42 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-14-19”

  1. Good chilly middle of January morning to you all, y’all!
    On my street the garbage cans are rolling to the street.
    I am giving Miss Bosley some cuddle time before we roll out to the office.
    It’s time to order supplies for the new tax season. I also will try to schedule cataract surgery. Sooner the better! Not being able to drive is a real bummer. But with all of our sufferings, it is a compassion building experience. God does not waste sufferings.

    Liked by 5 people

  2. Happy Birthday, Pauline!
    ❤🌺❤🌺❤🌺❤🌺❤
    May your joys be many and
    your disappointments be few
    for your new age/year. May
    this day bring delights and
    cheer beyond expectation.
    May blessing upon blessing
    fill you to the brim for you
    and your dear family all are
    your Father’s beloved.

    Liked by 4 people

  3. happy Birthday Pauline
    Good morning everyone else
    i was here an hour earlier, but the computer wasn’t working. I booted up ok, but it wouldn’t respond to the mouse clicks.
    I have a mouse attached to the electrical system in case the batteries go bad on my work-mouse.
    It didn’t work either. So I turned the computer off.
    Then I booted up again.
    It works.
    I don’t know how that happens.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Morning! And Happy Birthday Pauline!! 🎂
    I was here earlier but I confess I had my hot cup of coffee in hand…I didn’t want to set it down…..coffee down the hatch and now I have two free hands to type! ☕️ 😜
    Snow will be melting a bit today as our temps are to be in the 40’s…more snow to come on Friday!
    We have been discussing my having to sign up for Medicare…just reading the forms and instructions make my head hurt…why does government have to be so confusing?

    Liked by 3 people

  10. It was a miserable drive in to the office. Traffic was bad, and Art had taken his Lasix before leaving. Not wise.

    He was expecting a tax client before we got to the office. At least she was not waiting.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. A chicken is cooking in the crock pot for lunch. It’s good to have something healthy planned. I have some brocolli and cornbread to go with it. I have to be very intentional about everything since I can”t jump in the car and go pick up fast food.

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  12. Nancyjill, the hoopla about signing up for Medicare is scary, but it is an easy process. Be sure and look at the Advantage plans. You still will have to pay for Part B. You have to sign up for A and B to get the Advantage plan. Where we are, in Georgia, Aetna Advantage is the best plan. You have to make sure the doctor you want to use takes the plan (if that is important to you).

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  13. I thought I was doing okay until I discovered I had turned my crock pot from High to Off. Oops! Late lunch. Blame it on the cataracts.

    We’ve seen several good movies lately. Has anyone seen Marshall about Thurgood Marshall? Also saw Gravity, The Post, and The Man Who Invented Christmas. I found all these at our local library

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  15. Peter L, grandson is on Okinawa with his mom, we don’t anticipate meeting him anytime soon. Still have not met the one from this past summer, living in Virginia.

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  16. Last night I had a theological dream. Not sure I’ve ever had something like that. I was with a group of people, mostly white, somewhere outside. No idea whether they were people from church, or whether they were even people I knew. One woman near me was holding a black baby, and there may have been other people of color in the crowd, but the crowd was at least mostly white. We happened to be standing near a church, and it was a black church, and the service let out, and the members started walking among us to get to their cars or walk home or something. But they had their faces down, not looking at us, and I didn’t like that. It didn’t seem like it should be an awkward meet-up. It was a smallish group of members and they were nearly past us when I spoke to the last two, women, by saying, “He is risen!” I hoped to communicate that what matters is Christ, and I know that orthodox black churches do use that greeting. But the women looked up and one of them said no, He isn’t, and the other said something about the religious people who like the violent parts of the religion, and a couple of the men looked back and said something, too. And I thought whoa, clearly this is a liberal church, and indeed we aren’t in “unity” with them, but because of that.

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  17. I wonder what your subconscious is fretting about to have brought on that dream, Cheryl.

    This is the first day of the spring semester. I am happy to get started so I can get finished.

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  20. Happy Birthday Pauline!

    I was up and out early, interviewing teachers on picket lines at 2 separate schools, all of us drenched and my poor notebook a runny, inky mess. One pen “gave up the ghost” in the proper sense of the phrase, luckily I had a 2nd one in my jacket.

    We all had to ‘live’ tweet so we were taking photos and doing that as best we could. My notebooks now are mostly dried out after being home for an hour and shipping some regular copy off to an editor via email. But now i’m about to go back out in it to yet another school to see if I can get inside.

    Boots came in handy as I had to traverse a couple deep running gutter streams along the way.

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  21. Meanwhile, some totally out-of-left-field, inside baseball news about our company buying something yet again:

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  22. This morning, I finally got around to contacting the lady who runs our church’s clothing ministry. The thought of having to go through all of Hubby’s clothes in one clean sweep was so daunting, as he has clothes in two closets, as well as some in the attic, I think. He had way more clothes than I do. (I’ll be going through my own clothes, too.)

    She said it is okay if I go through them a little at a time, bringing in a bag every so often. They are also collecting shoes and other accessories, which is great.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Kizzie, can someone help go through it all? Doing it quickly might be easier, just get it over with and out. Otherwise, seems like it just hangs over you … ?

    ____________________________________
    From WSJ (we being the prospective buyer here, even though it’s been said we’re so broke we had to cut staff to the bone along with pay in the past decade, go figure):

    A hedge-fund-backed media group known for buying up struggling local papers and cutting costs has made an offer for USA Today publisher Gannett Co. GCI +19.79%

    MNG Enterprises Inc., one of the largest newspaper chains in the country, has quietly built a 7.5% position in Gannett’s stock and is urging the McLean, Va., publisher to review its strategic alternatives, including a potential sale. It also is calling on Gannett to commit to a moratorium on digital investments.

    On Monday, MNG, better known as Digital First Media, said it was offering $12 a share for Gannett, a 23% premium over Friday’s closing price of $9.75. The shares, which fell steeply last year, have been rising lately. The Wall Street Journal first reported Digital First’s plans on Sunday.

    In a letter to Gannett’s board, MNG said the team leading Gannett hasn’t demonstrated that it is capable of effectively running the company, citing how it has lost 41% of its value since its debut as a public company two and a half years ago.

    Closely held Digital First is known for its contentious history with the newspaper industry in part because of its penchant for slashing costs. It said it has over the past few years made multiple approaches to Gannett about a deal but has been rebuffed.

    It isn’t clear whether Gannett will be receptive now. On Monday, Gannett said its board would review the proposal to determine the course of action that is in the best interest of the company and shareholders.

    In addition to publishing USA Today, one of the top-selling papers in the country, Gannett owns and operates dozens of other publications such as the Arizona Republic, the Record in North Jersey and the Naples Daily News in Florida. Its shares have tumbled in recent years and dropped roughly 15% in the past 12 months, leaving the company with a market value of about $1.1 billion. …
    ___________________________

    Unfortunately, some of our people fled to the statewide paper in Tennessee to escape us — they might now be swept in again under our ownership. Oy.

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  25. For Sunday school time we are doing a study using the Ravi Zacharias book, Jesus Among Se ular Gods, which is excellent. Something about that drea, Cheryl, reminded me some of our discussion about how many pick and choose what they will believe.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. Yep, that’s our take, Peter

    From the NYT:

    Hedge Fund Called ‘Destroyer of Newspapers’ Bids for USA Today Owner Gannett
    ___________________________

    A New York hedge fund known for gutting newsrooms is backing a hostile takeover bid for Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and 100 other newspapers. The unsolicited offer, worth over $1.3 billion, would create the largest newspaper company in the United States and further consolidate a struggling industry.

    In an open letter to the Gannett board, MNG Enterprises, which is owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, offered on Monday to pay $12 cash per Gannett share, a 23 percent premium on the company’s closing price on Friday. Gannett shares were trading about 19 percent higher around midday.

    MNG said in its letter that Gannett, which owns The Detroit Free Press, The Tennessean in Nashville and other newspapers in nearly three dozen states, had “suffered from a series of value-destroying decisions made by an unfocused leadership team.”

    Operating under the name Digital First Media, MNG owns around 200 publications, including The Denver Post and The San Jose Mercury News in California. It said it was Gannett’s largest shareholder, with a 7.5 percent stake.

    Critics have described Alden as a “destroyer of newspapers” that is prone to “savage” layoffs and as “one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.”

    … After it made deep cuts to The Denver Post newsroom, staff members openly revolted last year. The paper, which has won nine Pulitzer Prizes, published a series of articles critical of its owner. The lead editorial that accompanied the articles labeled Alden executives “vulture capitalists,” and called for action. …

    … When word of Alden’s potential pursuit of Gannett began to spread after a report by The Wall Street Journal Sunday night, journalists used Twitter to denounce the possibility.

    ”Dear @Gannett: I’ve worked for you for 11 years,” Brett Kelman, a Tennessean reporter, wrote. “We do important journalism in many great communities that depend on us. Through thick and thin, I have loved this job. Please don’t sell to these hedge-fund vampires.”

    Others said it was a terrible development.

    “Digital First is the worst owner of newspapers in America and they will do their best to draw blood from even Gannett’s already desiccated stone,” wrote Joshua Benton, the director of Nieman Journalism Lab. …
    ___________________________

    Well, on it goes. We’re all just caught in the web.

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  30. I found Medicare signup very confusing, personally — but I also was trying to get through it while right in the middle of a lot of the house stuff and ongoing layoffs at work. Stressful.

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  31. Kizzie, you might want to pick a few things to keep of hubby’s. Do that first. Just something you saw him wear often. When my dad died, he had several polo shirts that he wore all the time. I took them home, and, later, my son wore them. They were rather worn, but both of us liked seeing him wear something of grampas.

    Liked by 3 people

  32. We are going to call my brother in law…who is turning 65 in September and is a CPA…and then our nephew who handles my other brother in laws Medicare details…it just makes my head hurt!
    Kizzie you may want to keep out a favorite shirt worn by Lee. There is a lady in the Springs who takes a shirt of a loved one and makes a teddy bear from it….how I wish I had an old shirt of my Dad’s to do this with…I find it would be so comforting…but perhaps not everyone would think so….just a thought….

    Liked by 1 person

  33. More teacher interviews in the rain at yet a 3rd school, but nothing much new, I think everything that could be said by the teachers was said this morning.

    Not sure what the coverage plan for tomorrow is yet but sounds like the governor and mayor are busy trying to get this thing resolved asap

    Liked by 1 person

  35. My cousin from northern California helped with my mom’s clothes, I really couldn’t deal with it right away (her death was very unexpected) but we needed to clear the house out to rent. Cousin came down as her mom, my aunt and my mom’s sister, was living with my mom at the time and needed to be transitioned up where they were.

    I guess I can see keeping something though I didn’t feel I needed to do that (maybe with a spouse it is different; I do still have a short velvet jacket she’d given me when I was in my 20s and the style came back around again, she’d worn it I guess probably in the 1940s/50s).

    But for me, it felt very good to have the clothing aspect dealt with quite quickly and largely by others. It felt like a big, early hurdle had been cleared and provided some relief going forward with all the rest of the stuff in the house & garage that mostly wasn’t as personal or emotional.

    Liked by 1 person

  36. Interestingly, though, I do remember my mom keeping my dad’s clothing around for a while after he died (they shared a small bedroom closet, people didn’t have that many clothes back then). But I think it probably went out sometime within that first year?

    I don’t remember her ever saying anything about it.

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  37. Yes, I am definitely going to keep a few items, maybe a couple things that The Boy might wear someday. One thing in particular I am keeping is a soft red fleece thingie he wore when he was cold at home. He wore it a lot during the winter. I was thinking of maybe making a pillow out of it.

    The reason I have been thinking of going through it all by myself is that Nightingale has so much on her plate, I don’t want to add to her busyness and stress. I will ask her if she would prefer to help, though.

    I guess I will ask Chickadee if she wants to help, but I doubt she will, and I don’t want to push it.

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  38. Why do you need to go through it? Perhaps just bag things up and move them along. You are not getting rid of him, just his stuff. That, of course, is not meant in a harsh way at all. Rather than going through each item and reliving the memories, pack it up and move it on. The red fleece seems like the ideal keeper. Grandson will probably not have any great feeling towards the clothes, but if you made him a pillow or a bear or some such out of it, it could be a comforting reminder

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  39. I’m kind of with mumsee on this. Agreed the fleece should be kept, so nice that you already know the thing you’d definitely like to keep. If there’s something else that comes to mind, keep it, too. But as for the rest, it seems easier to me to have someone else with or without you just quickly take care of it in pretty much one fell swoop. Maybe it doesn’t need to be that emotional of a task?

    Then maybe make some fresh plans for how that closet space can be newly used, maybe do some painting in there and set up craft or arts or toy boxes and/or storage cubbies for other fun things — scarves, gloves, decorations …

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  40. When I say “go through” them, I mean taking them out of the closets, checking the pockets, and making sure they are in the right kind of shape to donate. Some of the clothes he wore while working (under or over his uniform) have some fraying on the cuffs, for instance. It probably won’t take as long I have been thinking. (I hope.)

    As for tonight, I am off to bed in a few moments, a tad earlier than usual. See y’all tomorrow.

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  41. Kizzie, this is where a couple of people who offered to help “let us know if we can help some way” would come in handy. Tell them that now you need some help. They can go through the pockets and toss things without the emotional investment that makes us hold onto everything. Sounds like you have a good plan.

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