87 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 10-10-15”

  2. New Zealand sounds great!
    Hi Jo. I hadn’t thought about it, but you are right. They look like logos. The reason, it appears, is because they are standing alone. I’m sure they are in ‘Lanna, and Lanna has lots of tall buildings. Speculating that’s a hospital..

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  3. I heard on the radio this morning, a guy singing ”Chew Tobacco Rag”. I’ll bet none of you know what he’s talking about.
    I haven’t seen anyone chew tobacco since I was a child. But men used to chew tobacco and
    women would dip snuff. Both were disgusting habits. They used to have little buckets called “spittoons” for them to spit in.
    A guy would take a “chaw of his tobakki” and offer you a chaw. If you wanted, you could take a bite offen his plug. Nobody worried about germs. The stuff was poison. I once saw a man take a bite, chew for a coup0le of seconds and rub the spittle on a wound.

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  6. Speaking of things past, as I was, do you remember when encyclopedia salesmen would come to your door? He would like to “place this set in your home” .I never bought an encyclopedia. It’s all on the internet now.

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  7. My “little” grandfather chewed plug tobacco He would cut off a piece with his pocket knife. When I was little he would offer me a piece joking. I never accepted
    This is my first lazy morning in the new house. Amos and I are on the sofa and crazy Lula Belle is racing around the backyard. I have the door open for fresh air, to listen to the birds,and so the Annie mules can come and go as they please. Even Moe the cat is allowed out in the fenced yard. Paul thinks she is too old to jump over the high fence and she is declawed

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  10. Lots of folk around here chew. You would not think so as this tends to be a somewhat educated area, with most of the graduates headed off to college. But they do. A lot of sixteen year old’s friends do. It is a concern to us.

    I thought they were legos.

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  11. I didn’t know that they even made chewing tobacco and snuff now. I haven’t seen any of it,a s I said, since I was a child.

    I hate to tell you Jo, but spying on me will bring nothing but disappointment. No excitement.

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  12. Chas, your comments about chewing tobacco make me think about a mysterious little boy I knew about 1985-87. He was four and then five, shockingly white hair. He’d ride his dirt bike hard, would ride down the dirt hill with the bigger boys and jump off the edge. I couldn’t even watch them, because they crash landed so often. But this little boy crashed once, looked at his knee and shrugged and said matter of factly, “Blood. Next time perfect.”

    Well, I ended up teaching a Bible club for neighborhood kids. I was an older teen living with my mom in her mobile home court, and each week I would walk around to each house where a child had expressed interest in the club. If this little boy was home, he always came, and eagerly. But he had the vocabulary of a three-year-old, couldn’t memorize the simplest verse. But the other kids whispered to me, “You should hear the words he uses on the school bus! My mom told me to keep away from him!” What? This white-haired kindergartener the terror of the school bus? Then other whispers came, “He chews tobacco.” Sure enough, round bulge in his pocket, jaw always working. Italian Catholic neighbors across the street told me, “That boy no good!” He and other boys (with him the presumed ringleader) had broken one or two of the Catholic statues in their front yard.

    I never could reconcile the two images, the struggling, shy little boy I saw and the naughty terror everyone else saw. But I know both were true, as I saw the hint of the chewing tobacco, I heard it from enough people (children and adults), and I saw his indomitability on his dirt bike.

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  15. Chas, if I’d been in the Appalachians, the kid with chewing tobacco might not have been an anomoly (sp?). But in Arizona I didn’t personally know any adults who used it, though one area where we lived for two years was “redneck” enough that probably it was used some–but in that community I only interacted with people from church, since we lived way out in the boonies and pretty much only saw people on Sundays. If he’d been fifteen, I would have guessed him to be a rebel. But at four? Someone had to be buying it for him, had to think it was cute. Did they think it was cute if he lost some of his teeth to it as a teenager and had throat or tongue cancer at 30?

    But one time I went by his house to invite him to the Bible club. I was never inside his house and didn’t know who his relatives were exactly, but as I recall a man and a woman were in the cab of a pickup, and a clean-cut teenager was in the back, and so was this little boy. The little boy saw me and asked, “Bible club?” I said, “Yes, it’s time for Bible club.” And then I could see he was torn–he was about to go somewhere with people I assumed were his family (maybe stepfamily with the big age gap between him and the other boy? I didn’t know). But he wanted to go to the Bible club, too. The other boy saw the dilemma, too, and said, “You like Bible club. Why don’t you go to Bible club?” and so he did. It was only a tiny glimpse of family life, didn’t tell me much, but it looked like a happy, normal family with a big brother who was encouraging him to attend an activity he liked and was good at.

