60 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-16-15”

  1. Good_______ (fill in the blank for your time zone) greetings!

    The lower two photos are from Emory hospital. Not sure, but perhaps AJ posted the tree photo I made at the entrance to St. Joseph’s hospital. The angel at tree top is supported by a man or maybe saint with a scroll. Very unusual. Or AJ may have posted a different tree or something else.

    Art is agonizing in pain, but I hear not a hiccup.

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  2. Coincidental that one part of my morning Bible verse was Proverbs 26:2
    “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim.”

    Divine timing for reading that.
    🙂

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  3. I think what makes Linda’s meatloaf so good is the mushrooms simmered in port wine. I will eat just about anything with that on top.
    Mr. P is in search of the ultimate meatloaf. Last time he put thyme in it. I didn’t care for that.

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  6. I need to mow the grass/leaves/weeds again. Like Chas said, this is very late for doing that. I am usually done by Thanksgiving. The weather is very mild here, really very nice for being outdoors.

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  8. Musical Advent Calendar – Day 16: Many versions of ‘Puer Natus’ (A boy is born) exist. This one is a new Latin text by Lawrence Rosenwald, set to Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) duet ‘Chiomo d’oro’:

    On this bright and beautiful day,
    A child is born, and I rejoice on this joyful day,
    a bright and beautiful day.
    Come now to redeem, O child born of the rose of roses,
    blessed in the manger.
    O ruler of the heavens, called the sun of justice,
    you were born of the star of the sea.
    Key of David to open, come now O long-desired,
    mindful of the wretched.
    Fountain and water of our life, sweet child and creator,
    our light and saviour.

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  10. Good morning, Janice, Kim, Roscuro, Mumsee, AJ. Praying for Art, Janice. So sorry about his pain.

    Roscuro, the kids and I have been enjoying the Advent Calendar music you’ve been posting. We listen every day, so thank you for your faithfulness in selecting and posting them.

    We’re also listening to Handel’s Messiah bit by bit, and doing Bible readings from the KJV which correspond to the recitatives, arias and choruses. I had found online a “25 Days of Christmas with Handel’s Messiah” schedule with the applicable scriptures and music divided into 25 sections. We began going through that the same day you started the Advent Calendar — December 1.

    We do all our listening — to the music you post, and the Messiah selections scheduled for the day — in one sitting, so there’s more chance of staying on schedule. Once a day, I can handle. Twice in a day, there’s a fair chance I’d miss the second one and get behind.

    One of the younger ones, though, thought one of your pieces was from the Messiah. (Not about the one you posted that was actually from that oratorio!) So now I make sure I tell them which are from which source. 🙂

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  11. And I have no grass to speak of here in the land of drought.

    The word that jumped to mind (only reading Good ______ ) was grief. 🙂 Too much Charlie Brown growing up.

    Hope Art will feel better soon, it sounds miserable what he’s going through. 😦

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  12. A fixture in our community is closing down — a consignment shop that has been here at least as long as I’ve been a parent (25 years). My husband and I made our first purchase there after 1st Arrow began to outgrow his bassinet. We bought a crib and full set of bedding for it from that consignment shop. My now 6’3″ son was a little 3-month-old or so when we made that purchase, and we have been to that shop many times over the years, buying clothes for our children when there were no free hand-me-downs from cousins or siblings in the correct sizes for the season.

    Saturday is the last day the shop will be open. Sad to see them go.

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  13. Sorry to hear about that store. We have seen so many changes and losses of places we’ve liked in our community. But we have been getting a few more second hand stores that I like as an alternative to Goodwill.

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  15. Go English: Roast beef w/mashed potatoes & dark gravy (etc.); and, for dessert, bread pudding 🙂

    It wasn’t our traditional meal at Christmas, but when we had it was very special.

    Everyone’s kind of sick of turkey by Christmas, I think.

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  16. Ran into a friend the other day who ordered prime rib from the butcher, but she was trying to break it to her husband how much all that meat (they’re having 15) was going to cost.

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  23. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas were days for turkey and dressing in the old days (when I was a kid). Neither are important now because everything is available. Nothing is seasonal. It occurs to me that Elvera has a cantaloupe on a shelf in the kitchen now..
    That would never have happened in December in those days.

