87 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-16-17”

  4. Hi
    Peter.
    That’s what we say in NC 😆

    😦 The handle on my coffee cup broke off.
    Just like that. I didn’t drop it, it just came off.
    I hadn’t poured to coffee yet, I just picked it up and all I got was a handle.
    In 87 years, I’ve never had or heard of anything like that.

    It was my garnet colored “Carolina Alumni” cup. I have a black Gamecock cup, so I can still drink coffee. I just miss my Carolina cup.

    I really hope this is the worst news that anyone posts today.
    😉

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  5. Good Morning Everyone. This is the morning I could have slept in a little, so of course I have been wide awake since 2:30 when Lulabelle woke me to let her out. Amos decided he should go too. Everyone is asleep now but me.
    I have a busy day today.

    Did I tell you the story of my every day dishes? Well, I have very nice 12 place setting, set of Mikasa Silk Blossoms https://www.replacements.com/webquote/miksibl.htm

    I have eaten off of them almost every day for 25 years. Only one dish has ever been broken and that was because I forgot it was in the bottom of a bag and dropped the bag to unlock the kitchen door. A few weeks ago we were talking about anger issues in my Boundaries Sunday School class. I made the comment about these dishes and how I have had them so long and never broken a piece, HERE IT COMES: because my mother would get angry and throw all the dishes in the kitchen and den that had tile floors. I spent my childhood with someone picking shards of glass out of my feet and we would get a new set of dishes. The Pastor’s wife, looked at me in total amazement and said, “Girl, go buy some new dishes. You deserve them”. So I did. Someone had given me a gift certificate to Wayfair about a year ago and I had bought something then but had about $60 left on it. I had forgotten until I was talking to my friend M. I love her white dishes. They are BIA Cordon Bleu Bistro. I ordered myself 8 solid white dinner plates. Slowly I will add the salad plates, and rimmed bowls, and perhaps the cups.

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  7. 😦 I don’t want silk blossoms nor nothing French. I just want my Block C Carolina cup.
    I think I told you that Elvera drinks out of a cup that says, “Life is fragile, handle with care”.
    Actually, she isn’t drinking it, it is getting cold.
    In a few minutes I will take it in and zap it on the microwave for 10 seconds for her.

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  10. Kim, those are very similar to my white dishes. I went with white because then I can change the colour of my decor and not worry about the dishes. (Hence a different colour scheme every Christmas) 🙂 🙂 🙂

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  11. Good morning, friends.

    Chas, I gave my mother a crewel needlework with a lovely picture and that same phrase, “Life is Fragile, Handle With Prayer.” It still hangs in Mt brother’s home.

    Kim, once when Wesley was young, he managed to get a small shard of glass in his foot from something that broke on the kitchen floor. He was crying loudly so I picked him up and took him to the bed to wait while I got supplies to deal with the shard. When I got back to the bed, he was giggling and said someone was tickling his foot. The only thing on the bed near him was my Bible.

    Kim, I do like your choices of china/everyday. I have a few pieces of Mikassa which has peaches and plums on it. I also bought a white set to give to Wesley thispast Christmas. A friend talked me into Heartland when I was getting married so that is what I have enough of to last for the rest of our lives. I did buy a set of pasta bowls this past year which I have really enjoyed.

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  12. On what was supposed to be a relaxing day yesterday (see the post I wrote), turned into a wild day with Mrs. OC. It was the 100th anniversary and apparently a lot of people were curious and my website turned up on google. I had 8xs the normal visitors by the time it was over.

    Mrs. OC did well on Amazon, too, and the publishers were excited, as was the publicist and my agent.

    For me, however, monitoring all this and doing what I could, the message I got earlier in the day was the best news of all. It came from a friend who has been a great supporter. She attends a UCC church in AZ and always has a bit of a problem fitting in.

