113 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-5-16”

  2. Good morning, friends! It’s pouring here–has been for three days… I heard on the news last night that some parts south of us (we’re in a ‘burb north of Houston) got 13″ Saturday.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Well Chas, I think you might qualify for one of them. Kim says they were collected for veterans. 🙂

    She can fill you in on more details when she shows up.

    Liked by 4 people

  4. We had our first snow of the season this morning. Had to clean off the car, the yard is covered, but it didn’t stick to the roads and sidewalks.

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  5. Re: Tolliver Smith who was born yesterday. I asked and there is more than one Tolliver in the world. JK said she wanted an unusual name because his last name is Smith.
    See? Jenn has this problem. She was almost unique in that hat name was Jennifer Shull, But she married a guy named Jeremy Smith.
    Jenn is a high school librarian. When they announce for Jennifer Smith, Jenn say about a dozen people answer. So, she goes by her maiden name at work.
    I once thought that I had a unique middle name, which is “Walter”. Later I realized that this is the name of all the guys who go by “Walt”.
    They expect Tolliver will get “Tolly” much as Oliver gets “Olly”. (e.g. Ollie North).

    You may wonder that I don’t hesitate to use names on a public blog when so many try to hide their identity.
    Elvera always tairs up her address before throwing envelopes into the trash. I tell her that anyone who wants her address already has it.
    The names of the people I just mentioned are out there on facebook and twitter. And almost any other social medial. Becky even has a blog with pictures.
    I just googled my name for a test. There were so many Charles Shull’s out there that I couldn’t find me. Evidently, I’m not unique.
    The shocking thing was that the third entry was a Charles W. Shull obituary. 😆

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  8. The photo shows about half the gifts that one location office of my company collected for the William F. Green Veterans Home. While I love being associated with such a company I do feel disconnected from it. My veteran had been in the Air Force. He received an Air Force sweat shirt and some other things.

    Now I must go face my day. It is already proving to be a Monday.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. I salute your granddaughter, Chas. As a genealogist, the wonderful Smith name has ended many discussions and line tracings. 😦

    My husband and I both have John Smiths in our lines. His wed a woman named Mary during the Civil War era. End.

    I’m actually related to John Smith’s brother George–who came over several years after his brother founded Jamestown. The big name in that line is Francis–which is the only reason I could trace them.

    I could get away with relatively common names because my husband’s last name is so unusual. Perfect for the crossword puzzle, so someone in this family really should become famous. 🙂

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  10. Oh, Kim, I was afraid of that. It’s Monday.

    Looks like a good haul for gifts. 🙂

    I have to get Tess back up to the vet early for her re-check on the ear — which looks good and basically is all healed up, but I still se the little polyp that i think irritated her initially so we’ll see what the vet thinks that is and whether anything has to be done.

    I had some vivid dreams last night, including one in which I was moving to Boston, one about our old family GP (my cousin was in that one), a couple of driving and picture-taking dreams, a shaggy dog dream (my old dog Ellie again), dreams with people from work, an irritating dream in which I was in a long line for a buffet and when I got to the food I found I had no plate (everyone else had picked theirs up way back there somewhere, I just missed it). So back I had to go to get a plate and then wait in line again …

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  13. I have learned long ago not to associate dreams with reality. I realize that sometimes God speaks through dreams. But I’m sure he doesn’t leave any doubt when that happens

    Elvera is out sweeping leaves off the deck. I have a leaf blower that could handle that in five minutes. It will take her almost an hour.
    But she needs to help. She is sweeping the deck while I clean the kitchen floor.
    Did I tell you never to get a tile that “doesn’t show dirt”?
    Also, avoid pin oak trees. They grow to be HUGE and they are trouble. Worse than pine.

