52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-7-19”

  2. You have to be REAL early in the central time zone to be first.]
    Except those on the West Coast can be late and be first.
    I just naturally get here first most times because that’s my routine.]

    One thing on my routine is to turn of FoxNews to see if something is going on in the world.
    They are discussing legalizing marijuana. That’s all I need to know.

    Anyhow: Good morning everyone.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Good morning from Atlanta. We are still unpacking and doing laundry. I will go with Art for a doctor’s appt. later today.

    I have still been enjoying reading Michelle’s book on my Paperwhite Kindle. I will soon be finished with it. The Kindle works best for my reading at the moment.

    Miss Bosley is grooming and sharpening her claws. The better to knead with, of course.

    I am trying to weed out my clothes again. It seems I need two different types of clothes, business for the office and sloppy chic for home. I need to work on a better merge of the two so I can get rid of a bunch. I picked up a new tank top and blouse at the Hilton Head Goodwill. My brother gave me a new sweater and sweater vest for Christmas. I had asked for no clothes for any of us, but old habits are hard to break, I guess. Is anyone else weeding out the old since you got new things for Christmas?

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  4. Hello from LA, being 4th isn’t bad.

    I have an early work assignment today — several of us are being sent out to LA schools for the “7 a.m. drop-off” time to try to talk to parents, teachers, administrators, anyone we can about their thoughts of a potential teacher strike. This is the first day everyone returns from winter break.

    And it’s raining, of course.

    I hate cold-call, in-person man-on-the-street interviews, though you usually turn up a few people who receive it well and will participate.

    Teachers have set a strike date for Jan. 10, this Thursday, but in the meantime both sides agreed to return to the bargaining table today. So I highly doubt there will be a strike. But we all have to act like there will be because if one does happen, it’ll mess up a whole lot of things.

    I received no clothes for Christmas but I did get a Lowe’s gift card, a book about dogs, a wall plaque, and another gizmo or two. 🙂

    Cowboy did better last night, he only paced a little and slept through most of the night on the dog bed next to me. I slept fitfully knowing I had to be up so early today.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. Glorious Morning!! We were blessed with the most amazing sunrise this morning and I sat in the family room to have my coffee and devotions…..the back of our property faces the sunrise and I didn’t want to miss one second of the orange beauty of that sky! And now the winds are howling swaying the tops of the pines to and fro….batten down the hatches!! 😊 💨
    I am off to take my neighbor out for coffee this morning. She has has trial after trial with her health and is facing yet another. I thought we should get out and have a nice break from it all so I shall pick her up in an hour and whisk her off for a diversion!

    Liked by 3 people

  9. I should weed out the old clothes, but no new ones for me lately. I tend to buy too many casual clothes like the five flannel shirts I have. And way too much blue. At least according to others, I have too much blue. 😉

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Kathaleena – I had to laugh when I realized that all my casual winter tops are different shades of dark pink to maroon, with one red and one black thrown in to mix it up a bit. My more dressy tops are different colors, though.

    DJ – Here in Connecticut, school starts again after the Christmas break on January 2, unless that falls on a weekend day, of course. The Boy would have loved another week off!

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Here’s something I posted on FB last night, but it’s made me wonder what the reading experience has been like for those of you who have read Poppy.

    You were with me every step of the way–enduring all those comments about WWI–since the day the idea was born almost exactly six years ago. What’s the experience like for you to watch something gestate and then launch into the world?

    I’m, of course, waiting and wondering about the next laser focused interest . . . LOL

    Today at church a friend reading Poppy stopped to tell me how much she was enjoying it. She then said, “But I’m so impressed by how much you know! How do you know all that information about WWI?”

    I didn’t know what to say. “Six years of reading, research, and writing.” Then I shrugged.

    Tonight I’m 70 pages into Daniel Mason’s fantastic WWI novel “The Winter Soldier,” reading sections about stamp collecting in the Carpathian Mountains in the dead of winter and shaking my head.
    “How would he have learned about things like this? Who gave a thought to stamp collecting during a war?”

    Lol.

    Perhaps we should just marvel at the things we stumble on, the research serendipity, that makes writing pure joy!

    Liked by 5 people

  14. You will all be sad to learn that you are not real Christians. According to a Facebook photo of the church sign at Riverside Baptist Church (probably one of those independent “Baptist” churches):

    “MAYBE GAY AND TRANS PEOPLE
    ARE GOD’S WAY OF TELLING
    BIGOTS AND TRUE CHRISTIANS APART”

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  15. Linda – Since I don’t have an e-book, Michelle actually printed out the whole book and sent it to me that way. The “real” book arrived recently, so I switched to that to finish reading. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Back to my comment about that church sign – It’s a shame that the pro-LGBT folks can’t see a difference between being a hateful bigot and the disagreement we have with the legitimacy of their claims, while still loving and caring for the people involved.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Kizzie, years and years ago a youth pastor said something wise to my sister and me that has often stuck with me in such issues: Don’t be surprised when unbelievers act like believers. There is also the reality that Christians often have done a poor job of loving unbelievers, so the actual accusation has some merit. And some have done very hateful things in Christ’s name and have made the news for doing so.

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Michelle, I did a good amount of research for my second book (and some for my first–it’s pretty much impossible to write a book without any research, but my second book had 100 books behind it and my first didn’t). But nonfiction books (as mine have been) obviously have research. One of the future books in my kids’ fiction series that I am writing will require a fair amount of research (I want to include a child with Down syndrome), but generally I personally cannot imagine doing that much research for fiction. I don’t mean at all “fiction isn’t important enough to do that kind of research,” but that my own brain can’t sort out how to research that sort of background and still make the book fiction. One or two aspects of the book, sure, but putting a book in a historical setting and researching everything is outside my skill set (or, really, my interest, though I’ve read a lot of books set in historical times, fiction and nonfiction both).

    I am currently editing a science fiction book (very well written and interesting). I complimented the way the author brought one scene to life (people falling through the air onto a new planet), and he told me he went sky-diving several times as “research.” 🙂

    (So, everyone, what kind of research can we dare Michelle to try next?)

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  19. I’m back from interviewing parents and teachers on the street in the driving rain. Fun. I was drenched, my notebook was drenched. I could barely read some of my notes.

    I took a few cell phone pics, they may or may not be usable, but this whole idea for the story was pulled together over the weekend (several of us are contributing) so photographers probably were sent to some of the other schools.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. I was early because when I opened my Kindle to read the Bible, it was already on the WV page from the weekend. Since the picture had changed I figured the new thread was up. I was surprised to see no one had posted.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. I’m working on a fun project that I hope turns out well.

    I buy vouchers to make photo books, with a few months in which to make one but prepaying at a fraction of the “usual” cost. (I’d never actually pay full price, and I doubt most people do.) This time, I bought two vouchers but wasn’t really sure what books I’d make. I’m already working on one book, but I can’t finish it till May, since I want to get warblers in it, and wood ducks and orioles if I can; the voucher expires in April, so it won’t work for that book.

    Anyway, I came up with the idea of an animal alphabet book for our granddaughter. I wrote the alphabet and thought through what animals I might have photographed that start with that letter. I have everything but U and X. (I’m glad my first good butterfly photo was a Queen! “Quail” is the only other Q I could think of.) Z obviously is Zebra–from the zoo, and I guess that is a Z too–and surprisingly, V and W both have several, vireo and vulture and viceroy butterfly, and warbler and waxwing and woodpecker. For the X, I can use a fox (it at least ends with X) and a dragonfly holding its wings in an X shape. For U, “unusual” something or other should work. (I even googled “animals starting with U / X” to prompt my thinking, in case there might be a creature I’ve forgotten but there isn’t one.)

    I’ve never really paid attention to alphabet books, so I suppose I should look at a few to see how large the text is, how many words per page, how the pictures interact with the text, and so forth. Right now I am thinking some letters will have a page and some will have a spread (the two pages that open side by side). Of the sizes and shapes available through this company, 8 x 8 seemed the best. I chose a font that looks the most like the letters as children learn to write them (the lowercase a was the trickiest, since most fonts add that extra curve above it). Now I just have to choose the photos and put it together–the hard part, but probably the fun part, too.

    I know she won’t be ready for it for a while; she’s into board books now. A lot of you have had more experience with preschoolers than I have. What age would be good to give such a book? Her mother is a librarian, so she will be taught to treat books well, and she is being read to already.

    Liked by 3 people

  26. Cheryl, I just caught up on the weekend thread and saw no response from any men to the pastor’s suggestion you posted not to touch another man’s wife or children, so I’ll give you mine. I felt pretty much the same as what I saw from the ladies who responded. The reference to another man’s “stuff” was weird at best.

    I don’t want anyone to get too familiar with my family members too quickly, but I certainly don’t mind if the huggie pastor we’ve had in our church nearly ten years hugs my wife (and she wouldn’t mind either) or our children. And I don’t feel either my family or my masculinity is threatened if someone shakes’ their hands. This was as true when our children were small as it is today.

    Liked by 2 people

  30. Miguel came through surgery well. He had a huge tear in his meniscus which he repaired.

    I paid $1.78 for regular in Alamogordo this morning.

    Liked by 5 people

  31. At least a dollar less in Greensboro.
    $2.15 a couple of days ago.

    I say anything under $3.00 is free gas. I remember in 1952 gasoline was about $.35.9 in SC.]
    I was working part time for $0.80/hr. That is a significant portion of your budget.

    Like

  33. When husband was in college in 1986/87 we paid 11 cents/litre. It was awesome. If you had a coupon, you would actually give gas to the next guy in order to use it. Coupons would get you down to 2 cents a litre. It was a great savings for a college student with a family.

    Liked by 1 person

  34. Michelle, we just paid $5.82. 😦

    (My husband said to say that to make you feel better about your prices, and I said actually it would probably scare you that prices are about to spike!) Actually, it’s about $2.10, which is down quite a bit in the last few weeks.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. I was at Sam’s Club today and gas was $1.81 a gallon….there were lines of cars waiting to fill up. As I drove further north towards home, Murphy’s was $1.88 a gallon.
    A neighbor spotted a bobcat roaming around here this afternoon….those squirrels are now hiding high in the trees I think! 🐿

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  37. Michelle, it was 2.07 at Hilton Head. I have not bought any in Atlanta lately.

    Cheryl, picture books work well for age two and up as long as a parent or someone looks at the book with the child and points out things to discuss with the child. Some people may not like alphabet books because they want children to learn the sounds of letters first or maybe feel the letters by using sandpaper letters or some other oversize letters depending on learning style. It seems like I remember Montessori (sp?) schools approached letters differently. Things may be quite different since I worked in preschool. We did letters with the three year old class basically concentrating on one or two letters per week.

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  41. Cheryl, 1:20 — would depend on the day and my mood 🙂

    Glad Miguel’s surgery went well.

    Almagordo, I remember a friend when I was in my teens used to go back there every summer with her family, her dad was Air Force?

    Liked by 1 person

  42. I love to hear Trey Gowdy: In response to a FoxNews question:
    I barely got into college, I couldn’t run one.
    I think he’s a Clemson man. USC law.

    Liked by 2 people

  45. Ah Chas we cannot claim Trey Gowdy as a Clemson alumni….he went to Baylor and then to USC for his doctorate….we can claim Nikki Haley however 😊
    I really like Trey Gowdy…he is passionate and a man of integrity…

    Liked by 1 person

  48. $1.95 where I live outside Ann Arbor. Probably $2-$2.10 in town. Michelle, I had serious sticker shock when we filled our rented van in CA last spring.

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  49. Michelle, he was trying to tell you it’s almost $6 a gallon here, so don’t feel so bad about your prices. But really it isn’t. It was close to $3 a couple of months ago, but it has crept slowly downward and is now $2.07-2.16 or so, depending on the station, according to the gas app.

    But everything is so close to us now, and yes it’s a Prius, so we’re only filling up about once a month. We filled up when we were north for Christmas (in our old town) and haven’t yet put any more in it, back home. Then again, my husband has been sick since before Christmas, and not going much of anywhere. (I’ve gone to church alone three weeks in a row.)

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