48 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 10-26-17”

  6. It is cool here this a.m. I think it touched down in the 30s last night.

    This next Sunday was when we were suppose to finalize our new plans to go forward on decisions made by the leadership/visioning team at church. Now I expect it will be delayed while we look into the most recent merge possibility. At least we do know that we will be keeping our facility. On Sunday we should, as a congregation, fiand out who wants to merge.

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  9. Parent Teacher conferences/ show and tell. That is what they are here. The child runs the event. I don’t attend. Husband will be out of town. If a teacher has something to say to me, they all have my email. Son has a new motto he likes, “D” for diploma and I get a letter every week telling me that his grades are not what they should be. I know that. He knows that. The teachers know that. No need to get together and commend him on his great effort. I do not envy teachers.

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  11. The bird is a blue jay for all who love them. 😉 But I love the “dive” shot and thought it great luck to get it. It’s in my backyard, going from a silver maple tree to the ground.

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  12. What goes up must come down. Cool shot.

    I was confused a bit reading Peter’s post as it feels so much like summer here! I thought, school’s back in??

    Our heat is supposed to break today and fall will make a return appearance by the weekend and stay into next week. After that, all bets are off.

    Partial foundation crew is here, they were arriving at 7 a.m. just after I’d gotten up and had rushed out to back the Jeep out of the driveway so they could park their trucks there.

    Big Reformation Day goings on for many churches this weekend, especially with the anniversary year.

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  13. Ah, the pounding of hammers underneath the house.

    I will survive. I will survive. I will survive.

    It will be over someday.

    The house will be stable and the sewers running freely — and it will be cutely painted. Someday.

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  17. Because about fifty years ago, people decided that children should be in charge of their own lives. That keeps those silly old folks from getting together and discussing ways to motivate the child.

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  18. We only have them in the fall. Sometimes the students attend. But the parents I need to see don’t come. The parents that care enough to come are the ones whose children have good grades. They want a pat on the back.

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  19. We went when we thought we might be of some good to the teachers and the students, but we realized we have much more contact with them in person or through email.

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  20. Mumsee, that will be my theme video going forward. 🙂 Loved the ending.

    I found out what the endless circling helicopter was all about outside my bedroom window late last night.

    Seems some guys decided to burglarize a house that was tented for fumigation. One was arrested but the other guy required an ambulance as he was hiding out inside that whole time.

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  22. I have mentioned before that second son sent me a musical card with that song on it. I bring it out when things get especially tough. Haven’t listened to it for quite a while, I must have adjusted.

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  24. Oh I knew that was a blue jay…yep. 😊 Good shot of one in action carrying out his dastardly deed!!
    The winds are a blowin here but it is beautiful outside. This afternoon the temps drop and the snow begins…only but for a very short time…then it is back to autumn… 🍁

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  25. 6 Arrows,

    Can you try to send the pic again please. I got the email, but the pic can’t be opened. It says there’s no attachment when I try to open what looks like an attachment. I’m not sure what’s up.

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  27. The new photo is from our neighbor’s apple orchard, post-harvest, with what is left on the tree insect- and bird-eaten, a young yellow-bellied sapsucker.

    The tree had two woodpeckers in it–you don’t think of woodpeckers being attracted to fruit, but I’ve also seen them eating mulberries. One of the birds was a red-bellied woodpecker, and at first I assumed the second one was, too (since being in the same tree they were likely to be a pair or a parent and juvenile there together), but on seeing its markings I then thought downy woodpecker. But when it flew up on top and got in the light, it was clear it was a sapsucker, which is the woodpecker I see the least often. (I’ve had more “luck” seeing the elusive pileated than seeing this shy species, and most of my sightings of sapsuckers have been juveniles in the fall. I’m guessing that adult birds are more secretive.)

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  28. That second photo is lovely. I enjoy seeing birds almost as much as Miss Bosley does.

    I opened the window for her which I thought she would enjoy, but instead of hanging out on the windowsill, she is in my lap. I guess the chill in the air discouraged her from being in the window. The fresh fall air is great!

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  30. I heard a Bible study leader say that the 40 days and 40 nights of Jesus in the desert was a saying like when we might say something like I’ve seen that a thousand times. I always took the time to be a literal 40 Days. Any thoughts?

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  34. Was going through some of Hubby’s emails. He was one of those people who seem to not delete anything. :-/ Ran across an email he had sent me two or three years ago – “We’ll get though this together.”

    That reminded me of the times in recent years, during tough times, when I have held his hand, looked him deeply in the eyes, & told him that we are in this together, so that he would know that I was with him, on his side, committed to being by his side no matter what. I’m pretty sure I said something similar to him at some point when he was in the hospital, facing the likelihood of not going back to his job, & wondering (& trying not to worry about) what the future held. Of course, we also always acknowledged that whatever we were going through, we were going through with God, following Him wherever He might lead.

