39 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-25-18”

  1. Morning all. Just had fun blessing my neighbor who just returned from two months in the village. I knew she was due soon. I asked someone walking by and they told me she was coming today. Well, later I knocked on her door to ask if she needed any food. You see our store is closed for the rest of this week for stock take. So nowhere to buy food. I gave her tortillas and meat frozen and cooked ready for a taco. Plus the lettuce, cheese and salsa and various other things. I mean look in your frig and freezer, don’t you have a lot of food you would give someone if they needed it? Truly blessed me.

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  8. Oh those flowers!! (And the wooden frame about them just makes me smile…it’s the simple things in life ya know) Morning!! We have snow!! 😊
    Jo what a sweet gesture…I am certain she was blessed beyond measure….
    I am smiling at the thought of Chas bringing home Miss Elevera…all is right with the world once again ♥️

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  10. Happy homecoming to Elvera, hope all goes smoothly. Buy her some Elevera Lotion.

    Yes, pretty flowers. I was out checking on my hanging and potted porch geraniums this morning (I’d watered them last night) and a woman walked by with her dog, commenting on how beautiful all the flowers were in the neighborhood. Indeed.

    It is such a pretty time of year.

    I’m going through house painting/hiring stress, dog park worker has seemingly become very high maintenance. While his was the cheapest (generally speaking) and most reliable bid (because he’s a known worker to me, he’s slow but does good work), he wants me to rent for him 2 fiberglas ladders and the power washer from Home Depot. Shouldn’t the equipment rentals or provisions, however he wants to do that, be his responsibility? Then yesterday he was making it sound like it’s my responsibility to trim back low-lying bushes/shrubs on the one side of the house as he needs 12-inch clearances. I get that, but doesn’t that kind of fall under the work he normally would do to prepare to paint? I think if I hired one of the regular house painter guys they’d bring their own equipment and make quick work of tying back — or doing whatever they have to do — to any shrubs or bushes that might be in the way.

    Meanwhile, gardener comes today to sever an invasive root on huge backyard tree (it’s running under my patio floor and right toward the house) and then also to chop branches and trim that tree and a big companion tree right next to it as both are too close to the house and branches there would definitely be a hindrance to painting. That I understand is my job to take care of, but regular shrubbery around the house really should be something the ‘painter’ can and should just handle. At least I’d think so, maybe I’m wrong.

    Meanwhile, gardener says he knows someone (relative?) who does house painting so I may still have other options. I just am weary of house worker drama, just do the work I’m paying you to do — for the agreed-to price, not a price that’ll start slipping upwards for this and that — and leave me alone. Argh.

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  11. On RKessler’s course (end of yesterday’s thread), I’m guessing that there was an accidental extra ‘o’ in the word and that she studied prehospital capnography. The prefix ‘capno’ signals something related to carbon dioxide in medical terminology, so she studied about measuring levels of carbon dioxide in emergency patients before/as they are transported to hospital. Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of cellular (aerobic) respiration, the process by which cells use oxygen and glucose to create energy in order to carry out their functions. In the blood stream, there should be a specific pressure level of carbon dioxide (between 35 to 45 mmHg in a sample of arterial blood), as it is carried away from the cells and back to the lungs to be breathed off when we exhale.

    Basically, too high a level of carbon dioxide – which dissolves in blood plasma as carbonic acid – contributes to acidosis, where the body begins to malfunction because it is too acidic; while too low a level contributes to alkalosis [there is another aspect to the acid-base balance, namely bicarbonate ions produced by the kidneys, which renders the process somewhat more complex, as the carbon dioxide and bicarbonate ions work to balance each other]. In injury and shock, the body may quickly develop acidosis, as decreased oxygen to the cells forces the cells to use anaerobic respiration, which creates lactic acid. In order to deal with the acidosis, the lungs will start to hyperventilate to breathe off more carbon dioxide in order to reduce the levels of carbonic acid in the blood. Stopping the cause of the acidosis is vital to saving a critically ill patient’s life. If there is a problem with alkalosis for some reason (alkalosis is not as frequent a problem as acidosis), the patient will breathe slower and more shallowly to retain carbon dioxide, and thus increase the levels of carbonic acid in the blood. So, measuring the levels of carbon dioxide the patient is breathing off can tell a lot about what is going on with a patient, and how the healthcare worker should respond.

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  12. Last night I lay awake for a really long time (till perhaps 4:00 in the morning). At some point I remembered this is the day Elvera comes home, and prayed for them.