    What I’m saying is that nothing is special anymore.

    😦

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  24. We usually had turkey, too — but I loved the traditional English-inspired Christmas my mom pulled off one year with beef & bread pudding. 🙂

    New Year’s was usually ham.

    I’m on my own now so I eat whatever is available with whomever I’m with. 🙂

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  25. 🙂 It’s 68.2 degrees outside.
    I had a chance to do some work outwsie that often gets neglected all winter.
    I can make a trip to the landfill when it gets cold. Now, it cleanup.
    Supposed to rain tomorrow and get cold.
    🙂

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  27. We don’t always have the best tasting foods in the stores anymore because “they” grow what is hearty and will last in shipping. I loved carrots as a child. Raw carrots have no flavor anymore.
    I think that is part of the reason we have an obesity problem is because our food doesn’t satisfy our taste buds so we keep eating, looking for flavor.

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  29. Kim, we enjoy a rather dry cranberry/orange nut loaf bread with a fruit salad and the juice soaks into the bread. The bread has very little sugar in it. I also like to make a veggie slaw using red cabbage, brocoli, carrots, and turnip roots. I found the recipe in a catering book. You blanche the brocolli before shredding it and the raw red cabbage. Then slice the carrots and turnip root so they are in much larger thin flat chunks for color interest. I don’t go by the recipe, but just use my regular mayo, olive oil vinegrette (sp?), and seasonings to taste.

    A long time ago I had raisin sauce with ham and I really liked that flavor.

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  30. I just heard a song on the radio that reminded me. We didn’t have Myra to sing for us at the Lion’s VIP luncheon. Myra, a former Lion always came and sand “Christmas in Dixie” among other things. But Myra couldn’t come this year. The Music Minister at FBC cane and played while we sang carols. It was very good. But I missed “Christmas in Dixie”. I just heard it on the radio. You may not be familiar with it. This is by Alabama. The visuals are good too.

    There’s a place in Myrtle Beach that advertises that Alabama got their start there.

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  31. Kim may be right on the obesity thing. Also, most foods in the grocery store are processed with the cheapest ingredients, so the producers have to add artificial nutrients. A lot of the additives are not healthy and may be a cause of weight gain. Things like high fructose corn syrup used for sweeteners instead of real things like unprocessed sugar or honey are a major cause of obesity in the US. At least according to the research Mrs L has done.

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  33. I agree with Kim and Peter. Also, a lot of food on the grocery shelves has some or all of its fat removed, and that is a significant factor in loss of flavor. Fat has gotten such a bad rap, and manufacturers are adding all sorts of things that can’t be considered food to enhance the flavor of the de-fatted (de-flavored, if that’s a word) food. Those additives are wreaking all sorts of havoc on our bodies.

    We need fats a lot more than conventional wisdom tells us these days.

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  34. Another great Christmas shopping run today, this time with the four youngest arrows in tow. We found all the gifts for the cousin exchanges in one store. Plus, I had a coupon for $10 off a purchase of $50 or more at that store. $65 before the coupon came to $55 plus tax afterwards, and now my Christmas shopping is done! 🙂

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  35. Well, I think I have finished my Christmas shopping (though not my Christmas wrapping), and I mailed what I think is all the packages I’m going to mail (four people were ahead of me at the post office, and can you imagine? they only had one lane open). But I haven’t finished my Christmas letter, let alone printing it out, addressing envelopes, etc.

    And our tree is only partially decorated. But D #1 is leaving town for a few days, and her fiance is coming over Monday to help us finish decorate it. After that maybe it will “feel” like Christmas is almost here!

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  36. We will celebrate Christmas after Christmas. I am torn, as well, on what to serve. We usually do ham, but may just do a nice roast. What we do depends on who is ‘home’ and when they are here. I am having trouble knowing what goodies to make. Traditions are in flux these days.

    The family that will be here likes to do a monkey bread for breakfast and I may do that. I know they will have it at their own home, but it is nice to have it when someone else is here to help eat it. Also, the children can help make it. It is the one made with biscuit dough, cinnamon and sugar and covered in a caramel type sauce.

