76 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-18-20”

  2. Congratulations Kim. You have to know that the love you, though it may get rough sometimes.

    I went over to the Prayer thread to make a comment.
    Doing the Saturday thing now.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. I read my watch wrong, grateful it was finally late enough in the morning to justify getting out of bed so early.

    Only to discover it was 5:30, not 6:30.

    I must NOT need 8 hours of sleep.

    Service later this morning for a lovely older woman who helped with the pre-school Sunday School, happily made gifts for children in Nicaraguan, always served in the kitchen and always, always brought deviled eggs to church potlucks.

    We’re all making deviled eggs in Edna’s honor, but we’ll miss her quiet, cheerful energy.

    And what did they do about the children in her class?

    She died on a Saturday night three weeks ago and that Sunday morning the other two teachers and five children sat in a circle on the floor.

    They had to tell the 4 and 5 year olds.

    There were tears and then the very pragmatic Libby, “She’s in heaven with Jesus. It will be okay.”

    When you raise children with the fact heaven is a wonderful place and when you die you go there, children believe you.

    What assurance that gives them.

    We all miss her, yes. But we all know she is happy, out of pain and we will see her again.

    Thanks be to Jesus.

    Liked by 5 people

  6. Lovely snow photo!’

    My last living uncle is 90 today. Neither of his siblings made it to 70, and I’m not sure whether any of my dad’s made it to 80. . . . actually, this is interesting. Looking at the numbers, I see two of his sisters made it to within three or four months of 80 and one made it to 80 and a few months–so all three died within a year of the same age! The three brothers were each a decade apart, though (and Dad had one sibling of each sex who died in infancy). So, only the second biological aunt or uncle who made it to 80, and he made it to 90. (The aunts and uncles by marriage are all gone now, too. I haven’t seen any of them since I was a little girl or a teenager except this uncle and his wife, and his wife died the day after I met my husband in person.)

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  7. Morning! Errands to run and then projects at home. It is a beautifully cold day here in the forest! (Not as cold as what it appears to be in Kare’s neck of the woods as I look at that header photo! Brrrrr)
    Praying the weather holds for you Kathaleena…I am so sorry to hear about your loved one’s passing.
    My Aunt Clara is 96 years young. She has a giggle that incites pure joy! And my Mom will be 90 next month…she is quite spunky 😊

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Kim, growing up we had neighbors with roses along our common fence, and one bush was lavender. Mom said she especially liked lavender roses, partly because you don’t see them that often. BTW, when my husband was courting me, several times he brought me a single red rose, and I finally told him red ones aren’t my favorite, and when he ever brings me a dozen, not red ones. But one time he asked me to choose which ones I wanted, and I was leaning toward the lavender ones and he bought me some other ones he liked. 🙂 It was OK, I liked them too, I just thought it was funny that he told me to choose and then he chose.

    When Mom turned 75, we sent her roses from a place that had a wide selection of colors, including lavender, and so one dozen was lavender. Our brothers thought it an extravagant, impractical gift, but they went along with it, and she loved it.

    Anyway, those are really lovely roses, and congratulations!!

    Liked by 3 people

  10. A beautiful day here. Husband is off in a bit for the second infusion of the season. I hope it helps his aches and pains. He has been off of prednisone for a while and does not want to go back. He is outside doing my chores now.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. What do you think of fasting? All the rage now, of course, but in the area of spiritual reasoning. I was reading in Acts about the boat ride ending after a fourteen day fast. And so on. Just wondered if people fast and why.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Kim those indeed are amazing roses. It has been my observation that the lavender roses have a scent like no other rose. It is so good to know they appreciate the gifts that our Lord has placed within you!

    Liked by 2 people

  14. That’s our little elm tree – we had to cut it way back because of cracking and dying back. It came back better than we thought it would. To the left is our fire pit and to the right is the old canoe we turned into a pond. The bamboo fence is around a sour cherry tree to help keep the deer back – it seems to work okay along with the dog scent around the yard.

    It was actually a ‘warm’ day – we had two weeks around Christmas with beautiful weather and fog at night and no wind. The frost build up on everything was just wonderful.

