111 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-10-18”

  3. How can you be first when it isn’t even today yet?
    Good morning everyone.
    Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead. I always use the time change day to change batteries in my smoke detectors and filters for the furnace & air conditioners..
    But not ass busy as in Hendersonville. There I had 9 detectors and three filters. Here, I have three and two.

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  6. Okay, I remember. I don’t know the time change, but I know I have never had to wait until 11pm for you all to appear, so it must be earlier. 9pm instead of 10 pm. Much nicer.

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  10. Meanwhile, I woke up early, realized the poor “kitten” had been left out all night, rescued her (3:40 this morning), laid down to pray, suddenly feared my talk this morning won’t have a takeaway, got up to search for my speaker notes, got waylaid on Facebook and started to laugh when I read today’s Utmost for my Utmost Response.

    “Let God have perfect liberty when you speak. Before God’s message can liberate other souls, the liberation must be real in you. Gather your material, and set it alight when you speak.”

    I’m leaving the Holy Spirit in charge and am going back to bed for 90 minutes! LOL

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  11. Yesterday was a long day. I got up at 3:30am, went to New Orleans, was in class all day, got home at 10:30 and asleep around 11:30. I tried to sleep in but Master Amos was having none of that. He pulled out all his cuteness. 6:30am was long enough and I was trying his patience.
    So the guest bath is scrubbed, a load of laundry is done, the kitchen is cleaner. I really have to do something around this house before the Board of Health condemns me.
    Oh, and Grandpa got a gift from someone. There are baby girl clothes laid out across the sofa. It was addressed to him and the actual father of the baby but he decided to open it all. Thursday he was discussing the latest doctor’s visit that DIL had. The doctor had mentioned a C-Section as all doctors do. He had very firm opinions on it. I just listen and shake my head. I am almost positive he is going to suffer labor pains with her.

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  14. The men are off to the men’s prayer breakfast. The girls are not invited. We are staying home having a women’s breakfast. Which means fresh waffles with berries and real maple syrup. The boys are jealous but that is the way of life I suppose.

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  15. Distraction is often an effective form of pain control – it is good that Mr. P has something nice to thing about.

    Michelle, my mother often repeats the story of my birth. I had to be induced, because all was not well with me, and so I was the only one of my mother’s deliveries to require a belt monitor to watch my heartbeats in connection with the contractions. My father – who is a lot like my Eldest nephew in personality – avidly watched the tracings on the monitor. When the lines signaled increased muscular activity, he would say to my mother, “You’re having a contraction!” To which my mother would reply, “I know I’m having a contraction!”

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  16. What is even funnier about the situation is that my ex sister in law and mother in law think he is just like father in was. Pop loved babies. He would babysit almost anyone’s baby just so he could rock them or put them on the kitchen table to sit and talk to them.

    It is funny as well because we talked about the difficulty I had having BG and the ease he had having 3 boys–only 1 of them was planned–before we got married. I made the comment that even though it was ridiculous I was a little jealous he had children with someone else. Nope. Not jealous anymore.
    As it was, I asked my OB to write a letter to my father saying that 1) I couldn’t eat red meat, 2) the 25 pounds I was allowed to gain wasn’t per month. If I had had Mr. P on top of that I would have asked to be sedated for the whole 9 months.
    It really does crack me up. Do you know the children’s book Ira Sleeps Over? “Reggie had plans. He had BIG plans”. I asked again, “What do you think of Teddy Bears?” Reggie kept on talking, “And then we can…..”
    That is what Mr. P reminds me of. Wherever we go he points out the cows we can take her to see. He wants to take her to the beach. He wants to teach her to swim. He wants her to become a diver and love the ocean as much as he does. He wants her to be a marine biologist because he wishes that is what he had done. He doesn’t want her parents to babysit her with the TV. She can only watch a Disney movie as a treat. They need to read to her constantly…… and the list goes on.
    Me? I have learned that babies come here hard-wired. They are going to do what they are going to go and they are going to be who they are going to be. I just want to feed her ice cream for breakfast, “It has milk in it”, to somehow balance the universe because Nana said those same words to me as she fed BG ice cream for breakfast.
    I also used it as an excuse to get a new chair for the living room. It swivels, it glides, and it rocks. Mimi sure does love to rock a baby.

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  17. It was actually very late last night when I found I had the open door to being “first.” Then I went to sleep.

    I had a long day Friday but not as long as Kim’s. Didn’t get home until after 8 p.m. — the dog park guys were here trying to tie up some loose ends we’ve needed to get to for a month now. They insisted they were coming back today, “rain or shine,” but it’s supposed to be raining all day so I’m not sure how profitable that’ll all be. I’m hoping to get the Jeep to the shop late this morning (left headlight is out) and then I have a haircut set for around 1:30 p.m. and a friend and I were hoping to grab a meal out. I can confidently skip the dog park visit today, sounds like it’ll all be a slushy, muddy mess in LA by that time of the day.

