. That’s why God made men that way.

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  4. Can you call it a header picture if the bird does not have a head?

    How about that surgery to reattach the child’s head in Australia after the internal decapitation? It is amazing what God has designed and given people the ability to address. I had heard of that happening before but I understand fixing it is rather rare.

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  13. Take it to Sleepy Hollow, it won’t be bored. Obviously, I have time on my hands today. Littlest and I went out and did the chores this morning as husband took the five boys to the men’s prayer breakfast. Angry fourteen year old was told to get his journal papers done (not a difficult task, but he does not want to do them) or come home to a bowl of cereal and toast. Fourteen year old daughter stayed in to do the breakfast dishes. Not a lot since everyone was gone and youngest and I had not eaten yet. Now youngest has finished making and eating her eggs and toast and a bit of Dad’s special banana zucchini chocolate chip bread and is doing her schoolwork for the day.

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  15. It’s another rainy day in Georgia. The last two days I have spent hours sawing down the invasion of honeysuckle bushes that were ready to start dropping more seeds in continuing their invasion. Why does that make me think, “Muslim?” Anyways, I sawed them down and dragged them all into our carport which I am sure might appear to look like madness. The whole lot of the pile is as big as a car. I put them there so they could not drop seeds in the yard, so there is method to my madness. Now I can work on taking the limbs with seeds off and bagging those for garbage pickup. Everything has to be just so for that pickup to happen. So people use to get over chores like this right quick like by piling it all at the street. Now we must either spend masses of time or money to get such yard trimming taken away. I seem to have more time thsn money so I will spend time doing that while then rain pours on my car that normally has its home in the carport. At least it will provide good prayer time 🙂

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  17. You could try feeding the honeysuckle vines to the goats. My goats like to prune my honeysuckles for me. Or you could put them through the chipper and make mulch. Or you could burn them. But, I suppose, in these modern times, putting them in the landfill is best.

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  18. Not complaining about you doing it, by the way Janice, just saying that that is what we have come to. I realize they probably take them to a compost place and get rid of them properly. But I see a lot of yard clippings in the dumpster and that all goes to the landfill. Seems they could just dump that stuff in some empty canyon and let nature take its course, providing food, and weeds and fire food.

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  21. In Nashville we piled branches near the street and a few times a year (probably three) they picked them up. The year the tree fell in my backyard, the timing was absolutely perfect. My best friend and her husband and son came, and the men sawed up the trunk for firewood, piled the pickup bed high. The women took branches and pieces of bark to the street. By the time we were finished, the whole length of my yard was full of branches to a height taller than I am, maybe eight or ten feet, and I dreaded having to look at that for two or three months. But they came the very next morning and got it. I then put out the branches that wouldn’t fit and that I’d left in the backyard, not nearly as much of them but still a respectable load. And it turns out they weren’t finished in my neighborhood yet, and in driving by the next day they saw that pile and got it too. I was very happy, and I’m sure the neighbors were too.

    Here we just throw fallen branches on the burn pile and periodically my husband burns them, along with any cardboard boxes and papers we have collected. We could recycle the papers and cardboard, but burning them is easier and probably better stewardship anyway.

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  22. We can’t burn anything out here without getting arrested. 🙂

    The house I grew up in had an old incinerator way in the back corner of the backyard (my girlfriends and I would sit up on top of it, cross-legged, on lazy summer days). My parents may have used it occasionally, but I really don’t remember it ever being used.

    I guess it was still legal out here back then to burn trash, etc.

    But not now. They are even phasing out (by law) wood-burning fireplaces.

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  23. I’m on both sides of the question to burn or not. On one hand, we use a woodstove to supplement the furnace heating; on the other, my serious asthma attack in Africa was precipitated by the burning off of the fields. A friend of mine, who is a stay at home mom living in a city subdivision, had a terrible time when a neighbour repeatedly had bonfires of pressure-treated wood in his backyard. There should be some reasonable limits on what we allow ourselves to burn, out of courtesy and concern for others – and where that courtesy and concern is lacking, bylaws often end up being enforced. The fire may be on private property, but the smoke is everyone’s problem.

