Saturday. A day to sleep in (only until 7) and maybe get some things done that I’m too tired to do during the week. Mow the lawn, rearrange the living room now that it’s painted, watch college football, do a little reading, etc.
Good morning. I’ve been peeking in at the blog to check on our Southerners facing hurricanes and our Westerners with fires — and earthquakes now, I see. Yikes. Glad you’re all faring okay.
Kevin, so sorry to hear of your friend Judy’s passing. As a teenager, I used to babysit for a family where the parents’ names were Jerry and Judy. Sweet, loving people, like it sounds like your friend/s is/were, and how heart-rending a decision it must have been for (your friend) Jerry to face.
My condolences to him and his family, and to you, as well.
My niece is getting married next weekend. I was trying to decide whether to wear the same dress to her wedding as my MOB dress for 2nd Arrow’s two years ago. I’ve only worn the dress twice — to her wedding and to a piano concert — and was looking for opportunities to wear it again, as it’s rather glam and not your everyday wear-to-work-or-church dress.
However, I wondered if the dress might be too much, possibly upstaging this year’s mother-of-bride dress, the style of which I’m not aware.. So I decided — with subsequent affirmation from my resident fashion consultant 3rd Arrow — to leave that dress in my closet and wear another dress that is more subdued. It was fun to “shop my closet” this morning with 3rd and come up with an outfit. 🙂
I was at church by 8 a.m. when we did our prayer walk. I really enjoyed doing the walk. I suppose it could be a good chance to get nature photos, but that would distract from the main point. This was my first neighborhood prayer walk. I certainly noticed a lot of things I have never seen in the many times I have driven there
Interested to finally get time to open the World magazine and find a family friend interviewed for the piece on Q. We have known him for twenty plus years so the story was familiar. He has worked with fourteen year old, teaching him chess over the years.
DJ, people do eat pizza for breakfast. And hey, I always figured one of the benefits of living alone was no one to look at you funny if you wore mismatched clothes or ate weird meals. If my lunch was a handful of pistachios, a few raisins, and a chunk of cheese, no one but me and Misten knew . . . and Misten only cared that I give her a nibble of the cheese while it was out anyway . . .
For those who enjoy reading the Piano Girl Chronicles:
I mentioned the multi-week project where she draws expressions on blank faces to indicate whether the musical example I play shows good or poor technique. Good technique = smiling face; poor technique = frowning face.
You may recall that the week I decided to demonstrate poor technique, she didn’t want to draw a frowning face. She quietly pleaded with me to please play with the correct technique for the skill I’ve been featuring. So I did, and she immediately reverted to her happy, exuberant self and drew a smiley face.
Fast forward to Week 7 — this week — where we got to the last face on the page. She had it all planned out even before I played, and told me to play wrong. 🙂 I did so, and she drew a big frown and laughed maniacally! Then she wanted a different example for the nose, so she drew that. Cheeks were next, and I was instructed to play wrong again. I mashed my fingers together flat on the white keys with my knuckles sticking up, and she drew large red splotches where the cheeks and jaw would be, laughing and saying, “He’s really mad!”
This isn’t exactly the way the page is “supposed” to be executed between teacher and student, but when are teacher/student interactions ever the way they’re supposed to be? She certainly understood the point of the lesson — distinguishing between correct and incorrect technique, and then exhibiting good technique herself — so I enjoyed giving her some autonomy (being more student-led than teacher-led) on that page as we returned to it over the weeks.
And I was so glad that she seemed to get over her fear of drawing a different kind of face than what she’d always done before.
Thursday, after her lesson was done, she left the studio room and bounded down the hall like she always does, chattering a mile a minute in her high-pitched 6-year-old voice. I walked, quite rapidly (her little legs transport her amazingly quickly!), after her, to see her out to the parking lot so I could make sure her dad was there. When we went past one of the violin studios, that instructor was between students and standing in her doorway when Piano Girl was leaving. The violin instructor was grinning ear to ear, and her shoulders were shaking as she tried to hold back joyous laughter at that cute little kid, so full of life, making her way down the hall and sharing her every thought as she traveled. 🙂
Oh, and I have to tell you: at Piano Girl’s previous week’s lesson, I improvised with her using a common chord sequence in C Major and told her to make up anything on all white keys. I started out playing whole notes (long tones that are held for 4 beats), but counted barely audibly the beats for the first couple measures. Piano Girl caught the pulse right away, and as we proceeded further into the improvisation and I started playing faster notes, she began adjusting her rhythms, too, in various ways.
It turned out to be a stunning back-and-forth rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic musical conversation between us. Her playing almost brought me to tears. Her sense of the beat and her musical intuition of what and when to play as she proceeds from her imagination are so strong.
The little glimpses I get into her life — who she is musically and otherwise — continue to bring me so much joy!
Cheryl, yes, having a bowl of cereal for dinner is another plus in meal planning for singles.
I had the spaghetti and it was very good.
Now I’ll have to have make an omelette for dinner though, spaghetti’s gone. (But it provided 3 meals so it stretched well — two dinners and one breakfast).
The ceiling of my room is over halfway up! Just need to paint the cement floor and the room will be done with the exception of trim.
The trim is proving hard to find. There is a lumber shortage, caused by a perfect storm of events: ongoing issues with forest destruction by invasive insects, shutdown of lumber mills initially, increase in renovations as people stayed home, etc. Second wanted to build a playset for her children, but the pressure treated lumber cannot be gotten. I suppose because trim and moulding is used in renovation, that is why it is becoming scarce too.
Dj anything is acceptable for breakfast. Pie, cake, spaghetti, or Doritos!! (I do try to find the four food groups in my choosing however. Pie has fruit/veggie/bread/grains (crust) milk/dairy (ice cream) and if you put walnuts on top you complete with the meat category)…see how easy that was?!! 😂
Chocolate chip cookies: whole wheat, oatmeal for grains, sugar and coconut for fruit and veggies, chocolate for beans, eggs for protein, butter for dairy. Got it covered.
