37 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-9-19”

  3. That photo is an example of how lighting is everything. The early-morning sun was hitting the trees and made the scene pretty, but it would have been pretty flat otherwise.

    Those shrubs at the bottom stayed green and leafy for most of December, and so they were an excellent place to find birds of multiple species hanging out. I don’t remember what date I took this photo, but it was a December shot, I think.

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  4. Good morning! The header reminds me of our travels homeward from Hilton Head. We got up at 4 a.m. to get packed up and out before sunrise. We go to see first light on the highway. At one point I looked to the side of the road and saw a stand of evergreen pines which had a reddish hue on them from the lighting. It was beautiful.

    A cold wind is blowing this a.m. Last night we went to one of our favorite places for dinner, Downwind Restaurant, by the Peachtree Dekalb Airport runways. We asked to be seated outside since it was in the sixties yesterday and we had on our jackets. We were the only diners outside and they did not have on any extra lighting. I took my seat and suddenly felt a cold wetness. The seat had leftover rainwater in it I had not seen! I warned the others who tipped their chairs before sitting. Other than that it was lovely. Art and Wesley were pointing out constellations. I told Wesley about how the search/beacon light that revolves at that airport would shine into the (treehouse wannabe) house on stilts my dad built that my friend and I occasionally camped out in. And I thought about what my dad would think of us dining out there on the property where my dad had worked for a number of years while in the Navy.

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  5. I found an oversize coffee table anniversary book on Dr. Who at the library. Art has been devouring it. For those interested in such things, you might want to see if your library has it.

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  6. Morning! That photo does appear to be taken in the autumn….I’m waiting for spring…but we do need more winter! We are supposed to get a teaser of snow on Friday….we need a blizzard!
    We drove into town for our Bible Study last night and enjoyed sweet fellowship….
    I just don’t get Dr Who…it must be an acquired taste 😊

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  8. For those interested in the picture book I am making for my granddaughter, here is a link to it. I was playing with fonts opposite the A page, and they still show up on the link, I think, although I have deleted them. I have a couple of questions for anyone who is willing to look it over. Well, four questions.

    I have tried where possible to use photos that include an entire animal and to keep the photos as “simple” as possible. I started to use a waxwing with a berry, for instance, but traded for a photo with two waxwings side by side, since the second photo has fewer elements in it and is more focused on the birds themselves. I also included a few action shots, and a few baby animals. And I put the specific species name in tiny type below each photo so that parents can answer questions about “What animal is that, Mommy?”

    https://www.picaboo.com/share/?share=278fa54055a4e44ada4526a3c29c7481&version=864729&utm_source=trg&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=shareproj

    1. On the B page, I have two different versions of a “large letter” for that page. Would you vote for (a) the letter block (note that the block is actually a background, so I cannot move the letter on the page, although they have letters as A and B together or just as A, so I sometimes have a choice of two places; and I also cannot change the background color if I use the blocks); (b) the chalkboard letters (since I am putting these on here as a “photo” and cropping to the specific letter, I can change the size and location of these letters, if I use them); (c) skip the large letter completely.

    2. Some of the letters have one page, and some have a spread (two facing pages). Would it be better to have all of them (other than A and Z) have their own spreads? I only have one photo for Q; the Queen butterfly was taken in a butterfly exhibit with a film camera, and I have no photos of Quail. So if I make Q a spread, it will only have one photo on it, and I can’t blow up that photo to the full page size and have it still sharp. But that’s OK; I can still make Q work if it is better to have a spread for each letter. Right now I think a few pages look crowded (like the cardinals), and so spreads might look better. But having some letters have two per page makes fewer pages to turn, if that matters.

    3. What “doesn’t work” in the current form? (Also note if there is something I really have to keep even if I make changes, for example the full alphabet on the last page.) What suggestions do you have?

    4. Currently I have the title as (a) “My Animal ABC Book from Grandma.” Other options: (b) “Child’s Name Animal ABC Book” (c) Grandma’s Animal ABC Book” or (d) your suggestion.

    Thanks to anyone willing to give input!

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  10. There was a shooting (family dispute) last night near the beach and our poor cop reporter (one of only 2 for our area) had to write something up. He also had been called out at 3 a.m. Saturday to cover the shooting at a bowling alley in our area. He’s barely paid much more than minimum wage.

    We’re just going to burn these people out — they’re young but our lack of staff and money with which to pay them is going to result in a revolving door as people leave for something the pays a decent wage and provides fair overtime payment.

    There’s a telephone conference call today regarding plans for the teacher strike which, for now, appear to be on track to happen as early as tomorrow.

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  11. Sounds like the old days of journalism when interns would do anything to put their foot in the door. Of course, they will be off to find more pay whenever they can.

    Cheryl, I find the book beautiful and informative. I like the block letters. At first I leaned towards the chalk letters, but the block feels more in tune with the pictures. I don’t think you have to have all two pages or one page. Most alphabet books seem to mix and match those options. I would be more inclined to make the book title as you have it, rather than specifying a name. If you specify a name, you may feel you need to do another for each grandchild. After having ten, I can tell you that can be a challenge sometimes. I don’t believe I have ever seen a lady bug larva before. 🙂

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  12. Yes, the book looks very nice. It’ll be a special gift that’s kept and handed down. 🙂

    We once had a night reporter or two who could handle those evening shifts at least. This guy worked all day yesterday. I just felt for him having to basically be on call for any and everything during his “off” hours.

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  16. A very sweet book Cheryl. Although I was expecting to see D for dog….do you have a sweet photo of Misten to say D is also for dog? Sharing that sweet season of life with your granddaughter would be so special. I love looking at photos of my Mom with her little puppies when she was a wee one. She will sit and talk for the longest time sharing about her love of her puppies….

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  17. Miguel also liked the book.

    I cut 1/2 of my beef yesterday before I managed to tweak the blade on the saw so it would not work. Could I find the box with 4 new blades? Oh no, but I did find my debit card and ordered new ones that will be here by the end of the week. I also managed to bind up the grinder, twice; something that I have never done before. The meat is wrapped and in the freezer. I was happy that I had rearranged everything yesterday to make room. After doing up the deer, hogs, and turkeys, things were in there sort of willy nilly. I have moved quite a bit of meat out of the freezers as gifts to family at Christmas.

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  18. My birthday is coming up on Sunday, when Nightingale will be in the midst of working nine shifts in seven days, so we are going to get together with Chickadee for pizza and cake on the following Saturday.

    In the meantime, though, Nightingale wants to treat us to pedicures at a salon this Saturday morning (she’ll be working 2nd shift that day). She invited Chickadee to join us, but she declined. As Nightingale texted me, “She said no and then stopped responding in typical [Chickadee] fashion.” 😦

    It doesn’t surprise me that Chickadee doesn’t want to do that. But it makes me sad that there is now some tension between my daughters again.

    For those of you who have two or more daughters, what kind of relationships do your daughters have with each other? In the case of three daughters, is one on the outside while two are close? (I know a family like that.)

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  20. I did think of including dog and horse, both of those being animals that children like. But I limited it to wild animals (although three–zebra, lion, and peacock–are from the zoo; there’s simply no way to get to Z without using the Zoo).

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  22. The photo above is a bird everyone will recognize, mallards on the pond near my home. The female stood up to stretch her wings, and I quickly made sure I got her. There were half a dozen mallards, and they were quite active, chasing each other and overall rambunctious. But a hawk flew into a nearby tree, and I did the mental thing of “Should I keep taking photos of the ‘boring’ animal doing something interesting, or switch to the species I have rarely photographed that is just sitting in a tree?” (It was a red-shouldered or broad-winged hawk.) I switched to the hawk and didn’t get any good photos of it, so that time I think I made the wrong choice.

    A couple of weeks ago I called my sister’s oldest son (now 20) to wish him happy birthday. My husband was home napping, so rather than talk at home and risk waking him (since the family room isn’t set up yet, and the rest of the house is all close to the bedroom), I decided to talk to my nephew while I took a walk. I ended up down at the pond, and I told him I was down there, but all we had on it that day were half a dozen mallards.

    But it’s really all a matter of perspective. He grew excited at the word “mallards.” He asked, “Do you have wild mallards? I’ve only seen wild mallards once.” His mom and I grew up feeding “wild” mallards in the local park, so to me they are beautiful birds but everyday birds–nothing exciting to see here, move along!

    I did find it interesting in taking the series of shots of the female stretching her wings, to see that the underside of her wing is white. It’s possible it was just the lighting, but I don’t think so, since all the photos in two different such sequences have white underwings. Also, I hadn’t realized until the last couple of months (in which I have had lots of chances to take photos of mallards) that the blue on the wing usually is hidden. And in looking at photos of ducks in my bird books, it looks like most species of American ducks have a blue patch on the wing. (But most of the bird-book photos don’t show the blue unless the bird is in flight.)

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  24. One of my friends married a bit late in life, around age 40, and wasn’t sure if she would be able to have a baby. She ended up bearing one child, due around her 44th birthday, and she hoped he would be born that day and have a 10-10-10 birthday. He was born two or three days later instead.

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  25. Which is why we fill out four digits on our years. Jo got a kick out of pointing out her birthdate to the EMTs who took her to the ER in the fall: “Note the year. That’s 1918. I’m 100 years old!”

    🙂

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  26. The day I wrote my first nursing license exam was 9-9-9. It will, Lord willing, be just under ten years later when I write my second licensing exam. Just need to survive this semester.

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  27. Kizzie, I don’t have daughters, but I am from a family of four daughters, with no sons. In my experience, divisions between sisters raised happen due to circumstances. When we were young, there did tend to be divisions, but those divisions varied according to the scenario. For example, Youngest was over three years younger than I, and we three older ones often felt, in our mighty wisdom, that her discipline was lax, and she got away with things we would not have at the same age; however, when it came to play, when Youngest was old enough to participate in our games, Eldest was no longer interested in such games, so it was the three younger ones who mostly played together. Then, as Second joined Eldest in being ‘too old’, the division was two older and two younger. As I grew up, I found there were different times when one or the other of my siblings simply drove me crazy, and we would seem to clash at every encounter. In my early teens, it was Youngest who annoyed me, in my late teens, it was Second who was annoying, while Youngest and I got along very well. Our divisions were not seriously damaging to our underlying lover for each other, but our fights could be spectacular (we only used words as weapons, but we wielded them forcefully) while they lasted.

    Eldest got married when Youngest was only thirteen, and she had been courted by her future husband for three years prior, so Youngest was not yet out of childhood when Eldest entered adulthood. For the next eleven years, we three younger ones spent our youth together. Eldest grew a little away from us, as she had her first child a year after her marriage and she has lived in the U.S. for most of her married life. I know Eldest loves her siblings dearly, but I spend more time talking to her children than I do to her, and that is not deliberate – she and I just cannot seem to sustain a long conversation, although we see eye-to-eye in most things (she and I are the most reserved of the siblings, so that may be one of the reasons we don’t talk very long).

    Youngest was the next to get married, and, sadly, due to her spouse’s indulgence in conspiracy theories and the fact Youngest has not shaken off some of the more damaging teachings acquired from ATI about what submission looks like, there are so many topics that are off limits for discussion between us, so that the atmosphere when we visit is strained. We love each other dearly, but she views it as her duty to support her husband in his opinions and I have no use for his opinions. I keep my tongue in check in order to maintain the relationship lines for Youngest and her children’s sake, but even the short time I saw them when I was home over Christmas increased my concern.

    Second and I are probably the closest right now. We share living space and a potential future responsibility for our parents (in their will). I get along well with her spouse. There is some inevitable friction in a few little things, but she communicates with me the most out of all my siblings.

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  28. When you’re working really hard and everything about your life is complicated, perhaps there comes a time where you’d just like one relationship to be simple. That would be my guess. A simple “sure,” would be most welcome rather than heavy discussions and arguments.

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  29. Youngest and Second both still like to have long conversations. They are both highly intelligent women who desire to understand the world around them, and want to talk about their understanding. The difference between them is that Second feels that she free to hold differing opinions from her husband and to challenge him on them, while Youngest does not.

    Growing up, there was a perception, not bred by our parents but by ourselves, between we four siblings that Eldest and I, who both had photographic memories, were the intellectuals, while Second and Youngest were the practical ones. Second actually delayed taking her GED until several years after I had taken the GED, because she doubted whether she could pass it (she not only passed, but she did better than I in math). Second began taking more and more education, and was well on her way to getting an accounting degree, but having children was more important to her, so she put that part of her life on hold, although she continues to use her skills in the area of business to assist her spouse in trying to start a business.

    Youngest took her GED at the same time as Second. She passed, but I think the fact that she didn’t get high marks like the rest of us made her think academics were beyond her. But she is second to none when it comes to cooking, decorating, flower arranging, etc. – her skills in the areas of service and hospitality never cease to amaze me, and they seem like second nature to her. Although she had concluded academic pursuits were not her strong point, before Youngest married, she read widely and deeply about WWII and the Holocaust, wanting to understand what happened. Her first year of marriage, I was away in West Africa. When I returned home, one of the things she told me about her marriage was how much more intelligent and academic her spouse was than her. Her spouse holds a degree in criminology, but he chose not to pursue a career using his degree, although the opportunity was available. To my knowledge, Youngest’s spouse had not really thought about the Holocaust until he learned of her interest. In retrospect, it is extremely creepy that he not only decided to master the topic that his wife had already mastered, but that in his mastery, he decided to believe the lies of those who denied the Holocaust, and then slowly persuaded his wife that he was right and she was wrong. When I say the atmosphere is strained, I don’t mean that I am forcing any topic of discussion, I mean I am terrified that the results of a serious discussion of certain topics could lead to him forbidding me to visit freely with his wife and family.

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  31. Roscuro, I am really sorry the relationship has come to that point–sorry especially for her. My sister has probably indirectly absorbed Gothard–many of the positions of people around her sound very much like him, and she will either tolerate the position for a while or she still believes it. Throw in too much following of Debi Pearl, R. C. Sproul Jr., Doug Wilson, etc., and I take a lot of what she says with a teaspoon or more of salt.

    But my sister also espoused the “what my husband says must also be my belief” argument. When I was single (we overlapped in marriage less than two years), I would be discussing some belief with her, not necessarily even trying to convince her of anything, and suddenly she would tell me that her husband believes that and I would be wrong to try to convince her otherwise, because she is duty bound to believe as he does. Yet I know (in this case) that he wasn’t teaching her that. I ended up telling her that if she only “believes” something because her husband does, it isn’t a belief at all. To take a trivial example, if she is post-mill because her husband is, and becomes a-mill because he studies and changes his mind, then the reality is she has no belief at all. “Me too” is not belief. I don’t think it matters if she holds a specific position on end times, and it’s quite OK if she says she doesn’t really have one. Don’t tell me “This is his position, and thus it’s mine too.” Tell me “This is his position, and I don’t really have one, so talk to him if you want to discuss it.”

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  34. Roscuro – Thanks for your input. I forgot to include any of us women with sisters. (Sadly, I never had a sister, but always wanted one.)

    Nightingale and Chickadee do love each other, and tell each other so (at least at the end of each visit), but their personalities and temperaments are so very different. I am hoping and praying that as they mature, they will each learn to accept their differences more, and give each other a little more grace.

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  35. I have 3 daughters and there is/was conflict between them. We can all get together and no harsh words are spoken. The younger two are the closest right now. A couple of years ago, it was youngest and oldest that were close. I think it has more to do with lifestyle and seasons of life. Middle does her own thing most of the time with her 5 children and boyfriend. Youngest has recently, within the last 2 years, become a parent of 13 and 14 year old boys, and then the baby girl they got last summer. She and middle have more in common now, and does not have time to go “out”, like oldest likes to do. Oldest has lots of opinions about what middle does, but does not pursue a real relationship with her.

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  36. Kizzie I am the middle girl of three. Oldest and youngest do not get along…they clash in personality and I stay out of it. I love my sisters but none of us are close. It is what it is….

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