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Our Daily Thread 7-13-16

Good Morning!

And a Happy Birthday! to NancyJill.

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Today’s pics are from Cheryl. 

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Anyone have a QoD?

 

71 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-13-16”

  1. Good morning. I didn’t get to see Kim’s marine.
    I didn’t even think about it at the time.
    About 6:00 last evening, Chuck and two of the granddaughter’s husbands and I (with the women and children) went over to Costco and bought a couch, chair, and ottoman for the living room and a couch for the family room. It took two hours for four guys to buy, haul that stuff in my truck and two vans to our house, and assemble it. The women’s jobs were to order us around. “Put it here” “that ottoman is going to be too much.” That sort of thing.
    The two hours included dinner at Costco. There were eleven of us before it was over.
    Lots of hard work. but also some fun and Elvera loves her living room. Now she has to hang some pictures. We may have to dispose of an ottoman. We have two now.

    Liked by 4 people

  2. Good morning! I’ve been up since 5:30. I enjoy getting up early when I have gone to bed early.

    Today is our son’s birthday. I don’t know if he has plans. I think last year he went out for a meal with people in his department. I sent him a book, How to Write Like Tolstoy. I am glad it has arrived. I mailed cards on Monday so they may not get there for today. He has not told me anything that he wants or needs for his birthday. I really don’t know anything to get him if he does not give me a clue. I could just give money for airfare, but that seems so impersonal.

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  3. Good morning.
    Lindsey’s car is still not ready….
    Mia (our crazy one year old dog) went to the vet yesterday for her annual checkup and final distemper shot. They gave us anti-nausea meds for long car trips (she always vomits) and some sedatives for storms, etc.

    Becca went roller skating with a friend last night. And, Lindsey got to ride a friend’s horse yesterday….they both had fun!

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  6. Speaking of pizza, I think it was on Facebook that I saw that pizza is round, but it arrives in square boxes, and it is served in triangles. It’s a geometrical experience that never entered my thinking before.

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  8. Speaking of Facebook, my favorite thing I’ve seen posted was the saying that in parenting “the days are long but the years are short.” I find that to be so true. I cannot believe my firstborn will be seventeen in September….

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  9. I am enjoying summer more since I decided to try watermelon again, and this time it did not give me a stomach problem. I love watermelon as a treat since I am no longer eating ice cream.

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  10. Janice: after six weeks of difficulty and numerous med changes– I am finally feeling much better. I am so grateful for modern medicine and the patience and support of my husband…he has been a true gem.

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  11. If it had been only women, it would have taken the whole four hours just to pick out the stuff. 🙂

    I love to eat at Costco – I love their hot dogs and their pizza. When I (and most other people) were still working in the office, once a month a bunch of us would truck over to Costco for lunch, my treat. It would cost something like $20 to feed the whole crew and was a lot of fun.

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  12. $20.00 is what it cost Chuck. But not everyone was eating. There were 11 of us at the time. Not counting the one Jenn was carrying. He isn’t due until December.
    Elvera wants to keep the other ottoman. Two in the same room doesn’t bother her.
    If it doesn’t bother her, it doesn’t bother me.

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  13. Ah, some of my Alabama and Florida birds-on-islands photos!

    First and last are in northern Alabama (on the way to see my sister). My husband and I went past this dam by happenstance when we went to visit two or three years ago. (I usually went a different route, but my husband took a different main road and so I was choosing a road “across” at random, and this was the road.) It was so fascinating to see all the birds flying that the next time we chose that route on purpose, and saw there was a place to pull over and watch them, and so this time we went that way, too. Anyway, in those two shots, the birds are great blue herons, great egrets, and (just one or two per photo, the little white ones) snowy egrets. (Snowy egrets have yellow feet, which you can see if you look closely at the bottom photo enlarged.) I’d seen two of the three species, but hadn’t seen snowy egrets before. Great blue herons live in Indiana in large numbers, so I may see them once or twice a month, and occasionally even see one flying as I sit at my desk. Great egrets spent a month or two in swampy area near us late one summer, and my husband dropped me off to photograph them three or four times (it’s off a main road, no place to park), and I’ve also seen them at this dam before, but I hadn’t seen them often so this time I concentrated on the great egret. It’s Wheeler Dam, for anyone who happens to drive through northern Alabama and would like to see this many birds at one time. In the trees behind the birds are nests, so it’s a rookery, though most of the young seem to have fledged. We also saw one black-crowned night heron and some anhingas, and probably some terns and some gulls, and last time we stopped we also saw white pelicans, and apparently sometimes a bald eagle shows up. So it’s an amazing mix of birds, both in variety and in quantity.

