53 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-4-18”

  2. We were all busy sleeping, Jo.
    We hope you had a nice day.
    Good morning everyone else.
    Today, by brother would have been 79.
    I need to e-mail my sister.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Wow, I had the thread to myself for over six hours. I suppose you are ll asleep.
    Glad to see that your brother is remembered, Chs.

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  6. Phos, et. al. I have two socks lying on our chest. There are two other socks somewhere in the house just like them. I’m sure all of you are familiar with the situation. A sock is sticking to something it got tangled with in the wash. It has to be around somewhere. But will never show up until I throw this stray sock away.

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  7. From yesterday
    Getting a driver’s license: Eldest Niece is a few months older than Elizabeth. She got her learner’s license last year (in her state, you can get it at 15) but has only recently started practicing driving. Here in Ontario, we have a graduated driver’s license. When you pass your written test, which you can take when you’re 16, you are given a G1 license, which means you can only drive with an experienced driver (five or more years) in the passenger seat, cannot drive between 12 midnight and 5 AM, and cannot drive on a 400 series highways or other multi lane divided freeways (most of Ontario’s major freeways are 400 series, i.e. highways 400, 401, 404, and 407 which all run into and out of Toronto). In a year (the year is shortened to 8 months if you take an approved driver’s ed course), you can take a road test and get your G2, which pretty much allows you to drive at all times and on all roads, but with only one passenger between 12 midnight and 5 AM and with a 0 percent blood alcohol (in other words, it is trying to prevent drunken carloads of teens careering over the roads in the dead of night). After one year with the G2, you can take the road test for a full G class license.

    Dressing for cold weather: Janice, Canadians are a peculiar lot when it comes to winter dressing. I think that many of the inhabitants are in permanent denial that the cold weather is a fact of our lives. Every snowfall seems a cue for complaining about the weather, as if snow was an out of the ordinary occurrence or minor natural disaster. Part of that denial seems to be dressing as lightly as one possibly can for the weather. There is a strange phenomenon to be seen among the male of the species in winter, that of the man shoveling the snow off his driveway while wearing shorts. I have a cousin who is like that. He hates winter and cold weather, and so his act of defiance is wearing summer clothing in the winter. Of course, they only get away with that because they have heated houses, heated cars, and heated places of work. Urban dwelling, and most of Canada’s population lives in or near cities close to our southern border, has declimatized us (having spent two winters in a large city, I understand a little better why the urban inhabitant hates winter – sidewalks and city streets are not well constructed to handle the added bulk of snow, and they become dangerously slippery) and the old stereotype of the Canadian who does all manner of rugged snow sports and doesn’t mind the cold is getting rarer.

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  8. One shoe blues … 🙂

    BB King came to our high school and performed in the auditorium, would have been in the mid-to late ’60s sometime.

    I went to bed early and I think I feel a little better today. I’ve been clearing out some of the kitchen cabinets to reorganize in there but all that kind of came to a halt when I got so sick. Maybe I can get back to that today. And the dog park painter, J, is supposed to return today to start picking away at the job. He’s still ‘prepping’ windows on the south side of the house but it’s been something like a month since he’s been here.

    The heat bothers him and becomes an excuse. He’s a ‘night owl,’ not a morning person, but I think maybe it would make sense for him to change his schedule a bit for the time being so he can start really early, when it’s actually fairly cool. The roofers used to arrive at 6 a.m., I remember, and they were working through July too.

    It’s really too big a job for him, I think, but we seem to be stuck now since he doesn’t want to give it up and walk away so I can hire someone else. We’ll have to talk soon about a time schedule and how we can move forward more quickly to get this done within a reasonable time, say by sometime in September.

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  9. Roscuro, that’s like us with the heat — we’re all very used to A/C now everywhere we go so when the worst of the summer heat comes in sunny California, it’s full-on angst.

    The heat was so much worse in Iowa & the Midwest, with all the humidity and those gigantic mosquitos. Shudder. And of course no one had A/C back then (at least not in homes).

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  10. chas, I kept a bag full of ‘stray,’ orphaned socks for the longest time, convinced I’d match them up someday. A few got randomly matched, here and there, but most never did. I finally tossed the remainders with some regret.

