85 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-2-16”

  1. Good morning. All is quiet here. Scott is at the ranch, trying one last time to get a deer before the season ends Sunday. We’re all out of venison and almost out of elk–so I sure hope he’s successful.

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  2. I’m taking Becca to the American Girl Doll store later today. It’s about forty minutes from our house to Memorial City Mall, which is where the AG store is located. She has a $50.00 gift card; and it’s burning a hole in her pocket!

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  5. Good Morning! We are supposed to get above freezing today….what a cold snap we have had….I dare say it may be colder than Donna’s dog park!
    I have only been to an American Girl store once with my friend as she was choosing an outfit for her granddaughter…what a store! It was fun to see the excitement in the bazillion little girl’s eyes as they were “mothering” their dolls 🙂

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  6. I don’t know much about American Girl dolls, but I brought a black baby doll back with me. He is very cute and every female who walks in my house, no matter the age, picks him up and cuddles or plays with him. Those of you on my FB have seen him.

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  7. Chas last night: How can “No payments for 90 days” be a selling point?

    As mumsee said, people don’t think about 90 days ahead. Also, most people don’t understand finances so they don’t realize about the interest accruing for three months, making their total cost that much more.

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  9. Re the header photo: A few days ago when I saw the icicles from the red feeder I thought it looked like the birds had decorated for Christmas, and I knew I needed to get a picture. The big birds like cardinals stayed put that day, not coming to the feeders, but they wouldn’t have fit under the icicles anyway.

    We had house sparrows coming, but I didn’t want a picture of them (though one is on the back of the feeder), but we also had chickadees, titmice (pictured), and nuthatches. I took lots of pictures, but decided I needed two birds in the photos to keep the feeder from looking half empty, so I started taking photos whenever two of the right species were present. (It could be a chickadee and a nuthatch, but not a titmouse and a sparrow.) Whenever at least one of the birds had an interesting pose, I took a photo. I probably took at least 30 in all, and from those I got this one good one. It doesn’t matter to me that the right bird isn’t showing its face; that allows the focus all the more on the left one, but a pair is still present. Usually the titmice come two at a time, but this year they are often coming three at a time, presumably a pair and one of their young.

    Usually I prefer to take photos of birds on natural objects, not feeders, but sometimes there is a good reason for the feeder shot, and I liked this one.

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  10. What I don’t like about the American Girl dolls, as dolls, is that they come with their own stories. Raggedy Ann did, too, of course, but she wasn’t your primary doll. Your dolls came with faces and some accessories, including clothes, but you got to choose their names, mother them, and figure out their personalities as an author does with her characters. Actual dolls like that seem somewhat rare these days, and I think that’s sad. I still remember some of the adventures my sister’s and my dolls went through 35-40 years ago as we imagined them as cousins growing up next door to each other and pictured that being the reality for our own children someday.

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  11. Instant gratification. I can have a new car today! That is all that matters. It is the mindset of an underdeveloped fifteen year old pushed on into adulthood.
    We see it in our seventeen year old who will be eighteen tomorrow. She is working two jobs and going to college. One is full time as a CNA and the other is nearly full time as a CNA. She passed the tests to give out medicine. She can’t hear what I tell her so I asked her brother, if he got the opportunity, to remind her that she is responsible for people’s lives. Going without sleep for extended periods of time is not in the best interest of her patience. But she wants an Iphone. She was supposed to work yesterday, last night, and today. That is too much for somebody in that position but it is fairly common for her at this time. She is good and she is dependable so they count on her. I say she needs to pull back a bit. We’ll see.

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  15. Friend at the dog park does in-home care for people and she’s juggling a few regular jobs for people right now (including one with a 90+ year-old man who’s been near death for weeks) that’s a long overnight shift almost every night (and that means no sleeping for her while she’s there). She gets home in the mornings and within a couple hours is out the door for the next job. I can’t imagine not getting any sleep like that.

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  16. I have lots of girls who don’t play with dolls. I have a couple of boys who used to. Many years ago, daughter picked out a cute black baby doll. I bought it for her and she carried it around all of the time. The whole baby doll thing. Until she left it outside once on a military base and the next day we found her little darling with legs and arms torn off. She never thought much of them after that.

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  17. I never really “got” dolls, although I had a couple of them.

    Baseball gloves along with cowgirl holsters and guns and hats and fringed jackets and boots — a few of my favorite things. I was a girl who loved action.

