59 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-26-16”

  2. We’ve been up a while Ann. We both had breakfast.
    I visited yesterday’s site the earlier, but didn’t say anything.
    She is drinking some coffee now. That’s something.
    Chas is completely enervated.
    No energy at all. Not that he has been doing any physical activity
    It’s just wearing me down.
    Chas is too old for this.

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  3. Good Morning Everyone. We had a nice dinner together then we had to bring Mr. P home (his back). Michelle, “Dr Phil”, and I walked around Fairhope then went back to their B & B; sat on the “veranda” upstairs, watched the sun fully set and talked. The husbands laughed a little at us knowing each other and all of you so well when that was our first time to meet. You can tell Michelle got her training in journalism 😉 She asks lots of questions and I found myself having to dig really deep into my memory on some of the history of the area. Who knows, maybe one day she will come back and set one of her stories here, although I strongly suspect biographies and non-fiction are her passion. She makes Biddy Chambers come alive in the way she speaks of her. It’s as though Biddy is an old family friend.
    As far as accents go I think the Navy must have removed any she had a long time ago. She sounds a lot like the people on the news to me. We will have to rely on her to send a photo in because even though I have this Samsung phone that is supposed to have the best camera of any–the photo Dr. Phil took came out fuzzy. Of course I may have gone straight to the top. His company produces an optic part for these phones. He assured me I have a defective one, which made me feel so much better, as the last time I complained to AT&T about it they suggested that perhaps, just maybe, I was too stupid to own this phone and they would send me a simpler one to replace it. 🙂

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  4. Chas, while I am relieved, and sure that you are too, that there is nothing wrong with Elvera, I can imagine how frustrated you really are over the way things have gone the past week. As I told you yesterday I have the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay praying for you. Well, at least my Bible study and my church. As I said above the husbands thought is was interesting how real you are to us. You and Elvera are in many people’s prayers.

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  5. Chas, I remember that when a former pastor’s mom had Alzheimers, he told about that she still possessed memory of hymns. Try singing one of Elvera’s favorite hymns and see if she will sing along. For some reason the area of the brain that holds memories of hymns and maybe prayer and scripture is the last to go. Not saying that is her problem, but it might make life more pleasant if she could respond to something.

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  6. Oh Janice!!!! What a good idea. The hospice minister that visited my grandmother would sing with her. It was really funny because she would “play” the piano on the kitchen table as they sang. She didn’t know how to play the piano!

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  8. Good Morning….beautiful photos this morning! We have had some gusty winds around here…that sweet birdie wouldn’t be sitting so still on our pine boughs 🙂
    Continued prayers for you Chas and Elvera….trusting our Father to reveal fresh glimpses of His grace and mercy…
    When my father in law lost his communication abilities as his Alzheimers progressed, Paul would read the Word aloud to him…I will never forget the contented smile and peaceful countenance on Dad’s face….the Spirit of the Lord was ministering to his….my eyes still fill with tears upon the remembrance of that time…..

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  11. I am so happy to hear Elvera is doing better. Praying for you Chas that you will have strength to endure.

    My dear friend had a SIL who had a stroke and lost her speach. However, when they would have church services at the nursing home, she would sing along, every word, with the rest of them.

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  12. Ah, photos of male house finches. Right now my bird feeders are down (need to go back up) because once again I had sick house finches a few weeks ago. (You’re supposed to clean them, keep them down for a month to let sick birds die off without spreading it further, then clean the feeders again and put them back up.) House finches in the east are seriously inbred, from a few birds brought east to sell as “Hollywood finches.” When pet store owners got in trouble for illegally selling wild birds, they released them and we now have house finches in the eastern half of the country, with only a small area in the middle where the two populations have not yet expanded. But the eastern ones are not hearty and susceptible to illness.