    We were waiting for son and DIL to arrive for Christmas and looking outside, the lighting was amazing so we went out to take pictures.

    Liked by 4 people

  15. We’ve had severe cold here for the last while – windchill below -40 for days and extreme cold warnings all over. Ugh. But our summers are pretty amazing 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  16. Kare, truly a lovely view. But we have amazing summers, too, and my husband just told me that based on weather predictions for the rest of the month, we should have a snow-free January! Now, realistically it’s too far out for accurate predictions to the end of the month, but it’s an interesting prospect, to get through a winter in the Midwest without any snow in January. (We have had lots of rain, so if it were a few degrees colder we could have tall piles of the white stuff.)

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I looked at the photo and turned on the heater. 🙂

    I was up late watching a movie — Spanglish (2004) — and got to bed later than usual (12:30 or so). Up at 8:30, so a perfect 8 hours sleep.

    It was a really busy week, with another one ahead. So this weekend I hope to squeeze in a lot of down time, maybe some puttering outside. I need to go check on my roses with all this talk of roses. One bush produces “Rosa moyessii” flowers (really pretty), another “Tropicana” roses, but I have pink, red and white roses. No lavender. They’re planted along the south side of the house and are very hardy, I don’t go out there too often this time of year.

    My hanging basket poinsettias on the front porch are probably not going to make it much longer, one looks like it’s kicked the bucket already, the other 2 are hanging in there — I think our nights have been a bit too cold for them this year, one night when it was getting close to 40 so I actually took them down and covered them with plastic sheeting. But from there we just had a streak of colder-than-normal nights and I think that gradually did them in. We’re now mostly around 50 at night.

    The giant, tall poinsettias in pots on either side of the front door are still looking good, though. Beautiful plants, those poinsettias.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. We had the police helicopter circling endlessly during the earlier part of the evening last night, I could see it as I was walking the dogs, looked to be about 10+ blocks away, just a ways down the hill. Police were in a standoff with 5 guys with guns, I learned later, but it all ended without incident (I think) and with arrests made.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. We watched Across the Universe last night which was such a creative movie based on Beatles’ songs. The story was written using a number of their songs so it was like a musical only different. It really captured the time period of the Vietnam war and how it affected different people. Has anyone seen it? It is from 2008. Another surprising find at our county library. Art enjoyed it very much.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. I remember the roof racket here, not sure how the cat fared, she probably went into hiding. I was gone for much of it at work (when I was still going into an office north of here, though I did some work from home on a local assignment one of the days).

    The dogs were stressed but adjusted, as I recall. The roof work went on for the better part of a week here, but workers had to tear the old roof off, replace some of the wood underneath, put in new insulation, then the new roof, so it was quite the project. They came back a few weeks later to do the gutters.

    I have a “flat” roof so am going to see if I can pay the gardener a bit extra to go up there and clear off any leaves or debris, it’s been a couple years since the roof was done (3? it was the first of the major house rehab jobs) and I have a feeling I should be regularly checking and clearing the drains up there.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Mumsee, I know fasting and intermittent fasting for weight loss is all the rage now. I am not sure how I feel about that. I lost weight better by eating all the time.
    Now, if we are talking about fasting as in the biblical sense, here are my thoughts on that…Yes! By all means fast. It is a discipline we protestants have ignored for way too long. I have twice read a book, Perfectly Yourself and went on a women’s retreat weekend that used this book. It has changed my view. Fasting takes and iron will, strong character, and DISCIPLINE. So much of what is wrong with our world today, in my opinion, is because we lack discipline.
    Now, for the full confession….I type that as I sit here in my living room at 11:29am, having eaten a Nutrigrain Bar at about 7, and a cinnamon roll about 8:30, and a stick of string cheese about 10, and my stomach is grumbling right now, and I am thinking about what I want to eat. (Mostly this is because there was nothing in the house for me to eat and I at JUNK for breakfast).

    Did that answer your question?

