40 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-18-16”

  2. Good evening, Jo, Praying for Fay; keep us posted.

    Good morning and afternoon, everyone else.

    Janice, I’ve been meaning to ask how Art is doing. I saw your reports on how his procedure went, but never saw whether or not it successfully “cured” the AFib. How’s he doing now?

    Kim, looking forward to hearing how last night went.

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  3. Yes. REPORT! as they used to say.

    I don’t know if I was awake thinking about the move or asleep dreaming about it.
    I’m not especially sleepy, so it must be the latter.

    😥 I’m throwing out my concordance. I’ve used it for almost sixty years. It has duct tape binding on the back. But I don’t have a place for it. And I use the internet now. Still. It breaks my heart.
    Almost the same for the dictionary that’s going out. And my atlas. Trash! Technology has replaced my old friends. I’m keeping my Unger’s Bible dictionary. It still has information.

    I may not survive this.

    So? How did it go?

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  4. Chas, I got rid of my concordance, too, maybe with the move from Nashville. It’s simply too big and heavy, and Bible Gateway does the same thing, only with more versions and more options for looking things up. But yeah, I like the books themselves. (We do have thousands of real books.)

    Re the photos: the top one is common chickweed. The next is the thyme-leaved speedwell. (With both plants, I’m positive about the chickweed/speedwell part of the ID, not necessarily the precise species, although I’m pretty sure of both parts.) The chickweed, I didn’t get the photo straight on, so you can’t see precisely what I meant about all of it being nearly perfectly symmetrical. But look at any of the flowers, and you see five of most every part (it isn’t ten petals, but five forked petals that are almost heart-shaped). Between each pair of petals you see another set of five, the sepals. Right in the middle of the flower is the round green ovary. But look at the flower at the left and you can see what I’ve seen better in other photos taken straight on–behind all those fives are four perfectly spaced, hairy leaves. By the size of the clover and the grass in the photo, you get an idea of how small these flowers are (1/4 inch). The next photo is for perspective, showing how tiny the speedwell flowers (posted last week, and smaller than the chickweed) are–and yes, those are my fingers and that is my house in the background, including the kitchen window that looks out over our bird feeders and allows me to get many of my bird photos, and also the white picket fence that is at the back and front of that side of the house. Our daughter, the gardener, likes the peeling paint look on the fence and so it hasn’t been painted lately, though one of these days it needs to be.

    The bottom photo is, of course, an American robin in a birdbath. (Our robin is really a thrush, but it is named a robin in tribute to a much different bird with similar coloring in England, a very friendly little garden bird.) We don’t have a birdbath, because we have running water on our street and don’t really need water right here to attract the birds. This is at my mother-in-law’s house. I saw the robin enter the bath (yeah, I know, Cheryl as voyeur again) and set the camera on an action mode to see what I could get. In this shot, I liked the combination of bird action and water drops. The same robin went onto the side and then back in the bath several times, so he gave me several chances to get photos, and this was, I think, the best of the ones I took.

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  5. Thanks for asking about Art. I think the procedure worked to get him back to proper rhythm, however, they found a leaky valve needing repair, probably using robotic surgery. A decision will be made in a month or two on that. He seems to be in fairly good spirits and has suffered no pain as they said he might. They had him on a flat board during the procedure and said some people experience back and shoulder pain from that, but he didn’t.

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  6. Those flowers are so beautiful. I consider that there is a whole big world in one’s yard on the miniature level that most people never notice. I am fascinated by the beauty within tiny flowers 😄

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  7. Good Morning! What a beautiful shot of the robin taking a bath!! 🙂 We have a couple of “bird” baths….although they are used by the squirrel, deer and birds!
    I see a tad bit of blue sky through the the pines….we are hoping to see much more after a week of snow, rain and fog….some Coloradans are getting quite testy having not seen the sun nor blue skies we are use to around here!
    We still have our thick heavy concordance on a shelf downstairs…haven’t brought myself to pitch it…it has been lovingly used and part of our history around here….I just cannot take it off the shelf!