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  16. Re names: when I was in about fifth grade, for some reason I forget the teacher had us look up our family name in the phone book and count the number of entries. Maybe it was so as a class we could see the relative rarity or commonness of our various last names, I don’t know. In the Phoenix phone book, there were about five of my name, and two or more times as many of a more common variation that is actually a change from my family name. (Mine is the original, in other words, but somehow harder for Americans to deal with, so usually the name gets changed at some point along the way.)

    We had one girl in our class with the last name of Smith. Our teacher took pity on her and told her she didn’t need to count the entries, just the number of pages (columns?). She counted the names, though–she probably thought it would be interesting to do so.

    I actually haven’t known very many Smiths in my life, though–she’s about the only one I can think of, and I didn’t know her well and don’t remember her first name, just that story. And there was one family named Smith in my Chicago church.

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  17. Advent – Day 5: The last couple of pieces I’ve posted have been with full orchestra and chorus. This Hungarian carol has a much simpler performance, but there is joy on the faces of the small singers. A translation:
    Christ, Christ, little baby,
    Tiny prince from Bethlehem,
    Who was born for us,
    Who saved us from Hell.

    On Christmas night,
    On the day of the birth of Jesus
    Rejoice and celebrate
    The birth of Lord Jesus

    The little Jesus is a golden apple,
    Whose mother is the Blessed Virgin.
    She rocks him with her legs
    And takes care of him with her hands.

    Sleep, sleep my salvation,
    A star is coming on the shiny sky,
    The wise men are coming along
    Waiting for your blessing.

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  18. My last name is quite a common one, and I have googled my name only to find nothing on myself, which I am quite happy about. My father’s family knows their lineage back about 250 years, so we don’t get mixed up with other families of the same name. My mother’s maiden name on the other hand, is extremely rare in North America, so that most of the other people with that surname on this continent are relatives.

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  20. My married last name isn’t very common–first family I’ve known by that name–but it was changed to its current form three or four generations back from a longer but more common name. Previously it was the same name as that of a really famous movie star (who also uses a different name, but just not the same as ours). There’s family speculation as to the reason two out of three brothers changed their last name upon coming to America, but the ancestor who could confirm or deny the rumors chose not to do so, and so they remain rumors.

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  22. Mumsee, I think you have the Jewish spelling of your last name.

    Try being named Kim. There are about a gazillion of us born between 1955 and 1975. Then add a common color as your last name. For years on computerized tests I was Bla Kim. A real ego boost. 😉

    From there I went to two last names that no one can spell.

    Liked by 3 people

  23. I have had friends I’ve known for years who couldn’t find me in the phone directory.
    They were looking for “Schull” (That’s how you pronounce it.)

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  24. My mother’s rare surname in North America is fairly common in England, which makes it hard to trace the family ancestry past the great grandfather who came to North America. I guess not a lot of that name decided to make the journey. Immigration is one way family backgrounds become lost. My father can trace his lineage back 250 years because that is when his ancestors came to Canada. Past that, we know only a general outline of what probably happened, based on a family saying and some knowledge of history.

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  26. I carried the last name of Smith until I married. I was happy to get a less common last name, but that is not the only reason to get married, LOL.

    I was just at Marshall’s and saw a lady I recognized from homeschooling way back. She had three children. Unfortunately her son died in an auto accident after he got his Industrial Engineering degree from Georgia Tech. He and my son must have been in homeschool classes together. Her other two have gotten advanced degrees, and one is a nurse. She said she did not homeschool high school, but sent them to private Catholic school. It was nice to run into her, but sad to hear about her son.

    Karen called all upset this morning about the state of the world. I told her that the liberals I know all have a utopian view and that things won’t be right until we have a new heaven and earth. She feels guilty for not doing her part. We talk and she gets calmed down.

    It continues to rain here. I have to go take care of car maintenance in a few minutes. I still have not signed up for health insurance. The online signup got into a loop on Saturday. I hope to get back on that dastardly chore later.