    That leaves the middle photo, from Florida. This is Seahorse Key, an uninhabited island in the gulf; we took an island boat tour from Cedar Key on my birthday. Seahorse Key had 2,000 breeding birds until last year, when their breeding cycle was disrupted, and now only a few birds breed there, 800 now breed on nearby Snake Key, and some apparently aren’t breeding locally at all anymore. Boats aren’t allowed to go close to the island (past some signs) during breeding season, which was just a few days from officially ending (the last day of June), but because of the shallowness of the water around Snake Key, we actually got closer to Seahorse Key and I’m quite disappointed it no longer has the “good” birds on it. (On Snake Key, through a zoom lens birds were still fairly small, but we saw roseate spoonbills, great blue herons and tri-colored herons, great egrets, white ibis, and brown pelicans. I got to see roseate spoonbills other places, but the only place I’ve ever seen tri-colored herons is through that zoom lens.) This key (island) had different birds in different regions, including one area that had a lot of magnificent frigate birds flying and in a tree. This area was just brown pelicans and double-crested cormorants, with an occasional gull or tern. But if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you may see something else interesting that I didn’t see when I took the shot, and didn’t hear about until the next day: mullet. In the left front corner, you will see half of a fish, the front half, since it is in the process of leaping out of the water. We went to a nearby state park the next day, and there is a big pond where these fish are jumping practically continuously, and on asking we were told they do it all day long, all year long, and nobody knows why. Some of their leaps are four or five feet high, maybe more.

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  14. Oh, this Alabama dam is where I first learned how hard it is to photograph white birds against a blue sky. Last time we stopped there, I got some great photos of great blue herons in flight, and one of a great blue heron coming out of the water with a fish in its beak (I posted it on here at the time). But when I looked at my photos of flying great egrets, I was disappointed. All were “washed out” with no detail, no sharpness. It was just to hard for the camera to know how to focus on all that white, especially white against pale blue. So this time I figured I see great blue herons all the time, and I focused on getting photos of the the egrets. And I got some good flying shots, including the one taking off from the rocks in the top photo and the crazy poses in the third photo. Another photo similar to the one at the bottom (but without any snowy egrets in it), the great egrets remind me of paper-sculpture birds.

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  15. Two hours is pretty good, Chas. As Linda said, normally just picking out furniture takes a lot longer than that!

    I was up early, too — 5:40 — to the Salvation Army bags labeled & onto the front yard for pickup today. Can’t remember when they said to have them out there, but maybe by 7 I’m thinking. Anyway, this way it’s done and I won’t have to work around the roofers who should arrive around 7 today. They got started replacing the front porch railings yesterday also. Things look worse before they look better, of course, and the house definitely looks, well, interesting right now.

    I’m off to a homelessness briefing this morning where they’re going to present the breakdowns of #s of homeless in each of the local cities along with other demographics culled from the last homeless count a few months ago.

    Picked up the Jeep yesterday, they washed it so now it’s clean and can stop on a dime (new front brakes, too).

    They’ve put up big signs in all our parks now about watching out for coyotes (don’t feed them or leave food around the barbecue pits, keep your dogs on leashes, etc.). Walking the dogs in our neighborhood park late yesterday I noticed people still let their little snack-sized dogs run around off leach, though.

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  16. CHAS I couldn’t see my Marine either. At first they were to present colors then decided they would carry out a large American Flag.
    I have two club chairs and two ottomans in my living room. One is leather and in another life I paid way too much money for it. Lulabelle has chewed the legs of the ottoman and thinks she is supposed to sleep on it to be next to her human when he is on the sofa. I griped, grumbled, and threw a fit about the dog RUINING my expensive chair and ottoman. It happened anyway. The other is covered in fabric circa 1994.