    Liked by 2 people

  25. Hello all! I hadn’t been here in so long that I had to find an old email from Kizzie to get the link.

    Cold and snowy here, with winter storm warning still in effect until evening. I came home from work early yesterday to beat the worst of the snow (I have some computer work I can do from home, though not much of it), though I had to go out again in freezing rain on top of 4 inches of snow to pick up our son from work in the evening (he doesn’t drive). I’ll have to go out again today to take him to work and then to pick him up, but by then I hope the streets will be mostly cleared.

    Church is canceled tomorrow for the second week in a row. Last week it was snow and ice, tomorrow the wind chill (17 below at 9 am). It’s two very small churches of mostly elderly people, so those are bigger issues than they might be for a younger church. My husband is joking (or maybe serious) that God must not want him to deliver the sermon he had planned (first for last week, then again for tomorrow). He’s doing a sermon series on Mark (started Fall 2018) and has it worked out to finish with the resurrection on Easter morning, so he has to stay on schedule to finish by then.

    Other than that, things are going OK here. My younger son told me yesterday he has decided which branch of physics he wants to pursue – either astrophysics or quantum physics. He gets his AS in May, but has not decided for sure where to go new, WIU maybe. In the meantime he seems to be enjoying his job as cashier at Taco Bell, at least more than he did the job as dishwasher at HyVee supermarket. My husband got a second small church this past fall, after having to leave a previous church (he works part-time at two churches). Our older son is in his fourth (?) year as a K-5 music teacher. And I am kept busy doing supporting software at the community college where I work. We got a new software package this year, focused on recruiting, which is a lot more work than the other packages I support, partly because it’s so new to us but also because of issues with integration with the main system. And the woman who works for me retires in May, so I have to find a replacement, which will not be easy. (People with the right computer skills generally want to make more than what we pay.) My husband’s leg finally healed of the 7-cm gash he got a few months ago, but the ankle is still swollen so the doctor is concerned there might be a clot.

    Liked by 6 people

  26. Good to see you again, Pauline.

    i woke up to more water in the bedroom, but it’s not flowing like last week. At least now we can see where it might be getting in. I think we’ll have to dig a trench outside and put in drainage tile around that part of the house. And we didn’t get the snow predicted, just a dusting and ice.

    Liked by 2 people

  27. Oh Peter, my condolences.

    Pauline! Good to see you here.

    I’ve been texting a former colleague who’s in Arizona helping her mom out — mom took a spill (they’re non-practicing Christian Scientists but hang on to the “no doctor” tradition) and has been recuperating now for many months, since early fall, late summer; I’m not sure of the specifics but it’s something that’s impacted her mobility. She owns a biz there and wants to keep working for a while longer — so now they’re sprucing up the rather plain, boxy manufactured home she lives in (I think they have a ton of money from the grandparents, now deceased, my friend, the daughter, had to give up her job in LA to go stay there all these months). Personally, I can’t see putting a lot of money into one of those homes (much of it cosmetic improvements), but they’re replacing floors, putting in all new kitchen cabinets, new bathrooms, etc. Lots of expense, I’m sure, they’re using a “real” contractactor and everything 🙂 Guess it’ll make it “more comfortable” for mom, assuming she’s going to be staying there another 2-3 years or maybe more.

    I like Kim’s special diet, eating all the time and losing weight. What’s that called? Seems I’ve tried it but it didn’t work like that for me.

    Liked by 3 people

  29. Hi, Pauline! Would love to see you more regularly and also see some header photos from your area.

    The roofers had to remove two old layers of shingles, some rotten wood, and cut some tree limbs that were over the house. We have found a discolored streak in the shingles so we are having to find out what to do about that. The trim and gutters are a bigger job than I expected. They have our house surrounded with ladders. We have not ordered new insulation, but need it. Now we will be noticing so many other things we need to do.

    Art is home today and realizing the pain of going up and down stairs so much to use the bathroom. He is on Lasix. Thankful he will now have better understanding of my difficulties when my leg is not functioning very well at times. The stairs are good for forced exercise.

    Liked by 2 people

  30. Yes, the roof is the beginning. 😦

    I’m still sorry I didn’t somehow use reddish shingles (instead of gray) — or find a lightweight, faux tile roof product — to use just on the small, slanted overhangs covering the front porch and on the front of the garage. Gray doesn’t enhance anything with my house color.

