83 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-14-18”

  1. Good morning. Winter is here again. I predict summer will be here in 2-3 weeks, and we’ll miss that other season that comes between.

    Have a good weekend, all.

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  2. The flowers made me smile. As you all know my friend Leslie died in February. I was not able to attend her funeral which still makes me sad. The morning after the funeral one of the Navy Wives who had spent the night at the Cottage posted a photo of flowers exactly like this that Leslie was blessing her one more time with something to smile about.
    We were supposed to go visit with DIL and Maddy today, but Weather-Paul says we are in for it and we may not go. I would think as a new mother in bad weather you would want someone with you. I don’t know. I am waiting for Jim Cantore to call him so they can discuss.
    While I wait I have “homework” to do. I am being BOLD. I have to have 100 conversations with people this week about real estate. I have a way to get it done. After last night I only havce 94 left.

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  3. Morning! Wintery white such a delight!! Daughter arrived home last evening after a very stressful drive home from the Springs. She could not get her car up and over the little hill on our driveway down by the road so there sits her car…she walked up the drive in the blizzard, walked through the door and said “I’m going to bed”!! So thankful she made it home safely!
    I don’t think we will see flowers such as those on the header around here for a while but with the moisture we have a greater chance of seeing blossoms at some point. On the news they keep panicking about the dry conditions and the extreme danger of what is ahead. Newscasters and our dumb governor telling everyone not to get excited over the moisture because we are going to be in trouble come July and August….just let me enjoy this snow..ok?!! 😜

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  4. The ice rain has begun – some five centimetres are predicted. If so, that could mean the electricity goes out. The high winds that are occurring with the ice are most concerning, since that means trees weighed down by ice are more likely to fall.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Kim, you may be interested to know that ‘The Highlander’ is available to watch on Amazon Prime. Prime’s selection of films is, with a few exceptions subpar, but they have quite a few old TV series, including ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘Peter Gunn’. How do I know this? Well, one of the few perks of being a student is that one is offered some services for free – or at very much reduced rates.

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  8. I loved “Dark Shadows” when I was a kid. Had such a crush on Quentin Collins, played by David Selby. 🙂

    Talk of flowers brings to mind a photo Nightingale took. It was as we were coming out of the hospital the morning Hubby died. We were all numb with shock and grief. The sun was up but had not yet cleared the taller buildings, and I immediately thought of that phrase, “the cold light of day.” There was no joy in that sunrise.

    Right before stepping off the front walk area of the hospital, there were some flowers planted here and there, around some poles. All of a sudden, Nightingale bent down and took a photo of a couple flowers still wet with dew. It is a beautiful photo, but bittersweet because of when it was taken.

    Liked by 7 people

  10. Prime has a good selection of BBC wildlife video series, and some that aren’t BBC and may or may not be as well done. My husband and I are watching our way through a series shot in India, focusing on the wildlife (yesterday’s included some great footage of snow leopards, one of my top favorite species), but also the landscapes and even the people. And I think every episode includes something about the religion, like how they worship the Ganges River. The religious portions were creepy and sad–particularly the portion where worshipers who may not have much food themselves were feeding a colony of wild rats in a temple–but useful to see. And the scenery and wildlife footage is beautiful.

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  11. My sweet Birdie is singing away this morning….is it possible for a bird to like a human? He sings every time I pass by his cage…when I talk to him he stares at me…I walk away…he sings his little heart out…can you tell I am loving this sweet creation of our Lord?! 🐦
    Kizzie what a blessing that Nightingale
    took the time to stoop down and capture the beauty of the flowers….one day you may want to frame it….as Mumsee reminds us…God is always with us and there are times we know He is carrying us through as we find ourselves barely able to walk…. ♥️ 🌺

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  12. I, too, thought of those flowers, and that photo, as a blessing in the midst of pain. Framing it would be a good idea.

    There’s another, older, photo of hers I would love to have printed and framed. It is of a then three year old Boy in the midst of apple trees. He is kind of in the background, more like the “middleground”, with some lovely apples hanging from the trees in the foreground. And he is wearing an outfit that we loved back then, and the colors goes well with the rest of the photo, not clashing or standing out.

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  13. I have been in a battle with a database, data, a calling system, CSV files, and a virtual assistant in the Phillipines this morning. FINALLY progress. Hold your breath as I move forward.

    We are not going to babysit the Mommy and Baby today, but I will cook some meals to take to her tomorrow so that she can eat well for production.