    I was exhausted yesterday. I went to the pharmacy, got the meds, 3 prescriptions $130!!!!!!!!! While I was in town I stopped at the hoity toity “market” and picked up lasagna, corn pudding, and broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole. Mr. P had the lasagna and I had the broccoli cheese thing. I remember going to bed at 9 pm but didn’t move until the alarm clock at 6:30 this morning.

    It is a real pain to switch computers. This computer won’t hook up to the extra monitor I have. I have gotten spoiled in being able to open something on one screen and work on another. I have a listing right now that needs to be marketed. It would be great to open it on the external monitor and load it into the system on the screen in front of me. Such problems to have!!!

    I have to take Mr. P back to Pascagoula today to have the drains removed. They showed me how to empty them yesterday in case the filled up. It was all I could do not to gag in front of them. I refrained from telling the nurse they were turning him loose with the least capable person on earth to handle bodily fluids and other such nastiness. Nope. I wasn’t cut out for the medical profession.

    Liked by 7 people

  17. A hotdog with my husband at Costco qualifies as a romantic date!

    Alas, I think I ate my last glorious Costco hotdog last week. Here in California they give you the calorie count for everything and either it wasn’t posted or I hadn’t seen it before.

    The number explained why I could eat a Costco hot dog for lunch and not get hungry until dinner . . . 😦 Indeed, it also explained why I probably should have skipped dinner after that!

    I wish I had the luxury of a second screen–that really would make things easier . . .

    A better day yesterday with computers, but I spent most of it typing notes from printed pages into a Word doc. If I’d had a second screen, I might have been able to simply cut and paste.

    The hours are lost now, I’ll live.

    Weather is beautiful here; they’re predicting another dry winter coming however. 😦

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  19. Good morning…beautiful photos Cheryl! When I purchased two leather wing chairs each having an ottoman, my husband fussed about ottomans…the furniture salesman said men hate ottomans…women love them. I do notice that my husband uses the ottoman when seated in the chair……well if you’re going to use it…don’t complain about it! (He says ottomans “get in the way”)…..

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  20. It’s Nancyjill’s birthday today 🙂

    My animals like to sometimes hang out on the big leather ottoman.

    I should probably get my Costco card back into current status, but honestly I found the place way too crazy (I usually could only go on Saturdays) — mayhem. Their optometry dept offers good deals, though. I don’t think I ever ate there, the snack shop area was always a complete madhouse of people.

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  21. Michelle, your QOD: yes. I imagined that after Adam and Eve sinned and clothed themselves in fig leaves, God took a pair of animals, the only two of their species, and took one of them to kill it and clothe them. And as they watched the knife plunge in and the breath go out of one of the animals they loved, a species that would never reproduce and would soon be extinct, they began to understand what “death” means and what they had unleashed into the world.

    Of course, in reality it was probably a lamb that God killed, and it’s likely that at creation some creatures had more than one pair, or that at least the prey species (many of them “clean” animals acceptable for sacrifice) had more than one pair or had had time to reproduce. (After the Fall, other animals would be eating them, humans would be sacrificing them, and then after the Flood humans had permission to eat the animals, too, and not just vegetation that they were given as food in the Garden.)

    Every time I go out to fill the bird feeder, and birds I’m feeding fly out of the tree in fear of me, I’m reminded of what Adam and Eve gave up. I imagine that Eve, being used to lions coming to her hand to have their mane stroked, would have been aghast that they now fled from her and killed her lambs. She would have been used to walking through the garden, and having the birds land on her shoulders to receive her caress, and now they flew from her and watched her every move to stay a safe distance away. God allowed her to keep her pet dog, the horses chose to stay and be gentled under Adam’s hand, the sheep still needed a shepherd (and even more, now that the wolves where their enemies), and even the chickadee continued to consent to eat from her hand. But the beautiful scarlet tanager now came no closer to her than the treetops and even the gentle dove politely kept a few yards between her and itself.

