83 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-1-18”

  4. I only just got home from work and you are all already on my day!!
    Only five days left. I have the grades done, but just need to go in tomorrow to get the comments done.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Good morning everyone.
    Yeah, Chas was long gone while you Peter and you west coast folks were chatting.
    But I’ll wait until after breakfast to read the funnies.
    I can’t think right now.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. I turned on FoxNews to see what was going on in the world.
    They were talking about someone apologizing to someone for something, so I knew nothing was going on.
    I kept watching for a while anyhow because the women were so pretty.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Good Morning Everyone. It is a short day for me but still jam packed.
    I am working on balance in my life. I cannot be all things to all people. I have got to pick and choose.

    Liked by 6 people

  8. Good morning. I’m heading off to Bible Study in a few minutes.

    RKessler, how is Miguel today? And Mumsee, your hubby? Jo, how are your ribs feeling?

    DJ, following up with your question yesterday about hubby’s physical therapy: it is definitely helping. I know the ability to kneel for communion last Sunday was a step in the right direction, and now, for the first time in many weeks, he was able to sleep in our bed again. (He’d been sleeping in the bottom bunk because he couldn’t get himself in and out of any bed that didn’t have rails above to hold onto.

    Was I ever surprised when, after I’d gone to bed, he opened the bedroom door, came into the room with his pillow, got into bed easily, and snuggled up next to me. 🙂 (I hadn’t been able to join him in the bunkbed because, with his hip so painful for so many weeks, he needed room to situate himself in the most comfortable position.)

    A sweet gift from the Lord, that he is “back” now.

    Liked by 11 people

  9. QoD: With summer basically here (yay, it’s June!), do you have any summer projects planned?

    I’m excited to embark on a big music cataloging project. I want to go through all my student method books and supplementary music for beginners and intermediates, and arrange pieces into categories by their pedagogical purposes.

    For example, have a list of all the pieces (and in which volumes they’re found) that are good for practicing left-hand-over technique, level by level [early elementary, mid-elementary, late elementary, and early-, mid-, and late intermediate].

    And another list of music in say, D Minor, etc.

    It will be a big job, and there might be a simpler way to catalog all this that I haven’t figured out yet, but I look forward to doing the project, nonetheless. I’ve got so much music I’ve accumulated over the years, and I know I must be forgetting some gems that I haven’t unearthed for a while. This will help me better utilize what I’ve got as my daughter (and hopefully some new students along the way) grow in musicianship.

    How about you guys?

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  10. 6 Arrows – So glad to hear your husband is finally getting some relief.

    My last bout with my left hip was semi-bad, but evened out so that sitting for a while and trying not to get into the wrong position in bed were the worst parts of it. It is doing much better now, but I still limp after getting up from sitting (although I can sit without much discomfort now). It will take a while to fully heal, as I know from experience. Still can’t lie on my side – my most comfortable and comforting sleeping position – for too long.

    The worst was when I had hurt my right hip about a year and a half ago, and then re-hurt it, and then re-hurt it again. I was so mad at myself, because the second or third re-hurt was worse than the original hurt.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. As for this summer, I will be childsitting more than during the school-year, so I am not taking on any kind of project other than that. Hopefully it won’t be too-too much more, as Nightingale is thinking of some other plans for him, and his dad may have him more (that’s not necessarily a good thing, though).

    Speaking of X, please pray for God to do a great work in that young man’s heart and life, that He will transform him into a godly Christian man and father, the kind that The Boy can look up to and emulate.

    Liked by 5 people

  12. Morning! That is a most lovely flower up there!! 🌺
    What blessed news that 6’s hubby is feeling his old self…a exhale moment! Continued prayers for progress and healing….
    Praying for Miguel this morning as well…baby steps…it’s a marathon not a sprint!! 🏃🏼 Praying for healing…..
    My neighbor and I are walking over to another neighbor’s home for coffee and fellowship this morning….the two have lived “next door” to one another for 15 years but have only met once and that was just last week. I introduced them! Time to get to know one another….
    Kizzie are there kiddos close to you with whom little guy can play this summer? I have and continued to pray for X…that he might come to know the deep deep love of our Saviour…..