    Liked by 4 people

  14. DJ – This is kind of an addendum to our Facebook discussion with YF the other day, and is a good example of why she will not agree to disagree with conservatives. YF shared this, which was written by someone else, and she has written similar things in the past. It starts out saying that “white dudes have this thing,” believing that people can disagree politically, but still be friends, but that that is “gross and stupid,” that these matters are not merely theoretical, but affect lives. The rest of it:

    “I can’t be friends with you if you don’t think I should be allowed to vote.” [Yes, she and some other liberals really think that conservative whites do not want minorities to vote, and actively do what they can to suppress their voting rights.] “We can’t be friends if you think my friends shouldn’t have the ability to designate whatever gender they want and have that be legally recognized. We can’t be friends if you think I don’t deserve healthcare. Or if you think native children should be ripped away from their cultures and people. We can’t be friends if you think closing down health care clinics in an attempt to end safe legal abortions is a good thing. All these theoretical political ideas and lively debates affect real people, and I won’t be friends with someone who disagrees with me on them. Because disagreement means you don’t see me and a whole bunch of my friends and family as human beings worthy of rights and respect.

    When people moan about how politics used to be ‘civil’, what they’re really complaining about is the entry into the debate of the people those policies actually affect. Bit hard to be ‘civil’ when it’s your livelihood or bodily rights on the line.”

    This is how many “progressives” see conservative views.

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  15. Like DJ, I am more of a moderate these days, which means that some liberals accuse me of being too conservative, and some conservatives accuse me of being too liberal. I think I told you all about the time I was called a “libtard” by a friend of a friend on Facebook. I was laughing about that the whole day. 😀

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  16. Kizzie as I recall Chickadee was quite interested in photography at one time. Does she have the interest still? Seems as though that would be a bonding moment with your girls and perhaps even with little guy….

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  17. Kizzie, I am subjected to listening to Bill Mahr on Friday nights as I drift off to sleep. He was scolding Liberals over this very thing last night. Not everyone is going to agree on everything. Political correctness has gone too far. Get over it. You can’t watch old TV shows or movies and be upset because the characters aren’t “woke”.

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  18. Cheryl, I discovered a fascinating bit of trivia about the Ganges while taking Medical Anthropology. The Ganges is often called a dirty river by Westerners, and it does indeed have a lot of debris floating in it, since it is one of the Hindu holy places that the ashes of the deceased may be spread. But, it has properties about it that actually prevent disease, specifically cholera. The river contains bacteriophages, viruses that specifically infect bacteria, that kill the bacteria responsible for causing cholera: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161115-the-viruses-that-may-save-humanity

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  20. Kizzie, does YF consider herself a minority in some way? I can’t remember if she is gay, but I thought not? Does she feel she’s a minority simply because of her political and social views? (Because I don’t think she is at all — academia, entertainment and new media all tilt left, after all, and those are the outlets that influence culture the most). So I’m confused, I suppose.

    It seems the problem is that she feels she is *right* and others are *wrong* PERIOD (in a way that Nazi Germany was wrong and thus should never be tolerated as a matter of principle). So conservatives then become monsters of some sort, needing to be shut down or shut out of the dialogue. Odd that she doesn’t see the irony of that (intolerant, even totalitarian) mindset and where it always leads.

    I think you said she can’t fathom ‘nuance’ and maybe it all comes down to that. Perhaps she’ll never be able to exercise any self reflection? It’s sad that she feels that way, really, and she seems so angry to me (for someone her age, which as you pointed out is not particularly “youthful” anymore).

    The good thing for her airing these thoughts on social media, however, is that the flaws in her thinking are so obvious to most who read them, maybe even to chickadee? I mean, really. Who could read that and not think, wow, that’s kind of “out there” and a really skewed way of seeing the world.

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  22. It also does raise the genuine question of her professed faith? I’m not seeing anything so far that would lead me to believe that faith is real or grounded in the truth — maybe it’s a faith in some kind of overtly political/socially liberal ‘Jesus’ as he’s portrayed in some activist quarters only ? Has she ever read Scripture or seriously pursued a knowledge of the faith (without the politics for once)?

    I suspect discussing political or social issues with her is fruitless which is why I kept going back to how Scripture says we are to behave. But if she’s not the least bit tender to any of that, it’s pretty hard soil for the seed to penetrate, I’m afraid.

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  23. Michelle’s right, and I can’t understand why her parents aren’t giving her a boot in backside about that. Mine sure wouldn’t of tolerated not having a job and living at home at 31. I mean, seriously? And she has a college degree? (Of course she does, she opined that people are conservative because they’re uneducated, how could I forget 🙂 )

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  24. I save spare change around here in canisters marked for quarters, dimes and nickels (pennies go in another jar). The cans had been getting pretty heavy lately so last night I spent some time rolling the quarters, dimes and nickels and wound up with about $100 worth. Off to the savings account at the bank it goes.