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  22. We were members of Costco but like Donna I found the place crazy! I go to SAMs…it’s not as crowded, overwhelming, nor over stimulating….in Costco I felt sensory overload! At SAMs I have gotten their pretzel for a snack, which was delicious…but have never eaten any “real food” at one of those places…..are hot dogs “real food”???!!

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  23. Donna,

    My husband wants to know what kind of prices are included in a “good deal.” (He is up for renewal of his glasses, no-line bifocals. I told him prices in Indiana and in California probably aren’t the same anyway, but he said “Just ask her what she means.”)

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  24. Michelle. All the time. But more than that, hundreds of questions I would like to ask Jesus and Paul.
    Remind me, someday, to tell you my version of how we got Issachar.

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  25. Husband has a Costco membership, but since I don’t shop, I don’t. He goes there rather regularly. Yesterday, he fed the small folk there. Ten year old got pizza and apparently, pizza does not come with soda, which husband never gets for them. They always drink water with meals. But this time, little sis’s hot dog came with a small soda. Ten year old thought that most unfair, so when he went for a refill of water, he sneaked over to the lemonade. Husband made him poor it out as it was not paid for and he was sneaking. I notice little sis brought home leftover hotdog but no leftover soda.

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  26. Lot’s of places are putting the calorie count of their food on the menu. In some instances, like Ruby Tuesday’s I like it. It really is NO FUN AT ALL when I go to Chik Fil A. I have had to stop going to Zaxby’s because there is nothing on their menu worth having that is under a certain calorie count—even their salads. At least at Chik Fil A you can get a salad that will not blow your allotted calories for the day. I try to be good but it is hard.

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  27. It’s been a number of years ago now, but I wanted to refill existing frames with new lenses (progressives). Costco charged me half of what the doctor’s office (and places like Lenscrafters aren’t that far behind doctor’s prices anymore) was going to charge.

    Their optometry dept also had good reviews in terms of their work (or at least did then). Definitely worth getting comparison quotes on prices from them if you’re already members.

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  28. From “what to buy and not to buy” at Costco:

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_111341.html
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    2. Eyeglasses

    One-stop shopping at low prices has endeared Costco Optical to tens of thousands of vision-challenged shoppers. For $49, a licensed optician will perform a vision and eye health exam in an in-store exam room. A week later, you can pick up your specs. In a survey released this month by Consumer Reports, 30,000 lens-wearers chose Costco as their favorite optical retailer over vision store chains, independent optical shops, and private doctors’ offices. Costco Optical earned the highest scores for overall satisfaction as well as for price, with its $157 median price for glasses. Compare that price with an average of $211 at independent optical shops, $212 at private eye doctors’ offices, and $228 at Pearle Vision. Costco also stood out for lack of problems, such as loose lenses, distorted vision, or damaged frames in the first weeks after purchase.
    ______________________

    Another link says: Costco Optical, where rates can be as much as 50% lower.

    Another said their prices are “wholesale”

    http://www.costco.com/optical.html

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  29. Donna, we aren’t members, but his sister is and we’d talked about going with her sometime to see if we think it is worth joining, and the glasses might make it so.

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  30. I don’t think membership is overly high (it recently went up, though). Maybe around $50 for a year (that would be for a single membership, not sure if couples or family rates are more per se?)

    But yeah, the glasses make it worth the cost.

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  32. Thanks, Donna. I copied both of them to him.

    Now, last time we very nearly got two pair of eyeglasses free for me at the place we’ve been getting them. (But he was wanting to shop around and get a better price for himself this time.) A few weeks after we got the glasses, we got a check from the company for the full amount. My husband called and said, “Um, I think this is a mistake. Could you look it up and see why we got this?” They didn’t know, and said they’d research it. Three or four weeks later we hadn’t heard from them, so my husband e-mailed and said, “We got this check, and we called, and we didn’t get a response. If we don’t hear from you by such-and-such a date, we will cash it.” He gave them a week or two to respond, and the day before his deadline, they called and said, “We’ve cancelled the check, so you can go ahead and tear it up.” By that time, for both of us it was kinda “Oh, bummer.” But we never did find out why they mailed it to us in the first place. (As he said, most people would have just cashed it, but it wasn’t the right thing to do. If they had failed to reply after we’d given them a few weeks, by that time we could have cashed it with a clear conscience, figuring maybe we won some contest or something. That was what he wondered, since we used a coupon to buy them and he thought maybe there was fine print on the coupon about being entered into a contest for free glasses. But they cancelled the check, so we don’t know what it was for.)

