77 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-16-17”

  1. Au surely is up early this morning.
    But it[‘s FRIDAY!
    You know what that means?

    Jo’s week is over.
    Everyone else needs to get to it.

    I

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  6. Soooooo…..yesterday was a little scary. Leaving the known for the unknown. I have nothing in writing from anyone on the new side yet, but the timing was right for me to leave Guy. He was very gracious about it. Deep down he knows he is difficult to deal with. He even made a comment about it yesterday when we were talking.
    On the other hand, after 5 last night, my husband found me, he had two champagne glasses and a bottle of champagne. “To your new adventure”.
    I am off to Pensacola again this morning and ugh, I have to stop for gas. I tried to fill up yesterday but the pump kept clicking off. As much as I hate to pump gas, I am not going to fight the gas pump for the privilege!

    You folks behave, now, you hear?

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  7. Kim, I’m just curious – is it not customary in your field to give two weeks (at least) notice when you quit?

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  8. Aj gets an “Ataaboy”.
    I thought about that Kim, just about the time I hit ‘send”. Who get’s the credit when there is no credit to give?
    Makes sense. 😉

    Linda
    Some employers want you out as soon as possible. They know you are no longer for them. You are, in effect, working for someone else on their time. Some jobs require interface and it is helpful to remain over to train someone if the departure is on good terms.

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  9. Chas, I understand that (it is very common in my own field) but the resignation is always given with at least two weeks notice and the employer has the option to say, “thanks anyhow, but you can leave now.” I wasn’t being critical – I was really just curious.

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  11. Good morning.

    Linda, I think Kim put in her resignation letter that she would be available until the end of June, should he need further assistance.

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  12. Bible study this morning, homeschool routine this afternoon, high school musical tonight when my two high school piano students take turns at the piano, playing for that. One girl plays piano in the first half and her flute in the second half, and the other plays piano in the second half and her saxophone in the first half. Looking forward to the show! They’ve put in a lot of work on this.

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  15. What? Chas gambling? What’s this whirled views coming to?

    Kim- Since you told guy he can contact you until the end of June, I suggest getting a new phone number July 1 and not letting him know what it is.

    Oh, and before I forget, here are the politcal cartoons for this Friday. Many of them prove that Conservative journalists are more balanced than Liberal ones. Just look at all the cartoons critical of Trump.

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  16. Linda, usually in real estate once you decide to make a move there is no point in lingering, The company is keeping my company email active until the end of the month and I will get Guy through the things no one else can handle “right now”—which means I am protecting the residential admin for two more weeks. We also have an intern this summer and I have been teaching him a lot, so everything should be OK until July 1. Then they will have to do something. Guy is too demanding for anyone else. I would have liked to suggest that the next admin be an employee of the company and not of Guy but decided it wouldn’t do any good and would only reflect badly on me

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  18. The trash pickup was early this morning, I barely beat them to it by hauling my containers out by 6:15 a.m. Usually they don’t roll around here until 7 and later.

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  19. About Kim: I thought she was an under the radar employee, with a totally different system. Giving her much more latitude as far as working or not.

    But she has moved forward and we will continue to pray that she will keep growing in the wisdom and love of the Lord as she continues to serve others to the best of her ability.

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  20. DJ – I’ve probably mentioned before that we & our neighbors take our trash cans to the end of the lane the evening before pick-up. Every now & then we’ll forget on Wednesday evening, & roll it up there Thursday morning. Or Hubby could take it to the dump himself if he felt like it.

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  21. At first I thought the header photo was a Cheryl shot, too.

    Miss Bosley is in the window gazing at birds. I am still surprised that in the cool of the morning I can have the window open, and she never tries to jump through the screen.

    Michelle, write about the flora and fauna that Biddie and Oswald experienced in their environment and any influence you have seen from that in his writing/teaching?