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  11. Our church/denomination does believe the tithe remains in place today and was not rescinded — but our pastor almost never talks or preaches about it 🙂 and it is strictly up to each member to determine how and what they can give. We never ask for ‘pledges’ at the first of the year.

    For years he has made it a point, he says, of never knowing or looking at who gives what at our church. In fact he’s asked that the information be kept from him.

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  12. When I was moving from Nashville, I put aside all terminally unmatched socks. If I didn’t find its mate during the move, out it went.

    My husband took that stack of single socks as “good for packing.” I told him that if he used them for packing, it would be a long time before I knew again which ones could get thrown out, but they moved with me.

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  13. There is a tree outside my living room window. (My living room is not a formal one, but more like a family room. We always called the main room of the house the living room, because we didn’t have both a formal living room and an informal family room. Hubby’s family was the same.)

    I love watching the branches and leaves sway in the breeze, or the stronger swaying in a more forceful wind, and I love the beauty of the leaves twinkling in the sunlight when it is sunny. That always delights me when I take the time to stop and watch the swaying and twinkling.

    Earlier this morning, I sat down on the couch with my coffee, and as I waited for my laptop to come on and the internet to come up, I gazed out at that tree strongly swaying in the wind of a rainstorm. I thought about how much a tree and its branches can bend and sway under the pressure of the wind. Then I asked God to make me like those branches, bending and swaying under the pressure – not breaking, but standing firm. And I asked Him to make my “leaves” (my countenance, my attitude) twinkle in the Sonlight, to bless others as watching the twinkling of the tree’s leaves blesses and delights me.

    Then my thoughts turned toward autumn, and I asked that when the time comes for my life to draw to an end, may my “leaves” be a brilliant and beautiful red or gold – again, being a blessing to those around me even if (or especially if) they need to take care of me.

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  14. Beautiful analogy, Kizzie.

    There were certain times over the years that I’d sit in my living room and stare out the window, looking at the changing colors of the leaves in autumn. The times I’m referring to were when I was pregnant with my first four, who were all born in the spring. September and October tended to be the months that my morning sickness hit the hardest, and sitting or lying very still would sometimes help keep the nausea at bay.

    Watching the changes in the leaves, and the passage of seasons, reminded me of the changes my unborn babies were going through as they grew and developed. It was neat to contemplate how God orchestrates all the details of our lives and that of living objects around us. His care and tenderness for all His creation, especially for us humans, lovingly made in His image, is such a comforting blessing.

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  15. Roscuro, my father-in-law used to tell a story about a guy who walked around town with one shoe on.

    A passer-by comments to the guy, “Hey, did you lose a shoe?”

    Guy answers, “No, I found one!” 🙂

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  16. I took time this morning to read the August threads here. It’s been a busy week, so I’m just getting caught up now.

    I took Michelle’s stress test right when I came to it, then read others’ comments about it afterwards. I tend to agree with Cheryl that some of the questions were hard to answer.

    That said, my score was 269. Higher than I thought, but which helps me feel like, well, this might explain some of why I’ve been feeling so out of sorts lately.

    Before I took that test, though, I had decided (this past Thursday) that I would start running again. I’ve never felt better than the years I ran regularly. That would have been for about one decade, from mid-to-late teens into my twenties, until I started having children.

    I had a book checked out of the library recently, which I returned yesterday, about a photographer who traveled to about 50 different countries, taking pictures of many people who were willing to be photographed, and she sometimes included snippets of information about her subjects.

    One woman who was photographed is about my mother’s age, and resembles her a little. But, unlike my mom, who is deteriorating with arthritis and has become very hunched over and frail-looking since her back surgery a couple years ago, this 76-year-old woman in the book stood tall and fit-looking in her running shoes and clothes.

    She runs 6-10 miles every other day, and the most amazing thing is that she had only started running four years before!

    That was it — I decided right then and there that if a woman could take up running in her seventies for the first time, then this former half-marathoner could return to running in her fifties. I’m tired of feeling like *^%#, so my refusal to go on like that anymore kicked me into gear.

    I laced up my Nike’s, told the kids I was going for a run, and out I went.

