67 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-10-17”

  3. Hi, Jo and Nancyjill!
    That is a great photo of you two.
    Nice to see Your smiles on such a full looking day here in Atlanta.

    Good morning to others. I hope you have a good day. If anyone needs rain, bring your buckets to Atlanta, and catch some for free. It makes a great souvenir.

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  7. I don’t think I have bought a car in years and never without the supervising adult.

    I have met one of those two people! Nice picture.

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  8. Ok I have downed my first cup of coffee and now moving on to the second! Jo is just the dearest lady and I was so blessed to have met her in person.
    We had storms all through the night and I awakened with one humdinger of a headache…I am guessing the change in barometric pressure may have something to do with it. I was at 10,000 ft for three days and now returning to 7400….did I mention I find headaches to be very annoying?🤕

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  10. Good morning, what a cheerful picture to wake up to!! You both look lovely!

    Off to work with a boot on my foot – turns out the dislocated toe was also a broken bone further up into my foot. Glad I know and that I hopefully will not make it worse by walking on it anymore.

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  11. Blog meet-up, very fun photo. 🙂

    I researched Jeeps for months on end before buying — so I knew it was a good deal (used but not too-used, very low mileage, more options than I thought I’d ever be able to afford even in a used model).

    Still no word on the job situation — other than a pretty pervasive rumor that our “buy-outs” have shrunk from 4 months pay to 4 weeks pay (which is an incentive to no one other than those who have lined up a new job or people ready to retire who are financially “set” with spouses getting pensions). I’m still hoping to hang on.

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  12. I bought a car by myself around 2007. While Wesley was in His homeschool classes at a church, I went to the nearby Toyota dealership and purchased a Corolla. It was a strange feeling to do that by myself. I also purchased the house we live in when I was single, age 30, by myself. I had made an offer that I did not expect to get accepted, but it did. Ha!

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  13. For those interested in the state of the media (our company’s situation is discussed mid-way under the subhead “everything’s got a price tag”)

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  15. It’s hard to make those big purchases alone. I bought my house late in life but had a real estate agent I knew from the community (through the paper) and trusted. Good thing as I didn’t have a CLUE what I was doing. 😦

    The internet has made things easier, to be sure. Especially when I was Jeep hunting, I was able to get a good feel for what was a good price and what wasn’t. And I liked my experience at Carxmax, where they don’t “wheel or deal.” The cars have set prices and that’s it. No fuss no muss. I found my car online at a Carmax in Burbank and instantly knew it was a pretty good deal from all the online looking I’d already done (I also already had test driven some cars at the jeep dealership) — they had it shipped down to my local dealer lot where i could test drive it, no obligation. My girlfriend from down the street helped in the process and was with me when I finally bought the car on a rainy Friday night after work.

    I was convinced it was “too big” and I’d never get used to it, I’d planned to return it (which you can do within a few weeks through Carmax). But by the end of the weekend, driving it in the rain especially, I fell in love. A working heater (which my old VW didn’t have anymore) was a big selling point 🙂

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  16. It is always good to have a baseline of really bad so all the new stuff is really good.

    Daughter bought her house with her brother after he learned to buy from sister in law. He then sold his part to daughter. She also bought her car, though, again, I suspect sister in law was involved as she has bought her stuff for years. When daughter married, she helped son in law buy his car and her new car. Some people enjoy doing that, I do not.

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  17. Ah, just received an email, there’s a an all-editorial employee conference call tomorrow about the packages and what’s coming. Ugh. I may be canceling my vacation week after all. …

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  18. For years, older teen sons and I have exchanged pleasantries via mouse. We find some little toy mouse and hide it in places to get the other person. For example, third son hid it in the teapot once. That got me. I hid it in the cereal box for second son years ago. I got him.

    Anyway, now it is seventh son’s turn. I hid it the other day, just under his pillow. I had done that before and gotten him well but it had been a few months. He discovered it when he woke up but was not alarmed at all. He set it on his pillow and went back to sleep. When he woke up, he got himself. Too funny!