Kim just texted that while she has electricity, she can’t get onto the blog. They have power at her house and were able to get a generator for Nana–who I assume is her ex-mother-in-law. She’s okay.
Yes. Nana is my ex mother in law. The joke is that I got her in the divorce. Today my ex SIL and I were there as her husband was getting the generator going. Nana said she didn’t know what she would do without her girls (that was SIL and me). When I left I hugged her and told her I loved her. My husband has volunteered to go help her. Her son hasn’t been to check on her yet. His sister is fit to be tied. Nana told me today that when this is all over I need to figure out how much the property is worth and sell it. It’s going to be heartbreaking to all of us.
The VBS was great. My group had little ones who were fearful at first, but by the end they were having a great time. I was so happy to learn the names of some of the children in the church. Then I went to my daughters to drop off some cranberry mustard I had gotten them and left my fake lei, my wrist band, and my fan for the littles to play with.
Always so easy to thrill the littles with small things. One of the joys.
Glad you are managing, Kim, and spreading joy and goodness. What a blessing!
My husband said he was going to have leftover pie for breakfast, but he meant the apple pancake I made last night for supper. I make it in a 10″ pie plate in the oven and it was so tall I had wished I had baked it on a lower rack. I had to use Gala apples in place of the Granny Smith or McIntosh I prefer for it. They are fine, but Granny Smith have a nice tartness. The apples are sautéed with butter, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. I have made one for many months and was craving something different for supper. With bacon, ham or sausage it is a good meal.
Dj do you know if you have an extension at one of the state colleges dealing with forestry or tree management? We had questions about a tree Paul was trimming this summer as it appeared there were beetle hits all around the base of one of the larger pines. We took close up photos and emailed them to the forester who monitors our neck of this forest. It ended up not being pine beetle (whew!) but turpentine beetle hits. He said the girth of the tree was large enough that the tree would be fine.
Thanks Nancyjill — I contacted a botanical garden here for referrals and one of our former reporters who works there said she’d pass it on to someone who could help – the U extension idea is worth checking out though
I hope the tree is t a goner but it doesn’t look so good 😧
I came in next to last on my football pickis. Some of those teams, though, I never follow.
Elvera’s name, for the grandkids is “Nana” mine is “Da”. They still (oldest is 45) call us that. The oldest gets to name the grandparents. Becky couldn’t say “mama) or “dad” as she heard her parents speak.
California used to get llots of respect. Something happened to it. It is beginning to happen to the rest of us.
We need to resist these “protests”.
Our yard was ringed with beaut pines when we moved in, but closer inspection showed they had “rust.” They couldn’t Veda Ed and my husband Had to cut down a dozen trees. A real shame.
We had power until 10pm then lost it. I came back online about an hour ago. I supposed they had to turn ours off to get some other lines going. I think they must have worked through the night. I heard trucks around 5am and I had been up a while.
I had sent my generator to someone else to use and had sent my extra gas to Nana’s. I was going to hate asking someone to bring my generator back. Ugh.
This morning I ventured out to Sonic for somewhat decent coffee. A French Press will go on my hurricane preparedness list when this is over. By the time Mr P got up I was able to make coffee for him. Next I will try to vacuum. The floors are filthy.
At least I had a hot shower and a few hours of AC last night before we lost power.
My church is doing the first in the building service since the shutdown this morning. I am watching at 10:45 on Facebook Live. I heard around 55 people will be there! The sermon is on Jehovah Rapha. Appropriate. Here is the link if anyone would like to watch. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2553127591571141&id=1830447240330864
Son said they washed their clothes in pond water yesterday but a power pole is going up near their house. All of their camping gear (emergency gear) had already gone to NY so they get to find out how the unprepared deal with it all. But they had plenty of ice cream.
DJ, are the needles turning brown on the ends of the branches or more inside toward the trunk? Inside branches normally age and fall off, up to a third of the needles in a year. Outer ones, the younger, useful needles, would possibly be turning due to disease or infestation.
Kim, they are fine. He says the wife is doing outstanding. The children want to know when they are headed to their new home. He has the generator running. Thanks.
Several of the lower branches have completely brown needles which is alarming and seemed to happen fairly quickly. I read online that beetle infestations can kill a tree in a matter of weeks, and pine trees dying “from the bottom up” isn’t uncommon.
If the tree has to be removed (I’m still hoping against hope that it doesn’t), I’d turn to my gardener as I think they’d offer to do it for less than some of the prices I’ve seen online which are $1,000 or more.
Not sure how to post a photo here w/o putting it first on Twitter or FB?
Do you have to get a permit? Go through a city council meeting? Beg and plead? Be thankful you don’t live in my city.
Oh, and when you finally make it through–the whole time worrying if this dead tree is going to fall through your roof, much less catch fire and burn down the neighborhood–it costs $7K.
But then there’s the 80-foot tall redwood destroying the driveway . . .
Thankfully for us, we only have to watch it from across the street.
Of course, that redwood could fall south . . .
I’d ask the gardener to lop off the lower branches and see if there’s any green–meaning growth and life–inside the branch. Does he have an opinion?
I meant to ask the gardener about it when he was here on Monday but I was entrenched w/work and by the time I remembered he’d left. I can text him. We have a bit of a language barrier but he probably deciphers texts better than conversations with all the language tools on the internet (or with family members/kid interpreters).
$7,000 and I would be out of luck. The tree isn’t “huge.”
Can you see me pleading for my poor tree with the LA City Council live? Yikes.
Permit? Not sure.