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  24. Roscuro, in our case we’re out in the country, no houses behind us, and the neighbor’s apple orchard between our burn pile and the neighbor’s house. And everyone out here has a burn pile. When the fire department says, “It’s too dry–no burning” we listen (that happened one summer), but otherwise it’s OK. But I can definitely see why burning within the city limits would be a bad idea, in many cases.

    And making wood-burning fireplaces illegal is absurd. It’s not that they’re that common in California anyway!

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  25. A few days ago, we were asked what we liked most about October. Well, yesterday I was reminded of one of my favorite things about October, the harvest. I was helping my mother by digging potatoes in that crisp, cool air of autumn – my father is out of commission for some weeks post-surgery – and remembering helping in other harvests throughout my childhood. I had gotten away from all that when I reached adulthood, partly because I was always going to school in the fall. I’m going to see if I can pick some apples today. We need to get them in before we get a frost, and they have ripened to sweet perfection.

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  26. Oh certainly, Cheryl, I was just speaking generally. Some municipality around here wanted to ban wood heating – some city folk forgetting that country folk live differently for good reasons. It is annoying, especially when the city dwellers come up to their cottages or trailers, they often build far more bonfires than the regular inhabitants ever do (and set off fireworks at strange times and play loud music which echoes off the lake and can be heard in spite of the woods and fields that separate us from the lake). There is a real cultural difference between the city and the country, and the city dwellers, for all they pride themselves on their cultural tolerance, don’t seem to recognize that difference (no persons here included in that generalization).

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  27. Donna – I’m assuming the flashlight fell & landed in such a way as to turn it on. Either that or one of those critters is more talented than he or she is letting on.

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  28. We can’t burn here, but about an hour away, where my brother lives, they do have burn days.

    I have involved Art in the carport project. I cut the branches off that have the twigs he can easily snap off and bag. Snapping those twigs is fun and probably good for him. We have done about half the pile. I have a long bare branch pile and he has a short bare branch pile.

    I had to open the carport shutters and put a chair by the window for Miss Bosley’s viewing pleasure. She had been meowing and knocking on the door to see what her peeps were doing just outside her kitchen. I told Art that since she never goes outside that she now thinks the usual thing for people to do outside is to break down trees.
    🙂

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  29. People around here may have a fire pit or a grill, but that is about it for burning anything outdoors in Atlanta. If we see major smoke then we call the fire dept. because it is not suppose to be here in big quantities.

    The weather is so nice and cool here now so I am enjoying being outside. And while outside I commented to Art, “I wonder how my football teams are doing?” That’s something I never would have said before Peter’s Pack of Pickled Pigskin Picks. 🙂

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  33. We have a burn barrel which we can use year round (except when there is a fire ban) and from October to April we can burn any brush, etc, without a permit which is needed in the warmer months. It’s raining today or we would burn the pile of brush collected over the summer 🙂

    We don’t burn any treated wood or plastics that could give off toxic fumes – we don’t want to breathe them and I’m sure the neighbours and the wildlife don’t want to either.

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  34. I am done for the day. This was day 3. It isn’t all done. We have more to do. One of the guys dates the woman who owns Domino’s pizza in this area. He ordered pizza.
    I am taking to my new tun with a mindless book and some Epsom salts.

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  36. We can burn here when there is no fire ban, if we get a permit from the tribe, and call in to find out if that day permits burning. And then we only burn non treated, no plastics, etc. Though we can use the chiminea when there is no ban. We do that for marshmallows and hot dogs and fun and chit chat.

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  38. I highly recommend Epsom salts. I believe I am going to survive. Amos and I are snuggled in the bed. I an reading a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book because she is always funny and Amos is just being his cure little self. I am sore bot not as sore as I thought I would be.