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  27. There is at least one other person who has my same current name (not counting the deceased movie star), and she lives only about 20 minutes away from me, I just learned last week. I haven’t met her, but have gotten two phone calls and one piece of mail intended for her. A sales clerk when I was checking out last week pointed out that this lady with the same name lives in her neighborhood, near that store. She wondered if we were related, but my husband doesn’t have any relatives living that close to us, that we know of. Maybe the lady’s husband is some distant relative, though; who knows.

    We have a family in our church with the last name Smith. His name is Roosevelt, which helps with putting a less common first name with a popular last name. His wife’s name is Lori, though, so I imagine there are a lot of people with that name. I went to grade school with her, and she had an uncommon name then. Not so much now. 🙂

    Two brothers in our church married women named Amy, so there are two Amy _______s in that family.

    My mom’s maiden name shows Polish descent, and one of her brothers changed his name because he believed that he would be hindered in getting a certain job he wanted in his early adult years because of the Polish name. So now he has a new first name, his middle name is his former first name, and his last name is a one-syllable name that is commonly used as a man’s first name.

    That could complicate searching one’s ancestry, it seems to me, if one doesn’t know that two full-blooded brothers have different last names.

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  28. The same guy who told me that the odd names were the easiest to trace also told me that his wife’s worse fear when she started tracing her ancestors was that she would find a Union Soldier. 🙂 We may have a pirate, on Hubby’s side.

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  31. I moved down the alphabet. It wasn’t fun having a last name starting with A when I was in grade school. Every time something was done alphabetically by last name, I had to go first, and I wanted to see how others would do whatever we were supposed to do. I wasn’t confident I was able to follow the directions given for something new to do.

    When I got to high school, I went from a class of 20-something to one of 500-something, and was relieved that there were people with last names starting with Aa and Ae and other second letters that preceded mine. 😉

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  32. KBells, when I was teaching school, one class had two Jennifers. One went by Jennifer, and one by Jenny.

    Before we started homeschooling, my older son had two boys in his class that were named Nathaniel. One went by that, the other by Nate. My son, though having no one with his name in his class, was always called by his actual name at school, even though everyone in our family has called him by a shortened version of the name since almost from the start.

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  33. I had a chemistry class in high school, and of the seven people in the class, three were girls and we all had the same first name!

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  34. Well, kind of related. We were discussing here — some time back — how to pronounce coyote. Here’s what one author says:

    Pronounced Ki-yoh-tay, emphasis on yoh, by friends, and Ki-yote by its detractors,

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  35. My husband’s father lost his mother when he was a teenager, and his father remarried. Both wives had the same first name and middle initial (possibly the same middle name). So my husband’s grandfather is buried between two women who have the same name. The first bore his children; the second, like me, married a widower with children when she was a 40-something “old maid.”

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  36. DJ, so is Wile E. Coyote names thus to show himself a friendly canine? I doubt it. 🙂

    Growing up, I figured that the people who said Ki-oh-tee said it because of Bugs Bunny, since it seemed that other than Bugs, people said it with two syllables. No idea whether there’s any truth to that.

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  37. KBells, I thought of you over the weekend. Just before the concert I attended/played in Saturday night got started, I heard the people behind me discussing college football. Alabama got mentioned. 🙂 I wanted to turn around and say, Roll Tide! 😀

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  38. I say ki yote. I do not consider them friends or enemies, they are just wild animals. If one decides to be my enemy, I will still call it a ki yote but it will probably turn into a ki yote fur. If they continue to leave my stuff alone and not intimidate my children, I will still call them ki yotes.

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  42. I just checked in to the Banff Springs Hotel for a Christian Camping International conference. Wow! Gorgeous hotel – and huge!!!

    They even provided a dog bed and dog bowls and treats for Keva! Going to be very pampered at this conference.

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  43. I see a potpourri of subjects.

