Good morning everyone. This occurred to me yesterday afternoon, but it was too complicated with the technology to bring up with such a short time left.
It has to do with a prayer that was answered and I didn’t realize it until decades later.
first: The technology.
You youngsters may not know it, but you have overdrive in your car. If you don’t have a stick shift, your car starts out in low and shifts up according to the speed and load of the car. And, when you reach 40-45, or some such, it goes into overdrive. You don’t need to do a thing. It does it for you.
ft hasn’t always been that way.
In the early fifties, overdrive used to be an option. But I don’t think anyone bought it, so they just added it to automatic transmission cars.
Now the story:
When I was at Carolina, I became involved with Inter varsity Christian Fellowship. IVCF had a convention at Duke in NC.
My car was a ’50 club coupe. A real neat car for a young man to have. I bought it when I got my third stripe in the AF.
My sister was married, her husband was a navy chief and at sea. She had an early fifties Ford. Since my car was so small, we traded cars for a weekend so that I could take several people to Durham, NC. That car had overdrive, but I didn’t know it. You had to activate it manually.
I made the trip. On the return, I evidently activated the overdrive, because it was on, but I didn’t know it.
I delivered all the passengers to their respective locations. The last one was in Gaston, SC, at Margaret’s home. It was late at night, maybe around 10 p.m. I delivered Margaret to her door and went back to the car.
It wouldn’t start!
Here I was sitting in a car in front of a girls house late at night. It wouldn’t start. I must have tried a couple of minutes. A long time in such a situation.
What was I to do?
I prayed. I put my head on the steering wheel and prayed.
Then????
I turned off the overdrive and cranked up the car? It started. Just like that!
I drove on back to campus without thinking about it again.
It was just last week that It occurred to me that God answered my prayer and I didn’t think abut it.
I didn’t know that car had overdrive, much less how to activate it.
That was before I got Elvera. It too me over six decades to realize what happened that night.
What else has God done that I may not be aware of?
Sorry for the header, Michelle. For everyone else: isn’t he beautiful? Just a young, naive buck. Won’t be a hunter’s trophy size for several more years. I’ve seen two does in this park, just around here, several times. That day I saw four does together (I was photographing birds when they went past. They went past quickly and I’ve gotten better shots of them before, so I didn’t take any photos of them). After the does, a small space and then this yearling buck. And he saw me and was like whoa, didn’t expect to see her here. So he stopped and stared, turned around as if to retreat, stared some more . . . giving me lots of chance to observe him. Then he decided to trot away, and I got that photo too, here. Early morning with the sun on him.
Later on the walk I saw another young buck, but a bigger one with ten points that I’ve seen before. And the next day (a different trail) I saw two does with their fawns, three or possibly four fawns in all, including some great close-up views of the fawns.
I remember optional over-drive. A friend had it on a British sports car he rebuilt.
I also remember when my dad was driving our Ford Falcon up a hill and tried to pass a slow moving semi. The automatic transmission went into a lower gear for more power. That’s when we discovered that little car had a passing gear.
so many deer around here. They were running across the road as I was out walking and they are always grazing in the gardens here.
We are going to check out another missionaries storage containers here and find a way to truck them the things they need. These were my neighbors in PNG and have now retired.
The things you learn.
August already.
I am back to teaching today. Some of the students will be virtual. I hope I’m not too self conscious.
Richard made an offer on a house yesterday.
He has his pre-op appointment today.
Lovely reflection by the pastor of our original church in my home town. His wife is the granddaughter of the woman who led my mother-in-law to the Lord.
I loved this line: “Pastor, that was more a hostage situation than a sermon!”
Interesting Michelle. I was reading along and suddenly, my screen was covered with an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter. It has no other options that I could find.
I’ve noticed the ‘overdrive’ kicking in especially when I’m heading over the two bridges. This is the first automatic car I guess I’ve had, though I learned to drive on an automatic (our family’s Chevy). But my VWs were all manual stick shifts.
I’m glad I don’t have to worry about a clutch pedal now that my left knee is so messed up.
