79 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-1-17”

  1. It’s Monday May 1
    That’s what my phone says and it wouldn’t lie to me.
    So?
    Up and at ’em everybody but Jo. Monday’s over for her.

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  4. Yup, Monday is almost over. It was a good day, but the teacher’s were all talking about how wild the children are. Is it the full moon? Seems they have the excitement of the end of the year and we have weeks left. At least it wasn’t just one class, we were all dealing with the same thing. Pray that they will settle down.

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  6. Good morning from Atlanta. Miss Bosley is glad to be kneading on me at the moment. At least she makes gluten free.

    Over the weekend I learned a new to me game, Rummicube (sp?). It was a fun game, and we hope to get together more to play it. I have missed having someone to play games with. Son was always my game playing buddy.

    I am interested to hear about Kim’s header. Nice picture!

    I hear a dove cooing outside. It is a sound I adore. I wonder if the dove that landed on Jesus cooed after God said He was proud of His son.

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  8. No, maybe there is something in the water that makes the children wild?

    One of the many ideas I learned about in the WMU Women’s Spring Event is that the older ladies can find out if there are younger ladies in the church who desire to be mentored, and then if there are favorable responses, ladies can be matched up. Has anyone done this? I think the ladies in my group are perhaps too senior for this type activity unless it just involved sharing a meal and having conversation.

    One of the breakout sessions I attended covered the refugee outreach by a church in Clarkston. That refugee area is not very far from my church and my home, and my church does after school tutoring which I did a few times. The youth in my church do Sunday afternoon trips over to have outdoor recreational activities with the children in a refugee apartment community.

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  10. We play and enjoy Rummikub; it’s our go-to game when we are at the beach on vacation.
    Yankees, blah, blah, blah. Yesterday’s was a crazy game, though, don’t you think?

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  11. I’m spending the day with my youngest Adorable while we await her mother’s return from the Adorables’ great-grandmother’s funeral.

    I’ve been saving up fun errands we’ll run after walking Adorable #3 to kindergarten. My goal is to keep #5 off a screen all day: Home Depot, library (open on Mondays starting today for the first time in 5 years! Celebrate with us!), a nursery, car wash, cooking, planting, walking back to kindergarten, Garden Club at school and book reading.

    I hope I remember how to do this! Lol

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  12. I always tell you I live in the Sunny South, but yesterday wasn’t so sunny. The photo was taken from my kitchen door and the photo isn’t fuzzy. It was raining and the wind was blowing from the south. You can see that it is blowing the rain sideways. The rain was coming down so hard it was beating down the leaves on the trees.
    We were under a severe storm and flood watch until 3 am. I have been awake since about then because we get weather alerts on our phones.
    May 1st! Already?

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  13. This is a very un-Christian of me question.
    You all know that I am attending a Boundaries Sunday School class at the Baptist church. I have known several of the women 20+ years, but there is one who is driving me nuts!!!
    She is divorced what from sounds like an emotionally abusive man. He was very controlling and I imagine it has taken a lot of therapy for her to start being OK again.
    The problem is she speaks very loudly, whatever anyone else has to say she comments with “yes, yes, yes” over whatever it is they are saying. She interrupts or speaks over others. Yesterday I was trying to say something and she started talking, so I just said never mind and shut up.
    I have said something to A who is a practicing, licensed therapist about this in the past, noting that I thought others in the class had something to say and weren’t getting a chance. I am extremely careful not to dominate the conversation, because I know that I could and I have been in enough groups like this in the past to know that if I shut up I may learn something.
    Yesterday T arrived late and let her daughter R stay in the class with us. They were having a Daddy/Daughter Tea at the church and the Obnoxious woman asked for prayer for her 4 girls since there father isn’t in their lives nor available to come to the tea and how hard it is on them. Well, R’s father isn’t involved in her life either, so she raised her hand and asked everyone to pray for her daddy too.

