67 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-11-17”

  1. Good morning. It’s Ann. I can’t remember my password–and somehow got logged out on my phone…..We recently changed our internet provider and my computer isn’t hooked up to the new wifi yet.
    I’m terribly behind on all the threads–but would like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes. Sorry for being a stranger.

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  3. Good morning Ann. You weren’t here when I started typing.
    I can’t figure out what that is. It’s obviously a palmetto tree (I would say if that were in SC). But maybe not. It’s raining in California. .

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  5. The view across the street from my house (looking east, toward the unseen harbor about a mile away and down the hill), taken early one foggy, misty morning in between rains.

    The lot is apparently not build-able but the owners keep trying to sell it off anyway. A deep ravine (one of many that cut through our town from the hillsides toward the waterfront below) slices across the property and by law cannot be “filled in.”

    The coyotes hung out over there last year (and I suspect they’ll be back this year, returning to the dens in the ravine come spring when pup season arrives) and some young people who live next door use the property for their remote cars. One guy created quite an elaborate dirt-road course a few months ago but with all the rain and overgrowth it’s seemingly vanished for now.

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  8. Well, the taxes are done. It was painful, but not as painful as I thought it would be. No home office deduction because there is a bed in the room I use for an office. Mr. P was disappointed. He thought for sure we would get money back with all of his medical deductions—there were a LOT. Poor man. He was used to being a single dad with two boys on military pay. He always got money back until me.
    Last night I went to see a local production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It was very well done. Mr. P wasn’t able to go. I had received a gift card last week and used it yesterday for him to have a massage. The massage therapist is fantastic and her husband is a physical therapist who used to work with the doctor installed the neuro stimulator in Mr. P’s back, so I was more at ease that she wouldn’t do damage. He was sore from the massage last night and begged off on going. It is a testament to how much I have changed. In my first marriage, the husband would have gone and made me so miserable I would have had us leave at intermission or I wouldn’t have gone at all and fumed because I wanted to. This time, the husband said go, so I did. I called him when I got to the theater (it is in the city next door ) and I called him when I was headed home. And that was that.

    I missed the discussion on pumping gas. I only know of one full service gas station. They charge more to pump it for you. They also sell 100% gasoline so I try to fill up there every now and again. I despise pumping gas so I try to fill all the way up when I do stop for gas. Mr. P used to go fill my truck up on Sunday afternoons when we were dating. That was sweet and lured me in. Now he doesn’t. Does this upset me? Nah, not really.
    I promise you that life has rubbed away and smoothed out the rough edges. There is only one disfunctional relationship left in my life and only one person left on earth who can make me lose my temper and throw things.

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  9. Donna- Wait, your house is West of the harbor? You must be on some kind of peninsula then.

    That lot looks a good place to put a small ramada (picnic shelter for those of you not from out West) for a private picnic ground.

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  10. good point Peter. This also shows how you can read something you were expecting into the actual statement. I didn’t catch that; but should have.
    So!. What about that Donna? You can’t be looking east toward the ocean unless you are in Charleston.

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  11. Yes, we’re on a peninsula (Palos Verdes Peninsula), surrounded on 3 sides by water with lots of hillsides. Much of it was once underwater and whale and other fossils are still being found in the hillside crevices and ravines.

    It was easy to get turned around when I first started working in this community as my natural orientation is that the ocean/water is always to the west of me. Here, we have a long south-facing beach with ocean cliffs, curving around to the west-facing beaches. It’s a beautiful drive to go around the water sides of the peninsula (as opposed to heading out by freeway) to get to somewhere fairly local and to the north — I sometimes do that if I have the time.

    To the east of us is the man-made LA harbor, carved out & extended from the natural (San Pedro) bay that was there.

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  14. Home. 🙂

    What? You guys aren’t used to water on three sides? 🙂

    A friend grew up on O’ahu (her mother, btw, was in labor with her sister on the north shore on December 6, 1941) and when she went to college in Michigan, could never figure out a direction. She only knew “makai” and “mauku” (to the sea, to the mountains).

    I could have learned the same thing, but my father had a degree in geography. His children (and mine) learned their directions and how to read maps at a very early age.

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  15. Amigos busy putting up hardware in the bathroom. I’ll have to opt for a free-standing pedestal toilet paper holder in there, there’s just no comfortable position for a wall holder. It really is a ridiculously small bathroom. 😦

    But at least now I have some towel hooks.