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  39. Glad you have light rain, Jo. We have the same here, again.

    I have a few aches tonight. A soak in a hot tub sounds pretty good.

    We are having soup tonight. Art has his fave, Corn and Chicken Chowder, and I had Chicken Noodle. Miss Bosley loved some broth from my soup. Now she is snoozing on her favorite couch, Moi.

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  40. This is our first time living somewhere that controls burning, but we do get weekly yard waste pickup year round. We actually get fined if it goes to the landfill.

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  41. Glad to hear they are not going that route. It probably goes to the local compost seller. It probably gets chipped and/or composted so you can buy it back to put in your yard. Which I think is a good thing if you don’t have room to do it yourself.

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  43. We had great compost to put on our garden already this fall, although we still need to harvest the carrots and beets everything else is out and the ground has been rototilled. We need a few more leaves collected to add to the garden once the carrots and beets are out.

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  44. The county gives away mulch here, too. A neighbor would get it for his back yard where the dogs “used the bathroom.” The county would dump what looked to be a big truckload on his driveway which he then had to shovel and move to the back yard. It looked painful. We were happy to.see that he finally finished. Then we saw another truckload had been dumped on his driveway which I don’t think he ordered. I told Art maybe he should help the neighbor move that pile which he did. I think the neighbor was very grateful for that help.

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  46. I am missing church again. Art was not feeling good this a.m. so I thought it best to stay home with him. He had a headache and had missed some sleep. And I still have aches from yardwork, but it seems silly to complain about that.

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  47. Timely sermon today. Our pastor preached from Numbers 11, and titled the message, “I Can’t Take It Anymore.” Good biblical admonition, and comfort, from Scripture.

    I won’t say anymore, but, with all the stresses here lately, especially today, including an irritating phone call from an irresponsible relative looking for us to yet again bail her out of her troubles just as we’re headed out the door to church…

    Well, today’s message was much needed by this complainer.

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  48. Sorry if I scared everyone off with that little rant above. You’re lucky I didn’t put the full rant on Rants & Raves or somewhere, or you’d really be running for cover.

    Can you tell I only got 5 hours of sleep last night? grr.

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  49. In happier news, I have been enjoying pondering the conversation here the other day about photographs on walls, in public spaces of the home, etc.

    Knowing how to decorate my living room is a little complicated (and made more so by my lack of natural talent at such things) because the LR doubles as my piano teaching studio. So I’m thinking now that those six 8X10s of the babies on the first wall the piano families see when they walk up my stairway should probably be replaced with something else, and the babies could probably move to our downstairs family room.

    Last night I spent some time looking at different wall decor ideas to see if anything jumps out at me. I want it to be something business-friendly, but homey-feeling, too, if that’s possible, as most of the time our living room is just that — where we live. 🙂

    I found this online, and kind of like it. So do my teenage daughters. Not sure…but I’m toying with the idea. What think you, any of you decorating gurus? 😉

    http://www.target.com/p/southern-enterprise-floral-decorative-wall-sculpture/-/A-15208908#prodSlot=medium_1_54

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  50. I suppose, though, since none of you knows what the rest of my living room really looks like, you won’t know if that wall decor I linked above “works.”

    Duh. 🙂

    Do you see now why I referenced “my lack of natural talent at such things”? 😉

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  52. 6 Arrows, it’s pretty.

    In Nashville, I cheated. First, I asked for a volunteer to come to my home and help me pick out paint colors for the various rooms, upping the ante by saying in the e-mail that if I didn’t get such a volunteer, I was simply going to paint every room off-white. (I knew that would make some woman with a decorative soul say, “No! She can’t do that!” and volunteer.) I said I wasn’t going to go with bright, bold colors, but if anyone was willing and able to help me choose soft colors, I needed that. Someone did volunteer.