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  33. Thanks Donna….
    We were told to go to SAMs for glasses due to the more reasonable cost….I have no line bifocals…..cost me over 700 dollars for this one pair of glasses….I think I’ll go back to VisionWorks where I got two pair for half that cost!! (Although VisionWorks is a pain in the customer service department….!)

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  34. Michelle’s QoD: In a way I guess I do. I do not like embellish outside the confines of Scripture too much, as I’ve encountered Biblical novels which end up bordering on blasphemy. Rather, I like to piece together the wider significance of a single story by using the rest of Scripture to fill in the details. So, for instance, the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 is filled in by the account of the Samaritans’ origins in II Kings 17:24-41. When Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the Samaritans did not know what they worshipped, the II Kings account tells us why he said that – the Samaritan religion was a synchretization of Judaism with paganism. Add to that the significance of the hatred the Jews had for the half-breed Samaritans, as seen in the disciples wanting to wipe out a Samaritan village in Luke 9:51-56 [In another layer of significance, that account occurs just before Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10] and the contempt displayed by the Jews for fallen women, and the mere fact that she was a woman, and Christ’s speaking to her takes on an enormous importance, which John must have seen when he chose to relate the story.

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  35. Dear AT & T,
    If I could get on the internet, I wouldn’t be CALLING you. I also don’t like condescending foreign men who will not listen to me and talk over me.

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  36. I got my (no-line bifocals) at Walmart and was very happy with the price and the glasses.

    Not quite what Michele was asking, but last week (due to hearing C.S. Lewis stuff on “Haven”), I was thinking how I just don’t understand or relate to allegories like the “Narnia” series. This isn’t to say that they aren’t appropriate or helpful or that there’s anything wrong with folks who do, just that I don’t.

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  38. Text of folksong:

    As it fell out upon one day,
    Rich Divès made a feast,
    And he invited all his friends,
    And gentry of the best.

    Then Lazarus laid him down and down
    And down at Divès’ door:
    “Some meat and drink, brother, Diverus,
    Bestow upon the poor.”

    “Thou’rt none of my brothers, Lazarus,
    That liest begging at my door;
    No meat, nor drink will I give thee,
    Nor bestow upon the poor.”

    Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
    All under Divès’ wall:
    “Some meat, some drink, brother Diverus,
    For hunger starve I shall.”

    “Thou’rt none of my brothers, Lazarus,
    That liest begging at my gate;
    No meat, no drink will I give thee,
    For Jesus Christ His sake.”

    Then Divès sent out his hungry dogs,
    To bite him as he lay;
    They hadn’t the power to bite one bite,
    But licked his sores away.

    Then Divès sent to his merry men,
    To worry poor Lazarus away;
    They’d not the power to strike one stroke,
    But flung their whips away.

    As it fell out upon one day,
    Poor Lazarus sickened and died;
    There came two angels out of Heaven,
    His soul therein to guide.

    “Rise up! rise up! brother Lazarus,
    And go along with me;
    For you’ve a place prepared in Heaven,
    To sit on an angel’s knee.”

    As it fell out upon one day,
    Rich Divès sickened and died;
    There came two serpents out of hell,
    His soul therein to guide.

    “Rise up! rise up! brother Diverus,
    And come along with me;
    There is a place provided in hell
    For wicked men like thee.”

    Then Divès looked up with his eyes
    And saw poor Lazarus blest;
    “Give me one drop of water, brother Lazarus,
    To quench my flaming thirst.”

    “O, was I now but alive again
    The space of one half hour!
    O, that I had my peace again
    Then the devil should have no power.”