    Anyway . . . growing up, we had two trellises in the front of our house, with passion vines growing on them (growing up one trellis and down the other). Our kitchen was in the front of the house, so we could look out while washing dishes. (Mom never liked that feature of the house, having the kitchen in front, but to us it was normal.) Anyway, every year a pair of house finches built a nest under the eaves, among the leaves of the passion flower vine. After the female laid her eggs and started sitting, Mom would climb a stepladder and take a mirror to look into the nest and count the eggs. For the first couple of days, the mama would fly off as soon as she saw anyone at the window, but soon she grew used to us, and would feed her young ones right in front of our eyes a few feet away. One year two different nests went up a few feet apart. Two years in a row the same male came back (he was unusually pale for a house finch, and thus recognizable), though we had no idea if the female was the same one. House finches are messy breeders, with the sides of the nest getting encrusted with the feces of the babies, but overall we loved that close-up view of young life that was enacted every single year. We would be excited the first time youngsters were big enough that we could see their beaks above the nest when they got fed, then later their whole heads, then we’d watch them flap their wings to strengthen them, and finally we might be present to see them take their first flight. Sometimes the parents would raise a second brood. They always laid four or five eggs. If it was a smallish nest and they laid five eggs, Mom would remove one, but otherwise we left them alone and only watched them.

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  14. Janice,

    AJ here.

    Elphaba is not my dog, nor is Sophie. 😦

    They belong to our friend Kathy. We were visiting because Kathy was ‘Liz’ proctor for a test, so I couldn’t resist taking some pics. They’re sooo cute. 🙂

    Now as to the name….

    Elphaba Thropp is the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wicked story, a Wizard of Oz spinoff. Ironically, her role was played on Broadway by a lady named Sophie for a while.

    Here’s the Wiki stuff.

    “Elphaba Thropp /ˈɛlfəbə ˈθrɒp/ is a fictional character in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, as well as in the Broadway and West End adaptations, Wicked.

    In the original L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is unnamed and little is explained about her life. Elphaba is modeled after the Witch portrayed by Margaret Hamilton in the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned, clad entirely in black and wearing a tall peaked hat. Maguire formulated the name “Elphaba” from the phonetic pronunciation of Baum’s initials L.F.B. In both adaptations, Elphaba is also called by several nicknames including Elphie, Fabala, Sister (Saint) Aelphaba, Auntie Witch, and Fae.”

    “Elphaba is the illegitimate daughter of Melena Thropp and the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba does not discover her true father’s identity until later in her life, and grows up believing that her mother’s husband Frexspar is her father. Through her mother, she can lay claim to the highest held title of Munchkinland, the Eminent Thropp. Frexspar, the unionist minister and missionary, is her mother’s husband. Nessarose (later the Wicked Witch of the East), and Shell, the Emperor of Oz after the wizard’s departure, are her half siblings. Because of her noble ancestry, Elphaba bears the title of “Thropp Third Descending”.”
    ——————————–

    You may also remember the photo of the cabinet with all the Wizard of Oz paraphernalia. Same lady owns the dogs. She named Elphaba, Sophie already had her name when Kathy got her.

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  17. Thank you, AJ, for that good explanation. Very interesting! I never know what I will learn about here.

    I use to give the IOWA test to my son every three years as required by GA Law for homeschoolers. There were other tests, but that was the one I could give myself since I had a college degree. I hope Liz gets pleasing results. You all have had a rough year, and when we had those I never knew if it would show up in the test results. Thankfully it did not.

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  18. I’ve just been to pick up one of Art’s meds in addition to other errands. He has had his procedure scheduled for May 9th for awhile, waiting for tax season to be over. Yesterday he received a notice from insurance that a test the doc who performs surgery will not be covered because Art has not had a physical to indicate need for the test. They waited until now to tell us. Art will be align to the doc today. I do not know what will result. It seems the insurance really is being allowed to dole out procedures and people must wait so long for various reasons like this that the person needing surgery dies while waiting. Definitely a decline in our healthcare system. 😦
    Prayers welcome.

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  19. We just let our children take the tests at the school. That way, the school would not have to wonder if we were doing our job. Though they did ask us not to put our fourteen year old girl in for the tests. She tends to bring the average down. Understandable as she cannot function in that arena. She is loving being back at home though. She keeps telling me how much she is learning and how nice it is for her to be able to answer the questions rather than the teacher filling it all in for her.

