47 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-10-17”

  4. Good morning all! I like the deer pics. Supposedly we have deer in the woods behind the house, but I have not seen them yet. Since the leaves are starting to fall now, maybe I’ll spot one soon. :–)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. I posted this on Facebook but thought maybe those of you who don’t partake there might enjoy it.
    One evening last week I took what was probably my last bicycle ride on the Trail. Afterwards, I needed milk so I stopped at Walmart dressed in my flip-flops, bike shorts, and an old sweatshirt. I went in through the pharmacy and noticed a display for some shampoo I’d been meaning to try. Because I care about the smell, I opened a bottle of conditioner, held it up do my nose, and did a little squeeze. This usually provides a little puff of air with the scent of the product but instead, it blew a glob of conditioner up my nose. So I walked through the store digging conditioner out of my nose and wiping it on my sweatshirt.
    Watch for me on peopleofwalmart dot com

    Liked by 11 people

    Reply

  6. Chas. I️ apologize. Don’t count on me today. I️ have a stuffy nose, itchy ears, and a sore throat. I️ don’t won’t to share it with you and especially not Elvira. I️ am so disappointed. I️ had hoped I️ would be better this morning. 😦

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Tody ends Kim’s trip into NC. I had hoped to meet up with her and Mr. P. But it seems it wasn’t to be.
    If Mr P is anything like me, he is anxious to point the car toward Sunny South Alabam.
    Kim mentioned meeting Tuesday or Friday, but I knew that he wasn’t going to extend the trip home by a five hour detour east when he was going west. That is five hours onto a nine hour trip.

    The best thing would have been to swing north our of Charlotte to Greensboro, then to Lake Lure. That would only extend the travel time by about 2 hours on the front end. (The distance is farther, but I-40 is a good highway. Speed limit 70 west of Winston.)

    Or, if I had known their schedule, we could have met at the Cracker Barrel in Hickory. (1.5 hrs from Lake Lure, 2 hrs from Greensboro. But again I-40 is good.) But it would have to be in mid-day because of my restrictions.

    After a dreary week, it’s sunny now, but cold in Greensboro.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. Kim, I was composing my 7:53 while you were doing yours.
    As I said, it doesn’t make sense to add another five hours onto the trip home. We missed the best chance on Tuesday. (Then, as I said, we could have arranged to meet in Hickory.)

    I presume you are leaving today. Be sure to stop by Chimney Rock on the way out. I”s only a big rock, but a tourist attraction in the area.
    On the way our, you will likely go toward Hendersonville, then turn south on I-26. . Immediately, you cross the Green River Bridge, then you got to ride the brakess down the Saluda Grade. This is the steepest highway east of the Rockies. Speed 55 for cars 35, trucks.) Saluda has it’s own railroad history.
    The mountains end at the SC state line. Stop at the SC rest area, even if you don’ need to .. Because it’s your last chance ’till you get to Ga. ,

    Like

    Reply

  9. She’s been by Chimney Rock, we saw the photos on FB yesterday, gorgeous.

    I moved the trash out early this morning (before 5:30 a.m.) and am watching the sun come up. One more day of work and I’m off for a much-needed week away from the grind.

    Love the “new” old windows, they close and lock so nicely. Of the pair of long casement windows in my bedroom, one no longer would open and the other (since the ceiling replacement) no longer would close. Now they both swing open and closed so beautifully. The wood blinds on one of them, however, don’t go down anymore, but that’s to worry about for another day.

    I think Cheryl’s suggestion last night was probably a good one, time for a break from anything that absolutely doesn’t need to get done soon (so the leak under the sink has to be fixed and the stucco, if possible, should get put back on the side of the house, but painting will now definitely wait until next year).

    I do hope to have more time next week, though, to look into colors and work with the Old House guy from NJ who has my birthday money to give me expert advice. So far, I’m a little disappointed, he doesn’t seem very engaged in this, seems like it’s “just a job” to him, he’s very cut and dried in his emails, doesn’t seem very interested in my house or in what I’m trying to do. I was hoping he’d be a bit more conversational but he’s clearly a man of very few words. Some people, though, just don’t communicate easily in writing, but I thought since he had a blog that wouldn’t be the case. Oh well. Maybe he’ll loosen up a bit as it goes on — and I do realize he has other jobs he’s likely juggling. I just feel he doesn’t care much (not that he really should, but a good business person would make it seem like he did, right?).

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  10. Good morning. I am sad that it could not work out this time for Kim and Chas to meet. Again my tablet changed Chas to Chaos. I am glad Kim did not meet Chaos.