    But, God keeps calling her to follow Him and she’s working on it. She’s been using Mrs. OC and Utmost to make connections in her church fully of smart, competent people who don’t usually read the Bible. She sent this:

    “Good session with E today. The church librarian even got involved. Today we discussed the outbreak of war to OCs death. Timely as tomorrow is the anniversary.

    Church library committee voted this a.m. to include Mrs. OC in the library. It was unanimous. I was not there but it apparently triggered a good discussion. Several express interest in reading it. Working on two recommends to get MUFHH also included. E still in awe. She claims to have read devotionals her whole life and never been moved by the others as by OC.

    Interestingly the question that sucked P in today was the one about keeping a Godly marriage. Progressives have trouble expressing the vocabulary but I believe many have the truth

    It was a good time to share. In both the library meeting and this afternoon E and P both commented how they have know the others so long and yet don’t know them. Mrs. OC seems to be leveraging open some doors in interpersonal relationships among good people who have been acquainted a long time yet don’t really know one another.”

    It’s important for me to say, I don’t know where people are pulling what they’re finding. I’m as delighted and surprised by the reports I’m getting as anyone.

    My only conclusion?

    While I was off fact checking, the Holy Spirit was slipping in material I never noticed! 🙂

    God is good. I am thankful. Stories like the above bless me so very much and are the reason I wrote the book.

    Off to Zumba to day for real!

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  14. Janice, I worked a crewel piece with that same saying. It is still on my wall in a computer/sewing/guest room. It was a kit from Better Homes and Gardens, which I purchased from one of those home parties. That room is the one I have my morning prayer/devotional time.

    Pretty china, Kim. I have a Noritake Soroya. It is a simple pattern with silver. It suits me and I still like the simplicity of it. I only use it for holidays, however, and I have broken quite a few pieces.

    I have a Paula Deen set for every day, which is blue flowers. I have also broken a couple of those bowls and chipped one.

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  15. Dishes… My family regards Corelle as the only reliable source of everyday dishes. I have a few remnants of my parents’ first set of Corelle – just couple of bowls and a small plate, as I only feed myself and I have to carry my dishes up and down the stairs. I have a few fancy tea dishes in a box at my parents house, including a bone china cup and saucer from my grandmother and a tiny Wedgewood candy plate from my mother, but I wouldn’t have any use for them here. Growing up, my mother had the most beautiful set of dishes for good, with pictures of an English cottage. Eldest sibling loved them so much that my mother gave them to her. My mother got another set of fancy dishes that her parents had been given, but none of us really like the pattern and despite the gold decoration, they aren’t really high quality pottery. Like her mother before her, my mother tends to use the everyday dishes for company, simply because there are more plates for the high numbers of guests.

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  16. Chas is losing his mind.
    I’m serious. It can’t happen this way.
    I tried printing something, the paper got stuck in the printer. I got most of it out. But some is still in. I need to take it to have it fixed.
    But that isn’t the problem.
    I don’t have any ink cart rages in the printer. Not black nor .color.
    I did not remove those cart rages.
    Not only that, the spares are not in the cabinet.
    This is a major problem. Not that I need another printer; that’s trivial.
    What puzzles me is the missing cartridges. I printed something Monday.
    Nobody would come in and steal ink cart rages.
    It would be a trivial problem if I knew what happened.
    But it’s beyond me. I’m afraid I’m losing it.
    I’m serious here.

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  20. Roscuro, my family used Corelle, too. Since my brother wants us to do holiday meals at his home (think no Miss Bosley), those are what we have our holiday meals on. I did find one very similar pattern brown Johnson Bro. plate at Marshall’s last year around Christmas. It has mostly brown with a little accent of red for Christmas. It is such a lovely plate that I might try to find a few more. Your mother has good taste!

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  21. Chas, I don’t think it is your mind unless perhaps you have replaced your printer at some point and are remembering an old former printer. That was a big move you made and maybe your son swapped out printers or something like that. I think things are so crazy at move time that something like that could easily happen and not be remembered.