    Tess was in there with them at one point. She matches as well as Annie does in there.

    Now they’re trying to get the hand shower hooked up.

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  16. Pedestal toilet paper roller works very well–particularly if you get one that allows you to store other rolls on the standing bar. We keep ours UNDER the sink to avoid splashing (from the sink) which may also be true of your tiny bath.

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  17. I bought one for the spare bathroom and it’s worked well in there (where there’s the same space crunch, even more so).

    One of the workers suggested installing the wall unit on the back of the bathroom door ! Nooo, don’t think so, but he got an A for trying to think outside the box.

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  18. Towel hooks look big but once they have towels on them it won’t matter. 🙂 That’s also probably one of the easier things to swap out down the line should I find ones I like better. (I like these a lot, very traditional 2-hook coat hook style, black/bronze, they just appear big on the beadboard now that they’re installed).

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  19. QOD: How many sentences belong in a paragraph and how many paragraphs are ideal–to read–on a normal sized page in a book?

    This is your opinion, of course. I have my own. 🙂

    “It depends,” is only acceptable for half credit.

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  20. QoD. It isn’t the length of the paragraph that’s important so much as the length of the sentence. But specifically, a paragraph can’t be too short if it covers the subject. “But it can be too long. Short, concise paragraphs are best.

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  21. 1 sentence = 1 paragraph.

    Weird journalism rule that took me forever to get used to (having gone from being an English major with proper paragraph structures to a ‘J’ major where everything seemed to be thrown out the window).

    Next job at the house will be to take down the plaster ceiling in my bedroom (before it falls down and mars me for life, at least psychologically speaking and maybe even physically). Guy here today will do it in a day but prep work for me will include hauling a few things out of there (everything except the biggest furniture, the bed & dresser).

    What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

    Just when I think I’m back on track for finishing my house “list” something else goes haywire or is discovered. The ceiling is falling at a fairly alarming pace in some corners so I really do need to take care of that next I suppose.

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  24. On the question of paragraphs, let me know when you get a good answer. I’m trying to write a paper and I’m wondering if some of the paragraphs need to be lengthened. We were given very specific directions for the content of this paper, but we were also given a length limit and told to be very concise. I’m wondering just how concise I can be.

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  26. About sixty years ago, they taught that a sentence had to have a subject, a predicate, and had to contain a verb.. (Does “had to have” suffice as a verb?)

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  27. Donna, my parents’ kitchen plaster ceiling fell down back in the ’60’s. It was a new home and the whole thing just came down. Dad told me they were so very thankful that we weren’t home as there could have been serious injuries to my sister and me (I was probably 2ish).

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  28. Hi, Ann. Nice to see you again.

    Michelle (and Roscuro), somewhere along the line I heard of a homeschooling resource called something like The 7-Sentence Paragraph. I googled that just now, and clicked on an interesting link at the top of the first page containing information similar to what I learned in school. A little bit is pretty basic, sounding at times like it’s directed to kids, but a lot of the information, I think, is quite useful. There are also links at the top of the page to take you to Lessons 2, 3 and 4 on basic paragraph structure.

    http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/fwalters/para.html

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  29. In a novels I have seen paragraphs that take up a whole page, especially in classic literature. Or there are those that are short, like a quote from a character that is a word or two long. However, in formal essays, I believe the rule is three to five sentences minimum.

    As for Chas’ definition of a sentence, I disagree. No predicate is needed for a sentence, just the subject and verb. Example: “Jesus wept.” That is a complete sentence.

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  30. My issue is, I’ve read several books recently in which there is only one or two paragraphs on a page.

    That makes it hard for me, personally, to read–it just looks like letters blurring together. I have to slow down and pay close attention and sometimes lose track of which line I’m on.

    I generally use 3-5 sentences per paragraph and how many paragraphs that makes for a page. It’s what my internal rhythm dictates.

    Writing blog posts for the last eight years means I often use one sentence paragraph. In my edits, my editor who knows me well, often puts several of those short paragraphs together for a long one.

    One of the books I read, btw, had so many sentences 3-4 lines long, that they would have made fine paragraphs. The sentences, however, were so convoluted, I had to read them several times to understand just what the author meant (she was a professional copyeditor).

    I never would have been able to diagram them!