    Linda, great trick instead of the treat you were expecting. That made me have a hearty laugh.

    I have a WMU trip today. Wish I had time to tell a little about yesterday’s luncheon. It was an appreciation luncheon in a nearby county for the legislature that has worked on laws to help the incarcerated rereentesociety prepaired to work and be good citizens. The Governor spoke. I was at the Christian Library International table. Gotta go NOW! Can’t keep the bus waiting.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Linda, that is a great example of “don’t judge what you see unless you really know what is going on.”

    Several years ago I was getting ready to take Misten to the vet. Misten had a huge bladder (a vet who felt her abdomen in her final weeks even commented on her huge bladder), and in her prime she consistently went at least 24 hours without peeing–she once went 36 hours and didn’t go when I let her outside at bedtime, so I walked her because that would “make” her go. I figured she was probably OK; except as a little tiny puppy she had never had accidents inside, and even then, rarely, since she already had a five-hour bladder at two months. But it made me feel better to walk her and know she was empty.

    Anyway, I once took her to see the vet when she’d been throwing up a lot, and a new vet who hadn’t met her yet pushed a thermometer up Misten’s rear before even bothering to pet her or let my girl sniff her hand. Misten promptly wet all over the floor, and then the woman made a snide comment about collies’ intelligence (with that small head, there isn’t much room for a brain)–in retrospect, I really should have reported her actions to the clinic, but I merely made sure Misten never had to see that woman again. But the next time I took her in, apparently remembering, Misten also wet the floor. After that, I always made sure that I walked her on leash around my front yard and the nearby couple of yards until she peed, and then I loaded her into the car.

    One day I was doing that little circle with her, and she didn’t only pee. Well, I was catty-corner from my house, basically just across my front yard from home, but I didn’t have any plastic bags with me since she wasn’t really on a “walk.” So I had to walk back across my yard and into my house to get a bag to pick up after her. What was half amusing and half frustrating was that somebody had been driving by, and that person stopped to watch. I just knew the driver was seeing if I was going to “do the right thing” and pick up after my dog, and by her presence make me feel guilty if I didn’t. Thing was, there was no way to talk to her (she stopped the car, window up, in a different direction than I was heading, and I had an appointment to keep) and she simply had no idea what was going on. She drove away as I left, so she didn’t even know I walked right across the street to my own house. She thought herself a good citizen, but she was simply being a busy body, coming in with no context!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  12. Kim. If you’re using GPS to get home, it may try to get you off I-26 toward Greenville. It is more direct, but don’t take it. Stay on I-26 until you get to I-85. It’s faster and less commotion.

    Like

    Reply

  13. And then there’s Carol.

    I told her I’d pick her up to meet with some friends here who have decided to do a restaurant rendezvous for Thanksgiving dinner but that I’d like her to pay for herself (she’s due a large — for her — sum of money in back payments from a NY pension fund that should be coming this month). I’ve paid for Thanksgiving meals out for her for several years now and decided this year I’m going to start drawing the line in the sand for her to take more financial responsibility for herself.

    But she said the money won’t come until the 29th. I told her (reluctantly) that I’d front the money for her BUT I will expect to be paid back this time. “Oh, of course!” she said, like she always does that (she never pays me back, though I typically don’t make a point of insisting on that either, I’m always just hoping she learns from her guilt, assuming she has some, and will try to do better next time, but she never does).

    And our phone conversation yesterday was her talking nonstop about food, which she often does — what she ate, what new restaurants are around with good ice cream, etc. I hate talking about food, I don’t care about food, I buy it, I eat it (yeah, too much of it), I’m done with it already. But lately she just goes on and on and I find myself just zoning out, doing the “uh-huh, u-huh” routine as she talks.

    Then later last night she left me a frantic voicemail saying someone named George in her facility is hacking into her phone and she needs me to urgently call her right back and then get her to the phone office as soon as possible. This comes up periodically for her, the paranoia that *someone* for some unknown reason is hacking her phone. I didn’t call her back. Instead, I sent her a short text just advising her to turn the phone off for the night and go to bed.