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  22. Kizzie,

    You mentioned the other day the thought of putting your house in Nightingale’s name (or willing it to her) and that you thought Chickadee would understand more since N. is paying some of the loan. I’m not sure how much C. is capable of understanding logic and reasoning, based on what you have said about her, but if she were . . . I think that would only be true if paying off some of the loan was paying considerably more than “rent” would be for the space in your house that she occupies, and she had done so for years, and she was not getting extra benefits from living with you.

    In other words, completely making up numbers here just for an illustration, let’s say that fair rent for a particular unit is about $400 a month, and utilities for that unit are about $250. And that one child paid $200 a month, plus $100 toward utilities, for five or six years until she could get on her feet, and she also got free or very cheap babysitting from her mother. Well, if she started paying $750 a month (including utilities) and she were still getting inexpensive babysitting, she wouldn’t be “helping pay off the house loan” in any sort of equity-building way; she would simply be paying a little extra to help her parents (in return for her parents having helped her when she needed it)–and she would still be getting the additional benefits of an on-site babysitter.

    I have no idea the actual numbers of your scenario; they aren’t any of my business. If N. has been paying full rent for several years now, and paying you fairly for babysitting, and she will now be paying above and beyond what would be fair rent, then it may well be fair that that translates into some equity in the house.

    But what happens if you put her name on the house and then you and your husband both die in an accident a year from now? You will in effect have handed the house to her, not her sister. How is the life insurance set up if both of you die? And do you have anything in writing for the care of her sister? What happens, for instance, if C. sees it as favoritism and refuses to have anything more to do with N.? She might very well, for instance, have no interest in living in a house that she sees as unjustly left only to her sister.

    To me, the fact that Chickadee willingly babysits for Nightingale, for less than babysitting wages if I recall correctly, plays into this more. She will see you and your husband as sacrificing for Nightingale and Little Guy, herself as having done so also, and then she herself possibly largely written out of your will.

    I agree with the assessment that professional counsel is necessary here. If nothing else, things must be done in such a way as to maximize the chances the girls will continue to get along.

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  24. And don’t lose sight of the fact that if the house isn’t paid for, no one can inherit it unless other assets in the estate as sufficient to cover the balance (this does not include life insurance, which is not an asset of the estate).

    KIM: Like I said, I wasn’t being critical (nor concerned with how Guy was going to get on without you). It just struck me that the resignation didn’t include an “as of” date, so I was curious what the standard was in the industry. Thanks.

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  25. I found people reacting in ways I would not have believed when my dad died. My folks thought it was all figured out. They did well, but there are a lot of things to consider. Situations change in family situations, economically and otherwise; laws change, too. Sibling rivalry can rear its ugly head.

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  26. Kizzie, I like to take the trash out in the morning for a couple reasons — the actual kitchen garbage isn’t supposed to set out overnight per city wildlife department as it is (of course) a known coyote attractant (what isn’t?).

    The recycle bins don’t smell or attract coyotes, but they do attract trash divers/scavengers in the wee hours of the morning with their clattering shopping carts. I hate being awakened at 2 a.m. by the sounds of someone noisily going through ‘my’ stuff (the more professional ‘collectors’ actually have vans they load everything into). So while I sometimes fill up the city recycle bin the night before, I leave it in the driveway to wheel down in the a.m. — Kitchen garbage goes out the morning of the pickup, it stays in the kitchen trash can until then.

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  27. Well, that’s it for Greek and Latin. Now to concentrate on the other two courses…

    Can hardly believe it is Friday already – between being sick and writing three exams this week, has flown by. I need some music, and since I just finished Latin and Greek, something sung one of those languages would be nice. This is written by Gabriel Faure, a French Impressionist composer and organist who was a slightly older contemporary with the more well known Debussy and Ravel. It is the Sanctus from his Requiem, and the words are simply: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Glory in the highest” (Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis):