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  41. Happy Birthday, NancyJill! May you have a most blessed day. 🙂

    Ann, I’m so glad to hear you’re feeling better. What a relief that must be.

    Costco? None around here. I’ve never been at one.

    Daughter who sleeps with her windows open most nights (4th Arrow) has been hearing more evidence that points toward a bear still probably coming to our yard now and then at night. We stopped putting out bird seed several weeks ago, and have been careful about not leaving around other things that might attract bears.

    But last night, around 2:45, daughter heard some sort of squeaking sound, followed by a shredding noise. She looked out her east window, and could barely make out the form of an animal that looked like a small bear to her. It had pulled three swimming pool noodles down off a stack of pallets my husband has in the yard.

    One noodle, about half of it is shredded into many pieces; the other two have big gouges in a couple of places, like they’d been bitten into.

    Daughter saw the bear (if that’s what it was, and we think it is, based on her description) leave the pallet area and head over near our open porch, and linger around the ferns that grow nearby. Other teenage daughter (3rd Arrow) whose bedroom window is near those ferns said this morning that she heard footsteps outside her closed window last night while she was half asleep, likely the same animal.

    The animal, according to 4th Arrow, then ambled off, away from the porch/ferns area, and she could hear some crashing around near our garage/lean-to, but she couldn’t see way over there from her window anymore, as that’s at the opposite side of the house from her bedroom.

    Hubby gave her a very bright flashlight today to shine out the window at night if she hears those kinds of sounds again. It should illuminate just what is visiting our yard. 🙂

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  42. Thanks 6…..that sounds scary…and I wonder if 3rd arrow’s window had been open if said bear would have climbed in??!! I’m thinking she could have heard breathing along with footsteps!!

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  43. We have a split-level house, and everyone but 1st Arrow sleeps upstairs (and he doesn’t sleep with his big ground-level window open), but I had to step outside after reading your comment, NancyJill, to see just how high off the ground the upstairs windows are. 😉

    They’re too high to get to from the ground, BUT… 3rd Arrow’s window is close to the built-in bench on the porch — a little above and northward of the bench back, which has a flat piece of wood about 5 inches wide running along the top of the bench, parallel to the seat. A climbing animal could easily get onto our porch, and from there climb onto the bench seat, and to the top, flat surface, which is a few feet below and about a foot to the side of her window…

    The half of the window that is on the bench side cranks out so the glass goes toward the porch, so maybe the open window would block a bear from jumping in…?

    Or would it give an animal something to hang on to while poking through the screen…?

    I might be overthinking this, but I’ll probably encourage her to leave her window closed at night, just to be sure! 🙂

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  44. Six, you just need to get along. Those animals were there first and you need to share. If you will just leave the front door open and the fridge, and leave out some sandwich fixins…..

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  49. Honey- and syrup-dipped pool noodles floating on the pool surface with a little ark holding pancakes and chocolate mints…

    Did Noah’s ark have such things…? (There’s my QoD answer, answering a question with a question.) 🙂

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  51. I do remember writing a little play for VBS students that included the Israelites complaining about the manna. They had no peanut butter or jelly to put on it or some such.

    There are stories that use biblical stories as a theme, but with different characters etc. I have no problem with doing that. I have no problem with fleshing out a bible story. I do have a problem with not revealing you are doing that. I do have a problem with taking a kernel of a bible story and completely rewriting it. I especially have a problem when your new story says the opposite of what the bible itself says.

    I have gotten my eyeglasses at Sam’s and find the prices better than what I was getting elsewhere. My eyeglasses are very expensive, however. I have found Walmart associates to always be willing to help and the prices are good. I have not bought from them, but know others who do so.

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  52. Linda, C. S. Lewis argued vigorously that his Narnia series is not allegory, and it isn’t: in allegory (think Pilgrim’s Progress), everything represents something else. Pilgrim isn’t carrying a backpack because he needs luggage, for example, but the pack on his back is his sin weighing him down. Likewise, every character and every town has allegorical significance: we get to see greed, joy, complacency, etc. fleshed out.