    Cheryl mentioned phone book listings. For most of my growing up years we were the only family with our last name in the Tucson phone book. When I moved to Missouri, I was the only one in the area code with the last name until my brothers moved here. However, if you open the NYC or Chicago phone books, there are pages of my last name. It is only common in Puerto Rico and Southern Louisiana among the Cajuns. But their version is French instead of Spanish.

    My wife had a college roommate named Mary Smith. When she told people her name, especially guys who asked her out, they would not believe her until she showed her ID.

    And lots of immigrants with non-English last names had their names changed when wrriving in the US, either by choice or because an American immigration clerk couldn’t figure out how to spell a name from a Eastern European country when the immigrant didn’t know English. Thus a person named Przbylski (an actual name of a professor where I went to college) became Pribilsky or Smith. Oh, that name is pronounced [pri-BIL-skee]. The first vowels are pronounced as a short i.

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  44. Peter, I went to high school with a girl whose last name was Pryzbylski, and she pronounced it “Sha-BIL-skee.”

    Kare, enjoy the conference. 🙂

    Speaking of a potpourri of subjects, here’s another:

    What’s the best way to get rid of shampoo buildup on one’s hair? I switched to a different brand of shampoo a while back, and I’ve liked it, but now, with the bottle almost all used up, I’ve noticed the last two or three times I’ve shampooed my hair, there’s buildup that’s hard to remove. I’ll probably go back to the brand I was using before — Shikai — but am wondering if there’s something I should use first to get rid of the current buildup?

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  46. I have known 4 John Smiths. Two related–3 living in the same town in Indiana.
    My husband’s last name is unique, so we both come up on the first page when our names are googled.

    Mother’s and father’s families are Welsh decent on both sides I’m told. I have a cousin (Dad’s side) who has been into genealogy research for over 20 years. She has placed our great, great (forget how many greats)…..grandfather in the region of what is now Jacksboro TN in 1776. She went to Wales about 10 years ago and visited the place the family is from originally. Three cousins joined DAR. I have a whole notebook on this stuff in a closet somewhere.

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  47. ….and of course, the obligatory Cherokee must be mentioned. Almost everyone around here has some. Dad’s mom was said to be 1/2 or 1/4, but cousin’s research says less. Oh well, I guess I won’t be joining the tribe anytime soon.

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  48. But now you can’t have your casino share!

    For unknown reasons, mil’s last name back there somewhere was Silvernail. No idea why. Or from where. I gather it is a translation of the original but nobody seems to know.

    Liked by 1 person

  49. I notice that the scientists and researchers and biologists pronounce it KY-ote. No-nonsense.

    Coyote advocates say Ky-O-teeee

    New house area of study for me — best hardwoods to use in repairing window trim. Problem is, hardwoods we have today are much softer (and more prone to rot and deterioration) than of yesteryear — which is why wood is basically just not being used anymore for outside trims.

    Reading about something called thermally modified wood. …

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  51. As mentioned before, some of my children refer to them as ki oh tay’s. I just figured it was a reference to those people who assist folk across the border and abandon them in the desert. Not a very positive reference.

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  58. My freshman year at college two men had the same name, Steve Scott. I forget whether it was Stephen or Steven, but it was the same for both. Actually, it was beyond my freshman year, too, because starting my sophomore year I was working on yearbook and it was a royal pain trying to index them. They had different middle initials, but we had to go through the yearbook and figure out which initial each photo belonged to. I was glad they had different middle initials/names or it would have been really pesky! But then, we also had two people (a student and a professor) who were Claudia Z., and that isn’t at all a common combination, though the names themselves were different.

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  64. Regarding the pronunciation of the word ‘coyote’, since it is based on a Spanish mispronunciation of a Native American word, maybe we should ask them how to pronounce it. The answer will, of course, vary widely according to the language of each tribe. The special guest speaker at a recent lecture was from one of the First Nations tribes that live in Canada, and she had occasion to mention the coyote. Naturally, speaking to a group of people whose common tongue was English, she had to use the word that English speakers use to refer to the animal. She pronounced it “cay-OH-tee”. Since both ‘cay-OAT’ and ‘cay-OH-tee’ are used interchangeably around here, sometimes by the same person (such as myself), the allegations by the ‘cay-OH-tee’ enthusiasts seem ridiculous.

