50 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-19-18”

  1. Morning all, welcome to the end of my Saturday. Got some gentle rain this evening to settle the dust after a week with no rain. The roads are so rocky as the rocks arise to the surface after no rain.

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  2. Good evening Jo.
    I went to the men’s Brotherhood breakfast this morning. Heard a preacher who escaped from Cuba speak. I understood some of what he was saying.
    It’s late for nobody to be up yet.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Good morning from Idaho as well. Husband and boys are off to the men’s retreat so the girls and I are holding down the fort. Sixteen is off walking the dogs, while ten is taking care of the chicks and poults and juvies.

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  6. I’m printing out the timeline for tomorrow’s official 100th birthday party. I’ll meet the niece at Costco to pickup food this afternoon (I have the Costco card), take it to church and set up what we can, hurry to the youth group fund raiser at 5 which includes dinner, and leave early to attend daughter-in-law’s birthday party at 6:30.

    I usually enjoy stacking up events like this on a day, but when I do it too many days in a row it gets old. I stack them so I can stay home for an entire day or two to get my work done. That has only happened once since I returned two weeks ago.

    The list of things I have to finish before I leave again in three weeks is lengthy. Maybe next week I can find some time at home to actually work?

    Mixed feelings about the royal wedding–I wish them well, more than anything.

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  7. Rain this morning here too. A welcome cleansing from the heavy haze that hovers over the city in calm, sunny weather. My asthma is a little tamer today, probably due to the fact that I stayed indoors all of yesterday with the windows closed (I could do that because it was a bit cooler, so the attic didn’t heat up).

    I did not watch the royal wedding, nor did I read the many tabloid quality articles about the wedding that otherwise respectable publications indulged in posting. I did watch the Queen Mother’s funeral and William and Kate’s wedding, because I wanted to know what such royal ceremonies looked like, and having seen one wedding and funeral, I’ve no need to see another (I was not around for Princess Diana’s wedding, as I was born in the same year Prince Harry was). As a fellow millennial, I am encouraged to see the younger Princes setting an example of matrimony and having children – for all their flaws, the current family are far more moral than some of their ancestors, such as Queen Victoria’s father and his brothers for example, who kept many mistresses, but only married under political duress. But while I do not mind news reports of births and weddings of our royal family, I really dislike the wall to wall celebrity coverage of the family. The Queen is our head of state, and I firmly support the monarchy – the constitutional monarchy is the best mode of government for Canada, and when things do not work, it is because it is run by humans, not because the system is inherently flawed – but I also recognize that the royal family are merely human, and no human should have to endure having their every movement recorded by a mass of photographers and reporters.

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  8. Foggy day along the river. There was a 5k run this morning. D3 ran in it. The route crosses the Mississippi River twice. She ran it in 33 minutes, which is not her best time. The fog was so thick there were places where you couldn’t see the river from the bridge or vice versa.

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  10. Older Canadian friend at the dog park, retired RN, has been referring to today as “The Day Of The Wedding” for some time now. She was going to be up at 4 a.m. to watch the nonstop coverage.

    Me? I slept until nearly 8:30 a.m. which felt SO good. I’ll catch the recap clips later which is enough for me. I wish them well also, it won’t be an easy life in many ways. Fun to have an American marry into royalty though. As a child, she hung out at a film studio right down the street from where Carol now lives — her dad worked on a show that was filmed there. Did her dad get to go to the wedding? I heard there was some dustup about that, but I didn’t really read the details. I hope it was smoothed over, whatever the issue was.

    And, of course, she’s beautiful and is a dog lover.

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  11. Peter, we are completely independent of Britain. The UK parliament, court, and military have nothing to do with our parliament, court, and military. We are totally separate countries. Rather, the Queen is queen of both the UK and Canada. In fact, she has several independent domains that she is queen over, as Australia and New Zealand are also constitutional monarchies with Queen Elizabeth as head of state. Not every former British colony is set up the same way – India for example, is a Commonwealth country like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (the Commonwealth is a special relationship having to do with trade and other international relations between former British colonies), but India does not have the Queen as head of state. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are all primarily English speaking countries who share many of the same traditions as the UK, since their founders were of mainly British descent. We have a Governor General who acts as the Queen’s representative, and who is present for ceremonies such as the opening of Parliament, when a speech from the throne is made (the Queen has been occasionally present for the throne speech if she is here on a state visit, but she cannot be present every year).

