107 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-17-15”

  3. Good morning, Chas and AJ.

    Janice, I woke a couple times in the night, and prayed for you and Art. You can count on continued prayers throughout the day as the Lord brings you to mind.

    That header picture looks like our road. It’s beautiful to take walks along it when it looks like that.

    Blessings on your day, all.

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  4. Good morning all. Our event last night was great. Father R told the Christmas story using all the nativity pieces he and his wife have collected over the years. He explained to the children that it took Mary and Joseph about four days to walk/ride to Bethlehem. He had them way out on another table. He had the wise men coming as well from a distance. He had the children answering questions. I had forgotten how good he is with youth. He told them about the inn keeper and how we are like the inn keeper —do we have room in our hearts for Jesus. He then told them about Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt with the infant Jesus. Herod killed all the first born sons of a certain age—they were the first to die for Jesus. He told it in such a way that he was able to tell them about Christians who still die for their faith in Jesus.
    He then told them about Santa Claus. He said “Santa” was like calling the REAL St. Nicholas “Bubba”. Our deacon is an older gentleman who is very tall with grey hair and a beard. He sat down and told them all about St. Nicholas…who is seems started praying in public to Jesus when he was just a small child and dedicated his life to his faith.

    The children had made “Bambinelli’s” out of clay, wrapped them in gauze strips, put them in cupcake papers with moss in them and brought those forward to be blessed. By that time I was in the kitchen…

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  5. Lovely snow scene! It would have to come on the day we went from the earlier-in-the-week 60s to the 20s, though. 😦 I was hoping the warm stuff would last.

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  6. When I lived in Phoenix, I rather imagined that snowy parts of the country (Chicago, for instance) looked about like that the better part of the winter. When I moved to Chicago, I was looking for earmuffs in September, and concerned when I couldn’t find any in the stores, because I had pretty much reconciled myself to the idea that sometime in October or November snow would fall, and then stick around for a few months.

    I was very, very happy to be proven wrong, although I did find the long months with everything “bare” to be horrid. People would ask me how I “stood it” to live in Phoenix without trees, and I’d look around at the few trees in Chicago, bare of leaves for six months at a time, and remember my childhood home. Though our lot, according to my mom, was 1/8 of an acre, in addition to a built-in barbecue and two patios in the backyard, we had at least two mulberry trees (three for most of my childhood) and an orange tree (early) or a willow tree (later). The front yard had a huge male mulberry, a cedar tree, and a palo verde tree. All but the palo verde had leaves ten or eleven months of the year (the cedar, an evergreen, was always green), and the palo verde only had small leaves in the rainy season, but it is named for its green bark, because the bark of the tree is mostly responsible for photosynthesis in that species. We also had other plants, including a row of agave and a passion-flower vine that bloomed profusely.

    So I definitely didn’t move to the Midwest to get more trees, though I’m extremely happy that Indiana has many more trees than Chicago does! (When I lived in Chicago, several years I drove to Indiana to see autumn color. Having grown up in a region that doesn’t get fall color, I figured I was so close that I might as well see some! Now I can see it everywhere in the fall, because our area has lots of trees.)

    Snow is pretty, but I always like it best when we get out of snow season.

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  8. Musical Advent Calendar – Day 17: This beloved Latin hymn was first published in 1710 in the ‘Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum’. The origins of the verses are the seven ‘O’ Antiphons sung during Vespers from December 17-23, which date back to sometime before 800 A.D. The text was set to its current tune, derived from plainsong melodies, in 1854. The first verse, “O come, O come Emmanuel…” is actually the last of the Antiphons, sung on December 23.

    O come, O come, Emmanuel,
    And ransom captive Israel,
    That mourns in lonely exile here,
    Until the Son of God appear.

    Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
    Shall come to thee, O Israel.

    O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
    And order all things, far and nigh;
    To us the path of knowledge show,
    And cause us in her ways to go.

    O come, Adonai, Lord of might,
    Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
    In ancient times didst give the law
    In cloud and majesty and awe.

    O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
    Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
    From depths of hell Thy people save,
    And give them victory over the grave.

    O come, Thou Key of David, come
    And open wide our heavenly home;
    Make safe the way that leads on high,
    And close the path to misery.

    O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
    And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
    Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
    And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

    O come, Desire of nations, bind
    All peoples in one heart and mind;
    Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
    Fill all the world with heaven’s peace.

