51 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-23-15”

  6. Try a Lab/Pit Bull mix! Combine the dumbness of a Lab (until they are 5 at which point they turn into the smartest dogs) and the neediness of a Pit Bull. Now she has started whining every morning at 3 am to go outside. Then she won’t go back to her bed, she has to be beside the bed. Mr Tough Guy Disciplinarian is spineless where she is concerned.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. Yesterday got away from me. I was just going to go in the attic and take down a box of ribbon and some Christmas ornaments I bought a few months ago to see if they matched or now. Since I was up there I decided to go ahead and get everything down and leave it in the garage. Well, one thing let to another and the Christmas tree is up and decorated. The box with the garland was in the garage so I started working on the mantel. Last night Mr. P went to bed and as I was turning out the lights I had an idea for the dining room…. The mantel still needs the “wow” factor. I am thinking of hanging a large wreath over it.
    Also Saturday Youngest Son called to find out that the Thanksgiving plans were. I had gotten Mr. P and me invited two different places, but it is one thing to invite yourself when you are known, but it is another to drag along someone else. I told Mr. P I wasn’t opposed to cooking Thanksgiving dinner here. Youngest Son has a friend who has no where to go and has been with us before. It will just be the 5 of us so I am going to have to rein in my cooking for a crowd tendency, but I think it will be nice to have a first holiday meal in this house. It is probably time for me to teach BG how to set a table. She has never been interested before, but yesterday she and I did some things together. She said I was the best Mom ever and that it was a great day (she is 18 and talked me into a stuffed giraffe at Cracker Barrel so I am not deluding myself). I told her, “See how much fun you can have with your mother when you don’t hang out with your friends and smoke pot”.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  8. Good Morning Tess and Cowboy!! Oh how I love those sweet faces ❤
    Lulah gets up at 5 every morning….she loves to play in the snow! Last night before putting her to bed I took her out and two deer were crossing the meadow…scared her to death…she jumped and ran over to me, sitting her sweet self on my feet. The deer just moseyed over to the trees and bedded down for the night. What a beautiful sight to watch them walking across the snow covered meadow on a shimmering moonlit night…

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

  10. Cowboy and Tess! 🙂 I showed 5th and 6th Arrows the header, told them the dogs’ names, and 5th Arrow proclaimed, “I love Tess!” 🙂

    Great pics!

    Your story made me smile, Kim. Especially the part about teaching BG to set the table, and the together time you had yesterday. Beautiful.

    I checked out a book from the library recently on decorating. One of the chapters is called The Wow Factor, so your “wow” factor comment jumped out at me. 😉

    I stayed up long past midnight last night (I’ll not tell you how long — ahem) doing something quite enjoyable — revising my piano lesson policy. LOL. I am being serious when I say that is enjoyable. I love teaching piano, and I like to periodically reevaluate my business practices and think of new ways to enhance the service I offer.

    Next year I plan to join the MTNA (Music Teacher’s National Association), a professional organization with a local chapter I’ve not been a member of before. It’s a great opportunity for piano teachers to get together and share their ideas, and students of member teachers have the opportunity to participate in local performances and competitions that enhance their musical development.

    I also plan to raise my teaching rates next summer, so I was researching what the going rate is around my area. It looks to be around $80-$100 per month, and I am currently at $60/mo. I think with professional membership, over 30 years of teaching experience, and performance experience, too, I can at least bring myself up to the bottom of that range, don’t you think?

    Not sure if I’ll get pushback for the big fee increase (I plan to be more incremental with future increases, and raise my rates less dramatically and more often), but I have good relationships established with my current families, and I just think it’s time to get my rates more in line with current trends. And they do have six months to prepare for that rate increase.

    When I started researching the (then) current rates in 2014, as I prepared to reopen my piano student, I purposely chose to charge less than the going rate (about $75 at that time) because I hadn’t taught other people’s children for over 10 years, and I felt I should keep my rate more conservative when I reentered the business.

    I have not raised my rates at all during this last year and a half since writing my current lesson policy, and my students’ families know what they are getting, and have been willing to stay with me. They are complimentary of my work and have expressed their gratitude about my flexibility, with offering make-up lessons and such, when needed.

    So, I’m going to go ahead and do what my gut is telling me. We’ll see how that goes. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  13. 6 Arrows, yes, I think you can safely raise your rates.