My friend in the SF Valley (also part of LA city) has a pine tree that they were worried about also. They’d checked and found out the city would come check it out for free, but decided against it when they realized they’d then be stuck/ordered/cited if it had to come down at great expense (which isn’t within their means right now either). They were going to go the private route so they’d have some wiggle room and options.
~ Removing a tree from personal property in California does not require a special permit unless the tree is a protected species like oak, redwood or manzanitas. However, California residents can potentially face legal consequences by chopping down or trimming a tree of any kind on another person’s property. ~
The fact that it’s in my backyard (I think) may also help eliminate that requirement.
~ The knobcone pine, Pinus attenuata (also called Pinus tuberculata[2]), is a tree that grows in mild climates on poor soils. It ranges from the mountains of southern Oregon to Baja California with the greatest concentration in northern California and the Oregon-California border.[3]
The knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) crown is usually conical with a straight trunk. It reaches heights of 8–24 metres (26–79 ft).[4] However, it can be a shrub on especially poor sites. It prefers dry rocky mountain soils. The bark is smooth, flaky and gray-brown when young, becoming dark gray-red-brown and shallowly furrowed into flat scaly ridges. The twigs are red-brown and often resinous.
The leaves are in fascicles of three,[5] needle-like, yellow-green, twisted, and 9–15 cm (about 3.5–6 in) long. The cones are 8–16 cm long and clustered in whorls of three to six on the branches. The scales end in a short stout prickle. The cones remain closed for many years until a fire opens them and allows reseeding.[citation needed] As a result, the cones may even become embedded in the trunk as the tree grows. ~
Another reason to like where I live. We have a contract right now for cutting down one tree, a trunk of another tree with three trunks and another part of a tree for $220.00. I am peeved that this contract was made early in the spring and here we sit. The guy doesn’t live that far away and is a Christian. He told my husband maybe three weeks. He did call the other day and by the time we answered he had hung up. My husband called back immediately and got no answer. We could not understand his muddled message. Still waiting. Just let your yes be yes and no, no. Give me a realistic time frame. We used another guy from a much further distance for a big birch tree. That was only $100.00. No stumps removed, however, nor will they take the tree. The main trunks will be cut up for firewood by my husband. I wanted the branches taken, but was overruled. I would like to have it done so we can do clean up before snow comes. We will have high seventies next week if you can trust the weatherman, so no need to worry about snow for awhile.
Ah, the fun of neighborhood relations. On Thursday evening, Neighbor T told us that Boy and Gabby had been riding their bikes on the property of the apartment house to the right of us where she and her husband live, the driveway/parking lot of which backs up to the side of our back yard. When Nightingale had a talk with them about it, Gabby started with the “Yeah, buts,” which Nightingale cut off, telling them to stay off that property.
Last evening, Gabby-Mom came over to have a talk with Nightingale about the matter. Turns out that the kids were merely going to the top of the little hill on that side of our property, just barely ending up on the neighboring parking lot to turn their bikes around and coast down the hill. (This was backed up by Neighbor Denise, who is not one to make excuses for kids.)
Nightingale told me that Neighbor T and her husband M (both of whom we get along with well) tend to complain about others quite a bit. M called DCF (our child welfare agency) on former neighbors who lived in the same apartment house. (They live elsewhere now but are now Nightingale’s friends.) The funny story is that they accidentally left their daughter in the driveway as they drove off to her dance class. They immediately realized their mistake and came right back, but in that brief interlude, M had reported them to DCF. There was another similar story of him calling the police on someone that was not warranted. (Haha! Funny choice of words there – police, warranted. 😀 )
Well, I guess it is good to know who to be careful of and around, right?
A young couple in my church had a baby over the weekend. I am finishing up the afghan. I decided it needed a ruffled edging along with the flower embellishments. I am spending much longer on this than I ever intended to. It is pretty.
A guy offered to take a tree down here for two thousand. We did not go with that. I did ask the power line people if they could run a power line to it and cut it down for free. They laughed and said that is not the way it works. But they did an excellent job on taking down the big spruce overhanging the power line and cutting it to firewood size and chipping the branches before dumping them where I could get to them to use for mulch. All for free. Though I was glad to see it go, I hated to see it go.
This morning Nightingale “channeled” her father by playfully chastising me for turning on the heat. “You’re turning on the heat in September?! Are you insane?!” 😀 (It may have been playful, but she did follow it up by turning off the heat.)
In my defense, our temps have been much cooler than normal for this time of year this past week, and it was cold in the house this morning. I only intended to have the heat on for a little while to take the worst of the chill off.
7-year-old great-nephew in Idaho Has tested positive for COVID. He’s been in school 2- weeks, I think.
His reaction: “Don’t blame me! Blame the guy who ate the bat!”
Niece is thinking of having a COVID party to get it over with. (Like folks used to do with chicken pox).
Dad will live elsewhere for 2-weeks.
Of greater concern: niece’s 70 year-old dad, who went to ID months ago because someone in hid Seattle apartment building was exposed, left yesterday. 😦
Life is getting complex. I can’t get in touch with PGE to take down a smallish tree that is near the power pole. Did you know that unless you have an account number, you can’t get through their system. I asked my property manager to handle it.
And then my computer is going wonky, as my friend would say. So .. she told me I should look into getting a new one. Then she said that the missions committee could help. But, they are meeting tomorrow. Do I know the cost? What I don’t even know what I want, much less the cost.
oh, and then there is the question of when should I return to PNG. I don’t have permission, but the UN is doing another flight. I don’t feel that I should email the doctor yet. Just don’t have peace about doing that. Oh, well
In Nashville I had four maples in my front yard that formed an irregular square. That interested me less after I bought the house and realized not all maples turn red in winter, and mine simply turned yellow. But I still liked the symmetry of it, and when I had to replace a pipe under the front yard and the company said it could possibly hurt roots and kill one tree, I asked them to be careful.
