46 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-5-18”

  1. How can I be first at 7:19?
    Wake up sleepyheads!
    I was up, b ut went back to bed. It’s a long uninteresting story.

    Is that the same picture as yesterday?

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  3. Morning! I went back to yesterday’s posts and saw that little Miss Maddie did arrive safely. What an incredible blessing Kim and Mr P!!
    Coffee with my neighbor ladies and a 5 mile hike is in my future today…I am oh so sore from taking that Zumba class yesterday.. I keep telling myself I am too old to take a class instructed by an overachieving 23 year old!! 😜

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  4. :Yes. Miss Madelynn arrived last night at 8:03. Grandpa showed tremendous restraint. We left the hospital without holding her but got several pictures. None of them publishable. She has a head full of dark hair. She really wasn’t all squished up like they usually are. There were 7 of us there and that is just too many people, plus they hospital locked down for the night security wise.

    As I said last night, Grandpa, mother, and child are all doing well. I am pretty proud of the baby’s father too. He has mostly been ignored through this whole thing, but he spent Tuesday night in the hospital and was not planning to leave last night. Mommy and Baby are his whole world right now and you can see it in his face. When he came to get us from the waiting room, he was so excited. His first words were, “She is here and she is gorgeous”. Just exactly what a new father ought to say. She isn’t gorgeous yet. She is a newborn. As mush as we love them and think they are perfect, one day we will look at a picture and think, “My goodness she really was all squished up”.

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  5. Yesterday was quite the day in my world. We knew that Miss Madelynn would be born and were excited over that. I was still adjusting somewhat to my uncle being sick and facing death. He died yesterday morning.
    I talked to my Aunt S yesterday afternoon and she told me about the funeral home coming to get him. They asked the family to step out of the room while they prepared him and got him on the gurney. They wrapped him in a flag, he was a Vietnam Veteran and retired from the Coast Guard. As they were bringing him to through the house they let the family know. They stopped at the front door, pulled the flag back and let my aunt and her three daughters kiss him good bye. You should have heard her tell it, it gave me chills. He will be cremated and buried at the Veterans Cemetery with full military honors. She wants to wait until May 5th to have the service as that would have been his 81st birthday. She said that seemed appropriate to celebrate his birthday and his life.
    This is what my “cousin” wrote:

    “This man loved me from the first minute he met me. He loved me as his own child even though he didn’t have to do so. This man was genuinely concerned that I was a midget because his whole family were tall giants and I was very, very short. This man taught me how to throw a cast net when I was 10 years old then beamed with pride when I taught the 12 year old boys how to correctly throw. This man taught me consequences when I decided to push boundaries as a teenager but cheered at the boundaries I pushed as an adult. This man taught me how to handle difficult people which has proved to be a valuable skill to have in my back pocket. He taught me how to change spark plugs when I was 16, even though I haven’t touched one since. He taught me how to fix anything even though I married a man that can fix everything. This man loved me through all the seasons of my life for the past 30 years and I was blessed to love him for that long too. I lost my first dad when I was 4 years old and I lost my second dad the morning after I turned 40. The last thing he told me was “You’re the only angel in this room” then told me he loved me. There’s no greater present knowing that he accepted Jesus in the 11th hour and is now sitting at His feet and is no longer in pain. You’ve fought the good fight, Charles”

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  6. Then to end my night, my ex mother in law called me to let me know that her sister, my “Auntie Ann”, had died yesterday afternoon, from —you guessed it. Cancer! She was 79. She told the doctors early on that he didn’t want a real fight, she wanted a few months and as little pain as possible. I am the only person who called her “Auntie Ann”. She was a mess. If she thought it she said it–even if you got your feelings hurt at first. You had to love her anyway because you knew exactly where you stood. This leaves only my mother in law out of the four sisters. It is hitting her hard this morning. I have already called to check on her.

