76 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-14-16”

  3. Good Morning. Finally getting a routine going here. Dogs out. Miss Em is awake. Fresh diaper and snuggle time. I realized that Grandpa let’s me put her down at night so that he can be the good guy who rescues her in the morning. Works for me. Here she is.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  6. Oooh! When I see that doll house it makes me wish I could be a girl again and have one like it! It’s so realistic and not like all the Lego and Playmobil (sp?) sets I saw when son was young. Very fine structure and interior decorating. ♡

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. I like the details of the doll house. It was not something I was ever around or interested in collecting. I had two Barbie houses when I was little but nothing like that. I know some people spend a lot of time and money on them. I can see where they would be quite enjoyable for everyone.
    Puzzles? I like them, but again not something we had around my house. Too many pieces to keep track of and that would have driven my mother crazy (er) 😉

    We have advanced to coffee for the adults and breakfast for the Babies. Their Oma and Opa came to dinner last night (they brought it really) and Master S told Oma and Mimi that he was “hot happy with you guys”. It was bedtime.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. I thought I would share this email I received from the CEO of my company this morning. A good way to look at things…

    The good is I was a winner, but the bad news is it was only $11 and my tickets were more than that. “Nevertheless” I am still thankful.

    Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever.
    —Isaiah 9:1 NLT

    I once read a book that was based entirely on the word nevertheless. It taught the reader to take every problem in his or her life, look at it honestly, and then say, “nevertheless,” and find some offsetting positive thing in the individual’s life that brought the problem into perspective.

    It might sound something like this: “I have a lot of hard work to get accomplished in the next two weeks; nevertheless, after that my schedule is much more open, and I will be able to have some fun and get some extra rest.” All mothers get weary from time to time and might say, “My kids are driving me crazy; nevertheless, I’m so blessed to have these children in my life, and I know there are families who can’t have children at all.” A father who has to work two jobs to make ends meet might say, “I am so tired of working all the time; nevertheless, I am thankful that God has provided me with jobs.”

    No matter who we are or what our challenge in life is, there is always a “nevertheless”—some positive thing we can look at or talk about that brings the rest of life into perspective. Why don’t you try it? The next time you are tempted to complain about your life in any way, go ahead and state your complaint, and then say, “nevertheless,” and find something positive about your life to offset the complaint.

    Trust in Him: No matter what you are going through in life, you can trust God to be with you. Think about your current situation and find your “nevertheless.” Say it out loud to encourage yourself by finding the positive in every situation.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  10. The dollhouse looks different every week or so. She “redesigns” it all the time. She’s big on little food and characters. In the header you’ll find Cinderella’s mice and other mini characters. Even on the stair railing. 🙂

    She asked me to take some pics for her so she could change it. It has now been redone with one of her Christmas presents, the Disney Animator mini doll collection. She really enjoys this, and will spend hours on designing one. And then when she’s happy with the way it looks, she takes some pics, and she rips it down and starts again. It’s kinda her thing.

    But I pity the fool who messes it up or knocks something down. 🙂

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  11. Kim, we never had puzzles at home with my parents. A neighbor lady (retired couple) would sometimes have the neighborhood children over to do crafts or play games, etc. She had puzzles sometimes. The only other experience with them was that Art started getting them for us to do while on vacation. I really learned how to do them from him, as far as learning faster ways of sorting them out to get it done quickly.

    Like

    Reply

  12. We had games at home when I was a child for my brother and me to play together. We did not have messy things like paint and playdough, etc. I guess that is one reason I loved crafts as an adult. We did have crayons and coloring books as children. I learned to color perfectly within the lines. As a parent I gave son blank paper and eventually he learned to draw so well that he made his own pictures to color in with markers and watercolors.

    Like

    Reply

  16. Ah, sweet dollhouse!

    I kind of figured my brother-in-law would someday make a dollhouse for his only daughter (my sister also has a bunch of sons). I had books on Sculpey clay that show how to make all sorts of things from Sculpey. You can marble the clay in such a way it looks like wood, and then make furniture, or you can make dishes, pans, etc. So I told my sister that if he was ever going to make a dollhouse, let me know, because I might be able to make a lot of fixings. But he never did, and I never got very good at Sculpey because I ended up more interested in cardmaking.But given that incentive and chance to do something creative for her, I could have learned and at least tried to learn the tricks I saw others practice.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. That might make it sound like the daughter was my brother-in-law’s and the sons my sister’s . . . all the children were both of theirs, but I was trying to word it to be clear that this brother-in-law is the husband of my sister (not the brother of my husband).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Does she prefer Liz or Elizabeth? I would prefer Elizabeth if it were me. I think I just called her Liz because an Elizabeth-who-prefers-Liz in my life recently had a birthday.