    But, of course, I didn’t go through the exterior painting process until 2 years later so the roofing materials were not coordinated with the colors I wound up using. But it still seemed like it made sense to do the roof first. And who knew there were different roofing colors? I didn’t back then. … So when they said “(neutral) Gray?” I said, “Sure.”

    Liked by 1 person

  31. The roof itself, being flat, doesn’t show and has some kind of tar covering on it (lighter color than before, though to improve insulation) — but the smallish overhangs are visible from the street. Maybe I can do something with those later, but now’s not the time, financially speaking. lol

    Liked by 1 person

  34. We have a peach color brick which is slightly variegated along with a beige type paint on the wood on the upstairs portion. It will take some pondering and consulting to know what color paint would be best to pull it all together.

    Liked by 1 person

  36. Oh, I like cobblestone — and tile also comes in some of that, too, it gives it a weathered, timeless look, I think. That would have worked for me, no matter what color house I went with later. But I knew nothing about any of this when I had my roof put on.

    I was stunned much later when I saw, online, how many shingle and tile roofing colors there were!

    A couple of us were talking after church a week or two ago about our concerns for the nation and, particular, with regard to first amendment and freedom of speech restrictions we are beginning to see.

    Today, I see one of the ‘administrators’ of one of our most popular community FB pages has issued this edict (he gives “strikes” to people whom he thinks step over some line he’s drawn; 3 of them will get you booted from the page; he also simply shuts off comments if things are veering in a direction he dislikes):

    Hello Folx,
    We do not allow Anti- Science posts in this group because it is a form of trolling. Just as a general rule, any Anti Vaccination, Climate Change Denial or recommending bleach cures will be removed and the person making the post will be given a strike.

    Being Anti Science causes harm, especially over settled concepts like vaccinations, climate change and bleach curing cancer. People are dying and will die because of these false ideas. …

    … just clarifying the rules in case people don’t understand. …

    (then later in a comment, he says):

    Teaching to change adult minds means they need to be willing to learn. Unfortunately, our biology works against us. As we age, we lose our nueral plasticiity, and thus, there is a biological reason why older people refuse to accept new information, new technology and better way of doing things. … Posting things that are demonstrably false that causes an argument is trolling.
    If you dont know what is false, that is something one has to do on their own time. …

    One commenter then says (nailing it): So just to be clear – posts that don’t line up exactly with your beliefs are not allowed. Ok – gotcha.

    Another: We don’t need a mother to control things that are subjects people are chatting about.

    And another: Strike one!

    Someone then also asks:

    What if someone makes a biblical reference? Strike for being anti-science?

    Administrator replies: When it comes to religion, it is usually dealing with the unknown. Death, is there a god, what is our purpose. All of these things are unknown and up for debate. Quoting the Bible is not automatically untrue or anti science. However, it does have many wrong ideas about the natural world, but that is to be expected from a book written 1500 years ago.

    __________________

    Yeah, you kind of want to slap him on the back of his head, right? 🙂

    Mostly it just irks me when people try to limit what other people can think or say with regard to opinions, no matter whether you think they’re hair-brained or not. Once you start drawing lines (based — admit it — on your own particular view of life or “science” or history or politics), you’re in censoring territory.

    Liked by 3 people

  37. Something is up today with X and Boy. Boy should have been home at 3:00, and as I begin to type this, they are on their way, but it is almost 5:30. X finally texted to tell me that Boy had been taken to the hospital last night, that he is sick and his ears are “real bad”, and also that he was acting out of control last night. 😦

    Like

  38. Kizzie, Does the boy know that the truth needs to be told? Does he know that some people may tell him they will kill him or his family if he tells the truth but that is not true?

    Liked by 2 people

  41. We got around 8 inches of snow so far and the wind is blowing it all over. My husband went out with the snow blower before the wind started. Our road was not plowed yet. Our county snowplow drivers are on strike. We remember being involved in those. Not a fun time for anyone. Supervisors are plowing so busy roads take priority. We are blessed to not have had to be anywhere. With the whiteout conditions that was truly a blessing.

