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Our Daily Thread 9-16-16

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!

Today’s pics are from Cheryl.

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I must apologize to Kevin. Sorry Kevin, I missed your birthday yesterday. 

So everyone wish Kevin a Belated Happy Birthday! 

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Anyone have a QoD?

 

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-16-16”

  1. Happy Birthday Kevin!
    IT’S FRIDAY You know what that means.
    Not so much anymore. No Lions, Funnies (?) came up yesterday. I don’t have much planned for today.
    Off to breakfast.

    HI Jo, Ak..

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  4. Morning Chas and Aj.
    Let’s see we could say the slip was a compliment referring to Aj as one with a heart as big as Alaska.
    Fireworks going off randomly here as folks celebrate Independence Day.

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  6. Good Morning. There is a slight dip in the temperature here this morning. When I let the dogs out, I was able to leave the back door open until they came back inside. I am not foolish enough to believe we have seen the worst of the heat. This is just a teaser. I don’t mind the heat really, but this year we seem to have had an over abundance of mosquitoes. The truck drives down my street and sprays most nights, but I think this bugs use it as a vitamin.
    If I could have it just a little cooler in the evening, not bugs, and it would still stay daylight longer I could be in my perfect environment.

    QOD: Do you have a word that is a theme in your life? The word I used most is PEACE. I want peace in my life. I want a peaceful environment in which to live. I want peace between those I love and me. I want peace between those I love. I want peace within me.
    It is no secret that I had a somewhat un-peaceful upbringing. I was an angry teenager with no way to express it except a short fuse. I have been known to throw things against a wall. In my anger once I slammed a door on a cat’s paw. Two things happened to me then. 1. I had hurt an innocent animal. 2. I remembered all the sets of broken dishes my mother slammed to the tile floor. I have had many of sliver of china pulled from the bottom of my bare feet.
    As an adult I can only remember really letting loose on my temper twice. Once a stupid teenage boy driving too fast in my neighborhood almost his Amos. He slammed on his brakes, but unfortunately for him had his window down. When I got to the side of the car I almost pulled him through the window and all I remember of it now is a blaze before my eyes. The second time was this past May in defense of my child.
    I do know to hold my tongue because if I ever opened my mouth and let the words come out I would draw blood.
    There is a cost associated with holding on to my temper. I do not defend myself when I really should. I just get quiet. The other person has no idea what they have done to disturb my peace.

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  7. Kim, I understand, but not entirely. We have different experiences. Both Elvera and I were raised in families that cared. There was no drinking problem, but we were both raised in poverty situations. I was able to leave that behind me as things improved. But Elvera didn’t. I told you before, I was in the AF, a sergeant. (airman first class now) and I was walking down the street in Holyoke, Mass. and saw something and it occurred to me. “I can buy that just because I want it. ” Seems trivial, but an ” Ah HA” experience for me. She never had that, and still worries that something might cost a dollar more.
    But, I repeat myself here. Her thrift and management skills got us through the first seven years of our marriage. I was 32 when I got my first full time permanent job.

    But I look back on my teenage years with some regret. I was poor and painfully shy. I didn’t date many girls because I had no money and was too shy to ask a girl out. It pains me to this day to think of the girl who was sitting at home alone because some stupid guy didn’t have the gumption to ask her out.
    I also got past that in the AF.

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  8. Thinking of what you said about peace as your word Kim, my words, God given, are peace, hope, joy, and love. Although love is the greatest, it seems it would be quite miraculous to feel the other words in abundance when one feels no peace. Without peace there is a numbness needed for endurance that lessens the senses to all other feelings.

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  9. Happy birthday, yesterday, little brother! What is this now, fifty nine? You do know that is nearly sixty, don’t you? Headed over the hill…..what have you done with your life? Lived it wisely? I presume….

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  10. Elvera takes a pill every evening. Instructions: “One tablet by oral route every day in the evening.” I define evening as eight, she worries if I give her one at 7:30. But she takes it when I give it to her. Anyhow, this was what I was telling. I went to CVS to get a refill. Every time, they charge me $0.42 for thirty. I knew someone else was paying something, so I asked the clerk how much this costs. He said “I don’t know, but I’ll look it up.” He went to the computer and said, $210.00. Two hundred and ten!
    For thirty tiny pills. But, as I told you before, I pay $583.97/mo. for combined Blue Cross and Medicare.
    I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I think something is wrong somewhere.

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  11. Those are perty, perty birds, Cheryl. Yesterday when Art and I went outside We saw a dove fly up into the red bud beside the bedroom window. Later I saw two doves perched on a limb from inside looking out the window. I tried to get a photo but my new phone camera storage is full and I can’t take more photos. Anyway, I had a good feeling seeing those doves like it was an indicator from God that all would be okay with Art’ s surgery.