    Like

    Reply

  21. Nice dollhouse – it looks like the picture of the antique tin dollhouses that had more details painted on the walls.

    Karen, on your question regarding Perrault from yesterday, he got the basic stories from folktales (the original title of his work is ‘Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals: Tales from Mother Goose’), but it is also his original writing, in the way that Shakespeare also used earlier folktales and stories in his writing, but it is his original writing. In that day, borrowing from other sources was how storytelling worked. Artists and composers also borrowed. It is believed that Grimm’s similar story ‘Ashputtel’ is based on an oral retelling of Perrault’s story.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  23. I was in slight error yesterday to say that Perrault was the earliest compiler of fairy tales. Madame d’Aulnoy was before him and was the source for the term ‘fairy tales’, but her fairy tales were not for children. Even in the sanitized English versions I could find, they are, well, grimmer than Grimm.

    Like

    Reply

  25. Master S went to daycare today. Grandpa and Miss Em are down for their morning naps.

    Do any of you have trouble with TMJ? I have had it for years but have mostly been able to deal with it. This time I haven’t been able to put my teeth together since sometime before Christmas. I don’t think I clench my jaw or grind my teeth because when I wake up in the middle of the night my mouth is closed but my jaw is open. It makes eating difficult, but hasn’t really slowed me down. 😉
    I am going to have to see my dentist when I get home and see what the next steps are. I am a little old to be running around in braces again and too cheap to pay for the invisiline ones.
    What do you know about it?

    Like

    Reply

  26. I love hearing the grandparenting stories. 🙂

    I hope Karen had a happy birthday.

    Were Perrault’s stories less grim than those of the brothers Grimm?

    My mother, a teacher, thought puzzles educational and my father would do them, too, so we always had a puzzle up before the TV while I was growing up. I sat up late finishing a puzzle while I watched Armstrong on the moon!

    My husband believes that’s the reason I see unusual connections to things–I’m always looking for a puzzle piece to make sense of confusion.

    It’s also the reason I get so caught up in the puzzle and pattern search of genealogy.

    I think I have an idea for a blog post. Thanks!

    And, finally, something I never expected to say. My son is applying to become an astronaut.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  29. Love the nevertheless. It sounds far more literary that my continual fall back, “it could be worse.”

    And indeed, how often do we need to turn the prism of our life experiences and try to see them from another point of view? I realized this week as I edge closer to the Sword of Diabetes falling, that, really, the threat of the disease for nearly 30 years has been for my good.

    Who knows how much I would weigh if I hadn’t been walking all these years to keep the sugars at bay?

    How many relationships and conversations would I have missed if I hadn’t been walking and thus looking for women (and my husband) to walk with me? All the ministry that has taken place, all the stories, all the time for me to get away from the hubbub of family life because I had to exercise.

    I really hope the sword doesn’t fall next week, but I’ve reached the point where, nevertheless, I can be thankful for the life changes brought about by the threat.

    Thanks be to God.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  30. Kim, in one of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books, Emily of New Moon, she has a character that speaks of ‘the seven original plots’ of the world when Emily tells him the thrilling saga she is writing (at the tender age of about twelve). I’ve always chuckled over that section, but it is true. Most of the tales in the world can be boiled down to certain basic elements. The hero in disguise is found from Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid to the story of The Frog Prince. The object of power is found from the legends of Arthur and the sword in the stone to The Lord of the Rings. Star crossed lovers abound. The Hobbit is one of my favorite children’s fantasy stories, but the scene of Bilbo stealing the cup and then running away while Smaug wakes up in wrath is straight from the Old English saga Beowulf. Tolkien consciously borrowed from old Germanic sagas – that was his area of specialty after all – but with other writers it isn’t always so obvious, but it is there. That is why I always snicker when some ultra-modern young whippsnapper complains on a film trailer that this looks exactly like such-and-such. Of course it does, and world-weary youths better get used to it.

    Like

    Reply

  32. Kim, I had left-side TMJ surgery about 15 years ago. I had always suspected that my jaw was broken when I had my tonsils out at age 8. The surgeon initially doubted that, but after the surgery, agreed that it was likely. He found the little disc that’s supposed to be in the joint was totally out and folded over on itself and had been that way for so long that it was fused together. The surgery worked perfectly. He questioned why the other side didn’t bother me because it looked the same on the MRI but it never has.