    Liked by 2 people

  43. NancyJill – Yes, I would think that he should have alerted her through me or his mom.

    Nightingale is not happy, because she may end up with a bill for $500 (the co-pay for an ER visit). The protocol, according to his pediatrician, is to first treat a suspected ear infection with ibuprofen and something else (decongestant, maybe?) for a couple days, and if he is still feeling pain in his ears, then go to the doctor. X has been told this in the past, but he tends to be one to go to the doctor for anything.

    Mumsee – Yes, I’m pretty sure he does know that. I will be childsitting him tomorrow, so I will try to somehow carefully bring that up.

    Boy does have an occasional “meltdown” (which is how X referred to it in a later text), especially when he is tired. It is possible that X had him up too late. He is also sick with a cold, so the combination could have been what set him off. But I will try to strike up a conversation with him tomorrow about that matter.

    Liked by 1 person

  45. So Boy was finally home sometime after 6:00, which is over three hours late. It was weird. . .X’s Mom called me a little after 6 and said that they had gone to her house instead of coming straight here, because X wasn’t sure if anyone was home. And yet, he and I had exchanged a few texts, and it was very clear that I was waiting for Boy to come home.

    *******
    Along with that, I had to deal with Nightingale, who was annoyed at X for not following the correct protocol, and also didn’t like that I had asked him a question to clarify something he had said in a text. I am only supposed to text regarding picking up and dropping off times. Period.

    After dinner, with Boy out of the room, she reprimanded me for something I had said during dinner, when I referred to X as “Daddy” to Boy. I have done that before, and she says that “in this house, he is not ‘Daddy’, he is ‘your dad’ “. There was something else I had said during dinner that had her irked at me, which she made clear to me by the expression on her face. I thought my reason for saying what I did was sound, but she disagreed.

    Sometimes I feel that I can’t do anything right in her eyes, and I take it too much to heart. (I guess this can be a prayer request, too.)

    Liked by 3 people

  46. X goes to the doctor first because he doesn’t ever have to pay, apparently 🙂

    I’m sorry you went though this, it raises tensions all around. But you’re stuck in the middle where there’s always a lot of crossfire.

    Hope things calm down and can be sorted out tomorrow.

    Liked by 3 people

  48. Here is another “context matters” look at a Scripture verse, in this case “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Growing up, it would have been taught like: “Don’t go into the restaurant that’s also a bar, lest someone misunderstand and think you are going into the bar” (with the assumption, of course, that going into a bar would actually be evil, not just appearing to be evil). But what does the sentence really mean in context?

    Context Matters: Abstain from All Appearance of Evil

    Liked by 1 person

  51. Border collies at play. 🙂

    Tess lately has taken to giving Annie, the cat, that “border collie eye,” the hard-eyed, unnerving stare they use to control the flocks in the field.

    Annie will be on my lap and Tess comes up, freezes in place and laser-stares. Annie freaks out and leaps off my lap, running from the room. Mission accomplished.

    Liked by 3 people

  52. When I catch Tess executing a stare-down at Annie, I’ll call her off and that does break her concentration as she looks at me then. But the damage has usually already been done and Annie still flees the room.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Poor Annie.

    Janie has a pretty intense stare, but it is when she is trying to telepathically tell me she wants something. 😀 For instance, if she wants to go out, she’ll stand at the door (or at the living room door if I am in there), give a little whine-like sound, and stare with those intense eyes of hers. There are some other times she uses that intensity, like when she is looking at Heidi, wanting to play.

    Heidi doesn’t have an intense stare, but she does have “a look” that she gives me when she wants Janie to go away. It’s kind of sad and annoyed at the same time. She’ll look at me, then at Janie, then back to me, making clear what she is trying to say. And if she is not feeling well, she has the saddest eyes.

    Liked by 2 people

  56. Tess would be wearing a cat hat if she tried that with Fluffy.

    The other 2 cats know, you don’t win a staring contest with Fluffy, you just hope to make it out unscathed.

    Gemma would do what she always does, ignore Tess unless she has food. 🙂

    Mouse wouldn’t even be caught in the same room with a dog. She considers it undignified.