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  22. Lovely, Roscuro! (Your 10:34)

    Mom swore by Corelle, too. Years later when I visited my brother and family in Chattanooga (the one whose wife later died), I found they had the same pattern with which I grew up, and now his second wife uses them.

    In Chicago I used plain white dishes, dishes my first housemate (in that particular house where I lived eight years) and I got a yard sale our church had to get rid of its old dishes and get new ones. So we got a box of ten of everything for maybe $20, and I used those the rest of my time in Chicago, but they had a tendency to chip a bit. So when I moved to Nashville, I only took a couple of sets of the dishes that were still perfect, so that I wouldn’t have to buy dishes immediately. Meanwhile a friend had given me a decent set of dishes for my 30th birthday (since I had decided I’d probably never have a bridal shower); they have pink flowers along the edges, and I use them for company occasionally.

    In Nashville I bought a set of Christmas dishes (just four in the set, since I was single) and a set of everyday dishes with a green line around the edge (I figured I could serve up to eight people for Christmas by using an every-other-plate table setting, if I had to). My husband’s household had Corelle with blue lines around the outside, so now not only do I have a household of people and not just myself, but I can’t mix-and-match blue with my Christmas dishes. But the first wife bought lots and lots of Christmas dishes that I don’t like, and that are worth more to me as money, and we plan to sell them but haven’t done so yet. (Spode dishes.) We saved my green-rimmed dishes for our older girl, since at one point she was talking about getting an apartment her senior year of college. But she didn’t get the apartment, and when she got married the “everyday” dishes for which she registered are nicer than my “company” dishes and she also registered for fancy ones (and received a few place settings from us and her grandparents, but no serving dishes). So I still have my green-rimmed ones, and I’m inclined to keep them and pull them out for everyday use again after we move, since personally I like them better than the Corelle I inherited upon marriage . . .

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  27. Chas, talk to the children. Talk to Mary. is that her name? Let them know what you are struggling with. It may be simple, like Janice mentioned. it may be small, like the stress of taking care of Elvera. It may be a larger thing. Let your family know so they can be aware and helping you.

    My dad, as you know, is in similar straits, though he has granddaughter living there to help out, which brings its own challenges I am sure. A year back, grandma’s purse went missing. Dad wondered if daughter had done something with it. Daughter wondered if grandpa had put it somewhere. Eventually, daughter found it in a drawer in the office. Grandma apparently put it away in there to keep people from stealing her stuff.

    It is possible your son put the spares somewhere. It is possible Elvera did something with them. it is possible you did and forgot. Perhaps you were in the middle of changing them out and got distracted. That is normal. Talk to your family and your doctor.

    It is scary as you have a load of responsibility already. But it is probably just what we all do, magnified into your already challenging times.

    We will be praying for you, more than ever.

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  28. Problem solved<
    Chas isn't losing his mind, he is just dumb.
    The paper jam caused the cartridge's to be misplaced so that I couldn't see them. I was going to take the printer to the shop, so I dislodged the remains of the paper jam. When I did, the cartridges slid into place.
    Problem solved. Saved me about $150.
    But I don't have spare cartridges, and I thought I did.
    I need to fix that, you don't want to run out. It always happens at the worst time.

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  30. Glad the printer mystery was solved.

    Tess and I hit the road early this morning to get to the vet’s (about 20 miles away) by 8:15. Made it right on the dot. They x-rayed her paw, no sign of a fracture, so nothing to worry about per se, though she did think it’s possibly the beginnings of some arthritis that isn’t advanced enough to show up yet.

    Same thing happened in 2015 and after it persisted then I also took her in for an Xray that showed … nothing.

    No more X-rays for that paw! (But since it was the same one where she’d had a broken toe when I first adopted her, I’ve erred on the side of caution when the limp lasts longer than a few weeks, and this one has).

    I may just go back to bed for a while, but after I make grooming appointments for both dogs.

    When I replaced my Sears dishes (plain white) that I bought after I’d moved out ages ago, I chose the Cambria dishes at Pottery Barn — they’re plain, I bought mostly (90%) white but also interspersed a few dark blue and turquoise pieces just for a bit of fun.

    https://www.potterybarn.com/products/cambria-stoneware-dinnerware-turquoise-white/

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  31. Chas- Re: Your comment on Psalm 137.9: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”

    It’s part of a curse against Babylon. It’s one of many such verses in the Psalms. I really like Psalm 139, and it has a similar passage in verses 19-22:
    “Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.”

    We just don’t hear about these passages because we all think of the Psalms as beautiful poetry praising God. Well, part of that is praising is how he judges the wicked.

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  33. Psalms are about expressing emotion–demonstrating we’re allowed to say anything we like to God. Afterall, David was a man after His own heart and David had no qualms about psalms like 137. It gives me great encouragement.

    We’re still eating off the Royal Daulton stoneware we got as a wedding gift 40 years and 14 moves ago. It is augmented, however, by plain Corelle–we don’t have all the dishes anymore!

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  34. When I thought my house might burn down, I confess to a fleeting thought, “then I could buy all the furniture and dishes I actually want!”

    Seeing what my friends are going through, I know that isn’t a good thing.

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  36. Janice, it was my father who bought them, after he found them on sale. My mother loved them, as she has always loved old English houses – she has a tea set from her grandmother, where the teapot and sugar bowl, etc, are in the shape of an English cottage. Second sibling will get those. My mother thought it was fitting that Eldest sibling should have her company dishes, since the year they were issued was the year Eldest was born. My father sometimes surprises with his ability to buy just the right thing. In that respect, he reminds me of the story of my great great grandfather (his great grandfather), who was an artist emigrated from Scotland (we have one of his watercolours), who made a living painting the lettering that old fashioned shop fronts used to have. He once brought home a tea cup and saucer that he paid five dollars for, a very considerable sum in those days, and his wife was none too happy. Second sibling has the cup and saucer now, and it is a thing of rare beauty. The china is so fine that you can see the outline of your hand through it, and the colours, in a pattern typical of the Art Deco period, are like a dream.

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  40. Looking forward to what promises to be a fun Jeopardy final round starting tonight. Austin, the most virally famous of the three, and Alan, who won last night’s semi-final, are among my favorites – not sure if I’ll root for one over the other. Austin and Buzzy are both quirky in different ways. So it will be interesting.

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  41. Replacement windows ordered, they have me on “standby” by delivery and installation so hoping it gets done before the new year. I decided to have them also fix/tune up the old double-hung window in the back spare bedroom while they’re at it, I really think all of this ‘infrastructure’ work should get done now if at all possible.

    There’s still one ugly window in the house — the 1970s – era metal-frame slider above the kitchen sink — but that’ll have to wait to be replaced later.

    I’ll have to collect spare change along the side of the road for that job someday.

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  42. I”ve seen lots of comments among people I know who lost homes–use the good china, drink the good wine, use the nice clothes. There’s no point if having them if you’re not going to use them.

    One of my relatives knowing the fires were near drank her best bottle of wine with simple pasta the last full day in the house, “because the wine is not insured.”

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  45. Kevin, I kinda don’t think Austin will pull it off. The others seem to be taking it more seriously than he is. But considering he did have two really superb days, really high one-day totals, he could jump in there, get the daily doubles and get them right, and leave the others wondering what hit them. I am guessing that having already gone against Alan once, and lost, might make him more likely to win against him this time–but the other players are playing smarter and harder, and he’s surviving by the skin of his teeth because he’s so smart. Unless he plays smarter tonight, I’m not sure he can hang in there. But I’m really looking forward to seeing it, and I hope I’m wrong. I would have liked to see Lilly make it to the final, and might have been a bit torn on whether to root for her or Austin. As it is, I’ll root for Austin, but without real confidence that he’ll pull off this one.

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  46. The furniture I got this week, and am still figuring out where to store, was from what was purchased after a fire. My friend said that they had insurance money and just went to the store and said, ‘I’ll take that and that….” Not worrying about the price. It is lovely, heavy and real wood. I have never had anything so nice.
    Now, where to put it for 3 1/2 years til I retire.

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  47. Michelle, I’m in agreement on the “use the good china or don’t have it.” When my husband and I were courting, I was visiting here in Indiana and staying with his parents, but he’d asked me to cook dinner one night for him and the girls. So we went shopping to get the food I needed, and then he stayed out of the kitchen while I prepared it.

    And when it was time to eat, he was at least a little bit amused, possibly a lot amused, because I had put the salad in a crystal bowl that had been a wedding present from his first wedding, one that he found out after the fact was worth a lot of money (he was supposed to declare it as valuable in some paperwork since it was a gift from a client, but he didn’t know its value), and he was pretty sure it had never been used. And I’m like, “Let me get this straight. This bowl is not on display (we don’t have a china cabinet), it’s just in the cupboard with the other dishes, but no one uses it because it’s too valuable to use? Then let’s sell it.” He then told me well, the girls would inherit it, and I was like why? So that they wouldn’t use it either? We’re not the kind of family to pass valuable heirlooms within the family just because. And if they didn’t grow up using it, it isn’t like it has sentimental value just because their dad received it as a wedding gift from some client they never met. Let’s use it, or put it on display, or sell it. Otherwise, it’s just taking up cupboard space! (I think we now plan to sell it.) I can be sentimental about some things, and I want to take good care of things I own, but I’m not the sort to put dishes in a cabinet just to gaze on them, but never to use them–or books, either. I’d happily have a china cabinet and put a few pretty pieces on display. But I will also use those pieces periodically. If they aren’t usable, then sell them, because I don’t have the kind of background that allows me simply to gaze at something that is worth a lot of money but cannot be used for its intended use!

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  48. Oh, Spode Christmas — my mom loved that pattern (we never had it) it was very popular a while back. But she found a less-expensive similar pattern by another dish maker that she bought me for Christmas back in the 1970s sometime. Not a huge set, only enough servings for 4-8 if I remember right, just the basics. I don’t really use them but it’s one of the things I can’t pass on just yet, my mom was so thrilled to buy those for me, she thought they were so cute (and she really LOVED Christmas). Maybe I’ll get them out and use them this year if only for me and a friend who’s coming over.

    (ps Cheryl, I would ask the daughters first before listing it on Ebay 🙂 — it actually sounds beautiful)

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  50. DJ, if it had been a gift from relatives or close family friends, I would agree. A gift from a business customer, and a gift too valuable to use? Nah, that’s a financial thing. At any rate, the girls have received many boxes of things that belonged to their mother, so it’s nothing like “this is the only thing we have to remember her by, even though she never used it!”

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  52. Janice, yes, that is the same picture I did and have.

    We also used Corelle. I received both melamine and china when I married. The Corelle were a gift from my parents. I had some blue stoneware in between, after I divided the Corelle to give to two daughters when they left for college and apartment living.

    Chas, I so identify with your printer issues. I recently had to use ours and found one of the inks must be dried out. I could still use it, but not optimally. They don’t even carry our type of ink at Sam’s anymore. I suppose we will have to replace the printer at some point.

    dj–you might consider collecting aluminum cans for your window. One of my uncle’s bought a used truck doing that. He picked along the road. By no means did he need to do that, but he was quite proud of it. He was a generous man.

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  53. I do not want to use my china for everyday. I understand the idea of using things. OTOH, when something is used all the time, it can become common. The use of them for special occasions is, often, what make the occasions seem more special. I think there is a happy medium with this, that everyone has to find.

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  54. As a wedding gift, my bowling team gave us some nice Corelle dinnerware — 12 each of dinner and salad plates, bowls, cups and saucers. The quantity was a blessing for our then-future large family.

    We also received a matching serving plate and large bowl, I think from the team, as well. The bowl and plate are still in frequent service 31 years later, and all 12 of the dinner plates have survived their years of use. I think we’ve still got all the cups and saucers, too, but, except for one of the cups, which is in our kitchen cabinet, they’re put away somewhere.

    The salad plates and cereal bowls have seen much use over the years, and droppage, so there are only 4 bowls and 5 plates left from that set.

    I can’t find a link to what the set looks like, but they are mostly white with a medium to pale blue thin strip close to the edge and pale bluish gray trees/branches as a design on the plates and the outside of the cups.

    We have some medium-sized plates of different designs that we’ve purchased over the years, too, so our meal table is an eclectic mix of plates, bowls, glasses, flatware, everyone choosing whatever they want for the day/meal.

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  55. I received a gift from my family one year quite a while back, whether for Christmas, birthday, or what, I don’t remember, a set of 8 “Cardinal” plates (dinner and salad), bowls, and mugs. Made by Folkcraft:

    https://www.replacements.com/webquote/fokcar.htm

    They know how much I love birds, so it was fun to receive those. They’ve held up extremely well — none broken, and only one chip on the edge of one bowl.

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  56. So one of my daughters believes in being basic. so for her wedding shower she asked folks to bring her a plate that they liked. She has a cupboard full of dishes that do not match. But everything is a memory from someone close.

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  57. Cardinal sounds pretty – my mom has some blue and white plates with what was maybe a Currier and Ives design that were pretty — a supermarket special in the ‘70s I believe

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  58. We have a hodge podge of plates that I use every day. A co-worker at the office shops flea markets, etc., and found a four piece set of Blue Willow which I use some. I like the smaller size plates for our meals rather than using the larger Heartland dishes.

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  60. My first dishes were called Federalist, a Sears special but I also found some of the pieces at the local Salvation Army Store. Now I’m sending most of that set back to the SA 🙂

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  61. In my link at 7:37, you can see the black area around the beaks of both the male and female cardinal. One of our salad plates is missing the black part of the male (bright red) cardinal’s face — it is white instead in that one little part.

    For the kids, that is the favorite plate in our cardinal collection. 🙂

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  64. Actually, DJ, I didn’t see the crystal bowl as anything particularly special. I chose it because it was pretty and because I didn’t have my own salad bowl moved yet, but it wasn’t like “Wow, that is really gorgeous,” and I certainly wouldn’t have guessed it to be worth several hundred dollars. In my book, if a bowl is worth enough to buy a piece of furniture, and you never use the bowl, then you sell it. If you like it and you use it, then just use it carefully and pass it on to your kids. But I like my own salad bowl better (and one of the kids has expressed how beautiful she thinks it is), so I’m happy enough to use it.

    This is NOT the salad bowl in question (the one I like): https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Viancin-Serving-Silicone-Fluted/dp/B00K7JRD4K/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1510880861&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=green+fluted+glass+salad+bowl ; I can’t find anything like it on amazon, but it’s kind of the shape of my bowl. And my bowl is green and blue glass, an art glass look. It’s a heavy bowl, but very pretty, so it is the bowl I use for salad when company is over, and in Nashville I had it on display over my sink, along with a peacock “candle holder” that was more or less the same colors, and a clear glass votive holder.

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  66. This is not my peacock candle holder, but mine is almost exactly the same as this except with a bit brighter colors. It really can’t be used for candles. (I tried one time, and the candle wanted to slide off the ledge made for a candle. Since I didn’t want to burn the house down, I decided just to continue to display it as a pretty item.) Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Baker-Designs-Tealight-5-5-Inch/dp/B00BDNMYHK/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1510881179&sr=1-2&keywords=peacock+stained-glass+candle+holder

    My favorite color is green, and green and blue go well together. And my husband’s favorite color is blue. So it works. I got some pretty green serving dishes for wedding gifts (I didn’t register, but some friends knew I liked green and bought them), so if I ever have a china cabinet, I have a few pretty things to go in it.

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  67. My mother used her Johnson & Co. Cotswold pattern dishes regularly. In my childhood years it seemed that every second or third week, we had guests come and share Sunday lunch, with roast and my mother’s famous cherry cheese cake.
    There are, however, dishes that are works of art to be enjoyed as such. I tried to find a picture of my great great grandfather’s tea cup, but there was nothing that approached it in appearance. It looks like a cup made from a flower for elves or fairies. The tiny Wedgewood plate I have is as much a work of art as a cameo would be, because it is one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasperware. Things made to enjoy for beauty alone are a part of life – Solomon makes use of the sense of fitness such beautiful things bring in his Proverb (25:11):

    A word fitly spoken
    is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

    Some of the most ancient artifacts we have are beautifully decorated dishes, and they make an important record of the cultural life of a civilization. They stand behind class cases under lights to be examined by thousands. Beautiful dishes have their place in life.

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  68. My everyday dishes are a mix of plastic and Corelle, stuff I’ve picked up used here and there over the years. We have a few left of the dishes we started with when we married in 1989, I think they were a mix of an old set given to me by a friend (after she had gotten a new set) and whatever my husband had when I met him, so we had two different sizes and patterns but similar colors (blue and white). Over the years nearly all of them broke, leaving us with one small bowl, a serving dish, several dessert plates and two dinner plates from one set, and a large shallow bowl (my favorite dish for my nightly tossed salad) from the other.

    I got eight Corelle plates and several bowls, used, from the supermarket a few years ago when they were redecorating and getting rid of the dishes they had used in their quasi-restaurant area. But I can’t remember the last time we had a use for more than four at the same time (now it’s usually three since our older son got his own apartment), and none of us really care whether dishes match or not unless we have company, which we haven’t had in years either. (First, it was because my husband worked nights so was never up at times when company would be here, and now he serves churches more than twenty miles from our home, so if we “host” a get-together it’s at the church.)

    We do have a set of nice china boxed up in the basement. We used to use it when we had company, two churches and two moves ago. But I grew up on mismatched dishes and never saw any particular value in eating off matching dishes, unless it’s for entertaining. At least my dishes don’t have glue lines running across them – my father never threw out broken dishes, he repaired them with some kind of special glue that was made for dishes.

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  70. And mismatched furniture has been in for a while now, hasn’t it? Or maybe it’s gone back out and my seventeen years old couch and loveseat set are the height of fashion again. 😉

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  72. I just noticed, when putting dishes away, that I have more plates from those older two sets than I remembered, three of one and four of the other. Once in a while I want a larger plate that is not plastic (the Corelle are smaller, which is good in terms of serving smaller portions), and I pull one of the older ones out. I’ll use them for serving turkey next week, I’m sure. But mostly they sit at the bottom of the stacks and I forget they’re there.

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  74. Carol called, said she borrowed $5 more from her former roommate there & that her own bank balance is now at 32 cents (she gets paid 12/1).

    I told her that going forward, no more meals out w/me unless she can pay for herself. She acted like, well, of course, no problem, I’ll pay for myself. OK, then, I said. I’ll still go up to see her and take her around, but it won’t include the routine stop for food until she can figure out how to support herself in that way. Thinking back, she had this problem even when she was still working at a good job with the county, I remember picking up the check on most (all?) occasions.

    We’ll see. My guess is we’ll be skipping some meals going forward.

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  80. That is a pretty plate, Janice.

    DJ, I was thinking of you and Carol as I was rereading the symptoms of schizophrenia (the class content will be on that subject again tomorrow). Schizophrenia is a thought disorder which interferes with the ability to communicate and to reason. It has different categories of symptoms: Positive – things that are added such as delusions & hallucinations; Negative – things that are missing that should be there such as lack of interest, lack of energy, lack of motivation; & Cognitive. Among the cognitive symptoms are poor problem-solving & decision making skills, and impaired judgement.

    I mentioned in passing a couple of days ago that the strike was still on. We were waiting for a vote on the latest offer from the colleges – the results of that vote were available today and the faculty overwhelming rejected the offer. So, the Ontario premier finally stepped in to introduce back-to-work legislation (both sides will have to accept binding arbitration). The ruling party has a majority, so the legislation will get passed. But in order to pass it before next week, because the legislature schedule was already finished for this week, all three parties in the legislature have to agree to reconvene for a weekend session. One of the opposition parties is refusing to reconvene…

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  82. Carol has a very high IQ and is a voracious reader. She’s very smart. But common sense isn’t one of her strong points. Still, she’s done relatively well on the medications they’ve had her on and is pretty high functioning.

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  83. I’ve encouraged her to see if the staff there might help her manage her money (I know they would, but she might not “trust” them). She often says she’s going to start “saving money” but when I ask her what her strategy to do that is, she has no answer. She seems to think putting it in a “savings” account will suffice, but i keep telling her she can withdraw money from a savings account as quickly as she can from her regular funds; she really needs someone else to help her manage the money when it comes in — so it at least lasts her for the month. As it is, it’s gone literally within hours of when it hits her hands.

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  84. Roscuro, if they go back to work, will they need to extend classes later in the spring to make up for missed ones? We’re worried because we hire a few camp staff from Ontario and if they have to take classes later, they won’t make it for the beginning of May.

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  85. DJ, I knew her diagnosis, but we sometimes think of schizophrenia only in terms of its delusions and hallucinations and not of the other symptoms, which are actually potentially more disruptive to the ability to live life.

    Kare, at this point they are hoping to just cut a few weeks into the winter semester and still be done both semesters by the end of April. Of course, that is for students taking only college courses. For those of us with one foot in college and the other in university, the university semesters are business as usual, leaving those with college instructors high and dry. Tomorrow’s nursing class already has the final exam scheduled by the university in December, but more than half the class has been unable to continue the coursework. As for the clinical placements, the most reliable news I’ve hear is those of us who have missed clinical hours will be making them up by doubling clinical placements next semester (we have a required number of clinical hours to complete before we are eligible to take the registration exam). That is going to make it all the harder to keep up with the workload. Oh, and the Christmas break will only be one week (it should have been three weeks).

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  86. roscuro, no, I’m very aware of how it’s affected her ability to live normally. And I struggle with asking too much or too little of her in some of those areas. I’m afraid she sometimes gets too easy of a “pass.”

    The money thing, especially, has caused her lifelong problems (to the point of significant theft from an employer years ago; after it went into prosecution, her employer eventually forgave the — large — debt and Carol was very happy, but felt no compunction to still try to make it up; she similarly stole money from her boyfriend and his family was livid, they threatened to take her to court but didn’t; she also didn’t finish making payments to them. Her behavior with money (and expectation that people around her will provide her with lavish birthday & Christmas gifts each year) also is the thing that’s so alienated her from her only surviving brother (who may have issues of his own, but as far as I know he’s not been diagnosed with mental illness). It has affected nearly every friend she’s ever had in some pretty significant ways, in other words.

    Money seems to be like a drug to her almost, once she gets it she roars through it until it’s gone and doesn’t seem to consider the consequences (or have any remorse afterward). She had a social worker a few years ago who was really trying to work with her on that issue and was making progress, but once Carol moved out of the one facility she lost her in the system.

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  87. I realize she may never change in this area. I guess I just keep looking for a glimpse that she’s trying to change (even if she fails) — she is a believer and is somewhat aware of what she’s doing, I’m sure. But I’ve known her for years and I suppose am just feeling personally burned out in the financial area with her.

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