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  13. 6 arrows, that’s great news.

    We have sit-stand desks at work now which really do help. It’s actually a thing that’s bolted on top of your desk that you manually raise and lower.

    I woke up early today after hearing something padding across my roof, back and forth. I just kept thinking “please don’t mess up my new roof, whoever you are!”. I had “raccoon damage” to my old roof, according to one roofer I’d called out for repairs some years ago. I have a flat roof so it’s easy for critters to run around up there. No noises now and it actually helped to drag me out of bed on time (even early) today as it was so distracting that I couldn’t easily fall back asleep after letting the animals out.

    Summer projects, not particularly, though it’s actually a good thing to think about. I do hope to get the outside of my house painted, maybe the inside front room, too, if it works out and finances hold. Would love-love-love to have all that done by fall. Otherwise, it’s just the regular full-time work grind for me, same-old, same-old routine, although I do enjoy having that daylight left at the end of the day when I get home.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. It’s been months, well over a year, probably, since I’ve watched any cable news at all here in the good old State of Denial. I just can’t bear hearing about the state of our nation anymore, I guess. LoL

    So I think I’ll continue that tradition through summer. It’s really quite peaceful without all the political banter, though it’s really a break for me. I’ve followed national politics closely since I was a teenager. Suddenly now, I’ve somehow just mentally walked away from it. It was some kind of breaking point for me with the ’16 election, I guess. It’s just not ‘fun’ anymore.

    6 Arrows got me thinking about summer vacation, one of the hardest things to lose after college graduation so many years ago. I was somewhat shocked the first year I worked full time, realizing when May-June came around it was, well, just the same as the entire rest of the year, 8-5. Guess I eventually got used to it, but I still wistfully think about the days when summer was truly a special season, set apart by all that free time to frolic ! Good times.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Dj our “noise of the night” would be the pitter patter of squirrels on the roof….when do they sleep!!?
    Summer projects? Scraping and painting the front porch…tedious! No vacation plans…we haven’t taken a “vacation” since going to SC/NC celebrating our 40th anniversary. We have taken a weekend or two away to stay at our friend’s B&B in the mountains…I guess that counts eh? But then I am a home body….I love it here in this forest and am quite content with sitting on the porch with a good book and an ice cold glass of tea next to me! 😊

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  16. Oh, sitting on the porch (or patio) reading, what joy. That sounds ‘vacation’ enough to me! I’m hoping to find one of those outdoor rocking chairs for my front porch at some point — and maybe a little wrought iron table & chairs to go with it.

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  20. Michelle, that sounds good. I actually had a funny dream that we ALL were at your house and you were very pregnant. ! It was odd, to say the least, as we were all rushing around and running into each other, trying to get you to the hospital. Your husband was awol.

    Houses. Hmmm. Just remembering I have some left-over bead board in the garage from the bathroom project I need to figure out where to use … back wall of ‘dining’ room? Can’t be too close to ‘living’ room paneling as that’s original and much wider.

    Focus. Painting.

    But I guess it would make most sense to save that bead board for the kitchen and maybe that funky little bathroom closet in the spare bedroom when I someday get around to dealing with those areas of the house. Or not.

    Focus. Painting.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Speaking of bike mileage: Sixteen year old son got home the other day and mentioned being tired. He had ridden his bike the five miles into town, worked, played, did some schoolwork, and ridden home. I did not mention that his sixteen year old sister had also ridden the five miles into town, did her hour of yoga, rode home again, walked eight miles, weeded the rhubarb for an hour, and was helping with various other tasks.

    Liked by 2 people

  22. Good morning, although it will soon be lunch time. I am always in such a scurry in the mornings getting things done before heading out. We got to the office around 9:30 this a.m. and a client was waiting. I had tax work yesterday and it will be off and on until the extension deadline in Oct. My special project continues to be building websites. Soon the business site will go live and then I can rework my site, and two other folks I know want help. One is in ministry and the other in real estate. And our new church is building a website so I may get to help with that.