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  31. Michelle, I once edited a woman (several-time-author, including one I edited that has sold several hundred thousand copies) who was writing to teenagers and just about every paragraph in the whole book was one sentence long. Many of her sentence/paragraphs were a single word.
    It
    was
    annoying.

    I spent an awful lot of time pulling sentences together into short paragraphs and hoped she wouldn’t throw a hissy fit when she saw proofs. But it was distracting, and it really felt like she was talking down to her readers:

    You’re only twelve.

    Maybe thirteen.

    You can only understand a few words at a time.

    I understand.

    I care.

    I’ll keep everything easy for you.

    OK?

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  32. Another time, I was given a book to edit that had already been published by a different publisher. Normally those are a fairly straightforward task: You find a few typos, a few places where an example is dated (a mention of a Datsun, for example) or maybe a place where this publisher doesn’t have the same theology as that one, or a different style.

    I was shocked to find one paragraph a page and a half long, which I subdivided into 11. Why? In the first place, it told two whole stories in that one paragraph–and both of those stories had dialogue (each new speaker should, in most cases, have a new paragraph).

    My answer to paragraph length is that it should ideally vary a bit. A one-sentence paragraph can be very strong if it is the only one in the chapter and there’s a good reason for it. Occasionally a paragraph might be most of a page–but generally it can be broken before that. Sentence length and format should vary too; they get boring quickly if every sentence has the same structure and approximate length. Variety helps readers.

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  33. I am reading two books right now, one for myself (non-fiction) and one out loud with the kids (also non-fiction, but told in story-form — about the sinking of the Lusitania.) Both books have about three and a half to four paragraphs on many of the pages, but paragraph length varies, and the book I’m reading for myself has the occasional one-sentence paragraph, which stands out and adds to the interest and variety in reading, as Cheryl points out.

    That author did use two consecutive one-sentence paragraphs in one place, though, and the refreshing effect of a single-sentence paragraph was pretty well lost doing that. Especially since the first sentence was so short, it didn’t go into a second line of type. So there were two consecutive lines of print that were indented, and it looked strange on the page.

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  36. Snow!!! Good Morning ya’ll….rise and shine for this is the day our Lord hath made!! Hoping we can make it up the road to church…not certain of the road conditions yet….
    And this is the day we celebrate His beautiful creation of Kare!! Happy Birthday Kare!! ❤

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  37. I’ve been trying to improve my writing lately, as my sentences tend to get either convoluted or too casual. I need a happy medium. I’ve been writing manuals and documentation for software, so formal, short and simple is better—well, it’s not just better, it’s essential.

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  39. Husband is busily preparing his share of the Valentine’s banquet meal. He signed up late so is bring coleslaw, rhubarb pie, and brownies or cake or some such. Women are not allowed to help. This woman won’t be going with two sick children.

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  40. Happy Birthday to Kare.

    The weather was wild this morning, with sleet and then snow, but there was a fair turnout to church. I love my city church. People kept coming and asking me how I was doing, as I had to be absent last week. This unusual fatigue with the influenza has been experienced by more than just me. The sermon this morning was on Ephesians 4:7-10, as they go through the book of Ephesians. I couldn’t stand and sing, since I had neither the strength or much of a voice, but just sitting and listening to the preaching was like cold water on a hot day.

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  42. Today is my turn to be home sick from church. The three in my household have all been to church at the same time just once since mid-December (well, we were all together on Christmas, but that was at my in-laws’ church and not our own). I’m as sick as I’ve been since our honeymoon, when we both had bronchitis. Well, I’m better today than the last couple of days, but still definitely sick.

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  47. I saw Kate’s birthday on Facebook.

    I was too tired from working so much to go to church, so why am I at the office now? Saturdays are like being in thick dark swamp water that is a bit stagnant (trying to train my brother while being overwhelmed myself). Today is quiet except the cleaning lady was in making moise with the vacuum cleaner. I have been trying to clear out all the leftover work from yesterday.

    It is in the seventies here today. I am too warm even though I have on lightweight clothing. A tulip magnolia across the way is already dropping its petals. Our Birthday Tree has been holding out and trying not to bloom before Art’s birthday. I don’t think it will be possible with the weather like it continues to be. At least Miss Bosley can see it during the daylight hours.