    For those of you who have led groups like this or women’s Bible studies, how do you handle a person like this?
    As a member of a class, have you experienced this and how have you handled it?
    I find myself not wanting to be in the class.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. For your daily dose of humor( a small language warning)
    I just saw a television commercial that made me blush. The starved-looking swimsuit model on the screen wasn’t wearing enough to floss her teeth with. I don’t even know what the ad was selling—nor do I give a flannel.
    Look, I’m not complaining. God help me, I’m not.
    Yes I am.

    http://seandietrich.com/god-made-woman/

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Kim, I haven’t experienced that. I do know that different cultures do conversation differently–in my family, we could talk and listen at the same time, so someone would be talking, and the listener might say “I do that too!” as the person is talking, without it being considered interrupting.The honest truth is I never even noticed it till I was 20, my sister and I were sharing an apartment with a friend of ours, and one day the three of us were in the living room and our friend was gazing at us both in awe. During a break, she finally said, “How can you understand each other when you both talk at once? You both talk so fast I can hardly understand when just one of you talks!” And truly we were both talking, but it simply had never occurred to me we did so.

    My sister and I both have worked to slow down our speech (which is especially useful for her, as a confirmed southerner), and we’re unlikely to talk over other people (though I might say a quiet “yes” or “good!” but I won’t say it loudly or repeatedly). My thought is she probably hasn’t noticed her conversational patterns, and it would be a courtesy for someone to point them out. Perhaps you can talk to the teacher, and she can use the generic “Someone has complained about this” that leaves it a little less personal, or perhaps you can talk to her yourself. But do it with the “you probably haven’t even noticed you do this,” and if you want to use my example, feel free.

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  17. Kim, if you’re going to talk to her yourself (and even if you’re not), I would suggest praying for her daily in the meantime, and make sure you are really able to see her with eyes of compassion. She’s flailing, she’s struggling, she’s getting some things wrong–but she does need tenderness.

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  18. I will not talk to her myself. It has never turned out well when I have addressed issues similar to this with others. Someone more diplomatic needs to speak with her.

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  21. Really, just talk to the teacher. Praying for her is also a good answer but if you do you may be guided to becoming her friend. She obviously needs someone to listen to her.

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  24. I have met that woman Kim…or her clone! RuthAnne would take over the entire study talking only of herself…nothing would get accomplished with the Bible Study because she obviously needed to be in a therapy session. Yes we should cover her in prayer, asking that the Lord would heal and meet her needs as she is obviously very needy. However, the Bible Study should be just that…studying His word for the benefit for the entire group. Thankfully, the leader was frustrated and sought out guidance from someone who was wise. She took RuthAnne to lunch I think and had a heart to heart with her…RuthAnne didn’t continue the class but she did meet one on one with the leader…the Lord worked it all out….and knowing RuthAnne, she was known to be self absorbed never able to reach out to others nor listen…that was how I had always known her. I don’t know what ever happened to her but hopefully she is in a better place today…

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  25. I know I can’t because my main thought is “SHUT UP!!! and let someone else speak”.
    The other women are in the class because they need to learn boundaries too.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. I, confess, I am an interrupter. It is the only way one could get a word in edge-wise in my family and extended family. (Mostly one side of the family.) Being interrupted is not usually something I hate, unless I don’t get an opportunity to make my point sometime during the conversation. I have worked to not do it as often and will apologize when I do. I will also ask what the person was going to say, if it hasn’t been said yet.

    As a moderator or bible study leader, I would try to make sure everyone had a chance to speak. If someone was interrupted I would make a point of asking what the person was trying to say. It is up to the moderator to direct the conversation–whether that is keeping it on track and from rabbit trails or to include everyone who wishes to speak.

    It is difficult to keep someone from dominating. Diplomacy is not easy, but necessary. Remaining silent (and then holding a grudge) is probably not the best way to address it, but one I understand. Too often I have done that myself (and still will find tempting, no doubt.) 😦

    I hope the moderator will work at correcting this problem for everyone’s sake.