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  12. I enjoy the royal happiness and am pleased to see them in a positive light. I don’t waste my time on the ugly stuff. They are human and I am happy for them. I was married about the time Princess Di was and felt very happy for her and then very badly for her. The boys and their spouses seem to be doing well. I even pray for them on occasion. May God draw them to Himself and give them Life and if they are believers, may they grow in Him and be lights pointing others to Him.

    The dad had a heart attack and could not make it. Charles walked her down the aisle is my understanding.

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  13. The independence of Canada came in stages. The first stage was an uniting of the separate colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, now Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick under a parliamentary system based in Ottawa, via the 1867 British North America Act, which was passed not by the Canadian legislature, but by the British parliament. Canadians were still considered British citizens, and thus, my grandmother, who was born in England and came to Canada at the age of three in the 1920s never had to go through a citizenship ceremony to be a Canadian citizen. A separate Canadian citizenship was instituted in 1947, although Canadians had been called Canadians even before 1867. The Canadian military was made independent from the British military in 1867, but Canadian foreign affairs were still controlled by the British government, meaning that the Canadians got called in when the British had need of them, including in World War I. That changed by a British act of parliament 1931 which allowed Canada and a few other former colonies make their own foreign policy decisions, so Canada made its own decision to enter World War II.

    The Governor General used to be a British offical, and thus, in the early days of Canada’s Dominion, we had British born Governor Generals such as Lord Tweedsmuir, who is better known by his birth name and nom de plume John Buchan, the author of early 1900s adventure and spy novels such as The Thirty Nine Steps and Prester John. The Stanley Cup that is the object of the yearly National Hockey League playoffs is named after another British born Governor General of Canada, Lord Stanley, who donated it to encourage the national sport. The first Canadian born Governor General was Vincent Massey in 1952. Canada did not have an actual Constitution until 1982. As with the other constitutional monarchies, The Prime Minister and His Cabinet hold all the practical power, while the hereditary head of state holds more of an advisory role. So, it has been a slow gradual process of independence, which worked for us. There are those who think one of the next stages would be to create a republic of Canada – that view is especially vocalized by those in Quebec, who do not forget the French were conquered by the British there, and also in Alberta, which was settled by settlers of European but not British descent – but I cannot agree. I think having a hereditary head of state helps to moderate the party politics of an elected government.

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  14. I also pray for them, Mumsee.

    By the way, although Canada has a Queen, we do not have a peerage. In the very early days, there were some Canadian born who attained knighthood or peerage, such as Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian newspaper mogul. But a resolution in 1917 was made not to allow Canadians to receive British honours, and in 1958, an Order of Canada was created to substitute for British honours and peerages, which the Governer General issues to those who are thought to merit it (some of the holders of the Order over the years have been quite controversial, while others have been generally considered to deserve the honour). Thus, when Canadian-British newspaper mogul Conrad Black wanted to become a peer of the realm and be styled Lord Black, he had to relinquish his Canadian citizenship, a decision which came back to haunt him when he was arrested in the U.S. on corruption charges and found guilty, as his request to be transferred to a Canadian prison to serve his sentence was denied because Canada bore him no further responsibility.

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  15. Now, for a completely different topic. We have talked about how the powerful can impact the world for good. This is about how the little people of the world can make a powerful impact for good.

    Most of you may know what Rh factor is already, but, basically, there is A, AB, B, and O blood types and then there is Rh positive or negative blood types. Both the letter blood type and the positive or negative type must be matched in order for someone to receive a blood transfusion, or you will kill your patient, as a massive immune reaction due to the ‘foreign’ blood causes the body to go into shock.

    Where the Rh positive and negative typing is significant outside of blood transfusion is in pregnancy. A child’s blood type is determined by the blood types of both mother and father. Rh positive is the dominant trait, meaning if the child has one Rh positive gene from one parent and one Rh negative gene from the other parent, the child will be Rh positive. The child must have two Rh negatives genes from each parent in order to be Rh negative. The only way to guarantee that a child will be Rh negative is if both parents are Rh negative, as they can only pass Rh negative genes to their child.

    When a mother is Rh positive, it does not matter whether her child is positive or negative in type, she will not develop antibodies against the child. If a mother is Rh negative, however, and her child is Rh positive, she will not develop antibodies against her child at first, since the placenta separates the blood of mother and baby. But, when she is exposed to her child’s blood through trauma such as childbirth, her blood will develop antibodies against any subsequent children who are Rh positive. Without medical intervention, this leads to repeated miscarriages and stillbirths, and if the child survives to birth, to hemolytic disease of the newborn, a condition which is life threatening. If a woman who is Rh negative is married to an Rh positive man, there is no way to know if the child will be Rh negative or positive, so the pregnancy is always at risk.