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  13. And that is why your dog park painter came in with the lower price…the add ons he wants provided for him add up to way over the other bids! The old curmudgeon on our HOA board fought tooth and nail for a certain tree trimming friend of his….ended up costing us 2000 over the competing bid due to our having to get a chipper, truck to haul it out of here…yep…it’s those “hidden” costs!!

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  14. A happy homecoming to Elvera.

    I have the last exam of the semester later today. It will be nice to be finished – sort of, since May and June I will be making up those lost hours from the strike.

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  17. The exam that I’m taking is for an elective on music therapy. The composer of the piece I posted above is actually mentioned in the course, because he was a philosopher and mathematician (in fact, a general Renaissance man – although he lived closer to the Baroque era) and wrote a treatise on temperaments and affections, in which he postulated that people were drawn to music that matched their temperament, i.e. melancholy people like melancholy music, happy people like joyful music, and so forth. According to Kircher, music should be matched to a person’s mood for it to be beneficial. His theory is used in a somewhat modified format today, in what is called the iso principle, where therapists begin by using music that matches a client’s emotion and then gradually change the music in order to modify the client’s emotion.

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  18. Thanks for the good explanation, Roscuro.

    Beautiful clematis.

    We have a misty fog. There was actually mois ture dripping off the barn this morning. So happy to hear you got wet snow in CO. We have already had quite a few fires in our area.

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  20. I am home today. I got up sometime after 5 a.m. and thought I would go to the office which these days is more pleasant than being at home. But then I decided I really do need to do laundry. Also I have to start back working in the church media center. It has just been decided to pretty much dissolve the part of the library I am involved in and turn the space into a children’s library with a reading room for moms. We are basically closing the lower section of our building and moving the children up to this hallway. It is a good move, but it hurts to lose the space and how I had planned to try to reach out to any who might want to do individualized study before participating in a discussion type class. Being at this church has sadly felt like being caught up in a string of losses. Things are still very unsettled and the older people are seeming to be losing all that kept them anchored. I know it takes time to dismantle and reassemble, but it would have been better to have options in place as alternatives to what people are losing. I will not mind going back into a regular Sunday School class setting, but I will not be inclined to invite people who are either introverts or not very familiar with the Bible such as my friend Karen.

    Those clematis flowers have outdone themselves this year. I have not fertilized them. I used a wooden drying rack turned on its side for them to climb all over. This plant sat in a pot for over a year and looked dead when I eventually planted it. I should call it my resurrection plant.

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  21. The photo was taken recently. Today some of the petals have fallen off since we’ve had very heavy rain lately.

    I meant to post yesterday about how much I liked those stained glass windows in Linda’s church. That is a beautiful addition.

    This week I am getting back into cooking. It was strange to not cook for a whole month. The time was just not available. We still ate pretty healthy food since it was rarely regular fast food, at least when we had time to pick it up from a restaurant.

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  22. Our son has been taking his Preliminary exams for his PhD lately. He has texted requests for prayer. After this hurdle all he will have left is his dissertation.

    I need to take Miss Bosley to her vet for her three year rabies shot. I have put off making that appointment so I may get charged a late registration fee by the county.

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  23. Tough visit to Auschwitz. I started crying at the work makes free sign and struggled through the whole visit–losing it completely when I left lily of the valley at the execution wall.

    Mom was sent to the gas chambers the first day. Dad died of typhus at the end.

    I keep thinking of Vera and her parents. She was a safe 20 year-old studying in London. Her parents told her to stay where it was safe. She returned to Hungry and went to the camps. She survived to the end but the Russians shot her on a March away from the camp.

    Unbearable. Vera’s twin brother, my relative’s father barely survived and the brilliant man carried scars the rest of his life.

    And yet– that family influenced mine–particularly my daughter.

    My note read: “Your family is our family,” because it’s true.

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  24. SHE’S HOME!
    I have my woman back.
    The big problem, it turns out, has nothing to do with the broken leg.
    She has developed a swelling in both legs.. The one she broke is worse because there is a drainage of some sort. Seems she has lots of some kind of liquid that has settled there.
    Phos likely knows what I’m talking about, but I don’t.
    She has gained a lot of weight. They say it’s mostly the liquid. I attribute it to the fact that for the last two years she has just been sitting around eating and watching TV. Nothing else to do. ..

    Thanks for the prayers and concern. It has been rough. Mostly due to our age,that makes a normal problem worse.

    But I have her home. That means a lot to both of us.

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  26. Janice – You wrote, “. . .but I will not be inclined to invite people who are either introverts or not very familiar with the Bible such as my friend Karen.”