    My reassurances of my standing with him, & praying for him, gave him great comfort & encouragement.

    So here I am, going through this my own tough time without him, & it doesn’t seem fair. But I also know that although I don’t have Hubby anymore, I am not alone, not truly, even though at times I feel like it.

    Thank you for letting me share my random, sad thoughts.

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  35. The mention of 40 days & 40 nights sort of reminds me of a Steven Wright joke.

    Late one night, he goes to the convenience store that advertises being open 24 hours, only to find the manager locking up.

    “I thought you were open 24 hours,” he says to the manager. The manager replies, “Yeah, but not in a row!”

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  37. What in the world? How did that happen? The school called and I am now scheduled to go visit a teacher on Wednesday for parent teacher conference. I did ask the desk if there was any point. She was flabbergasted. But the teacher requested it so in I go.

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  38. AJ,

    We (3rd Arrow and I) just tried re-sending the pic a few minutes ago. It came directly from her gmail account this time, rather than as a forward from my usual email, which is the way I’d previously sent it. Maybe sending it as a forward goofed something up? Anyway, I’m hoping that the attachment on her email will open for you. If not, I’m not sure what else we could do to get it to open.

    Although 1st Arrow is an IT guy, and he would probably be able to help the next time he gets home. 🙂

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  39. Mumsee – Oh, yes, I know he would not have left me like this if he’d had the choice. If he had known that he was dying, he would have been devastated to leave me unprepared, to leave our girls, & maybe most of all, to leave The Boy. Which is why I am glad for his sake that he didn’t know, although for us, the shock of it has been very hard to deal with.

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  40. Yesterday some of you mentioned Legos being popular with boys The Boy’s age. Yup. His birthday party had a Legos theme. Nightingale did a good job of pulling all together “on the cheap”. She is very creative.

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  42. With my older son, I stopped going to parent-teacher conferences by the time he got to high school. (I don’t remember if I went when he was in middle school, but since we moved twice during that period and he went to three different middle schools, I might have gone just to be sure he had adjusted OK to the new school and to meet the teachers.)

    I went once when he was in high school, because I got an email from a teacher requesting I come. I was of course concerned, but when I showed up, he said that he sent out those requests because otherwise no one came. He really had nothing to discuss with me.

    With my younger son, the one with the IEP, I have gone every time because for so long there were always issues to discuss about his behavior, and in the early grades, his grasp of the material. I could not have imagined, back when he was in elementary school struggling to do simple arithmetic without having a meltdown, that today I would have heard nothing but how well he is doing in all his classes, including AP Calculus (and 2 other AP classes).

    He has gone with me to the conferences since middle school, because they want the students to take responsibility for their own education. Teachers have never hesitated to discuss any problems he has in front of him, and these days he is usually the one to bring them up rather than the teacher. I was somewhat concerned when in two of his classes he mentioned having some assignments he hadn’t gotten turned in yet, and the teachers said they were not concerned, they know he would get them turned in and that the work would be excellent. It may be fine with them, but I pointed out to him after we left that in college there’ll just be a deadline and that’s it. (Of course, I’m thinking of when I went to college. I don’t actually know if it’s the same these days.)

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  43. As for forty days and forty nights, I have no problem with the idea that it just meant a long time, measured in weeks, not days. If that’s how the phrase was used at that time in that culture, then there is no reason to take it more literally than it would have been understood by those who first heard/read those passages in the Gospels.

    I have heard that about the forty days and forty nights before, but I don’t know the source, and I do know that there are things that get repeated until “everyone knows it” that don’t actually have a basis in fact, and it happens in the area of Bible teaching just as with other areas of life. So I have no firm opinion about whether it should be taken literally or not, but it makes sense to me that there could be such a phrase that was used to mean a long time and not expected to be understood literally. Could it have been literally 40 days? Sure. But the precise length of time was not the point of the account.

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  44. I agree that that was not the point other than perhaps the forty days of flooding and forty days in the wilderness theme. And if I am wrong it won’t affect my beliefs. But I tend to go with what it says so I don’t start picking things apart and saying well it did not mean this here.

    As to the conferences: I cannot imagine they need me there for a tenth grade conference. We all know he is underachieving. We all know if they let him on a computer he will find a way to get off onto other things (watching movies, playing games, anything but schoolwork). We all know he is currently shooting for D’s in all of his classes just to see if he can. But perhaps she has some new revelation that will show he has changed his mind and is ready to get serious for a while. She asked and she is the teacher in several of his classes, one of which is a repeat from last year. If the child is taking responsibility, he doesn’t need mommy at the conference.

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