52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-20-19”

  1. Momentarily, I didn’t see the bird. Perched right there
    Every week has a Monday. So Get to it everyone but Jo.
    Good evening Jo .I hope your Monday was good.
    I don’t know why it doesn’t seem right. But It doesn’t.
    I’m up 15 minutes early for no reason at all.

    Anyhow: Have a happy day.

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  3. Morning, Chas.
    Is that the bluebird of happiness??
    Expect to hear tomorrow whether our principal will be going to the Director’s office to work or will remain with us. Good exercise in trusting Him.

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  5. I at first thought it looked like an indigo bunting.

    Yes, Chas. every week does have a Monday. But if we started the workweek on some other day, it would be the new Monday. So why give another day that issue?

    This is the last Monday of the school year. I went to the graduation yesterday for the first time in over 10 years. The superintendent/interim principal hinted that he wanted us there. Only about half the teachers were. I went because he is retiring as super but will continue as part time interim principal next year. Because it is rural Illinois it is very difficult to find principals.

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  6. Peter, it isn’t really the “Monday”, it’s the getting back that matters.
    If I remember correctly, all the teachers attended the graduation event.
    We had a pastor deliver the graduation speech which was evangelistic.
    That was allowed in those days.
    I think the topic was “Who’s your old man?” But I may have heard that somewhere else. A great topic for a HS graduation.
    Answer: “Whoever you make him. Ball’s in your court now.”

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  7. Good morning! I was at Publix a bit after 7 a.m. it’s become a habit. I am sure I have done it 21 times by now. I’ve heard people must do so.ething 21 times for it to become a habit. I think it may depend more on if it is something enjoyable or not and of course there are illegal drugs that can become a habit after a one time use.

    After church, we had a Communications team meeting. I gave input regarding our website. I think my suggestions will be implemented. Does your church have a website? The mobile version often does not translate well from the full classic big screen version. That was happening with ours.

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  8. Janice – I have heard something very similar – that to start a new good habit, you must keep at it for three weeks (21 days) straight, and then it will have become more of a real habit, part of your routine. Bad habits, of course, need less time. 😦

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  9. Yesterday I mentioned that in reply to my comment, YA had acknowledged that it is a minority of pro-lifers who fit her awful stereotype of them.

    But later, she clarified that she considers all “forced birth activists” to be bad, but considers some to be more “dangerous and cruel”.

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  10. Monday? Already?

    Sigh.

    Well, I’m up and have already messaged the editor about my day ahead (it’s 7:30 a.m. here). I have an obituary to write on one of our town’s beloved citizens, Matty, who died over the weekend at 94 years old. I wrote the obituary for his brother, Sam, some years ago. They’ve both been so much a part this seaside port’s history as have many others who made their mark.

    At 10 a.m. I have a phone call with United Way which is beginning to share w/media the embargoed homeless numbers for LA County from the January 2019 homeless count. They numbers will be officially released on May 31 but we’ll see if there is anything we can use before then. Otherwise, the info is embargoed and not available for publication until then. Either way, the advance info helps us with planning — signs are the numbers will be up, perhaps substantially, this year.

    And later today I want to sit in on a workshop that will discuss some community projects competing for port funding this year, including an idea for moving the Iowa battleship to the commercial fishing slip a bit further south in the harbor. A Navy museum is part of that proposal. And it’s all very expensive.

    Meanwhile, neighbor is calling out “Gambit! Gambit!” — meaning the puppy is on the loose as usual 🙂

    Yes, our church has a website. It’s become much classier through the years (as have all websites, of course). We’ve had one up for quite some time but the earlier versions were more basic, a simple text and pictures format; the current version is very sophisticated, I think, with some moving elements — but it’s still also user friendly and fairly easy to navigate.

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  11. Kizzie (10:44), haha. We maybe should have known that reaffirmation of the popular, broad brush stereotype was coming. 🙂 Those lazy/easy notions are just too easy for us to let go of (and they sadly exist on both sides).

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  12. Morning! I didn’t see the bird….after Chas mentioned a bird I had to scroll back up and lo and behold there it was! So pretty!
    It is a very foggy drizzly day here in the forest and the snow will begin to fall later on. I have brought in my flower pots and will hope for the best for my emerging peony plants along with the other fragile greens popping up…it is what it is…..but I shall find beauty in this ever changing season we oddly call Spring around here! 😊

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  13. Wind, cool (low 60s) temps and possible rain remain in our forecast for the week ahead. But the sun is out this morning.

    May can be shrouded and gray … or peppered with blistering hot weather around here.

    I prefer the cool gray version.

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  15. I see our crime log app has reported an “Assault with a bicycle” near the harbor. Oddly, this does not sound odd around here. 🙂 Right up there with the police report of a guy hitting another guy with a frozen fish.

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  16. I am loving the Grabber device! Thanks, again, Donna. I have been using it to get things that fall on the side of the washer beside the wall. Then I used it to retrieve things from an area that had not been cleaned out in awhile in case there were any spiders there. Then I used it to pull down a gutter guard screen that my brother had reattached that had lost a clip and was hanging down from one corner in an unsightly manner. It is so versatile! That is my free advertising for today.

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  17. A beautiful day here, sun is shining, clothes will be drying.

    Enjoying the last morning with sleeping grandson as he and dad found a flight this evening for under a thousand and snapped it up. That will get them home earlier than anticipated and dad will turn in his extra leave and put it to work Baby will be back in day care. And so it goes. We have had lots of fun.

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  20. Here in Connecticut, we are having heat and humidity today (currently 80*) with a cool front is coming in soon. You know what that means! (Well, I assume you know what that means.) Thunderstorms! (Nightingale and I love thunderstorms. 🙂 )

    I just hope it isn’t storming when I have to get The Boy from the bus, or when his dad picks him up about half an hour later. Nor when I have to walk up the lane again to get him when his dad drops him back off. Picky, aren’t I?

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  23. DJ, Facebook has a link to our local newspaper with the headline “Man swims into Susquehanna to fight State Troopers, police say.” I didn’t read the article, but the comments all ask why the Troopers were in the river in the first place.

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  24. It’s been nice seeing my adult children who don’t live at home. Last week we all (from our house, not 1st Arrow) went to 2nd Arrow’s and stayed for several hours. The weekend before that, 6th Arrow and I spent Friday afternoon, evening, night, and Saturday morning with 1st Arrow when 6th was competing in the state piano competition around his area.

    I had never been to either of their apartments, now I’ve seen both of their abodes in the last week and a half. Seeing them, of course, was even nicer than seeing their dwellings. 🙂

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  28. YA is really up in arms about these abortion bills. She insists that the people in favor of them want us to become like “Gilead”, the fictional name of a future U.S. in A Handmaid’s Tale. (For those unfamiliar with the book or the TV show, Wikipedia says: “The plot features a dystopian future following a Second American Civil War wherein a totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called “Handmaids”, into child-bearing servitude.” From the little I have seen about it, I think the “totalitarian society” is made to be like a strict Christian sect. )

    She also keeps sharing memes which refer, in one way or another, to women going to prison for having abortions, even though so far (and to my knowledge), none of the bills include prosecuting women.

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  29. Kizzie, it’s interesting also to see all the demonstrators donning Handmaid’s Tale outfits (the red nun-like dresses & hats as they’re depicted in the television series).

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  30. I love listening to thunderstorms…these snowstorms are so boringly quiet!! 😂
    Kizzie I have never read nor watched the Handmaid’s Tale but someone’s basing a fictional story/movie as reality is somewhat concerning to me. Are there some so immersed into fictional characters/stories that they are seeing this as their reality now?

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  31. Kizzie, you may be interested in this link: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-abortion-law/. Do not pay too much attention to YA. She is displaying attention seeking behaviour, using trending topics to generate responses. It has recently been suggested that seeking reactions and replies on FB can border on addiction, since getting a social media response stimulates centres in the brain associated with reward.

    Before the miniseries of The Handmaid’s Tale, it was just another dystopian novel, somewhat derivative in the concept of a post-apocalyptic Puritanical sect from The Chrysalids. Dystopian novels, and other depressing genres, are usually the purview of intellectuals – the masses preferring more cheering reading fare – but the masses, it seems, do not mind depressing television (something that is apparent when considering the unending tragedy of soap operas), so film and television production is a way to distribute the depressing literature to the wider public. See also, Game of Thrones.

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  32. I never read the book but have seen the TV production — my take on it is that it’s a glimpse into the “other” side’s fears about what would happen if a conservative Christian movement (remember the book was penned closer to the heyday of the “religious right’ being so active in politics) could somehow take over part of the U.S., creating a harshly male dominated society, subjection of women, but covered under a hazy (creepy) guise of ‘religious’ customs and language from the Bible.

    I’ve seen comments from non-believing friends social media saying the show simply isn’t that far from reality in terms of where they believe religious people want to take the country.

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  33. Another summary of the show (which has won numerous awards, btw):

    https://envelope.latimes.com/awards/titles/handmaids-tale/

    The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy that has overthrown the United States government. The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred.

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  34. NancyJill – I don’t think YA or others are confusing the show with reality, but using it as a convenient way of expressing their biased thoughts about Christianity in general and pro-lifers in particular, since many people are at least somewhat aware of the show/book.

    Thunder! Here it comes!

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  35. Hubby’s “maiden aunt” (his mother’s sister) was named Margaret (Peggy) Atwood, and she was an avid reader. But as a devout Catholic, I doubt she would have appreciated sharing a name with this author. (Peggy died on Hubby’s birthday in 1982, before the book came out.)

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  36. I read The Handmaiden’s Tale when it came out back in the Dark Ages and thought it over-the-top then.

    But, if you don’t know any reasonable pro-life people– and how would you if you think we’re all evil?– you could get carried away with the hyperbole. 😦

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  38. I remember one of the female photographers who was reading the book back in the ’80s telling me how frighteningly real it all struck her — as something she truly believed could happen if Christians “controlled” a government.

    My dogs are bad with thunder or fireworks. We get more of the latter.

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  39. But, if you don’t know any reasonable pro-life people– and how would you if you think we’re all evil?– you could get carried away with the hyperbole.

    My SIL’s husband (Mrs L’s BIL) is an uber-Liberal who knows us and MrS L’s other sister and her husbasnd, all of whom are reasonable pro-life people. Yet he constantly posts ultra Liberal memes and articles with the hyperbole typical of pro-abortionists, including the one mentioned yesterday about how we don’t follow Jesus’ teaching concerning the poor, etc.

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  41. That’s interesting how that link posted. It does go to the article I mentioned, though. The headline:

    “Anti-Abortion Laws Will Put Women in Jail
    We know because women are already being punished”

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  42. Our thunderstorm was a dud. There were two, maybe three, big claps of thunder, and some rain, but it was all over in a little over five minutes.

    But it is clouding up again, so maybe we’ll get another one. A girl can hope.

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  43. 6 Arrows, we saw both of our adult children on Mother’s Day weekend, and the younger one again yesterday (she drove down to pick up my mother-in-law and return her home after Mom’s visit down here). Older saughter and family even hosted us for dinner one night, and younger said we could see her apartment while we were in town . . . but picked up a work shift (conveniently?) and thus couldn’t do so. 🙂 She commented it was messy anyway, and our older daughter said, “Everyone in this room has lived with you!” (We know you aren’t tidy!)

    The visit with Mom was very good. But this morning I woke up before my husband (somewhat unusual) and noticing he was still asleep, I next thought, “Is Mom awake yet?” And then I realized she isn’t here, and is no longer my responsibility.

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  46. We have the same problem, Peter. After one terrible slap, I actually responded by asking, “is that how you really see me? Because if so, I have a lot of repenting to do.”

    He had the grace to write back, “Of course, not you.”

    Sigh. Years of minding my tongue and being kind destroyed by some pro-lifer with a nasty meme.

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  47. Living in Alabama is tough right now. You know we are backwoods, cousin and sibling interbreeding , uneducated dimwits.

    It takes 66 days to form a habit and KEEP it. Read the book The One Thing.

    Of course I didn’t read it because I only finished 5th or 6th grade before my parents pulled me
    Out of school and married me off to a double first cousin.

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  48. Kizzie, women in El Salvador are being jailed for miscarriages because of the way the law banning abortion is worded, criminalizing women as well as providers. One young woman, who became pregnant after her stepfather raped her, was charged with murder, even though the child survived: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46600886. A few years ago I talked about the necessity of being very careful with any legislation because it could be abused just that way. There are three things a law on abortion needs to include:
    1) Exceptions for the life of the mother
    2) Women who have abortions are not charged criminally – historically, abortion laws, such as Canada’s former law, only focused on the provider
    3) A clause mandating stricter punishments for rape (when Brock Turner’s assault, seen by two witnesses, receives a light sentence of six months in prison and three years less three months probation, the system needs reforming) and stripping men who father children by rape of parental rights – right now, in some states, rapists can claim paternal rights: https://www.foxnews.com/us/in-7-us-states-rape-victims-can-be-legally-forced-to-share-custody-of-their-children-with-their-rapist-fathers

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  49. Have mercy we have 8 inches of snow and it is still coming down….wet heavy tree branch buster snow. Interstate is closed from the Springs up to our neck of the woods…feeling bad for those stuck in their cars with no where to go…. 😞

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  51. I was a member of Book of the Month Club when Handmaid’s Tale came out so I read it way back then. I remember thinking it was a really different kind of story, but not much of it stuck with me as memorable.

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