47 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-7-18”

  2. Morning, Chas. We had a teacher holiday today. Time to finish report cards and then have a staff Christmas party with staff of both schools along with the employees. Nice to have some time together, especially once report cards were done.
    I am getting packed. Lots of gifts. Not many clothes as I don’t have winter clothes here. Hopefully I will be able to find them once I return.

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  4. Good morning! Such a pretty tree. We are due for snow tonight. Freezing rain today. The ski area opens today, so should be extremely busy tonight. Hope I ordered enough splinting material.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. Morning! What a beautiful tree and what appears to be a country lane….oh those backroads!
    We are predicted to have an ok day today with temps in the 30’s…no snow. It was so cold yesterday….frostbite weather indeed!

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  6. That is a gorgeous tree. I love trees and am fascinated by the variety and changes through the seasons. So much beauty God has made and yet, there are those who think we should dress, build and decorate drably. Uh, no.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. I use a blower on hard surfaces like deck and driveway.
    But blower doesn’t work on grass with pin oak leaves. They cling to the grass.
    In Annandale, I thought maple was the worst tree to have in a yard because the roots were not deep, but out of the ground. That made mowing hard. But I will take maple over pin oak any time.
    On a good surface, blowing is much more efficient than raking. .

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  9. One fall I discovered the Nobel prize winner for Chemistry and I had a lot in common. We were both graduates of UCLA and spent most of our autumns raking leaves!

    Our CT property was heavily wooded. I think I raked from October to March!

    I lost my car keys one year–of course, my husband was out to sea. I used his until four months later while raking leaves finally revealed when the snow melted, I discovered them! Who knows how many times we’d driven or walked over the keys, but there they were.

    The key ring is still working for me–safe in my purse this morning–34 years later!

    Liked by 5 people

  10. I don’t rake leaves or blow leaves, I leave them where they fall. In my opinion, they are an important part of the building of the soil and they provide winter protection to the roots when there is no snow. Boise and I may not get along. In fact, I bring in leaves from people who rake them up and bag them for the trash or whatever, and dump them in my yards and gardens.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. A friend of mine, Susan, has started doing a ministry to the homeless in Hartford with some other people. They put together “blessing bags” filled with various needs such as soap and toothpaste, and a bunch of other things, to hand out every couple weeks or so. She asked me if I would like to participate by providing scriptures on pieces of paper to be included in the 100 bags.

    I am happy to be able to contribute to this ministry in this tangible way, and grateful that she thought of me for this. My idea was to have one particular verse for all the bags, and then a different one next time.

    My question for you all is which scripture verses would you include if you were doing this?

    (For those who may be concerned, she has the blessing of her church. She is not naively going out on her own.)

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  13. Chas, I had maples in Nashville, four of them, and it wasn’t just the roots that were a nuisance. It was that they dropped branches constantly, especially if we got any wind, but even without it.

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  16. Roscuro here. It was suspenseful this morning, waiting in the tiny hamlet airport, anxiously watching the clouds slowly obscure the mountains in the half light as the falling snow increased. But the pilots of the northern airline are intrepid and they made the dangerous landing despite the poor visibility. If they can land, they can take off. I caught a last glimpse of the fjord before the clouds hid it from my view. Coming out above the clouds, I saw the sun for the first time in over a month. The first stage is over and now waiting in the territorial capital for the flight that will take me as far as the national capital.

    Liked by 8 people

  17. After a long, dark day of rain yesterday we woke up to our usual sunshine this morning. 🙂 I believe we got around 2 inches which for us is a good, healthy one-day rain. My Charlie Brown tree is practically grinning.

    I’m off to have lunch with a former co-worker today (from advertising but she lives in town; we ran into each other at the CVS a couple weeks ago and agreed to get together for lunch to catch up — her husband has been very ill and the prognosis is not good 😦 )

    Otherwise today, it’s back to the garage, this time with the step stool, to try to dig out more of my Christmas boxes and bags. I don’t need them all but would like to find the tree ornaments at least.

    I caught part of the National Lampoon Christmas movie last night, so many really funny parts in that movie. I’ll always love the squirrel that come flying out of the Christmas tree …

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  21. Glad they’re doing hygiene bags, Kizzie — the one message that’s gone out here from Skid Row mission workers and police officers who work with the homeless is that there’s almost always “too much” food, especially around the holidays. It’s the easy thing to give and apparently places where the homeless gather are overflowing with excess that isn’t even eaten.

    And the Scripture idea is a nice one, you’ll be a natural for that. Would you hand write them? Could be a fun arts-y project.

    Oh, Annie just knocked all the Christmas cards onto the floor. Lovely. She looks quite proud of herself.