    Narnia doesn’t do that; it tells a story, and it uses characters who are much like real boys and girls and real men and women (whether they are animals or people characters). Lewis said that Narnia isn’t “allegory” but “supposal,” and he explained that the difference is something like this (summarizing his words from memory, not quoting): “Suppose that there is a world in which the ‘people’ are animals and not human beings. What would incarnation look like in that world?” There isn’t supposed to be a one-to-one correspondence between what Christ did in our world and what Aslan did in Narnia. In fact, Aslan didn’t set out to be a Christ figure at all, initially. Lewis had a mental picture of a faun with an umbrella carrying packages in a snowy wood, and seeing what would come of that image brought the story to life. Aslan ended up charging in and taking over. But if you read the books in the order in which they were written, and look for it, you will see that with maybe one exception, Aslan has fewer and fewer pages as the books go on; eventually they are more about life in Narnia, with Aslan intruding occasionally, which sort of fits what was said about him in the first book (that he doesn’t show up very often or predictably). But Peter doesn’t “represent” anyone, as he would in an allegory, which is why he is called Peter and not “Braveheart” or “Disciple” or something. He’s just a teen boy facing unusual challenges in life, and learning from them. The others, likewise, including Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. They’re a whole lot easier to read if you just read them as good stories; if you see spiritual significance in something, great, but there is no need to look for meaning in everything, because Lewis didn’t write it that way. (I’m a bit of an “expert” on Lewis and Narnia, and could say more via e-mail.)

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  53. We just got back from a lovely lunch in Castle Rock and then stopped by an antique shoppe out in the sticks and I found the cutest handmade barn wood bird house with a rusty tin roof…it’s been a relaxing 62nd birthday…. 🙂

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  54. Happy Birthday, NancyJill!

    Were you the one who asked if the Tooth Fairy came? Whether it was you or not, yes, the Tooth Fairy came last night, & left $5.00. Wow! Supposedly, that is the going rate for baby teeth these days.

    Liked by 1 person

  56. Some odds & ends, from today’s comments. . .

    ~~~There was only one house I’ve ever lived in, for a couple years when I was a teenager, that had both a living room & a family room. So we (my first family & my current family) have always referred to that room where the couches & such are as the living room.

    ~~~Kim mentioned not being able to “handle bodily fluids and other such nastiness.” When my MIL Mary came to live with us, it was soon after she had had emergency surgery to remove part of her colon. She had an open wound that needed to be “packed”, with sterile procedures, once a day. No exaggeration – it was at least three inches long, about two & a half inches wide, & maybe three-quarters of an inch deep (slanting inward).

    The visiting nurse trained me in sterile procedures, & I had to clean, pack, & bandage the wound each day until it finally healed. I was surprised when I first saw how big & deep it was, & it was pretty gross in the beginning, but it didn’t bother me.

    ~~~Going to Costco on a Saturday is not a good idea. L always goes sometime during the week.

    ~~~Cheryl mentions there only being one pair of each kind of animal in Eden at the time of the Fall. Do we know that it happened so close to the beginning, before the animals had bred? Or could it have been several years later?

    ~~~Here is a link to a 29-photo slideshow of this year’s ConnectiCon, showing what cosplay looks like for anyone who is curious. . .

    http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/entertainment/the-scene/ConnectiCon-2016-Photos-Costumes-386060311.html

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  58. I lost a post….where oh where did it go??
    Thanks sweet Karen…it’s been a good day….onward and upward towards Social Security!! 🙂
    When I was a kid we got 10 cents for a tooth….my kiddos got a dollar….and I still paid for their orthodontics!!! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  59. Back in California again. Grandkids are nice,but I am enjoying some quiet
    I like to think about Bible stories with my class. I don’t like the ending of Jonah, but if he wrote it, that might indicate a change of heart

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  60. Karen I asked about the tooth fairy. You got off cheap for a first tooth. BG was late losing hers. She was invited to spend the night with a friend. I told the mother we were close and if it happened to have the tooth fairy leave something and I would pay her back. The tooth fairy left TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!# I later had to explain that the first tooth got more and each too thereafter got less. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

  62. Karen, I didn’t say there was only one pair of each animal–truth is we just don’t know. The chance of it being “several years” after creation is extremely remote, though. For one thing, at some point if Adam and Eve had resisted temptation, they would have been sealed in holiness. Also, they would have been fertile and would have had several children by then. Probably it was the first week of their lives that they sinned. But we have no idea how many animals of each kind were created, and so that part is only speculation.