Several years later, the power company came to my front door and told me one of my trees was rotten and they could take it down. While I hated to lose a tree, I also knew the cost of having one removed, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
Later I found out that my next-door neighbor had “negotiated” (successfully!) when they came to him. The power company wanted to take two trees, and he agreed, but only on the condition they also take down a third tree. (The neighbor on the other side had previously asked them to take down two trees and offered to pay for the removal of one. They refused.) I was really surprised they got away with the “take down this other one too and I’ll allow it.”
It was quite cool here today. Still rainy because of another tropical storm.
I met BG’s boyfriend yesterday and he is nice. He had to work today and she spent time with me as I have hot water and a working washer and dryer. 😉. We went to the store and I made oven fries pork chops, Velvwera shells and cheese, corn, and for me shredded Brussels sprouts. There we leftovers so when BF arrived to pick her up I sent dinner home with him, then they brought the smaller generator back to my has and he had refilled both ⛽️ cans.
KW has “gifted” those to us. We do not have to return them. I looked on line. One was about $500 and the other about $900. Plus the gas.
I have lived off of breakfast bars, chicken 🐓 fingers and 🍔 for 4 days. I was dying for REAL food. Tomorrow is Salisbury steak and Tuesday is Thai 🐓 soup. Beyond that I don’t know. A lot of frozen foods went in the trash.
After I type this, I will be getting off the computer and getting ready for bed, but I have a question:
Is there a way to get the emails in Gmail accounts to view in chronological order (oldest at the top)? I was just looking around at the settings in my Gmail account (which I rarely use, but have started using for saving particular emails), and didn’t see any way to do that, but that doesn’t make sense.
Columbo was on tonight and it reminded me of RC Sproul’s Columbo impression — he’d amuse audiences with it on occasion at Ligonier conferences. Very spot on, he resembled him physically, too.
~ Some readers of Tabletalk will remember that in those days, R.C. would sometimes make a point by transforming himself into the TV detective Lieutenant Columbo. He did this superbly well—the only thing missing was the raincoat. He described Columbo as “the greatest American detective.”
In the course of our first conversation, I rather naively offered a different detective for that accolade: “I thought Hiram Holliday was the greatest American detective.” I should explain that Hiram Holliday was a somewhat wimpy-looking newspaper proofreader who despite his appearance was in fact a great man of action with unexpected skills. He was the creation of the author Paul Gallico and had appeared on TV in the United States in the 1950s.
A decade or two later, the series was run (in black and white) in the United Kingdom, and I had watched it as a youngster. He was in fact the only American detective I knew.
“Hiram who?” R.C. responded in astonishment. Half an hour later, as he rose to speak, he told the crowded sanctuary that he needed to settle a difference of opinion he had with one of the other speakers. He asked the congregation how many of them had ever heard of a detective by the name of Hiram Holliday. My hand went up—and to her credit, so did Vesta’s! But I think we were in a minority of two. Case closed.
The following morning, when I was called to answer my first question during the daily speakers’ Q&A session, I decided to take my life in my hands. “Before I respond to the question,” I said, echoing R.C.’s opening words from the previous evening, “I would like to try to settle the dispute that began last night over the identity of the greatest American detective. How many of you know the Christian name of Detective Holliday?” A sea of hands went up. “How many of you, then, know the Christian name of Lieutenant Columbo?” The blank response delighted me. And with victory in my grasp, I went on to the question.
As I returned to my seat, R.C. barked affectionately at me, “You were up all night thinking about that?” I think he knew I had been willing to take a risk. Shortly afterward, to my amazement (and pleasure), I received an invitation to speak at a Ligonier conference in Canada with him. And so began a treasured friendship that lasted through four decades of shared conferences and many hours of conversation. ~
Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone
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Saturday. A day to sleep in (only until 7) and maybe get some things done that I’m too tired to do during the week. Mow the lawn, rearrange the living room now that it’s painted, watch college football, do a little reading, etc.
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Morning and thanks for the morning chuckle…that duck appears to be wearing a toupee!! 😂
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Serving at our mini vbs this morning
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Good morning. I’ve been peeking in at the blog to check on our Southerners facing hurricanes and our Westerners with fires — and earthquakes now, I see. Yikes. Glad you’re all faring okay.
Kevin, so sorry to hear of your friend Judy’s passing. As a teenager, I used to babysit for a family where the parents’ names were Jerry and Judy. Sweet, loving people, like it sounds like your friend/s is/were, and how heart-rending a decision it must have been for (your friend) Jerry to face.
My condolences to him and his family, and to you, as well.
My niece is getting married next weekend. I was trying to decide whether to wear the same dress to her wedding as my MOB dress for 2nd Arrow’s two years ago. I’ve only worn the dress twice — to her wedding and to a piano concert — and was looking for opportunities to wear it again, as it’s rather glam and not your everyday wear-to-work-or-church dress.
However, I wondered if the dress might be too much, possibly upstaging this year’s mother-of-bride dress, the style of which I’m not aware.. So I decided — with subsequent affirmation from my resident fashion consultant 3rd Arrow — to leave that dress in my closet and wear another dress that is more subdued. It was fun to “shop my closet” this morning with 3rd and come up with an outfit. 🙂
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Good morning. Started the sourdough pizza crust this morning. As temps cool, time to get back to the kitchen, I suppose.
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Lots of rain last night, seems some of the smoke has settled.
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I was at church by 8 a.m. when we did our prayer walk. I really enjoyed doing the walk. I suppose it could be a good chance to get nature photos, but that would distract from the main point. This was my first neighborhood prayer walk. I certainly noticed a lot of things I have never seen in the many times I have driven there
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We had a pretty decent earthquake late last night, 4.6. I’d been up reading and just turned out the light when the rolling began.