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  10. Chas, yes, I’ve seen a white-out a few times. The worst one, however, don’t come during a snowstorm. The worst ones come on a clear but windy day. The snow piles up in drifts at the edge of fields, and on a windy day, the snow blows off those drifts the way sand comes off a sand dune. If the bank at the edge of the road is raised, you can be temporarily blinded going by one of those drifts, not to mention the icy build-up on the road from the partial melting of the blowing snow under car wheels and then re-freezing.

    Janice, just wanted to say I’m praying for you and Art.

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  11. Janice, I did a quick search on it. It probably is a legitimate company, but thing that stands out from their site is that “it’s totally anonymous”, You are supposed to be able to text a stranger for help. Do you really want to text a stranger to help you? “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”. Hmmm…..I bet I could go “help” myself to whatever she has in her house.
    I wouldn’t do it.

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  14. Good Morning everyone….so blessed to hear the good report of a better night for Janice and Art! Continuing to ask the Lord for His healing touch to bring an end to the suffering…..
    A lovely photo up there on the header….looks like Narnia!!
    I’m off to wrap up last minute errands….have a blessed day!

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  15. Probably about 4 years ago I shared this song with you and said I wanted this some day. I think we might have been discussing love songs or some such and I told you I thought “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash was a great love song. Chas backed me up. I also think this is a lovely thought for Christmas and is a love song. I got what I wanted, but he is also good about buying me gifts. So far I have gotten the market umbrella I asked for for Christmas. I know that I am getting the two adirondack chairs I have asked for. He always buys the special, expensive goats milk soap that doesn’t make my skin itch, and I saw a distinctive blue bag that he his in the outside refrigerator (until he moved it and it isn’t under the tree), I also brought in the mail the other day and I hid the Amazon box under the other mail so I think I am getting the Kindle Paperwhite that was on sale the day Janice told us Kindles were on sale for $49….. for for all that materialism on my part here is the other song for Christmas.

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  17. Lovely picture. But I had parking lot duty this morning in 30° with a breeze. It was nice to come into the warm classroom, but the picture makes me cold. It’s the kind of scene that is pretty viewed from inside a warm car or house. But walking in it?

    And yes, Chas, I have seen plenty of whiteouts in 35 years of Midwest winters. I’ve even had to drive in a few of them. Not fun.

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  19. I don’t know anything about Sensay. My rule of thumb is, if I don’t need to use it, I won’t sign up. It’s hard enough keeping track of the few internet accounts I do have.

    Karen, you asked about the unforgiveable sin. Since that is my area of expertise (ironic tone), I will tell you what I have learned over the years through prayer, Bible reading, and some wise Christians. The first thing I have learned is that those who worry about committing it are people who really love the Lord Jesus. John Bunyan, beloved author of Pilgrim’s Progress feared he had so sinned; Martin Luther had similar fears. In his book, The Obsessive-Compulsive Trap, Christian psychiatrist Mark Crawford wrote that one of the most common obsession Christians with OCD had was fears of sinning the unforgiveable sin. This link has an extensive quote from Dr. Crawford’s book: http://the-riches-of-his-grace.blogspot.ca/2012/03/christians-and-mental-illness-when-ocd.html. It could be that your friend has undiagnosed OCD, and that her drinking is a form of self-medication.

    I cannot definitely state what the unforgiveable sin is, but I do know that it is not the wild thoughts, or even the temporary doubts that sometimes enter the Christian’s mind. I do not even think that if those wild thoughts or doubts crossed a Christian’s lips, that would be the unforgiveable sin. The Pharisees certainly committed it, but not solely because they said what they did about where Christ got His power. They said that because when they were confronted with Christ’s undoubted deity and omnipotence, rather than bow the knee, they tried to smear Him, creating the vilest and most twisted explanations for the wonders Christ performed. They rejected His claims in their hearts, what they said was only evidence of that rejection. One thing that gave me hope in the midst of my fears of the unforgiveable sin was in John 7:20, when the people accused Christ of having a devil (basically meaning He was insane), He did not use the same stern warning to them as He did to the Pharisees. So, it wasn’t the words which the Pharisees used, but rather the reason they used them. In Hebrews 10:26-39, one of the most terrible passages in the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews seems to explain what the unforgiveable sin verse 29: “Of how much greater punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy of, who has trodden the Son of God under foot, and has counted the blood of the covenant, which he was cleansed with, to be unclean, and has shown contempt to the Spirit of grace.” I think that one who sins the unforgiveable sin is one who is knows, and even understands, what Christ has to offer, and still chooses to turn his back upon it.