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  7. So, Cheryl is always talking about being of Scottish descent and frugality.
    My Uncle Chuckles took it to a whole different level. When I got married he, as my uncle/godfather offered to buy the champagne for the reception. He took me on base to buy it, and I got what the caterer had told me to get. We got to the check out and he waited, and waited, then told me I needed to pay for it. His “gift” was his discount at being able to purchase it on base. I went home and told my dad. He called Chuckles a “tight fisted bad word”. When my Aunt S heard about it she bought several place settings of my china.
    Yesterday she was telling me that a few weeks ago they were talking about what he wanted her to do when he died. He told her that he didn’t want everyone coming back to their house, to take everyone to a specific restaurant afterwards, have it catered for however many and pay for it. As she was telling the story she reminded me how tight with a dollar he was. I laughed, and told her how well I knew. She asked him if he was sure he wanted her to spend that kind of money. HE laughed and said, “What do I care how much you spend. It will all be YOUR money then”. I am still chuckling over that one. Now you know where I get my strange sense of humor.

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  8. Roscuro, absolutely a husband should not be “excluded” from childbirth because he is a man, if he wishes to be there and his wife wishes him to, no question on that. I just think it is more a cultural norm than otherwise (worldwide) that it is a place for women, and I’m not inclined to think that to be a problem that needs to be corrected–like mothers breastfeeding was not, or mothers potty training their children early was not. Having today’s men more likely to attend childbirth and to change diapers (and so on) has likely led (in some ways) to men being more in tune with their families and more empathetic. But we also have “softer” (less hardy) men, and I’m not at all convinced it is a net good. It also has not led to a reduce in abuse or divorce, possibly the opposite. (No, I am not blaming an increase in divorce on more-involved fathers; if anything it’s the opposite–less-involved mothers, women less willing to have children and less invested in their families–but the same cultural trends have produced both, and I do not think we have a net gain, or anything close.)

    I think men and women have “equal” cultural influence now, just different cultural influence. Women have much influence over the worlds of their children, their homes, and their neighborhoods; men have more influence over government and business. But women often care less about those spheres than men do, and more about relationships and people. A perfect world would of course be a theocracy (I am not saying a theocracy is the right form of government in our world today–absolutely not–but if Adam and Eve had never fallen, we would still live in a theocracy), but whether that precludes individual community government, I really don’t know. (Might we still have such things as a condo organization, for instance, where we mutually agree to certain things and agree to a board overseeing it?)

    God nowhere commands that government heads can only be male (and thus those Christians who announced that female presidential candidates were an outrage were reading into the text, I think), and Margaret Thatcher proved that women can sometimes lead very well. Israel once had a woman judge. But God did ordain that all the leaders of Israel be men–the only queen seized power illegitimately. He also did establish that only men could be elders and pastors, and that men are to be heads of their homes. I don’t think the male head of the home is only a post-Fall idea, but the rest of it we simply do not know, because we didn’t have government as such until after the Fall. But I don’t think it a bad thing that men are more likely to be CEOs or heads of state than women are–I think it is a natural “sorting out” due to men’s and women’s different priorities, interests, and even their different strengths, just as the preponderance of nurses being female is. (I know a young man who is in training to be a nurse, and I think he will be a good one, and a friend who is a recent amputee and was getting in-home care said it had been recommended to her that she ask for a man so that he would have strength to lift her. I am not arguing against male nurses, just saying it is natural that more women than men are drawn to the field. It also is a field that has no draw for me at all; I’m squeamish. Childbirth has always fascinated me, but any other “medical” stuff leaves me close to passing out if the discussion lingers for more than a minute or two.) Oppressive patriarchies are not God’s plan, but I think that patriarchy itself is basically the way the world was created to operate. And matriarchy is definitely not a healthier pattern. African-American communities are often more or less matriarchies, with rogue males roaming around and causing great trouble but providing little leadership or financial provision. Having lived in such a neighborhood seven or eight years in Chicago, I’ll take typical patriarchal society over it any day of the week.