    The medical intervention is injection of a rare antibody, carried by a few people, which stops the woman from developing antibodies against Rh positive blood, and it can only be obtained from blood donation. Two of my siblings are Rh negative (our father is Rh negative and our mother is Rh positive). One of them is married to a man who is Rh negative, so they did not have to worry about their children being affected. The other is married to a man who is Rh positive, and she has had to have these injections for each of her pregnancies. This link is about one such donor (not the one who helped my sibling, as the donor is from Australia) whose blood has helped to prevent the deaths of over two million children: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-full-episode-1.4667125/meet-the-lifetime-donor-with-the-golden-arm-who-saved-millions-of-lives-1.4667135.

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  16. As if my day cannot become any more complicated, someone hit my car in the parking lot. I was backing out, saw him, stopped. He went on three or four more spots, I began to slowly back out, he put his car in reverse and began to back up (to get a better spot). I stopped my car crying, “don’t hit me!” and he hit my car.

    Car is driveable but probably has thousands of dollars in damage. “We were both moving,” he said, “that’s a shame.”

    “Ah, no. I was stopped. You hit me.”

    I didn’t have my phone, of course, and so I couldn’t take photos but I’ve taken a bunch since I got home. Half an hour with my insurance company with just a lovely, way too chatty woman from Tennessee. Sigh. I just want to cry. But I have too much to do.

    Our fourth insurance claim since the fires. Only once was it my fault and it was very minor.

    At least our friends, the body repair shop, are getting plenty of business from us. 😦

    😦

    Liked by 1 person

  17. So sorry to hear about the car being hit by a careless driver, Michelle.

    Is your asthma calming down, Roscuro?

    I had a busy morning beginning with my brother stopping by home to help get my nice office desk chair into the car. I somehow broke one at the office and decided I should just bring in my chair from home. Maybe I will take Art’s old office desk chair home since he got a really comfy new one for his birthday.

    I fixed some delicious eye of round roast in the crockpot yesterday so we have been enjoying sandwiches for our lunches. Today I cooked a head of cauliflower for our side dish. I have been getting the small unsweetened applesauce cups to use for dipping sauce with cinnamon grahams. It almost tastes like apple pie.

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  19. On Facebook, our friend Evelyn (formerly EYG) wrote that she was watching the wedding, and delighted by an animated African-American preacher, and by the astonished looks on some of the royal family’s faces as they listened to his fiery preaching. She, or one of her friends, mentioned that the gospel was preached. I wonder who invited him.

    I have read that Queen Elizabeth is a Christian with a deep faith. I pray for the rest of her family to know the Savior, too.

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  20. I think the bride, if I remember right. ?

    Ouch, Michelle. Do you have witnesses? A young reporter I work with was rear-ended 3 times (!) by a woman when my co-worker stopped in the intersection to yield to a bicyclist. The woman claimed my friend BACKED INTO her, which is just crazy. Reporter went to the trouble to order surveillance footage that the city has at intersections, but sadly the views missed the spot where they were. So it’s considered 50-50 responsibility. Minor damage, but a lot of money to my co-worker who is in her 20s and I’m sure is paid a pittance. So she said she’s just going to live with her scratched up bumper as the car, a Toyota or Honda, is old. The woman who hit her was in a BMW, of course.

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  21. OK, I bought a bunch of plants for my planters today. We’ll see how this goes. …

    I was like a babe in the woods at the nursery, sadly — my mom was such a talented gardener but I’ve never had the time or a deep enough interest yet to really get into it, though I did learn some things from her over the years.

    I showed a photo of my little city tree to one of the employees, though — it has bright green tips on the branches which I wasn’t sure what to make of, but she confirmed it’s “new growth” meaning it’s root system is now established and that I should hold off watering it too much right now. Good to know!

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  24. I’m kinda warming up to some of the succulents. I like (and need) easy, low-maintenance plants, of course, and some of the flowering varieties aren’t too bad. I didn’t get any of those, but may consider them for the future.

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  30. Janice, my asthma is calmer today but it hasn’t completely calmed down, so I have to be careful not to irritate it too much.

    Peter & Chas, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure.

    Michelle, my sympathies. My mother had someone back into her in a parking lot quite a few years ago. She had honked her horn and everything to let the person know she was there, but the excuse given was “I didn’t see you.”

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  31. I stirred up some dust moving things around to get that chair out of the house today. That made me think of you, Roscuro, and your asthma. I was sneezing but not wheezing.

    Today I started working with themes for the business website. I found a good one to use that uses slider pictures for the header. I am pleased with it so far and it impressed Art and my brother. For our staff photo I used a photo of a koala bear which my brother did not expect. He kept bursting out laughing about that.