    I still suffer with fears of sinning the unforgiveable sin. They came back in full force this autumn, and, as my understanding of what the unforgiveable sin has matured, so have the fears. It got to the point where I couldn’t even read the Bible or pray without a massive struggle. A very wise Christian lady suggested I give those fears to Jesus and simply walk away from them when they come. It is wonderful how He takes care of them. I’m a bit like Peter, I can walk on water when I simply trust Christ and stop trying to think my way out of my fears. I will often find myself studying and praying without a shadow of fear. Then, of course, like Peter, I suddenly realize my position and start sinking into my fears again. I often wonder if Paul had the same problem with his thorn in the flesh, because his solution, that Christ’s strength is made perfect in my weakness (II Corinthans 12:7-10), is the only one that works. As John the Baptist – there is another that struggled with similar doubts and fears – said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

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  21. Kim! How I can I possible hope to raise the tone of this establishment with you constantly undermining my efforts! 😉 😀 😆
    Only joking, of course. Lower away! I was thinking, listening to Louis Armstrong, that his poetic and vocal style foreshadowed hip-hop.

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  23. Thanks for the link and your commentary at 10:06, Roscuro. My oldest daughter had had an inordinate fear one time when she was a teenager, after she had read the Mark passage, that she might have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. She was crying and panicking over it.

    I explained that blaspheming the Spirit was a deliberate act, not something that is done accidentally, and that if she was feeling badly about the possibility, then she had not blasphemed.

    She did feel better after that, and never brought it up again, and I didn’t have reason to believe that she continued to be troubled by it after that one time, not seeing any behavior that would look like she still was struggling with it.

    However, I took note of your comment just now, “It got to the point where I couldn’t even read the Bible or pray without a massive struggle.”

    This daughter moved away from home a few years ago, and, lately especially, she seems to be dragging her feet on finding a church, and I don’t believe she’s reading her Bible with any regularity, if at all.

    The thought crossed my mind recently that maybe she has unconfessed sin in her life, and her guilty conscience is keeping her from darkening the doorway of a church, and/or opening up the scriptures to read.

    It never occurred to me that some of the anxieties she struggled with as a teenager with that whole “I think I blasphemed the Holy Spirit” episode could be coming into play now with her seeming reluctance to read and hear the Word.

    Thank you for sharing your struggle, Roscuro.

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  24. white out: the snow was coming down yesterday and it was a white out. Husband almost lost the road under him and seventh son did but he plowed forward through the ditch and recovered it. Glad he was, to have 4 wheel drive on.

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  28. WOW 6. Crown Ministries has you reflect on that exact thing from a Biblical perspective. I can’t get my hands on my books to tell you where and how they do it, perhaps Michelle who taught it can help with the verses they use.

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  29. Janice (or anyone with any knowledge), I have a tax question.

    I’m thinking of opening an Etsy account (where a person can sell arts and crafts, for those unfamiliar with it) and selling photo cards, matted photos, etc. I don’t expect to get rich, and it might well be more hassle than it’s worth, but I thought it would be fun to try. And my mother-in-law has been bugging me for some time that I should sell some of my cards, and this would be a way to sell cards that aren’t labor-intensive to make. The “work” is in getting the photo, not making the card once I have the photo.

    But what is holding me back is I have no idea of the tax implications, or whether Etsy reports sales to the IRS or anything. Is there a threshold beneath whether such income is irrelevant (say, $600 in profit over a year)?

    Because, honestly, I have no idea how profit could even be figured on such a venture.

    For example, I would get photos printed through Shutterfly (for cards) or mpix (for prints), and for Shutterfly that would be 15 cents per 4 x 6 print (unless I have a coupon) or about $1.40 per 5 x 7 print through mpix, plus postage. But then you figure in the other supplies. For cards, I can get a pack of ten for $12.20, or $1.20 each, unless I buy them in quantities of five or more packs, which takes the cost down. So if I buy 10 packs, I can get them at $10.20 per pack ($1.02 each), plus postage. If this were a regular business, then it might be simple: I buy packs of cards at $1.02 each, resell them at $1.49 each, and that is 47 cents profit on each one. Or even I buy 10 packs of cards (100 cards) at $1.02 per card, plus photos at 15 cents each ($15.00 for 100, plus $4.95 postage), sell each card for $3.50, and the difference is my profit. But it’s nowhere near that straighforward, it seems to me. In the first place, if I buy supplies this year but sell them next year, how does that work? Or if I sell 72 cards, use 20 for gifts for family, and have several more on hand to use later, how does that work? Etsy also charges fees, and I also have to pay for postage to send stuff out, and there are also petty expenses like packaging tape.

