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Our Daily Thread 12-21-19

Good Morning!

Today’s header is from DJ.

I think it might be Linda’s birthday too. 🙂

🎁🎂🎂🎁🎂🎂🎁

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And this is The Trans Siberian Orchestra. 

https://youtu.be/UBnXVzJNsC0

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Anyone have a QoD?

 

 

74 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-21-19”

  3. Happy birthday, Linda.

    I have way too much to accomplish today. Yesterday we drove over an hour away so that my husband could perform in an assisted living home. I was tempted to stay home, since I had so much to do. I am sure glad I didn’t since he was confused where exactly this home was. They hadn’t performed at it since last spring sometime. He may have ended up in Canada! Not really, but he tends to miss turns often unless I mention them to him and he was thoroughly confused. He had it mixed up with another place they perform at. Sometimes it feels like a job. It is a blessing, though, to see faces light up when certain songs touch them.

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  7. Linda- ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

    As to the song- I’ve never heard those lyrics before. It almost seems like they were taking some of the religiousness out of it. And I didn’t know Tran-Siberian had singers.

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  8. DJ- I presume that is a public display, since your house doesn’t look big enough for that background. But then, looks can be deceiving.

    It is the first day of my 16 day break. I have a lot I want to accomplish, but I think today I’ll be lazy and read all day. I’ll do a little work now and then to give the eyes a rest.

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  9. So, Peter, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that tree was my little stubby tree after it was decorated?

    It’s actually the lobby display in the building where I work. The murals behind it depict the famous waterfront “Pike” amusement park (the original was popular through the mid-1900s, a big hangout of the sailors in port, and recently was replaced by a newer version). On the other wall not shown here is a floor-to-ceiling art deco mural of the Queen Mary, another attraction on the waterfront.

    Happy Birthday Linda!

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  10. Wow, DJ, I NEVER would have recognized your house! 🙂

    This is not a product endorsement, but I laughed at the newest feature ad described in the final,paragraph:

    Kindle Paperwhite for $100 ($30 off): The Kindle Paperwhite is an upgrade worth considering. The touchscreen is noticeably clearer (300 pixels per inch vs. 167 for the standard) and the light is better.

    The Paperwhite is also rated IPX8, meaning it can sit in 2 meters of water for two hours. That makes bathtub reading a little more relaxing

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  11. I guess today is the day I pick up and put away some of this indoor chaos and decorate.

    I threw a couple more strings of battery lights onto the porch last night, but still haven’t put the lights on the real Charlie Brown tree at the curb. And the only thing inside that’s put up is the Christmas card holder.

    The other Charlie Brown (Lowe’s squat little Christmas tree) remains on the patio table in a basin dish of water but I’m worried it’s already starting to ‘turn’ with some brownish branch tip needles appearing here and there. 😦

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  13. My Aunt Sandy will be here in a few minutes. She is bringing me a quilt that my grandmother gave her. Then we are off to shop at our favorite store then to Black Family Christmas.

    I need to wrap some Christmas presents but don’t have the drive to get it done.

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  14. I have never heard those words to ‘What Child is this’ either. But most hymnals have also altered the original words, in a way I think also waters down the carol. I grew up singing the carol with three verses and the recurring chorus, “This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing: haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.” But while singing an arrangement for choir with the city church choir, I made the discovery that the original words did not have a recurring chorus, but just three verses, and the lines that were missing by making the second and third verses have the same last lines as the first verse were quite powerful, particularly in the second verse:

    1 What child is this who, laid to rest,
    on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
    Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
    while shepherds watch are keeping?
    This, this is Christ the King,
    whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
    haste, haste to bring him laud,
    the babe, the son of Mary.

    2 Why lies he in such mean estate,
    where ox and ass are feeding?
    Good Christians, fear; for sinners here
    the silent Word is pleading.
    Nails, spear, shall pierce him through;
    the cross be borne for me, for you:
    hail, hail the Word made flesh,
    the babe, the son of Mary.

    3 So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh;
    come, peasant, king, to own him;
    the King of kings salvation brings,
    let loving hearts enthrone him.
    Raise, raise the song on high,
    the virgin sings her lullaby:
    joy, joy for Christ is born,
    the babe, the son of Mary.

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  15. Ironically, the only place I have found those original words to ‘What Child is This’ in all the hymnals and carol books my family has accumulated over the years, was in a children’s book of simple arrangments of carol and seasonal songs, including such non-religious songs as ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘O Christmas Tree’ (we did not play from the book very often growing up, so I missed the different words). All the hymnals we have use the three verses with chorus.

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  16. As you can guess, I had to call in sick for today. I woke up this morning coughing and choked on the phlegm (gross, I know). Second said I was turning blue when she heard me and came running to help (it finally shifted just enough for me to get air in). Very frightening to experience actual choking. Like most other people, I have swallowed the wrong way before and ended up coughing and gasping and spluttering for a bit, but never anything like the absolute blockage of all air getting in that I experienced today.