    Happy birthday, Nancy Jill!

    Liked by 1 person

  63. Kim, that’s hilarious, a $20 tooth! Like Kevin, I remember when the going rate was a quarter. 🙂

    I wonder if there were any pesky coyotes in the garden …

    So I got home not long ago (after having to stop at the store and then running into someone who wanted to talk for about 20 minutes about the state of our town and the nation) to be amazed — all the front porch railing is replaced, primed with white paint. Wow. Big improvement over the way it had begun to look with rickety boards, peeling paint, termite damage. (I may have to fumigate later.)

    The city inspector comes by tomorrow but I apparently don’t have to be here, he’ll deal with the roofers. Hopefully all is well and they can finish the work by the end of this week (??).

    Liked by 4 people

  64. Thank you Cheryl!
    Donna if the city inspector is coming does that mean the roof is competed?! When we had our roof replaced 5 years ago, there was a crew of 10 guys! They did have it done in two days and we didn’t have to deal with regional at all…our contractor did all of that….and it passed upon first inspection….it’s a 50 year roof and I am hoping it actually holds up that long…then I’ll never have to hear all that ruckus again…I’ll be in glory!! 🙂

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  65. Hello everyone. Did you miss me? We’re still unpacking and arranging furniture, and finally hot Internet today. It’s cable, so we’re getting used to fast service. We had a slow DSL connection. That was like a turtle. This seems like a cheetah in comparison. Now I can actually watch videos you guys post without having to wait 15 minutes for them to load.

    I’ll still be absent a bunch for the next few days. Family reunion Saturday. My oldest brother is stopping by tomorrow on his way to it. My parents came by train, so he is going up to see them. The reunion is 90 miles NW from us, he lives, 150 or so miles South of us. There will be about 35 L relations in one place. Watch out Missouri!

    Liked by 4 people

  66. I believe he inspects when the job is 50% done. This is a much smaller ‘crew,’ so I expect it to take all week (esp with their taking time out to do the porch railings).

    Strangely, I received a call today from a roofer I’d met with and who put a bid (way too high for me) wondering if I’d made a decision to hire him. I apologized that I should have emailed him before (it’s just been such a hectic week) but told him, no, I’d decided to go with someone else.

    He says “Who? What’s his name? Is he licensed and bonded? Is he insured?”

    I told him the work had already begun, he was about to ask something else by way of protesting my decision when he agreed to say ‘goodbye.’ He was impressive in terms of his credentials and reviews, but he was, from the start, extremely pushy which I didn’t appreciate. And very expensive.

    Anyway, I’m saving literally a few thousand dollars by using this guy (who is vouched for by a couple folks and is in the process of getting his roofers’ license, good enough for me, especially since the inspector will be giving it a once-over).

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  68. This roofer also had a compelling story — he is the father of a disabled son (his other older son helps out on the jobs) and the mom stays home full time to care for him. The money is needed and appreciated. They can’t afford to live coastal so have a house pretty far inland, which means it’s a long commute for him to get to my place every morning.

    So I kind of feel like I’m helping him out (as he’s helping me out). There’s a bit of a language barrier (his English is rough, my Spanish by now is almost non-existent) but we’ve managed to communicate enough. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  69. Whoa…I’m glad the other guy backed down….I don’t think I could do business with a guy like that…our crew was entirely Spanish speaking…there was only one guy who spoke rough English…of course the universal language I used was fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies…I got a smile out of all of them and they were motivated to do a good job!! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  70. I just caught up on yesterday’s threads and noticed the CoyoteBlue had commented on the News thread. Nice to see that name again after a long time – hope it turns up again soon.

    Liked by 2 people

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