    Like

    Reply

  33. Michelle, that is wonderful news! And I loved what you wrote about puzzles.

    It was always amazing to me that our son could draw very detailed pictures, and he would draw something on one part of the paper and then way on the other side something else and finally the whole paper would be filled with everything fitting together in the right perspective. Now I see, from what you said, that maybe he could do that because of our always working out puzzles like that.

    Like

    Reply

  34. TMJ? I once supervised a young accounting clerk who was afflicted with that. It was a horrible ordeal for her and reasonable excuse for lost days, sick leave, from work. I don’t remember if she had surgery or just got some other means of help. But my impression remains to this day that it is horrible and like migraines is debilitating.

    Like

    Reply

  35. The number of total plots varies, depending on who is saying it, but it is limited. You can disguise which plot it is, or do a surprisingly plot twist, but you can’t completely make up a new plot.

    I enjoy puzzles within limits. The pencil one wouldn’t interest me–too many pieces and not a pretty enough picture. (If it were 200 pieces, then I might be interested.) I once bought a puzzle of horses, the outside shape is not a rectangle but a horse, and found it almost impossible to do–no outside edges to put together first. I just looked at it to see how many pieces it is–800. Well, a friend who likes puzzles offered to come over and help, so she came and she put together the entire tail and some other pieces, and that was enough that I could do the rest of it. But when I took it apart, I left the tail in one piece! I also have a 1000-piece puzzle that has odd edges, but the colors are more obviously distinct (it’s a desert scene), and a 1000-piece rectangular puzzle, and a 500-piece three-dimensional-look puzzle. Each of those I have done one time; each I’d be willing to do again, if others would work with me on it. (I thought about taking the desert one to our family reunion last year, since we all grew up in Phoenix, but then I didn’t. I probably will take it next time. I forgot that it was 1000 pieces, along with the odd outside shape, so it’s definitely enough to be challenging for a group.)

    Like

    Reply

  36. I’m trying desperately to wake up. Despite getting (almost) 9 hours of sleep I’m still very sleepy and could just drop off in an instant if I laid back down.

    Oh, my dream — part of it involved Peter and his wife and one of their daughters coming out to visit. There were cruise ships somehow involved. And I was out of ice. They really wanted ice in their drinks. I was desperately digging through my too-small freezer trying to find that silly little ice tray …

    Nice doll house, I never had one — but then I wasn’t one for dolls, though I did have the required Barbie (with red hair, of course) 🙂

    Wow, michelle’s son to be floating in a tin can, far above the world?

    Council aide texted me late last night saying the (boring) speech today will contain some news I’ll want to hear (then he called to tell me what it was, but said we can’t put it out there until it’s said in the speech — which means I have to cover the speech. Boo.)

    On the plus side, it should allow me to work form home for the afternoon.

    OK, time to wake up for real.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  37. We don’t expect him to become an astronaut, but we’re laughing about it. Several people have let us know NASA is hiring and he’s qualified! Last time out of 20K applicants, they selected 2.

    Meanwhile, we wait to hear back from the JC and he sends in more applications and checks in with friends. He’s applied to Amazon three times, to no avail.

    I like life better when all the kids are happy. Sigh.

    That’s the danger of children– pieces of your heart floating around out there outside of your control . . . .

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  38. KBells, we have a DVD copy of Rickman’s first breakthrough role. It is a BBC miniseries based on Anthony Trollope’s first two books in the Barchester Chronicles and called by the same name. Trollope used the books to satirize Church of England politics in the mid 1800s, and Rickman played the role of Chaplain Slope, an oily toad-eater who is endeavouring to insinuate himself up the Church of England payroll ladder. He is hilariously slippery in his performance – his final line in the miniseries is a venomously delivered, “May you both live for ever!” to the weak Bishop and his overbearing wife – and Rickman received a lot of fan mail, much to his surprise. The first role I ever saw Rickman in was in the 1995 film of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ one of the few times he played a hero figure.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  41. Good Morning….beautiful doll house and very talented interior designer! I built a doll house for my daughter when she was 5….took me a month of building, designing, furnishing….she played with it a sum of one afternoon….it was passed on to third daughter…she played with it one day….sold it at a garage sale for 10 bucks….and the dearheart who purchased it tried to talk me down to 5 bucks….I had at least 200 dollars invested into it….sheesh!
    I’ve never experienced TMJ but I have had two very close friends who have had extreme pain with a dislocated disc in the jaw…could that be something you may be now experiencing Kim? I have heard it is common in women….and I dare someone to suggest it is due to how much we talk!!! 😛

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  44. I sometimes get a soreness in the back of my jaw and the dentist told me it’s some kind of stress movement (I went in for it a couple years ago convinced I had a root canal in the waiting). Interesting because it vanished for some time but lately has come back, I must be feeling stressed and moving my jaw somehow to make it achy like it is.