    Basically I want to sell a few things for fun and to make back a little bit on the investment of supplies. Pay for the camera, cover the cost of making some cards for my friends, have the pleasure of knowing that a few people find my photos worth buying. I have no way of knowing whether I’d sell $100 worth or $1,000 worth, or even $10,000 worth (extremely unlikely!). If I sell $1,000 worth and my “technical profit” (beyond the cost of supplies, but not including costs like having a camera in the first place) is $450, that hardly seems a taxable profit, and definitely not worth detailed accounting . . . but I truly have no idea how these things work. The Etsy site makes taxes look easy: keep track of your profits and file a tax form, see, anyone can do it.

    I’d have probably put a site up already except that the tax question is bugging me, and at the least I figured I’d wait till after the first of the year and let the taxes deal only with 2016 income. But I’ve already bought some supplies, and so there’s already a question on how that affects 2015 taxes or how on earth that all works.

    My hunch is that at most I’ll sell a few hundred dollars worth and that the IRS doesn’t care about piddly crafty stuff like that, but I don’t want to do it and discover that $150 in profits suddenly has income being reported to the IRS and some complications in filing. This is supposed to be fun, and hopefully a small amount of income, and not some second business.

    In honor of my sister’s children, who I am told will see a line of ants and pick out which one is “Ant Cheryl,” I’m thinking of calling it Ant Cheryl’s Photo Gifts, with some sort of sketch of an ant as my logo. Corny or catchy?

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  30. Already being self employed, I assume you have an LLC. Track the money as Cheryl LLC dba Ant Cheryl’s Photo Gifts and pay the taxes when you pay your other taxes. Do you do your own taxes being self employed or do you have an accountant? If you have someone do your taxes, ask them. The IRS don’t play.

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  31. Good morning! Looks like a winter wonderland. It was under 20 when I walked outside after work this morning.

    This is just silliness that I heard on the radio on the way home from work this morning. I found it on youtube and had to share.

    Please do not throw tomatoes…

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  32. Seems like when I wanted to sell just a couple random books on Amazon and set up a “sellers” account they had a provision where you could have that tax tracked (and reported?) — but that was only for those larger vendors who planned to do a lot of selling.

    Peter might know once he thaws out. Or Janice. Other than that, I would have no clue, but you could also call the chain tax people — blanking on their name now — because I think they’re open yearend and will answer phone questions like that, you don’t have to be a client.

    Or google it. Or ask Sensay. 🙂 Or Siri. Or talking Google. Or one of those other little people who live in our phones and have the answer to EVERYTHING.

    But I think it’s a good & fun idea, cheryl. I know a few people at church who are on Etsy, too.

    I thought “Narnia,” too, when I saw the photo. Beautiful. Reminds me of a December trip to upstate NY where I walked through woods that were magical — white and icy. If I had to walk through there to get to work every day it would get old and cold. But as a treat one year, I loved it.

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  33. I seem to be coming down with a cold, my throat has been very sore for a couple days now — along with coughing & nasal congestion.

    I don’t think it’s allowed to be sick on even a working vacation, is it? 😦

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  34. Kim, I’m not incorporated. I looked into it when I went freelance, but saw no reason I needed to be. Most of my freelance expenses are expenses I would have anyway (such as owning a computer), so I keep receipts for a few things that are definitely business related (such as mailing a package), but mostly I just report all my income, minus those expenses, and pay taxes on it.

    We do have an accountant figure it, but basically my husband drops off an envelope, we go into the office when they tell us the forms are ready to be signed, and then we pick up the packet at some point.

    But again, my bigger concern is that this is much more complicated than “Buy Product X at $99 including shipping, resell for $149 plus payment for my precise shipping cost, and pay the site $5 for doing the transaction through them.” This is more akin to selling something through a craft show or at a yard sale than through a store-front business.