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Life has its ups and downs.
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Interested to finally get time to open the World magazine and find a family friend interviewed for the piece on Q. We have known him for twenty plus years so the story was familiar. He has worked with fourteen year old, teaching him chess over the years.
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I was lamenting that just as I turned on a Zoom meeting, the neighbor started up his chain saw . . .
Then discovered the meeting isn’t until 4 pm.
Can’t read my own handwriting!
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I’m craving some of the leftover spaghetti for breakfast. But would that just be wrong?
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DJ, people do eat pizza for breakfast. And hey, I always figured one of the benefits of living alone was no one to look at you funny if you wore mismatched clothes or ate weird meals. If my lunch was a handful of pistachios, a few raisins, and a chunk of cheese, no one but me and Misten knew . . . and Misten only cared that I give her a nibble of the cheese while it was out anyway . . .
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For those who enjoy reading the Piano Girl Chronicles:
I mentioned the multi-week project where she draws expressions on blank faces to indicate whether the musical example I play shows good or poor technique. Good technique = smiling face; poor technique = frowning face.
You may recall that the week I decided to demonstrate poor technique, she didn’t want to draw a frowning face. She quietly pleaded with me to please play with the correct technique for the skill I’ve been featuring. So I did, and she immediately reverted to her happy, exuberant self and drew a smiley face.
Fast forward to Week 7 — this week — where we got to the last face on the page. She had it all planned out even before I played, and told me to play wrong. 🙂 I did so, and she drew a big frown and laughed maniacally! Then she wanted a different example for the nose, so she drew that. Cheeks were next, and I was instructed to play wrong again. I mashed my fingers together flat on the white keys with my knuckles sticking up, and she drew large red splotches where the cheeks and jaw would be, laughing and saying, “He’s really mad!”
This isn’t exactly the way the page is “supposed” to be executed between teacher and student, but when are teacher/student interactions ever the way they’re supposed to be? She certainly understood the point of the lesson — distinguishing between correct and incorrect technique, and then exhibiting good technique herself — so I enjoyed giving her some autonomy (being more student-led than teacher-led) on that page as we returned to it over the weeks.
And I was so glad that she seemed to get over her fear of drawing a different kind of face than what she’d always done before.
Thursday, after her lesson was done, she left the studio room and bounded down the hall like she always does, chattering a mile a minute in her high-pitched 6-year-old voice. I walked, quite rapidly (her little legs transport her amazingly quickly!), after her, to see her out to the parking lot so I could make sure her dad was there. When we went past one of the violin studios, that instructor was between students and standing in her doorway when Piano Girl was leaving. The violin instructor was grinning ear to ear, and her shoulders were shaking as she tried to hold back joyous laughter at that cute little kid, so full of life, making her way down the hall and sharing her every thought as she traveled. 🙂
Oh, and I have to tell you: at Piano Girl’s previous week’s lesson, I improvised with her using a common chord sequence in C Major and told her to make up anything on all white keys. I started out playing whole notes (long tones that are held for 4 beats), but counted barely audibly the beats for the first couple measures. Piano Girl caught the pulse right away, and as we proceeded further into the improvisation and I started playing faster notes, she began adjusting her rhythms, too, in various ways.
It turned out to be a stunning back-and-forth rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic musical conversation between us. Her playing almost brought me to tears. Her sense of the beat and her musical intuition of what and when to play as she proceeds from her imagination are so strong.
The little glimpses I get into her life — who she is musically and otherwise — continue to bring me so much joy!
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Mumsee @ 11:58
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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She sounds pretty adorable. 🙂
Cheryl, yes, having a bowl of cereal for dinner is another plus in meal planning for singles.
I had the spaghetti and it was very good.
Now I’ll have to have make an omelette for dinner though, spaghetti’s gone. (But it provided 3 meals so it stretched well — two dinners and one breakfast).
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Cold spaghetti is also a family meal.
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Spaghetti for breakfast, omelette for dinner? What kind of mixed-up person are you?
There, I judged you like a roommate might. Feel better? 🙂
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Thanks, I needed that.
(I did reheat the spaghetti in the microwave)
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microwave?
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I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned that.
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The ceiling of my room is over halfway up! Just need to paint the cement floor and the room will be done with the exception of trim.
The trim is proving hard to find. There is a lumber shortage, caused by a perfect storm of events: ongoing issues with forest destruction by invasive insects, shutdown of lumber mills initially, increase in renovations as people stayed home, etc. Second wanted to build a playset for her children, but the pressure treated lumber cannot be gotten. I suppose because trim and moulding is used in renovation, that is why it is becoming scarce too.
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Dj anything is acceptable for breakfast. Pie, cake, spaghetti, or Doritos!! (I do try to find the four food groups in my choosing however. Pie has fruit/veggie/bread/grains (crust) milk/dairy (ice cream) and if you put walnuts on top you complete with the meat category)…see how easy that was?!! 😂
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Peppermint patties: vegies, beans, dairy.
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Chocolate chip cookies: whole wheat, oatmeal for grains, sugar and coconut for fruit and veggies, chocolate for beans, eggs for protein, butter for dairy. Got it covered.
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Kim just texted that while she has electricity, she can’t get onto the blog. They have power at her house and were able to get a generator for Nana–who I assume is her ex-mother-in-law. She’s okay.
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Yes. Nana is my ex mother in law. The joke is that I got her in the divorce. Today my ex SIL and I were there as her husband was getting the generator going. Nana said she didn’t know what she would do without her girls (that was SIL and me). When I left I hugged her and told her I loved her. My husband has volunteered to go help her. Her son hasn’t been to check on her yet. His sister is fit to be tied. Nana told me today that when this is all over I need to figure out how much the property is worth and sell it. It’s going to be heartbreaking to all of us.
