I had my usual New Year’s Eve. I went to bed. I awoke sometime in the night, looked at the clock and thought, hmmm. It’s here. 2022. My birthday is in 6 days. I will be X years old. How did that happen? Beats the alternative.
Our New Year’s celebration did not go as planned. Husband had taken the three to Lewiston for speech therapy but when they arrived, the place was all closed up. He had just spoken to them the day before. Somewhere on the trip back home, twenty teetered into her manic world and then into belligerence. It was pretty ugly but nowhere near as bad as it has been. Suffice to say, everybody went to bed at the usual time (eight) and that was it. We will do some of our celebration today, after she goes to work.
I so pray you can get her in the right place, mumsee. I hope she can get stabilized for longer and longer periods and mature as she should. That is so difficult for everyone around her.
Happy New Year to everyone in the Fellowship of the Blog (as Chas named it).
Minus three out this morning. A beautiful day, with snow and clear skies and cold. The cold never bothered me anyway. That is not an accurate assessment.
I was only in it for a brief stretch as I darted to the garage to go to the upper room. Where the pellet stove keeps it at a balmy sixty two. Much better than my room where it was forty four this morning.
We had -22 (on the front porch) this morning, but it now shows -4. I just heard that they are warming up the ice rink down at Target Field. If the ice is too cold, it will crack. I guess the optimum temperature is 22 degrees. I learn something every day.
The only pipe that froze is the one to twenty’s shower. She does not generally shower anyway so not a big deal but we are working on it. Fifteen complained so much that I sent him to his room and took away movie privileges for the weekend. Fourteen and I went down and worked on it to no avail so we set up a space heater down there. Should work in a bit.
We had loud fireworks at midnight, as usual. This morning, the sun is out and everything is oddly quiet.
I watched a movie last night about a woman who leaves the city (NY?) after the tragic loss of her husband and young son — and moves to Wyoming, buys a small, very isolated, run-down cabin on a mountain side, gives away her car, throws away her mobile phone.
The roof leaks. There is an outhouse. But she has a massive supply of canned foods.
I know, what could go wrong?
Shades of me in Winchester as a bear breaks into her place while she’s gone, destroys the huge supply of the canned goods she’d planned to live on for the year — tuna, chili, soup — and tears everything, bedding, her garden, to shreds.
Then winter blows in with a vengeance.
She’s having trouble chopping wood for the fire.
“This is not working,” she mutters over and over again as she passes out from the freezing cold and falls to the floor inside her cabin, the door open. She’s found, near death, by a nurse and her helper from the nearby Indian reservation and is slowly brought back to health; the male partner teaches her how to hunt and trap animals for food along with other handy skills. She manages to make a go of it after that.
It was 4 outside when we woke and it has risen to 7! Snowing lightly still and oh so beautiful! I hear the roads are icy and cars are flipped or stuck in ditches. We aren’t going anywhere for the next couple of days so we shall enjoy our inside looking out!
The juncos have been feeding on the back deck. They are enjoying the nicer bird seed we had for Bertie…I sure do miss that little fella 😞
Tree is down and now I am trying to rearrange furniture … not liking how I have it…I’ve lost my groove!! I’ll just keep playing around with it all…everything looks so bare after the garlands/lights and tree is gone!
The up side of not getting decorated is you’re free on Jan. 1.
I do want to get into the garage to pull out a lamp I’ve decided I need in a corner of the living room.
Got the dogs fed (Cowboy now finds the “hidden” pills, separates and extracts them, and carefully sets them aside next to his dish, then continues to finish the meal).
My real tree went outside two days ago and Christmas is now all on the family room couch and the dining room table awaiting the rubbermaid bins from the shop. It’s just too cold for me to go out and get them. I keep thinking they’ll shatter. (Windchills are still below -40, temps around -35C). I have left ‘winter’ up though. A bunch of smaller trees with fairy lights. They’ll stay until the batteries die… (oh wait, those ones plug in). 🙂
DJ, I am so thankful that Keva’s pain meds are in liquid form – we mix that with a bit of wet food and then give him his kibble once he’s cleaned that up. We did manage to fool him with a few pills over Christmas as we ran out of his liquid meds. Just kept the same routine – and crossed our fingers.