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  37. Speaking of lines, I recently had to renew my drivers’ license. I walked right into the office and was waited on immediately. The clerk chatted away with me while taking my picture and finishing the process. Sometimes small towns are so much preferable to large cities.

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  38. Our driver’s license person is the dispatcher. If she is busy calling a deputy to see to a barking dog, another deputy or the sheriff might step up. But they don’t know how to do licenses.

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  40. Taking Lulah to the vet is no picnic I’m tellin’ you….I am exhausted and I am certain Dr. Cor is still laughing! She did very well on the ride to the vet…it takes us about 35 minutes to get there. Once we were in the waiting room….well…she wants to play, lick and jump on everyone she sees…including other dogs…she whines, pulls, jumps, tugs so hard I am afraid she’ll break loose from her collar and leash! I took treats and two of her favorite toys all to no avail…. I had to take her outside just to calm her down…Dr Cor says she’s is a puppy after all (I have seen very calm and obedient puppies!) and he did say at least she has a very sweet disposition…and she is house broken! He laughed the entire time we were there….we do love our vet 🙂

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  41. Accidentally put this at the end of yesterday’s thread…

    I have not even finished yesterday’s comments (except for the prayer thread), but I want to jump in here with a question from a friend.

    My friend Renee, an older woman, & a devout Catholic who also has a love for, & relationship with, Jesus, has told me she has trouble understanding the Bible (& that she’s only allowed to read a Catholic Bible). She has enjoyed the scripture verses I’ve been sharing on Facebook, but she has trouble understanding what they are all about. I offered to answer any question she has, to the best of my ability) which pleased her.

    Her first question comes not from anything I’ve shared, but from something that has bothered her for years: What is the unforgivable sin, & what does “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” really mean? She said that in her 20s she was convinced that she had committed it, felt sick about it, & started drinking heavily.

    First off, I explained that if she is worried that she’s committed it, then she hasn’t. I explained as best I could, but it is a tough question. & I’ve never heard a fully satisfactory answer myself. Some say that “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” is “attributing an act of the Spirit to the devil or demons”, but I’ve heard of people doing that in their ignorance, then changing their minds.

    I think that maybe it is mostly an outright, soul-deep rejection of the work of the Holy Spirit, along with a verbal proclamation of some sort (because blasphemy is a verbal act, isn’t it?). But again, as I’ve heard it explained, it is the sort of thing that one would not feel any guilt about, & if someone wonders if he’s committed it, most probably he has not. It is the Holy Spirit working in us that allows us to believe in Jesus, so if He had left a person, he/she wouldn’t believe, & wouldn’t care.

    So. . .I’m wondering how some of you would answer those questions.

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  42. That was included in one of our sermons recently — your last graph is correct, it is the utter and final rejection of Christ (and it’s hard if not impossible for anyone to know this about anyone else).

    I remember my good Catholic friend being interested in my Bible study activity so she checked in with her parish and signed up for their class. But she said it was mostly about RC church doctrine & the catechism.

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  43. Just in after wandering around town all day. I took a friend for a medical procedure and then when I walked into the bank, got a phone call from my sister-in-law; I decided not to return home until I had to pick up my friend, so I ran errands instead. Saw someone I knew everywhere so it was a social affair as well!

    My daughter-in-law laughed when she realized I was driving the car that had stopped to let her across the crosswalk in front of Costco. My granddaughter couldn’t figure out what she was laughing about until I rolled down the window and called her name. Adorable #3 brightened, waved and shouted, “Hi, Grammy!”

    After I returned my friend home, I spent a couple hours in her home office using her self-loading scanner. I wanted to scan all the medical records from the Navy so I could throw away these files.

    But I’d pulled the wrong folders and instead spent an hour going down memory lane as I read through the four thick school files. Really, that is more about my life than theirs in some ways as I remembered teachers, emotions, and all the volunteering I did at 14 different schools in 4 states.

    Amusing, too, the PhD kid had the worst (relatively speaking) math grades . . . All the kids did very well in math and reading but apparently none can spell. It’s a good thing they grew up in an era of spell check!