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  17. Oh, Roscuro, that sounds so distressing! Glad you got relief from that episode. I think I’ve heard or sung those words in a church service before. Maybe they were printed on a Christmas program sheet.

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  18. We are now one raccoon less. We have at least one more to catch. The animal control telephone line kicks over to 911 on weekends and holidays so I had to report a viscous animal to get help. I did not know if it possibly could have rabies so that was my plea since we have children in the neighborhood. The animal control guy said it would be released at a park. It was pretty big. I put a photo on Facebook. Thankful to be done with that one.

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  24. Roscuro’s words for What Child is This sounded completely familiar to me — so I checked in our church’s Trinity Hymnal and those 3 verses are the way it’s printed there (with no recurring chorus).

    Everyone here appears to be out running around, traffic is heavy. The Post Office was packed, the local Christmas tree lot almost empty, the workers cleaning and packing up.

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  25. Slow day on the blog. Everyone must be crazy busy. I am straining my brain to think of another vegan meal for dinner. I may do last night’s dinner again. Lentils mixed with brown rice and corn kernels. It was very good to me. I am thankful that I enjoy most foods.

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  27. Well I made fudge. Two batches and one batch did not turn out well. I suppose we could have used it over ice cream and had a hot fudge Sundae but I just pitched it. I have no idea what went wrong! The peanut butter marshmallow fudge turned out great!
    Precious friends stopped by with a gift and after they left my neighbor came over with cookies. It has been an ok day to get things done and extra blessed to chat with friends and neighbors. Now I need to find a good Christmas movie to watch while I stitch away!

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  32. Had lunch at my sisters home with her and her husband, my stepmom and my brother and his wife. Brother has Parkinsons. His birthday is Christmas Eve and he will catch up with me for less than two months. My sister said today that we were all seven month babies since Mom smoked. I had never heard that before.

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  41. Good Morning. My Aunt Dandy and I stopped at our favorite store. We spent time with the family and they took pictures of the 5 sisters. There are still 3 other singles left. My Uncle D is in a veterans home and isn’t in good shape. He made bad decisions throughout his life but he sure was fun. He let me scrape all the gears in a VW Bug. Aunt E the one who hates my father wasn’t there. She didn’t feel well. Then there is the baby of the family—Joy. She has early onset dementia and has declined rapidly. Auntie V (lung cancer) has a 4 month old great grandson. It was so sweet to see her holding a baby. My cousin, the grandfather, was about to burst with pride. The parents looked relieved to see so many people to hold him while they are.
    Then they took pictures of all the boy cousins, then the girl cousins, then all of us.
    All in all it was a good day.

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  43. TSO puts on a 2-3 hour long show. They have narrators, props. and everything else. And yes, they take artistic license with nearly all the songs. It’s a thing people.

    I’m kinda shocked no one knew that about their performances.

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  44. Morning! TSO was just in Colorado Springs and from what I hear they put on a fantastic performance. Several friends attended and said it was amazing. Bright lights shining to and fro, very loud music. Now me…I prefer something more subdued and quiet…simple piano, guitar, violin playing soothing music…you get the drift 🎶 😊

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  45. Thanks Peter. I don’t do well with movies where the dog dies. I still remember when a friend wanted to see “My Dog Skip” when it had come out in the theater. I went without doing any reading up on it and by the end I had tears streaming down my face.

    “Well that was pleasant,” I told her as we walked out of the theater.

    She felt bad — and part of my reaction was due to having an older dog at the time, knowing our own goodbyes would be coming shortly.

    Anyway, I just decided after that to do myself a favor and avoid those movies. I have to deal with the real life versions too often to sit through a movie that’ll drag my emotions through all that sadness.

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  46. Happy to report son not only finished the Youth Challenge but got a high school diploma out of it. Husband went to the graduation. We stayed home to see about the lake under the house which is not supposed to be there. Son had lots of people to watch though so we were not missed much. The fam that took him in when he ran away for the last three months before he turned eighteen were there.
    They run a rehab horse facility for getting developmentally delayed people and others hooked up with horses. We are signing up some children. Good people.

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  47. With all the mishaps at my house, and there have been many as you all know, I never had a lake; although the bathroom leak maybe was giving one a good start under the house. First person who went under there — an acquaintance through some stories I’d done who had her own house inspection company — said it was all very wet down there in the crawl space.

    Just checked the water heater outside (gardener told me to watch for any leaks) — all looks good and dry. It’s a relief to have that replaced at last.

    Rain is supposed to arrive by this evening and last through tomorrow; then it’ll be back for Wednesday, Christmas Day, and Thursday. Folks in the mountains will get their white Christmas; those of us in the coastal flatlands will only get a wet Christmas, but we need all the rain we can get.

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  48. Looks like TSO has been around since the mid-1990s. But it reminds me of some of the music from the mid to later 1970s with which I’m more familiar. Electric Light Orchestra is one I remember from that era — kind of similar to TSO?