    But no real TMJ — and the hygienist last time was surprised she asked if I’d had braces and I said no. Apparently my teeth line up quite perfectly.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  45. Thank you, Kevin, thank you, indeed. You know I am not one to toot my own horn. I like it to leave it to others. I know there are some who would grab onto that and shout it out to the world. But I am not one of those. I don’t feel a burning desire to draw all eyes to my actions. No, no, I just like to quietly go about my business and let others do theirs. Now, if somebody should want to draw attention to my actions, who am I to argue? But, no, you won’t find me blabbing around town all of the things I have done. So, yes, it does appear that I did once more achieve that worthy goal of speaking at the appropriate moment, but you will notice that nary a word did I say. I am just not like that. Sure, there are those who would not let a moment like that go by, but I am just not of that ilk. Some would shout if from the housetops, but no, not me…..

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  47. Yesterday we had a snow day, the kind of gloomy day that made me detest Midwestern winters and never want to move back here.

    The sky was gray, the temperature in the single digits at least all morning (maybe all day), we had snow and ice on the ground and blowing around.

    But it was a good day for birds. Within five to ten minutes we had all four species of woodpeckers that are semi-regular visitors to the suet feeders (hairy, downy, red-bellied, and flicker–not the red-headed or pileated, which have come one time each). We also had cardinals, at least two of each sex and maybe more. We had three species of sparrows, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, and a few more.

    I got a shot (not in very good focus) of a flicker landing on the feeder and the downy woodpecker that had been eating there making haste to fly off. (There is an enormous size difference between those two birds.) I got a shot (in excellent focus) of the downy landing on the suet feeder. I got photos of two female cardinals that even a non-bird expert would be able to tell apart (one has scattered red feathers all over her–one wonders if she has extra testosterone or is even a hermaphrodite). A titmouse allowed me to take some great portrait shots. And a downy woodpecker decided to take a nap on the tree and gave me some cute photos.

    But I’m happy that the sky is blue again today.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  49. I pulled a REAL grandmotherly act today. DIL has some sort of fancy Arbonne diaper ointment. Miss Em had a bad diaper rash when we got here and it gets better one day and is back to bad the next. I went to the store this morning and bought Desitin. Time to fix this. If Mommy doesn’t want it, she can throw it out when I leave. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  51. She is WAY too mobile for that. I do fan her bottom when I change the diaper. She wants to stand on the changing table and if she is on the floor she squirms and tries to run. I already have an incontinent dog and a little boy who doesn’t want to potty train. He was all about the Grandpa this morning and wanted him to come in the car to daycare with us. We are keeping him out again tomorrow, but he needs the structure that Gramps and I aren’t giving because we are the GRANDS!

    Like

    Reply

  55. TMJ–I only know that the dentist always checks for it and that chewing on pencils can cause it. I am not sure what they do about it. It may depend on the severity of it.

    Puzzles–I was never a big fan. It seemed like such a waste to work on something for so long and then just pull it all apart. I know some people who use the product to glue and seal it for mounting. I did not understand that puzzles can be relaxing and a perfect way for people to sit and visit. My mother always had one out on holidays for children and/or adults to be able to work on. Using a large piece of firm cardboard or Masonite board makes it easy to push it under a bed or furniture.

    My mom and dad made me a doll house when I was around seven or eight. This would have been back in the late 50’s. My sister inherited it and after her my cousins. My aunt had seven daughters, so it was well used. My aunt made sure it was returned to me when I had a daughter of my own.

    That dollhouse was passed on to my daughter. Last I heard the porch was damaged from someone standing on it to get up high. It seems the few dowels holding that roof up could not hold a child old enough to know better. It is fixable, fortunately.

    My mother made five full dollhouses, complete with furniture and electric lighting. The drawers and doors in the cabinets open and close. She made books, needlework rugs, bedclothes and paintings. She also made 13 shadow box rooms. All were beautiful. We drew names for the five big ones. I love the one I got. She was a member of a miniature’s club. You do not need to be a child to appreciate a dollhouse.