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  9. Kim, what a full and precious day you had. I am glad you had your Uncle Chuckles, and glad the baby made it safely.

    That sounds like a huge loss for your mother-in-law! My sister and I have talked about how statistically speaking she and I will be the last of us seven. Of course one never knows, but most of the men are quite a bit older and men don’t tend to live as long, and our only younger brother isn’t very much younger and (so far) still single. And she and I are only 15 1/2 months apart, so statistically speaking an almost even likelihood for either of us to die first. I have so far lost a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law, in their mid-forties and early fifties, but no siblings. Being the last survivor of multiple siblings has always sounded hard, though.

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  10. I don’t really want to wade into this argument over whether or not men could/should/would be in the delivery room with their wives. I will tell you what it did for me.
    As you know, we went through 5 years of infertility treatments to have the one child we did have.
    The doctor put me in the hospital on Monday night to induce me Tuesday. G took me to the hospital, got me settled in and went home. There was no point in both of us being exhausted the next day. He needed a good night’s sleep.
    My only other experience in a hospital that I remembered was being a small child in isolation in a hospital with a horrid CLOWN in the tile of the room and waking up and neither my mother nor my grandfather could be found. (My own father was probably at work. I don’t think I have a memory of him related to that hospital stay)
    The next day, Tuesday G was back and BG was born. He was in the room but not particularly supportive. He kept telling me all the advice he had gotten from his male friends on not looking it would change his sex life. About 7 or so he told me he was going home he was tired and once again needed a good night’s sleep. I was left in a hospital by myself with this little creature I had no experience dealing with. Thankfully there were other paid adults who knew what to do.
    I was angry and hurt. I truly believe that is where the kernel of resentment started to grow that eventually led to our divorce.
    I had heard all my friends talk about their husbands and how involved they were and what good care they took of them when they were having babies. I was on the tail end of people we socialized with having babies…perhaps the last.

    Now, I will take some of the responsibility too. I was from a dysfunctional background and while I THOUGHT I was speaking English when I told my husband what I wanted, apparently I was not speaking clearly enough. When we came home from the hospital and I thought he was going to stay home with me at least until the following Monday, he went to work.
    When I had to go back to work at 8 weeks I once again thought I was speaking English when I told him I wanted BG to send me flowers at work my first day back I was informed that BG was a baby and therefore had no money to send me flowers.
    Eventually, I learned to keeps my wants, needs, and desires to myself.

    Fathers matter and the support they give their wives matter even MORE. It’s different if there is a true reason that a father can’t be there such as military service or something, but if your wife wants you there you dang well BETTER be there. Otherwise your EX-wife could one day be on a blog, old and bitter telling about it.

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  11. Lovely butterfly, AJ! Are these from last year’s butterfly garden, or have you been to a new one?

    I have a collage of butterfly-garden shots as my April calendar page (Shutterfly calendar).

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  12. What a swing in your emotions, Kim. Such a high of joy and then those lows of grief all at once are difficult. Congratulations and condolences all at once.

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  13. Ah, butterflies. ‘Tis the season (or it soon will be, depending on where you are).

    I think I will buy some more of the organic top soil for the backyard. Three bags mostly covered the most of it, but there wasn’t enough to use on the 2 terraced areas along the back and side fences. Still no wildflower color out there, but healthy-looking green sprouts everywhere so I’m hoping it will be glorious when the blooms come along. It’ll be a bit chaotic, perhaps, not the manicured look many people prefer. But I’ll figure it out as I go.

    Yesterday was chilly and foggy, today probably will be the same. We may get a little rain over the weekend, according to the forecast.

    One side window got primed yesterday. The house slowly is looking much better. We should probably wash off the dark handprint from the stucco on the north side of the house. It was left by one of the foundation guys, I believe (but who really knows), and has been something of a mascot symbol for this entire endeavor. It kind of makes me smile every time I take notice of it.