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  53. Jo, that is his plan. He will be around the area for about a month, then off to boot camp in South Carolina followed by mechanic school in Virginia. Then back to the area to get married and working and going to college in Lewiston.

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  54. Going into the military right out of high school is almost always a good move.
    It virtually saved my life.
    It scares me to think of what might have happened had I not allowed Bobby Murray talk me into joining.

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  55. Under house lake/ indoor swimming pool: We thought it was from leaking pipes, but the inspection indicated it is either an under house spring or roof run off. Our house has three separate foundations under it, in three separate places with three separate accesses. The original house had a room added on to it. Under that room, we had a foundation built years ago, to make the room level. Then my brother did our addition. They left the original foundation and the foundation under the addition became part of the addition though kept it’s own area. Brother wondered at the time if there was a spring or if the roof runoff was getting under there. So they put drain tile around the whole thing and tried to direct all water into that and away from the house. His though, after inspection, is that somehow, when they put the second foundation under the first addition, somebody cut the pipe taking the run off away and that did not get capped. So, when the third foundation and big drain tile effort took place, that was not addressed as it was not known. Some portion of the roof may be pouring under the house through that but only filling that one room’s foundation. Brother said it was fourteen inches in places. But under the sheet of plastic we put down to keep ground moisture from causing dry rot. Some on top but mostly under.

    Anyway, though it is not really deep enough for swimming, we could put the canoe in that we were given last summer. unfortunately, we would have to lie down to paddle as the crawl space is a crawl space.

    Another option might be to stock it with fish. I was thinking large mouth bass. Though a few sturgeon might not be bad. Or catfish to deal with the mouse problem. Just some thoughts as we try to figure out our options.

    Of course, if it is a spring, we could clean it out and have a good water source, year round. Our neighbors up the road have that i their basement and used it for the past hundred years as their water source……

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  56. Military has been good for three sons (one is making it a career) and one daughter. She is the one who has really acknowledged it helped her see things differently and grow up in a lot of ways.

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  58. On the other hand, though God is sovereign and good always, I remember a story I did a couple years ago about the remains of a local kid whose cousin talked him into joining up and he was killed within weeks in the Korean War 🙁

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  59. Roscuro, your words from the second verse are familiar (not so much those from the third), so I must have seen them in some hymn book. I’ll have to see if it’s in any of the books we have at home. Very powerful indeed!

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  60. We didn’t go to church, it came to us. Since the family with small children had flu, the pastor and his wife came to our house, saving us the trip to theirs. Afterward we had delicious ham that the school gives us every year.

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  62. We sang Hark the Herald Angles Sing…and Away in a Manger in church this morning. We have sung The Revelation Song before…I appreciated the tone of worship and reverence….
    I had to run to Walgreens today and found some ribbon candy! Our sweet neighbors are coming over tomorrow evening and I plan to pull out the gingerbread house kit…we are going to build a house….and I know I can find a place for ribbon candy on the rooftop! 😊

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  63. I finally have presents under the tree. Mr. P is getting guitar lessons, a book on the history of Alabama football, an Alabama tag for the front of his truck, and an Alabama coaster for his drinks so he doesn’t completely ruin the side table. It still isn’t enough. I’ve got to find something else. The pressure is real. There is a package under the tree that has a Stowe’s bow. (Cheryl is the only other person here who has received a Stowe’s bow). Good things come from Stowe’s
    BG’s friend E will be joining us for Christmas so there are some presents for her. Then Little Miss’ parents each had presents, there is a present under the tree toPapa and Little Miss from Santa It’s a Fisher Price wooden fishing set with magnets to catch the fish. They should have fun. BG wanted another pair of jeans. With her 60% discount they were inexpensive but I still took them and wrapped them telling her they would be under the tree.

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  65. We followed NancyJill’s lead and made divinity which did not turn out. We are not following anymore. It is good, just not divinity. Kind of a taffy.
    Thirteen year old also made peanut butter cookies, refrigerator cookies, and ting a lings. I made coconut clusters.

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  69. Mr P wanted to do prime rib for Christmas Eve. I polled the children. They want ham, mac&cheese, and green bean casserole. I think I will have ham and roast some veggies.
    What is your Christmas meal?

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  71. Ham, Arly potatoes, Tri-tip, veggies, wine, Ule log, berry pie, rolls, vegetable, vegetable tray. I thought I’d have Christmas cookies after they spent the day making them–but there aren’t a whole lot left!

    A great deal. I’m exhausted. I didn’t much last night, insomnia, got up to sing the Christmas cantata at two services and then cooked, made cookies, played with children, cooked, told stories, laughed and a terrific family day. All 7 Adorables were here 3/4 of children–with the one couple out celebrating their anniversary without anyone but themselves. Life is good and I’m thankful–but headed to bed!

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  72. Turkey, stuffing, yams, green salad, corn, gravy, pistachio pudding salad, cranberry sauce. Cookies for dessert since no-one has room for much more.

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