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  49. I’m not a follower of T.D. Jakes, but I know some people who do like him a lot. I’ve heard him referred to as a false teacher because he teaches that Father, Son, & Holy Spirit are “manifestations” of the one God. After reading another “false teacher” reference to him, & wondering about what he teaches, I went to his website & found his statement of faith. (Part of which is copied below.)

    I see that he does use that word – “manifestations” – but other than that, it seems his descriptions of each one seem to indicate that they are three-in-one. Could it be he is using “manifestations” as another word for “persons”, or do you think that one word makes a big difference? Except for that one word, the rest of this statement of faith seems to be pretty orthodox.

    (Note: Since I don’t follow him, I don’t know if his preaching strays from this statement.)

    “God
    There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    Jesus Christ
    Jesus Christ is true God and true man, having been conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He died on the cross, the complete and final sacrifice for our sins according to the Scriptures. Further, He arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of the Majesty on High, He is now our High Priest and Advocate.

    The Holy Spirit
    The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and during this age, to convict men of sin, regenerate the believing sinner, indwell, guide, instruct, and empower the believer for godly living and service. Man – Man was created in the image of God but fell into sin and is therefore lost, and only through regeneration by the Holy Spirit can salvation and spiritual life be obtained.

    Salvation
    The shed blood of Jesus Christ and His resurrection provide the only ground for justification and salvation for all who believe, and only such as receive Jesus Christ by faith are born of the Holy Spirit and thus become children of God.”

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  50. Thank you for the birthday wishes. I got to hold a very sweet baby again today and noted that very small country churches produce more hand-made gifts for the baby. A beautiful blanket and a cute little sweater.

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  51. Happy Birthday Kare/Kate! 🙂

    Excellent sermon this morning and I’ve ben working the rest of the day on trying to get the spare room ready for me to temporarily “move into” if needed. So all the Christmas stuff is out (almost) and I bought some new bedding since what was on there was ancient and not in good shape.

    It’s a twin bed so finding bedding to it was especially tricky, especially if I wanted something grown-up 🙂 . I passed up the dinosaur and Mickey Mouse prints and finally found some sheets that were probably geared toward dorm rooms.

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  52. I got Carol to the library late yesterday, Hollywood was very crowded probably because we were out around the early dinner time + the Grammy’s probably accounted for the extra traffic. I couldn’t find a parking space anywhere near the library so had to get Carol unloaded in a red zone with my flashers on and then cruise around until she was ready to be picked up.

    Since she was missing the regular dinner hour at the facility I went ahead and bought her a fast food meal to take back with her, but had to keep reminding her to watch how much it was going to cost. She has a voracious appetite (which the doctor told her was why she was feeling so ill all the time; she’s had so many intestinal surgeries that she doesn’t digest food normally and is supposed to be eating small meals several times a day, not humongous meals).

    But she was in a very good mood, maybe better meds 🙂 – she read every food sign we passed on our drive through the Hollywood neighborhoods.

    No complaining, which was a relief.

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  53. Anyway, kept her meal to a little over $10 — it would have been much higher had she ordered everything she had her eye on 🙂

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  54. Funny spell check “correction” on a text I sent a friend — I told herI hauled out the Christmas stud from the spare room (instead of stuff).

    She was impressed!

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  57. The plaster is falling off my (real) bedroom ceiling, will have to get amigo in to demo and replace the entire ceiling in there with drywall.

    The joys of owning an old house.

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  60. I’ve had it patched before, but not in a number of years. Guy at that time said drywall replacement would be the permanent fix and now it looks like it’s outlived its patch ability, cracks appearing/growing now and two fallen areas on either side of the ceiling.

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  63. But what it also has going for it is that it keeps the rain & snow out, keeps us mostly warm, keeps us safe, & is filled with lots of love. And my bedroom is purple, which I like.

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  65. That probably isn’t within Sherwin Williams’ historic early 1920s Craftsman color palettes I’ll be looking at when it comes time to paint my house, but it sounds like fun.

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  66. Most of my childhood, my house was lavender. (Before that it was pink, and after that it was some sort of beige.) The color was used a bit for houses in Phoenix when we first had it that color, but long before we changed its color we virtually never saw another. Children made fun of our purple house. Mom would bristle–“It isn’t purple, it’s lavender!”–but I understand why the finer distinctions of shades might have been lost on 11-year-olds.

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