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  19. Here is My Utmost for this morning:

    He went out, not knowing whither he went. — Hebrews 11:8

    Have you been “out” in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question — “What do you expect to do?” You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing.

    Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder — you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a “going out,” building in confidence on God. “Take no thought for your life,…nor yet for your body” — take no thought for the things for which you did take thought before you “went out.”

    Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you go out in surrender to Him until you are not surprised an atom at anything He does?

    Suppose God is the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him — what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual “going out” in dependence upon God, and your life will have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until, so far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing between yourself and God.

    My reflections next.

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  20. My writing “career” is in an interesting spot right now. No contracts left, little on the horizon for the next year except for the actual book 12 Brides of Summer release in Juneish.

    Poppy is long done and sitting with my agent. The proposal for the Biddy Chambers biography is done and sitting with my agent–it probably will go out to publishers next week.

    She’s waiting on timing for Poppy.

    And that’s it.

    As I’ve thought through my next publishing moves over the last month or so, I’ve pondered a list of projects I have already written, outlined or started writing. All, of course, need work– which is fine.

    I have several other ideas that look more saleable I could be working on.

    The last year, when asked about Poppy, I’ve replied “I walk by faith, not by sight,” because the Christian publishing world is in disarray. “Family Christian” bookstores near-bankruptcy has taken a toll on the Christian publishers. 😦

    So, I come to this morning’s Utmost and I remember that yesterday, 98 people read Oswald Chambers blog posts off my blog.

    I haven’t written a new post about OC in 4-5 months, though I have one planned for next week.

    The last three years of writing have pointed toward OC. The things that have happened to me in the course of researching and writing Poppy, point right back to the hand of God leading in strange and mysterious ways. Even my agent is convinced I’m being led.

    So, in regards to the writing, I walk by faith, not by sight. I can guess at what is to come, but there are no guarantees. It’s a curious place.

    Some days I’m the bastion of faith and calm; other days I’m a wreck of insecurities.

    But I’ve known for three years now that the surprising NY Times best selling status of the first book, A Log Cabin Christmas Collection, had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the OC books. It’s curious to be here, sitting and waiting, but there it is.

    In 2016, it’s clear to me, that no matter what happens with the Biddy bio publishing offering, I need to finish writing that book first. It’s counterintuitive in the publishing world, but it’s what I think I need to do.

    So, on Monday, I’ll pick up at chapter 5: The Bible Training College, and use all the research information I’ve already gathered to write.

    All so very interesting. Thanks to all of you who have really shared this writing journey with me.

    God is good, always, even when we’re not really sure where we’re headed. 🙂

    Remind me of all this as the year progresses! LOL

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  21. Michelle, I love to hear about your writing journey. I find it fascinating especially since I’ve never been able to write well. Even in cards, I hand them to my husband and ask him to write something nice and meaningful and he usually hits the nail on the head. When a card is just from me, I spend hours reading and looking at cards to find the one that says what I want to say because I’ll never be able to put it down so the feeling comes across. And then I just sign my name!

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  23. Michelle said:
    “The last year, when asked about Poppy, I’ve replied “I walk by faith, not by sight,” because the Christian publishing world is in disarray. “Family Christian” bookstores near-bankruptcy has taken a toll on the Christian publishers . 😦

    That isn’t all that is in disarray. In Hendersonville, you can’t buy a book except fro m a small Christian bookstore, Walmart/Sams or a small ,local store catering to local and NC literature.
    The real bookstore left the Mall years ago.

    I don’t like buying from Amazon, but they supply most of my reading material now.
    Where else?

    It’s really more serious than that. I bought my Kindle White from Staples. But I could just as easily have bought it online. My middle GD buys everything, even groceries, online

    I

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  25. Michelle, tell the publisher there are history buffs wanting clean novels from the WWI time period. WWII and the Civil War have plenty of books, but other than Sgt. York and Downton Abbey I can’t think of any stories in that era.

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  26. We are back home. After we got near Atlanta we got slightly side swiped and I had to follow or chase after the car. I still feel shaken. It was a young Hispanic couple. The guy said he was military and he was trying to get back to NC from TX. They tried to blame it on me and I felt they were lying. We called the police after they finally stopped at a gas station, but the police were never showing up. Damage was minimal so we left after trading info., but Art told them we would not have made a deal of it if they had stopped so we could see the damage, if any.

    I wish I did not get so upset. I guess it was good for our son to see how easily this happened and what to do.