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  8. Oh, and yesterday as I drove down the driveway, I looked over on the hill and saw all of my grape hyacinth in full bloom! The deer ate them the first year, but they have left them alone….I need to take a photo before they are gone!!

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  9. I still have a really big old concordance that I got from a relative. And I have smaller ones geared to specific versions. The giant one is KJV. And I have Atlases that I use at times. I have a number of dictionaries, too. Because my internet speed drops down for awhile each month, I can look things up more quickly the old fashioned way.

    I still have not gotten the malware removed from my Smartphone. Last night, well, in the early morning, my phone started making a ticking noise like a bomb on a timer. When I looked at it, the screen said the battery was low. Some of what I am dealing with is that it changed my ringtone, and it dropped all the names on my contact list so that only numbers show. It will be a painstaking process to get it all straightened out.

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  11. I have that same bird bath and that bird’s cousin was in it yesterday! Too early this morning for the birds to be bathing but they’re singing like mad. I love to wake up to the singing birds.

    I gave away my concordance, my OED, most of my foreign language dictionaries and all sorts of other text books when we moved three years ago. Like everyone else, I use the Internet. I’m ashamed to admit last night when going to check a Bible verse, I walked past my Bible and opened my I-pad to the Holy Bible app–it was just so much easier, faster and less weighty that way.

    I use them all, however, for Bible study . . .

    Very hot out here and P,G, and E is replacing a gas pipe for the house next door making a banging noise all day long. They went after it with noisy until 8 and were still working when I went to bed at 9 with large klieg lights shining into the hole and the front of the neighbor’s house across the street. Fortunately, Dave wasn’t home.

    They’ve been there all week and anticipate being here through Friday. We’re puzzled as to why such a big deal but as I type I’m remembering the blast a couple years ago when P, G and E didn’t fix piping in the South Bay.

    I think I’ll work on the side of the house opposite the street today . . .

    I’m back to Biddy. What a relief and joy.

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  14. Everything went very well. They graduated alphabetically. She was happy. There are photos on FB if anyone is on there and wants to see or you can email me and I will send you one if you would like to see my happy girl.
    Her father, stepmother, Nana, Mr P and I all sat together. The therapist I had taken her too in the past came to see another student graduate and she sat with us as well. (We go to church together and she has become more of a friend).
    It sprinkled a little, there was a rainbow, and then it cleared. The principal said only the class of 2016 could have rain, sunshine, and a rainbow at their graduation. Stepmother took photos and video with her phone. I cried at two happenings. They had all the seniors go to the school and they took them together by bus to the stadium (the same stadium her father, mother, aunt, and cousins graduated in). Mr. P and I were headed that way when the police had traffic stopped at the intersections so the buses wouldn’t have to stop. All of a sudden I was a fountain of tears. I did it again when they threw their caps. My niece looked over at me and got tears as well, then she hugged me.
    We all went down on the field to find BG and take more photos, then BG, Niece, Nana, Boyfriend, and I went out to dinner. (The father and stepmother had to go pick up her grandson and couldn’t go). Nana was sitting beside me and across the table from BG. She told me how glad she was that we could all be together as a family. We laughed about her son and how his new wife handles him. I told her I almost made a comment to something he said but didn’t want to taint it with him having said it to me before. (He used to tell me I should have done a credit check before I married him. It was a line from a comedian on TV years ago. My response was always that I did do a credit check. I could buy anything I wanted. I just couldn’t pay for it afterwards). I told Nana that her son is still the best big brother an ex wife could have.
    After dinner BG left to go be with her friends. Niece and I took Nana home. I had been in the back seat and when we got to Nana’s house I was moving to the front seat. We were both standing beside the car and she hugged me and told me she loved me. I told her I loved her too. I am really proud of that and cherishing the memory of it. If your EX mother in law tells you she loves you; you must have done something right.