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  39. I posted this link on my FB page about sending empty pill bottles to Malawai: http://gingerail.com/2015/08/20/donate-empty-pill-bottles-poor-patients-malawi/

    Our Joanne in Gambia added that they’ll take them at her mission as well and provided an address:

    We use them too! ABWE MISSION, PO Box 154, Banjul, The Gambia, West Africa

    I’ve asked her to clarify the best way to send them, FYI, and Kare has chimed in about Canada as well. Will keep you posted.

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  41. 6–are you talking about the number of days left post? (Which I reposted on my FB page).

    I’d been thinking similar thoughts earlier this morning. That if I’m lucky, I’ve got 30 years left and what do I really want to accomplish in that time? As in, for me, what books do I want to write?

    Interesting thoughts, but the way the author wrote made me realize how grateful I am the adorables are in the neighborhood and how unsettled I am my daughter may attend medical school far from home . . . 😦

    If she gets in, of course.
    Clouding up here in Nor CA, we’re to get more RAIN the whole weekend!

    Glory to God! 🙂

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  43. Cheryl, I will try to ask Art your tax question when he wakes up. I know there is a difference in consideration of a hobby and a business and not sure if that comes into play with the level you are talking about. I also am not familiar with Etsy, but maybe he has done a return for someone who uses that.

    With Sensay, I did not see enough online to understand it’s purpose. Is it for those who just need to talk over things and don’t have a group such as we have here? Is it for those who don’t believe in prayer and just want to talk to a human for the sense of a caring ear? I rather know who I am talking to for a lot of good reasons. But, if it is a way to get expert advice at no cost or obligation for future business dealings then I suppose it could be worthwhile for certain types of questions. But if someone is not knowledgeable on a certain subject then it seems there would be no way to judge if you were being given bad advice…no accountability.

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  44. Dear Michelle,

    I will start with a very simple answer and see if that satisfies your friend. I claim my Etsy shop profits on my 1040 as a line item titled “Hobby Income”. It doesn’t matter how small or large that number is, I believe. I suppose, if it got very large, I might treat my business more like a business and file the way I’d file if it were my only source of income. At that point, I’d have to become more familiar with business tax law, write-offs, and such.

    I also pay state taxes on my shop income, again, claiming it as “other” income or whatever line it is on the state form.

    I’ll stop there and see if that is enough for now. I don’t know much more than that but I could say more about county and city taxes if she wanted more info.

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  48. Dear Michelle,

    Part Two: I should probably say something about your friend’s questions regarding shop expenses vs. shop profit. This is entirely up to your friend. I pass on all my expenses in my product. The price she sets for her product should cover the expense of making the product and also the time she spent making it. She may set her own price. I set mine by looking at what others were charging for similar items. I urge her to be confident and err on the side of charging too much rather than too little. She should assume people really want what she is offering and that her items are worth the price she is asking. People are just as likely NOT to buy an item that is priced low because they think it is not well-made as they are to not buy it because they think it’s too expensive. Anyway, unless she’s doing high volume sales, she should keep track of all her expenses but not concern herself with itemizing them on a tax form. I make about $500 a year selling tea cozies. For that amount of money, I don’t concern myself with “writing off” business expenses. She may want to. I dunno.

    I also charge a set “Shipping and Handling” fee which covers the cost of my packing materials and time.

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  49. Techy rocking out here in California while I wait for the rain . . . Listening to Pentatonix Christmas videos while reviewing Biddy notes. I may write the next chapter, I’m that organized at the moment!

    Except I kept picking up my hands to clap and move . . . 🙂

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  50. I used a recipe one time from the catering book that used boiled beers with current jelly in a concoction that I found delightful but the men did not care for as much. It looked a lot like cranberry sauce and was used similarly.

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  51. Re number of days/years left: I’m easily more than halfway through my life, and each year goes faster than the last.

    When my husband and I married, we never thought that the four of us would live together as a family, except for school breaks, since the older one was a sophomore in college and the younger a senior in high school. Even if the older came home a year or two after college, the younger one would be in college. As it turns out, our first year we had one at home, our second year none (with no one even coming home for breaks the second semester, since the one at the closer college was in Ireland for the semester), our third year the younger one had decided the southern college was great but too expensive, and our fourth and now fifth year our older had graduated and was back living at home.

    Next year the older has plans to marry (and stay local at least for now) and the younger intends to start nursing school but continue to live at home. But the nearly two years with both at home has been an unexpected but sweet time for our family, and fleeting all too fast.