    Michelle, I’ve done that, left Annie out inadvertently — but she eventually scratches at the bedroom screen and wakes me up at around 2 a.m. Then I feel really guilty because she so easily could have been coyote chow.

    We’re getting a new city editor at work as ours of many years is being moved to a new position overseeing an “investigative” reporting team chain wide. Our sense is that it won’t be an easy transition as they’re now also trying to change the kinds of stories we’ll be doing. I’m mentally ready to leave but need to get a few more pieces of that personal puzzle in place before I do that. I’m hoping to be out of there sometime before the end of this year.

    I never thought I’d ever want to “retire,” the notion has simply never appealed to me (and I don’t consider it so much retirement as just maybe a semi- state in which I won’t be working full time anymore, but hopefully will be doing freelance or some other kind of part-time thing for supplemental income and mind stimulation). But things change and with the grim outlook at work it seems things will only get harder, if that’s even possible (and experience shows it most definitely is, it seems to only get worse and now more quickly). I’m beginning to think of the period 6 months ago, as bad as that all was, as the “good” old days.

    So we “lose” an hour’s sleep tonight. I’m looking forward to more daylight but I do struggle with losing any amount of sleep. 🙂 It will feel very early tomorrow morning — but I’m looking forward especially to church as I’ve missed 2 Sundays in a row thanks to that cold virus.

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  18. Great post (10:48) Kim. 🙂

    But ah, yes, I wish I’d become a marine biologist. I realized that when I was 40-ish and interviewed one. What a fun career. Of course, I was never very good at science …

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  20. No time change for me. We’re more sane up here in Saskatchewan 🙂 Although it does throw off the times for TV shows fed from other provinces/states.

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  21. Fun to read about the grandpa’s hopes for his granddaughter. I pray he and you find the happy medium of being involved in the little one’s life. Grand parenting can be such a blessing and a balance!

    My dad loved children and babies. My mom never held any of the grandbabies until the last one, when my sister insisted. She was not a baby person, in the least. Even now, I am sorry my dad did not get to meet my last two grandbabies. I know he would have so loved them and gotten such a kick out of our little one with DS. He was so fond of my niece with a genetic abnormality. Hers was the only birthday party he never, ever missed. He delighted in her delight.

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  24. I saw three of my grandchildren a few years ago. I think when the youngest was a newborn. She is around four or five now, maybe. The Boise granddaughter I have seen on about four different occasions. Something about them moving and us continuing to rear children has put a bit of a stop to our travels. Daughter did say she did not want any more of my children in her house. That after she took the seventeen year old for a year and saw what a challenge they can be. And since I don’t have a babysitter and they don’t come up here much, that rather limits our time together.

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  26. Good morning all! At least there are a few minutes of morning left for the Easterners.

    Today is my dad’s 92nd birthday. I think he is my oldest living relative, though he may have a cousin in Puerto Rico who is older. And my mom’s aunt in Puerto Rico may still be alive. She would be around 98.

    So, for a fun QoD: Who is/was the oldest relative you have/had? My maternal grandfather lived to be a day or two past his 102nd birthday. We saw him when he was 100 and showing major signs of senility. As well as much bitterness about things that happened 75+ years earlier. Sad. The lost have no hope. If I live that long, I hope I can be a positive example to my grand children.

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  27. My father confided to my mother that he could better relate to his granddaughters than his grandsons – although I notice that he takes every opportunity to carry around his two smallest grandsons. Being a father to only girls, he doesn’t relate as well to the follies of male children. It is not that he doesn’t remember his own boyhood – he remembers it very well – but that he is less likely to tolerate the immaturity of his grandsons.

    My father had a very rural upbringing and was the kind that would go off wandering through the hills that surrounded his home valley, carrying a shotgun in case there was something he could bring home (his mother would very kindly cook the birds he brought home). He took some great risks, as not only are the thick forests of Nova Scotia easy to get lost in (two children in recent years have died after getting lost there), but also the hills are limestone and unstable due to underground water courses – he remembers seeing a deer in the bottom of one of the sinkholes that opened up (his mother still shudders over how dangerous it was). For all my father’s family had lived there for some two hundred years, it was still very much a pioneer community, where you did things for yourself or they didn’t get done. My grandfather once broke his leg while cutting trees in the forest and since there was no one to help him, he splinted his own leg using branches and managed to hobble home. So, having grown up in a pretty tough environment, my father doesn’t relate well to his video game playing grandsons. Eldest sibling makes every effort to keep her sons active – they are involved in regular sport activities, which has been good for them – but living in the suburbs is a very different environment than where my father grew up.