No pipes frozen here, thankfully, and husband is out completing the ploughing he started yesterday.
Cowboy can be fooled occasionally when I change up the delivery system (wet food, various kinds of cheese, peanuts butter, peanut butter with honey, pill pockets of various flavors, canned whipped cream, junk-food dog bacon treats, shredded chicken, canned cheese whiz — I’m probably missing a few).
But he catches on and gets wise to it very quickly. I find the pills lying on the floor.
Tess is the opposite, she eats everything in her dish and will gulp multiple pills down in a doggie pill pocket, no questions asked and begging for more.
Ahhhh. Coffee. How I’ve missed you.
The 7 day detox ended yesterday. Quite frankly I can’t tell a whole lot of difference. My cousin says she feels amazing when she does one. No brain fog, more energy, etc. Me? Maybe.
I had it in my mind to do a 75 Hard this year. You may remember I started one last January but then Covid. I realized there is just no way I can exercise 45 minutes twice a day and drinking a gallon of water a day is hit or miss so I am doing my own version. I’m on day 2. Amos helps because he gets me up early.
Oh. Christmas is packed up. The trees are back in the attic with some of the decorations and the rest are stacked in the garage waiting to go up.
I love having Christmas decoration but am alway amazed at how much room we have once they are packed away. Of course my sunroom looks like a daycare.
Tomorrow starts a full calendar at work . In addition to that I have my own real estate stuff going. I’ve been dreading it all week but today had a pep talk with myself. It’s going to be OK. I am lucky to have this and last year was a very good year. I want to repeat it.
Good morning all! And a happy beginning to the new year for everyone!
I can’t imagine having the tree packed up this early. We haven’t finished the 12 days of Christmas yet, or 3 Kings day! Of course, I didn’t put up a big tree this year…I didn’t put up one at all. I just lightly decorated 2 indoor plants I keep year round. But we had a very blessed holiday season this year. No one at home wanted me to cook and have guests this year; Dad is more sensitive to noise, and C didn’t want people tripping over his oxygen cords. So we were invited to join the family of one of our prayer partners at church.
We will also do church via the internet. It shows -34 on my computer right now. When we were young, we would have ventured out. Of course, there was no internet back then. 😀 My grandchildren can barely imagine that.
Glad the pipes got thawed out, mumsee. I know a woman who lives in a mobile home (and has been handicapped for years) who had several pipes frozen after a government agency insulated her home for her! So frustrating.
Up to fifty eight here by the stove. We have thought of putting in an electric heat source as we get older. But it is not yet high on the priority list. May be why we get a frozen pipe every few years. In this case, it is possibly because daughter does not use her shower.
Morning! 21 degrees here with bluer than blue sky and sunshine abounding! The roads are all ice still and husband is out there trying to scrape off the top layer of snow for an easier melt. We will watch church via the link our pastor sent to us this morning.
Christmas all put away with small pines remaining here and there. I leave them out year round unadorned…it kind of fits in since we live in the pines 😊
29 here and no heat at church. My husband manages properties and couldn’t get anyone to come yesterday to fix it (no surprise, really). We prayed and he went in to lay hands on it and try to get something going.
We have an older congregation and because the praise team all came down with COVID. No singers today.
I’m going to dress like I’m outside–but I’m wondering if it will actually be colder because there hasn’t been heat in the building for a few days.
Peter – Could your house church do a Zoom kind of meeting when they can’t meet in person? Or the pastor take a video of himself preaching his sermon and send it in email or something?
Long road trip day. I had a chance to listen to a sermon by a substitute pastor at my church. He did an excellent sermon. Thankful we all got to listen to that. Now we are listening to jazz that Wesley and Art enjoy, Thelonious Monk.
Although Nightingale has the day off for the end of her vacation, I watched my church service online this morning because I’ve been feeling kind of strange the past few days – tired, worn down, a little dizzy at times.