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  26. DJ, I love rolling our spare change – we usually get way more than $100 for a smaller amount of coins because of our loonie and toonie. Those add up very quickly 🙂

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  28. NancyJill – Chickadee does still take photographs (on her phone these days), but I don’t think she’s as serious about it as she was a few years ago. She really had quite a good eye for composition.

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  30. So thankful that my parents did not give me a boot in the backside because I was over 30 and unemployed…
    I know, I know, YF’s circumstances are different than mine, etc., etc. – which is why I refrained from making the same observation when YF’s unemployed over 30 status was mentioned as a possible cause for her unreasonableness a couple of days ago. As I observed a couple of days ago, she has been taught by the person who holds the most influence over a maturing child, the parent, that this is the way one speaks about those one disagrees with. It is not lost on me that some of the most violently intolerant liberals state that they came out of ultra-conservative backgrounds – they seem blind to the fact that they are acting in precisely the same way that they say their parents acted. They have merely changed their dogma, not their dogmatism.

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  31. I once raided the “butter churn” of $80 worth of pennies because I was in college, home for the summer, and my father was in Colorado. I wanted to go out with friends. He always came in from work and put his pennies in the butter churn and his silver coins in a bowl on top of the fridge. The butter churn still has pennies in it and is under the chop block in my kitchen and the “silver” bowl in on a shelf by the back door. Now I add to it. Many is the day the silver bowl saved.

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  32. DJ – No, YF doesn’t consider herself a minority, but she describes herself as an “ally” of various groups. It is popular among some young liberal whites to put down their fellow whites, which is supposed to indicate that of course they’re not the same as those other whites.

    Her sister is gay, but YF says she has held her liberal views on homosexuality since long before her sister came out.

    I can kind of understand part of what that post I mentioned above is getting at. If you believe in all of that (in same-sex marriage, trangenderism, abortion, etc.) then it would seem that people who support any laws against any of them would be “hateful”, hurting those people who only want their basic human rights. But you and I know that that is not what is behind what most conservatives believe.

    You mentioned her not seeming to have any self-reflection, and I agree. Something YF does, and I’ve seen it in other writings from progressive/liberal Christians is that they seem to read scripture and instead of seeing where they fall short (“I have too much pride” or “I shouldn’t worry so much” or “I need to repent of this sin”), they see how woefully, in their eyes, conservative/traditional Christians fall short. (YF’s favorite verses are ones directed at the sins of others, and she specifically likes the one about how hard it is for the rich to enter Heaven.)

    I don’t know if Chickadee reads her stuff on Facebook, as she says she’s not on it much at all. Quite frankly, at this point in time, she would be inclined to go along with YF’s views. There have been a couple times when something came up where Nightingale and I were expressing a nuanced view of some hot social issue, and Chickadee has expressed YF’s views, even in the same tone of voice YF often uses. One time she looked at us as if we were nuts to see any nuance in a certain issue. Which is one of the reasons I pray for God to deliver her from the ungodly influence she is under. (And yes, I pray Nightingale will be delivered from whatever ungodly influence is in her life.)

    As for YF’s faith, she talks about Jesus’ “true message” being about love, acceptance, and equality. She has read the Bible, she says she prays every day, but she does not attend church. She has a lot of bitterness towards the churches she’s attended. Without going into details of what she complained about, I’ll just say that what I recognized is that she misread or read into the actions of some people in those churches. (I know this because she sometimes attending one that I did, too, and her descriptions were way off.) An example would be seeing a man exuberant in his worshipful singing, and saying that he was showing off what a superior Christian he was.

    She told me that she doesn’t attend church because there are no churches in our general area that are biblically correct enough for her. The church she loved in the town where she went to college preached about Jesus’ acceptance of homosexuality and all that.

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  33. Michelle – For years, I’ve been saying that having a job in the real world, working alongside people of differing views, would be beneficial to her. I, too, have wondered why her parents haven’t pushed her to take any job she could, but I think her mom likes having her still dependent on her. And as sweet and gentle as Mrs. McK is, she seems to somewhat rule over her husband – not in an overt way, but she does nonetheless. One of my prayers for their family is for God to do a great work in each of the parents.

    Roscuro – Your case is indeed different, as you have been trying to do what you can, including being a missionary for a time, helping at Mumsee’s, and now furthering your education. You’ve also struggled with poor health at times.

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  34. Roscuro, they spent a lot of time in the clip focusing on the Ganges discussing how much the river is abused and yet how it has never spread any disease and does indeed have some self-purifying properties. It was quite fascinating.