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  16. And, as I understand, extremely addictive. And the young are targeted. Think bubblegum in the same style can, other tasty treats advertised in the little round can. Role models. It is set up for them to fail, along with the wrong belief that it is better for them than smoking. Not realizing it is going directly into the blood stream.

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  17. Do they carry spittoons around or just spit on the ground? Sounds AWFUL to me.

    I’ll see if I can email you a copy of my write-up of our trip to NZ at Christmastime, Jo. I loved it there and would love to meet you there if I didn’t have a million other things going on . . .

    Is there, perhaps, a missionary rest house on one of the islands? They feel very different and are worth visiting, both.

    Just posted this on FB for those interested:

    Returning from an anniversary get-away in Carmel Valley last night, we hit San Francisco at rush hour. Google maps showed RED all the way to our house!

    So, we stopped off at Daly Cinemas (there where 280 meets 19th Ave) and watched The Martian–in 3D! Wow. Amazing. And to complete the effect, we split popcorn and a chocolate milk shake for dinner!

    Maybe we are still foolish kids still in love . . . ! LOL

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  18. Mmm, lovely conversation. 🙂 What should I have for breakfast?

    And I see the whole toaster oven kerfuffle has been revived on Rants & Raves.

    So I took the logical next step. I wandered on over to the political thread to post about zombies.

    It’s just another weekend at Wandering Views.

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  19. You remember four year old in glasses? Unable to cooperate in any way or to communicate other than tantrums? Well, nine year old in glasses did all of the outside chores this morning, walked the dogs with me, made a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes, and is cleaning the bathroom. What a guy.

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  20. We can’t be vigilant all the time; it helps to have tools to back us up.

    Aren’t there devices you can plug in between appliances and the wall that will automatically turn off within a given period of time? I’m thinking about those surge protector extensions where with one button everything plugged into it is turned off. Maybe you could cluster the appliances together and plug them into that device and then just have to remember to push the lighted button to turn off the whole strip each night or whenever you leave?

    More thoughts on this subject here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/25/tech/innovation/alzheimers-smart-home/

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  21. I also have an outlet (in the kitchen) where the microwave cord (when I use it, not often though) feels warm when I unplug it after cooking something.

    I need to get an electrical type person over here in the next couple months, I also have a couple living room outlets that need updating. The joys of an old house in an age when we have so many things that need electricity.

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  22. Good for nine-year-old in glasses!

    Cheryl, that was a good article. I’ve noticed that trend toward increased academics at the kindergarten level, and I don’t think it’s a good one.

    None of my kids went to kindergarten. (The youngest four have been exclusively home schooled, 2nd Arrow started homeschool in Kindergarten after a one-year preschool stint at our church school, and 1st Arrow went to 4-year-old preschool, skipped a year because I didn’t think he was ready for Kdgn, then went right into first grade the next year at our church school, having matured a lot in that gap year, in which we did no academics of any sort. He was well-prepared to handle first grade work after that year of “no learning,” which of course it was not. He learned plenty, just not in the traditional manner.)

    It was interesting when I was a school teacher (elementary music) to see how the different kindergarten teachers I knew handled the beginning of the school year with their kids. At the larger school in which I taught, the kindergarten teacher was an older teacher with many years experience. She did not send her students to the “specials” (music, art, phy ed, etc) until a few weeks into the year. She took considerable time allowing the children to be acclimated to her classroom before sending them here and there for all the other subjects.

    When those kids did come to my classroom for the first time, school was not an unfamiliar place to them. I think they had developed a sense of security from not having been bounced from teacher to teacher and classroom to classroom right from the get-go.

    In the smaller school where I taught, the kindergarten teacher for some of the years I taught there was younger and much more interested in not giving up her prep time (which the teachers get, of course, when they send their kids to another classroom) than in allowing her students time to get used to one teacher and one classroom — her own — before sending them off elsewhere.

    As incredible as this seems, one year she literally sent her children to me on the first day of school — at 8:30 a.m.! Only ten or fifteen minutes after the start of the school day — little five-year-olds who didn’t know me, probably didn’t know her, might not have even stepped foot in that school more than a couple times (for kindergarten roundup and such), may have just gotten off the bus for the first time… And there they were!