    I never had any grandparents, my dad died before I left the house and my mom in my mid-thirties, and I have lost two in-laws (sister-in-law and brother-in-law) at youngish ages (both under 55). Ten years ago I expected to have lost a brother by now, with some health issues faced by several of them, but as far as I can see all are still going strong now, though two are now in their sixties and time is necessarily limited. (My dad made it to 67, and it would surprise me if all five of my brothers made it past that. Several of them have at least one factor likely to shorten life, though as far as I know none have diabetes or cancer.) My father-in-law has seemed to be at death’s door a good part of the last year, periodically before that.

    I guess my life experiences have pretty much caused “the fleetness of time” to be part of my awareness always, but the more so as I stare down 50 and realize I am in my last few decades. And since I’m one of the younger person in most of my circles, I am well aware of how age hinders a person–that particular part has become more and more obvious as I watch my brothers and others I love begin to grow old.

    God is good, and each year is better than the last, but I know that doesn’t mean each one to come will be easy. So I try to treasure the good days, knowing that some of them will be precious memories to draw on later.

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  52. Grrr. Battling blinds.

    I needed just one replacement panel of mini blinds (the cheap kind, I will figure something else out someday) but they arrived and are too narrow.

    May have to stop in at Home Depot to see if I can get lucky and find the right size/color there.

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  53. Very helpful, Michelle. Tell them thank you from me.

    It looks like I can basically keep track of the expenses of each piece and how much I make, subtract the difference, and only list the difference without itemizing. (In other words, know how many items I sold that had 4 x 6 prints, how many used 5 x 7, how many cards or mats I used, etc. and then just multiply those numbers by item costs of each.) That would make it do-able. Having to itemize (when I bought which piece, and whether it was on sale at the time) would make it “too much work.”

    And it looks like Etsy doesn’t report income to the IRS unless I make $20,000 with them in a year (which ain’t going to happen), so there’s no risk that I’ll report $500 in profit and they’ll come back to me and say, “Oh, but Etsy tell us you sold $950. Can you prove that only $500 of that was profit?!” That was the sort of thing I was afraid of.

    As to pricing, I figured it was doable a few weeks ago once I spent some time looking at Esty prices. Many of my handmade cards take hours to make, and there’s no way I will take five hours to make a card and sell it for $20–not worth it–even if I could sell it. But if I can take an hour and make twenty cards, with less than $1.50 in materials in each, and sell them for $3.50 or so (I’m looking at minimum orders of at least $10), then it could be worthwhile. And I noticed they said to send them out in a timely manner, 30 days or less. If they had said “within a week,” then that might not always be possible. (I don’t intend to keep enlargements on hand, but to order them if/when I receive orders, conceivably several orders worth at a time.) But I wouldn’t even think of making them if the “competition” was selling cards at $1.50 or $2.00 each. I can continue to make the labor-intensive cards for people close to me who are worth five or ten hours of work for a really special occasion like a wedding or a 60th anniversary, or an hour or two for a birthday; but I can make the photo cards quickly and still have them look good. And prints can be matted very easily and sell at enough profit to make them worth doing.

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  54. I tweet, therefore I am.

    I got a Twitter account to keep up with the political race and a few friends/relatives. Join me if you wish. @pquijote557

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  56. Last bit on Etsy, acknowledging the thanks:

    Glad to help. Feel free to send her my link. She can get a look at an “amateur” shop ’cause sometimes the more professional looking shops can be entirely intimidating. She’ll look at mine and say, “I can do that! In fact, I can do better!” 😀 She may also read my policies and such to get an idea of shipping, handling, returns, etc.

    https://www.etsy.com/shop/TeaHens?ref=si_shop

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  58. Mystery solved on Secret Santa. Someone just brought by a meal from husband’s choir group. It is frozen things so that is good since he is not up to eating regular food. She said the choir was considering coming by and singing to Art. His pastor called earlier and she has been on bed rest for premature labor. Lots happening in our neighborhood!

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  59. I’m on twitter, too, @michelleule

    Sigh, it looks like my removable crock pot has a hairline crack. I need someone with authority to tell me it’s a breeding ground for bacteria and needs to be thrown away. I should find a replacement part before someone gets sick.

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  61. Cheryl when I asked Art, he has not dealt with ETSY before. He said if you intend to run it as a real business then you deal with it in that manner on the tax return. Otherwise, treat it as a hobby. That was the gist of what he said anyway. I hope that helps. He also said, if you go the business route, that you will probably need to depreciate the camera. Is that along the lines of what you wanted to know?