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  27. Thank you NancyJill for understanding the frustration.
    As I said earlier, I am extremely conscious about of not dominating the class myself because there is so much this brings to the surface for me too, but I understand that it brings a lot to the surface for the other women. Yesterday one lady was trying to tell about the meeting she had with a pastor who was trying to convince her to stay married to a man who had left her a year before she even considered divorce. In jumps “Judy” with her story and how she had to “get in the Word” and discern what God wanted her to do and how abusive her marriage was.
    Me? I just whine to all of you and you can choose to read it or not…hahahahahaha

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  28. Kim, it could be a compulsive behavior because her life is out of control, and this is one area and way she has of exerting control (although it is totally inappropriate). I think the leader needs to address it privately with her or have someone else in the church to address it if there is a counselor or director of women’s ministries. It needs to be someone who has experience with such things so it can be helpful instead of hurtful to the lady. Also, it may be possible that the leader could address the situation by saying something like, “Since our time is limited and we want each person to have an opportunity to speak their thoughts and be listened to without interruption, I ask that each member of the group not interrupt. Hold your tongue until the person finishes their thought. I have a jar designated as missions fund (etc.) for group members to contribute a quarter for each interruption that takes valuable time away from the speaker. Some people understandably lose their train of thought when interrupted. Each meeting that our collection jar remains empty I will put in a dollar.”

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  32. I want Kim’s backyard. And the weather, too, please. It’s baking hot working out in that driveway to sort through garage boxes with the sun beating down at 80 degrees.

    I’d agree, it’s up to the moderator. It’s hard to lead these sessions, as Janice points out. And while we hate “rules” in these settings, sometimes it’s the easiest and fairest way to keep things moving. Bible Study Fellowship is often criticized for its strict rules of discussion times, but it really does work well when everyone knows there are those ground rules and there has to be enough time to get through the lesson. Otherwise, groups would never get past the first question or two.

    These other discussion groups are a bit different, I understand, but there still needs to be ground rules so no one feels they can’t share or becomes resentful because someone dominates the time.

    Guess what I’m doing today? Yep. More garage (now driveway since everything’s hauled out there) sorting. I realized I became too focused yesterday on the many dishes I was finding, trying to figure out how I’d determine if something is worth something or not … when I went to bed last night, I decided the best and quickest way forward, for now, is to box them all in the clear containers with labels for stacking in the garage. They probably only will take up maybe 3-4 of the medium-sized containers so it’s not an overwhelming amount. I’ll take photos of some of the more interesting items and then I can research all of that — or maybe call a friend in town who does estate sales, send her some of the photos — at a later time.

    There’s no need to do it “right now” and I just can’t get bogged down in the minutia. Much of other the stuff is “easy” — toss, bag for Salvation Army pickup Wednesday or keep. I’d forgotten (or didn’t ever realize) how much of this old antique dish-ware was in the garage from home. Some of the pieces are very old, I’m guessing from grandparents or beyond. The Spode is beautiful but not really useful for me so I do intend to sell that, which is probably the easiest to research.

    But not this week, not today. Right now, I just need to get this stuff gone through, boxed and organized so we can move on. Even keeping much of it I’ll have loads of room in that garage — room for the Jeep & plenty more. I’m hoping it can get wrapped up by the end of Tuesday — the worker said he’d be here this afternoon (maybe) but definitely will arrive by 8 a.m. Tuesday morning. I hope by then to be done with my part of the sorting and boxing so we can just move things into place.

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  35. Spode “Camilla” Copeland England

    Red & white. It would be gorgeous for Christmas. Weirdly, though I have no connection to these dishes that I remember — I never saw them used at home and have no idea why we had them. There are quite a few pieces, though.