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  27. It’s sad that this is the only time I have been in a situation where someone lied about who was at fault. And of course it has to involve someone of another race so it makes me feel less trusting of that group because of this experience. So easily our feelings get tainted toward people groups because of such experiences. 😦

    Thank God no one was hurt. It could have been so much worse. 🙂

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  29. Glad everyone’s OK, hit-and-run incidents are becoming so much more common. It’s alarming.

    We still have the Barnes & Noble bookstores in our area when I get the urge to get lost in a bookstore — but the others are pretty much gone, unfortunately.

    Just got back from visiting Carol in the hospital (she’s still at Hollywood Pres, but may yet get transferred). They’re trying to get her MRSA back under control and stop the “runs” before they’ll release her.

    Before I went there I stopped at her board and care to pick up 2 library books that were in urgent need of getting returned today, but I could only find one of them in her room. The librarian was very nice, said Carol just needed to bring them documentation that she was in the hospital when she returns the book eventually (presuming it’s not actually lost for good).

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  30. Janice – What you wrote – “And of course it has to involve someone of another race so it makes me feel less trusting of that group because of this experience. So easily our feelings get tainted toward people groups because of such experiences.” – reminded me of something I’ve thought of previously. Please know I am not picking on you when I say this. . .

    Many people have similar reactions to unpleasant experiences with someone of another ethnicity or race, but what about when it is a fellow white person? White people cheat us & lie to us, but we don’t blame our own race for those behaviors, we blame the individual.

    Something to think about.

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  31. I was glad to find Annie was home when I came home today. As I was leaving, I’d parked the Jeep low on the driveway so I could load up 5 very heavy Salvation Army bags for drop-off. Annie was quite interested and I guess I wanted to make sure she wasn’t behind my car when it was time to back out.

    So I sort of revved the engine and spotted her taking off to the curb where in a few moments I noticed her jumping down into the open storm drain. I’d never seen her do that before and was worried it was deep, but she’s probably gone in there in the past. She was snoozing on the patio chair when I got home and now is on the back of the sofa asleep.

    Heaven knows what she finds in those storm drains.

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  32. Karen, I understand what you are saying, but I would remember what the white person looked like, too, and feel similarly toward other whites who looked like that person. I know it is not right to do so, but I am making an honest revelation about how such things affect me. I don’t like to be that way, and it is the human way to be, but Christ helps me to see and feel in a new way. Only through Him can I be better than I am naturally.

    I actually found myself wanting to like this young couple, and warned them to slow down for the rest of their trip.

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  33. Janice – I know what you mean about not wanting to be a certain way. We find that certain reactions in us that we don’t like are like “default” settings in our minds that we need to be diligent & mindful to reset, & that is not easy.

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  34. I neglected to say that, of course, we need the help of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts to make real change in our thought patterns. But I guess among us believers, that would be understood.

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  36. I wish it was that simple, Peter, but it’s not. My hands are open for the Lord to use to his glory. Perhaps my writing life is ending? But if so, it’s only because God has something else planned.

    I don’t think I’m done with the writing yet. 🙂

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  38. Karen, I did not feel hurt or offended. I just agree mostly with what you said, but just added to the extent that I am capable of being prejudiced against people who look like others who have done wrong to me. I had to “chase” that car from I-75 onto I-285 and then onto I-20 and then on to another street to a gas station. That won’t be easy to forget. It is rather amusing, in hindsight, that I was able to follow them like that. They probably thought of me as a giant gnat on wheels.
    🙂 I probably surprised Art and Wesley with my driving skills, but they were my cheering squad.

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  45. Sweet dreams, Jo.

    It’s wake up time in Atlanta.

    Miss Bosley is still at her boarding school. I am missing her authoritative presence.

    I talked last night with a friend who recently visited Israel. She told me there are cats everywhere because they once had a problem with rats. So now they have government supported cats. She only heard one dog barking there in the land of cats.

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  49. I don’t think I would chase down a hit and run driver, not with all of the road rage stories out there. Try to get an identification on the car and that is all. But, who knows what I would actually do.

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  50. Jo (3:54): No kitchen sink?

    Looks like we’ll get rain every day for the next week (and maybe a little beyond). El Nino seems to have arrived, in January, right on schedule.

    Now I need to find my boots, they’re around here somewhere ….