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  35. Roscuro, yes, of course I was speaking of YF’s situation, not yours (or specifically anyone else’s) obviously.

    In her case, barring any other plans taking up her time at this stage(?), she could find an office job or even retail job somewhere. I don’t know what else takes up her time, maybe volunteering, which is good, but I agree that working alongside people who aren’t like you is generally a good experience. I’ve worked in all-black departments and all-gay offices in my earlier jobs during and right after college. Also, at some point I assume she’ll need to be self-supporting unless she marries especially well or is left a whole lot of money. Not having any kind of a work record will be a challenge.

    Interesting that no church seems to meet her standards. She’s not alone in that view, it’s become all too common in recent decades — which is, I think, a major factor in why these lone wolf, professing Christians are often so undernourished and lacking in a full understanding of the gospel. They do not have (or seek) a full-orbed faith but one that majors only in one pet issue or another to the dismissal of all the rest of God’s message. For some (like YF) it’s the social gospel, for others it might be end times speculation.

    And yes, there are few things worse right now than being a “white person.” Well, the very worst thing is being a white man, of course.

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  36. I am so glad we booted eighteen year old when he was unemployed. He had a rough year after that but is now in Job Corps, learning carpentry and working on getting a high school diploma. Sometimes people need a wake up call to realize the world is not the way they thought and they might need to adjust.

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  37. My dad was a serious saver of dimes. There was a jar of them he kept in the cabinet behind his chair at the dining table and we were all trained to deposit any and all dimes there. My mom continued the tradition after he’d died. To this day, the dimes are my favorite coins to roll 🙂

    I turned up my dad’s antique milk glass bottle from Iowa recently, maybe I’ll use that for the dimes. I was trying to figure out how I could display it but maybe making it useful (assuming the metal top still comes off OK) would be more fun.

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  38. For the record, I did not intend to be piling on YF here, but am trying to answer the questions about her honestly. Believe me, there are several stories and examples I have refrained from telling. My heart really does go out to her, and I pray that God would get through to her and do a great, even amazing, work in her heart and life.

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  39. I haver a Canada Dry Ginger Ale can from the 1960s I use for loose change. I used to only put pennies in it. When full it held around $5. Now I put all the change in.

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  41. I hear a moment of quiet in the office. That is so welcome. I am tired and have taken refuge in the office of an absent preparer. Her MIL died and the funeral is tomorrow (we were hoping for after the end of tax season).

    My brother has the front desk to himself. We only have one scanner and he does not want to share. That means I am stalled on my work. I think I have more of a team spirit in my background and my brother has a competitive spirit in his background in sales. It makes for a less than productive situation when we are both here, but he gets along well with the former owner who is almost ninety. I have never heard “Yes, Ma’me” so many times in my whole life.

    I had a kind text from Wesley who said he realizes how busy we are, and he is praying for us. That made my day.

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  45. Janice, it must be a dreaded time for you every year. I’m sure ‘my’ guy is up to his ears as well. And I see all the H&R Block folks advertising, they must also be swamped this weekend.

    Kizzie, I definitely understand and I realized she must feel ‘outgunned’ on some these threads that others join in on. I suppose her transparency online takes us all aback somewhat, and just the idea that she apparently doesn’t “see” how it all comes off in the context of being a Christian and overcoming evil with good rather than battling (what she perceives as) evil with even more hatred and evil.

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  46. Janice– take five minutes and look me up on Facebook for the lengthy discussion about using Evernote as a scanner. I scanned a 640 page book in 3 hours over the last two days.

    Everything you scan can be immediately emailed to wherever. Free app, amazing technology. We started talking about using it at work yesterday when we get backed up with our scanner.

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  47. I think Janice has a cat. Or she used to.

    It’s downright hot here today, 82 last I looked. I’m trying to haul a desk into the garage, workers were supposed to do that yesterday but forgot, I guess. It’s as far as the patio now.

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  51. We got up into the high 60s today. It is now cooling off rather quickly, and we are only supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow.

    DJ – When I used to comment more on her posts, it would usually only be the two of us commenting, and she could be pretty caustic, but in a veiled, condescending way.

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  53. Janice – Could you tell him that you need to use the scanner, that not doing so is delaying your getting your work done?

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  58. I was watching an old (1988) Murder She Wrote episode last night and Cabot Cove looked just like our town — because it was. They filmed the entire episode out at our clifftop park with the 1800s wooden lighthouse. The perimeter concrete fence out there has some very distinctive cutout designs so you can always identify it right away.

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  61. I didn’t see much TV then either but every Sunday night for several years 6-10 of us would gather to try to solve the murder together before Jessica did. We all agreed it was dangerous to be her friend.