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  36. And my mom’s china is there, too — I do remember those plates from my earlier childhood, very plain white with pink flowers. I’ll check on the name of it when I head out there today.

    https://www.etsy.com/listing/507413426/spode-camilla-red-pink-copeland-dinner?&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-home_and_living-kitchen_and_dining-dining_and_serving&utm_custom1=2670093e-3ba1-4fe8-4ab4-000024a95ec0&gclid=Cj0KEQjwuZvIBRD-8Z6B2M2Sy68BEiQAtjYS3Iipcw_7Qn2m0RaJ00v-ejL0f5LUAh2t304aLf_zpYcaAnjq8P8HAQ

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  37. There also are “display” type plates that are old, one painted with an image of (I think) Martha Washington — a lot of single items like that, some salt-pepper shakers that look very old but have no markings on the bottom, etc.

    I simply have no idea what any of this (apart from the Spode) might be worth (or not). But who knows, I may have some incredibly rare piece in there that’ll fund a kitchen remodel 🙂

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  38. Kim, @ 9:57. It was likely a weight loss or Vacation spot commercial. It is meant to grab attention.
    And that it does.
    Men call it “eye candy” and that is mostly what it is.
    Remember the “wardrobe malfunction” at on the half time show. A big fuss was made od it.. So much fuss for such a trivial thing.
    But it’s important that the fuss was made. Otherwise, bosoms would be showing by now with no “justification”.
    You may not remember when women started showing the naval. Some discussion, but not much objection.
    I can remember when women’s dresses started coming above the knees. Only the “old ladies” objected.

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  43. Ok, I’m in for a break and to recharge my phone (I’m taking pictures of all these delicate plates and things — a couple seem like they might be worth something, but overall I must have 50+ of those pieces so I may wind up thinking about letting someone help me with a sale of some kind.

    And I have to hand it to the packers whom we hired to pack up all these things from my mom’s house some 27 years ago now — off it all went to storage until I bought this house and then off they went to my garage where they’ve been ever since.

    Only one broken plate among them (when I picked it up, still all wrapped,I thought, oh-oh, was that my kitchen remodel by Kim?). Alas, it was a small plate from my mom’s china set — Royal China Peach Blossoms is the pattern — which probably is least likely to be worth a whole lot, but who knows.

    Several pieces — included are plates, a salt and pepper set, delicate hand-painted creamers with lids, many clearly pretty old — are trimmed with gold.

    Also a large box of ceramic molds that I think may have been my aunt’s as she stayed with my mom after she moved back to California from Idaho. Horses and a sleigh. Beautiful pieces (the sleigh and 1 horse were painted and fired, the rest are unfinished).

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  44. I’m hoping the rest of this project goes more quickly now that the labor-intensive sorting of potential valuables is out of the way. And it’s hot again out there today, but I’m hauling things inside the gate so I can work in the covered patio where at least I’m out of that sun.

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  45. Very pretty fence decoration, Kim.

    Janice–if you see any navy blue purses around Stone Mountain, I take one. 😉

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  46. Why would anybody move from Idaho? And to California? That makes sense. The computer gremlins must have sabotaged what you were trying to say.

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  47. And another laugh for you this afternoon.
    Guy and I were discussing another man who was with our company. I said I found the Man to be rather flirtatious and always kept him at a distance. Guy asked in an incredulous voice. “Man flirted with YOU???? I doubt that!”

    So now you know that I am chopped liver and not worthy of any man flirting with me.

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  51. Don’t mess with me. Last week I told you that BrokerPriceOpinion dot com owes me for BPO’s going back to November. Today I have looked up the foreclosure or bankruptcy companies that obviously hired them. I called them to let them know they are NOT paying the agents for doing the BPO’s and asked them please not to do business with that company again. I realize I will probably never get the money they owe me but if I can stop them from taking advantage of at least 1 other agent out there, I will feel better.

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  52. More sweat and dirt, more treasures:

    * An 1850ish copy of Pilgrim’s Progress with Bible pages scattered in between

    * Similarly old readers, school books

    * My mom’s work ‘charm’ bracelet (never knew she had one) — all telephones. (She worked for the phone company.)

    * A really nice black-and-white photo I took of her dining table, lit up by one of her family’s old oil lamps (which I later had electrified and still have). She was upset, though, because she thought the photo made her tablecloth look wrinkled. 🙂

    * A shoe box marked that it’s my mom’s childhood doll’s tea set. Haven’t opened that yet.