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  14. Yes, Kim’s having an emotional week. So hard to see all the ‘adults’ passing on, parents, the aunts and uncles we grew up with.

    Blessings on the new baby, I’m sure Mr. P is on Cloud 9. It’ll be a fun year watching her grow.

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  15. Kim, yes, if a wife wants her husband there and he can handle it (some men just can’t), then he should be there.

    My mom had most of us in an era where women tended to be tied down and shaved, and they had to stay in the hospital several days, and she fought back about most of that. After the first baby she knew they would want to tie her arms, and she kept them crossed over her body and wouldn’t let them. She also insisted on being released in a day or two, and she breast fed her babies all through the days of it not being stylish.

    With my youngest brother, she was 45 and had two toddlers at home, plus four boys 10-17 (the oldest in the Army). Times were changing a bit (it was 1970), and she had had the same doctor for several babies. (The youngest three of us were all born in Phoenix. The first four had been born in three other states and another country.) She asked the doctor if Dad could be present, and he said no . . . but left the door open. But Dad was in the waiting room and didn’t know he had left the door open and that he could come if he wanted to.

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  16. Dogs are hard on most traditional ground coverings so grass in the backyard just never worked well for me. There are other options, tougher ground coverings, that i was going to explore. But in the meantime the wildflower bug bit me and I began wildly scattering seeds everywhere for want of a better, immediate plan. I was tired of looking at the barren dust bowl it had all become after the house & fence projects led to a year of deterioration and neglect. The soil was more sand than dirt with all kinds of rocks and debris mixed in from taking down the old fence last spring. I do have several very large, mature trees, though, so that helps. We need to cut the root on one of them though, it’s bulging under the concrete patio slab and moving toward the house – and that’s definitely not healthy for foundations or plumbing.

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  17. Cheryl,
    I respectfully disagree. If they wife wants the husband in there he BEST be in there. He needs to man up and take care of his wife.
    The taboo against breastfeeding for a while was the formula companies had done a great marketing campaign and it was seen as a sign of wealth that you could give your baby formula instead of being a “poor commoner” and having no money to waste on formula. Think back to the days of wet nurses.

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  18. Kim, what if the issue isn’t his “manning up”? Yes, under most circumstances, if a wife wants her husband there, he should be there. But I would stop short of calling it a moral obligation. Just off the top of my head, I can think of multiple extenuating circumstances that would say either “In this case, it is better for both of them if he is not present” or “It might be the best choice for some couples, but it isn’t what works for them.”

    Some people really do faint at the sight of blood. Nothing to do with “manning up.” If my husband were having a heart transplant and the doctor was allowing me in the room and my husband wanted me there, I still could not do it. My love for my husband would not be at issue. I would be a liability and not an asset in that situation . . . and I am a member of the stronger sex.

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  20. The OB nurse didn’t believe me when I shouted, “urge to push!”

    She tutted and said, “Only 8 centimeters,” but paid close attention when my husband and I said, “I/she goes from 8 to 10 very fast!”

    She took another look and they rushed me to delivery, where our daughter was born five minutes later. Only my husband, from experience, knew that.

    He also was able to intervene on #3 when I had a horrible phlebotomist (whose butchery left me more banged up and in greater pain that the delivery two hours later.)

    In our case, of course, delivering with a new and different doctor four times in three hospitals, he was the only one in his right mind with experience and insight to help.

    I needed him there to help me and to rejoice with me. I’d never do–any of it– again without him! Lol

    I will never forget the look of wonder and love on my husband’s face as he saw his children for the first time. Who shouted in amazement with me, “It’s a girl!”

    Precious memories– including how grateful I was when I could tell him, “Go with the baby,” when I got so scared.

    Kim is right. No one cares as much about those babies as their fathers.

    And now I’m crying.

    If my son isn’t in the delivery room, he may never get to see his little girl.

    I’m just hoping I’ll be nearby to see her, too.