    I did get him well the other day when he had left a car hose on the counter for several days and I put the mouse right under the edge of it. Tee hee.

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  22. Anyone here ever hear of a cookie table at a wedding? According to my friend Diane (who was my best friend in early high school in Ohio, before we moved to Wisconsin), it is maybe a Youngstown, Ohio custom. The way she described it, it sounds like it is a table filled with fancy cookies, especially Italian ones.

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  23. It apparently is “a thing,” Kizzie:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_table

    Michelle?

    I’m guessing because of the ethnic ties we may have that tradition in our community(where there are many generations of Italians, Greeks and Catholics) as well, I haven’t been to a local wedding in a while though.

    ______________________________________

    A cookie table is a wedding tradition said to originate in Southwestern Pennsylvania, where in place of or in addition to a wedding cake, a large table with different cookies is presented to guests at the wedding reception.[1] Cookies are generally prepared by family members in advance of the reception. It is typically a tradition in Pittsburgh and Youngstown.[2]

    Research has shown that the cookie table appears to have stronger ethnic or religious ties, although in some regions of the United States it is becoming more of a regional practice, primarily East Coast and industrial centers. Cookie tables are included in primarily Italian or Catholic wedding receptions. Other groups that also have cookie tables or cookie platters are the Greeks, Slovaks, Serbian Orthodox, Austrian/Hungarian, and Scandinavians. The inclusion of a cookie table is more widely known where those of Italian ancestry settled, and also in some cases, of the other groups mentioned above. Where a settlement did not consist of sizable numbers of Italian or Eastern European groups, the number of those who were familiar with cookie tables decreased. Cookie tables were better known in the east than in the mid-west, south, southwest or west.[3] …
    _______________________________________

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  24. If the cookies are Italian, then it may be an Italian wedding custom. I have a couple of relatives who married into Italian families. They do weddings and other functions on a grand scale, and there is always enough food to feed an army.

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  25. Mice.

    We’re still dealing with coyotes, this happened this morning only a few blocks from me 😦

    _____________________________________

    just a heads up … at 3 am my son was just coming home from work, our cat was on the porch to greet him and ran down to the sidewalk three coyotes came out of nowhere and took my cat in one of their mouth’s and ran with all three of them Attacking her … keep your pets safe keep them inside it was horrible
    ______________________________________

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  26. Something I find interesting, in an almost perplexing kind of way. . .

    On the Moebius Syndrome Facebook Group posts, I have noticed that the folks who tend to lament the most about being picked on & bullied for their looks, or getting stares or rude comments from strangers, are the ones who have the mildest of cases. Some, you can barely tell there’s anything different about their faces.

    This partially goes along with my thought that it doesn’t matter how different one is, people will stare or be rude or bully anyone with the slightest difference merely for being different. IOW, a person with a slight case of Moebius (or any other kind of difference) may get just as much negative attention & bullying as a person with a more severe case of Moebius.

    Still, it is strange to me that those who look the most “normal” seem to be the most bothered by the negative attention they get, & claim to get a lot of it, even as adults. And they are often the ones who talk about how unattractive they are or claim that people think they’re ugly (& they really aren’t). And again, they claim to get stares & rude comments & such on a regular basis.

    (I have what I think of as a “medium” case of Moebius, & I only occasionally notice strange looks or stares from others. Although as a child & teen, I got a lot of negativity from my peers.)

    There is one younger man (in his 30s, & a fellow believer) who is always complaining, & I hate to admit that I don’t have any patience left for him (not that I express that to him, though). He says people call him a monster, & that women aren’t interested in him because he’s so ugly. But if I didn’t know that he has Moebius, I wouldn’t guess it from his photos, & I know the signs to look for. He seems to have a strong case of self-pity.

    And there’s a lady who looks completely normal to me, who must have the slightest case, who has written about her struggles & depression over being so different (but she really doesn’t look different at all, at least not in photos). Another lady looks a lot like me, & claims she often gets rude stares & remarks.