    * A “navy” pin (my dad was in the Navy

    * Her old 1939 high school year book + many scrap books with photos

    I’m over-heated and overwhelmed. Seems like I’ll never get through all of this, I had no idea really what was in there I guess.

    I’m taking a break to go buy some more weather-tight containers and enjoy the a/c in my car

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  53. Oh, and my grandfather’s handwritten logs from when he was a nursery man selling plants and trees in Iowa — from around the turn of the century (that would be the 1800s into the 1900s 🙂 )

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  57. Praises, my new girl passed all her assessments with flying colors, just need to teach her what it is like being in school. Yes, you have to do that even if you don’t want to. Assessed another child and they only know their numbers to 11, time to get working on that.

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  58. Wasn’t there a time when children entered first grade with none of that teaching? It was all ahead of them, waiting to be learned. Meantime, ten year old still insists on two and a seven for twenty seven. Everything over nine is a one with a zero, etc.

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  59. Survived my first day back to class, for which I’m thankful as I wasn’t feeling well at all this morning.

    DJ, it sounds like a real treasure trove of interesting things. My parent have a lot of old school readers, mostly from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and I read and reread them as a child. They increased my curiosity about the world. Some of them had excerpts from books, which led me to later find and read those books.

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  60. Mumsee, yes, children used to know nothing before they entered grade one, but then, their parents may have been illiterate themselves and unable to teach them. The earlier children are introduced to the basic concepts of reading, the better they learn to read. Between birth and age five, the brain is forming vital connections, so that learning about numbers and letters then will help to shape those connections. In West Africa, many of the parents were illiterate, and their children had a very difficult time learning to read as a result, often still sounding out words when they were in high school. However, I encountered some who were very good readers and scholars, and many of those good readers had gone to a nursery school that was offered by the team’s literacy program.

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  61. I suspect it depends upon the child. I have some who started young and read well, others who started late and read well. Still others that detest reading and refuse to even try. We try to read to all small people in ever increasing depth, but individuals do not all start at the same time. Ten year old had us and head start and other helps and is just now getting going. He does not read phonetically, it is all sight words.

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  63. Roscuro, I’ve heard the opposite, that boys in particular do better without formal schooling until age seven or eight, and that “learning to read” should actually be a fairly quick process that we needlessly prolong. Now, I am sure that such pre-literacy as seeing words, seeing one’s parents writing, and hearing books read aloud helps tremendously in learning to read. Telling children “This is a B, like in your name, ‘Bill'” is great preparation for reading and writing, but expecting children to sit still and copy letters at four or five is expecting a lot.

    I don’t even remember learning to read; I don’t remember not knowing how. In first grade I struggled through, but read, Heidi. I was improving my reading skills, but not really “learning to read” at that point. Yet it isn’t uncommon to see fourth and fifth graders who are still not to that point of learning. I have heard that any progress made in Head Start and other such programs are totally erased later in school, that whether you learn at four or at ten doesn’t matter at all, as long as you get chances to read. Getting chances to read and to learn to enjoy reading seems to be crucial.

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  64. Mumsee, every child is different, but there are overall patterns. Were those who started reading later but did well read to earlier in life? The child who is read to is learning about reading as they listen. When my mother went to teach me to read at age five, I must have already been learning, as it took me only about a week, and I quickly progressed to much harder books – by the time I was seven, I was able to read a book like Anne of Green Gables in one day. Eldest Sibling read books to her children from infancy, and when she taught Eldest Niece to read at age five, she observed that her second born, Eldest Nephew, was showing signs of being interested in reading, even though he was only three. When she sat down to teach him, she discovered he was already reading and writing (with his left hand, though neither of his parents are left handed) having picked it up from watching others. For a while, he only read aloud, but he consumed enormous amounts of information (and had an embarrassing tendency to offer that information up at the most inopportune moments – like the facts of the elimination of digestive waste at the dinner table). He still does not like reading fiction, preferring books about how things work or how to do things.