    I love the pictures of the dollhouse. Play is really learning and I am sure the interior designer is learning much.

    I loaned my mother a book on making miniatures years ago. She took it way beyond anything I dreamed of and I ended up not doing it at all. This is just one story that makes me realize how much influence we may have on someone else’s life.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  57. Oh, my new gravatar is the female cardinal with extra red on her. If I had seen her in September I would assume it was a young male getting its red feathers, but they all should be in adult plumage by now. That makes me think this is just a female with some hormone issues or maybe just an unusual genetic lineage.

    I also just sent AJ a bunch of other bird photos . . .

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  58. I know Alan Rickman has had many more important roles, but when I think of him I always think of Galaxy Quest, in which he played actor Alexander Dane playing alien Dr Lazarus. “By Grabthar’s hammer…”

    Like

    Reply

  61. Kim, I would try a massage therapist who knows how to work on the jaw. I also have my chiropractor use her activator on my jaw and that usually pops it right. It’s awful when your teeth don’t close properly or even meet at all! I have a splint to wear at night, but find it’s worse as I don’t grind my teeth, just hold my jaw locked with my teeth slightly apart.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  62. Hey Kare,

    I stole your frozen trees pic and I’m gonna post it. OK? 🙂

    ———————

    ‘Liz prefers Elizabeth. So does her mother and grandmother, the other Elizabeth, who they call Betty. I’m the only one that gets away with calling her ‘Liz, and just barely, sometimes…. 🙂

    ——————–

    Love Severus Snape. Such a snappy dresser. 🙂

    But I love his Sheriff of Nottingham too. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  63. Banter between the dentist and assistant yesterday about someone as they filled my tooth:

    Dentist: “Didn’t he get a divorce?”

    “Yes, but then he married his massage therapist.”

    “Well who wouldn’t?”

    Like

    Reply

  65. I have successfully taught two children to like chicken,rice, English peas, and carrots all cooked together with oregano. I have also taught them to like pickled beets. I couldn’t convince my own child to eat this but Miss Em gobbled it up and got mad she couldn’t have more, but she was about to pop. Master S wasn’t as easy. He has had a hard time this week with Mommy being gone and Daddy at work. He has been locked inside because it has been wet and cold. Now Miss Em is down for the night and Big Brother is watching puffer fish videos on Youtube with Grandpa while drinking his milk. MiMi? Well she is exhausted in a good way.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  66. Chicken, rice, English peas, and carrots all cooked together with oregano I could handle. But pickled beet? I tried them once, never again. Besides, how would the tongue twister sound if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled beets? Phonetically, the p and b are identical, except for the voice used with b. But the lips and tongue are in the same place for both.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  70. I am posting here instead of the prayer thread since it is rather late. Art gets his stent out tomorrow in the a.m. Please pray that it will not start the bleeding again. Thanks. He and I were in better moods today. I hope we keep up the good spirits.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  72. Mumsee may know a man I used to know, at our former church. He one time was sincerely telling me about what a humble man he was. I almost laughed, but kept it in.

    That video was cute. Heidi (like our late dog, Kane) enjoys having the snow thrown at her.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  73. Snape is a villain, isn’t he? I haven’t read the Potter books, nor seen the movies, but a Facebook friend has sometimes written about how awful it is that some people are “Snape apologists”, or something like that. She writes about how awful he was, & seems to think that anyone who likes him, or makes excuses for his actions & behavior, must be a sociopath.

    I highly doubt that Michelle is a sociopath. 😉

    Like

    Reply

  74. Voldemort is the villain. AKA “he who must not be named.”

    It all becomes clear in the final movie.

    Snape’s role is that of a terribly difficult mole, basically, acting out of love for Harry’s mother. He is presented as a conflicted character who hates HP, and may not even like him, but remains constant to the vow he made to protect him, pretty much over HP’s mother’s dead body.

    I liked him because he was the one adult who could not be bamboozled by HP, and had a biting wit. I got tired of all the adults in authority at Hogwarts threatening HP and not following through. Snape always followed through, and didn’t let HP and his friends get away with anything–which is frankly something Harry desperately needed.

    I’m not a sociopath, that I know of, but maybe that’s what I would say if I was . . . 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  75. What you wrote sounded familiar. My friend’s interpretation of Snape’s love for Harry’s mom, & everything else he does, is quite different from yours. But she often sees things from a strange (to me) perspective, often very black-&-white.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment