115 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-12-20”

  4. Morning! And a most blessed Happy Birthday dear Janice! We celebrate our Lord’s beautiful gift of YOU this day!! ♥️
    Chas that might appear to be the Polar Express. We have a frosty snowy foggy morning here in the forest. It is still dark out there but the snow brings contrast to the pines…Christmas time 🎄

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  6. Ahh, thanks, NancyJill. I now see that train. We have a fence like that across our backyard, but it is knocked over in parts. I guess the deer find it easier to cross that way. Although, crossing it was never difficult for them, since jumping is one skill they all have.

    Happy birthday, Janice!

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  8. I recently had a photo come up that showed us with our grandchildren while waiting for a Christmas Train. I mostly remember freezing. The grandchildren probably remember the lights, music and candy given out more. At least we hope so!

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  10. One of my grandmothers was the first one I knew to make Chex Mix. I carried on the tradition and find it is very popular for a snack when we are all together. I think it is healthier than many of the other snacks. I don’t eat it myself, except for a few of the nuts. Like mumsee, I make several batches, but not a whole bottle of Worcestershire Sauce! One of my daughters makes the Muddy Buddies and gives some as gifts. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that is so appreciated.

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  11. Happiest of birthdays 🥳 🎂 🎉 to you Janice.

    I love the Chex mix but have never made it.

    My gift to “leadership” at the office this year will be fellowship around my white lasagna. I am making lunch for everyone on Wednesday.

    I used to do a pretty good job of reading The Polar Express. I may have to get the book out and read it to Little Miss.

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  12. You are all giving me ideas. We used to love those kinds of mixes, but the ready made ones always contain additives that make my asthma worse, while Second cannot eat peanuts (not anaphylactic, but definitely allergic), so we have given up getting. But if we could make it ourselves, we could keep all the things we can’t eat out.

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  15. We had a discussion last night on the mental health effects of prolonged SIP. Perhaps you have seen this in your work, Roscuro?

    We’re meant for relationship–God did not plant us in a field and say, “grow,” He put us in families.

    Studies have long shown that not having meaningful emotional contact can stunt growth (see those poor Romanian orphans from Ceausescu’s reign) and loneliness itself can lead to people not only failing to thrive, but actually dying.

    A Wisconsin friend earlier this week passed on a reminder that we should watch for the mental health of people we care about–as well as our neighbors–as we march into winter.

    This came up after the Virginia governor announced people did not have to go to church, they could watch at home.

    While that is technically true, in actual fact, gathering together with other believers has been the only sure data point of my week! Being able to sing together, exchange words (from behind masks!), and physically SEE each other, has been very beneficial.

    So, a friend shared that a young widow with two children has been coming to church each week and, to her surprise, gaining comfort from a God she paid no attention to before.

    The day after she told my friend this, the mother-in-law who watches her children so she can work, announced if she continued going to church, the mother-in-law would no longer watch the children.

    “Churches are super-spreaders,” the old woman, who does not attend church, declared.

    A whole lot of people were hurt–my friend, the widow, the children, the church body at large.

    The widow has to choose her mother-in-law, but she is grieving all over again.

    How do we, as the body of Christ, demonstrate this mother-in-law is wrong–but without using words?

    (Okay, bonus points for all of you who point out “prayer is the greater work.” 🙂 So, I think I’ll post this on the prayer line!)

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  16. Anyone have any idea of some games Preschoolers would like besides CandyLand, Lady Bug, Chutes and Ladders or Hi Ho Cherry O?

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  20. Happy Birthday, Janice!

    The dog walk was delayed last night when our managing editor decided we needed to get a story about some dolls strapped at the port into the paper. I never did get a rise out of any of my port contacts after hours — the main one, our managing editor in the past, is an observant Jew so he’s never available after sundown on Fridays; his two backups never responded either, however.

    Eventually, it was decided (wisely) to hold the story so I was finally free to walk the dogs at around 8 p.m., which made the dogs happy as they’d been panting at my knees all night wondering why we weren’t going for the walk already.

    Today is the haircut, the appt was moved up from 4 to 1 p.m. and I told my stylist I’d be showing up with my hair pre-washed and would skip the blow dry (to lessen the time spent there under the radar), but of course would give her the usual amount. She said all that was fine. She and her family own the salon and I know how hard this has likely been on them.

    It looked so strange to see that Kim was hosting an in-person gathering. That’s not allowed where I am anymore. No gathering, no nothing. Stay home. Our county public health officer has taken to crying now during her daily news briefings, pleading with people to wear masks and stay home.

    Meanwhile, those who are fighting this have become even more antagonistic, as have those who support any and every rule. FB is getting uglier as the two sides in our community go at it (and you have to love it when someone invariably, in these long argumentative threads, jumps in with the predictable ALL-CAPS SCREED on one side or the other).

    It’s so depressing that I found myself being cheered beyond reason when a giant order of Bounty paper towels arrived on my doorstep the other night (I was fast running out).

    I miss in-person church, but a friend of mine in Colo. now has covid which she believes was probably picked up at her church service where masks are optional (she works from home).

    Where I live we now also need to be aware that the hospitals are getting seriously crunched and ICU beds and staff are being strained. So everyone being more careful makes sense, of course.

    Reminds me, next week my editor wants me to do a story on children’s letters to Santa during the pandemic.

    I’ll throw in my own letter at this point.

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  22. Someone here recently mentioned the oddity of seeing folks driving while wearing a mask — but they are alone in their cars. I’ve also seen that and have wondered, “Why?” My mask comes off as soon as I get back in my car from going somewhere, not sure why people would keep them on?

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  23. So far this morning I have read, chatted, rescued a neighbor’s dog and had three cups of coffee…oh and Lulah decided to lick the plates while husband put his bowl in the dishwasher…her collar caught hold of the bottom rack and she pulled the entire thing out and onto the floor!! Dishes went crashing everywhere….I am ready to escape!
    Michelle I see the fear of the mother in law in many people. My neighbor never leaves the house as she is terrified of getting the virus…and no one is allowed to be around her. If she wants something picked up she leaves it on her porch. So mother in law sees her DIL as a carrier having been around a large group of people in church? There are many at our church who no longer attend and some of those who do attend scowl at others who have no mask donning their faces. ( you don’t need to see the entire face to see a scowl…The eyes work just fine) For young Mom I would suggest she watch online and or meet with believing friends in smaller groups maybe. To say MIL is wrong could be driving a wedge in that relationship I think…

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  24. I had stopped at the post office yesterday to pick up mail and packages. I still had my mask on when i got to the house. I am so used to wearing it at work, that I didnt even notice.

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  25. Our Christmas party was in Florida at a craft brewery and was outside. I mostly wore a mask.
    Michelle, lack of contact with others has been very hard on many people, me
    Included. Luckily I am married. I can’t imagine if I were still single. I can also escape to a friend’s front porch. We were created for community.
    Earlier this week my friend R shares that her 90 80 something mother-in-law in a long term memory care facility in Massachusetts survived Covid and the week before a 29 year old healthy friend of her killed herself.
    It’s hard to know what to do. Mr P is terrified of getting it. I have my head buried in the sand. I do my best to be careful knowing that if I get it and bring it home my life will be miserable. On the other hand I can’t let myself worry too much. I am having a hard enough time with isolation and a touch of depression.
    I’ve been called for Federal Jury Duty next week. I really don’t want to do it. I don’t want to be around strangers in a closed environment.

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  26. I tend to fall in the middle (I think) when it comes to the Covid precautions. I believe the virus is best not to get or spread at this point. I a take (what I believe are) reasonable precautions without locking myself away. I have gone back to virtual church services for now due to the rapid spread right now in our county. Again, I believe the medical authorities (and hospital numbers) and think it’s wise to pull back at a time like this.

    I have a friend and former co-worker who has diabetes so she has extra risks; she’s barely left her house (she’s staying with her mom, recovering from an injury, in Arizona currently) in all this time.

    This past week I had to make personal trips to my credit union, the ATM and the drug store (oh, and I did make a quick stop last weekend at a grocery store). But I’m being a little more careful right now, making those outings (if necessary) as brief as possible.

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  27. Thanks, Kim.

    Michelle, I have not really seen my ch change in mood in my work. Rather, I think many of the people we work with already experience social isolation, and coming to us is an opportunity to see people. Cancer patients on chemo already had to self isolate because of their weakened immune systems. The elderly are already isolated from having lost spouses and/or friends and/or having health problems that do not allow them to get around (losing drivers license because of eyesight or being a fainting risk, limitations in mobility, etc.). Loneliness for those with health problems was an issue long before COVID-19. As the Beatles song ‘Eleanor Rigby’ says, “Look at all the lonely people, where do they all come from.” Because we teach patients and family members to do as much care as they can for themselves, it is those who do not have social supports available who end up coming to us the most frequently – our patients with more supports only need to be seen occasionally for supplies and assessment. We always have seen the lonely people.

    As for church fellowship, those with chronic health problems are already isolated from the body. My great uncle spent his retirement years as a lay minister trying to reach those in home and hospital who could not come into church, and he was always busy. My mother gets more church ministry now we all attend church virtually than she did in the previous 2 years, as her mobility had decreased to the point where going to church physically was nearly unbearable. When I returned home, she had gone months without hearing a sermon or hearing singing, and I used to come home from church, and listen with her to a recorded sermon series that I had listened to when I was in Nunavut and couldn’t attend my church. Now she regularly hears a sermon and sees a service each week.This church noted that their shut-in members also had more interaction since the shutdown had created online church:

    “Some of our members had never been on a Zoom call before. Now they are studying God’s Word, praying, and fellowshipping with their brothers from the safety of their own homes. I believe it is likely that some of these methods will outlive the pandemic. I am especially excited about the way all of this is impacting the older members of our church family. Eventually, many of them will become “shuts-ins,” a demographic that is often difficult to serve well. Not anymore. Some of our oldest members are the ones embracing the newer technology with the greatest level of excitement. Now they interact with their brothers and sisters like never before.”
    https://blogs.faithlafayette.org/church/why-faith-church-listens-to-the-health-department/

    The shut-ins spend decades without regular church fellowship, for the diseases of old age and chronic conditions last for decades, and they have always been present. I have a friend in her early 40s who is so debilitated by chronic fatigue that she is bedridden and needs an electronic aid to enhance her voice when she speaks. Nothing has changed in her life during the pandemic.

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  28. Our ICU availability for beds is down to single digits and falling — this makes the situation also precarious for those who need that care for heart attacks and other medical crises.

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  29. I, like RKessler, am so used to the mask that I forget I am wearing it when I get in my car and start driving. I think also that some people are trying not to handle the mask to avoid contamination, so they might leave it on between stops. I have done that before if I am going between stores that are close together. Generally, though I remove my mask using the earloops, so I don’t touch the actual mask and hang it over my rearview mirror by one loop. I always sanitize my hands when returning to my car from a store anyway.

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  30. The numbers are rising in our area as well Dj. For Christmas gifts I shopped at small local business that have not that many customers. I go to the grocery when supplies are needed, wiping the cart handle off with a wipe and wearing a mask. Filling the car with gas I have my handy antibacterial wipes to push the buttons and hold the pump.
    When I left the grocery the other day I left my mask on as I walked to the car…it was cold out there and the mask kept my face warm…I usually rip that thing off as soon as I exit the store!

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  31. Yes, the mask keeping the face warm is definitely a side benefit at this time of year. The only trouble I have is with my glasses. They have always fogged up when coming in from a cold outside to a warm inside, but now I do not feel free to take them off and wipe them as I used to. Still trying to think of a solution to that one.

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  32. I could be more careful than I am, I admit. I try to remember the tube of sanitizer I carry with me, but don’t always. I’ve used disposable gloves for pumping gas, but the sanitizing wipe method sounds probably better (I just ordered some in single packets).

    This ‘new normal’ is very labor-intensive

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  33. DJ, my coworkers who made home visits have spoken about just how overwhelming the logistics are of moving betweens homes of patients and trying to avoid contamination. I only had to make the occasional house all since it all began, but I didn’t find it easy. And we have been trained to think in terms of what is contaminated and not contaminated – although, not all nurses have had the opportunity to train like I did in surgical sterile technique. I find going to the store fairly easy – the greatest hazards are other customers who aren’t paying attention.

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  34. Chas,

    Look thru the snow and fence. There you will see Norfolk/Southern’s Engine #4336 as it skirts the edge of Hugh Moore Park.

    Perfect timing. 🙂

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  35. The process has been kind of overwhelming, so many extra steps for those of us who simply are not used to having to do any of this. I just ordered some extra-thick small disposable bags for the car as mask disposal has been all too casual in my practice, I realize. And we are also now supposed to cut the loops as they’re turning up in our oceans and those loops can be hazardous to marine life … so small scissors now to be kept also in the car or in a container in the driveway next to the car when I get back ?

    It’s complicated.

    Thankfully, the vaccines are almost ready to begin shipping out. That distribution will take a long time, I realize, but if we didn’t have that right, think how much more discouraging this all would feel.

    As it is, we’re struggling here with such a massive surge of cases and deaths — right on the threshold of Christmas. It’s very discouraging.

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  38. My covid cautions: I stay home. Not much has changed as I have ample to keep me busy. Church? I have gone many times this past year but not always. Numbers are up now so I stay away. But really? Husband is probably more at risk as he is on some immune system challenging meds, but he goes everywhere. He wears a mask and uses hand sanitizer. He goes to Boise to help out and visits with people in the family who do not take precautions and travel a lot. And he comes home. Daughter goes out a lot. Lots of photo shoots for others besides her regular job at the assisted living place. Lots of shopping trips. She wears a mask. I try to protect the babies.

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  39. Kathaleena, not me, I don’t make it. Husband does. In fact, he is making two more batches today to send to family and give to family. But he has just run out of the Wor sauce. Anybody have a cup or two? Not really. I suspect he has more in the pantry though I just brought in a bottle a couple of weeks ago.

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  40. Michelle, does the young widow’s workplace have any work-from-home options that would enable her to both work and be with her kids herself?

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  41. Reading about pulled muscles on the prayer thread. I have been reading through all of the information on returning. I noticed it said that you had to load all of your own luggage in the van when you arrive. Whoops, I’d better work on muscles for lifting 50 pound luggage. I also rely on the guys to do it for me.

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  42. Happy Birthday Janice, my partner in crime, oh, I mean surprises. It was so fun to meet together and then to surprise Chas. I would have to say that we shocked him!!

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  44. Stylist whacked off at least 3 inches of hair, probably more, in the illegal haircut; it feels much better. But I have to say the closeness of everyone (and just the #s) in the salon was a bit uncomfortable. I don’t think I was there more than 20 minutes, and everyone had masks, but I’d say if I come down with covid I probably will know where I was likely exposed.

    I won’t be going back until things settle way down, and/or until the vaccines have been pretty well distributed.

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  45. I was the only one who wore a mask at our small group get together today. There were only four of us sitting at an acceptable distance apart. It was so good to be with them and pray together.

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  48. Widow is only inching toward a relationship with God. We meet outside on the lawn, she sits only near relatives. Widow is working from home, needs mother-in-law to watch children and help with the never-ending on-line schooling.

    I feel perfectly safe at church sitting outside, though I may stay home tomorrow since the weather is potentially inclement.

    Our mutual friend was lamenting that after years of anguish, the widow is finally started to find peace (her children were 18 months and in utero when her husband died), and now the mother-in-law is upset. Hopefully, the kids will enjoy Zoom Sunday school and the widow, too.

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  49. Michelle, I disagree that most churches are super-spreaders and think the mother-in-law probably spoke too bluntly. One also wonders how old is the mother-in-law is, does she have risk factors, and does the daughter-in-law work somewhere that she is likely to risk exposure at work?

    On the other hand, I think it is definitely possible to be careful–even super careful–without thereby being fearful. My mother-in-law now knows about 50 people who have had it (including all the people in my sister-in-law’s local family except the seven-year-old), and a good friend who has spent a lot of holidays with my family is expected to die soon of Covid-19. (My brother-in-law considers her a second mother and I’ve been at a good number of events and family meals where she is present.) Another friend was on a ventilator with it, but he has so far survived, and a friend of my mother-in-law’s local best friend has died. ICU bed availability is almost nonexistent in their county. My mother-in-law has actually not been careful enough, but seeing friends hospitalized and dying with Covid-19, and her daughter and three other family members suffering with it, has sobered her enough that she has decided it probably is better for her to be careful for the time being.

    For me personally, I am not reacting out of fear or emotionally. My emotions actually say, “Go ahead and attend church, have friends over, etc., and if we get it, we get it.” It’s my sober, rational self that looks realistically at what this could do to my husband, who has way too high a chance of dying, of being hospitalized, and/or of experiencing such serious after-effects that he cannot return home after having it. When I think about it rationally, non-emotionally, then I can tell my “emotional” side to continue to be patient, that it’s worth being careful for a few more months.

    So yes, she probably could have spoken more gently, and it’s very possible she is being needlessly fearful of what is actually a very low risk. But it seems like taking her concerns seriously would be the loving thing to do, whether that means the daughter-in-law finds another caregiver or she steps out of “live” church for a season.

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  50. Michelle, you posted an hour before me, but we still cross-posted since your 6:25 hadn’t shown up yet when I started writing my response. You answer some of my questions in it, but I think this is probably a time for your church family to reach out (at a distance) to the daughter and encourage her to stay within her mother-in-law’s comfort zone for now.

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  52. The Army win was not surprising, considering how bad Navy has been this year. But that almost touchdown was the most disappointing play of the game.

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  55. Email w/prayer requests from church came through a little while ago, one of our members’ parents (both) have tested positive as has another member’s mother. We had 70 deaths reported in the county today (it about the same as in the past several days — #s were down to single digits not that long ago).

    Something’s caused our rates to skyrocket (Thanksgiving?).

    Meanwhile, I’m off to pick up a grocery order in the parking lot at Ralphs. I was surprised to get a same-day pickup time when I put the order in earlier this afternoon.

    But it’s dark out and I’m finding it hard, also, to get used to the early darkness this year.

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  64. The group of friends my husband jams with are all on a texting thread together, except for one who does not text. Ironically he is the most tech savvy of them all (but I digress). Yesterday one of the couples brought a Christmas card and gift to each of us. The gift was a simply decorated pint jar filled with the ingredients for homemade chicken soup. Only the husband (who is the one who plays with the group) came to the door to drop off the gift. The wife took pics of him at the door of each of our homes. They later shared all the photos on the thread. This small gesture was so enjoyed by all of us. It took them four hours of driving, since we all live relatively far apart. Earlier in the pandemic they had come by with a couple of doughnuts in a bag. One of the guys said it was just a thrill to have someone drive up their driveway. There were a lot of jokes flying back and forth. All from one little gesture. Some people are naturally good at this. It reminds me that we need to all look (and pray) for the opportunities.

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  65. Kathaleena, that’s a sweet gesture. My mother-in-law loves baking. Now in her eighties and widowed, she still makes at least a couple dozen varieties of goodies for Christmas and hosts a Christmas Eve gathering at her house. (Up till this year she has also hosted Christmas Day, but this year she said both are too much. We won’t be able to attend either one, of course.) On Christmas Eve, the table is full of platters of cookies, fudge, mixed nuts, and other treats. (She mailed us a shoebox full this year, and it took nearly a week to get to us–Monday morning to Saturday noon–in the same state, mailed “priority” mail.)

    She has lived in the same house for something like 30 years, and she knows most of her neighbors. Until the pandemic struck, she had hosted a weekly Bible study in her dining room for decades–they built the house, and had the dining room built large to host it. Since most of the women attending it are widows in their eighties, she stopped hosting it some months ago. But she started baking for the neighbors. Every week or two she would do a round of about 14 houses. At each house she would leave a plate of cookies or a quarter of a pie, and she’d ring the doorbell and then step away from the door so the woman or the couple could come to the door and claim the treat and thank her from a distance. It brought joy to everyone involved, though I think eventually the pandemic was claiming so many neighbors (not killing them but making them sick) that she stopped doing it. And no, she never got it, nor did any of those specific neighbors, as far as I know, but she has said she knows 50 people who have had it, and I know a good number of the people she has named as having it.

    I’ve been meaning to make a new batch of cards and send them out. I need to do that–good reminder.

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  66. Good snowy Morning!! We awakened to a fresh deep layer of glorious snow! The sun is now shining, the sky is blue and the temp is 3 below zero…I might have to go out there this afternoon when it warms up a bit and build a snowman! ⛄️

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  67. Sunny and cool in Los Angeles this morning. Virtual church begins in a couple hours.

    “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” is on the regular rotation of hymns at our church, perhaps we’ll hear/sing that this morning. I haven’t checked on our sermon topic yet but we generally are still making our way through out whole-Bible survey, getting close to finishing that up.

    After that, we’ll do a long, focused sermon series on Revelation.

    My friend Shirley needs some par fixed on her oxygen apparatus and was texting me last night about whether a medical supply store in our area would be open on Sunday (they’re not but I found another such store not far away and offered to take her there if that was what was needed). No word yet.

    I did receive a response from her brother, the retired Methodist minister, who said he’d also be keeping me up to speed (Shirley’s been pretty non-communicative lately so I’m not really sure what, exactly, is going on, but that’s OK, I think all of us, especially her, remain in shock over the swiftness and seriousness of this sudden diagnosis).

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  69. I’d forgotten to let Carol’s friend in England, Adele, know she’d passed — they’d grown up together in Brooklyn and after Adele had married and moved to England (she’s a writer, poetry mostly, I believe) she continued to keep in occasional touch with Carol here and there through the years. Most recently she’d asked Carol if she could “review” some books for her blog (Carol was a voracious reader) and Carol was very excited about that prospect. I sent Adele a FB message this morning letter her know and telling her how special her friendship always was to Carol.

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  70. Wonderful virtual church this a.m. I realize through the chat feature that in a sense I can fellowship more with people than I can if I attend in person. Maybe in highly populated areas such as Atlanta it would be wise to do once a month in person services and the rest as virtual services.

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  73. Our service appears on 3 platforms — our website (no chat), and YouTube & our FB page, where cat is available. It’s fun to see people calling out “hello’s” to those who are there.

    +++++++++++++++

    I was reading an ‘advice-to-older-people’ column on our website today and this was one of the cautionary tales included:

    ~ A good friend in her 60s and her husband were locked out of their house. Both knew the keys were left in their open-air atrium. With advice from her husband, the wife climbed on the roof, took off her slacks, attached them to a pole and shimmied down into the atrium. She lost her grip and landed on the cement floor with her heels. In some fashion, her husband found a way to enter. He remarked, “There she was on the ground, moaning in her bloomers.” The paramedics took her to the emergency room with two broken heels. Fortunately, she has fully recovered.

    The lesson: I asked her husband about what he learned. He replied, “Don’t listen to your husband.” ~

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  76. Our service this morning was on hope and perseverance. It was the annual children’s Christmas concert. The little ones lead worship, distanced and masked and then the ‘program’ was all parts that had been filmed in their homes. What a treat to see those little ones again. It was a blessing to both husband and me.

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  79. Janice, possibly, but because I used it to anonymously post a performance of mine once (sound only), I haven’t wanted to change it.

    DJ, I think that some eccentric millionaire (would have to be someone wealthy enough to travel the world) is having a good practical joke. It isn’t Banksy’s style, or I would suspect him of doing it.

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  80. Anyone know much about the “Jericho March” movement? I’d not heard of it until I saw some news references to it this morning.

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  81. While my back is much better, it’s raining (Bliss!), and while the elders erected a tent yesterday, I decided to stay home. My camp/soccer chair sags too much for my back to be comfortable.

    There’s something about a rainy Sunday afternoon with only Christmas cards to write, that seems such a treat. 🙂

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  82. We had mysterious cat paintings pop up in our town several years ago, a local artist would create them on buildings in the dead of night. Black-and-white cat with red collar, just like Annie Oakley. I interviewed the artist a few years ago, he still wanted to remain anonymous, but he gifted me with a framed painting of the cat later. I see another publication in town has caught up with him again and now he’s OK with releasing his identity.

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  83. I genuinely like the style of Banksy’s graphics work as black and white art design really appeals to me and the figures in the pictures have the look of children’s novel illustrations, which are almost always in the same minimalist black and white design – e.g. Pauline Baynes’s illustrations for the Chronicles of Narnia.

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  84. Like

  85. Donna @ 11:46
    It is likely that some of the people I mention in my daily prayer are already dead.
    There are some people who were important to me in my younger years that I have lost track of. Yet. I Owe them. And I appreciate them and mention them to God every day.
    I figure He knows what I mean.

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  87. I posted a link on the political thread that’s easy to read. He addresses the conflation of politics with religion. Many will disagree and may react even angrily to it, the political thread being what it is.

    I see it as a sound caution to those of us in the church today.

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  106. Bragging Mother Alert!

    About Nightingale’s English class: This class consisted of reading a couple or three books, and writing essays on the themes in those books (not book reports). Nightingale is not much of a reader, and does not consider herself much of a writer, but she consistently got As on her essays.

    Her writing process was to type out a bunch of random sentences and random thoughts, and then go back to add more sentences, and eventually turn them into paragraphs. (Kind of like making an outline, but “messier” and not as organized.) She did not feel confident about any of them, but her professor enjoyed them all, and gave her very positive feedback.

    For the last essay, she had to write about her writing process and what she had learned through it all. She felt stumped by that, since she doesn’t consider what she did as an actual process. She titled the essay “I Don’t Know”. 😀 She told me that she definitely would not be getting an A on this one.

    When she read the finished product to me, I got a little teary-eyed, because I could tell that it was actually very good, and I was so proud of her. Had to laugh at a line about looking up words to use that no one actually uses in casual conversation except her mother (me). (She teases me that I must make up words, because I sometimes use words she has never heard before.)

    And btw, she did end up getting an A on it. 🙂 I knew she would.

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  113. You two professors are so funny. I tend to use the vocabulary of a kindergarten teacher. When I play Boggle, I am always looking for the three letter words. 😋

    Liked by 5 people

  114. I am up late writing out Christmas cards. I am a loss for words at times…now I get why some compose a Christmas letter…I just cannot bring myself to do it though…
    Scrabble…we always use “fez” if we are stuck with the z tile! My grandson likes to use his tiles to compose “naan” .. it’s his favorite word for some reason…😊
    Goodnight all…my brain hurts….

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  115. Kizzie, when I worked on yearbook in college, one of my fellow students (who is now a reporter) never used a plain word when a fancy word would do. He wouldn’t write “lunch” but “repast.” The office policy became running his words by me to see if I knew what they meant. If I didn’t know what the word meant without consulting a dictionary, they figured very few other students would, either, so the word got replaced.

    I once edited George Grant. Now that was an exercise in humility, because that man sent me to the dictionary about once per page. Most of the “dictionary” words got replaced, but if it was just exactly the perfect word, it stayed in.

    I don’t remember whether it was his book or somebody else’s, but I once looked up the word “pellucid” when a book I was editing used it. It was such a specific word, and so perfect for the context, that I left it in place (though it’s possible I added a context word or two to make it clearer). How many people here know what that one means?

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