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  34. I leaned toward anything that said “low maintenance” “easy” or “hardy” 🙂 And I remember my mom had begonias and fuchsias so those appealed to me right away.

    We shall see …

    I did buy some impatiens which I’ve had problems with before (they die off in our heat waves), but they’re so cute and pretty. I’ll see if I can’t do better with them this time.

    Liked by 1 person

  36. I purchase a begonia every year….I keep it alive as long as I can. I can usually keep them blooming well into the Fall. I love the waxy leaves and bright red blossoms! I have never had success with impatiens 😞

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  39. I’ll keep the impatiens on the back patio this time, I think. They’ll have mostly shade there and I can keep a closer eye on them (and they’ll be handier to water).

    Last time I had them as hanging plants on the front porch, if I remember right, it was quite a few years ago now, and when a heat wave hit they collapsed in a single gasp. Not pretty.

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  42. Inquiring minds still want to know: Was Meghan the wrong kind of ‘Protestant,’ or what?

    https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2018/5/18/inquiring-minds-still-want-to-know-was-meghan-the-wrong-kind-of-protestant-or-what

    On the bride’s baptism by the Anglican church – was she not baptized before (she was raised Protestant/Christian)? Or was it that she was not baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, which is required in the Anglican church?
    __________________________

    … Part of the problem – I would assume – is that Doria Ragland is an African-American, which raises the odds that Meghan she was raised in a church that is part of a “Oneness Pentecostal” body that is non-Trinitarian, including in its language for baptism rites. It that was the case, that would certainly have been a rite that Anglicans would consider incomplete or invalid.

    If that was the case, the Markle would have needed to baptized in the name of the Trinity in order to receive Communion – even under the “Open Communion” standards of most Anglicans. If she had received a Trinitarian baptism, she would not have needed baptism in order to receive the sacrament. …

    … The problem appears to have been the status of her baptism.

    Now, what if Markle truly wanted to be baptized and confirmed as a show of respect for the Queen and the state Church of England?

    Well, that might raise eyebrows, too. Why? Well, if Markle was raised in an ordinary Protestant flock and was baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, then Anglicans would not require her RE-baptism. In fact, they would frown on that.

    Confused? Well, the Anglophiles may still be debating these details tomorrow during the hours of pre-wedding commentary on television news channels around the world. …
    _______________________________________

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Nightingale has gained several pounds since the beginning of the year. Although she agrees with me (and others) that diets don’t (or rarely) work long-term, she decided to do a temporary diet to kickstart some weight loss. One time, she referred to it as her “stupid diet”, and the name stuck, so we both call it her “stupid diet” now. 😀

    The Boy has also gained weight since his Papa died, and I have gained back a few of the pounds that I had lost. I guess it is understandable, with the grief and stress. I know I have to trim back some bad habits I have allowed to sneak back in, but I just don’t have the motivation.

    But I am going to try to trim back again anyway. (We’ve also managed to curtail some of The Boy’s overeating.)

    (Prayers for success for all of us would be appreciated.)

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  44. As you may know, Nightingale does most of the cooking, and I do the cleaning up. Her style and likes are often different from how Hubby and I ate. But I am a good girl, and eat what is given me, without complaining. And if there is something I want to address, like the fact that I don’t like Parmesan cheese (which she had sprinkled on the chicken), I do so when The Boy is not around.

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  45. A friend wrote on Facebook:

    “One of my girls said, ‘I think I fell asleep when Pastor said to close your eyes…. I think he saw me sleeping… it’s his own fault he shouldn’t have said close your eyes.’ “

    😀 Good point!

    Liked by 1 person

  47. Even though Nightingale has gained some weight, she still looks pretty darn good. She doesn’t look “fat”. She’s blessed to be tall, with long arms and legs.

    In fact, her legs are so long, she has trouble finding pants that are long enough. She has a pair of leggings she wears like cropped pants, but they’re not really cropped. 😀

    I, on the other hand, am short, which means I have short legs. One thing we have in common is big feet. 😀

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  48. Kizzie, I have long legs and I can only by pants/jeans at Long Tall Sally or at Lamlee’s Western Wear. She might want to look online at Long Tall Sally (such a dumb name)

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  50. I have mks and PNG children. The PNG children are children of employees and one child who is a commercial student, meaning they are not affiliated with any mission and pay quite a bit more (the standard rate in country). The rest are from 7 countries and are all with our mission agency, I think. The Netherlands, Finland, Romania, USA, Australia, PNG, Canada.

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