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  24. Just getting started on that reading, but it seems to me Billy Graham and Pence are on the right track, even though people whine that that is giving in to fear. Which I disagree with.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Our church, very small, meets in a single room community center, with two individual restrooms in the back of the room. All highly visible. I tell my children they are not allowed to go around the side of the building but must remain in my sight at all times. That is for their protection as well as the protection of the other children from my children.

    When we went to a slightly larger church with its own building, I did not allow my children to wander unattended, not even to the bathroom. They are not sent to Sunday School. Our current church does not have a Sunday school for children though they are working on starting one. I have told them my children will not be attending. But my children are expected to sit quietly in church and in adult Sunday School when there is one.

    The people in my community seem to be rather naive about a lot of things. Including many of the teachers. It is nice that they think the best of people, but they ought to at least be aware of the worst and that it can be in their own community. My children have helped with that in some ways but because my children are so nice, the people think it is not a problem. The people are wrong. So, I have to work harder to protect my children from themselves and others.

    Liked by 3 people

  27. Good morning!

    So glad to hear Mr Six is feeling better.

    Miguel is not feeling better, but I have got him to wrap the leg. He is off to Lordsburg to pick up grandson to stay a couple of weeks with us,

    I have picked up a chest cold. I have spent the past couple of day coughing up green stuff. Woke up this morning wheezing, so went to the recliner and slept another 2 hrs. No fever, just all this chest stuff.

    Projects for the summer: grandchildren, gardening, canning, critters, finish the barn, tear down the shed, critters, work……

    Liked by 2 people

  28. I do not know of policies at my new church because we are just voting in the bylaws on Sunday after church.

    In the former church, I know background checks were done, and we tried to have two teachers or more in the classrooms. I never saw anything that looked abusive, but was bothered by a co-teacher who revealed that Santa is not real to children who were in grade school who still participated in that within their family. Their older sister in the group cried.

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  29. My daughter goes to a church that is proactive. Nursery workers are not even to change a child’s diaper. The parent gets a number when they leave the child in the nursery. They flash the number on the screen in the front, and mom or dad come and change it, or accompany an older child to the bathroom.

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  31. For two or three summers, maybe one more, years ago, I would have a reading “project” – reading on something specific. The only one I remember was when I had three books on various matters of church history. I would go from to another and back again as the books went from one time period to the next, reading of a particular time period in each book before moving on to the next time period. I cannot remember the other reading projects I did, but they would have been similar.

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  32. Summer plans: hmm, get through working 6 days a week serving the children who come to camp 🙂

    I work in the toddler room in our church – we need a criminal record/vulnerable sector check from the police. We only change diapers if the parents have signed a document indicating it is okay. We usually just put the child’s number up on the screen and have the parent come and change them. We just don’t have time to have one worker not available. We also have open door to the bathroom when a child is going with the worker standing in the doorway to ensure no one else is in the bathroom or goes into the bathroom while the child is in there. We have windows in all classrooms and a hall monitor that walks the halls at random looking in the windows. We follow something called “Plan to Protect”. At times it seems like we go overboard, but I don’t really think we do. We need to keep our children and vulnerable adults safe.

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  35. Summer project? Don’t you all already know mine? 🙂

    Right now and for the foreseeable future, it is getting this house in order. As of this week, we have one bathroom that has a tub and shower, toilet, and sink that all work. Of course, as of this week we also found out there is no electricity to the one outlet in that bathroom, nor to the outlet on the patio. It’s always something. Most rooms also have at least one light switch on the wall, but in several rooms (both bedrooms and the living room) it is a true mystery why, since none of the lights and none of the outlets are connected to the switch.

    But today I have the most fun task yet: having put most of the theology books into their spaces, I am now freed to work on my side of the “bookcase wall”: I have three large bookcases and a craft storage unit to fill that are in my area and not shared space. (In the previous house, the library was space for both of us, including my office. In this house, my husband will have an art studio, so I will have my own office / craft area.)