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  28. Right now, we siblings are in agreement about what happens with our parents, but I have seen in my mother’s side of the family how financial pressures among the siblings created feelings of resentment. One of my mother’s siblings lived with their parents until their deaths, and so he was left the house, or rather, he was made joint owner before my grandmother died. It is a close knit family, but I do know that at least one of the siblings has, over the years when financial difficulties have arisen, sometimes wished that the house, which is on what was a valuable piece of property at the time (construction of a highway very close by has changed that I believe), could have been sold and the proceeds divided among the six siblings. This sibling has been very mature about it, and not allowed it to cause divisions in family gatherings, but the hurt is there. As close knit we four siblings are in my own family, I can see a rift deepening between the two more recent siblings-in-law, as they are from very different backgrounds and see the world in a very different light, and I wonder if that will cause trouble later on. Nevertheless, having seen what happened with the couple that my parents cared for, I would rather my parents be cared for and let the financial and personal disagreements come, than have them slowly begin to die alone.

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  29. I know of a family where the patriarch and his wife died and their son inherited everything. They promptly gave the house to their younger son, apparently thinking he “needed” it more. Problem is, their older, married son was the responsible one, and he and his family were struggling financially. He was attempting to support his wife and four or five children in an area where wages weren’t very high (not much above minimum wage, after giving up a six-figure income to move and attempt to start a business), and half of his grandparents’ house would have been a true blessing. But his brother “squandered the inheritance,” putting a couple of mortgages on the house and losing it in less than five years.

    I don’t think that parents are “required” to treat all their children alike, but if they choose not to, their choices and reasons should be made clear. Giving it to the one with the greater need is not unjust, as long as the need isn’t irresponsibility. Or one child is in regular contact with you and the other calls every two years when he needs something–give more to the one who is actually in relationship with you and who has supported you. Or one child has health issues and will need a means of support; leave money in a trust for that child or to pay for caregivers. There are any number of reasons not to simply treat children the same, but the reasons should be clear.

    I even once knew someone who saw herself as the “needy” child, since her brother was married and working a responsible job and her sister had some other situation I forget. Well, my friend was also working a very good job, but she chose not to save any money because someday she’d get a good inheritance because her parents had quite an investment in stocks and she assumed she would be their primary beneficiary. Someone suggested once that some parents choose to give much of their money to charity and not to their children, and she bristled at the very thought. Yet things didn’t work out for her the way she wished. She lost her decades-long good job and never applied for another. Her mother had paid the down payment on her (the 50-something daughter’s) condo since she didn’t like seeing her continue to rent with nothing to show for it, but six or seven years later she was without a job or an income, her mother had ended up in Alzheimer’s care that ate up the assets, and my friend ended up in another state in government housing. Counting on an inheritance is never a good idea.

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  32. Cheryl – re: your 10:55 comment – Would you consider the fact that Nightingale plans to care for us (probably more so me as a widow) as long as we need it as a factor in favor of leaving her the house? She has said that if she one day buys her own home, she will make sure there is a portion of the house suitable for me to be comfortable, like an in-law apartment, or a suitable room or two.

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  33. Unless it is in writing with a legal doc, no. This is to protect both of you.

    Larry Burkett used to always warn about not co-signing for anyone, even your adorable loving and kind children.

    I, too, have been shocked by how petty my own feelings have been from time to time over pretty much nothing. Family emotions can be very tricky even in the best of circumstances and especially when you’re mixing believers and unbelievers with death and money. 😦

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  34. Cheryl,

    Don’t know if it’s a fledgling or not. Most of the female swallows in that area look dark like her. In another area I go to the females are much lighter. It was raining hard too, and the light was horrible. You can even see the rain if you look at it closely.