    Interestingly, for years I didn’t charge individuals much when I edited for individuals, thinking that most people couldn’t afford it if I charged as much as I’d charge a publisher (with the tradeoff being that publishers’ projects are a higher priority in my schedule, and if I get a book from a publisher I will stop working on theirs). But books for individuals are usually more work for me, and I give an individualized price quote for each person. So giving price quotes, low price quotes, and then only getting about a third of the projects, made individuals hardly worth the work. But over time I’ve raised my prices until now I’m probably charging in the mid-range of what my publishers pay me . . . and lo and behold, I’ve probably gotten the last five projects in a row for which I have given price quotes, maybe even more than that. Instead of getting about one in three of the ones I quote, I’m getting about three in four . . . and one of the ones I am doing right now, the author expressed surprise my rate was so low. (His project was “clean,” not needing much editing, and so I priced accordingly–but it was still more than I would have been charging most anyone five years ago.)

    Somehow people do get a sense that if you’re charging “too low” you must not be very experienced or very good. I don’t want my rates to cause anyone to turn me down . . . but I’d heard it from others, and now I’ve experienced it myself, that rates that are too low can actually make it harder to get business because people are so used to “you get what you pay for.” As a Scottish gal, I want “the deal” if I can get it, but that may not be as common a sentiment as I would have guessed. And with more than 20 years of editing experience and some NY Times best-sellers in that mix, I don’t want to charge in line with editors who are editing their first book.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. Chas,

    I waited 50 minutes to claim first.

    The rules say after 30 minutes, if no one claims it, I can. Sorry, I don’t make the rules…..

    Oh wait…. Yes I do! 🙂

    And the anon in Mississippi playing golf and visiting confederates is Ricky Weaver I believe.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  15. Sounds good to me, 6 arrows. Glad to see your biz thriving so well 🙂

    Found out that today’s news conference I’m going to today is about — announcing that the Navy will be bringing a full Fleet Week to our waterfront next summer (as opposed to a smaller Navy Days event that we usually get).

    Fleet Weeks usually get higher-profile active-duty ships, air shows & lots of landslide activities. It will run through Labor Day — and will bring a lot of people so there will be logistics to figure out with traffic. We had a real mess several years ago when a popular aircraft carrier (the Abraham Lincoln) was featured as part of Navy Days for public tours, there were long lines & the wait times went for hours; streets were backed up for miles onto the freeway.

    Chas is right about the dogs — string cheese inspired those sweet & attentive expressions of devotion (although cheryl said Tess looks a bit dangerous there).

    The smaller shot of Tess was taken last weekend when the tree trimming / chain saws had her very stressed and on edge, poor baby.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. Donna, I showed my hubby the picture and told him I’d met those dogs. He said, “Then they have your data stored in their brains. Especially the border collie–I bet she knows your zip code.” 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. 🙂 We just came from CVS pharmacy. This is true

    Only in America… do drugstores make the sick walk all
    the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions
    while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  23. Just saw this article on the push to make birth control pills available to all (and basically paid for by other people because, you know, the ability to have sex anytime anywhere with anybody without worrying about bad things like babies is a constitutional right): http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/23/health/states-lead-effort-to-let-pharmacists-prescribe-birth-control.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

    The birth control pill is a serious drug. I wouldn’t touch it. I made sure to caution my daughter about it before she even got engaged, and fortunately she had already done research that led her to the same conclusion. This move is not pro-woman; it’s anti-baby.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  24. My SIL had to take the pill as a teenager in order to control her monthly cycle. I guess she’s okay since she has five children and three grandchildren now.

    Like

    Reply

  25. Cheryl, I thought of that “you get what you pay for” mindset, as well, and that did influence me toward at least bumping myself up to the bottom of the average fee range, instead of slowly working myself out of the below-average-rate area.

    Additionally, any new students who begin before next summer will automatically be put on the new fee scale right from the start. My updated policy lists the upcoming rates, and not the current ones, but I have composed a cover letter for my current students’ families that explains that the new fees don’t start for them until payment for the summer quarter is due, while everything else in the revised policy is effective immediately.

    New students will just get the updated policy as is, without the cover letter. Then there isn’t any confusing transition for people new to my studio. (My current families will transition from a monthly to a quarterly system for fees and other scheduling purposes, but I’d like to avoid any kind of transition with new families. It’s just easier to start them entirely on the new system, instead of switching them from one to another before they may even be accustomed to my business practices.)

    I suppose I could have made my new rates effective for everybody in January, but this is generally kind of a bad time of year to get a sudden rate increase. With the increase coming at the end of spring, I figure funds are more readily available, if the families generally get an income tax refund. They could use some or all of that refund to set aside money for the next year’s piano lessons, and, if not, at least they know well in advance that an increase is coming, and they know exactly how much.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  26. My family deserves to have my time away from them be well-compensated, too, I think. Another reason to not under-charge for my services. They should be foremost in my mind. They are more important than my piano families’ finances.