I had a restless night for some reason, weird dreams about the virus. I’d read a long piece on the prospects for a vaccine and all the complications that are involved before falling asleep, maybe that did it. The article wasn’t very encouraging, it indicated that even if a vaccine is found it may not be a slam-dunk solution in protection for everyone, maybe only 50% for some, with boosters needed (so more complications) and distribution along will make it a long process — in other words, it wouldn’t be a quick, overnight solution; instead, it would be more like a slow, step-by-step, “re-opening,” a slow trek back to normalcy that could take many months.
We recently had a couple of very young deer (no spots, but just beyond that) cross the road in front of us. We slowed looking for the doe. One of the fawns had very tiny antlers. I do not think I have ever seen one that young with antlers. We have so many twin fawns around this year.
Beautiful header! I never got to see the header that Michelle had of a butterfly. Our passionfliwers have had few blooms so I have yet to see a gulf fritillary butterfly to get a photo of. Maybe in a week or two I will finally see some. My brother said his fig trees have not produced this year as they had in the past.
Pretty buck up there…they don’t seem to eat my flowers like the doe and fawn….. 🦌
I’ve never heard anyone say “corvid” but there are many around here who pronounce “mountains” as “mount…ten…nans”….where does that come from?! 😏
I first saw corvid on a post by a poet where he said something like, “I say Covid and you sat Corvid.” He is in N.C. The other person who says it is a church member who is a former missionary (Michelle has met her). Maybe they say it that way where she lived for many years, in a foreign language? I could just ask, but I don’t want to in fear of perhaps hurting her feelings.
Well, I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. I’ve had nonstop work for nearly two years now. Right now I’m finishing up a mid-size project for a publisher, but behind it I have the second edits of two smaller books for individuals, and two ongoing big projects, one for my church and one for somebody in my church.
I wanted to finish today’s deadline and then those two small projects, and have only the two big, ongoing ones for the next month or two.
I just got another super-big project. It’s a big payment, one of my biggest in freelance, but it’s a mammoth book too. For income that’s really good and I can’t turn it down. It should allow us to go ahead with the closet remodel we’ve wanted to do (the master closet is original to the condo, 1980, and could be more efficiently organized. Also, we carpeted the place before we moved in, and now the doors don’t close on the closet). But at some point I need to focus on the project from church, and I originally thought I could do that in July and then that I could do that in August. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind taking two weeks just to read, do my own writing, do some housework, etc. But I can’t complain about a big project coming in!
We’ve just had a pretty big storm with rain, thunder err, and two really big gusts of wind. I am sitting in my downstairs closet with Miss Bosley in my lap. Wherever I go, she follows, and thankfully at times like this so I don’t worry about her if something falls on the house.
Jo, regarding buying a used car, another thing that can help if you have a good mechanic you trust is to have them look at the car before you buy it. We’ve done that for the last two cars we bought and it saved us money. For $200 our mechanic does a “pre-purchase inspection”, lists all the things that should be fixed and how much he would charge to fix them. If we buy the car he applies half of the $200 to the cost of the repairs he recommended.
The first time we did that, we brought him two cars before we bought one, which means we spent $400 on the inspections. That felt a little like throwing money away, but I’m glad he steered us away from the first car. We are not car-savvy enough to have seen the issues he raised.
When we bought our latest car last year, we showed the repairs list and cost to the dealer and offered Kelly Blue Book value for the car (which was lower than they were asking) minus the cost of the inspection and recommended repairs, minus a little more for negotiating space. (We didn’t show him all those calculations, just the repairs list and cost.)
We expected to settle on something in between and decided before we went in what our “walk away” limit would be. The dealer countered with exactly our limit. We were happy with the price and the car.
Our experience is with older cars, 60-70K miles. A newer car like you’re looking at might not need much work, so the inspection might not buy you as much as it has for us.
One caution about the Subaru. We loved the 2002 Forester we bought used in 2008 with 60K miles. It ran beautifully, it was practical for our family use, and the all-wheel drive was wonderful for Michigan winters. I’d say we got 5-6 good years out of it. As it got to around 200K miles, though, it seemed like something would break and need fixing or replacing every few months, and we started wondering if we were throwing money away on it. We finally gave it to one of those car donation outfits for parts.
Our mechanic said he’s worked on quite a few Subarus like ours that didn’t age well. Perhaps the newer Subarus are better, and I know many people love theirs as we did.