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  35. I went looking for some Greek music. We in the West forget that Greek is as much a liturgical language as Latin. This is performed in the Haiga Sophia (which means Heavenly Wisdom in Greek) in the Byzantine style – one can hear how effective the acoustics of that place are for carrying the human voice. It is a song about the treatment of Christ by the Roman soldiers. I found the Greek words with a French translation, and since my Greek vocabulary is still limited, though I can understand the grammatical construction, I translated it into English using both languages.
    Ἐξέδυσάν με τὰ ἱμάτιά μου
    Ils ont pris mes vêtements
    They took my garments
    καὶ ἐνέδυσάν με χλαμῦδα κοκκίνην.
    et m’ont revêtu d’un manteau écarlate.
    and placed a scarlet robe about me.
    Ἔθηκαν ἐπί τὴν κεφαλήν μου στέφανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν
    Ils ont fixé sur ma tête une couronne d’épines
    They fixed on my head a crown of thorns
    καὶ ἐπί τὴν δεξιάν μου χείραν ἔδωκαν κάλαμον
    et ont donné à ma main droite un roseau,
    and gave into my right hand a reed
    ἴνα συντρίψω αὐτούς ὡς σκεύη κεραμέως.
    pour que je les écrase comme de la vaisselle de potier.
    for I will break them as a potter’s vessel.

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  36. That reminds me of our time in Greece. The sound is intriguing while being painful to my brain. But then, a lot of music is painful to my brain.

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  37. I have the opinion that since one child has a learning challenge, I would want to try to help that one in an appropriate and equivalent manner because of inability to support herself. The help would need to be in a manner to least enable others to take advantage of her.

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  38. Mumsee, Westerners find Eastern music confusing because they uses microtones. In Western music, the distance between notes are whole tones (sometimes called ‘steps’) and semitones (or ‘half-steps’); but eastern music uses even smaller intervals, such as quarter tones. A whole tone would be from Middle C to D on the piano, while a semitone would be from Middle C to C sharp. In fact, on the piano, all one ever plays are tones and semitones, as those are the only distances. Stringed and wind instruments, where the player creates the notes themselves using finger position are much more versatile and can be used in either Western or Eastern styles with ease. Pianists who play Eastern style music or Jazz musicians (since Jazz also makes use of microtones) get around the whole and semitone setup by playing two adjoining notes at the same time to create an illusion of a quarter tone, such as this famous pianist, and singer, of Afghan origin who is an Indian citizen and plays ragas on the piano as if it were a sitar:

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  39. Oh, I didn’t realize the video wouldn’t embed, but this clip of one of the great Jazz pianists is an excellent example of what I was talking about:

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  40. So yesterday, fifteen year old was painting a board for husband. She dumped a half a gallon of paint on the basketball court when she was too focused on painting to notice the can. Today, she was going to practice sewing for her time with the lady who is teaching her to sew. I told her to set it up and get started. When I went to check on her, she was sewing with the machine on the table backwards. Oops. She wondered why the needle would not go forward, only backwards.
    But, to put it in perspective, my new lawn mower failed to start the other day. I had been mowing along merrily, stopped it to move some debris, it turned itself off and would not start again. I thought it was not in neutral, the parking brake was not on, or it was not turning off the blade because those all have to happen for it to work. And have a body on the seat. I tried for a while, adjusting various things. Husband tried. We called the people. They finally came out today. A twig was behind the lever putting it into neutral. He moved the stick and it starts right up. Must run in the family…….

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  42. It is honorable that someone wants to care for their children. We fully intend to do this for my mom. However, sometimes there are situations that require greater care and safety. Law requirements if someone needs a nursing home change with the whim of legislators on both state and federal levels.

    Furthermore, someone, who is not yet married and only has one child now, has no idea of what her husband may prefer or what may change in her future. An opportunity to move for a job for one or the other, for example, might change what is best for them. Would you want to stand in their way or be willing to move with them?

    All things to consider.

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  44. Kizzie,

    Her “plan” to care for you is different from her actually doing so. You may die before you need such care. Or you may have reason to move and want to sell the house; it’s trickier if her name is on it too (say she doesn’t approve of the move–legally she has to sign off on a sale if her name is on it, so you can’t move unless she says you can). Or what if she marries and her husband isn’t a good man, and he wants to use “their” share of the house as leverage to force you out? Or what if she marries and has several more children and can’t help you out, and you need the equity in the house to pay for a caregiver?