    I never used to think like that.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  30. Re birth control: those who take it for medical reasons (like control of cycles) are only masking problems, not fixing them, and it’s a heavy-duty hormone. By the time I was a couple years out of college I noticed that every person I knew who had been on the pill for at least two years had had serious problems with it, and some who had only been on it a few months. I haven’t seen anything since that has made me change my opinion that it is dangerous. Sometimes its effect on fertility is lasting, and I didn’t know till a few years ago that it can subdue libido, too (which isn’t the effect one wants when getting married), and sometimes that effect can go well beyond use of the medication. I’m convinced that the only reason it is seen as a relatively safe drug, in spite of the fact that it is not, is that ability to have free sex with minimal consequence is seen as important.

    Like

    Reply

  31. 6 Arrows, I agree with you on the “time away from family = compensate well” principle. For me, I only want to work part-time, but I want my work to be an asset to my family and not a liability. Unless the person I’m editing for is someone I know, I can’t be editing as a “favor” to another person when it’s taking time from my family to do so.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  32. Yep, Cheryl. That’s so true about our work needing to be an asset rather than a liability to our family.

    My work also helps take pressure off my husband so that he doesn’t have to work as many hours, as he’s gone so much as it is.

    The years I didn’t teach were much harder financially because my piano-teaching income had always been used to cover our property taxes. So we had to acquire the money to pay for that extra $2500+ yearly real estate tax cost through hubby’s income alone.

    Meaning he had to work a lot of hours in those years.

    So it’s easier now, with me bringing in money again, though not enough yet to cover our whole tax bill.

    But the Lord always provides. And I’m delighted to be an instrument in His hands, in whatever He calls me to.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  33. The article was lengthy and appeared on the front page of our paper. Only toward the end is there any remark about who is against this idea and then it’s a whopper: The American OB and GYN doctors. The article brushes past that without any more reference as to WHY they object. (And so interesting since the NYT usually is in bed with them, as it were).

    The reasons are many and particularly for young women: the reason you need the doc prescription is so you are under a physician’s supervision while on the drug. Now, I don’t think you need to visit the doc every month, but at least once a year because any young woman engaging in sexual intercourse needs a pap smear yearly.

    Why?

    Into medical discussion here . . . .

    The cervix is tissue thin as it develops and doesn’t reach a thickness that can resist viruses well until about 21 years. The earlier a young woman begins intercourse, the thinner that wall and the more likely she’ll get a virus–whether a STD or, the real concern, the human pamploma virus–the only one that can cause CANCER.

    Whenever I counseled a young woman on the phone who had had sex, I warned her about the need to see a doctor and if she didn’t have the funds or didn’t know how to get to a clinic, she was putting her future physical life at risk.

    That’s part of the reason for the big pus for the HPV injection–to keep the human pamploma virus at bay, but the one that’s sold now–garasil–only protects against two strains for the virus. There are hundreds.

    The fear with the immunization was it would cause young women (and obviously reporters) to think that one shot would protect them from HPV and thus mitigate the need for monitoring by a physician while a woman is sexually active.

    On the contrary, every woman who is sexually active and particularly if they have more than one partner, needs a pap smear every year and an STD test probably just as frequently if not more so.

    So, who is really concerned about women’s health?

    And why, suddenly, the American board of OBs and GYNs’ opinion so easy to overlook?

    Well, the need to do whatever is right in your own eyes . . . 😦

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  34. I am back. Mama Ruth opened her eyes a few times, but I don’t know that she knew we were there. We did though. It could be hours and it could be days. I want peaceful. The nursing home has been so kind. Some of the CNA’s have been by to check on her. They kiss her on the forehead and call her Mama.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  35. Hello, all. I finally have a chance to post a comment. Art feels a good bit better without the catheter. Yay! I have been on the go all day. Early on went to my church and Art’s church to deliver a few things. Then I went to shop for a robe for Art. He had been wearing a beach towel somewhat in the form of a toga, or a kilt. He decided he wanted to be a bit more fashionable so at least we will be better prepared for the next go round.

    After those errands, I had to help Art with a shampoo and getting ready for his doc appt., changing over to the smaller cat bag that attaches to the leg and fits under jeans. Experience has taught us that it’s pure wisdom to make sure the drain is clamped on that thing!
    We’ve really gotten the hang of using the catheter bags which is good since he has to have the other side blasted sometime before long.

    We left early for the appt. with the doc, but husband timed the stop light where our street flows into a main road. Ten and a half minutes. Art was pretty mad about that light, as usual. We got a great parking spot, again. No one was in the waiting room. That was because most appts. had been changed because the doc was in surgery. So after catheter removal we got to wait for doc to finish surgery over at the hospital so we could talk to her. She did not realize how our calls were neglected the day after surgery and immediately got with the office manager. The use a call center and there had been a breakdown in communication for some unknown reason. We received sufficient apologies from the doc’s office, but I can see they were not to blame unless they were somehow covering up which did not seem to be the case.