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  28. I suspect grandparenting has become ‘a thing’ now in our culture. It all seems much more involved and hands-on certainly than when I was growing up, some grandparents have become (or try to become) almost like secondary parents. Just my observation. There may be some good aspects to all of that, but I can also see where it could get a bit complicated and ‘crowded’ if boundaries aren’t somewhat drawn. And maybe it’s always been that way.

    The rain has started here and we are all happy. Looks like it will be raining all day today and then off and on throughout all next week, if the forecast holds.

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  29. Two of my grandparents made it into their 80s but I don’t think we’ve had immediate relatives live much beyond that, and some have died much earlier than that. Longevity isn’t common in our clan. My cousins are all older than I am but only by about 5-6 years I think.

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  30. I am more than happy to let the other grandparents be the hands on. I am here and I am occupied. Should the grandchildren ever come here, they will be most welcomed. Should I happen to be in their area, I will be happy to let them show me their neighborhoods. They don’t receive packages from me but they do receive letters once in a while and they reciprocate. It is all good.

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  31. Peter’s QoD: My paternal grandmother is my oldest living relative. She is within two years of her century. Her mind is still very active, although she is becoming very deaf, which makes it hard to talk to her on the phone. My mother, who communicates with her mother-in-law almost every week, was saying she is going to have to write to her now in order to tell her the news.

    My second oldest living relative is my great uncle, the younger brother of my maternal grandmother, who marked his 90th birthday almost two years ago. Sadly, while his body is quite healthy, his brain is aging rapidly as he sinks into dementia. My great uncle was a skilled tradesman and an enthusiastic evangelist – many people that he came into contact both at work and in his ministries to youth and the elderly have been led to the Lord and discipled by him. Never a rich or powerful man, he was respected and loved by everyone who knew him. Yet, he is now doing strange and ugly things that are dangerous to others as his brain is no longer functioning properly. Do not make the mistake of thinking that a person with dementia who is nasty was always that way.

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  32. QOD: My dad is the oldest as all of his relative peers have died. He is eighty eight, I believe. His wife, my step mom, is ninety five or so. Does she count? She has been my stand in mom for nearly thirty years, since a few years after my mom died. They are adorable, dad and stepmom. I believe he is the oldest for a couple of generations past, but don’t know about before that. He expected to die mid fifties, like his dad. He is glad that did not happen. I still hope he will come to knowledge of Whose he is.

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  33. My mother is glad to have two of her grandchildren living with her now. Her mother and father also lived with one of their married children, and my grandmother helped with the raising of the two grandchildren who lived there (she was not interfering, but there were times when her help was needed). To the rest of her twenty one grandchildren, my grandmother sent out cards for our birthdays, usually with some money, and homemade Valentines in February and cards with money at Christmas, and among the long list of people that my grandmother and grandfather prayed for every day were all of those grandchildren. My mother does much the same things for her grandchildren, not seeking to be the most wonderful person in each child’s life, but rejoicing in them nonetheless.

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  34. I think my dad’s brother is my oldest living relative. He’s 95 – just turned in February.

    When our first was born, my mom reminded me that she was the grandma, not the babysitter. I only asked her to watch our children twice because of that and when she was dying, she was sad because I never let her babysit. I would have loved to have her babysit my babies. 😦

    In hindsight, I think she meant that she didn’t want to be the everyday babysitter like some of her friends turned out to be – having to parent more than spoil the little ones.

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  35. My last living uncle is now 88, pretty much the only person on either side of my family to make it to 80 (one of my mom’s first cousins made it past 90) and thus pretty unusual in our family.

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  36. My one grandmother (they were all in Iowa) would send me a single dollar bill every year on my birthday, way into my teens. 🙂 Sweet.

    They’d come out for visits and stay with us and their other ‘kids’ and grandkids, and we’d stay with them whenever we’d visit — but it wasn’t the same kind of relationship I seem to see nowadays with my friends and their grandchildren, it’s become almost an obsession for some of them (or so it seems to this outsider, admittedly).

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  37. Mumsee, I am sorry that you should be forced to choose between your children. It is so painful to parents when their children cannot tolerate each other, and it happens with birth siblings as well. One of my aunts grieves over an ongoing misunderstanding between two of her children and their respective spouses. The children are mature, responsible adults who are Christians, but they cannot seem to get along, and my aunt is caught in the middle, having to choose between them for family gatherings.

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  39. Sorry, I did not mean it in a negative way. She experienced how odd and resistant to authority some of my children are. She was around when twelve year old was peeing in the wastebasket at her aunt’s house. She was around to hear about sexual irregularities and attempts and is merely protecting her own babies. As it should be. On the other hand, we went camping with her family last summer and we all had a fine time. We have had friends that no longer come to visit for similar reasons. And we respect that. I would not want my children messed with either.