    I’m not discounting her plan to help you–I think that is honorable–but that may or may not entitle her to the house. My sister-in-law has done more to care for my in-laws than we have, but there are reasons we are less able to do so (sister-in-law and her husband are retired and she is the daughter–if she didn’t live around the corner from her parents, and/or if I had been part of this family for 20 years, I would have been more involved in my father-in-law’s hospitalizations than I’ve been able to be as a relative newcomer to the family), and yes, it would bother me if the house simply went to her as a “thank you.” Now, she isn’t living in it and she has her own house (quite a lot bigger than ours), so that’s different, too.

    I can think of two instances I know/knew personally in which a single daughter lived with her parent(s) all or most of her life, worked full-time, and paid a good percentage of the expenses of the home for decades, but also had a married brother in another state. But these are women who are/will be in their fifties when their last parent dies. In neither case did the mother work outside the home. In one case the father has been dead for a couple of decades; in the other, the father outlived the mother, but he was an invalid (a war injury) and he didn’t work either. In these cases, yes, the daughter should be set up to inherit the house–it is her home, she has been the wage earner and she has invested heavily in the house and in her parents, she is a single daughter, and her married brother has a home and doesn’t need this one. (There may be financial assets in addition to the home, and those should of course be divided between the children.) So I definitely think there are instances when that is the best way to handle the family home.

    But there is a difference between a track record of decades and a possible future of such. Because of LG, so far you have invested far more caregiving than she has.

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  45. Kizzie, I just read your link to Challies’ piece on not just expository preaching. Pastor A, the pastor who was most influential in forming my theology, was mainly an expository preacher. He preached verse by verse, taking years in some cases, through Hebrews, Ephesians, Romans, Galatians, I John, John, and a few I’ve probably forgotten. He did, however, thematic series, using I Corinthians 15 for a series on the Resurrection and used mainly John 14, 15, 16, and 17, in addition to passages from the epistles and Acts, on the work of the Holy Spirit; and although he preached verse by verse, he used cross references extensively, so that no part of Scripture was left unused. For special occasions, moreover, such as the Sundays leading up to Christmas, or on Easter, or Mother’s and Father’s Day, he preached individual sermons on the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the Christian family. Some of my peers who visited the church complained listening to his sermons was like attending a seminary lecture, but it was what I needed. So, I’m all for slow expository preaching through a book of the Bible, provided the preacher knows his Bible thoroughly and is theologically sound, but there is nothing wrong with thematic sermons now and again.

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  46. Roscuro – The pastors I have had have sometimes done expository preaching for a period of time, as well as the other kind. One pastor used expository preaching in his Wednesday night teachings.

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  47. Janice – Nightingale realizes that Chickadee may never be able to support herself, & plans to give her home & support her, in exchange for help at home.

    At this point, I don’t know if Chickadee is looking ahead at all, or what kind of expectations she has for her life. For all I know, her best friend (the younger McK daughter) may be planning to help her much as Nightingale is.

    I know I need to have a serious talk with Chickadee about these things, but I dread it. She gets very anxious about serious discussions in which she needs to contribute her own thoughts, or answer questions, & that anxiety comes out as anger/annoyance. When the time comes, I think I will prepare her ahead of time that I would like to talk to her about some serious subjects, & set a day & time so she can be ready. But even that will cause her much anxiety!

    Btw, Chickadee has Asperger’s, but her learning abilities are fine. Like her sister, she is very intelligent.

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  48. Our pastor handles the pulpit similarly to Roscuro’s — slow expository preaching through a book with breaks periodically for a short series on other parts of scripture, so it really is the best of both worlds in my view.

    And in the expository series, we are visiting other sections of scripture as well with the goal always being to include both law and gospel in every sermon.