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  65. Cheryl, I was talking about what you call pre-literacy experiences, not about formal schooling. The child of illiterate parents has little to no exposure to things such as hearing books read, seeing people write, seeing word, or being offered all those little clues to reading such as, “That’s a B. Your name starts with B.” The difference between children exposed to all those things is very noticeable in a place with high rates of illiteracy; and what the nursery school did(having gone to the closing exercises of one of the classes while I was there), was to offer that pre-literacy.

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  66. I agree that reading to children is the most critical part. From a very early age. But, of the fifteen, I don’t believe nine of them, or perhaps eleven, were read to very much if at all. They don’t seem to have any memories of it. But we read a lot here from the ages of six and up. And I mean a lot. I hope it made some difference. And they were required to give the impression they were silent reading every evening they were home for half an hour up until they turn eighteen.

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  67. I understand that several of my children had parents who did not get beyond first or fourth grade, and they did not arrive here until they were ten or older. The younger three of that group arrived at two, four, and seven. Those three can read, and ten year old still loves to though it is difficult. I hold a card with a strip cut out, just big enough to let him see one word at a time. It is laborious but he can read that way. I hope, with much training this way, he will eventually be able to hold his eyes steady.

    Chas!

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  68. Well, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. What a start!

    Our band/music teacher died of cancer over the weekend. She has been out since December. Well loved by students, parents and teachers. Funeral is Wednesday, so we’re getting out early so everyone who wants to can attend.

    Some Freshmen boys were stupid (this time it was more so than usual). One started a social media group concerning shooting up the school. It was not meant to be serious, but when the principal heard about it, he called the sheriff’s school liaison deputy, who met the boy at the school when he was dropped off by the bus. Five other boys were on the group, so they are all suspended. Some of these boys know better.

    So, with three weeks left we have to deal with death and stupidity. Normally it’s just stupidity and immaturity.

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  69. With apologies to AJ, just sent some photos in of my ‘finds’

    Meanwhile, they now know me at The Container Store (which I visited for the first time 3 days ago). They know I drive a Jeep. But today the clerk asked “Are you moving far?”

    When my mom died so unexpectedly 27 years ago, my cousins and I were in a made dash to try to get through everything in the house quickly after the funeral was over. She’d lived there 30+ years (I think I was 7 when we moved there, renting at first and later my parents bought it from our very nice landlord, Mr. Plant).

    It was a small post WWII-built house, like under 800 square feet, but the garage and every cabinet and drawer were pretty much packed.

    I really didn’t have time to go through everything, so much of it was boxed and sent off to storage. I didn’t remember how much!

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  70. And interesting conversation with neighbor today about the woman who lived in my house previously & committed suicide by hanging herself in the garage (neighbor is convinced it was a homicide, that her husband did her in, but neighbor said she ran over and tried to hold her up, though she was long gone — such a horrible memory for her that she can’t bear to even look inside my garage now and they had the placement of their house windows reconfigured afterward so they wouldn’t have the garage in view — this was in the 1970s, I think, long before I ever came here of course).

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  71. A constant reminder to me to go through things. Either we will die or we will move. Either way, somebody will need to take care of the stuff, we might as well get it done now.

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  77. I’ve been to Moose Jaw. Graduated from Caronport High School just outside the city. There are tunnels under the city where Al Capone was said to have hung out.

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  78. My family came from Scotland/England/Northern Ireland to Canada, NY, Chicago, Iowa … and ultimately to California, of course.

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  79. One of the things that I ordered for my class is the cone shaped thing, a cup, with a ball attached by a string. Your eyes have to learn to track the ball in order to catch it in the cup. I encourage them all to try. The last few days I required two boys to catch it ten times before they could go back to play. They were so proud. Then my lowest student got going. He did some before I began to count, but he caught that ball 102 times. This same day he made a breakthrough in reading. It all goes together.
    Catching the ball also slows them down and centers them.

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