    Second, my sister had sold furniture for several years, including working at a very classy furniture place. She came over and spent a night with me, and went with me to several stores to help me choose furniture–what’s good quality for the price. (The irony is, when I moved from Nashville I sold her back the best pieces at a fraction of their original cost, so unbeknownst to her, she was actually help decorating her own future house. I preferred my couch to the couch we have in this house, but my husband likes the one we have, so I didn’t have anywhere for it to go. We did keep my reading chair, though.)

    I figured out on my own what i wanted above the sofa, where the previous owners had hung mirrors. The sofa had a delicate, classic flower print, so I went to the store and found a spray of fake flowers in the same shades, and added ribbons of the boldest color. I looked for a gilt-edged frame that held four photos, but could only find one that held five; in it I placed photos I took of trees in all four seasons; since I had five to work with instead of four, I began and ended with spring.

    Since I then was at the end of my expertise in terms of what went where, I asked for volunteers from church. I had a framed painting I’d bought cheap at some point, various photos I’d taken and framed (including some that I’d had made into puzzles and framed as puzzles), a photo of my sister as a bride, etc. But I had no idea what looked good in what room, or at what heights. Since I’m not a person who rearranges stuff every year or two, I figured they’d hang for years, and I might as well get it right. A couple came, and she helped me figure out where to put things, and he pounded the nails in the studs at the chosen locations (after finding the studs).

    I wouldn’t choose all the decorations that are up in this house. A few of my own things went up soon after I moved in (including a set of miniature horse sculptures and those framed tree photos), but since the house was (and is) the girls’ house too, I chose to wait on removing some stuff I didn’t like much at all (like some cow and chicken stuff in the kitchen). After 18 months or so, I took down a bit of stuff I didn’t like. There are still some paintings in the kitchen that do nothing for me, but I’m waiting until we have something to replace them with rather than just taking them down and leaving blank space.

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  55. Janice, AJ hasn’t identified it, but it has blue feathers scattered across its back. I know of no adult American birds who have that particular plumage, so either it’s a species I’m not considering or it’s a young (or female) bird. Eastern bluebird and indigo bunting would be the two main suspects in my region, and my guess is bluebird. But seeing only the back makes a good ID hard.

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  56. I could use a good consultant or three like the ones you got, Cheryl.

    I do check out books on decorating more often now than I did even, say, ten years ago. I just wasn’t that into spending much time thinking about how to decorate. Now I’m more inclined to search for the way to get the look how I like it, but mostly only in the living room. It’s too much to think about the rest of the house, so I’m mainly practicing the art in that one room.

    Question about vases: do they always need flowers in them? I don’t have good access to flowers most of the year, and I’m not real sure I want to do artificial flowers. Is it OK to leave decorative vases empty, or is that a decorating no-no?

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  57. 6 Arrows, I have an empty vase decorating a corner shelf. I think it looks very nice. I suppose it depends on what the vase itself looks like.
    By the way, I like the wall hanging. I’ve often thought it would be nice to have a wall sculpture on one of my walls.

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  58. Cheryl, I love decorating for Christmas because I take down every decorative thing and fill the empty space with something Christmassy or seasonal. Then after Christmas I take down all the seasonal stuff and only put back some of the previous decor. No one ever seems to miss anything and I still have it all somewhere in case someone asks about it. It’s also a whole lot easier to dust and clean the house with less stuff out.

    6, empty vases can be artwork in and of themselves. Try to group things in 3’s or 5’s (they don’t all have to be the same item, i.e. 3 vases). Mix in some books and some sheet music to speak to the piano. Most of all, if you don’t love it, don’t get it! If you love it and you’re not sure it “works” in your space, you can still get it and just love it for what it is and enjoy it.

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  59. I love corner shelves, Roscuro, but haven’t acquired one yet. I’ll bet a single vase on one of those shelves looks beautiful. It sounds simply elegant.

    Kare, I read that in a decorating book recently about grouping objects in odd numbers. I had never heard that before then, but once it was pointed out, I realized I liked the look it created.