    She’s become very high-maintenance lately and I’m very “low-patience” lately with all I have going on here, I’m afraid.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  14. That header is, of course, one of the deer from yesterday. After fleeing the orchard side by side, one went left and one went right, and after a few moments of standing out in front of the corn, the one that went left ran across it (right) to join the other, and I got some action shots. I’m not sure which of the two this is, though I’m inclined to think it was the fawn since he was on the left when they turned to flee. Unless they crossed each other, this is the youngster. I like getting action shots, and liked this one. I put my camera on action mode, and basically kept shooting all the way across the frame several times, then quickly moved my camera ahead and got another series. That actually rendered several shots more or less unusable, though, since it is bad design to have an animal at the very front edge of a photo and running “out” of the photo. Oh well, I got a few good shots, once I cropped as much as possible from the rear ends of photos to let the beast still be running into the photo and not out of it.

    The corn all got harvested last night, so now the crows are discovering it. One by one so far, but I have a clan of crows near me (they stay together with their relatives in a region, staying together as family groups but interacting with relatives in the larger clan), and probably at some point I’ll have a large group out there. Coyotes were out yipping last night, likely in that field and catching mice whose nests were disturbed by the harvest. In that instance, since the mice are the bad guys (spreading Lyme disease), I think the coyotes would have to be the good guys, though I’d root for foxes, raccoons, and skunks over coyotes (in the east, anyway, where coyotes don’t really belong). Owls could also be doing the task of finding newly homeless mice.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. cheryl, 🙂 “great example of ‘don’t judge what you see unless you really know what is going on.’”

    I had a tough time with my animals last night. These incontinence pills have a side affect of making Cowboy very lively and so often he doesn’t want to come in from the backyard as it’s getting late. In trying to get him in last night, of course, Annie slipped out and ended up on the front porch, not a good thing in coyote territory and during coyote ‘witching’ hour.

    She wouldn’t come in the front door and Cowboy wouldn’t come in the back door. It took several attempts going back and forth for me to finally lure the cat in with food. I finally just had to go out and leash Cowboy up to get him into the back door for the night.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. Good Morning! Second cup of coffee almost gone and thinking about a third!
    I remember being so sad to not meet Chas and Elvera while we were in SC…so close yet so far away…timing was off…still hoping we will meet on this side of heaven 😊

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  17. Kim, if you’re not in a hurry, the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville is worth a visit.
    Women seem to like it more than the men.
    I visited it once, Elvera and Polly used to go there often.

    Like

    Reply

  19. Great. Another terrorist photos to greet me . . . 🙂

    Raining here. It’s gentle at the moment and we’re hoping it stays that way for the sake of the watershed, etc.

    An extremely busy weekend. The other agents are coming in today and two will stay with me until Sunday morning. We have meetings tonight and all day tomorrow. It will be fun to see them all, but hard work.

    I’m sure we’ll talk about the you-know-what.

    Sunday is insane. I could probably use some prayer on that day: greet guests and say goodbye. Teach Sunday School for a friend (Biddy and Resilience), play clarinet and sing for second service, eat bean soup lunch with the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, dash to Christian Women’s Social where I’ll speak on Biddy and Resilience. Skip a fund raiser for a local camp to attend a memorial service for a friend’s father and then dash home for a live interview at 5:45.

    Monday morning another interview at 10, Tasha goes to vet at 11 and a live one-hour interview at 1. I’ll have to do my Bible study prep after that . . .

    Yikes. I’m tired already and I haven’t even started. These are all wonderful events (other than the memorial, but that shouldn’t be too bad), but so many stacked up makes for a crazy woman.

    Off to finish cleaning the house before I head to work, followed by grocery store, followed by woodwind rehearsal, followed by . . . whatever else turns up before we go to dinner. I don’t know when the two guests are arriving.

    So, Donna, you’re always welcome to vacation up here! LOL

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  20. A rare weekday at home, due to college being closed for Veteran’s Day. So far I have spent it doing laundry, picking up medicine for our dog (blood in the stools recently), and picking up a rental car because my husband’s car is in the shop, possibly totaled. He ran over something in the road yesterday, which the truck in front of him passed over easily, but it ripped his undercarriage and bent an axle. Someone told him later it must have been something really heavy, like a boat anchor, to do that kind of damage. The guy from the dealership (where he bought the car and goes to get work done) who brought him home left a piece with us for a souvenir of sorts – whatever it was ripped through metal like it was paper.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. 🙂 There is a commercial on the radio,
    It makes me want to run out and buy the stuff. But:
    It ends with a guy saying, real fast, “not meant to control, cure or prevent any disease.”
    I changed my mind.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  22. Michelle, think of it as being able to see the beauty of the deer risk-free!