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Everyone is doing well, that is good to hear.
The VBS was great. My group had little ones who were fearful at first, but by the end they were having a great time. I was so happy to learn the names of some of the children in the church. Then I went to my daughters to drop off some cranberry mustard I had gotten them and left my fake lei, my wrist band, and my fan for the littles to play with.
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I need a tree doctor, an arborist, to come and inspect to see what’s wrong with my pine tree in back.
Has anyone used one of those services?
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Always so easy to thrill the littles with small things. One of the joys.
Glad you are managing, Kim, and spreading joy and goodness. What a blessing!
My husband said he was going to have leftover pie for breakfast, but he meant the apple pancake I made last night for supper. I make it in a 10″ pie plate in the oven and it was so tall I had wished I had baked it on a lower rack. I had to use Gala apples in place of the Granny Smith or McIntosh I prefer for it. They are fine, but Granny Smith have a nice tartness. The apples are sautéed with butter, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. I have made one for many months and was craving something different for supper. With bacon, ham or sausage it is a good meal.
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Dj do you know if you have an extension at one of the state colleges dealing with forestry or tree management? We had questions about a tree Paul was trimming this summer as it appeared there were beetle hits all around the base of one of the larger pines. We took close up photos and emailed them to the forester who monitors our neck of this forest. It ended up not being pine beetle (whew!) but turpentine beetle hits. He said the girth of the tree was large enough that the tree would be fine.
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Spaghetti for breakfast, omelette for dinner? What kind of mixed-up person are you?
Sounds normal for a Californian. They’re all crazy.
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Someone is a repeat Pigskin winner.
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Thanks Nancyjill — I contacted a botanical garden here for referrals and one of our former reporters who works there said she’d pass it on to someone who could help – the U extension idea is worth checking out though
I hope the tree is t a goner but it doesn’t look so good 😧
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California gets no respect.
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I came in next to last on my football pickis. Some of those teams, though, I never follow.
Elvera’s name, for the grandkids is “Nana” mine is “Da”. They still (oldest is 45) call us that. The oldest gets to name the grandparents. Becky couldn’t say “mama) or “dad” as she heard her parents speak.
California used to get llots of respect. Something happened to it. It is beginning to happen to the rest of us.
We need to resist these “protests”.
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Why not post a photo here?
Our yard was ringed with beaut pines when we moved in, but closer inspection showed they had “rust.” They couldn’t Veda Ed and my husband Had to cut down a dozen trees. A real shame.
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We had power until 10pm then lost it. I came back online about an hour ago. I supposed they had to turn ours off to get some other lines going. I think they must have worked through the night. I heard trucks around 5am and I had been up a while.
I had sent my generator to someone else to use and had sent my extra gas to Nana’s. I was going to hate asking someone to bring my generator back. Ugh.
This morning I ventured out to Sonic for somewhat decent coffee. A French Press will go on my hurricane preparedness list when this is over. By the time Mr P got up I was able to make coffee for him. Next I will try to vacuum. The floors are filthy.
At least I had a hot shower and a few hours of AC last night before we lost power.
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My church is doing the first in the building service since the shutdown this morning. I am watching at 10:45 on Facebook Live. I heard around 55 people will be there! The sermon is on Jehovah Rapha. Appropriate. Here is the link if anyone would like to watch.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2553127591571141&id=1830447240330864
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Son said they washed their clothes in pond water yesterday but a power pole is going up near their house. All of their camping gear (emergency gear) had already gone to NY so they get to find out how the unprepared deal with it all. But they had plenty of ice cream.
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I have a couple of trained arborists in my extended family, including Second in-law, who learned many of his skills at a former job.
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DJ, are the needles turning brown on the ends of the branches or more inside toward the trunk? Inside branches normally age and fall off, up to a third of the needles in a year. Outer ones, the younger, useful needles, would possibly be turning due to disease or infestation.
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Mumsee do they need help?
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The service was very nice, and my friend, Karen, watched it, too. I knew she would be interested in the subject of healing.
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I need a tree service, too.
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Kim, they are fine. He says the wife is doing outstanding. The children want to know when they are headed to their new home. He has the generator running. Thanks.
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Several of the lower branches have completely brown needles which is alarming and seemed to happen fairly quickly. I read online that beetle infestations can kill a tree in a matter of weeks, and pine trees dying “from the bottom up” isn’t uncommon.
If the tree has to be removed (I’m still hoping against hope that it doesn’t), I’d turn to my gardener as I think they’d offer to do it for less than some of the prices I’ve seen online which are $1,000 or more.
Not sure how to post a photo here w/o putting it first on Twitter or FB?
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Ok, here it is:
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I see your sadness Donna. Yes, very sad.
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It seems to cost around 1,000 to take down an older tree here, too.
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And now my poor tree and its fumbling caretaker are totally humiliated on Twitter.
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Do you have to get a permit? Go through a city council meeting? Beg and plead? Be thankful you don’t live in my city.
Oh, and when you finally make it through–the whole time worrying if this dead tree is going to fall through your roof, much less catch fire and burn down the neighborhood–it costs $7K.
But then there’s the 80-foot tall redwood destroying the driveway . . .
Thankfully for us, we only have to watch it from across the street.
Of course, that redwood could fall south . . .
I’d ask the gardener to lop off the lower branches and see if there’s any green–meaning growth and life–inside the branch. Does he have an opinion?
We have extension loppers he could use . . .
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But the posts are getting a couple sympathy “heart-likes”
Maybe that’ll help
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I meant to ask the gardener about it when he was here on Monday but I was entrenched w/work and by the time I remembered he’d left. I can text him. We have a bit of a language barrier but he probably deciphers texts better than conversations with all the language tools on the internet (or with family members/kid interpreters).