    I found two pretty vases at Goodwill sometime last year, I think it was, and have them together on an end table next to the couch. They are combined with one lamp in between the vases, so I’ve got my 3- grouping there. 😉 And on that same shopping trip, same store, I found a wood frame wall hanging where the left and right side are a deep maroon/purple shade, almost exactly like one of the vases, and the bottom and top are orangish-yellow, just like the other vase. I hung that picture, which says, “Bless This Home” on it on the wall next to the end table with the vases it matches.

    One of my favorite corners to sit and read. 🙂

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  61. I went back and looked at that link I put earlier, and I see the wall hanging has ten “parts,” for lack of a better word, to it. So does that break the odd-number rule, or is it just one object?

    I’ll call it one. 🙂

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  62. I have a table in my living room on which I put different table cloths, depending on the season. This is also the table I use to spread out music by the composer of the month I feature for my piano students. October is Edward MacDowell month, and my copy of his collection known as Woodland Sketches looks nice with its cover of an autumn looking woodsy scene sitting on my autumn leaves table cloth.

    A few library books and/or my personal copies of Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers and The Gift of Music also go on this table.

    You and I are on the same wavelength, Kare, with your mention of books and sheet music to complete the look. 🙂

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  64. 6 Arrows, I think by the time there are as many as ten items in a grouping, you aren’t really “counting,” and the odd/even doesn’t matter. There are times when I am taking photos and I try to get three flowers in the frame, but other times I have one large one and three small, and that can provide a different sort of “balance.” The grouping of things of different sizes and colors has a different visual effect than three of a kind, and somewhat different rules apply.

    One of my minor “issues” with the camera I have is that if I use it on automatic, it is often easier to have it focus on an object in the center of the frame, and yet photo and art experts tend to recommend that the focus of interest should ideally–usually, but not always–not be right in the center. So often I recrop the photo afterward to get a better composition, but sometimes that just isn’t possible. For example, more space should be in front of the creature than behind it, so that it doesn’t look like it is about to walk or fly out of the picture . . . but sometimes the scenery behind the creature is a better backdrop than the scenery the way it is looking. So I leave it in the center because there is no really perfect way to crop the photo. The reality is, all photo/art/decorating suggestions are just that. What looks good to you is the most important.

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  65. Re photo composition: for example, if I had taken a similar photo to the one above, and the bird had been looking up into the berries, then I would have cropped it so that the bird is in the lower left of the frame, a little room around him, approximately using “the rule of thirds.” But if he had been looking away from the berries, I would have been willing to crop the berries out (by putting the bird, instead, into the upper right) only if the bird was doing something interesting enough in itself that the background of the sticks was sufficient. So if he had been looking away, I probably would have gone ahead and left him in the center.

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  66. Also, in some situations two works best. Two can imply intimacy or tension. For example:

    a child with a dog is two
    a doe and a buck is two
    two bucks facing each other is two

    You can change the design (and what is being shown) by showing the buck and doe with another buck heading that way. Or the bucks fighting can be observed by another buck or by the doe. But you may lose some of the action if you back off and show more creatures. Likewise, a picture of two fawns is complete . . . but so is a picture of two fawns and their mother. A photo of three nestlings might be better than a photo of two, but if it’s a species that lays two eggs (such as doves), then you have a choice of having two young or two young and a parent. Either works. (Earlier I sent AJ a photo of a parent dove and two fledglings.)

    Two vases of the same size can be “static.” But a big vase and a little one can be a nice pairing. I’m not a designer, so I have more sense of what works well in art or a photo, but I do know that sometimes two can work well. But the two should either mirror each other nicely (two swans facing each other with the same posture) or be enough different to be interesting (one swan with its head down, and one with head up and wings raised).

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  68. Kare, I personally wouldn’t do that much decorating for Christmas. This household does more than I like, and the last two years it has stayed up way too long because of snow making it difficult to carry big boxes back to the garage. But I like doing some.

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