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  17. A former news anchor in Atlanta made her first appearance after a few years since she was arrested for DUI. She admitted to being an alcoholic and wants to get the word out that they don’t all look the same. They are doing a series with her. Her name is Brenda Woods. I will see if they have a link I can post. It would be good for young people to see this.

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  21. Yes, I was anon yesterday. Network Support had to re-image my laptop after a motherboard failure and I didn’t realized I’d gone incognito.
    Bruce would like to be in charge of HUD. He thinks that with his team, which includes Dory and Sophie, he could eliminate the rat problems in public housing. The whole team is transgender, by the way, which should be a big selling point in today’s environment.

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  22. We are back from a lightning trip to Boise to view the new baby under construction. She is doing well and is currently a girl but this is America and that could change in the coming weeks or years.

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  23. My gardener is supposed to stop by today while I’m at work to (finally) replace both outdoor spigots (front and back). We’d talked about it last year, he said he kept forgetting to go buy the parts he needed. So I finally texted him this week to ask if he could do that ‘sometime’ and today he said he’d be by to take care of it.

    It’s a start.

    Glad the graduation night went well, it really is a major milestone. There’s still some growing up to do for most kids after that, but the biggest part of the job is behind you. Onward.

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  24. I also use the Internet for quick look-ups of verses, commentaries, etc., so I’m sure I have some reference books I could pitch. But I’ve been known to keep much-used books for sentimental reasons, too. 🙂

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  25. Janet, I was watching something on Dave Grohl who is a musician with the Foo Fighters. He was arrested for DUI in Australia. He was riding a Moped or something back to the resort where he was staying. Rather than try to sweep it under the rug he went public with it, saying he had a few drinks and he didn’t feel like he was impaired but obviously he was or he wouldn’t have received the DUI ticket…He wanted it to be a lesson to others that even if you think you are fine, you probably aren’t and don’t risk it. I thought it was a great way to handle the situation.
    On the other hand we have a local bottom feeder attorney. He does all sorts of commercials and he WILL personally return your call. He was recently arrested on DUI charges in Pensacola. Needless to say there have been many jokes.

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  28. http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/18/health/mom-voice-study-trnd/index.html

    _____________________________

    (CNN)Less than one second. That’s how long it takes children to recognize their mother’s voice. And that voice lights a child’s brain up like a Christmas tree.

    A new study from Stanford University School of Medicine studied how children reacted to mom’s voice compared to a woman they didn’t know. Kids were not only more engaged by mom’s voice than a stranger’s, scientists found, but this response was noted beyond just auditory areas of the brain.

    Parts of the brain related to emotion, reward processing, facial recognition and social functioning are also amped by hearing from mom. In short, a child’s ability to communicate socially is in a large way affected by how he or she reacts to mom’s voice.

    “Many of our social, language and emotional processes are learned by listening to our mom’s voice,” said lead author Daniel Abrams, a Stanford instructor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “But surprisingly little is known about how the brain organizes itself around this very important sound source. We didn’t realize that a mother’s voice would have such quick access to so many different brain systems.” …
    ______________________________

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  35. 😦 Well, the car I was given couldn’t pass the safety check. It was badly rusted underneath. The salt and snow of Canadian winters rots the thin metal of modern cars more quickly than it should. So, I don’t have a car.

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  36. Oh, sorry Roscuro! (That’s why cars in Arizona, that have only ever been driven in AZ, are advertised “Arizona car.” No salt! We own one of those badly rusted ones, too.)

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  37. There has to be a satisfactory place between a waitress hovering over you while you eat and one who disappears into the kitchen for 15-20 minutes.
    Elvera wanted a glass of water. She finally got it.

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  38. My mechanic says somebody peed in my lawn mower gas tank. I can believe it. The things that happen around here…….He cleaned it out and it runs fine now.

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  39. I had a friend whose old pickup had so much rust there was a one inch hole in the floor on the passenger side. You could actually see the road underneath your feet.

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