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  40. DJ, my pregnant daughter has been taken shopping for maternity clothes and/or shopped for and presented clothing by every woman in the family BUT me. I mentioned it to my husband (it feels awkward to have everyone else in the family spending hundreds of dollars on her–we can’t afford it and honestly they probably don’t need the help, but still I wonder if others then look at us as the stingy ones), and he looked mystified. “When we were expecting the girls, we bought all the clothes ourselves.” OK, it’s not just me then. I thought people tried to outdo each other buying clothes for the baby, not the expecting mama (who is barely even showing yet)!

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  41. Those who cannot afford much clothing are often grateful for relatives or friends who subsidize their supply. Youngest sibling’s mother-in-law often buys clothing for her little ones, quality clothing that lasts and can be passed down. Second also appreciates the clothing subsidy from her siblings and friends. There are so many things that must be bought new for children, like diapers and car seats, that it can be very expensive for those with a low income. Having grown up almost never having a new piece of clothing (even my underwear was passed down), I know there are many parents who do not care whether they buy the clothing or not, just so long as their child is adequately clothed.

    I buy books for my young relatives – though not for Eldest’s, since they probably already have the book, as Eldest and I were always alike in how much we read – as I am somewhat of an expert in that field. But I can understand the fun of shopping for baby clothes for those who have fun shopping for clothes generally.

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  42. My FIL also loved babies. He would put them on the couch beside him, and talk to them the whole day. He used to call the little ones “Turkey”, thus he was dubbed Turkey Grandpa. He still signs his cards as such with a gobble,gobble on the side.

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  43. My grandfather lived to be 103. He was very active until he was 102, then decided he was ready to die. He stopped walking his 20 blocks each day, and just lay in the bed, waiting for Jesus to take him. He was so healthy, it did not work. 4 days after his 103rd birthday, he fell and broke his hip. He took that as his opportunity to go home, and basically starved himself to death,refusing to eat. It took him from January until May to pass. He was so anxious to see the Lord. He was sharp as a tack till the day he died. I believe his grandfather lived to be 104.

    My great grandmother on my mother’s side, lived to be 96. She was also very active and kept her mind the entire time.

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  44. We can’t afford to be the disney grandparents. We do remember each grandchild on their birthday and at Christmas. Nothing fancy, just to know we always think of them. We have on set of grands a lot, having lived with us for 3 years while April was getting her self together. We have Connor quite a bit. I would rather babysit the grands than to see them in daycare.

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  45. Roscuro, I tend to be the book buyer, too. But I fully intend to buy baby clothes and toys, too–just not in vast quantities. But my house has long had a respectable children’s library, and I very much hope that will be one of the pleasures associated with visiting us. Even before the child was on the way, I had planned to put at least some of the children’s books in the guest bedroom.

    I also am the one who does crafts with children, and informative nature walks. All in all I would rather be known as the one who could tell amazing things about the world God made (and point them to Jesus) than the one who always knew what toys were “in” this Christmas. Parents for whom I’ve babysat remember the nature walks; I don’t know if the children do.

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  46. All my grandchildren tend seem to have plenty of everything and then some. We did look at moving to Boise to save granddaughter from day care but it did not happen. When the buyer took a lower bid, put in after ours, we figured it was not in the plan and heaved a sigh of relief.

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  47. Well, I’m getting my headlight replaced by dog park worker. He and sidekick were here finishing up some things (but can’t do much due to rain) — so I took them down to my friend’s apt down the street as she needed to get a sofa and desk moved out to the curb. It’s just sprinkling/misting steadily, not raining hard, so rather pleasant, actually.

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  48. The clothes on the sofa are from the baby’s great grandmother. Mr. P did not stay in touch with his ex-wife but did stay in touch with her mother and sister for the boy’s sake. This is her first great grandchild and from what little I know about her she can well afford to buy the cloths. One outfit has a label on it that says it is hand smocked. Mr. P has haunted consignment shops looking for good, quality items and clothes.
    I have to confess that if anyone is going to spend frivolously on a special something for the baby it will probably be me. She will get a baby locket necklace when she is born engraved with her initial and her date of birth. When/if she is christened or baptized she will get a cross. She may get a little bracelet for her first birthday. We have to set standards and expectations early. I will teach her my philosophy about man-jewelry. She is due too close to Easter for me to do it this year but she will get a bathing suit for Easter and possibly by next Easter I can have it together enough to actually smock something for her myself. If not, I have several of BG’s I can pull out and let her wear.

    Poor little baby. Does she know she is going to be born with all these expectations placed on her?

    I don’t think she really “needs” anything else. DIL’s aunt had attempted several times to adopt as a single woman. The last time she got to hold the baby in the hospital before the mother changed her mind. She had a nursery set up and gave everything to DIL.

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  51. My son was 4 before we had to buy any clothing for him, other than his first shoes. Between my sister and others with boys a little older, we had lots of hand-me-downs for him.