    My husband is napping after we both worked hard this morning in a different room, but later he will put together the small table and two chairs we bought at Ikea, in time for the microwave cart to arrive Monday (it too will need to be assembled) and the microwave Tuesday. Eventually the vanity in our en-suite bathroom will be put together, and ideally the back-ordered toilets and oven door broken by the floor guys and being replaced by them) will also arrive–all overdue. Then it’s on to replacing the windows and bedroom doors, and then hiring an electrician (by that time we figure we will have completed the list of all we need an electrician to do). Early next week we need to paint the hall and the studio, and then I need to finish removing the wallpaper from both bathrooms so we can paint those. (There is also wallpaper in the kitchen and dining room that will eventually come down, but first things first.)

    We are both happy that being in a condo means no yardwork and we are free to concentrate on the inside. But yowie, it’s a lot of work to move and fix up a place around yourself as you do!

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  36. Summer plans:
    1) Survive to the end of clinical (three more weeks).
    2) Go home and rest.
    3) Get ready to go north in the fall.

    Number 1 just keeps getting more challenging. I have developed symptoms of muscle aches, back pain, and swollen lymph glands. Those are all listed as possible symptoms of Lyme’s disease. I had that tick bite last week and the incubation period is 3 to 30 days. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.

    Liked by 5 people

  37. The city church has an extensive training and screening program, including a police record check, for those who will work with children. It was set up by the pastor’s late wife, after one of their family was a victim of abuse from an apparent Christian. I plan on getting the training at some point, but as yet have not been able to find the time. The church does have a copy of my police record check – as a nurse, such checks are a routine part of placement and getting a license to practice. My family church requires a police record check.

    The weakness of screening is that it can only catch those who have already offended. The predator who has been able to hide their evil will not be caught by such screening methods. In my profession, there is zero tolerance for those caught sexually abusing. I have read the disciplinary hearing accounts of those forever banned from nursing for their crimes (this is in addition to the criminal conviction and judicial punishment). But what is always apparent from reading the accounts of the abuse scandals in churches is that there is no moral outrage towards the perpetrator. The Sovereign Grace Ministry scandal, where founder C.J. Mahaney knew of the accusations of molestation to the youth pastor and did not report it to the authorities – the youth pastor went on to abuse others until he was finally convicted for one of his crimes; the ABWE mission scandal, where a missionary doctor in East Asia drugged and molested missionary children – ABWE, when one of the young girls came forward, made her confess to having an affair with the doctor and sent both her family as well as the doctor home, but did not inform the authorities of the accusations against the doctor, so that he continued to practice medicine in the U.S. until his victims grew up and banded together to stop him; and this latest one in SBC, in which Paige Patterson has been protecting more than one accused sexual predator. They all show a gross unwillingness of leaders in the church to confront evil in the midst of their congregation. Jesus made a cord of whips to drive the predators out of the temple, and warned that it would be better to be deliberately drowned than to offend one such little one. These church leaders often spend a great deal of time lamenting the secular evils of the day, but when evil shows up in the church, they turn a blind eye. “Blind leader of the blind” is what Jesus termed them in his day.

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  38. Praying it’s not Lyme, roscuro.

    Oh Cheryl, you’re speaking my language!!

    Toilets, tubs and dead outlets, oh my.

    I have a couple dead outlets in the spare bedroom — and in the little closet-turned-bathroom in there, where the lights don’t work, there’s a frightening tangle of electrical wires that had been jerry rigged probably many moons ago (long before I arrived on the scene) hanging from the ceiling but hidden by an opaque plastic false ceiling. Sheesh. An electrician looked at it recently said there’s no fixing that, it would just have to be entirely rewired. Later.

    I’d love outdoor outlets — one on the front porch and one on the patio — but apparently this is an expensive addition to make. Maybe later I can revisit it.

    Oh, I love talking houses. Tell me more.

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  39. IKEA microwave cart I bought at a yard sale: Owner kept telling my how lucky I was that I wouldn’t have to put it together like they had to when they bought it (we were wheeling it around the corner to my house). She kinda went on and on about that miserable task. Not to scare anyone … And I’m sure they’re easier now than they were then (this was 20+ years ago, so definitely one of their older models).