I’m not even sure it is a physical problem, but suspect it may be an emotional/mental thing. Finally getting to see Chickadee was a relief, but her revelation that she is transgender (although she says that she does not feel totally male, but about 2/3 male) was an emotional bombshell for me. So even though the grief of her estrangement has come to an end, a new grief for her has taken its place. 😦
And although Nightingale fully understood my grief over Chickadee’s absence and lack of communication over the past year, she doesn’t really understand my grief over this latest news, so I don’t talk about it with her. She is not all onboard with the whole transgender thing, but isn’t as bothered by this as I thought she might be. I think she is a bit skeptical about it, but is keeping a “live and let live”/”to each his own” kind of attitude about it.
Btw, Chickadee is neither dressing nor acting like a “typical male”. She still looks and acts much like a female, just not in the stereotypical way some would think of. I really think that YA and CBF have convinced her that not being “typically female” means that she is not female. I hate this for her. Her therapist is encouraging her in this, too. 😦
On a Facebook page for parents of trans and non-binary people, one mom was asking a question about how to help her seven year old transgender child not be bullied in school. Another mom posted about her four-and-a-half year old who has been “transitioning” since age two! (The beloved grandparents of that four year old – who had had a close relationship with the mom and child – are moving away because they cannot bring themselves to use the child’s supposedly preferred name and pronouns and it has been affecting their relationship. So tragic for all involved!)
My heart aches for all of these people who are so confused and deluded, and for the families that are so affected by this. I don’t know which is sadder – the parents who ache over their child’s choices or the parents who embrace it and encourage it. God have mercy on all of them, and all of us!
I’m live-streaming today as well. It’s a beautiful day out, sunny and crisp, but my lower back went our, or something, during the night and I could barely walked the couple times I had to get up to let Cowboy out. I went back to sleep, got up slowly and am now feeling much better.
I did “something” to it, I guess. I did “turn” – rotate – the new, humongous big and heavy mattress yesterday, maybe I did something to my back doing that, I don’t know.
I missed some of the usual things that I love about Christmas this year, including a tree and decorating very much, but it was “one of those” years I suppose.
You have all heard me say I have enough gay friends and relatives to have my own parade BUT…this transgender, transitioning stuff in small children is beyond ridiculous. I WANTED TO BE A BOY WHEN I WAS LITTLE!!!! Why? Just because. Maybe because people teased my father, “That’s a mighty fine looking little boy you got there Jimmy”. It’s only in the last few years I realized they were teasing my father, NOT really serious that I was ugly and looked like a boy.
Anyway, as I got older I was pretty OK with being a girl! Glad I didn’t have parents who would have indulged me.
Anyway, just the thought of getting dressed and in and out of the car to sit in one of the hard, folding chairs we have for the outdoor service, standing and sitting for the songs — was a little too much “first thing” this morning.
Thankfully, things seem to be easing up and the bad “tweak,” I hope, is fading completely.
Kizzie, it’s interesting/curious/disheartening how off-center our secular society has become in so many of these issues. They reflect what is “the norm,” we representing something quite curious to our non-believing family, neighbors and friends.
But that’s probably more typical, historically — that Christians stand out as a “peculiar” people. We in the West, especially America, I think, have been living in what historically has probably been an unusual period in which the civil religion has reflected Christian morality for the most part. We all were brought up in that environment, as were our parents and their parents.
It seemed normal. But historically it probably wasn’t normal at all, it was an anomaly?
So we find ourselves now in a bit of culture shock as we see our culture being swept in a direction that seems so abnormal and even dangerous. But it’s not really unusual in the long view.
God’s sovereignty is our only comfort and hope, ultimately, in times like these (or in any times). We’ve been lulled into a false sense of comfort in the U.S. where the civil relation mimicked true religion outwardly in its morals.
Now that’s giving way and crumbling around us and it’s hard to watch.
But God knows. He controls history and we are/everything is right on schedule, as a friend of mine would say.
Kim, as kids, boys just had so many more fun options than girls. So I don’t think it was unusual for more active and outdoorsy girls to have those feelings.
But rather than understanding that the sexes, especially in childhood, are not so set and separate in categories as culture seems to think, now we’re getting caught up in the transgender wave.
Kizzie – We’ve done Zoom sometimes, but the pastor prefers not to do it if everyone is not there. When either we or the other family cannot attend, we use Zoom, but the pastor does not like it to be all Zoom. Not sure why, but he is “old school” in many ways. So today, we joined our other church (the one we go to for midweek services) for its Zoom meeting.