    Pure chaos, compared to the children who had been at school for a few weeks, rather than a few minutes, before coming to me.

    Poor kids.

    They need time, and an unhurried environment, to thrive.

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  23. There was a weird flashing on my screen as I typed that comment, and now the color is completely back to normal and I can see what I’m typing, and read the print of all your posts perfectly without highlighting!

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  25. Michelle, Elvera isn’t at the point where she needs constant care. She operates normally. Sometimes I have to remind her of what day it is. I follow her on the iPhone when .she goes out. But usually, everything is normal.

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  29. Same old computer. We got it when Windows 7 was the latest version — not sure how long it’s been, but at least a few years. Four, five?

    First Arrow tried a few things a couple weeks ago, or whenever the color went mostly out, to try to restore it, but that didn’t work, and he said it would be too complicated to go beyond what he did, and not worth the time, given its age.

    So it was funny that it just suddenly restored itself while I was typing today.

    This is a strange thought, but I wonder if unplugging that malfunctioning sump pump helped the computer somehow? It was plugged in along the same wall the computer is plugged in…

    Are we slipping into the twilight zone… ? 🙂

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  30. It’s also not making any strange noises anymore; at least not today — the ones that make it sound as if it’s ready to blow up.

    Funny story from my youth: My dad doesn’t get angry easily, but there was one time I was with him and the radio in the barn wouldn’t work. He liked listening to the radio while he was milking the cows, so he really wanted that radio to work for him.

    I don’t remember what he tried to get it fixed, but, finally, unsuccessful in his attempts to get it going, he threw the radio down on the concrete floor of the milkhouse.

    Then it started working. 🙂

    Maybe somebody got mad at my computer and threw it down, and it started working when my fingers showed up to pound the keyboard. 😀

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  31. 6 Arrows, I never had to make any final decisions on schooling for my kids–for foster kids the only choice was the public school, and my stepkids were done/nearly done with the private school they attended.

    But I’ve long thought that kindergarten “stuff” is best learned informally and in small doses. The kid learns to read largely by sitting in your lap as you read a book, learns letters when he asks about them and together you sing the alphabet song, learns colors from Mom pointing them out in everyday conversation and him asking “And what’s that color?” A full-day kindergarten (even a less academic one) is too much for most children, and first grade doesn’t need to be seven hours. And when I’ve taught Sunday school, second grade is my favorite because there is so much you can do once the kids can read. So I figured I’d play it by ear and minimally teach kindergarten, likely up through second or third grade, possibly (but probably not) through middle school.

    As a child (continuing today) I was greatly interested in animals and read everything I could find on the subject. I would have loved to be involved in 4-H, volunteer working with dogs at the vet’s office, volunteer at the zoo, or any number of things beyond my own dog and small assortment of animals. So I’ve long thought that when I had my own kids, I would like to see what “makes them tick” (airplanes, dinosaurs, deaf people, whatever it is) and find ways to get each child in self-study projects with museums, clubs, vacation trips, etc.

    When I was younger, I figured that whenever they got to the age where I no longer felt comfortable teaching them, then they would be enrolled in public school, but with such interest-based self-study on the side and with a good academic head start. Today I’d be more inclined to find a good private school, but keep it affordable by having fewer years of enrollment because of the homeschool headstart. But I realized that what worked for one child might not work for another. When I did foster care, my older girl really, really struggled in school–she had some issues and her mind didn’t work as well as it might have, and she was frail. So she would come home so worn out she was angry, and also frustrated because she wasn’t learning and felt like she couldn’t learn. And then she had to do homework! The school eventually returned her to kindergarten, which was a better fit . . . except that her younger sister was already in kindergarten (a different class) and absolutely thriving, top of her class. Within a year or two it would probably be obvious to both of them (if it wasn’t already) that the younger one was better in school even not allowing for age. I’d had the girls for two weeks at the end of the previous school year, and I sent the older to kindergarten but kept the younger home with me–and the younger one had been previously enrolled in pre-kindergarten and missed it. Basically, the older one would have for sure been better off at home with me in a less stressful, less pressured environment, and the younger one thrived in the academic setting. But I had limits on the choices I made, since I couldn’t homeschool. (I don’t think I could have legally done so, but I also needed the school day to get some editing work done. And obviously I couldn’t afford to buy curriculum for kids who were only in my home a few weeks.)