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  50. Our pastor who is leaving did mostly expository with a few other series preached like most recently he did a series on Hard to Believe about difficult to understand passages in the Bible.

    Since earlier discussion was about giving a set time of notice when leaving a position, I am still having difficulty accepting how quickly our pastor is leaving. He told us at the end of the service two Sundays ago. Then he and a group from church has been gone all week on a mission trip so he did not preach last Sunday. I’ve found out now that this upcoming Sunday will be his last time to preach since his daughter is getting married the following weekend and He had already arranged for someone else to preach that last Sunday. It will be our interim pastor who preaches then. I just feel so unsettled for the moment. I know it is best in the long run. I feel sad, very sad, and also excited about possibilities for some good changes. It just all seems too quick though.

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  52. It’s hard to lose a pastor.

    Kim, great news — you’ll have to fill us in more on your job when the time is right and you’re settled in more.

    Advertising served up a taco lunch for everyone today, messy but good. Now I’m back to writing about stolen city and campaign signs, park pollution, botulism, alligators, snakes and west nile.

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  55. I don’t need expository preaching for months through a whole book, but I do prefer it when the preaching in any given week is based mainly on one passage, maybe pulling in a little illumination from other passages.

    For awhile we had a pastor who usually preached topically. A sermon might jump all over the Bible to reinforce a point, and any understanding of the context of each passage was hard to glean.

    He was capable of expository sermons. His sermons that I remember the best and that were most helpful to me were in a series on Matthew 5-7. He once told me that he liked to preach expository sermons but that people didn’t want that any more. I’m not sure what people he was talking about, or when what people want became the main consideration.

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  60. All quiet on the coyote and ape front.

    Swarms of summer mosquitoes in a local park are another story (you’re all scratching yourselves right now after reading that, right?)

    Kevin, I agree about preaching/catering to what people “want.”

    Before he became Presbyterian many years ago, our pastor — who began as a youth pastor but then pastored our church which back then was an independent congregation — relied on being moved to preach one thing or another. There is a danger in that, of course, that goes without saying.

    But that certainly doesn’t preclude the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work when preparing or giving a well thought out, expository message. Study and the Holy Spirit are both needed.

    Our sermons also tend to go deep but are also accessible and winsomely presented (I think anyway).

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  61. He was a youth pastor in a PCUSA church near the beach — he still has connections there and we met there for several Sundays during the summer when our facility was being remodeled.

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  63. I don’t understand much about the tax implications involved regarding offspring and houses, etc., so can’t speak to that aspect of the conversation regarding Nightingale. However, I will say that I think it’s important to remember that, oftentimes, the way we look at life and the intentions and plans we have for our future while we are in our twenties do not necessarily unfold as we think they might. Not that Nightingale isn’t committed to what she says she will do in the future, regarding caring for you, Kizzie, and your hubby and Chickadee. It’s just that none of us knows the future, who we might meet (especially future spouses, as others have alluded to), how their viewpoints might change our mind or our trajectory on the course originally planned, and the like.

    Case in point — if I had ever decided, before meeting my husband, that I would one day take in my aging parents if they lived to an age where they could not live independently, then I would have had a rude awakening after marrying my husband and finding out that, no, he does not want the children’s grandparents living here. He didn’t even want anyone to stay with us for a while to help after having any of our babies. My mom wrote in her Christmas card to us while I was pregnant with 1st Arrow that she would come and stay at our house to help for a while after the baby was born. (We had never asked her to do that, and she didn’t ask if we wanted that, just stated that those were her plans. Excited first-time grandmother-to-be. Things did not go well when I told her that our plans were to have the postpartum period be a time where only the three of us — hubby, me and baby — could get adjusted to our new life as a family, without anyone else present beyond brief, day visits. But I digress. Anyway, though, you can see why he wouldn’t want grandparents to live here, when he didn’t even want them to stay over for a night or three or seven.)