    Anyway, I’ve seen this for a while now, & it makes me wonder.

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  27. The cookie table sounds like a neat idea.

    DJ – Did you see my question to you & Michelle yesterday? Here it is again, in case you missed it:

    Is the Napa area more conservative than southern California?

    The reason I ask is that I’ve been watching some Facebook posts by my cousin’s wife (they live in Napa), & comments from her & her friends, about the controversy over Napa High School. NHS’s team name has been the Indians, & their “mascot” was an Indian head. But the administration has decided to drop the Indian from their signs & such.

    What has surprised me is that a lot of the parents & students (including my cousin’s family) are upset about that, wanting it to remain the way it’s been.

    Btw, Cousin & Wife own a pizza shop in St. Helena, called That Pizza Place, & I hear their pizza is really good. Cousin’s Wife shared a great review they got from a local magazine.

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  28. I’m not familiar with Napa, Michelle probably could answer that better. But generally speaking, more inland (non-coastal) and rural areas in California are more politically conservative. Population is much higher along the coast, however, so the coastal areas typically sway the state politically with little effort.

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  31. According to what I can see from that, Napa is on the liberal side. Cousin & Wife seem to be a mixture of liberal & conservative, depending on the subject.

    Just saw another post from Cousin’s Wife that shows that the new football uniforms don’t have the Indian “logo”, & is calling for the school board to be recalled.

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  32. I’ve been to weddings with a waffle bar, a hot dog buffet and the one I’m attending in September will have a candy bar (table). The waffle bar and hot dogs were for the late, late supper (after the main dinner).

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  39. Kizzie, I think the objecting parents are probably a vocal minority. We had a similar thing her a few years ago when nearby Eastern Michigan University decided to change its mascot from the Hurons (a native tribe) to the Eagles. There was a similar outcry, probably mostly from alums in the area. But Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor are by no means conservative. (Conservatives often call AA “the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor”).

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  40. DJ, I loved the map later in that article that twisted the shapes and sizes of the counties and areas so they were proportional to population. I think Michigan would look similar, though probably not as overwhelmingly blue. A standard red/blue map of Michigan by county makes the state look massively Republican, but the blue areas include most of the big cities – Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and Kalamazoo, Muskegon…

    Even our county has the same effect in miniature. A precinct map shows half or more of the county red, but it’s the sparsely-populated outlying areas with lots of farming.

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  41. Cheryl and her husband are busy working on their house (and watering some newly planted grass several times a day), so my guess would be that is why she isn’t around as much. But I’d recommend you watch what you say about her, because she may well be lurking. 😉

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  42. Names; we are the Indians. I suggested the prairie chickens, but it did not go over well. Another nearby town is also under the microscope for their name, the Maniacs. Could it be because of the insane asylum that has been in their town for nearly one hundred years? How thoughtless.

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  43. The story around here is Sonoma makes wine, Napa makes auto parts . . . . I would say, if anything, Napa is only marginally more conservative than the rest of the Bay Area, and that’s only because it’s a farming community. Wine is the crop, of course.

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  44. I drove right along Nap’ County’s outskirts when traveling home just now in my new car. California roads are in such awful shape that with only 55 miles on the odometer, 26 from the dealer, I got a minor ding in the windshield.

    My husband’s car, which regularly travels the disaster I-880 along the bay, has a windshield that looks like it’s been sand blasted. I took it in to be washed last week hoping to make it easier to see out of a clean windshield. It made little difference.

    Here are more of the costs that need to be counted. A state that prefers to use its road tax monies on illegal aliens and trains to nowhere, can’t keep up with its road infrastructure. That means all the hapless drivers, who pay the highest gas tax in the country, also have to pay in damage to their cars.

    Even when we vote for road repairs, we seldom get them. There’s always something “more important” to do with the money.

    Very frustrating.

    The car, however, is far smarter than I am. I wonder what I’ll break first. I have to watch a DVD tonight and take a test (joke), to know how to drive with all those safety features!