    What is it about your church that makes you feel that way? If you feel that way, I would think it would be good to let your pastor and elders know, and tell them why. It seems to me that a church should be a place that is not only good for seasoned believers, but also the babes in Christ, and welcoming enough for unbelievers to hear the gospel.

    Maybe whomever has made certain changes doesn’t realize how those changes may affect others? IOW, an extrovert may not realize that his way could be off-putting to introverts.

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  27. Karen, I do not know how to answer your question. The people are friendly and nice. The younger group may have more options than the older group. When I was new, it would have been great to have had a description of each class but that was not available. I went to two different adult classes and although quite different from each other, they both required a level of participation I was not comfortable with as a new person who went in cold not knowing anyone. The class I am doing now is more like lecture with only a little discussion. I have no idea what will be offered when this twelve week study is over. It is workbook based which I love, but the timing was such that I could not really do it. At my husband’s church where at one point my husband and I attended Sunday School together, one member said she thought in order to be in the class, the members needed to commit to teach the class in a rotation to relieve the pastor’s wife who wanted to take a break from teaching. I was very uncomfortable with that, too.

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  28. The numbers for Sunday School/Life Groups are always less than the main service. I expect some of that is due to introverts not wanting to feel uncomfortable in groups that don’t understand them.

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  29. Chas, there are a number of different conditions that could be causing the swelling in the legs, so I don’t know for certain. Drains are not uncommon after surgical repair of broken bones – the main concern is keeping the inside of the drain free from contamination so that infection doesn’t enter the site. Is she wearing pressure stockings for the swelling? Pressure stockings are sometimes prescribed and specially fitted if there are complications involving swelling after orthopedic surgery. I assume that the hospital is aware of the swelling.

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  31. Carol has been told to get compression socks, they seem to vary in cost, and she’ll need a very large size (she’s asked me to take her shopping for them on Saturday but I’m not sure I can). I told her to ask her doctor for specifics or a prescription, but she said he told her the (cheaper) ones at the drug store would work

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  32. Oh my goodness those flowers are making me smile!! I have one plant that will leaf but never ever has produced a blossom….Sometimes I truly miss living in the south 🌺 I am enjoying the Spring posts!!

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  34. Janice – So it’s Sunday School you were referring to, not necessarily the main service? Or am I misunderstanding you?

    My current church doesn’t have Sunday School, although we have an in-depth Bible study on Thursday evenings. During my 20 years at my former church, we had three different teachers at different times for our adult class.

    The main teacher for most of that time, Dave, was wonderful, a man of great knowledge about the Bible, and gifted in leading class discussion. When he asked questions, he would call on someone who had raised their hand. If the person didn’t answer correctly, he had a gracious way of not saying they were “wrong”, but also not letting any false or misleading ideas stand unanswered. And he was open to us adding our own thoughts, so each class became a discussion, not merely the teacher teaching and us answering questions.

    Another man, Burt, had a very similar style.

    But the third guy, who fortunately only taught for a while, was not open to discussion, and he had a precise way he wanted a question answered, and if you were a little off, you were wrong. I remember one time, answering a question by saying something like, “Because that is not something I can do in my own power.” (I don’t even remember the question, just my answer and his reply.) He replied that that was wrong, and the answer was that “Only God has the power to [do whatever it was].” IOW, I had answered correctly, just not in the exact wording he wanted.

    Sadly, attendance in adult SS dropped off. The other two men I mentioned had moved on to other churches, so they were no longer available.

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  35. Such lovely blooms today! We’re up to “tulips” this week. No dogwoods, redbuds, or tulip trees yet (or not that I have seen)–though we did see redbuds and tulip trees farther south last week when we went down for a couple of days for work on the other end of this move.

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  37. Gardener apparently got tied up with another job that went long and finally texted me at 5:30 that he wouldn’t be here today, but would come “after 2” tomorrow. Problem is I arranged to work from home this afternoon so I could juggle dogs and make sure I got him paid when he was finished. Sigh.

    I’ll figure tomorrow out tomorrow. Maybe I can work at the office until 4 or so and then take off. New editor seems fine with our working from home, but I’ll admit I get more done when I’m in the newsroom.

    I also think the gardener might be buzzing off some of my taller wildflower sprouts (no flowers yet, just leafy green sprouts). I need to tell him to leave the backyard “dirt” alone for now. Those aren’t weeds.

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  39. Husband co-teaches a new believers ‘basics’ class. Sometimes they have 3 people, sometimes nobody, but he and the other teacher are always there just in case. Several of those who have come are very grateful to have a place where they can ask any question and be taught the milk. Once they have that, they can graduate to the meatier Sunday school classes.

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