    (OK, I did do a little research first on running after menopause, but was reassured by what I read, and new that now was the time to “just do it.” 😉 )

    It wasn’t easy, and yesterday, the day after my first run, I discovered I have muscles in places I never knew I had them. 😉

    But, despite the muscle ache (not as much today as yesterday), I feel SOOOO GOOOOOD!!

    This afternoon is Day 2. I have a little “r” written on every day on the calendar hanging on my bedroom wall, and I put a check mark next to the August 2nd “r.”

    Amazing what vigorous (but not excessively so — I ran only about 1 1/2 miles, less when you consider that I walked the downhill portions of our road) exercise can do for one’s morale. Walking just wasn’t cutting it for me.

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  18. I should also say that “r” is written on the calendar squares only every other day, not every day. I’m giving myself a day of rest in between each running day, in other words.

    I should really proofread before I post. 😉

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  19. Donna and Cheryl
    I didn’t encounter it when I took college physics, but I’m sure there is a physical law that says “Everything has to be somewhere.”
    That means that there is a red sock somewhere in this house. I realize that the only way I can find it is to throw the one I have away, but I’m holding of for a while longer anyhow.

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  21. 6, that woman sounds like husband’s aunt. She started running late in life (60s) and has done so many marathons and ½ marathons in support of arthritis research (Joints in Motion). She ran the Boston Marathon in 2013 at 81 years of age! She’s still running and she’s 86 now. Such a bundle of beautiful energy.

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  22. That’s fantastic, Kare! I love hearing stories like that. What an inspiration!

    Back from my run now — same distance, same route as Thursday. I started out too fast the other day, so went slower at the outset today. Ours is a dead-end road, and turning left out of our driveway means I’m going uphill to begin. That’s the direction I went first, both the other day and today. I do a lot of walking/stretching on my driveway before starting out, so I want to start with the uphill portion first once I leave the driveway, as going to the right would be downhill, which is what I prefer to walk. My knees seem to do better if I don’t run downhill.

    Of course, since I make a big loop on our road, going uphill first, it also means I end going uphill. I’m a sucker for punishment, I guess. 😉

    It’s low eighties right now, and boy, even though the run/walk was only 15 minutes, I’m sweating good, and am feeling SO refreshed and a lot more limber than even two days ago. My post-run cool-down felt really good, too, today.

    Time to get off this sweat-soaked computer chair now, though. 😛

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  23. 6 arrows, that’s great. So encouraging to hear you can just ‘start again’ 🙂

    I’m still not feeling great, some of the medications might be making me feel yucky, not sure really. The coughing has subsided but I’m really tired — I tried packing away some extra dishes in my kitchen clean-out project but only lasted about 15 minutes and just felt to tired.

    Dog park painter isn’t showing up as he said he was going to try to do. I’m sorry now I didn’t try to save up and spend a bit more money to hire just a regular painting crew. Sigh. Oh well.

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  25. Long day around here…I woke at 2:30 this morning and have been drinking coffee and tea all day long…I’ll never get to sleep tonight. I did take a walk with neighbor this evening…got my 10,000 steps in for the day and then some. Running was once enjoyable but now I will trot from time to time on my walk….things just aren’t the same as they once were when I was younger ya know…. 😊

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  26. D3 likes unmatched socks, as that has been the style among teens for a few years. She never matched them after laundering, so she’d just grab two socks and put them on, regardless of whether they were a match.

    And we never throw away cotton socks, as they make good rags. Also, a lot of places recycle old clothing, like Goodwill. I’m not sure what they do with them, but old rags make good rag rugs.

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  29. Years ago, I was at a friends house, and we were doing some housework. I was going to mate a basket of socks and she scolded me, saying “that’s why I buy white socks..you don’t have to mate them”.

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  30. unmatched socks are in style? You know, that really makes so much practical sense. For all of us.

    I just got done boxing some Christmas dishes and hauling them to the garage, after which I was drenched in sweat because it’s so humid here right now. (Just took a cold shower so I feel much better.)

    I had some other dishes as well (all taken out of the top kitchen cabinets which I’m trying to clear out — and now finally have) and I was going to get those ready to give away when – whoosh — of they slipped from the patio table onto the concrete floor and shattered. That saved me the hassle.