    One woman we know had a pair of overalls for her oldest boy. She then used them on her next two boys. Eventually, she had to patch the knees, so she cut patches in the shape and color of pigs, since her husband raised them. After her third outgrew them she passed them to my sister who used them for her two boys. Then she passed them on to the original woman’s sister-in-law, who passed them on to us after her son outgrew them. So our son was the 7th wearer of 2T sized, corduroy overalls. We visited the farm family once, and when the husband saw our son crawling around in the overalls, he commented, “Those things are still around?” Ironically, we passed them back to the original owner when she had another son younger than ours. I don’t know what happened to them after that.

    Thus ends our version of the story of the traveling pants.

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  54. I missed the pet names party. Mumsee, Bruchko is an unusual name. Was he named after the missionary known by that name?

    Most of the dogs in my life were my grandparents’: Prince, Fluffo, and Henry. The first dog I lived with was Buffy, the one who died last summer. We named him for his color. Unfortunately everyone assumed he was a femaile because of the name.

    My wife grew up with a little dog named Taffy. There’s that name again!

    I grew up in a cat family. We were mostly a one-cat-at-a-time family, which resulted in me ever having only one cat. Snooks was born when I was in the oven, and died while I was in college. The next cat had several names. Mom called him Puff. The rest of us except for Dad called him Cat. Dad called him Dog just to be contrary. Puff was followed by Chang.

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  55. Peter, I’m impressed with your Jeopardy score. I took the Tuesday test and thought I did pretty well at 32. I’d never heard what the cutoff is.

    There were two in the “I could kick myself for missing that” department.
    – One clue involved the smallest continent. I forgot all about Australia and answered Europe.
    – One clue taught me always to pay attention to the category. I couldn’t make any sense out of the clue. It was a “Before and After” and the answer was “Wheel of Fortune Cookie”.

    Next time I’ll try Mozart.

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  56. QOD: I can’t think of any impressive ages. The oldest blood relative I knew well was my father’s mother, who lived to 86. I vaguely remember once meeting a great-grandmother (mother’s father’s mother), who I believe was in her early 90s.

    Counting in-laws, my mother-in-law would be the oldest at 91 when she died two years ago.

    My oldest living relative is probably my uncle Bill, my mother’s little brother, who I think would be close to 80.

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  60. So I finally checked my answers to the Jeopardy test. I missed 10, so I got 40 out of 50, my best score yet. I’m glad I took it Thursday, as it sounds like the other days were harder.

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  63. Wow, Peter! I look forward to seeing you on the show. How did you check your answers? There were a couple on mine I’m not sure about.

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  64. Wow, it feels way too early. This is the part I don’t like about the spring-forward time change every year. It takes me a while to do the morning adjustments. I stumble through it for a week or so.

    cheryl, thanks for the link on schizophrenia. I talked with Carol last night (she bought Easter candy instead of paying her cell bill this morning so I’m calling her on the facility’s main line only about once a week) and she talked again about wanting to save money so she could at least buy herself “good” birthday & Christmas presents (since her brother and I are now slackers in that department — I’ll always buy her a gift but I’m over the routine where she tells me what high-end tablet or carry bag she wants and I go get it for her).

    I asked her if she had a strategy to save money and she said she’s going to put money in a lidded tin container she has and then bury that at the bottom of one of her over-stuffed bags. That way, she said, it will be really hard to get to unless she’s very “determined.” She has her eye one some new Nook tablet that’s out and she must have it for her birthday in June. She needs to save $300.

    I’m wondering, too, if some of these behavioral quirks, obsessions & symptoms will get worse still with age; they could, I’m thinking.

    She did say she won’t be buying any more Easter candy, so that’s good. I can’t imagine how much she hauled home on her last “pay day” and has probably eaten by now.

    (I suggested she make sure she gets her phone back up and running next month and she said yes but then made the comment that she doesn’t “miss it.” Not the point, I said. The phone for you — and most of us — is a necessity, it’s a monthly responsibility and a bill that you need to pay, it’s not really optional; to be continued.)

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  65. Peter’s going to be on TV?

    It rained most of the night and is supposed to be back again by Tuesday (we hope). My little tree out front is enjoying it.

    Looking forward to getting to church today, I’ve missed 2 weeks in a row due to that cold virus. Then it’ll be a nap for me this afternoon, I think.

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  66. The linked article from Cheryl was a good reminder on so many things that are frustrating to see as I try to be a friend to Carol, including the lack of decision-making skills. Interesting, too, the mention somewhere in there about the similarities in some cases to autism. She’s brilliant, and can be so quick and funny and witty. But common sense (her dishonesty with money & even patterns of outright stealing began as a teen or in young adulthood from what I can gather) simply is not her strong suit, to put it mildly. And that’s where I struggle as a friend when it comes to seeing her also as a fellow believer — there seems to be no (or very little) conviction of sin or struggle over these issues within her. So it’s back to what she is and isn’t truly capable of, considering her mental condition. Since I can’t really say definitively, I’m left with praying I can show her more grace while holding firm on my own boundaries with her.