Kevin, I’ve never had a car get to 200K. The Corolla might have, if I’d been willing to keep putting money into it . . . and if it hadn’t been totalled. But as a single woman driving around a big city (Nashville) and periodically visiting siblings in two adjoining states, I didn’t trust it anymore. And I had two issues I’d chosen not to fix that were a nuisance: the driver’s window didn’t roll down, and the front passenger door didn’t open from the inside. It was 15 years old, and in the previous two years I’d had two breakdowns out of state (radiator leak and a broken belt), and even though it was a Toyota that had been a very good car and it only had about 130K, I was praying for the funds to replace it when it got hit and the insurance paid for my next car. I’d be thrilled to have a car see 200K.
My last car, a Jetta, got up to 200,000 miles but, as Cheryl said, things just start to go. The A/C and heat were both out (bearable and survivable in coastal Southern California though not always very comfortable); the passenger side front (power) window was stuck in the closed position (so with no A/C that was an issue). And I was looking at a major engine repair in the not-too-distant future.
What happens to children raised in homes where Christianity = morality, political power, and wealth? Don’t be surprised to find licentiousness and dishonesty. Only the gospel can change and humble the heart.
Speaking of old cars… It seems it’s time to put the 2001 Malibu out to pasture. It’s at 357,000 miles and needs major front end work. I’ve had it for 14 years and will miss it.
Good morning everyone. This occurred to me yesterday afternoon, but it was too complicated with the technology to bring up with such a short time left.
It has to do with a prayer that was answered and I didn’t realize it until decades later.
first: The technology.
You youngsters may not know it, but you have overdrive in your car. If you don’t have a stick shift, your car starts out in low and shifts up according to the speed and load of the car. And, when you reach 40-45, or some such, it goes into overdrive. You don’t need to do a thing. It does it for you.
ft hasn’t always been that way.
In the early fifties, overdrive used to be an option. But I don’t think anyone bought it, so they just added it to automatic transmission cars.
Now the story:
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When I was at Carolina, I became involved with Inter varsity Christian Fellowship. IVCF had a convention at Duke in NC.
My car was a ’50 club coupe. A real neat car for a young man to have. I bought it when I got my third stripe in the AF.
My sister was married, her husband was a navy chief and at sea. She had an early fifties Ford. Since my car was so small, we traded cars for a weekend so that I could take several people to Durham, NC. That car had overdrive, but I didn’t know it. You had to activate it manually.
I made the trip. On the return, I evidently activated the overdrive, because it was on, but I didn’t know it.
I delivered all the passengers to their respective locations. The last one was in Gaston, SC, at Margaret’s home. It was late at night, maybe around 10 p.m. I delivered Margaret to her door and went back to the car.
It wouldn’t start!
Here I was sitting in a car in front of a girls house late at night. It wouldn’t start. I must have tried a couple of minutes. A long time in such a situation.
What was I to do?
I prayed. I put my head on the steering wheel and prayed.
Then????
I turned off the overdrive and cranked up the car? It started. Just like that!
I drove on back to campus without thinking about it again.
It was just last week that It occurred to me that God answered my prayer and I didn’t think abut it.
I didn’t know that car had overdrive, much less how to activate it.
That was before I got Elvera. It too me over six decades to realize what happened that night.
What else has God done that I may not be aware of?
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The deer. There was a fawn chewing the grass in my front yard yesterday afternoon. I got Elvera to the door to see him just as he bounded off.
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Sure is lonesome around here.
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RETIRED!!!
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Sorry for the header, Michelle. For everyone else: isn’t he beautiful? Just a young, naive buck. Won’t be a hunter’s trophy size for several more years. I’ve seen two does in this park, just around here, several times. That day I saw four does together (I was photographing birds when they went past. They went past quickly and I’ve gotten better shots of them before, so I didn’t take any photos of them). After the does, a small space and then this yearling buck. And he saw me and was like whoa, didn’t expect to see her here. So he stopped and stared, turned around as if to retreat, stared some more . . . giving me lots of chance to observe him. Then he decided to trot away, and I got that photo too, here. Early morning with the sun on him.