    Art’s surgery has been moved to Tues. because the surgeon had a day he had to do an emergency surgery. We had been warned that might change the tentative date.

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  13. To answer Kim’s question:
    No.
    I do not have a word that is a theme for my life.
    Faith may be one. I look back at “mistakes”. Such as I mentioned about being shy as a teen. I mention that I couldn’t get a job out of high school.
    Then I consider that if I hadn’t been painfully shy, I would have married some other woman and if I had gotten a job I would have worked at the paper mill as a wage earner most of my life. I made lots of mistakes, but I would be afraid to change any of it.
    I know what would have happened had I not changed from Civil Engineering in college.
    I was working part time in the testing lab at the SC Highway Dept. testing lab. They liked me and it was a good job. Had I graduated in Civil Engineering, I would have walked into a job there. It would be waiting for me. Not a bad job. But it worked better this way.

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  14. At first I thought Donna was saying she was having elbow macaroni to celebrate, but another commenter straightened out my thinking. So which of you has an impression of Donna’s teeth on your elbow? It was the price of winning!♡

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  15. Ah, before I could get on here and identify the first bird, the second is there. The first bird is an indigo bunting. When I zoomed in to take its photo, I thought it was an adult male. As I zoomed in, I realized it was an adolescent male–just getting its blue feathers. (It was too early in the year for it to be going the other way, an adult male getting its winter feathers.)

    The bird up there now is a cedar waxwing, one taken the other morning when I saw this one, saw others fly, and heard them all around me but didn’t see anymore. This morning I went out again, specifically hoping to see cedar waxwings, but I didn’t see any where I saw and heard them before. On my way home, however, I saw a dead tree full of birds, zoomed in . . . and it was waxwings, most I’ve ever seen at one time. I don’t know if I saw 20, or 30 or 40. More were coming in all the time, and I assume some flying out. Eventually they flew, a few at a time, into an evergreen and then into another one, and I got more photos, but none close up. The lady whose yard it was came out to the mailbox and I told her what I was photographing, and she wasn’t familiar with them and she wouldn’t have been able to see them well, high in a tall tree as they were. But no one should have 20 cedar waxwings in a tree in their yard without knowing about it. They’re fruit eaters and they love (and are named for) the berries of the cedar tree. Also, of course, for the wax-like red tips of some wing feathers. From a distance they look a lot like starlings–same shape in flight, same flocking tendency, same flight patterns. But up close, they’re one of our loveliest birds.

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  17. Happy birthday, Kevin.

    Kim’s words remind me of a saying I have on my fridge: “Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any time”. I have found that to be true. It takes effort to turn thoughts into more pleasing thoughts in God’s eyes. They seem so private and harmless. Yet, they direct our actions more than we realize.

    Yesterday my husband’s group played at an assisted living place. This one has an aviary for birds. One of the birds look fake. It was a small, mostly blue bird with rouged reddish cheeks. If I had seen in as a statue, I would have thought it was unrealistic looking. The ‘artistry’ of bird plumage is quite amazing. Such things bring to mind our God is Creator and that we are made in his image. Surely, the arts are a reminder of that.

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  18. Well, it appears I was quite fortunate to turn off my computer prior to the birthday announcement. I am just surprised somebody did not get killed.

    Old is good, KBells, it has long been an ambition of mine. Just a few days ago, one of my children asked if I was feeling old yet. I thought about it, could not think of any aches or pains or anything so said, I guess not but I should. Today I pulled something heaving hay to the horses over the eight foot fence. So I am old today. But then seventeen year old is old these days as well with a deep bruise to the thigh and playing football.

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  20. Love that saying on your refrigerator Kathleena, I may share that one on FB 🙂

    I was up early to get the trash out, real estate pal was coming over to look at the bathroom but that’s now been postponed until tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I need to go get some paint chips per Kim’s advice. 🙂 Whitewash the blue of that sky in the header, and we’re maybe getting close?

    Last night was brutal, and I never did get to the cake. Sheesh, you guys.

    Picking up on what Chas said (about how life decisions come about), God uses even our weaknesses and flaws to bring us to where he wants us to be. They still can be sinful in some cases, but even those he uses — if for nothing else but to show us our utter weakness and the state of our own fallenness, driving us to Christ all the more, over and over again.

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  22. Speaking of old, I’m coming up on my Medicare age this year and I’m trying to figure out how to coordinate all that with our work insurance plans — I still need to check in with HR and a couple friends on that (another co-worker also is going through it, she’s a couple months ahead of me so has done some of the checking already). I have 6 months in which I do need to sign up for Medicare, whether I choose to use it right now or not (depends on what’s the better ‘deal,’ I guess). It’s generating a huge volume of mail that’s coming in through my mailbox every day now and it all looks very confusing to me.