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  22. I have this mental picture of Kim & Michelle sitting on the veranda, drinking iced tea or a couple of those “umbrella” ladies’ drinks & wearing broad-brimmed hats, looking all dewy in that southern heat and humidity. 🙂

    And of course Michelle will pick up the lilt of just the slightest southern accent …

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  23. Chas, I can’t even imagine how exhausting and worrisome this all must be for you right now. Praying she improves each day and things can get back to a semi-normal state for you both soon.

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  24. I could have had a lady at church test son, or let him take them at the school. I figured since he was not use to the other environment that it would be better for him to not be distracted by being in a totally new place. I was concerned of course when he took the ACT, college entrance exam, since he did that at Emory. But he scored very highly so it obviously was not the problem I thought it might be. And, as he got older I think he lost some of his distractability.

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  25. Donna, imagine Michelle saying y’all just once to try it on her tongue and see if it could fit. No, I don’t think it’s possible…she would not be able to mutilate the language like that. 🙂

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  27. But maybe that’s just my imagination conjuring up my stereotypes of the south. 🙂 Humidity anyone? (Although it would be hard to beat Iowa’s mosquito-filled summertime humidity, now that I think about it!)

    I guess it’s not really summer yet, either, is it?

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  32. No tomato pie for Michelle. I will have to send her the recipe or make it for her myself when I am in California in June.

    Donna, she said the weather was very much like what she has at home and she has to keep reminding herself that it will get hotter and more humid. Last night she told Dr Phil it could be on her list of places to live.
    While we were on the boardwalk we nice some people walking. One lady was from Camden (originally from Mobile) and her friends were from Oregon. We talked for a little while and they took our photos.

    Shhh….don’t tell anyone in California, but her room had a deep soaker tub and she said she slept really well last night. I will let you draw your own conclusion there.

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  34. Cool story & photo:

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/04/24/four-marines-reunion-photo-after-50-years-means-getting-right/83479162/
    _______________________________

    PALM COAST, Fla. — They wanted the picture to be just right, to look as close as possible to the one they’d taken together 50 years ago, back when their memories hadn’t yet been clouded by the images of war.

    So Saturday morning, on the sun-drenched Atlantic shore of Cinnamon Beach on Florida’s northeast coast, four U.S. Marine veterans gathered around a yellow longboard turned upright, trying to re-create a moment from five decades earlier. …
    _________________________________

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  35. We had lunch at McDonalds. She ate a small salad and a chocolate fudge sundae.
    And half a coke.
    That is good.
    What happened is that she left her purse at the Dr. office yesterday. After looking all about,
    I called the office this morning. It was there.
    We went to get it and stopped for lunch on the way back.
    I think things are beginning to settle down.

    🙂

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  37. What happened to BG when she let herself get dehydrated was that she had no appetite and if she did eat, it made her sick, and she threw up. Even drinking water made her sick. That’s why we went with Gatorade. It may take a while for her appetite to come back. Just keep doing what you are doing.

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  38. Good news, chas. 🙂

    Interesting piece in Christianity Today about shifts in end times believes within the church:

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/april/sorry-left-behind-pastors-end-times-rapture-antichrist.html
    ________________________

    Most Protestant pastors believe Jesus will return in the future. But few agree about the details of the apocalypse.

    A third of America’s Protestant pastors expect Christians to be raptured—or taken up in the sky to meet Jesus—as the end times begin. About half think a false messiah known as the Antichrist will appear sometime in the future.

    A surprising number think the Antichrist has already been here, or isn’t on his way at all….
    _____________________________

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  39. I wonder why the phrase “a surprising number think the Antichrist has already been here…” as though it is an absurd belief?

    The position of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is, “As to the Antichrist we teach that the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures concerning the Antichrist, [scrip … have been fulfilled in the Pope of Rome and his dominion.”

    Furthermore, to quote Gene Veith in his blog “Cranach” on July 18, 2011, “Now Lutherans are not alone in this. Reformed confessions say the same thing in the Westminster Confession, Chap. 25, Art. 6, though conservative Calvinists in the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have apparently repudiated that section. (Perhaps someone from one of those traditions could explain how it is possible to be a confessional body, as these groups claim to be, while rejecting part of the confession.) The Reformed Baptists also associate the pope with anti-christ in their statement of faith. (See this Catholic site, which keeps track of such things.)”