    What if, as I believe Cheryl mentioned, Nightingale marries someone who does not want anyone other than husband, wife and children together in a living situation? If she concurs with her husband, then all her good intentions about caring for you in her home in your advancing years will come to nothing. On the other hand, if she’s determined to do what she is now promising, then that will produce conflict in her marriage, because it will be putting allegiance to her family of origin over her husband’s desires for their nuclear family.

    And if she meets someone she wants to marry, will it be a deal-breaker for her if the man does not want to commit to possibly caring for his aging in-laws some day? What if it’s a man who would make a good husband in many ways, but simply values a home life that doesn’t involve others living on the premises besides his wife and children?

    Of course, we can’t know that any of these situations will present themselves in the future, but I think it’s good not to get locked into big decisions about an unknown future. If Nightingale gets married some day, her first loyalty will need to be to her husband, rather than to any other human. And even if she stays single, her viewpoints on a variety of matters may evolve, or things may happen that she’s not expecting that could force her into a very different kind of situation than what she envisions now.

    My life, and I know many others’, looks far different now than much of what I imagined it would be like at this age while I was still in my twenties, and even early thirties.

    I hope you can find good legal counsel to help you as you contemplate your options. There certainly is a lot to think about, with probably a daunting array of emotions to deal with, as well. Praying for your peace while you strive to leave the future in God’s capable hands, as I know you do.

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  65. I talked with my friend Karen earlier. She said a bolt of lightening struck the ground just outside her bedroom window yesterday around 7 p.m. Her phone landline and her WiFi are still out. Pretty scary. She is having major breathing problems today. I hope she gets better soon. She is disheartened about getting totally out of breath just from walking across the room.

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  68. Kizzie, I know that Aspergers is high functioning autism. Does it not have any learning difficulties associated with it? I guess I thought because of social type issues that the person with Aspergers might need a type of special education to learn effectively. I guess I do not know enough about it.

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  69. Of course they were in their 50’s when they met, but my stepmother had a grown daughter with Down’s Syndrome and an aged mother who was never quite mentally sharp that she had care for since she was 11 when her father died. She explained to my dad that she was a package deal. He accepted the deal. Granny and Toni adored him. He and Toni drank coffee together every morning.
    Once again, I am an only child. When my father and stepmother were having difficulties he bought a house for himself. He put me on the deed. THEN he and my stepmother started dating again. (Two bossy people shouldn’t live in the same house).

    Karen, as we discussed there are tax and legal implications. You should speak with someone who understands the laws in your state. It may be that everything goes into a living trust to take care of you then pass to your daughters equally or whoever keeps the house gets less of the insurance. Whatever you decide to do needs to be decided when an estate attorney who understands these things.

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  70. I thought I would drop in to grab ’57 but Kevin took it at 4:24 this afternoon.

    interesting discussions about experiences handling legacies. We won’t have that problem.
    Unless something unusual and unexpected happens.
    It doesn’t affect us, but I learned when making out a NC will, that a spouse cannot be disinherited in NC. i.e. You have to leave your spouse something. How much I don’t know, but leaving $1.00 won’t do it. I think, but not certain, that it’s half.

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  71. Janice, those with Asperger’s are usually of normal or even above average intelligence. Austism is a spectrum, and people range from appearing almost normal to being non-verbal and unable to control their bowel and bladder. It is hard for those with Asperger’s, because they seem like they should take more responsibility than they do for themselves, but the reality is that their ability to understand the social cues that we all must learn to navigate in order to survive is severely limited. I know a young man with Asperger’s who looks perfectly normal (he is actually quite good looking) but he is the one sensory processing disorder who laughs when he hurts, he cannot stand to be touched, and he doesn’t understand jokes or puns. His intelligence is normal, and he wanted to do some medical training and he was capable of understanding the material, but with his sensory processing difficulties, he couldn’t do the necessary tasks.