    Spin cycle works on delicate, so I finally got all that excess water out of my big load of laundry which is drying. Of course, the dryer is just as old and requires a few cycles to get things dry …

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  51. Really bad night of not sleeping after behaving like a normal person for weeks. I was still tossing and turning–and had risen to read several times–after 3. Cat yowling woke me at 7:15, which is a real shame. We’ll attend the second service today.

    All very weird, even if it was frustratingly familiar. 😦

    Can hardly wait to hear about Jo’s trip to NZ.

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  53. Benadryl messes me up.

    I was looking out the window this morning, watching the quail run around. We go through a lot of chicken food, between the chickens, chicks, turkeys, guineas, pheasants, quail, partridges, etc. I enjoy watching them. We have a bit of a bird sanctuary here on the prairie. But we also have a huge mouse problem and they enjoy the chicken food as well. Letting the dogs loose would help but they would get the poultry, wild and domestic. So we have cats. I stepped out the door and what do I find? Stupid cat brought me one of the quail I had been admiring. Can you really not catch a mouse or a gopher or a vole?

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  55. At first I was staying after that car to get a picture of its tag. Art, not being familiar with my phone camera got the audiobook going and was challenged by that. His phone camera is not working. Then I was trying to get Wesley to get a photo from the back seat and after that they dialed 911 and had a lengthy hold. We did not know what damage had been done, but it sounded a lot worse than it was. I was not thinking very clearly as I was upset since it hit right by me (the mirrors hit each other). As it turned out we were both decent people although he lied. None of us were raging, but I was pretty upset from the ordeal. It could have been bad if they’d been high on drugs and armed. Based on the license, he is from Laredo, and was driving to a town (per insurance card) near the Marine air base in NC. I think that since we caught up with them and gave them the fright of police involvement that it might make them realize what a close call it was and make them be more careful. The young lady with him, wife or girlfriend had a nice dog on a leash with them. I would have liked them under other circumstances.

    I am curious to know what others would have done. I would not have followed them by myself.

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  56. Like you, I might well have gotten caught up in the moment. And the vast majority of human beings would not cause you any harm. He was probably quite anxious and not thinking. In some circles, bumping somebody’s car can lead to being the victim of road rage. He may or may not have been from those circles, but thanks to the media, we all have plenty of fed fears.

    Stupid cat has plenty of mice and it is not like he is bored with the mice as he mostly catches birds. He may think they are under his protection though. Stupid cat.

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  59. Making more heathy chili in the too-small slow cooker. Had to leave out a can of tomatoes & a can of beans (some tomatoes and beans fit, however).

    I have the right sized slow-cooker for a single person and/or small household (4 qt.). Problem is, most all the slow-cook recipes I find call for a bigger pot.

    With rain forecast all week long, I thought having some containers of chili on hand to heat up for lunches and/or dinners might be good.

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  61. recipe for small amount of healthy chili:
    Put some dry beans in the slow cooker. Add water. Cook over night. Drain. Add some meat chunks. Add some tomato juice and some tomato paste. Cook for a few hours. Add some chili powder half an hour before finish time.
    Variations: use pork heart or beef heart or both. Add finely grated carrots or squash. Add onions if Chas is not coming over for dinner.

    Makes: as many servings as you want.
    Time: 24 hours
    Work time: 10 minutes
    Done.

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  63. The pastor asked this morning if God calls people to be leaders. How would you answer? Here is what we came up with:

    Jesus said “Follow me” several times. To James, John, Andrew and Peter. To Matthew. After the Resurrection when he asked Peter “Do you love me?” Peter asked about John, to which Jesus answered, “If I wan him to remain until I return, what is that to you? You follow me.”

    The idea? Jesus said to all of us, “Follow me.”

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  65. Janice – Is it possible that the guy didn’t actually lie, but did think it was your fault from his perspective? People at fault can often be mistaken about what actually happened.

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  68. Thanks mumsee.

    My recipe calls for some chopped up peppers (green, red, yellow, orange, all very healthy for the heart, who knew?); with hot sauce, tabasco sauce, chili powder, basil, ground pepper, 2 chopped onions (since chas won’t be coming over, but I’m crying), diced garlic cloves, sugar (2 teaspoons only), red & black beans, very lean beef, crushed & diced tomatoes, tomato paste …

    Problemo: I got a late start on this after church so it won’t ready in, oh, 5 more hours. So dinner at 11 p.m. 😦 Crock pot is filled to the brim.

    I’m not a very good planner.

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  70. That reminds me of a bit of a discussion I had with YF quite a while ago.