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  40. Your tales of assembling IKEA items reminds me of the Christmas of the BIg Wheel. My little brother got a Big Wheel for Christmas sometime in the 70’s. I clearly remember my parents spending the day fighting as they attempted to put it together. They were both mechanically challenged. This led to a strict policy at my house ,as I was having children, that all toys would be assembled prior to gift giving.

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  41. Ah, the words I so dreaded when Christmas and birthdays were coming: “Some assembly required”. There are many things about having younger children that I miss, but that is not one of them.

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  42. I’m a horrible “assembler.” It took me 3 hours to put together what was supposed to be a very simply cat tree some years ago (should have taken an hour according to most reviews).

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  46. Well, I was going to say — she has plenty of things to climb outside, she gets up onto the patio and garage roofs, walks along the top of the 6-foot fence, gets on the neighbors’ garage roof …

    Did I mention putting together the cat tree made me cry? At least once.

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  47. Yep, I can imagine tears if I’d ever had to assemble a cat tree.

    Or picture cat trees somehow magically flying across a room… 😉

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  49. There was an Adorable sighting at Bible study this morning — a friend brought along her 11-month old granddaughter. My friend who leads the study said to our friend who brought the little one, “Oh, she’s so adorable!”

    I told the ladies about Michelle calling her grandchildren “The Adorables,” and they both exclaimed, “Awwwwww!” 🙂

    Friend with grandbaby says that is going to be her new name for granddaughter. 🙂

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  51. Roscuro, glad to hear the physician was helpful. Did the physician have similar thoughts as you?

    DJ, this would probably be a poor time to mention how now sixteen year old daughter, then twelve, and then sixteen year old son built a cat tree for her for 4H?

    IKEA stuff. It is usually fairly straightforward to put together, if you can interpret the pictures that are supposed to be figureable in all languages. When we were putting some together in Italy, when the inlaws had come just as we moved, my father in law was getting frustrated trying to help me put cupboards together. No stupid instructions were going to get in his way to success. He had been a carpenter for fifty years! We looked at the instructions and proceeded just fine. What is it with men and instructions, or is it just my men?

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  52. The scary thing is I will need to buy the same cat tree and put it together again — this original one is awful looking — but this time I will place it in the “den” next to the big window looking into the backyard. I’m tired of having a cat tree in the living room. (You’re welcome, Kim.)

    Maybe I’ll kind of remember how the old one went together and this time it will be easier. ?

    I need some color advice on my front door (just changed subjects!). What shade blue goes with Sherwin Williams’ Brandywine (which is the body color on the house I’m using)?

    https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW7710-brandywine#/7710/?p=PS0&s=coordinatingColors

    Light blue, medium blue, ?? Going still for a bit of a festive Spanish look. And the front door (1923) is mostly glass, wood framed with narrow grids in middle.

    Or should I paint the door the accent color (which also is going on all the window casings):

    https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW7509-tiki-hut#/7509/?s=coordinatingColors&p=PS0

    That would be boring but in keeping with the painting ‘rules’ and the more conservative choice.

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  53. Mumsee, yes, the physician took my history seriously. She was honest about her inexperience with dealing with the disease (it has only recently been acknowledged that Lyme’s is present on Ontario), but she looked up the literature to decide what should be done. She wants me to get the blood test, and then start treatment right away, without waiting for the results (if I start the treatment before I get the test taken, it could mess up the results of the test).

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  54. When I was home last fall, our church installed cameras around the church and even some for the parking lot. I happened to be around when they were doing the work, but they did not announce it and where they are, you wouldn’t know about them unless you were told.

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  55. Roscuro, have you played any of Domenico Scarlatti’s piano sonatas? I recently decided I wanted to dig in to some of his music, as no teacher of mine ever assigned me any Scarlatti.

    What a bunch of gems I’ve found! But yikes, 550 or so sonatas! I want to perform some of his music someday, and am enjoying playing from the two Scarlatti books I recently purchased, published by Kjos and Alfred.

    Do you have any favorites among his work?

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  58. This summer marks 20 years since Hubby and I made the decision to homeschool.

