40 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-30-20

  1. Good morning! Miguel just went out on another vehicle vs wildlife call. I have to be here for class this morning. It is finals review.

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  2. Morning! Rk we have had many deer hanging around and I am surprised we have not had more vehicle/deer collisions. Most drivers are very cautious around here but sometimes those creatures just decide to jump out of nowhere 😞 This week we have had groups of 15 or so deer hanging out on our property…they are munching on the grasses and lazing around….

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  3. Good morning. Another beautiful spring day. Heavy sky, thunderstorms expected. Glad we got those four trees in the ground so they can have cool rainy days to acclimate.

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  4. Good morning everyone.
    We had a storm last night and our power was off until just a few minutes ago.
    LindaS bought us breakfast from Chick Fil A.
    And the heat is on. It is 54 degrees outside and was falling here.

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  5. Sunshine and 54° in the Mid-Mississippi Valley.

    Missouri opens on Monday, phased in over 4 weeks. Illinois opens (maybe) May 31. The mayor of nearby Quincy, IL, is asking Gov. Pritzker of Illinois to let regions near other states to open earlier for economic reasons. His fear is that a lot of his 40,000+ residents will do their business over here, 25 miles away. Many downstate counties are wishing the same, as Chicago is where most of Illinois’ cases have been. But it’s Illinois. What Chicago wants, the rest of the state has to get. I hear it’s the same in New York, as some upstate cities and towns want freed form NYC’s policies.

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  6. Hmm, I notice eighteen still has her clothes hanging out on the line. She refused to hang them out when I brought her wet stuff to her from the washer. Later in the afternoon, she did but left them out and it rained. Raining now as well. All would have been dry had she just hung them up and brought them in on time. Oh well. Fabric softening rinse I suppose.

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  7. Beautifully sunny and we might get 65 today!! We could use a little rain, actually.

    We have to drive about an hour to get a load from Sam’s club. More than a dozen things we wanted that they were out of. This is our first time trying the ordering on line and having it loaded for us. Learning new things in this interesting time period. Stretching the brain.

    Kizzie, I never use the dryer option in my dishwasher. Only issue is plastic and anything that cups on the top. I always empty the bottom first (after the silverware in the door) so nothing gets dripped on. Then I just put anything not completely dry in the rack in the sink. Works fine for me. Very little is not dry.

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  8. Sounds like it is time to replace the valve in the toilet tank. Fortunately, one of the sons is coming home to help husband with some odd jobs. He is a very willing helper and adept. And his carpentry job is on hold due to the virus. He also respects social distancing so not too concerned about him bringing in germs.

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  9. I’m about to put on a dress and brush my hair. My husband and I are zooming into a Georgetown Honors Psychology Symposium in half an hour. We’ll watch my youngest niece finish her college career.

    We’ll toast her afterward with champagne because this marks the end of a legacy begun in 1952.

    My father put himself through college, where he met and married my teacher mother. Both were raised poor during the Depression.

    Because of graduating from college (the first in my dad’s family since 1765; the first ever in my mom’s), their entire lives changed–as did my brother’s and mine, our cousin, and all their grandchildren.

    My parents put all of us through college–15 people.

    I’ve been feeling weepy the last couple days as I think about how proud they would be of this wonderful legacy. This niece and her sister will both finish in May and their spectacular gift comes to its planned conclusion.

    Familia is everything for the Sicilians. My father always saw himself as an adopted Sicilian–the rest of us got it naturally. 🙂

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  10. I wonder how we’ll all behave once restrictions begin to be lifted. Cautiously, I think; it could be a slow re-acclimation process. LA County has been pretty hard-hit with cases & deaths, but not nearly so bad as NYC.

    It’s cool and overcast this morning, I had a restless night for some reason, mosquito bite on my right foot, left knee hurting, police helicopter circling, just too warm or something, the cat insisting on sleeping on top of me despite my (gently) shoving her off repeatedly — I finally opened the bedroom window again for some AIR when the helicopter left, but at one point I felt so warm I actually took my temperature (normal). Not a warm night particularly, though, strange.

    The cat, meanwhile, has discovered a new attention-getting trick when she wants to be fed (again) — she unravels the paper towel rolls so when I go into the kitchen there’s a whole pile of paper towels on the floor.