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  24. Thanks for the reminder, AJ. I usually think of it, but somehow today it didn’t cross my mind.

    Before I learned that 12/7 was Pearl Harbor Day I learned that it was my boyhood friend Mike’s birthday. His mother was Japanese, and I believe his father was an American serviceman, so it’s kind of — what, funny? — that he was born on Pearl Harbor Day. That never occurred to me until today. (I don’t guess his father was a WWII vet, probably a bit younger than that.)

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  25. Thanks AJ. I didn’t remember that tit was Pearl Harbor day until a guy mentioned it at lunch. He asked if I remembered it. I was at the theater watching Gene Tierney in “Belle Star: and didn’t know until I got home. We listened to the radio for all the news.

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  26. I woke up in the night and couldn’t sleep. I could feel some small movement and then more. It felt like an earthquake faraway. But then I would feel more. Finally I got up and put some things by the front door, in case we got a large quake. Finally I got back to sleep.

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  29. Well, my father isn’t here, I’ve been waiting for an hour and a half, and my mother says he left five and a half hours ago. The drive should take four hours at the most and he doesn’t have a cell phone. Trying not to worry.

    Liked by 3 people

  31. Keep us posted, Roscuro. Prayers.

    My brother raked our yard today. Neither he or I have a leaf blower. We are quite old fashioned and the extra exercise keeps his diabetes controlled. I prefer the quiet raking sound to that blasting motor sound accompanied by all the allergens that the blowers kick up.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. DJ – My handwriting is pretty bad, so I will be doing them on the computer and printing them off. I will make them look nice in some way. (And since I have 100 of them to do, it will be easier on my hand to do them that way.)

    Susan left it up to me to determine how large, or small, the pieces of paper would be. I thought that little slips of paper could be easily lost or overlooked, so I am thinking of using a quarter of a sheet of paper for each one. Not too small and not too large.

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Art made it through pre-op today. Coincidental that Karen’s brother had kidney stone surgery today, too.

    Karen told me that the revised weather report shows snow in the forcast for Atlanta. It will be pretty as long as it is not substantial.

    Liked by 2 people

  34. Roscuro – Glad you found your father! That must have been quite a relief.

    Linda – Yes. Only those who throw themselves at Susan’s feet in deep repentance will receive a blessing bag. No bags for heathens. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

  35. The Boy is at basketball practice right now, but will be brought back by his dad in about half an hour or so. (Nightingale is working.)

    I have one of those fire-in-a-fireplace videos playing on Netflix on my TV. Pretty. (And it has the crackling sound of the fire, too.)

    (For anyone interested in finding this, search Yule Log on Netflix. There is more than one.)

    (Should that be there are more than one? But that doesn’t sound right.)

    Liked by 1 person

  36. oh, that is so hard to wait and not know after you have come so far. I have no idea who will pick me up this week. Not sure how busy everyone is and rather afraid to ask.
    Last year was the worst when no one was there.

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  37. Brings back memories of waiting in the Frankfort Germany airport. I had just flown over with three small children (ten months, two years, three years) and expected to be met by my husband. He was a couple hours late. Or two days or something. We waited and waited and waited and did not have a phone or a phone number to call. He showed up with no apologies. Turns out, he was on time, the plane was way early. We survived but I have not completely given up reminding him of the time….

    Liked by 4 people

  38. Not nearly as bad as the time I went to Houston Mumsee.
    Elvera asked when I would return. I looked at the travel voucher and told her.
    Thing is, I gave her the time I was leaving Houston.
    She was frantic when I finally got there. She called a colleague who was also a family friend. He assured here that everything is ok.
    True fact. If someone is traveling by plane, you know it if something happens to it.
    I, BTW, never made that mistake again.
    My practice then, was to copy my itinerary and give it to her.
    I think I told you this before.

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  39. I’ve been out of commission for several days, but thought I’d pop in to say that Ricky more than paid his bet. I was expecting a bit of beef from Texas, not half a cow! It’s enough to feed the entire clan for Christmas, which is exactly what I’m planning. It will be consumed with thanksgiving and much joy over both the Senate win and Ricky’s generosity. But more than anything, thankfulness for the fact that Dad is still with us after his stroke and is recuperating slowly but surely. Thanks for all prayers. We have needed them and still do.
    :–)

    Liked by 7 people

  40. I showed up in Chicago once when I was living there after a flight down to see my sister or some other relative in the South. As I recall I took public transportation to within a couple of miles of my house, having previously arranged to have someone from my house pick me up. (My first year out of college I rented a bedroom in a house that had as many as six people living there.) I was close enough to walk if I didn’t have luggage, but not with luggage. I stood outside as it snowed, wearing clothing suited for the South where I had just traveled from, waiting and waiting. Finally I called the house and someone came to get me, but I ended up getting a cold, and I think it was from 45 minutes or so standing out in weather I wasn’t dressed for. I’d just taken a plane flight, then the jostling of Chicago public transportation when I had luggage with me, and I just wanted to get home.

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  42. After lunch with my friend I headed over the bridge to LB to pick up a couple extra wreaths they had on sale for my front porch. Since I can’t find my outdoor lights in the garage, I’m having to improved a little bit on a dime … And sadly, I noticed that my lone front-door battery-lighted wreath on the front door was NO match to the National Lampoon lighting job my next-door neighbors have done on their house. Wow.

    After that, it was off to the mall for the Angel Tree gift cards, which were quicker to secure than I thought they’d be — and I found a set of three earrings for $9 to toss in as an ‘extra,’ per Michelle. Thanks for the thought.

    Now I need to get boxes for each of the gift cards that aren’t *too* small.

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  43. Amazingly clear skies today, and after yesterday’s storm even MORE snow visible on our mountains. 🙂

    In the other direction, Catalina looked ‘touchable.’

    And yesterday as the rain moved out, I saw a rainbow. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  44. We have several oak trees in our yard. They don’t drop all their leaves until January or later. I used to just mow them into mulch at previous homes, but there are way too many leaves to do that here, so I bought a blower. It takes about two hours to get the worst f them blown down to the street. I did it once in November to clear the walkway and drive, but there are more there now and the snow keeps coming. Oh, well. Those leaves aren’t going anywhere.

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  45. Oh, yes, the trip from Okinawa to Oakland. It was a standby flight so we did not know our schedule or where in California we would end up. Husband was in Kansas so it was just the four children and me (youngest was probably three or four, oldest probably nine or ten). Somebody took us to the airport and called Mike to let him know our plans. He called my aunt to let her know we were not going to LA but to Oakland where a cousin was to meet us and take us to her house. We arrived at the airport but she and her friend had gone to the ballet and we could not reach her. I had no idea if anybody was coming for us or not. We waited about six hours after the eighteen hour flight and I was exhausted to tears. Most things at the airport were closed so we just hung out. Painful. They came and got us and all was good.

    After a few days of recovering from jet lag, we took a plane or bus or something and got up to Idaho. From there, we took the van we had stored at a step brother’s barn and drove to Kansas to visit husband and grandparents, then drove back to Los Angeles. My aunt put us aboard a space A flight from Travis back to Okinawa.

    On the return to Okinawa, husband was still in school in Kansas, so the children and I flew back but I did not want any more mess ups so did not have anybody meet us at the airport. Instead, we took a taxi. But the taxi could not leave the base to take us to our housing area. We had to walk a mile or six hundred or something, pushing our suitcases down the sidewalk. In the rain.

    But that flight to the States was the best I had ever been on. It was a cargo plane and we all sat backwards with no windows. First time flying without getting air sick! But I was so tired. I do not envy Jo and her flight. This is why I am a strong nester with no desire to fyl anywhere ever again. Okay, some of why. I have other fun airplane stories.

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  47. I had one flight on which I was getting into Chicago later than I liked, 11:00 or so, and stupidly planned to work the next day, 8:00 a.m. I ended up having a delay in Las Vegas (not at all my favorite place in the world). Worse, I had no way to reach the people from my Bible study who had agreed to pick me up (and who themselves had to work the next day). And I realized that public transportation from the airport didn’t go anywhere near my home (I lived in the hood) and wouldn’t be safe that time of night, anyway. And a taxi would probably not take me to my home that time of night, and I probably didn’t have enough cash for a taxi.

    I called the friend in Arizona I’d been staying with the previous week, who had Alzheimer’s and might or might not understand the message well enough to pass it on, and asked her to call information to get the number for my friends in Chicago and to call them and tell them my plane would be late, no need to pick me up, and I figured I’d probably need to spend the rest of the night in the Chicago airport and then worry about taking public transportation to work or a taxi home. But no option sounded good.

    Two thirty or so I finally landed in Chicago, and my very sleepy friends were there to pick me up anyway. I have never felt more relieved to have my scheduled ride there. (This wasn’t O’Hare, but one doesn’t really want to fly into any Chicago airport in the wee hours.) I told them that I’d asked my friend to look them up and call them and the wife waved it off and said no, they said they’d get me. Whether my friend actually called them, I never found out. I didn’t really want to press at that time, I just wanted my own bed!

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