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  33. Cheryl, 2:38, I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy of informal learning as you described it above. There is so much that children absorb through the course of natural living, conversation with older siblings and parents, exposure to good literature, etc. And ideally that continues well beyond kindergarten, even as more formal learning is introduced at the later ages. Adequate time for exploration of specific areas of interest yields good results, and makes learning “stick” a lot better.

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  34. Kim and KELLS met at Starbucks 😉
    The Kid is a handsome young man wire the cutest sprinkling of freckles across his nose. Mr P and Mr Bells seemed to get along well.

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  35. 6 Arrows, when I was in Chicago I occasionally babysat two little boys who were sons of one of my professors. One thing I liked to do is all three of us (including the little one in a stroller) would go for a walk, and I would point out things of interest, ants or plants, and tell them a few things about them. To me it was great fun, and one day their mother told me she really appreciated that I took them on nature walks.

    I knew a child who absolutely adored airplanes, could talk about them nonstop if you gave him an opportunity, but wasn’t that fond of reading. One day I stumbled on a calendar of airplanes, and every page had a lot of detailed information about the plane pictured. It became his Christmas gift. (He has since graduated from college, and yes, he learned to fly.)

    Later, when I lived in the hood, my roommate and I had kids come by all the time. They were barely literate (fourth through sixth graders sounding out a word at a time), and we spent a lot of time with books. But we also made craft projects, took them to the park, and all sorts of other things. I was prepared somehow to step in if one particular child ever needed a home (she lived with her great-grandmother). One thing we did was make cookies with them sometimes, and part of my reason was honestly that it’s one of the best ways to find practical applications of math! These kids simply didn’t get much in the way of these everyday learning opportunities, and I looked for chances for them to have them. When I realized some of these kids’ homes had no books at all, I was doubly careful to look for opportunities to give them positive reading practice.

    I definitely think there’s a place for more formal instruction. When I tutored inner-city kids in Nashville, we sometimes had them working on homework in which they were supposed to be multiplying three-digit numbers . . . but they didn’t know their times tables! Sorry, a calculator can help you some, but knowing your times tables at least to ten is an absolute basic part of education, and there is no way around it except rote learning. Memorization may have gone out of style, but kids who haven’t done any are severely hampered in life. (The kids who came by my house, I’d see a fourth grader need to add some simple sum like 4+3, and she’d do it on her fingers. I’d hold her hand and ask her to give me the answer, and she couldn’t. Not good.)

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  36. One of the things I really appreciate about our school is that the cut off date for entry is July 31st and nationals have to be a year older to line up with their schools.
    And, yes, I give them lots of time to just explore and play.

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  37. Chas- I know that people still use chewing tobacco. And too many of them are inconsiderate and spit it wherever, including in the cave. Gross! Imagine taking a cave tour and smelling that stuff. The smell lingers for a long time since air doesn’t move much in the cave. And sometimes I see it in drinking fountains.

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  40. Chewing tobacco was such a widespread habit in the U.S. in the mid-1800s, that Dickens wrote about it in both his novel partially set in America, Martin Chuzzlewhit as well as his non-fiction account of his visit to the U.S. American Notes. He was clearly completely grossed out by the habit – from American Notes:

    ‘As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or ‘plugs,’ as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.

    On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter of an hour’s time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re-refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on for hours.
    ______

    The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.

    It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient ‘plug’ with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place.

    I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we have heard so much in England. Several gentlemen called upon me who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open window, at three. On another occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell short of the fireplace, six distinct times. I am disposed to think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.’

    Selections from American Notes, Chapter 8: Washington, the Legislature, and The President’s House. Link http://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm#page94

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  41. Wow, Roscuro. That sounds worse than walking past a Chicago bus stop in winter (where there is likely to be phlegm from someone who’s sick and probably should be home in bed).

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  42. This thread has a stench to it, with all the talk of expectorating.

    But at least it hasn’t gone to the dogs like the Pigskin picks. No, Misten didn’t win it, but she got the closest in the tie breaker score.

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  43. Cheryl, that’s great, giving those kids opportunities for nature study in the city (Chicago). One certainly doesn’t have to be in the country (though I love it here) for that.

    And kitchen math — yes! Real-life application of school subjects, with relationship building wrapped up into it, is so beneficial.