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  67. No church for me today as sixteen year old son has DJ’s cold virus. He asked if he could go to church today but we told him no. He likes going to church. All of the old folk dote on him. And then he goes to play video games or “whatever” at his friend’s house. Not what we have approved, but what he does. But we figure the old folk don’t need his cold. Keep it to the public school from whence it came. Husband will take the other three and probably to dinner at somebody’s house afterward. Because we don’t trust sixteen year old, at all, he is never allowed in the home alone so I will stay with him.

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  69. Something I’ve come to realize recently: One does not go from being a submissive wife to being a “free” single so easily. Whenever I would want to buy something, I would pass it by Hubby first. He usually was fine with whatever I wanted to buy, because I am frugal, and don’t really buy much for myself anyway, but every now and then he would ask me not to, or to pare down what I initially intended.

    Last week, I ordered three new spring/summer tops for myself, along with a new summer nightie (the old one barely made it through last summer). (All four items, plus shipping, came to $84. Not bad.) They came in the other day, and I was pleased. But I felt like I needed to “confess” to Nightingale, to get her approval.

    She was pleased that I’d bought these cute tops for myself, as most of my summer wardrobe is rather bland, and old. She also assured me that I don’t need to report to her when I buy things for myself. She knows I’m not gonna go hog-wild on an online shopping spree. 🙂

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  71. Recently saw another article that included the statistic that only about 5% of people who lose weight will keep it off. That is so discouraging.

    My theory is that in “dieting,” we try to enact changes that we are not really ready to live with on a long-term basis, although we can maybe live with them for a period of time, especially in the beginning, when the fastest weight loss occurs. Eventually, it is like we’ve pulled a rubber band too far, and it snaps back. Most people not only put back the weight they’ve lost, they put on even more. Been there. Done that.

    So a few years ago, I started making little changes here and there, changes that didn’t “hurt” to make. As time went by, I would make another little change now and then.

    It has been two, maybe three years since I started that. I have lost 18 pounds, but still have plenty to go. I realize that I will probably never lose all the weight I need to lose, and will continue to be overweight, but at least I will be less overweight.

    After trying on my new clothes the other day, I pulled out a couple tops I had bought two or three years ago, that ended up being too snug. They fit now!

    Now I have to think about the next little change to make, and continue on.

    Liked by 3 people

  72. Cheryl – I read another piece on Ryan Anderson and his book recently. Unfortunately, he and Dr. Paul McHugh (I think his name is) are dismissed by the LGBT community as being biased against trans or other LGBT folks. And yet, Anderson and McHugh both express a lot of compassion for them. I pray for eyes to be open to the truth of these matters.

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  73. Cheryl sharing that article on schizophrenia (which I haven’t read yet, but will) reminds me of this: Have I ever mentioned that Mr X has supposedly been diagnosed with schizophrenia? He has been on medication for about a year or year and a half now, and his mom thinks he’s behaving so much better.

    But Nightingale is still, with good reason, extremely skeptical. She said that schizophrenics “never” (an exaggeration, I’m sure) stay on their meds. That it is quite common for them to think they are all better, and stop taking them. Plus, she has seen X go through times of being on good behavior and then go right back to the bad behavior.

    It has been surprising to me to hear of how many people in the nursing home, in both the long-term care and temporary care unit, have mental illness issues.

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  74. Does anyone here have any advice about a quitclaim (where the title is transferred to another name)? Would that be considered a “gift” and need to have gift taxes paid on it?

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  76. The article Cheryl shared focused on new efforts to diagnose schizophrenia in its very early stages (rather than when it’s essentially a “stage 4”). I think Carol wasn’t diagnosed until she was maybe 40? There’s some thought that it can actually be arrested at earlier stages, though it’s all still being researched.

    Either way, early diagnosis would bring some benefits, it seems to me. Now that people are more aware of the signs and symptoms, it’s something that probably will be explored sooner rather than later in a person’s life. It’s similar in that respect to conditions like autism — so little was known about it until relatively recently.

    Carol has always been good about taking her medications and they’ve kept her fairly stable and functional, but only to a point.

    Good time at church though it was less full than usual (we blamed the time change). I sat behind one of my favorite cuter-than-cute, pony-tailed toddlers who was wearing her cowgirl boots on this rainy morning. 🙂

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  78. Quitclaim deeds are most often used to transfer property within a family. For example, when an owner gets married and wants to add a spouse’s name to the title, or when the owners divorce and one spouse’s name is removed from the title. In other cases, a quitclaim deed can be used when parents transfer property to their children or when siblings transfer property to each other. Some families opt to put their property into a family trust and a quitclaim deed can be used then as well.
    https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/need-quitclaim-deed/

    There is no gift tax.