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  22. Michelle, a couple of years ago one of my California nephews and his wife gave birth to their first baby. I have no idea whether they knew ahead of time that the child would not survive birth, or whether they found out when the baby was born. The particular birth defect leads to death at birth in nearly 100% of cases, with just one child who lived a few years. If they did not know ahead of time, then I can imagine having the husband present would have been very important, because it would indeed be devastating not to have one’s husband present at such a time.

    My sister’s second child (like her first) was induced, and I was present for that birth, and being in an induced birth leaves lots and lots of time for a nurse to be present with nothing much to do but tell birth stories (or at least that is what happened in our case). And she told of husbands fainting and taking away necessary medical attention from their wives, and boyfriends who were banned after the first birth because they handled it so poorly (whether by fainting and throwing up or by getting belliegerent), even one boyfriend whose face made it to the front page of the paper the next day for armed robbery. As I recall (possibly incorrectly) when Nightingale was having her baby, Kizzie was uncomfortable with the baby’s father being in the room because she didn’t really trust him. The nurse also told us about having to get one father arrested and/or barred from the hospital, since they found him trying to have sex with his wife within hours of the birth, and when he tried again the next day they couldn’t let him stay and be a danger to her and possibly the baby.

    But I intended, if possible, to have my babies at home (and in a birthing center if somehow a home birth wouldn’t work), so had I married in time to have babies, my husband would likely to have been present as much as he wanted to be. The husband I did get would have been a comfort in such an instance, but there are reasons he might end up being in another room for most of it. (He was present for the birth of both girls, but health issues since then might limit his ability had they had more children, or had he and I had children.) I wouldn’t feel abandoned if that was the case, since I know his heart for me and our family and I know his strengths and his limitations. But then, I grew up with an older brother with different limitations–a brother who loved his children but couldn’t ever carry one of them. Life doesn’t always give us the details we want, and sometimes it brings really hard things. But God is still good.

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  25. I’ve told my birth stories many times to various and sundry people, so I will refrain doing so once again.

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  27. Well, I just got here, but I’m not afraid to chime in. Disconnected thoughts in no particular order:

    As far as I know, when I was born in the 50s it was only the hospital staff present. I think it is good today that the mother can have someone they know and trust in the room.

    If it works for everyone the father ought to be there, but all kinds of reasonable exceptions have been suggested here. If he’s not the best person for the job, no reason to force it.

    Chas, no reason to feel like a coward. Our generations were conditioned differently. My dad wasn’t in the room for any of his children’s births. I on the other hand was happily present for both of mine.

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  29. Sixteen year old son is learning a lot in school. Yesterday he told us that Eminem would make a great president because he has experienced poverty and would know how to help. How would he help, asks I. He says, by making an organization to give them housing. Problem solved, DJ! Vote eminem.

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  30. Same son who thinks we should do something about school shootings, like raise the age and get rid of semi automatics or something. And, by the way, the same son who makes five dollars for every twenty five dollar raffle ticket he sells in the school money making venture of raffling off a rifle.

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  31. Cheryl, actually, God did not ordain that all the leaders of Israel be men – you are thinking of the monarchs, but you forgot the judges. The husband is the head of the wife, but nowhere is he called the head of the household. It is mentioned that elders and deacons should rule their households well in II Timothy 3:4, but the rule mentioned is one of a protector or guardian. That position in the home is not solely the province of the man, as women are to be guards of the home – the phrase in the KJV, ‘keepers at home’, in Titus 2:3 is literally translated ‘house guard’ (think of a lighthouse ‘keeper’). Children are to honour both their parents. Pastor A, in the sermons at all of my siblings weddings (he counselled and performed the ceremonies for all three) always emphasized that the headship of the husband was a position of weightier responsibility, not one of greater power. When Pastor A was called to preach in my family church, his first sermons were about the greater responsibility to be faithful to God that the elders of the church had, and the greater judgement they would incur if they neglected or abused that responsibility (James 3:1). Leadership in the Church is not the leadership of the world:

    Jesus called them to him, and said unto them, You know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. (Mark 10:42-44)

    Dominion over the earth was given to both male and female humans. Peter reminds men that their wives are co-heirs with them; Paul says women are of no different standing in the person of Jesus Christ than men; Jesus says the marriage relationship will not apply in the Resurrection. All indications are that the headship of the husband and submission of the wife is a temporary, earthly, relationship, one that is defunct in the New Creation. Jesus treated women as equals to men, commending Mary’s choice to sit at his feet with his disciples rather than assisting her sister, and making women the first witnesses of the resurrection. Women prophesied alongside men in both the Old and New Testament. There is considerable evidence that women were also deacons; in the instructions to deacons in I Timothy 3:11, the ‘their’ before the word that can be translated either ‘wives’ or ‘women’, depending on context, is not in the original – even John Calvin conceded there was probably a female order of deacons. Furthermore, the word translated deacon in I Timothy 3 is the same as in the commending of ‘Phoebe, a servant [deacon] of the church’ in Romans 16. It would in fact, make perfect sense that women could also be deacons, since the position does not involve teaching men, and women such as Dorcas, the women who ministered to Jesus, and Lydia all were very much involved in service. Incidentally, the word for deacon in Paul’s epistles is the same as the one used for servant in the words of Christ that I quoted above.

    I know the current trend, with popular gurus such as Jordan Peterson – whom I consider a dangerous Trojan horse, since he is called a Christian by journalists, but denies that Scripture is any more than a collection of moral tales and does not believe in the Lordship of Christ – talking about the need for a return to a ‘traditional’ idea of masculinity, of thinking that men are becoming too feminized or ‘soft’ (whatever that means) is popular among conservative Christians. It is not ‘soft’ for a man to change his children’s diapers – it is showing a servant’s heart. Was Jesus ‘soft’ for taking the children up in his arms and blessing them? Conservative Christians are looking away from the what the Bible says about the husband’s and elder’s responsibilities, and vainly attempting to revive what were purely cultural norms that had no relation to Christianity. IThe ‘manliness’ laid out in the Christian Bible is one that is self sacrificing, gentle, and meek. The admonition to husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church is well known, but just look at the qualities of a church elder:

    The Lord’s slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness [meekness in other translations].
    An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, not addicted to wine, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy— one who manages his own household competently, having his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?) He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the Devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil’s trap. (II Timothy 2:23-25 & I Timothy 3:2-7, HCSB)

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  34. I have to say, the nurse in Cheryl’s anecdote about attending her sister’s birth was completely unprofessional. It was not only breaking the therapeutic relationship by communicating gossip which in no way was helpful to the woman who was delivering, it was also a violation of confidentiality to relate those stories in that kind of detail to other patients. Mentioning details like the photograph of the boyfriend appearing on the front page of the newspaper could enable the patient she was talking about to be identified.

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  35. Roscuro, if I’d forgotten the judges, I wouldn’t have mentioned that there was one female judge. 🙂 I couldn’t say all the “kings” had to be men, since that is redundant, so I said “leaders,” but I had already mentioned judges (who weren’t heads of state, and thus not what I was talking about, though).

    I agree that it is likely that women are allowed to be deacons in Scripture. I’ve heard very solid cases made for both sides (in other words, it kind of depends on who you listen to, since I don’t read the original languages), but I’m inclined to think that a person can be pro-woman-deacon without being the least bit inclined to twist Scripture. I was once a member of a church that took a year or so to study the issue in Scripture and determined that women could be deacons but not elders. I was in fact asked to be a deacon at that church, but I was moving within a few months and thus declined. (I don’t say I was asked to be a deacon to brag; it isn’t a position of leadership but of service. I say that to say I was comfortable enough with the position they came to that I would have said yes if I could.)