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  63. We had freezing rain last night and everything’s covered with ice this morning. We’d stay home from church, but KJ is supposed to be playing the piano for the service and needs to get there early to practice and warm up with the team. Flyboy was also going to go visit his best friend’s church an hour away. I hope they have the main roads well-salted and the only challenge will be sliding our way out of our neighborhood.

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  64. We cancelled most of our plans yesterday because Weather-Paul listens to the Weather-Idiots.
    The bad weather finally blew through about 8pm and really wasn’t that bad. Yes, the wind howled and the rain was loud, but listening to them has thrown my whole weekend off.
    Of course, I am thankful it wasn’t as bad as they said it would be….

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  66. Anyone watch the Elvis Presley-The Searcher special last night or whenever? It was rather interesting. My dad saw him at the 1955 Gulf States Fair and was scandalized. Never did like him. One of the keys to him was that he came up in the church. In the South, the church offered most of the entertainment at that time. Of course I can’t say it was only in the South; so did Aretha Franklin and most of the Motown musicians.
    It made me curious why one of the most successful musicians at the time was drafted when we weren’t at war. Was this some scheme “Colonel” Tom Parker had?

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  67. Ice pellets continue to pelt down. No church this morning.

    Via the wonderful world of YouTube, I test the music of all the popular musicians of the past just to see what they sounded like and what all the fuss was about. I find Elvis Presley to be among the least impressive. I much prefer Big Mama Thornton’s version of ‘Hound Dog’ to Elvis Presley’s – the song is a better fit to the R&B style than the Rock’n Roll style:

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  68. Almost all of Elvis’ early music was cover of other artists. He crossed the racial lines and brought black music to white people. Everyone benefited.

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  69. I don’t agree with the “everyone benefitted'” part.
    He did change music. But not for the better.
    I didn’t like Sinatra, but he could sing.
    Presley could act.

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  70. AJ – Now you have me listening to Journey’s greatest hits album on YouTube. 🙂

    Is it just me, or aren’t Journey and Foreigner pretty similar? I enjoy both bands.

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  71. We moved to Hawai’i the year after Magnum PI went off the air. I asked one of my neighbors if she had noticed a lessening of crime since the series ended.

    She couldn’t say.

    We’re on a Yahtzee binge over here. The 4.5 year old is on my time and is very good about rolling yahtzees. 🙂

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  73. Kizzie (and others) – If you like the music of Foreigner, you’d be interested to know that Lou Gramm made a profession of faith a few years back. He formed a band and has a Christian Rock album out. I have the Mp3 versiomn of it. It’s pretty sound as Christian rock lyrics go.

    Here is an interview Glenn Beck had with Lou Gramm a couple of years ago on his radio program.

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  77. I liked Sinatra, didn’t much care for Elvis (he was for the ‘old’ people) — our era kicked off the British and then classic rock years which were pretty epic and lasted a very long time. And wrapped into it also were the singer songwriters — Joni Mitchell, Dylan, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel. And who could forget Motown. The mid- to late 1960s and 1970s produced some pretty amazing music.

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  80. Getting to church was no problem after all. The lawn and trees were covered with ice, but the concrete wasn’t slippery at all. However power was out in the church sanctuary, so we assembled in Fellowship Hall (the original sanctuary). There’s no piano there so KJ didn’t play after all. We just had guitars.

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  81. It surely was a wild-weather weekend for several of us, and going into tomorrow, too, it looks like.

    I hope your winter wraps up soon, Kare, and everyone else who is longing for spring. (Me.)

    I saw a car with an Alabama license plate pretty well snowed in against the curb on the street that leads to our church. That didn’t look too fun.

    Never knew most of the lyrics to Wheel in the Sky until tonight, watching AJ’s video. I knew the refrain, and that was about it.

    Speaking of Journey, on the way home from church this morning I heard Don’t Stop Believin’. That’s one of my favorites of theirs.

    Kizzie, I like both Journey and Foreigner, too. 4 was one of my favorite albums ever.

    I found Foreigner and Boston quite similar. Sometimes I’d mix the two up. Steve Perry’s distinctive voice helped me keep Journey separate in my mind from those other two bands.

    DJ, I checked out seven CDs during my local library visit this week, and one of them was a greatest hits album of Simon and Garfunkel’s. I put the CD on while working in my kitchen — I’d forgotten what powerful melodies and lyrics those songs have.

    The Sound of Silence. Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Such songwriting. Gorgeous.

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  83. Not feeling too well, but I made it through the kinder day. Chas, I think there must have been some onions in the meal I ate yesterday. Our wonderful principal took my lunch duty as I didn’t feel that I could make it right then.

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