    Liked by 1 person

  80. Talked to a guy at church today whom I hadn’t seen in a while — turns out he slid off the roof of their house while taking Christmas lights down and landed on his head on concrete. Ouch. He’s amazingly ok but had to keep his head wrapped for a couple months so now he has long hair and a beard. I told him he looks like one of the Beach Boys.

    Close call.

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  81. Karen @ 2:17
    It isn’t about being “submissive” or any such. It is about having someone who cares.
    Elvera has (had?) a Belk card. She would go out and shop and buy. I never worried because she was more careful than I am.
    But she would go shopping and come back. She had to show me all the things she bought.
    Especially if she got a “good deal” on some of it.
    And I always pretended to care.

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  82. On Cheryl’s link, the benefits of early intervention, and the idea of a prodromal period followed by a first psychotic break was what I was taught in class.

    Kizzie, you have mentioned Mr. X’s diagnosis. I wonder about it, as his behavior seems more typical of a personality disorder than a psychotic mental illness. There are two personality disorder with similar names to schizophrenia, but they are not schizophrenia, Schizotypal personality disorder (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizotypal-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353919) and Schizoid personality disorder (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizoid-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20354414). At the very least, if he is schizophrenic, his manipulative and abusive traits are not typical of schizophrenia – in other words, that part of his personality is not part of his mental illness.
    I can understand Nightingale’s cynical attitude towards Mr. X, but, as a nurse, such an attitude towards all schizophrenics could get in the way of giving proper care to the mentally ill. Part of the therapeutic relationship a nurse must build with patients is recognizing one’s own biases and attitudes and identifying where those can present a barrier to really listening to and caring for patients. Cynicism can be a deadly attitude to have, literally. Patients have died because the healthcare team made cynical assumptions about the ‘type’ of patient they were dealing with and did not give timely treatment as a result. For example, the person staggering and speaking slurred speech could be drunk, or they could be a diabetic going into hypoglycemic shock. The first is not usually fatal, the second will be rapidly fatal if not quickly treated.

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  86. Cleared out the tall TV cabinet in the living room (so it’s ready to be moved to the garage where I’ll re-purpose it for gardening tools and supplies or something else); I also cleaned out the old cedar chest/”coffee table” next to it where a number of books and notebooks had landed over the years.

    Moving along.

    Liked by 1 person

  87. ___________________

    Later, Tamara told me that, for all her brother’s struggles, she sees him as an inspiration, and always believes that he could one day get better. “Every bit of happiness and friendship that he experiences, every conversation we have, I value deeply,” she said. Sometimes, though, she finds herself thinking about what might have happened if Glenn had gotten the same kind of care that the young patients in her program do today. “He was very smart, very intelligent. He’s interested in learning. He wanted to finish school, he wanted all the things that other people want. He wanted to work, he wanted a girlfriend, you know?” More than anything, her work has taught her what becomes possible when doctors treat a person with mental illness as a person with a future.
    ___________________

    I wonder the same about Carol now — with an IQ that’s reportedly off the charts and being the voracious reader she is, she could have done so many things if she (or someone or something medically) could have slowed or stopped the illness and harnessed all of her abilities. Instead, she’s flighty, destitute and undisciplined in so many important areas (though not in reading or doing her “devotions” which often take 2-3 hours every day and she’s hungry to learn; but then, she goes and spends every last cent she has for the month ahead on Easter candy).

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  88. FWIW, our relative was diagnosed in his twenties. He was told he would be a paranoid/schizo his whole life. He was given powerful meds. He was hospitalized a few times (once when committed by family) and he has lived in half way homes. He has also accessed mental health walk in facilities. He tried to work off and on for quite a few years, but finally gave up anything but a weekly paper route.

    He is old enough to be retired now and does quite well. He leads and attends a couple of different bible studies. He used to accompany a pastor to help with services at senior citizen centers. The pastor left or he would still be doing that. He helps out at his church with lawn mowing or snow shoveling.

    He lives in senior housing himself now. He has his moments, but usually will call anyone or all of several people to ask about his thoughts. Some is, clearly, paranoid thinking; some immaturity and/or self-pity.

    We never let him believe that he was always going to be the same his whole life. None of us know what God has in store for us. OTOH, he could need some type of meds all his life, just like a diabetic may need meds for life.

    Such a life is a challenge, but most of us have some type of challenge. Some more than others. It is a life that can bring God glory, as much as any other life.

    Liked by 1 person

  89. DJ, you are going to have to send pictures to me.
    I am trying to figure out some ways to redecorate this house. I have hit a brick wall will someone who measures and leaves no room for winging it. Personality styles. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  90. Roscuro – Don’t worry. Nightingale has a compassionate heart towards her patients.

    She’s also told me, though, that it is common for nurses to develop a dark or morbid sense of humor which could be misconstrued as uncaring by others. But they tend to keep it between themselves. Have you run across that kind of humor?