$7,000 and I would be out of luck. The tree isn’t “huge.”
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It was a potted “live” Christmas tree planted by the previous owners.
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Can you see me pleading for my poor tree with the LA City Council live? Yikes.
Permit? Not sure.
My friend in the SF Valley (also part of LA city) has a pine tree that they were worried about also. They’d checked and found out the city would come check it out for free, but decided against it when they realized they’d then be stuck/ordered/cited if it had to come down at great expense (which isn’t within their means right now either). They were going to go the private route so they’d have some wiggle room and options.
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I saw this by googling:
~ Removing a tree from personal property in California does not require a special permit unless the tree is a protected species like oak, redwood or manzanitas. However, California residents can potentially face legal consequences by chopping down or trimming a tree of any kind on another person’s property. ~
The fact that it’s in my backyard (I think) may also help eliminate that requirement.
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Looks like blister rust. Is it a white pine? Does somebody in the area have a currant bush?
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Don’t know much about white pines or currant bushes (is that a song?)
I’ll try my phone app to see if it tells me what kind of pint it is
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Or pine. Pints are something else altogether.
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Knowing your affinity for mosquitoes, you may be interested to know that ribes plants are the vector for blister rust to white pines.
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Knob Pine? That’s what my phone says.
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Newer plants that I have include a plumeria and Pensemon Margarita BOP
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knobcone_pine
~ The knobcone pine, Pinus attenuata (also called Pinus tuberculata[2]), is a tree that grows in mild climates on poor soils. It ranges from the mountains of southern Oregon to Baja California with the greatest concentration in northern California and the Oregon-California border.[3]
The knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) crown is usually conical with a straight trunk. It reaches heights of 8–24 metres (26–79 ft).[4] However, it can be a shrub on especially poor sites. It prefers dry rocky mountain soils. The bark is smooth, flaky and gray-brown when young, becoming dark gray-red-brown and shallowly furrowed into flat scaly ridges. The twigs are red-brown and often resinous.
The leaves are in fascicles of three,[5] needle-like, yellow-green, twisted, and 9–15 cm (about 3.5–6 in) long. The cones are 8–16 cm long and clustered in whorls of three to six on the branches. The scales end in a short stout prickle. The cones remain closed for many years until a fire opens them and allows reseeding.[citation needed] As a result, the cones may even become embedded in the trunk as the tree grows. ~
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Another reason to like where I live. We have a contract right now for cutting down one tree, a trunk of another tree with three trunks and another part of a tree for $220.00. I am peeved that this contract was made early in the spring and here we sit. The guy doesn’t live that far away and is a Christian. He told my husband maybe three weeks. He did call the other day and by the time we answered he had hung up. My husband called back immediately and got no answer. We could not understand his muddled message. Still waiting. Just let your yes be yes and no, no. Give me a realistic time frame. We used another guy from a much further distance for a big birch tree. That was only $100.00. No stumps removed, however, nor will they take the tree. The main trunks will be cut up for firewood by my husband. I wanted the branches taken, but was overruled. I would like to have it done so we can do clean up before snow comes. We will have high seventies next week if you can trust the weatherman, so no need to worry about snow for awhile.
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Ah, the fun of neighborhood relations. On Thursday evening, Neighbor T told us that Boy and Gabby had been riding their bikes on the property of the apartment house to the right of us where she and her husband live, the driveway/parking lot of which backs up to the side of our back yard. When Nightingale had a talk with them about it, Gabby started with the “Yeah, buts,” which Nightingale cut off, telling them to stay off that property.
Last evening, Gabby-Mom came over to have a talk with Nightingale about the matter. Turns out that the kids were merely going to the top of the little hill on that side of our property, just barely ending up on the neighboring parking lot to turn their bikes around and coast down the hill. (This was backed up by Neighbor Denise, who is not one to make excuses for kids.)
Nightingale told me that Neighbor T and her husband M (both of whom we get along with well) tend to complain about others quite a bit. M called DCF (our child welfare agency) on former neighbors who lived in the same apartment house. (They live elsewhere now but are now Nightingale’s friends.) The funny story is that they accidentally left their daughter in the driveway as they drove off to her dance class. They immediately realized their mistake and came right back, but in that brief interlude, M had reported them to DCF. There was another similar story of him calling the police on someone that was not warranted. (Haha! Funny choice of words there – police, warranted. 😀 )
Well, I guess it is good to know who to be careful of and around, right?
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A young couple in my church had a baby over the weekend. I am finishing up the afghan. I decided it needed a ruffled edging along with the flower embellishments. I am spending much longer on this than I ever intended to. It is pretty.
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We had two trees taken down for ~$1,000. The guy was here for one and noticed the other was rotten inside.
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A guy offered to take a tree down here for two thousand. We did not go with that. I did ask the power line people if they could run a power line to it and cut it down for free. They laughed and said that is not the way it works. But they did an excellent job on taking down the big spruce overhanging the power line and cutting it to firewood size and chipping the branches before dumping them where I could get to them to use for mulch. All for free. Though I was glad to see it go, I hated to see it go.
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This morning Nightingale “channeled” her father by playfully chastising me for turning on the heat. “You’re turning on the heat in September?! Are you insane?!” 😀 (It may have been playful, but she did follow it up by turning off the heat.)
In my defense, our temps have been much cooler than normal for this time of year this past week, and it was cold in the house this morning. I only intended to have the heat on for a little while to take the worst of the chill off.
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7-year-old great-nephew in Idaho Has tested positive for COVID. He’s been in school 2- weeks, I think.
His reaction: “Don’t blame me! Blame the guy who ate the bat!”
Niece is thinking of having a COVID party to get it over with. (Like folks used to do with chicken pox).
Dad will live elsewhere for 2-weeks.