    Liked by 3 people

  58. Border Collies stare or ‘give the eye’ because that is what they are bred to do. These highly intelligent, herding dogs have been trained to manage herds of sheep with their intense stare. This stare is so intimidating it can actually control the flock of sheep.

    Liked by 2 people

  59. Wonderful sermon on Joel and restoration today — also saw church friend whose family relocated about a year ago to Cumming, GA (they love it, found a good PCA church they love). Fun to see her, she’s a retired public school teacher and is the most outgoing, friendly person I’ve known, I think 🙂 Her husband also has professed faith in Christ (he never had before) and has been enveloped by the men of their new church. All good.

    We also sang, as our closing hymn, “When The Roll is Called Up Yonder,” we hadn’t sang that in a while. You could tell we were all enjoying singing it, a nice note to end on.

    Liked by 2 people

  67. He played Matt Miller on Young and the Restless, also was on Days of Our Lives (on he left, wearing blue shirt in one of the photos in link below); he did some small parts on Law & Order and Baywatch also … I didn’t watch soaps (only some teen-oriented ones when we were in high school, things like Dark Shadows). But I guess he’s involved in some kind of reunion show they’re shooting that’ll air in February, he’s one of our deacons.

    https://www.soapsindepth.com/posts/casting/the-young-and-the-restless-richard-gleason-matt-miller-166226

    Liked by 1 person

  68. Hmm, “car to car” shooting reported on our main street tonight (must be why there’s a helicopter just hovering in place in the sky). Just like the wild west.

    Like

  69. Not familiar with him. I watched ABC soaps. My mom had watched General Hospital from its beginning in 1963, except for the times she was working. (She didn’t always work outside the home, but did occasionally.) She loved it when VCRs came along so she could tape it when she worked taxes during the tax season in the early 80s.

    I was so familiar with some of the long-standing characters that when we went out for lunch or something, she would fill me in on what was happening with them, as if they were our old friends. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  70. I have been following a post on a local Facebook page about a missing pit bull. Rosco had been missing since Tuesday, with no sightings, which is not good. He was the emotional support dog for a mentally challenged woman in her early 60s, since her mother died. It was not looking good that he would be found.

    But Rosco was found today! I had tears in my eyes when I read about it, and thanked God. That woman is so happy to have her dog back home.

    *******
    Question: Is “mentally challenged” the currently proper term for folks we used to call “retarded” (not in the nasty way that it came to be used, but describing their mental condition)? I’m referring to those who do not have Down Syndrome, as that woman above did not.

    Nightingale says that “mentally retarded” is still a medical term, at least for now. It’s too bad that people had to take that word and use it as an epithet.

    Liked by 1 person

  72. Kizzie, I say “mentally retarded.” I think that the phrase together is clearly not derogatory, and it’s the clearest term I know.

    Re lavender roses: the wedding I attended yesterday afternoon had a huge arrangement at the front, which was kept up front for today’s services. I noticed the roses and the white poppies, and tonight during the service I noticed some of the roses were lavender. (The pink ones were bigger and more noticeable.) After the service tonight, people (mostly women, but at least one man and one boy) attacked the bouquet to take flowers home. The poppies were all gone by the time I got up there (though I claimed one that hadn’t opened yet in case it opens), but I got several of the lavender roses and some assorted other flowers. Temperatures have been in the teens all day, but I have a vase of fresh flowers on my counter to help me imagine it’s spring. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  74. Oh, I remember seeing General Hospital when it came on right before (?) Dark Shadows in the late 1960s. Dr. Hardy 🙂

    Glad the lost dog was found, Kizzie.

    I’m watching 60 minutes, they reran a segment they’d done before (and I’d seen before) on the return of the wolves to Yellowstone. Amazing creatures. But conflicts follow, thanks to the fall as we were reminded in our sermon today — “something” isn’t right with the world, with us, we can see it all around us.

    Another segment was on the guy doing the Photo Ark project, have you heard of that Cheryl?

    https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/photo-ark/

    Liked by 1 person

  75. DJ, I’ve got the “birds” version of that book, though I haven’t spent much time with it. I think it was an amazon Black Friday deal in 2018 and my husband asked if I wanted it and I said sure.

    Like

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