    I have to be at church in 90 minutes, so I’m catching up. See you tomorrow.

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  44. Karen, @ 6:43
    Concerning the “unpardonable sin”.
    The consensus of Bible scholars I’ve heard through the years agrees with your initial assessment:
    If you’re concerned about the unpardonable sin, you haven’t committed it. Concern for sin is a spiritual event. Concern for a mistake is not. So, if you’re worried about a sin, it’s the Holy Spirit convicting you. I know this sounds confusing. Consider this.
    David sinned in adultery and murder. He could have been sorry for what he did to Bathsheba and Uriah. But, “against Thee,, Thee only have I sinned” was conviction of the Holy Spirit. Not a legal injustice but a sin against God.

    The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Most of these scholars teach that it is the deliberate attribution of the work of the Holy Spirit to demonology.

    It is not dying unsaved, though the end result may be the same.
    Or maybe not. I don’t know.

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  46. We have to make appointments to go to the DMV. Even then it’s a wait.

    Well, I was vindicated tonight when a guy wearing shorts walked into the dog park and said it’s the coldest place in town. He’d just come from the marina (on the other side of town) where he said it was 10 degrees warmer. At least.

    It’s a cold-air vortex of some kind.

    Brief discussion at the park about politics, we’re pretty much half and half on our views so I guess we mirror the country. 🙂 We all figured out pretty quickly we should just change the subject.

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  47. Food has apparently changed. Remember when “whole wheat” bread was good for you?

    Apparently the wheat processing has changed — now it’s = death.

    The only bread I buy now is the Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted bread that you have to freeze (I take out a few slides at a time for the refrigerator — even then, you have to toast it). I don’t eat it often. And I still crave *real* bread — a soft French or sourdough loaf, mmmmm.

    Sigh. Oh well.

    http://www.foodforlife.com/about_us/ezekiel-49

    Regarding fats, there are “good” fats that we all need. I appreciate my doctor who really does keep up with the research on these things.

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  48. Hello, all! After several weeks of temperatures hovering around freezing, we are set to get nice and cold tomorrow and the rest of the week. It always seems to be cold when our community has their potluck.

    Daughter left a message for me this evening – she only has 1 small thing to finish up on Monday and she will be finished with school and will, hopefully, be able to write the certification exam for paramedic in February!! She is so excited, and so am I.

    Carrots from the garden taste so much better than carrots from the store. As do cucumbers and tomatoes and green beans and …

    Husband is now on the second leg of his flight home! He should arrive here sometime between 2 and 3 am. I will be so glad to have him home, it’s been a long stretch without him.

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  54. I have not read through the thread.

    Art did not get catheter removed, too much blood still in urine. He is throwing up sick tonight. I am sorry to keep airing our ills during this season. Just wanted y’all to know as much as we don’t know about what is up with us. Maybe this should be on the prayer thread but it can be skipped over by any not wanting to be on that level.

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  56. Janice, I am so sorry for everything you and Art are going through. Praying.

    My nephew will be going to New Zealand in January to attend Capernwray. I’m excited for him.

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  59. Thanks, to all. We talked to our friends, former nurse, Karen, and present doc, David, and they always give us good advice so that helped to ease Art’s concerns for the evening. Because of throwing up he has not taken his meds yet. He threw up the nausea med. I know this is experience to increase my compassion for struggling people. Not an easy lesson.

    I got an invite to Sensay this evening. Does anyone have experience with that? Is it legit?

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  60. Janice, so glad you have some friends in the medical profession who could advise … What a worry, both of you must be exhausted with all of this, not to mention the anxiety and fear that come with medical problems. 😦

    I’d not heard of Sensay, interesting concept. There probably are some reviews online from objective sources that you could check out. Is it free? I think Reddit has a similar concept in which there are users who are deemed legitimate go-to sources in their fields and are asked to do Q&A sessions by the moderators, but that’s more of a public platform. Sounds like Sensay is a one-on-one communication, geared more for personal issues people are trying to work through?

    I woke up at around 2 and couldn’t get back to sleep so decided to get up and get the clothes put into the dryer and another load of laundry started.

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