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  45. I didn’t mean to start a “chawin’ tobacker” thread. And I’m surprised that so many of you say it still exists, or even know about it.
    As I said, I haven’t seen anyone chawin’ since I was a kid. That is a long time.

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  46. I saw it at my last family get together. Sad

    Nice worship service this morning.
    I am now reading through the New Testament in my yearly read through. I am struck by the part in Luke where he tells us about the widow of Nain whose son had died and Jesus raised him from the dead. It is so different from all the other scenes. No one was following Jesus or calling out to him. He saw her grief and He gave of himself..

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  47. The buildings in the picture are the King and Queen towers in the Sandy Springs area of Atlanta. We had a great view of them from the parking deck at the medical building beside the hospital. They are an Atlanta landmark. I saw a lady in the waiting/recovery room when my husband had his stress test and she was just moving to Atlanta. She said when she saw all the buildings in the area surrounding the hospital, she thought they were in downtown Atlanta. Saint Joseph’s is 12 miles north of where we live. Atlanta is a really big city with several chances to think you are downtown before you really get downtown.

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  48. Someone stopped by from my church yesterday to pray for my husband. Our house is really in pitiful shape so I felt major embarrassment. But it was nice to have the man pray for Art.

    We have new scales which we needed to get to keep track daily of Art’s weight to determine if he is retaining fluids. He can’t believe he has lost 25 lbs. In the past month so he thinks the scales are wrong. We will find out when we see the doctor.

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  49. Janice in your honor I dreamed about driving in Atlanta traffic. The last time I did was before GPS was easily available.
    In the dream I was panicked about having to do it.

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  52. It’s a lazy and everyone is very busy,
    goofing off
    Reading, taking a nap, going to the dog park ,lamenting the outcome of a football game.
    or some such.

    I should enjoy the music program tonight.
    We have had a six week series on “Christian music through the ages”. Starting with Catholic chants. Last week took us to music of the turn of the century to the fifties.
    Tonight is “Country and Gospel Music” I doubt they’ll have any Chuck Wagon Gang, Probably some Gather.

    I wonder if they will include music by Johnny Cash or Hank Williams?

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  54. I was reading a chapter of Anne of Green Gables to a certain eight year old. We were reading about puff sleeves. Soon I will be reading Chronicles of Narnia to same. Nine year old is off hunting with the men folk.

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  57. Another blog meet-up — cool!

    When I was looking around at Hobby Lobby one day last week, I saw someone who resembled Donna, and that’s when I realized that when I’d told Kevin B about some of the blog meet-ups that had happened in the last year, I’d forgotten to mention that Donna and Linda had met when Linda was in California on business.

    There sure are some travelers on this blog!

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  61. I read your comment just now, Roscuro, and I was going to say, what does your old one look like again? (The gravatar hadn’t changed yet.) Then I went over to the prayer thread, where I had commented yesterday that I almost called Cheryl “Roscuro” and it had switched just that fast. Now I remember. 🙂

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  69. I get confused by the avatars of Guess Who, Anonymous and someone else I can’t remember.
    We had a very good program in church tonight.
    They did do two Gather songs, and Hank’s “I saw the Light”.
    We have lots of talent in our church.

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  70. Michelle met Cowboy, Tess — and caught a fleeting glimpse of Annie as she left my house several months ago.

    Guess Who is me when I’m not logged in.

    Good day back at our regular church & 10 a.m. worship time today — and an older member who had moved to Colo a year ago with her husband (who died just a few months after that) is in town for a 1-week visit, so a few us us went out to lunch with her afterward. So good to see her again, she looks good, but is in her mid to later 80s now and I think is wrestling through this transition of life a bit. At one point during lunch she asked, “How does one *be* an old-old person?” She said it was kind of tough being back in our church service but without her husband.

    I teared up a bit during communion, thinking about the absences of her husband and Norma, big holes left among us — yet still very much with us as the church invisible and visible become one as they worship the Lamb.

    And our new remodeled building looks very nice, matching black chairs (with undercarriages to hold Bibles & hymnals), a very plain, large distressed cross on the front wall. Very simple, clean lines, blacks and grays and some beiges. Uncluttered. More room. A much expanded foyer with seating and a welcoming booth where bulletins, notes, etc. are handed out (old foyer was the size of a postage stamp). New dark gray carpet. New lighting, speaker system.

    All in all, much nicer than our old hodgepodge mismatched brown and tan stackable furniture with broken springs and a few coffee and wine stains. 🙂

    They’re still working with the a/c, though, one of the compressors went out this week so it was a tad warm in there this morning (we’re having another 90+ day out here today).