Later on the walk I saw another young buck, but a bigger one with ten points that I’ve seen before. And the next day (a different trail) I saw two does with their fawns, three or possibly four fawns in all, including some great close-up views of the fawns.
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I remember optional over-drive. A friend had it on a British sports car he rebuilt.
I also remember when my dad was driving our Ford Falcon up a hill and tried to pass a slow moving semi. The automatic transmission went into a lower gear for more power. That’s when we discovered that little car had a passing gear.
LikeLiked by 3 people
so many deer around here. They were running across the road as I was out walking and they are always grazing in the gardens here.
We are going to check out another missionaries storage containers here and find a way to truck them the things they need. These were my neighbors in PNG and have now retired.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The things you learn.
August already.
I am back to teaching today. Some of the students will be virtual. I hope I’m not too self conscious.
Richard made an offer on a house yesterday.
He has his pre-op appointment today.
LikeLiked by 4 people
We have an overdrive turn off or on button in our car. It is on automatically but you can turn it off when going down steep grades.
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Lovely reflection by the pastor of our original church in my home town. His wife is the granddaughter of the woman who led my mother-in-law to the Lord.
I loved this line: “Pastor, that was more a hostage situation than a sermon!”
https://sanpedrotoday.com/freedom-from-addiction/
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Interesting Michelle. I was reading along and suddenly, my screen was covered with an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter. It has no other options that I could find.
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Handsome animal up there.
I’ve noticed the ‘overdrive’ kicking in especially when I’m heading over the two bridges. This is the first automatic car I guess I’ve had, though I learned to drive on an automatic (our family’s Chevy). But my VWs were all manual stick shifts.
I’m glad I don’t have to worry about a clutch pedal now that my left knee is so messed up.
I had a restless night for some reason, weird dreams about the virus. I’d read a long piece on the prospects for a vaccine and all the complications that are involved before falling asleep, maybe that did it. The article wasn’t very encouraging, it indicated that even if a vaccine is found it may not be a slam-dunk solution in protection for everyone, maybe only 50% for some, with boosters needed (so more complications) and distribution along will make it a long process — in other words, it wouldn’t be a quick, overnight solution; instead, it would be more like a slow, step-by-step, “re-opening,” a slow trek back to normalcy that could take many months.
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Chas, I think the same invitation came up on my screen, it’s hard to see, but there’s an “x” up in the right hand corner, just click that
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There’s always an ‘x.’ They just sometimes make it hard to find, but it’s there.
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We recently had a couple of very young deer (no spots, but just beyond that) cross the road in front of us. We slowed looking for the doe. One of the fawns had very tiny antlers. I do not think I have ever seen one that young with antlers. We have so many twin fawns around this year.
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Those tricky ‘x’s are pretty maddening.
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Beautiful header! I never got to see the header that Michelle had of a butterfly. Our passionfliwers have had few blooms so I have yet to see a gulf fritillary butterfly to get a photo of. Maybe in a week or two I will finally see some. My brother said his fig trees have not produced this year as they had in the past.
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Why do some people pronounce Covid as Corvid? It it a mashup with Corona?
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I’ve never heard it pronounced with the “r.” Maybe it’s a Georgia thing? 🙂
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Janice, tell them “corvid” is a crow.
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Pretty buck up there…they don’t seem to eat my flowers like the doe and fawn….. 🦌
I’ve never heard anyone say “corvid” but there are many around here who pronounce “mountains” as “mount…ten…nans”….where does that come from?! 😏
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I first saw corvid on a post by a poet where he said something like, “I say Covid and you sat Corvid.” He is in N.C. The other person who says it is a church member who is a former missionary (Michelle has met her). Maybe they say it that way where she lived for many years, in a foreign language? I could just ask, but I don’t want to in fear of perhaps hurting her feelings.
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Well, I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. I’ve had nonstop work for nearly two years now. Right now I’m finishing up a mid-size project for a publisher, but behind it I have the second edits of two smaller books for individuals, and two ongoing big projects, one for my church and one for somebody in my church.
I wanted to finish today’s deadline and then those two small projects, and have only the two big, ongoing ones for the next month or two.