    Actually, I recorded the 1/2 hour discussion with the salesman as he went over everything. (The first thing he did was hook up the phone bluetooth so I could talk to my family–which I did driving home). At one point I asked, “am I even needed in the driver’s seat?”

    He laughed.

    Practically, not, in some situations!

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  45. Left a request on the prayer thread a little while ago.

    Well, I’ve survived the first two weeks of several first shift child-sitting days, despite not getting enough sleep. (So frustrating that my body won’t get with the program & go to sleep when it should.) It got a bit dicey a couple times today, with Little Guy in one of his super talkative moods & me being tired. He wasn’t being “bad”, but wow, all that talking can sure wear on one’s nerves!

    Thankfully, he was well-behaved today. He has been most of the time, but there was a quite difficult time we had with him on Monday afternoon. So glad that was just a “glitch”, so to speak, & he got back to being his usual self.

    Tomorrow is a day off, & I am looking forward to a quiet day (hopefully).

    He has been enjoying football practice every evening. (They have it Monday through Friday, 5:30 – 7:30 each evening for the month of August, until school starts.) He looks so cute in his football gear & helmet. 🙂

    (Please pray his Papa will be able to be around as he grows up, as Papa is the only Christian man he has in his life.)

    (And yes, I know that God can bring another godly man into his life, but no one can take the place of his Papa.)

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  46. Kizzie, I think it is often the case that people who think of themselves as different, and are self-conscious and self-pitying, struggle more.

    Truth is, America plays on all this “I don’t want to be different.” A dental surgeon tried to talk me into letting him break my jaw, largely for cosmetic reasons, when I was in my twenties. I see two or three commercials regularly that really bug me: one, a young woman with extremely white teeth is complaining “My teeth are so yellow!” Then there is one about using this cream if you have spots on your arms, and another that has a cream for wrinkles on your neck–any potential “imperfection” has a product to solve it.

    But we come in a range of body shapes, splotches, and so forth, and we will grow old, and that does not make us ugly. Those commercials don’t make me want to buy the products; if anything they make me not want to buy anything the company makes, as they are so insulting to normal variations and normal aging. But I hate the concept of healthy young women growing up with a regular diet of “Different is ugly–you need our product.”

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  47. Michelle – Not too long ago, Connecticut had the highest gas tax in the country, with California being right behind us. I guess you passed us.

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  52. If you click on that, it should take you to a photo of me. It kind of looks like I’m a bit cross-eyed, but I’m not really, that’s just the light or the angle or something. But many people with Moebius have crossed eyes (strabismus is the medical name for it). I have been grateful to not have had that particular problem, nor the limb abnormalities (club feet, missing fingers or hands) some have. I have my own problems besides the partial facial paralysis (light sensitivity, hearing loss, bad balance, etc.), but am grateful that I don’t have some of the other problems.

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  61. I did a very quick and dirty cleanup of the over-packed refrigerator when I got home from work — found a mystery leftover or two way, way in the back.

    Then walked the dogs.

    I managed to get my cable bill chopped way down earlier this week by going down a step and getting rid of my landline (which I never really used anymore).

    Still think I’ll be OK job-wise, but it all remains stressful for everyone. We’ll know more after the phone call tomorrow, but my editor said unless I’m wanting to take the buyout (which I’m not), it probably won’t affect me in that sense. There’s a staff meeting Monday about it as well, but I think I’ll go ahead and take my planned week off.

    And I’m set on Saturday morning to take my Civil War rifle to the local museum where there’s a board meeting and guys gathering for that who will be able to tell me all about my rifle. It’s going to feel odd loading a rifle into the Jeep though. And I’ll have to arrange to visit Carol some other day, I told her I’d try to get up there Saturday morning to see her but I really would like to get this rifle assessed now that there’s the opportunity.

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  64. Beautiful ladies in the photo.

    Kare, I hope your toe gets better.

    Kizzie, you are beautiful. Praying for Lee.

    6Arrows, glad you are ok.

    I have so many things which have happened this past few weeks, but no time to post. Next week I get a break, and may be a blog hog with working through my thoughts.

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