    Odd, because I remember when my mom was going through all of that. It was confusing for her back then, too (and I think she’d already retired by that time).

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  23. Some children are said to have old souls. I like to think old equates to wisdom beyond one’s years. That can be gained by being well read. That is the BIG problem with taking the classics out of required reading for students as is done with Common Core. I found out Common Core has been turned into a non-issue in Georgia because they took on a new name for Common Core but used basically the same standards, but the general public is deceived into thinking we are no longer using Common Core.

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  26. My word would be Jesus.

    Speaking of which, I was bemoaning to the Lord that I was starving for discussion of His Word, the other day. We used to have some pretty in depth discussions here but rarely anymore, thought the fellowship is still sweet. I used to have lots of good deep discussions with my camping buddies but not anymore. And people at my church don’t seem to talk much deeper than, Isn’t the weather nice? How are your tomatoes? Though I am trying to get the pastor to talk and he agreed with husband that ours is a very shallow church. And then I was reading in Hebrews where it said the Lord would teach us. And it hit me that I have several Francis Schaeffer books to read or reread and I am totally enjoying them. Not to say we can get by without the teaching of other people, but that in the dry times, God is there.

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  30. Donna,

    Once you reach your official retirement age (which is probably older than 65 for you), you can file for, and receive social security while still working and make as much as you want (I did that). When you do that, you are automatically enrolled in Medicare Part A (hospitalization) whether you want it, or not. I opted to keep my health insurance through my company, because 1) it was cheaper and 2) my husband is also on it, and couldn’t be if I dropped it.

    One other thing to keep in mind is that per IRS rules, if you have Medicare (any part), you can no longer have an HSA account. It seems odd to me, but even though I have a high-deductible policy, my company switched me to an FSA (which is almost as good as an HSA except you have to be careful to drain it at the end of the year or else you lose it).

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  32. I don’t want to upset anyone but I had to go to the bank and they have opened a new, larger, better, Tuesday Morning than we had before. I had to stop in to see what was new. I bought two Christmas ornaments and some Christmas towels for the guest bathroom.
    I have decided to have Black Family Christmas at my house on December 17th. Never too early to start planning.

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  40. I’m crashing today, it’s been a busy week and other than some laundry and sorting in the bedroom, I’ve been too beat to do much else. So I guess I’ll give into it — I sat out in the patio for a while, watching Annie watch insects as big as small airplanes buzz by, randomly wondering what gifts were under some previous family’s Christmas tree that was planted in the backyard and now is a decent sized evergreen reaching far above my roof. Just a lazy peaceful day (though I keep feeling I should be doing more).

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  45. The words God has given me are Stand Firm.

    The last two weeks in class we studied the life of Joseph. Looking at all the things that happened to him, I shared with the class, very briefly, how my husband left and God used it to bring me here. The place where He wanted me.

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  46. I’m told the tile guy will be consulted first and he’ll say how much tile to order – waiting for bead board samples to arrive (although I have a feeling the super-cheap ones will look super-cheep); transom window, I still haven’t found. Will get back to looking for that as it’s about the only thing now that I don’t samples of to go on.

    I feel better after a short afternoon nap. It’s been a really busy week, I think I just needed a (mostly) “down” day. Back to (the real) work on Monday, groan.

    I’ve also managed to get a few flies in the house this week, so have been stalking them with the fly swatter. This scares Annie Oakley. I just roused her from her afternoon nap on the patio chair when I slammed a fly on the sliding glass window. Gone. Fly & Annie both.

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  50. Supposedly, cats playing with – & destroying – toilet paper is kind of common, but none of my cats have done that. I made sure that neither of mine were watching the video with me. Don’t wanna give them any ideas.

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  52. I don’t think the “new” bird needs any introduction. As you might be able to tell, he showed up while I was photographing the indigo bunting. I’ve long said that a photo with an indigo bunting, a cardinal, and a goldfinch would be super cool, and here I got two of the three primary colors (though the cardinal rather steals the show, and you may have to look twice to see the smaller, less vivid, less-in-focus bunting).

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  53. Miss Bosley had a few times of making contact with toilet paper, but nothing like the cats in the video. And once son, when very young, unwound it all the way down the stairs from the upstairs bathroom.

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  56. I found the type of conversations that Mumsee is talking about in Bible Study Fellowship. Also, when I was home this summer, our pastors were preaching on the minor prophets and also passed out a devotional to go with the message each week. Discussing that was an option. Also the sermons are available to download.

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