    She was involved in a comment thread on one of my Facebook posts. She said that she had been a Christian for “nearly 27 years”, & also said something about studying the Bible. At the time, she was 26-going-on-27 (a couple months later), but I thought the wording of her comment made it sound as if she were an older woman who had been a Christian and studying the Bible for “nearly 27 years”.

    (I realize that no one is a Christian from birth, but she said she considered herself almost so, because Jesus was a part of her life from birth, because of her parents’ faith & how they raised her to love Him.)

    I pointed out that that was misleading. She became incensed that I accused her of lying. In private messages, she told me how offended she was that I would accuse her of lying, & I pointed out that I used the word “misleading”. I explained that someone can mislead intentionally (which is lying) or unintentionally (which is not lying). I also pointed out that I once commented on one of my own posts that I realized that the way I’d worded the post was misleading (unintentionally).

    Elsewhere, I’ve seen people accuse others of lying who were merely mistaken or just plain wrong, but not lying. I remember pointing that out a time or two on the WMB when someone would accuse someone else of lying just because he disagreed with them.

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  71. That comment thread was on a post I wrote, asking my friends who had been active in pro-life causes to comment about what they have done, because of YF’s previous posts against pro-lifers. NancyJill & Michelle were two who contributed their stories of how they have helped women in crisis.

    Well, someone (not either of those sweet ladies) responded a little harshly to one of YF’s comments, so she dropped out of the thread, telling me (via private message) that “someone had to be mature”. (Everyone else was being mature.)

    She then told me this very sad story of a call she took when she was manning a suicide hotline in college, from a 15 year old girl, pregnant from forced incest, who was turned back from an abortion clinic by “hateful” pro-life protesters, supposedly calling her awful names. That was indeed a very sad story.

    But then YF said that when “those women” (meaning NancyJill & Michelle, as well as the others) had had her experience, then they could come talk to her.

    In other words, this then-26 year old girl (I chose that word on purpose) thought that she had more real world experience helping women than those who had been hands-on helping for 20 to 30 years. I couldn’t believe her arrogance.

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  72. Interesting — as a reporter I remember covering a PP protest a long, long time ago — when I would have been “pro-choice” — and the head of the clinic said something like “if those women (protesting) ever found themselves in this position, they’d think differently”.

    But I remember thinking, no, I doubt that — I think they’re pretty clear on being pro-life, no matter what.

    Strange, but I look back now and see that God was starting to influence my thinking before I even knew what was happening.

    Meanwhile, here’s a little weather humor posted by a friend on FB:
    ____________________________________________________________

    Just sharing a little Chicago winter humor…

    THE WINDY CITY TEMPERATURE CONVERSION CHART

    60° F: Arizonans shiver uncontrollably; people in Chicago are still sunbathing.

    50° F: Californians try to turn on the heat; people in Chicago plant gardens.

    40° F: Italian sports cars won’t start; people in Chicago drive with the windows down.

    32° F: Distilled water freezes; Lake Michigan water gets thicker.

    20° F: Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and wool hats; people in Chicago throw on a light jacket.

    15° F: People in Chicago have the last cookout before it gets cold.

    0° F: All the people in Phoenix die. Chicagoans close the windows.

    10° below zero: Californians fly away to Mexico . The Girl Scouts in Chicago are selling cookies door to door.

    25° below zero: Hollywood disintegrates; people in Chicago get out their winter coats.

    40° below zero: Washington, DC runs out of hot air; people in Chicago let the dogs sleep indoors.

    100° below zero: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Chicagoans get frustrated because they can’t start ‘da car.’

    460° below zero: All atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale); people in Chicago start saying, ‘cold ’nuff for ya?’

    500° below zero: Hell freezes over. The Cubs win the World Series.

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  75. Donna, having grown up in Phoenix, that was doubly funny to me. I’ve experienced 122 in Phoenix (and also in Lake Havasu City AZ, where the London Bridge ended up) and -65 wind chill in Phoenix, and both are extremely hard to deal with.

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  76. -65° wind chill in Phoenix? Must be a typo.

    I found it funny as well, having grown up in Tucson and living in Missouri for the last 36 years. Except I’ve experienced -80° wind chill once. There was an evangelist from Canada in town that Sunday, so we had church anyway. One young man actually got his truck started, so he went around with his jumper cables and got everyone’s car started. The Canadian joked that this was Spring weather for him, since the air temperature was -23° and it was -68° when he left Canada.

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