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  71. Skimming through a Brylane Home catalog, I saw a couple inexpensive things I’d like to use for decorating this Christmas season. Last night, I asked Lee if it was okay with him for me to order them. He said we should check Hobby Lobby first.

    The two of us were babysitting Forrest today, & Lee had mentioned that he wanted us to go out somewhere this afternoon. So I thought, since I have no idea when he & I would have the time to go out to Manchester (the town where Hobby Lobby is), why not go there with Forrest, & then take him to the carousel at the big mall in Manchester?

    So we started out with lunch at our local McDonald’s, then headed out to Manchester. Can anyone see where this is going?

    Hobby Lobby, a Christian company, is closed on Sundays.

    Sooooo, we headed to Michael’s (a similar type of store) instead. We didn’t find the kind of things I was looking for (I’ll check the Hobby Lobby website in a bit), but we did find a couple very pretty fall-related decorations that were 60% off, so that was nice.

    And being grandparents out & about with their little grandson, we let Forrest pick out a couple things for him to decorate his & Emily’s Christmas tree, & a “Beanie Boo” penguin with big sparkly eyes.

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  72. Oops. I made ricotta instead of yogurt. I heat up the milk and then am supposed to let it cool before adding it to some of last week’s yogurt before warming it for a few hours. I forgot to cool it first. Like I said, oops. Somebody actually might have to go to the store to buy some plain yogurt for me. But maybe it will survive, only time will tell.

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  74. All three of us rode the carousel at the mall we went to. A special, fun treat. Forrest also got to go on a couple of those little kid car “rides”. And we ended the excursion with ice cream.

    It was a lovely, sweet time with our little guy. He was such a good boy, & is so good about holding our hands when crossing streets & such. It was a joy to both Lee & me to see him having such a good time with us.

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  75. This afternoon my husband and I went to one of our favorite state parks. It was supposed to get t 72 (and did get at least a tad warmer than that), and we were definitely not the only people who thought that was a good idea. It was the most crowded we’ve ever seen. And just about everyone decided to take their dog(s) with them. (Misten had stayed home. She really couldn’t have handled the distance anyway.)

    But it was really a lovely day and a good walk. We had to go over to one of the lesser-hiked trails just to get out of the crowd–several other people had unfortunately thought of that too–but it was really nice. I even got some of my best shots ever (maybe best ever) of red-headed woodpeckers. (One of the trails is a place you’re pretty much guaranteed to see some, though unfortunately they cut down a bunch of dead trees in the last year so now we only see half as many. We used to see as many as six or eight on a visit, and now we’re more likely to see two or three.) And a comma (a butterfly we are more likely to see in fall than any other season) obliged us by landing in the path ahead of us.

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  76. OK, I changed my gravatar to the comma (probably an eastern comma). Sounds like something an editor would do, right? 🙂 (It’s named for a white comma-shaped mark on the outside of its wing; there’s also a very similar butterfly called a question mark.)

    Now no one should confuse Roscuro and me, once it loads.

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  77. Cheryl- It looks like flowers to me. But I am on my daughter’s old Vista computer and the internet is slow. Also I cannot see what I’m typing so I hope there aren’t too many errors.

    Oh. And I guess I can share that there is going to be a wedding in the L family next Spring.

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  79. Peter, I had guessed that your news was the same as ours, but I figured if they were wanting to keep it secret, it wouldn’t be fair for me to say, “I’ll just guess, and you can keep quiet if I’m right and tell me I’m wrong if I’m wrong.” 🙂 Congratulations!

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  83. Lovely day in CO today….the deer have been about quite a bit lately….the fawns are getting big but still hanging out with mom 🙂
    Ten year old grandson was baptized today…oh this granny cried and cried….he looked so little in the baptismal and so focused on the significance of this moment…I love that boy ❤

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  85. We have a guy who regularly calls the paper about what he is sure is either an alien or government conspiracy that is producing the contrails. He gets very agitated that no one is taking him seriously

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  86. Good evening Jo.
    I presume you are still around. And Tychicus is out fighting the battlesd.
    I hope you had a nice Monday. It looks good here today.
    I mentioned last night that we had a good program on country and gospel music last evening. The church was almost full. Unusual for a Sunday night.
    As I said last night, we have lots of talent in our church.

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