    And Jordan Peterson makes no claims to be a Christian, so anyone who calls him that is not paying much attention. Nevertheless, I never even heard of him till this year and definitely don’t base any of my thinking on his.

    I don’t think any of us should be arguing and pushing for power, in the church or the home or the government. But neither do I think God has flattened everything out and not given positions with special authority (and responsibility). Having lived with a husband for seven and a half years, a father for those same years plus time with my own father, and an elder for five years or so, I’ve seen the deep responsibilities of those roles up close and personal. I do think that society (all parts of it) does function most smoothly when qualified men take leadership willingly and humbly and when women don’t fight for it. And I am not saying a woman can never lead in any sphere–indeed a mother sure better be willing to lead, and we may lead in other areas as well–but that in general men are more likely to desire leadership positions and women are going to feel better when they don’t have the responsibilities of leadership all the time.

    My husband has told quite a few people, however, that part of the reason he wanted to marry me is that I am smart, that I am not afraid to speak up, and that my skills can be an asset to him. Anyone who thinks I am arguing for spineless femininity doesn’t know me.

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  37. Roscuro, I rather agree about the nurse, though I think she was telling stories from many years and perhaps even several different states, and I doubt anything would be identifiable. I think the main “gist” of the stories she was telling was her relief and pleasure in ministering to a happy, healthy family who wanted their children and who were married. For all I know she was obscuring or changing details, as I do when I write. I do think that telling story after story about weird or bad childbirth experiences isn’t the best way to deal with a woman who is being induced to give birth. But even the fact that she was happy about working with my sister, that she apparently saw a married mother coming to give birth to her second child and was present with her husband and sister as an exception to her usual experience says that she probably was working in a tough environment.

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  39. OK, good, Roscuro. Between my not knowing if I was sending the email to the correct address, and my too-often malfunctioning email service provider, I had no guarantees it would get to you. 🙂 Thanks for the confirmation.

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  40. Probably at some point today I said “Lovely butterfly!” because that is a really lovely photo, and I find myself gazing at it repeatedly. Just in case I didn’t, I’ll say it now.

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  41. I made it home & up my driveway, but not to Idaho. Did I tell you gas prices are spiking and it costs nearly $70 to fill up my Jeep? Sheesh.

    Then I was busy taking out the trash after a day with 2 stories to write.

    Someday I’ll be able to sit down and read a book in my future tidy, painted house. But not this week.

    Yes, beautiful butterfly shot

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  42. Poor Janet, you must be exhausted. I always thought I was a “late” filer, but I do manage to get in sometime before the end of March at least. My tax guy told me once that his clients all fall in the same predictable groups, with some being the first to show up and others, inevitably, being last-minute.

    Although I guess it’s those who may owe who put it off until the end? I think one of the H&R people told me that when I was doing a story on the last day of filing and people were all hauling in huge paper bags of random paperwork.

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  44. The cat just knocked over a half-full glass on the kitchen counter, it went everywhere. Honestly, I think Tess was right about her after all. What a little pest.

    Liked by 1 person

  45. I have to chuckle at all of your birth stories. At my first delivery, very long labor, my husband had to take a smoke break every so often. I was glad to have him there.

    I, too, have had several deaths recently. Not in my family, but in our small community. The most recent was a friend who would have been 100 later in the month. He was the first person I met after I moved to the ranch, as a young bride. I have so many memories of him and his kindness. They used to come over and help us do cow work. We always have a good meal midday. While I was getting the food on the table, he would always hold and visit with which ever girl happened to be the baby at the time. He taught my daughter how to trim her horse’s hooves, gave her training tips, etc. They raised and trained Arabians, along with their other ranching endeavors of cattle and sheep. I will miss him!

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  46. Janice must be on the countdown. I got my taxes sent this week.

    Looks like some opportunities for work at home are going to come up. Please keep us in your prayers that we would have stamina to get the work done in time to make it happen.

    So very happy for the grandbaby that you get to love, Kim.

    Liked by 1 person

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