    I am proud of her. The well-loved nursing supervisor who recently retired sent her a thank you note (for a letter Nightingale had written telling her how much she admired her and will miss her) which included telling her that she is an excellent nurse. Such a compliment coming from that particular woman meant a lot to her.

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  91. We’ve wondered about Mr X’s diagnosis, too, knowing that his behavior is more in line with a personality disorder, such as narcissism, than with schizophrenia. However, Nightingale has said that he has a streak of paranoia in him.

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  97. My question – What is that I see up ahead? – put some words to the song “Hotel California” in my head, particularly the beginning of the first verse.

    “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
    Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
    Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
    My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
    I had to stop for the night.”

    Liked by 2 people

  98. Kizzie, paranoid personality disorder is another in the same class (A) as schizotypal and schizoid disorder: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/personality-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20354463
    I don’t doubt Nightingale is a good nurse. Yet I have seen otherwise good nurses write off the mentally ill. Freud is often called the father of psychiatry, but I think he rather set back the treatment of mental illness 100 years by his attributing mental illnesses to repressed desires in the subconscious. The very recent recognition that the psychotic disorders (i.e. schizophrenia), mood disorders (i.e. depression), and anxiety disorders (i.e. obsessive compulsive disorder), as well as developmental disorders such as autism, have a physical, rather than a psychological, cause is helping forward their effective treatment, as can be seen in the article that Cheryl linked to. But the concept of those archaic psychological cause theories hangs around the public perception of the mentally ill, and healthcare workers are members of the public.

    The difference between nurses and physicians lies not in what nurses and physicians can do, since nurses with advanced training are capable of diagnosing and prescribing and in some specializations, can even perform operations and administer anesthetic; but in the fact that nurses are trained to think holistically, to care for the whole person, not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally, even spiritually (there are parish nurses), rather than only focusing on treating whatever disease the patient has, as physicians do. We are perhaps better equipped than physicians to look beyond a person’s mental illness and view them as a complete person, yet we are often too busy and find it easier to hide behind popular stereotypes as a reason for not making the effort.

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  102. It has been a while since I got a hundred. Of course, my clever distraction tactics helped 😉 (actually, they were totally accidental, I had no idea we were getting close to 100 until I noticed Mumsee and Kizzie sneaking toward it).

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  103. Peter, I watched the Thursday test and typed answers on the side. At best I would have gotten 34. So you’re my hero. I hope they call you in!

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  104. Well, unfortunately one is not guaranteed to be on the show based on even a good audition. If I understand correctly, if they call you in for an audition, they are more likely to call you for the show if you have some interesting life story. “I proposed to my wife under Niagara Falls.” “My grandfather invented bologna, and my father couldn’t stand the stuff.” “I discovered the trick to getting through college debt-free, and everyone else on my dorm floor followed my example.” Some little human-interest thing that Alec can ask: “I understand that wild pigs have learned to avoid your house. Wild pigs?” So if you ever get called for an audition, make sure you are prepared with one or two such stories.

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  105. It is true that most people on those powerful drugs tend to go off them. The side effects are horrible and when people start to feel better they start to think they start to think maybe they do not need them. Some have to go through a few cycles before they realize they really do need to be on something.

    Furthermore, there are plenty of well meaning people, particularly Christians, who are quick to tell someone they really don’t need drugs. They just need to pray or whatever.

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  106. It’s been a very busy weekend. Here is a link to the C. S. Lewis program Art and I attended last night at my church. It was really good. People who like the writings of Lewis will appreciate watching this short YouTube.

    Liked by 1 person

  107. Let’s see… What interesting thing can I make up, er, ah, say to get on Jeopardy!? I could say that tourists think I look like Mark Twain when they come to the cave. Just ask Kim, or Jo, or RKessler, or Nancy. They’ve met me. And so has Pauline.

    Some say I look like Albert Einstein, or even Alex Trebec himself!

    Or I could do my John Wayne impersonation, pilgrim.

    How about the time I drove down a mountain with no brakes and several friends in the car? Or the time the engine died on that same road so I glided down in neutral?

    All of these are true, really.

    Liked by 2 people

  109. Well, Peter, I’ve read at least one interview in which the person said that such “hooks” seem to be what makes the difference in getting on the show, and indeed Alex zooms in on them after the first break. I’m guessing that Austin got on not only because he was so crazy smart and good at trivia, but also because he was a bartender, and that was something unexpected.

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  110. Janice, yep, all those lines were familiar (though it has been decades since I have read The Great Divorce–it wasn’t a favorite, though I think I might like it better now).

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  111. K, the extrapyramidal symptoms, like tardive dyskinesia, with the older (typical) antipsychotics are bad; but the newer (atypical) antipsychotics do not have as bad side effects.

    Liked by 1 person

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