I just got another super-big project. It’s a big payment, one of my biggest in freelance, but it’s a mammoth book too. For income that’s really good and I can’t turn it down. It should allow us to go ahead with the closet remodel we’ve wanted to do (the master closet is original to the condo, 1980, and could be more efficiently organized. Also, we carpeted the place before we moved in, and now the doors don’t close on the closet). But at some point I need to focus on the project from church, and I originally thought I could do that in July and then that I could do that in August. And honestly, I wouldn’t mind taking two weeks just to read, do my own writing, do some housework, etc. But I can’t complain about a big project coming in!
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Congrats on being an Editor in Demand, Cheryl!
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We’ve just had a pretty big storm with rain, thunder err, and two really big gusts of wind. I am sitting in my downstairs closet with Miss Bosley in my lap. Wherever I go, she follows, and thankfully at times like this so I don’t worry about her if something falls on the house.
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“Mount ten nins” sounds very strange. Maybe a cross of mountains and mountain range?
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Or short for mountaineering?
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Belated Happy Birthdays to both Debra and Elizabeth J!
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Interesting article on the Atlanta Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who could possibly be on the ticket with Biden.
https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-mayor-bottoms-decisions-in-crisis-lead-to-differing-perceptions/ZTPGADSA5VAG7EQFZ7N333HEYQ/
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Catching up on the weekend thread.
Jo, regarding buying a used car, another thing that can help if you have a good mechanic you trust is to have them look at the car before you buy it. We’ve done that for the last two cars we bought and it saved us money. For $200 our mechanic does a “pre-purchase inspection”, lists all the things that should be fixed and how much he would charge to fix them. If we buy the car he applies half of the $200 to the cost of the repairs he recommended.
The first time we did that, we brought him two cars before we bought one, which means we spent $400 on the inspections. That felt a little like throwing money away, but I’m glad he steered us away from the first car. We are not car-savvy enough to have seen the issues he raised.
When we bought our latest car last year, we showed the repairs list and cost to the dealer and offered Kelly Blue Book value for the car (which was lower than they were asking) minus the cost of the inspection and recommended repairs, minus a little more for negotiating space. (We didn’t show him all those calculations, just the repairs list and cost.)
We expected to settle on something in between and decided before we went in what our “walk away” limit would be. The dealer countered with exactly our limit. We were happy with the price and the car.
Our experience is with older cars, 60-70K miles. A newer car like you’re looking at might not need much work, so the inspection might not buy you as much as it has for us.
One caution about the Subaru. We loved the 2002 Forester we bought used in 2008 with 60K miles. It ran beautifully, it was practical for our family use, and the all-wheel drive was wonderful for Michigan winters. I’d say we got 5-6 good years out of it. As it got to around 200K miles, though, it seemed like something would break and need fixing or replacing every few months, and we started wondering if we were throwing money away on it. We finally gave it to one of those car donation outfits for parts.
Our mechanic said he’s worked on quite a few Subarus like ours that didn’t age well. Perhaps the newer Subarus are better, and I know many people love theirs as we did.
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Kevin, I’ve never had a car get to 200K. The Corolla might have, if I’d been willing to keep putting money into it . . . and if it hadn’t been totalled. But as a single woman driving around a big city (Nashville) and periodically visiting siblings in two adjoining states, I didn’t trust it anymore. And I had two issues I’d chosen not to fix that were a nuisance: the driver’s window didn’t roll down, and the front passenger door didn’t open from the inside. It was 15 years old, and in the previous two years I’d had two breakdowns out of state (radiator leak and a broken belt), and even though it was a Toyota that had been a very good car and it only had about 130K, I was praying for the funds to replace it when it got hit and the insurance paid for my next car. I’d be thrilled to have a car see 200K.
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My last car, a Jetta, got up to 200,000 miles but, as Cheryl said, things just start to go. The A/C and heat were both out (bearable and survivable in coastal Southern California though not always very comfortable); the passenger side front (power) window was stuck in the closed position (so with no A/C that was an issue). And I was looking at a major engine repair in the not-too-distant future.
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Speaking of old cars… It seems it’s time to put the 2001 Malibu out to pasture. It’s at 357,000 miles and needs major front end work. I’ve had it for 14 years and will miss it.
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