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  31. Peter give Mrs. L our birthday greetings!! Sounds as thought a wonderful day was had by all and I am certain she was blessed to have her babes and their’s around her this day! ❤️ 🎂

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  32. Even as a child I never enjoyed running. I do like walking, and I don’t mind walking and working up a good sweat, but running is just exhausting and unpleasant to me. I take comfort in the fact that adults rarely have any need to run or any expectation that they do so.

    In grade-school races I always came in dead last, unless it was a race that didn’t really count. (I don’t remember the particular distinction, maybe that some were timed and some were just practice.) One of my classmates would finish behind me if it was a race that didn’t count, and I thought her lazy, because I knew it meant she wasn’t trying–because I knew from experience that she could beat me if she tried. So in addition to physical discomfort and all the rest, to me running has always signified failure, and it really was a blessing to get to an age where no one is likely ever to expect me to do it again (unless it is something along the lines of running to catch a toddler who hasn’t yet learned to obey).

    I had a really bad PE teacher when I was growing up, the same one for all eight grades. And I remember in class hearing fellow students compare notes on their report cards, PE was always a basic A for most students, but for me it would be my only C. At some point I think the teacher finally realized that I really was doing my best, I simply was not athletic, and I got A’s myself for the last year or two. But I didn’t start enjoying PE.

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  33. Chas, missing socks do not obey the laws of physics and it is the same with missing mittens and gloves. I had a lovely pair of leather mittens given to me two Christmases ago. After a few weeks, I discovered that one was missing, and although I searched high and low, I never found that mitten. The law of matched pairs of foot and hand coverings says that given enough time, one of the pair will go permanently missing, necessitating the disposal of the other one and purchase or manufacture of another set. Second, who both knits and crochets, experienced that once while knitting my father a pair of socks; by the time she finished the second, she discovered she was missing the first. I have always wondered if the washing machine sometimes sucks socks down its drain. I give my unmatched socks a couple of months to find the other one, and then, if the other one doesn’t turn up, I turn the lone socks into rags. Socks make good soft cleaning rags.

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  34. What Roscuro said about physics and the missing pieces of pairs.

    I liked running as a kid, so long as it was part of playing baseball or some other game. But I have to agree with Cheryl, just “running” was never fun or enjoyable to me, especially as I got older. Running around the track or school yard was to be endured. A few times in my 20s and 30s I tried to take up ‘running’ (or jogging as it was more popularly called back then) through the neighborhood, but it never lasted.

    The idea of it was always appealing so I kept trying here and there. But the reality? Ugh. 😦 Always ugh.

    Walking suited me much better, especially with a dog or two; plus it’s easier on the joints.

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  35. I’m still coughing so am staying in from church 😦 Painter *says* he’s coming by at 2:30 today.

    Since I’m still semi-self-quarantined, I decided it’s a good time to clear out all the kitchen cabinets so that’s what I’m doing this morning. I have a set of original Catalina/Gladding-McBean pottery (like Fiestaware but not formally that brand, very colorful and still considered collectible) from the 1930s that my mom had passed on to me (it was given to her by a friend) that I’m washing up and will use in the dining room cabinet so the pieces can be shown off a little bit. It really is very cute and bright. It’s been obscured in a kitchen cabinet for too long.

    A lot of these pieces, including the cute juice tumblers, I have.

    https://www.etsy.com/market/gmb_pottery

    I’m finding also a bunch of dishes, mugs, microwave gadgets, random (and obviously) no-longer-needed “things” of no particular value or vintage to give away and/or toss. When in doubt about something, I can always just drop it onto the patio floor to settle the matter. 🙂

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  36. Not only socks, but my pet rock has broken that law of physics.
    As for the sock, it’s a nylon male sock. I suspect it has attached to some female nylon article and was happy there. But I anticipated that and searched. To no avail. But maybe it was hiding.
    It didn’t go down a drain. The drain would tell me.
    I still think it is somewhere.

    Another trivial subject. I heard the pastor, with a Th.D., say from the pulpit.
    “My children asked my wife and I…..”
    When a person does that, I miss the next few lines of the talk.

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  37. The white, narrow glass-front bookcase in dining area may have to be repurposed also for pottery and vintage dish ware at this rate (Kim will approve). There are a lot of very cool pieces, though hardly a complete “set.”

    I have a roundish green water pitcher and turquoise lemon squeezer from the pottery set, along with very ’20s/’30s looking green salt-and-pepper shakers and a pale yellow gravy boat with matching oval dish. There are 2 oval serving bowls (bright orange and turquoise) and a round serving bowl (in cobalt blue). Lots of plates and little bowls, some very delicate tea cups with swirly little handles and saucers in all the colors: Dark brown, lighter red-brown, white, turquoise, pale yellow, cobalt blue, bright orange, vintage green.

    Years ago I remember suggesting to my mom that I might see how much the set would get if I sold it and she really started to scold me for even thinking such a thing, didn’t I realize how unique and special they were? So they’ve stayed with me 🙂 and now I’m glad. They wouldn’t get all that much money anyway and they are just really festive looking and fun, especially since I’m trying to pick up the Spanish/early California and 1920s influences in my house.

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  38. DJ, those sound fun. I’ve always thought that I would like my dishes to be all different colours, rather than having a uniform set.

    One question, do you know how the bright orange was made in your dishes. I ask only because I have seen this:

    Running: I loved to run as a small child, until my asthma became triggered by exercise. I still have a turn for speed, on the rare occasion when I feel well enough to run. My latest sprints have been to catch the bus. But I do not like running on pavement or asphalt. I really feel the jar of the impact when my feet hit the pavement through my whole frame and the jarring impacts the length of time I can run. I have run on forest trails before, and I can run further and faster on them, as their packed earth better absorbs the impact and the constant change in the trail surface, with little ups and downs, is less wearing than running on a uniform flat surface.

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  40. Roscuro, that’s why I don’t actually ‘use’ these dishes for the most part. Lead, etc. I have used the tumblers and little bowls in the past, when I first got them, but they’re now relegated to display only, sadly.

    Yes, the bright orange is eye-catching (probably my least favorite color in the set).

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  42. On the subject of running, when we had to do those Presidential fitness tests, there was one instance when my clocked time was in the range of the faster times of the boys. I guess I had eaten Wheaties that morning. I did not do much more running until in my twenties I had a boyfriend who was a runner. He talked me into running the track with him at Georgia Tech. I worked up to three miles with his encouragement. I don’t remember even why we stopped running, but it probably did not fit with our schedules after graduation. I was never motivated to do it on my own. For awhile I think I ran or maybe it was just fast walking at our nearby school track with Wesley. He does running as his preferred exercise now. I am glad he does that.

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  43. I went to my writer’s critique group yesterday. It was great to see everyone after about a year. It is a trip of almost an hour to get there. Another lady drove an hour and a half for her first visit. I am venturing into writing Young Adult fiction which is basically for older high school students. Ireally enjoy the ladies in the group. There are some men there now, too, but it was all ladies in the breakout fiction group yesterday. It is a great place to make Christian friends if anyone here needs more friends.

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  44. Anything that I don’t want in my kitchen here, I just take to school and put on our give away table. I had three small plates and just took them to give away to my aide.

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  45. There was a service dog in church this morning, in the row in front of me. I think he was for the young boy who may have been autistic. I saw him stroking the dog a few times. The dog, a yellow lab, I think, lied down on the floor and stayed there quietly.

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  47. We are enjoying a lovely rain shower…our second of the day…..
    At one point in my l Iife I would run a 3.4 mile loop in the mornings with Babe…she motivated me to keep going. She also stood guard a couple of times when my toe hit a tree root in the trail and I went flying! Everyone asks me “if I run too” when they find out my husband runs 100 mile races….I just smile and say no…. 😊 🏃🏼 🏃‍♀️

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  48. If you see Mrs L smiling a lot in the next few days it’s because one of her birthday wishes was to have grandchildren over for a few days. The three oldest are staying until Thursday.

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  51. Our pastor mentioned James Tour, a scientist, in church today and told us some backstory and suggested we might find him interesting. So we looked him up and watched a couple you tubes of him. One was Jesus Christ and nanotechnology. Quite interesting, though it was nearly two hours. Amazingly, the two youngest sat with me and watched the entire thing and were able to tell me about it. Their choice. You might like it.

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  52. The sweetest times with the grands were when they spent the night….without their parents!! No distractions, they knew who made and enforced the rules, and we always had a wonderful time….enjoy them Peter! When does school start?

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