    I too was unable to meet with Chas this year after having potential plans to do so. I was going to be in town for my denomination’s general assembly, but our decision to move out of town meant we won’t be part of our church much longer, and my husband didn’t think it a good use of church money to send him to general assembly when he was a “lame duck” elder. We also had things we needed to do at home to get the house ready to sell. But I was disappointed in not being able to meet Chas and Elvera and also see my oldest brother and possibly some of his family.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  23. Chas,gets the most stood-up award?

    No deer where I live, only coyotes. But as much as I think the coyote issue is being SO mishandled, I still find them fascinating and often attractive animals. But conflicts come with them when they’re too close to people and pets.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  24. Window company returns Tuesday to give me a price on replicating the 2 windows that couldn’t be repaired. No turning back now on the windows, will just need to get that done.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  25. Donna, I wasn’t really stood up by Cheryl because there were no plans to meet.
    She just whizzed by on I-40 if I remember correctly. That’s still a few miles north of where I lived.

    Like

    Reply

  26. Chas, the plans weren’t detailed yet, just “I’ll be in town such and such a week” and “Let’s figure out details as it gets closer,” but then our plans changed. We already had a hotel reservation and such, but sometimes it just makes sense to change plans.

    Like

    Reply

  28. From a book (“The Imperfect Disciple”) I’m reading:

    __________________________________________________

    “You and I need tuning up in the gospel every day.

    “This is how I like to think about discipleship, then — not just following Jesus, but *refollowing* Jesus every day. We go off track so easily.

    “When I was pastoring, I much admired the dominant biblical portrait of the pastorate — a shepherd with his flock. But any seasoned ministry veteran will tell you that pastoral ministry is very often less like herding sheep and more like herding cats. The prophet Isaiah says that ‘all we like sheep have gone astray’ (53:6), and I wonder if it’s because he wasn’t around cats very much. Sheep tend to go astray because they are dumbly distracted. That’s a little like us. But cats go astray because they are smug investors in their own narcissistic autonomy. That’s a lot like us.

    “Then you put us on this confusing, twisty journey called life, and there’s just so much that can go wrong. It especially goes wrong when we aren’t clear on exactly what’s wrong. Do you know why there are a thousand fresh self-help books every year? It’s because they don’t work …”
    _______________________________________________________

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  29. While Chas gets stood up, I get flown over. Anyone flying east to west or vice versa goes over this area. In the mornings on a clear day I can see lots of contrails overhead. But on occasion someone will come by. Pauline and her hubby a few years back, Jo this past summer.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  31. Mumsee is partly correct. In real life there is no “Chas”. It is a signature I used to put on memorandums because it is so easy to scribble.
    In real life, I am Charlie. I have never answered to “Chas”. Charlie and Charles (my official name) are harder to write when you’re in a hurry.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  32. That deer looks like a jack rabbit in comparison to our mule deer and elk. Nice picture!

    Just paid the last property tax bills. It is always a feeling of relief to get them all paid for the year.

    I did well on my arrhythmia test. The only problem I had, was that I confused a 3rd degree AV block with an idioventricular rhythm.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  37. Congrats RK!! Our property taxes are always due April 30…fifteen days after taxes…and always the same time as our house insurance and two days before our auto insurance is due…I hate that time of year when it all hits!! 😜
    We will have to meet up with Peter and the Mrs. on our next car trip to visit family…we met them already but would always like to see them again! And we do plan to visit Blowing Rock again…we will make it a point to try and see Chas and Elvera.
    My favorite Brother in law who passed away 6 years ago was named Charles…everyone called him Charlie…I called him Chas…he was one classy fella 😊

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  41. We travel to Cincinnati and Northern KY…we usually get to St Louis and go north on 70 then south on 74…..we thought about heading north next time through Nebraska instead of Kansas to change it up a bit 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  42. The new photo is the young guy (in this photo you can see clearly how I know it is a young male, the bumps on his head that will be antlers next year) walking by the corner of the fence, with me very close on the other side but him apparently having no clue. Notice, for instance, that both of his ears are turned away from me. Once he saw me, he swiveled his ears toward me, but at this point he was still innocently walking toward the apple trees without a care in the world.

    I was standing right next to the fence in the foreground, about two rails over from the left rail in the photo. His mother had to have been wanting to smack him upside the head for getting that close . . . and doing it without even knowing I was there!

    Like

    Reply

  43. My next property tax (after December) is also due in April which is when house insurance and car registration are due so that s a bad time for me too.

    Long day, put in a couple hours overtime with an important obituary story I had to write after I finished 2 other stories. I have kitchen cleanup in the morning before sink guy comes.

    Now my cousin is doing foundation work on her house, it must be spreading.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment