Good night Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
Pumpkins and flowers in the same picture. You don’t se that often.
It’s cold and rainy in Greensboro.
Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Got a glimpse of the full moon on my way home from my fellowship group, lovely. Our rain here never lasts for long, but it does make it feel like Fall.
This morning is a photographer’s dream (except for the 12 degrees Fahrenheit part, anyway).
Yesterday evening we got our first snowfall of the year. I got some shots, and even some very pretty ones, but it was snowing late in the day and of course it usually snows when it’s cloudy anyway, so my shots hint of a lovely fall scene but don’t really show the colors well. Yes, colors: we probably still have 30 to 40% of our leaves on the trees, and that includes nearly all the leaves on two exquisite maples next to the condo behind ours. The ground around the trees is littered with red and orange leaves (now covered with snow), but mostly those are from the third tree, and these two still have well over half their leaves, maybe more than 80%. This morning I was out early for me, around sunrise (7:25 is the official sunrise time today) . . . but the sky wasn’t blue yet and the color wasn’t as good as it could be. An hour later I could tell that we were in the morning golden hour (aka magic hour–the best time of the day to photograph, an hour or so after sunrise and an hour or so before sunset), so I bundled up again and went out and got lots more photos.
Yesterday I bought new sneakers. This morning they got to crunch on icy snow in the low teens, and they decided they want a refund. 🙂 Actually I would have been nervous about going out in my old sneakers with all the tread worn away (and Michelle could testify I didn’t feel sure-footed in my second pair, which really just aren’t walking shoes), but this pair served me very well on footing that is far from my favorite.
Morning! A lovely photo of fall up there…our pumpkins and mums froze long ago and are not but a distant memory. The ground is covered in snow but after temps in the 50’s today it too will be gone for the most part.
I love the scent of the cold wet pines but oh how I miss the described autumn of the Midwest. Those maple leaves crunching beneath my footsteps and the heady scent of the decaying yet lovely leaves upon the ground…just nothing like it….thanks for painting a lovely picture in my long ago memory Cheryl. 😊 His creation is good!
Michelle, I’m glad too. Ice underfoot is no joke, so I prefer to walk on snow. But roads and sidewalks inevitably get a bit icy in these conditions (rain, then snow, then sub-freezing temps for several hours).
But years and years ago in Chicago (when I didn’t really have a great camera) I got some photos of trees that still had leaves and got a dusting of snow, and I found it really beautiful. Last year we still had some pretty leaves on the ground when we got a dusting of snow, and I got some photos of them. But this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a chance at autumn-hued leaves still on the trees during a snowfall of a couple of inches. I have been outside to get photos (of the same few scenes) three times already. (I was able to choose the photography theme of one of my Flickr groups this week–some of the groups post challenges and you can only put up photos you took the week of the challenge–and I chose taking two photos of the same spot at different times of the day. So I’m getting the snow-covered trees in different lighting–and as some of the snow on the leaves is beginning to fall off or melt and freeze into icicles–to post the changes.)
Below zero here. Way too early, IMO. No one but the ski resorts, who can make snow early now, are really happy with this unusually cold weather. We need more snow for insulation.
We have had snow on the ground for nearly a week, and no sign of it leaving anytime soon. Sooner than I really wanted to start winter driving, but I have had my snow tires on for a while and they seem to work well.
Flowers and pumpkins side by side are a common sight here outside the markets. It’s 60 degrees going up to 74 today, cloudy. No rain in the forecast yet, however. How long will it take?
I have a news conference to watch live from wash dc this morning, the port’s unveiling of a new tariff study. I wrote the story yesterday (embargoed until today) but will no doubt be adding to it out of the news conference and with probably some more reaction afterward.
I was going to use the work & home laptops for this (watch on one, type on the otter), but it looks like I must have left my work power cord at the office the other night when I had to cover the city council meeting. So I may be heading in later to get that, although my office mate is back from Mexico so I’ve emailed her to see if she can see it and keep it safe. Hopefully it hasn’t vanished.
Well, typing on an otter would be a reporting trick even I haven’t ever mastered. And I’m not sure what the point of that would even be. Otters are very cute so it would probably only be a distraction.
Our leaves have been down for at least a week or more, except for some on some hearty oaks. But even our beautiful oak out back has lost most of its leaves. 😦
Yesterday we had an unexpected almost spring day, with the temperature getting up to 61. It is currently 36, and going down, with some snow expected, but not much.
From an earlier (2013) FB post shared by Karen and me:
“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace… Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they have earned God’s blessing through their behavior. Guilt-laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited God’s blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience. Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and have slipped into a performance relationship with God.” – Jerry Bridges
Cheryl, thanks for the mental health link, I read it last night before turning out the lights.
There has been so much misinformation about how and why so many of the hospitals closed and we shifted to largely an out-patient care model. This added a new wrinkle to all of that.
From what I’ve understood, the system’s de-centralization was an outgrowth of a couple of factors, one of them, though, being abuses within the hospitals (not all, of course); civil rights concerns (when is it OK to lock people away and who actually decides that?); and the rise of much better medications that helped so many patients become better functioning, giving them an opportunity to live more “normal” lives with jobs, apartments, etc.
It’s an issue that’s often politicized in circles here — “Reagan’s fault,” people still think he unilaterally closed all the hospitals in a vacuum — or Kennedy’s fault, for the same reasons.
In reality, it was pretty much a grassroots movement that had been taking place nationwide (for the states, though, budget costs also were a factor — they saved a lot of money by closing some of these facilities).
The intentions were good — more humane, more opportunity for the mentally ill to live outside hospital walls successfully with proper medication. Out-patient care seemed to be a logical step forward.
Unfortunately, the clinics and housing/job options were somewhat lacking for many — and taking daily medication was pretty much up to the mentally ill themselves; when they began to feel better, many would become lax about that regimen and then would wind up worse off again.
Seems like it’s all back at square one now.
LA County is discussion options to extend the 72-hour holds in place now and longer-term care facilities, again, are being explored. But I believe the ACLU already is weighing in on that, not wanting to open the door to some of the abuses that occurred before.
From the article you shared, there clearly also was a (sometimes falsified) “narrative” afoot to support what many wanted to believe would work and be a better solution.
Forgot to say that the court meeting for today has been postponed as the guardian ad litem asked for more time to do her investigation.
But that gave Nightingale time to get some things done upstairs, and to cut my hair for me. Now she is with Boy at his therapy appointment. (He has one every other week.)
I have to be careful now when Boy and I are tossing a football around, or kicking a soccer ball. That boy is strong! Sometimes I purposely duck the incoming football, because I can tell the velocity of it would hurt my hand to try to catch, especially if I only managed to touch it with a finger or two. But he is figuring out that he needs to tone it down for his poor old Mimi. 🙂
Speaking of which, we go to court today to confirm the guardianship issue. We had a temporary one so the psych hospital would not have to transfer her to the adult wing during her stay. Now we make it permanent until next year. No idea if she will be cooperative or not. A week ago, no. This week, maybe. We will see. That is in about an hour.
Mary, middle GD, went to China and adopted a girl. That was over a year ago.
Today, she sent this in an e-mail. I thought some of you; in particular Mumsee, might appreciate it. It’s a quote from someone else.
The child born of another woman calls me Mommy.
The magnitude of that tragedy
And the depth of that privilege
are not lost on me.
Chas that is beautiful. Our two birth mothers are very dear to me. One I have never met, the other I saw a breaking heart in her eyes….and love. How thankful we are to the both of them for not only giving birth to our daughters, but for choosing to entrust them to us. Our Lord is so so good……
Amen, Chas. We remind our children regularly that their bio parents love them. Drugs changed their brains and they were not able to love the children more than the drugs. Huge tragedy. And huge blessing to us.
Paul said not to lay hands on a novice. A preacher I know said these super stars who get converted should sit under good doctrinal teaching before being put in the limelight or they fall away, usually. I can think of few: B.J. Thomas, Bob Dylan, among others.
It’s always great news when a famous person gets saved, but in our era pop-culture Christianity, we’re too quick to put the person out there to reach the lost. Let them be grounded in truth before feeding the sheep.
Wandering Views 
Morning all. Welcome to the end of my day.
Enjoy His day.
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Good night Jo.
Good morning everyone else.
Pumpkins and flowers in the same picture. You don’t se that often.
It’s cold and rainy in Greensboro.
Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr
LikeLiked by 1 person
Got a glimpse of the full moon on my way home from my fellowship group, lovely. Our rain here never lasts for long, but it does make it feel like Fall.
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And Chas has posted our 216,000th comment this morning.
🙂
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Do I get an “ATTABOY” for that? LOL
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This morning is a photographer’s dream (except for the 12 degrees Fahrenheit part, anyway).
Yesterday evening we got our first snowfall of the year. I got some shots, and even some very pretty ones, but it was snowing late in the day and of course it usually snows when it’s cloudy anyway, so my shots hint of a lovely fall scene but don’t really show the colors well. Yes, colors: we probably still have 30 to 40% of our leaves on the trees, and that includes nearly all the leaves on two exquisite maples next to the condo behind ours. The ground around the trees is littered with red and orange leaves (now covered with snow), but mostly those are from the third tree, and these two still have well over half their leaves, maybe more than 80%. This morning I was out early for me, around sunrise (7:25 is the official sunrise time today) . . . but the sky wasn’t blue yet and the color wasn’t as good as it could be. An hour later I could tell that we were in the morning golden hour (aka magic hour–the best time of the day to photograph, an hour or so after sunrise and an hour or so before sunset), so I bundled up again and went out and got lots more photos.
Yesterday I bought new sneakers. This morning they got to crunch on icy snow in the low teens, and they decided they want a refund. 🙂 Actually I would have been nervous about going out in my old sneakers with all the tread worn away (and Michelle could testify I didn’t feel sure-footed in my second pair, which really just aren’t walking shoes), but this pair served me very well on footing that is far from my favorite.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Morning! A lovely photo of fall up there…our pumpkins and mums froze long ago and are not but a distant memory. The ground is covered in snow but after temps in the 50’s today it too will be gone for the most part.
I love the scent of the cold wet pines but oh how I miss the described autumn of the Midwest. Those maple leaves crunching beneath my footsteps and the heady scent of the decaying yet lovely leaves upon the ground…just nothing like it….thanks for painting a lovely picture in my long ago memory Cheryl. 😊 His creation is good!
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Attaboy, Chas!
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I’m glad I visited Cheryl last Tuesday and not today!
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Michelle, I’m glad too. Ice underfoot is no joke, so I prefer to walk on snow. But roads and sidewalks inevitably get a bit icy in these conditions (rain, then snow, then sub-freezing temps for several hours).
But years and years ago in Chicago (when I didn’t really have a great camera) I got some photos of trees that still had leaves and got a dusting of snow, and I found it really beautiful. Last year we still had some pretty leaves on the ground when we got a dusting of snow, and I got some photos of them. But this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a chance at autumn-hued leaves still on the trees during a snowfall of a couple of inches. I have been outside to get photos (of the same few scenes) three times already. (I was able to choose the photography theme of one of my Flickr groups this week–some of the groups post challenges and you can only put up photos you took the week of the challenge–and I chose taking two photos of the same spot at different times of the day. So I’m getting the snow-covered trees in different lighting–and as some of the snow on the leaves is beginning to fall off or melt and freeze into icicles–to post the changes.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Below zero here. Way too early, IMO. No one but the ski resorts, who can make snow early now, are really happy with this unusually cold weather. We need more snow for insulation.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We have had snow on the ground for nearly a week, and no sign of it leaving anytime soon. Sooner than I really wanted to start winter driving, but I have had my snow tires on for a while and they seem to work well.
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Flowers and pumpkins side by side are a common sight here outside the markets. It’s 60 degrees going up to 74 today, cloudy. No rain in the forecast yet, however. How long will it take?
I have a news conference to watch live from wash dc this morning, the port’s unveiling of a new tariff study. I wrote the story yesterday (embargoed until today) but will no doubt be adding to it out of the news conference and with probably some more reaction afterward.
I was going to use the work & home laptops for this (watch on one, type on the otter), but it looks like I must have left my work power cord at the office the other night when I had to cover the city council meeting. So I may be heading in later to get that, although my office mate is back from Mexico so I’ve emailed her to see if she can see it and keep it safe. Hopefully it hasn’t vanished.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, typing on an otter would be a reporting trick even I haven’t ever mastered. And I’m not sure what the point of that would even be. Otters are very cute so it would probably only be a distraction.
*other
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Our leaves have been down for at least a week or more, except for some on some hearty oaks. But even our beautiful oak out back has lost most of its leaves. 😦
Yesterday we had an unexpected almost spring day, with the temperature getting up to 61. It is currently 36, and going down, with some snow expected, but not much.
LikeLiked by 1 person
From an earlier (2013) FB post shared by Karen and me:
“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace… Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they have earned God’s blessing through their behavior. Guilt-laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited God’s blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience. Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and have slipped into a performance relationship with God.” – Jerry Bridges
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The snow yesterday is now packed ice on the uphill street where I live. It took 2 tries to get up the hill this morning.
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Wheee
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You can stand at the bottom and charge fun-ride admission.
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Apropos of what we were talking about earlier? Time will tell …
Headline: “Kanye West to take stage at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church Sunday”
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Cheryl, thanks for the mental health link, I read it last night before turning out the lights.
There has been so much misinformation about how and why so many of the hospitals closed and we shifted to largely an out-patient care model. This added a new wrinkle to all of that.
From what I’ve understood, the system’s de-centralization was an outgrowth of a couple of factors, one of them, though, being abuses within the hospitals (not all, of course); civil rights concerns (when is it OK to lock people away and who actually decides that?); and the rise of much better medications that helped so many patients become better functioning, giving them an opportunity to live more “normal” lives with jobs, apartments, etc.
It’s an issue that’s often politicized in circles here — “Reagan’s fault,” people still think he unilaterally closed all the hospitals in a vacuum — or Kennedy’s fault, for the same reasons.
In reality, it was pretty much a grassroots movement that had been taking place nationwide (for the states, though, budget costs also were a factor — they saved a lot of money by closing some of these facilities).
The intentions were good — more humane, more opportunity for the mentally ill to live outside hospital walls successfully with proper medication. Out-patient care seemed to be a logical step forward.
Unfortunately, the clinics and housing/job options were somewhat lacking for many — and taking daily medication was pretty much up to the mentally ill themselves; when they began to feel better, many would become lax about that regimen and then would wind up worse off again.
Seems like it’s all back at square one now.
LA County is discussion options to extend the 72-hour holds in place now and longer-term care facilities, again, are being explored. But I believe the ACLU already is weighing in on that, not wanting to open the door to some of the abuses that occurred before.
LikeLiked by 1 person
From the article you shared, there clearly also was a (sometimes falsified) “narrative” afoot to support what many wanted to believe would work and be a better solution.
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*discussing
more grammar bumps this morning 🙂
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6 posts in a row. Now 7.
Someone take over.
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hi
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Still busy playing with grandson.
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Forgot to say that the court meeting for today has been postponed as the guardian ad litem asked for more time to do her investigation.
But that gave Nightingale time to get some things done upstairs, and to cut my hair for me. Now she is with Boy at his therapy appointment. (He has one every other week.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Enjoy playing with your grandson, Mumsee.
I have to be careful now when Boy and I are tossing a football around, or kicking a soccer ball. That boy is strong! Sometimes I purposely duck the incoming football, because I can tell the velocity of it would hurt my hand to try to catch, especially if I only managed to touch it with a finger or two. But he is figuring out that he needs to tone it down for his poor old Mimi. 🙂
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Speaking of which, we go to court today to confirm the guardianship issue. We had a temporary one so the psych hospital would not have to transfer her to the adult wing during her stay. Now we make it permanent until next year. No idea if she will be cooperative or not. A week ago, no. This week, maybe. We will see. That is in about an hour.
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Mary, middle GD, went to China and adopted a girl. That was over a year ago.
Today, she sent this in an e-mail. I thought some of you; in particular Mumsee, might appreciate it. It’s a quote from someone else.
The child born of another woman calls me Mommy.
The magnitude of that tragedy
And the depth of that privilege
are not lost on me.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Chas that is beautiful. Our two birth mothers are very dear to me. One I have never met, the other I saw a breaking heart in her eyes….and love. How thankful we are to the both of them for not only giving birth to our daughters, but for choosing to entrust them to us. Our Lord is so so good……
LikeLiked by 4 people
Amen, Chas. We remind our children regularly that their bio parents love them. Drugs changed their brains and they were not able to love the children more than the drugs. Huge tragedy. And huge blessing to us.
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In all my life, it had not occurred to me that there was a tragedy of some sort behind every adoption.
But it makes sense if you think about it.
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That it surely does.
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Re: Kanye West at Joel Osteen’s showplace: It shows why Paul said not to l
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Sorry- pressed wrong keys.
Paul said not to lay hands on a novice. A preacher I know said these super stars who get converted should sit under good doctrinal teaching before being put in the limelight or they fall away, usually. I can think of few: B.J. Thomas, Bob Dylan, among others.
It’s always great news when a famous person gets saved, but in our era pop-culture Christianity, we’re too quick to put the person out there to reach the lost. Let them be grounded in truth before feeding the sheep.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Which is why we need to be praying for them. God has His people where He wants them. They can come alongside and disciple.
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I’m still holding out hope and prayer for Dylan
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