Of greater concern: niece’s 70 year-old dad, who went to ID months ago because someone in hid Seattle apartment building was exposed, left yesterday. 😦
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Soon I will hear hints from Art that it’s starting to feel chilly in the house. I like to feel the change of seasons inside as well as outside.
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Janice, we need a picture of that quilt!
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Life is getting complex. I can’t get in touch with PGE to take down a smallish tree that is near the power pole. Did you know that unless you have an account number, you can’t get through their system. I asked my property manager to handle it.
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And then my computer is going wonky, as my friend would say. So .. she told me I should look into getting a new one. Then she said that the missions committee could help. But, they are meeting tomorrow. Do I know the cost? What I don’t even know what I want, much less the cost.
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oh, and then there is the question of when should I return to PNG. I don’t have permission, but the UN is doing another flight. I don’t feel that I should email the doctor yet. Just don’t have peace about doing that. Oh, well
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Michelle, and it’s still unclear if those who have had it have much long-term immunity, they may not.
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With chicken pox, once you had it you’d not get it again; not so, apparently, with Covid-19
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We’ve had a much cooler day here — I woke up to the sounds of marine layer remnants dripping off the roof through the outside drain pipe.
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Anyone interested, Paul Washer is speaking tonight at Grace Church (John McArthur’s church). Live stream here:
https://www.gracechurch.org/live
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Not sure I’ve heard of Paul Washer, now I’ll have to google him.
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In Nashville I had four maples in my front yard that formed an irregular square. That interested me less after I bought the house and realized not all maples turn red in winter, and mine simply turned yellow. But I still liked the symmetry of it, and when I had to replace a pipe under the front yard and the company said it could possibly hurt roots and kill one tree, I asked them to be careful.
Several years later, the power company came to my front door and told me one of my trees was rotten and they could take it down. While I hated to lose a tree, I also knew the cost of having one removed, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
Later I found out that my next-door neighbor had “negotiated” (successfully!) when they came to him. The power company wanted to take two trees, and he agreed, but only on the condition they also take down a third tree. (The neighbor on the other side had previously asked them to take down two trees and offered to pay for the removal of one. They refused.) I was really surprised they got away with the “take down this other one too and I’ll allow it.”
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It was quite cool here today. Still rainy because of another tropical storm.
I met BG’s boyfriend yesterday and he is nice. He had to work today and she spent time with me as I have hot water and a working washer and dryer. 😉. We went to the store and I made oven fries pork chops, Velvwera shells and cheese, corn, and for me shredded Brussels sprouts. There we leftovers so when BF arrived to pick her up I sent dinner home with him, then they brought the smaller generator back to my has and he had refilled both ⛽️ cans.
KW has “gifted” those to us. We do not have to return them. I looked on line. One was about $500 and the other about $900. Plus the gas.
I have lived off of breakfast bars, chicken 🐓 fingers and 🍔 for 4 days. I was dying for REAL food. Tomorrow is Salisbury steak and Tuesday is Thai 🐓 soup. Beyond that I don’t know. A lot of frozen foods went in the trash.
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After I type this, I will be getting off the computer and getting ready for bed, but I have a question:
Is there a way to get the emails in Gmail accounts to view in chronological order (oldest at the top)? I was just looking around at the settings in my Gmail account (which I rarely use, but have started using for saving particular emails), and didn’t see any way to do that, but that doesn’t make sense.
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Watched some of Paul Washer. He has an excellent message. I’ve heard his name before, but had never seen him.
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We like Paul Washer very much. He was a part of the “Behold Your God” series. Excellent! Thanks for sharing that Peter
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Columbo was on tonight and it reminded me of RC Sproul’s Columbo impression — he’d amuse audiences with it on occasion at Ligonier conferences. Very spot on, he resembled him physically, too.
Can’t find it on YouTube though, too bad.
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But I did find this from a Sinclair Ferguson article:
https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/heard-r-c-sproul/
~ Some readers of Tabletalk will remember that in those days, R.C. would sometimes make a point by transforming himself into the TV detective Lieutenant Columbo. He did this superbly well—the only thing missing was the raincoat. He described Columbo as “the greatest American detective.”
In the course of our first conversation, I rather naively offered a different detective for that accolade: “I thought Hiram Holliday was the greatest American detective.” I should explain that Hiram Holliday was a somewhat wimpy-looking newspaper proofreader who despite his appearance was in fact a great man of action with unexpected skills. He was the creation of the author Paul Gallico and had appeared on TV in the United States in the 1950s.
A decade or two later, the series was run (in black and white) in the United Kingdom, and I had watched it as a youngster. He was in fact the only American detective I knew.
“Hiram who?” R.C. responded in astonishment. Half an hour later, as he rose to speak, he told the crowded sanctuary that he needed to settle a difference of opinion he had with one of the other speakers. He asked the congregation how many of them had ever heard of a detective by the name of Hiram Holliday. My hand went up—and to her credit, so did Vesta’s! But I think we were in a minority of two. Case closed.
The following morning, when I was called to answer my first question during the daily speakers’ Q&A session, I decided to take my life in my hands. “Before I respond to the question,” I said, echoing R.C.’s opening words from the previous evening, “I would like to try to settle the dispute that began last night over the identity of the greatest American detective. How many of you know the Christian name of Detective Holliday?” A sea of hands went up. “How many of you, then, know the Christian name of Lieutenant Columbo?” The blank response delighted me. And with victory in my grasp, I went on to the question.
As I returned to my seat, R.C. barked affectionately at me, “You were up all night thinking about that?” I think he knew I had been willing to take a risk. Shortly afterward, to my amazement (and pleasure), I received an invitation to speak at a Ligonier conference in Canada with him. And so began a treasured friendship that lasted through four decades of shared conferences and many hours of conversation. ~
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