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  11. Do you realize that this evening, or tomorrow morning, we all get to turn the page on our calendars??! I have two calendars with family pictures so can’t wait to see what is in store for next month. Find your excitement wherever you can!

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  12. Also, I finally got a return phone call yesterday and it is agreed that I can stay in this home for another two months. Such a relief. This is home. For fifteen years whenever I have been on furlough this is where I have stayed. I like watching the parking lot and going walking over there.

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  13. Tomorrow is grandson’s birthday. He is still running about one hundred two so probably not too much into celebrating.

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  14. Thirteen year old son also felt the need to remind me that May is coming. That is his birthday month. Don’t tell him, but I already have the history books he will be receiving in celebration. World War ll and the holocaust mostly.

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  15. So frustrating trying to get through to my bank! I had to call about an issue, and of course, there is an automated system guiding me along to (hopefully) the right person. After I entered my account number, it asked for my “access number”. Access number? What access number?

    So I followed the directions to get an access number, after which it asked for my access number – without giving me one! I think at that point I hung up and cried a little bit. Next time I tried, I took the option of waiting for a person. The wait will be over 40 minutes, but I am on a call-back thingy.

    I hate having to make these kinds of calls, because my hearing loss – even with the hearing aids – often makes it difficult to hear well enough on the phone. (Hearing aids are great, but they are not “real” hearing.) And if the person has an accent, I’m lost. (One of the doctors on Hubby’s case had an accent, and the time he called me to update me, I had to run upstairs and have Nightingale take the call because I could not understand him at all.)

    The fact that calls on cell phones are not as clear as our old house phones makes it worse.

    Still waiting for the call. And nervous.

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  16. My daughter was trying to pay for her newspaper today. Couldn’t do it online after trying all over their website. Decided to just send a check, but could find no address as to where to send it!

    I am sure you will get through sooner or later, Kizzie. So frustrating!

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  17. I also have a calendar of family pictures. It is always fun to change to a new month. My youngest daughter gives me one every year for my birthday. She steals pictures off facebook for all the grandchildren, so all are included, as well as the parents here and there.

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  18. Fun to see my niece shine on Zoom. I did NOT ask a question because there was no point in getting into trouble.

    In other news, a woman in Marquette, MI just sent me the photo of a charcoal drawing Oswald Chambers drew for her grandfather. It’s not signed, but comes with a story.

    It’s amazing the things that turn up in my lap!

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  19. Talked to a cargo forecaster (now there’s a job niche) who was ruminating on the “recovery” process with such questions as how soon will it be before people feel ‘safe’ going into a theater? Will more people work from home and stop buying as many “nice” clothes?

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  20. Well, I am running the dishwasher. Just the rinse cycle, just to see if it is going to leak all over from disuse. If not, I may use it. Just because husband bought it for me, makes sense to use it sometimes. When we have had company so a lot of dishes, I was not confident it would not leak and most of the company just wanted to help with the dishes anyway.

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  21. Michelle that is touching especially for me today. April 30th is my father’s birthday. He would have been 106 today. Wesley will be the first to get his PhD. It was suppose to be formally awarded on May 16, but now the ceremonial award is scheduled for August. And my father died while I was pregnant with Wesley, his only grandchild. It is bittersweet.

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  22. I hadn’t thought about this, but I guess my generation is the first fo finish college in both my mother’s and father’s families. Dad, an only child, started college but never finished. Mom and her sibs never went. My brother and I both finished. I assume some of my cousins went to college but I don’t really know for sure. No graduate school so far – maybe KJ or Flyboy will go.

    That reminds me, Flyboy finished his bachelor’s degree this week, yay! Of course the last two months’ classes have all been online, and the graduation ceremony scheduled for last Saturday was cancelled. But he’s done. He’ll stick with his job at the airport, but hopes to switch to days, if someone else would like to work at least some of his night shifts (4 per week, 9 pm – 7 am).

    When Covid restrictions on flying are lifted he’ll go back to advancing his licenses: instrument rating, commercial license, and instructor’s license. He looks forward to being an instructor because then he’ll rack up hours while being paid instead of paying to fly. I think he’ll be a pretty good instructor too. He has such a calm demeanor in the plane and he’s good at explaining things.