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  40. The book my Bible study read last year presented it as having already happened or an on-going process of happening. It was written by an Anglican priest/bishop

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  41. Every now and then I add up how many of you I have met. Michelle made 12 and I might possibly have #13 on the horizon. This has been really fun for me so let me enjoy it, because when you consider where I live, I am the least likely to meet any of you. 🙂

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  43. Do Tess and Cowboy and kBells “Kid” count? Oh, wait, if we go down that road you can add all of Mumsee’s children and chickens and dogs and goats. Never mind. Question retracted.

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  47. No.
    When Jesus returns, every eye shall see Him.

    five hundred channels and there’s nothing on TV but Trump.
    Do you realize that I could watch Roy Rogers if I wanted to?
    And at least a dozen preachers.
    There are three college football games on the ESPN channels.

    I have One America News on right now.
    I hear that Barbara Boxer ??? sp is going to retire.

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  52. Kim- Weren’t some of your meet-ups in the other people’s locations? You seem most available to travel of any of us.

    So, who else has met others from here? I’ve met Kim and Pauline (though she is no longer on this blog) and came close to meeting Karen O, but it didn’t work out. If I had known how close to AJ I was while on that trip, I would have made an effort to meet up with his family. I think I am less than a day’s drive from 6 arrows and Cheryl, depending on where in Indiana Cheryl is, and where in the Midwest 6 is. I think in 2007 I wasn’t far from Donna, since we went to LA for a weekend. If we ever drive to Arizona again, we could stop in rkesslers’s area (I think she said she’s in New Mexico). Maybe on that trip we could swing down to Texas or up through Colorado, since some of us live in those states.

    Wow, I could meet a lot of you if I had the time and money to travel more.

    So, why don’t some of you plan trips to the middle of the country and drop in?

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  53. I’ve met Donna (and Tess and Cowboy), kBells (and her husband and the Kid–and she and the Kid met Misten), EYG (who isn’t on here anymore) and some of her family; and I’ve come close to meeting others but it hasn’t worked out. I’ve met a bunch more in my dreams–does that count? And I’ve talked on the phone to a couple of you.

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  54. Let’s see, I’ve met Cheryl & Michelle (a couple times) and Linda … I’ve talked on the phone with Kim & mumsee. And I’ve also seen a few of you in my dreams. 🙂

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  55. I have not met any of you, but have talked on the phone to I think three of you — Karen O, Cheryl and Kim.

    Peter, my brother-in-law and his family live pretty close to your area, I think, so if we ever get down there (haven’t yet in the 20 or so years they’ve lived there, but maybe will someday), I’ll let you know.

    We don’t travel much, but maybe we could just have a blog meet-up here some day. I’m sort of centrally located — between Kare2012 and Kim, and Karen O and Donna. 😉 I think I’m smack dab in the middle of all the North Americans on this blog. 🙂

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  58. Back to Anonymous & the question of the pope being the Antichrist …

    From the original 1646 version of the Westminster Confession: “There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God” (25:6).

    (I believe the current version ends at “thereof” and the rest of the passage is deleted.)

    I’ve understood that the idea of the pope being “the” Antichrist was steeped in the period of church & political history in which the confession was written. It was, in that sense, a bit of uncharacteristic speculation (as has occurred even in our own time when people try to pinpoint a specific identity of “a” — singular — Antichrist).

    The confession is a brilliant and biblically faithful document — but as a secondary standard, it is not to be viewed as infallible in itself. And I’d argue that the phrasing about the Antichrist is not something that is spelled out precisely in that manner in Scripture. Rather it reflected the view of the authors of the confession at that time.

    I believe that has been the only portion that was edited in the version used by our Presbyterian denomination.

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  59. I did a little fact-checking today on my 11:42 p.m. statement above. It would seem that that “I think I’m smack dab in the middle of all the North Americans on this blog” map was not drawn to scale. 😉

    Let’s just say I’m somewhere in the middle by not being near an ocean. 🙂

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