    Liked by 2 people

  70. brothers, smrothers….
    And you know exactly what we are talking about and are being deliberately obtuse. None of that, now.

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  73. “I got 57 fair and square.”

    Yeah, right up until I delete some. 🙂

    ———————————–

    You should listen to Chas. He’s a smart guy who gets it. He explained all this yesterday.

    Debra wanted to know how I got 100 when her page only showed 92.

    Chas told her if AJ says it’s 100, it’s 100.

    See, he gets it.

    You need to get with the program. 🙂

    Liked by 5 people

  78. Lovely tree Kim….somehow I knew it was yours!! 🙂
    Smith…people look at you when you tell them that is your last name and say “sure it is”!! 😛
    Got lots of shopping accomplished today…a couple more on line gifts to send and I’m done!

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  81. I lost a story today by fixing the problem I was going to write about. (Gas Co. wasn’t going to turn gas on in a newly leased house for 3 weeks, leaving the elderly couple who’d just moved in without heat or hot water or the ability to cook … )

    Seems after my inquiry the gas company called them and it’ll probably now be fixed. But now I have no story. 🙂 Still, nice outcome.

    Liked by 5 people

  83. DJ, you did exactly what bringing it to the media’s attention is supposed to do . . . just without the need to write the story. 🙂 Now, can you turn it into “Journalistic attention fixes power company slowness”?

    Liked by 1 person

  87. Apple cider vinegar — now I remember. I’ve heard of that before, and have some expired in my cabinet. It will go on my hair tomorrow.

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  91. From dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/coyote?s=t) on coyote: Derivation- 1825-35; earlier cuiota, cayota < Mexican Spanish coyote < Nahuatl coyōtl. Nahuatl is the ancient language of the Aztecs, still spoken by many in Mexico. I believe the first 'o' in coyotl is blended with the ‘y’ to make a sound like [cahyee] and the second one is the long ‘o’ of English without the ‘oo’ blend sound (yes, most English long vowels are dipthongs, so our ‘o’ is pronounced like the word ‘owe’). So, if my limited linguistic knowledge is correct, the Nahuatl word is pronounced [cahyee-OH-tle].

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  103. Kim has very good taste.

    I may have to throw a couple bulbs on the former family’s Christmas tree in the backyard for my decorations this year.

    My neighbors took advantage of the holiday decor sales and got a full-standing Santa, now on their garage roof, with a sleigh & packages inside. It’s pretty awesome, you can see it from a couple blocks away as you turn down our street. 🙂

    Yeah, nice to know that hopefully an older couple will at least have some heat in the next couple days (rather than having to wait into mid-month for service).

    So I’m trying to brainstorm on holiday stories, which seem kind of old to us but are always hits with the readers.

    Liked by 3 people

  106. Did I post this earlier? I can’t remember. But the vet said Tess’ ear looked good, though she’s keeping her on the antibiotics for another few days. And she wants to see her back in another week, the polyp/bump/mass is still on the outside of her ear — but greatly reduced in size — and vet wants to see if it’s going to go away on its own or, if not, they may want to test it. 😦 Hopefully nothing …

    She weighed a perfect 43.3 pounds today, almost ideal for her (no change, though she kind of blew up many years ago but since then I’ve been super careful with their feedings & treats).

    Annie Oakley, the cat, meanwhile, has found a new favorite spot — lying on top of the heater vent in the kitchen. Nice and warm on these winter nights.

    Liked by 3 people

  109. Regarding the Smith posts, Miller is about the same. Kingston used to be my name and they were few and far between. So I gave that name to my son for his middle name.

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