    More from Art:
    In theory, any sales income from sales of a product or service is reportable. Sales from hobbies go on page one of the 1040, and expenses can be claimed up to the amount of the income and are itemized on Schedule A. If it’s a business, you report on Schedule C both income and expense and if the net income is a positive 400.00 or greater it is subject to self employment tax. Hobbies don’t get hit with self employment tax, but with filing on schedule A, because of the limits there on deductions, you may lose out on getting to take your expenses.

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  69. Michelle, it’s a breeding ground for bacteria and needs to be recycled to the garden. Husband would find a replacement before someone gets sick.

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  70. Guy always seems to head to the beach or somewhere when it is payday. I am supposed to get paid the first and the fifteenth. GMail has a handy little app that I have where I have scheduled email reminders to him through March of 2016 so far. We shall see how it works.
    I am ugh also sending detailed daily reports… I HATE them. How do you account for being on the way to the office and swinging by to take the lockbox off a building. But I’m doing it because, Mr. Ex Military is riding me daily about doing it to keep Guy off my back. I hate when the men in my life align themselves.

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  74. Oh yes, a breeding ground. Throw it away before someone gets sick. Good deals on crock pots now, I’ll bet, with all the Christmas sales — add it to your list for Santa.

    OK, I found the right size blind replacement for under $5 at Home Depot. Since they were so cheap and since all my others are several years old, I decided to get all of them replaced — will have to pick them up at another Home Depot later, my store was low on inventory.

    Return started with Amazon to send the other one back (which was $13).

    The long window without the blind panel was the one that previously was blocked by the tall jasmine bush (the original blind was destroyed by the cat, as I recall). But now that the bush has been removed, it’s a horrible sun-attractor, sending hot beams from the south into the living room every afternoon. Plus, no privacy.

    While I was out I picked up some pumpkin spice coffee and am having a cup now. Very tasty. I took some daytime cold medicine this morning but it still has made me sleepy. I’m sneezing and the throat hurts, although the pumpkin spice hot drink is helping.

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  75. For those on Twitter, an app called Tweetdeck is very handy — it shows you columns so you can see who retweets you, who’s mentioning you or has “liked” a post, who’s sending private messages to you.

    Twitter is such a fast-moving mishmash that I find it very easy to miss things there.

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  77. It’s most useful I think for following breaking news events — local newspapers and other outlets are usually first on the scene when it comes to shootings, terror alerts, though you have to be careful with what the sourcing is because things do move so fast and initial posts can get things wrong.

    I also follow several of my favorite theologians (Mohler, Russell Moore, Tim Keller, RC Sproul) and ministries (Ligonier, World Magazine, etc.), most have Twitter accounts.

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  78. I’ve followed a lot of breaking news on Twitter. I’ve also been found by a bunch of writers, which clog up my Twitter feed all the time, sigh, I need to figure out lists–along with a gazillion other techy things. I’ve use Hootsuite to set up tweets way in advance and that’s been helpful. My website traffic has gone up quite a bit since I started harnessing Twitter a little.

    But, I think I’d rather hear the real tweets at Mumsee’s house.

    Crockpot will head to the garbage as soon as I bring in the cans . . . or my husband does when he comes home.

    I’ve got Home Depot blinds all over my house and they’re perfectly fine.

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  79. What kind of job would you suggest for a really bright kid who can’t handle social situations and has problems with anxiety? Three years out of high school, so I guess not a kid anymore. 😦

    Couldn’t handle college, has trouble meeting strangers and hasn’t had many successes in life lately.

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  81. Oh, my blinds are ready for pickup. So convenient, find them at a nearby store, pay in advance and just go get them. 🙂

    I have the alabaster color which gives off a nice creamy-yellow glow with the house lights on at night (looking from the outside).

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  92. considering I’ve been using Twitter for so long, I’m behind on a lot of the tools that I really need for that social media. I largely use it for work, linking to our stories. But I follow enough people now that I really would like to find a way to separate them (when I want to see what one particular person is tweeting, though, I just go to their profile).

    Because of my role as a journalist, I have to stay away from politics — but will sometimes share religion tweets.

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  107. Every one chose his own road to 100, but only 6 Arrows got there.
    Different roads lead to different places, Donna.
    Be sure you’re following the right directions.
    i.e. Put the correct address in your GPS and follow her.

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