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  23. My grandfather did not go to college but managed to convince employers he had done so. He worked as a mechanical engineer, picking up skills on the job. But he raised his six boys to know they were going to finish college and they would pay for it. They all did so. My dad remembers working several jobs at once (dishwasher, milk delivery, etc) while raising a family and going to college.

    Since then, approximately eighteen of his twenty four grandchildren graduated from college (not me) as well as at least fifteen of his numerous great grandchildren.

    I do not think it is essential. It can be quite helpful but not always and not always worth the cost.

    Some of my children are the first of their family to graduate high school. Some are the first to get past fourth grade.

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  24. My dad had an 8th grade education. My mother finished high school and went to a secretarial/business college. I use to look at her Gregg shorthand book and find it fascinating. A whole other kind of language. I got a four year degree in business, my brother got a four year degree in poultry science and then a Masters in Business Admin. I never considered before now that in a sense we followed our mother’s lead with the business degrees although her school was not like a four year degree school.

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  25. I was the first generation on both my father and mother’s side to get a university degree, although I have cousins who also have degrees. My mother had a teaching certificate, but in her day, a university degree was not required for teaching public school.

    Kevin, one of my cousins on my father’s side had the same drive to become a pilot. As a teen, he was part of the Air Force Cadets (not sure if the US has Cadets programs – think Boy Scouts/Girl Guides but sponsored by the military). He started with gliders, got a private license, then became a cargo pilot, and had finally worked his way into becoming a pilot on a domestic airline, about a year before all this happened.

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  26. I was the first in my family to go to college. And it could be done then without spending an arm and a leg, making use of community college (essentially free then) for two years and then transferring into one of the cheaper state universities to finish up.

    I honestly don’t know how families or students do it nowadays. Student loans, I guess.

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  27. My parents both went to Bible School and then Teacher’s College. They then both got their B.Ed. while teaching. My sister has her B.Ed. I’ve had absolutely no higher education – I got married at 19 and my natural inclination for administration has given me many fun interesting jobs over the years. I don’t think I would have done well with using any higher education. 🙂

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  28. The return call came after about an hour and fifteen minutes. The lady did have an accent, but it was relatively mild, and putting her on speaker helped me understand her words more clearly. I was relieved to have the call over and done with.

    As for college, I agree with those who say that it is not always necessary. Trade schools are a great alternative for training in various occupations. Even tech high schools can turn out students ready to go to work. A young man I knew in my old church graduated with HVAC training and went right to work for the man he had apprenticed with.

    I also wish that people would not make it seem like the intelligent kids go to college and the less intelligent go to trade schools. Hubby knew a very intelligent man who graduated from MIT, but did not like the career he was in. So he ended up running a lunch truck, which he enjoyed doing.

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  29. I agree that not everyone needs college (and that attending or not attending college has little to do with one’s intelligence . . . and having attended or graduated doesn’t even indicate how much one knows). One of my personal pet peeves is people who go to college right out of high school, then straight to grad school, without ever having held a job except possibly a part-time one or two. That isn’t really being well educated, nor is it good preparation for work.

    I don’t think college should primarily be seen as preparation for life. I think education is separate from job training. But to see school as “job training” and then do lots and lots of years of school before working is quite counterintuitive. And students who go that route (in my experience) don’t always pay all that much attention to the need to learn; they just want to get the education (the diploma). Some time in the “real world” helps one see the need for education, see what education is actually needed, and value it more. (That “education” isn’t necessarily classroom education.)

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  30. It’s not Saturday, but I’ve got to rant.

    I’M TIRED! I’m tired of celebrities telling us “We’re all in this together.” NO WE’RE NOT! I’m here in my 1400 sq ft 3 bedroom house with wet carpet because of design flaws and they’re in there city sized mansions with huge yards and swimming pools. They haven’t a clue what it is for 90% of their fellow Americans. SHUT UP overpaid babies!

    Now a rave: Those who are actually doing something for others by giving financial aid to the ones out of work. Ye, they’re still in their over sized play houses, but they are doing something besides making videos telling us to stay home and be safe.

    Okay, back to being my usual calm fun-loving self.

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  31. It’s almost Friday!

    Dogs are walked, trash is hauled out, dishes washed.

    I spent most of the day on phone interviews, wrote one story and have all the reporting done for a story I’m writing tomorrow for the weekend (writing is the easiest part).

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