    Our homeschool looks different now than then. And 10 years ago looked different than both then and now, too.

    Ten years from now, we’ll be looking back on the homeschool years, which will have ended probably two years before that.

    A fascinating journey, though not always easy, that morphs through the years and sometimes still surprises us.

    Thankful that God has always been there, through think and thin, as He is now and will continue to be, whatever adventures and turns in the path we may experience.

    His faithfulness endures forever.

    Liked by 3 people

  59. through *thick* and thin, not think and thin.

    I can give my kids that post for editing practice. 😉

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  60. We had a storm which caused a short power outage that knocked our computers offline. My brother is using the shredder while Art tries various things to get the computers back up. I think I prefer listening to the loud shredder than to an unhappy Art. Good choice, Bro.

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  61. roscuro, sure hope that’s not what it is but I’m glad they’re getting it tested and starting treatments in case.

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  62. 6, I do not have a favorite Scarlatti sonata. I’m pretty sure I’ve played a couple, or if not a sonata, at least some sonatinas. The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) put out a syllabus of pieces that could be played for each grade and Frederick Harris published books with a compilation of the RCM exam pieces, and I remember seeing Scarlatti’s name in the books for the early grades. In the later grades, which I remember more clearly because they required harder work, there were four and five different lists, with list A being Baroque keyboard music, list B being Classical, List C Romantic, List D Impressionist, and List E 20th century. Scarlatti would have been in the Baroque era, but the only approved composer for the Baroque era for the advanced RCM exams was J.S. Bach. Only Bach’s preludes and/or fugues would do for grades 8, 9, 10 & the final ARCT exam (which I did not make it too, although my dear friend and relative did). I blame Glenn Gould. As the most famous pianist Canada has ever produced, Gould’s recordings of the entirety of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier has doomed successive generations of young pianists to being forced to play Bach fugues, even when their fingers are not fitted to it (mine were not), while Scarlatti is nowhere.

    That being said, I have heard Scarlatti played on the radio. His works have never stood out to me. They sounded very repetitive in style, and like a milder form of Mozart (technically, Scarlatti is Baroque, but he greatly influenced the Classical keyboard style). Being repetitive is not denigrating his ability, as Mozart’s sonatas sound repetitive too. There are about four Mozart sonatas which I will play and the rest I consider superfluous. Even the greatest composers did not always produce great works.

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  67. Men and instructions? I like instructions. I like to follow them. Sometimes the diagrams aren’t clear to me, though, and I wish there were words to explain them. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a few words is often worth more than a line diagram trying to depict a 3-D situation.

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  70. Does rkessler have a blue door?

    I was in Taos/Santa Fe/Albuqurque on a summer trip some years ago, really fell in love with all the adobes though I don’t remember blue doors back then. But I love the blue against the tan and dark brown homes.

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  71. No blue door here. Just old. I did have a homepage once that had adobe, blue door, chile ristra and geraniums. It was peaceful.

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  76. When my girls were younger, the Christmas present that was frustrating was trying to open the package of a new Barbie doll. They are (or were, at least) fastened into the back of the box in several places, and the fastenings were not easy to undo.

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  77. RKessler – Years ago, I had a desktop background (whatever they are called) photo of the front of an adobe house (a peachy-pink color, IIRC), with the blue door, and red flowers in a pot (I think) on the windowsill (outside). Does that sound like the photo you referred to?

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  79. We came home early since the computers need the guru to get them going again. We have to be in early to let the guru do his thing.

    We are watching the news and see that storms did a lot of damage and put many out of power.

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  80. DJ, no ragged cat tree as they prefer the barn, and are pretty easy on the trees.

    Kizzie, yes that is the wallpaper I was referring to.

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  82. I will say that cat trees are a benefit to humans, too, as they serve to divert cats and keep them off your furniture. Annie likes hers and spends a fair amount of time on it

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  83. And I bought the cat tree soon after I adopted Annie so she’d also have a high “safe” place to get away from the dogs, if needed; I still wasn’t too sure about how 2 dogs — unaccustomed to cats — might behave as a pair when unsupervised around her

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