    After returning home I had to go to the pharmacy which knows me quite well by now. I shopped for groceries while waiting for the precipitous refills. I came home and unloaded those groceries and then went to another grocery store to get our deli dinner and additional things I did not get at the other store.

    So, Miss Bosley is having an overdue cuddle time right now.

    I am so glad that taking the catheter out has helped Art feel better. He still has the kidney stent, but it is not seeming to bother as much as the other.

    It’s getting close to 8:30 p.m. and I think I hear the mail truck. I don’t know if the had a truck breakdown or what. This is later than late for delivery.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  38. Glad that’s all behind you Janice. Get some good sleep tonight!

    I looked up online the question of why pharmacies are at the back of the store. This is the answer “they” provided:

    Pharmacies are in the back of the store for two reasons. (1) It allows customers to peruse and hopefully purchase front end stock and (2) safety- Having the pharmacy in the back of the store makes it more of a challenge for potential robbers to rob the pharmacy and leave undetected.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  39. Other answers:

    The opportunity cost of doing this is having less room for drugs since the pharmacy is in the back. Remember the opportunity cost is cost of doing something over doing something else. A major benefit of doing this is that it forces people to walk through the entire store in order to get the pharmacy. This makes them look at all the other products in the store. The more products a person sees the greater the chance of them picking something up and buying it. A cost of doing this is that you need to buy products for the store to fill in the space which would otherwise be wasted. I don’t feel that this affects supply and demand other than the fact that the store owner needs to supply other goods that consumers demand in order to make good use of the space.
    __________________________________

    So that you’ll buy Dong Dongs and Snickers on the way back to buy your diabetes and cholesterol medicine.
    __________________________________

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  40. I walked into two music stores today, and purchased nothing at either.

    Unprecedented. 🙂

    I did find some nice Christmas gifts for my piano students elsewhere, so I am done shopping for them. Bought gifts for two of them at a department store.

    Checked out, walked out of the store, put the bag in the car, then went back into the store.

    And bought a Snickers bar. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  42. A busy day for me, too, but not as busy as Janice’s day.

    The little guy fell asleep a little while ago, after being in my care since 1:00 this afternoon (early dismissal from school due to parent-teacher conferences). Before that, I tackled some housecleaning chores, including some of those little things that don’t get done very often. We’re not having company for Thanksgiving, but I want the house to look especially nice anyway. (Even if I’m the only one who notices. 🙂 )

    Tomorrow, Emily has the day off, & is taking me to Michael’s to buy a few Christmas decorations. They are having a 50% off sale on holiday decorations. We won’t buy much; we’re keeping it simple & inexpensive.

    Lee started the new job today. It was a 12-hour day, which he didn’t mind, but that could be because he is being trained, which takes a little extra time. After that, he went to “pack out” (make sure the shelves are full & look nice) Pepperidge Farm stuffing for his friend Bill, who owns a Pepperidge Farm route. (Yes, Bill is paying him for this. He did this on Saturday afternoon, too.) So, he is only going to get less than five hours sleep tonight, & this wife is not happy about that.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  43. From this weekend, on limits (or not) on how many library books can be checked out.

    I reported that the libraries in our area don’t have limits on how many items can be checked out.

    Today I found out that’s not the case with at least one of the libraries.

    (And, no, I didn’t try to check out half their stock.) 😉

    I was in the children’s section, getting books on Beethoven, when I heard a lady ask a librarian, “Is there a limit on how many CDs I can check out?”

    The librarian replied, “The maximum number of all items you can check out is 100.” 🙂

    The patron laughed and said she wouldn’t be checking out quite that much!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  44. Glad Art’s feeling a lot better, Janice. What a relief that must be for both of you.

    Lee made the shelves look nice, and Karen is making the house look nice. You two make a nice pair. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  45. Gorgeous word picture you painted at 10:07, NancyJill! I read that too quickly this morning, but am glad I went back to what you wrote and let it sink in more on this dark night here.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  48. Story on Fleet Week coming to L.A. next summer was pretty easy to write today.

    Tonight I got the dogs walked early after getting home and now I’m catching up on last night’s episode of Homeland which I missed.

    Yeah, Cowboy’s eyes (a swirled mix of blue and brown colors) often make him look perpetually worried and sometimes sad. Very sweet boy. And the dogs are amazingly bonded, where one is, the other one isn’t far behind. They’re definitely a “pair.”

    The cat is content being the contentious 3rd wheel most of the time. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  50. Art was doing much better, but then he had a but of pain his his leg this evening. I was praying for the pain to subside and Miss Bosley went over to where he was aching and sat there to help ease that pain. It was so sweet and really made Art feel better. She is like a heating pad.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a comment