    Even in the case of my nephew whom I suspect may have mild Asperger’s, he is notorious for not picking up on social cues and blurting out whatever is in his mind. His intelligence is at least normal, if not above average and he was born a musical genius – he is also the one who taught himself to read and write by age three. But what he thinks in his mind should happen, and what actually can happen are two different things. The contrast is made more plain by his next younger brother’s common sense. The two of them could not contrast more sharply. Eldest Nephew is usually dead serious in all that he does, while being heedless (to use the word my grandfather described my father by in his boyhood) of danger or responsibility; while Second Nephew is a tease and irrepressibly goofy while being responsible and sometimes overly cautious. I see slow improvements in Eldest Nephew as he grows older, and my father’s example gives me hope that EN will be able to mature into a somewhat normal manhood, though there will probably always be challenges, as there are for my father. Second Nephew, well, I’m concerned that his effervescent personality and admittedly good looks are going to cause some trouble; but he is a sweet boy and isn’t cruel, which is a serious warning sign in children.

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  74. My life could have gone a couple of different ways that could have kept me from marrying my husband (which means I’m glad it didn’t). Among those options: when I took in foster children, it was understood to be a temporary placement (the second time I had them, I was expected to have them the entire school year, which didn’t happen, but no one was expecting permanent placement). But I made a mental commitment that if at all possible, I would keep them as long as they needed a home–even if that became permanent. I wasn’t really “looking to adopt,” but was open to it if the girls needed me. Well, they would be teenagers now, and having two special-need minors would have kept my husband from marrying me. Not because he is unkind–he isn’t–but because his own children are nearly grown and he wouldn’t be in a place to take in two new ones, nor would he have considered it fair to the girls to take on a new stepmother and special-need new stepsisters.

    I also have a friend in Chicago, black, mother of seven, but an “adopted mama” to me. She was at one time really struggling with health issues (she has since lost a leg to diabetes) and she considered moving to Nashville. I told her that if she did, she could move in with me. I understood it to be a commitment as though I were her daughter, a lifelong commitment if she needed such, and a commitment that would require care. She did consider it (I don’t know how seriously, but I know she thought about it), but ended up staying in Chicago (at least for now). Had she moved in with me, I suspect I wouldn’t have even done online dating. I would probably have had to get a different home (my bedrooms were too small and the home wasn’t handicapped or wheelchair friendly), but I would have been committing to stay local, and probably not to marry, had I taken her in. Now, I didn’t think of it exactly like that–I didn’t have marriage options anyway, and I was around 40–but that would have been my reality, that taking her in would have meant I’d be caring for her instead of making life with my husband. It would have been a good (useful) life, too–but it would have closed the door to marriage and children.

    Also, he says that had I stayed in Chicago, he wouldn’t have pursued me. He hates Chicago enough that he wouldn’t have been willing to drive over there repeatedly to get to know someone living there. So, God knows the details of what our lives hold, and what we need, and I’m content with that.

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  75. Darling smile, Donna. Is the breath as sweet? (I’ve heard that bad dog breath means health issues, but I’m not sure I believe it. It seems to me that dog breath is pretty standard.)

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  76. We had a bolt of lightening strike at our daughter’s home when we were staying there. That also took out her wifi. She had to replace a box and a couple of feet of wire in the ground. It was loud;

    We had it hit a power pole twenty some feet from our bedroom window. That was quite a few years ago and blew the television. Fortunately, it was old. 🙂

    Kim–it is a different field from what you are in, but when our SIL decided to work solely on commission, we were nervous for him. It worked out very well. He is back working for a company with benefits, but the first move gave him a better job in the long run. Praying this move is a good one for you, too.

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  77. A medical friend thought our son had Asperger’s, as he showed many of the symptoms. But this was after he was in college and renting a room from her and her husband. He is very high functioning, especially mathematically. He dropped out of college, and now works as a computer programmer. His programming is so good the company uses his work for training new hires. They also gave him a 25% raise this year, the highest they give based on merit.

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