In Chickadee’s case, she was never a tomboy, and seemed to enjoy “girl things” just as much as any other girl.
But she felt different inside, probably because of Asperger’s Syndrome or some other point on the autism spectrum. And that has been defined for her (by YA and CBF) that she must be transgender.
Poor children being laid on the altar of their parent’s ego and pride and rebellion against God. There are adults who have gone through it and been awoken to the fact that it was not at all what they thought. One can only pray others will be brought through without too much damage done to their bodies. God is in the business of salvation, thankfully.
I will be curious to see if your love and acceptance dull the pull for Chickadee to accept this stuff. In the still of the night God reaches many.
And we all agree in prayer for Miss Chickadee….you do not travel this road alone Kizzie…we are here standing in the gap for your girl. Our Lord knows our hearts in this matter and He is the One who created her… ♥️
It’s been a quiet evening around here. We have had hot chocolate and I still have piano Christmas music playing…so calming and beautiful.
I finally spoke with my neighbor this afternoon and tried to explain to her about daughter having Covid. She put her husband on the phone and I told him how it was going on over here. He appreciated the care we are taking to keep them safe. I told him perhaps in another week or two we could make plans for me to take her to lunch. She is missing our chats and fun together but I think she understood.
DJ – I remember how bad the Cardinals were before they moved from St. Louis (the Cardiac Cardinals they were called) to Arizona, and how bad the Rams were when they first came to St. Louis. They got good with Kurt Warner, then got bad again. It must be that leaving St. Louis helps teams improve.
Wandering Views 
First!
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Happy New Year!
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Happy New Year!
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It’s over? 2021?
We still have 2-1/2 hours of it left.
But, alas, the end is in sight.
Happy New Year.
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Happy New Year!
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¡Feliz año nuevo!
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Happy new Year!!
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I had my usual New Year’s Eve. I went to bed. I awoke sometime in the night, looked at the clock and thought, hmmm. It’s here. 2022. My birthday is in 6 days. I will be X years old. How did that happen? Beats the alternative.
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Happy New Year everyone.
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Kim: When you reach a certain styage in ligfr. zyou eoulf tsyhrt nr eih your friendd eho hsbr honr nrgorr.
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Sorry. Best I could do.
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Morning all and a most blessed New Year to you!!! Morning Chas…it is always a good start to the day to see you here!!
We have about five inches of new fallen snow on the ground and it is a winter wonderland here in the forest to start out this new year! Thankful!!
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Good morning, all. Hi Chas! Hi Yapamom!
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Our New Year’s celebration did not go as planned. Husband had taken the three to Lewiston for speech therapy but when they arrived, the place was all closed up. He had just spoken to them the day before. Somewhere on the trip back home, twenty teetered into her manic world and then into belligerence. It was pretty ugly but nowhere near as bad as it has been. Suffice to say, everybody went to bed at the usual time (eight) and that was it. We will do some of our celebration today, after she goes to work.
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I so pray you can get her in the right place, mumsee. I hope she can get stabilized for longer and longer periods and mature as she should. That is so difficult for everyone around her.
Happy New Year to everyone in the Fellowship of the Blog (as Chas named it).
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Minus three out this morning. A beautiful day, with snow and clear skies and cold. The cold never bothered me anyway. That is not an accurate assessment.
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I was only in it for a brief stretch as I darted to the garage to go to the upper room. Where the pellet stove keeps it at a balmy sixty two. Much better than my room where it was forty four this morning.
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Thingd dstsrt freezing t 44 in nc
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North Carolina gets colder than the dog park, I believe.
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It’s about 70° at Wesley’s locale today. Sunny and balmy. I need to check and see how badly the weather has behaved in Georgia.
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Colder than the dog part? Inconceivable!
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*park (Blame cold fingers)
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We had -22 (on the front porch) this morning, but it now shows -4. I just heard that they are warming up the ice rink down at Target Field. If the ice is too cold, it will crack. I guess the optimum temperature is 22 degrees. I learn something every day.
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The only pipe that froze is the one to twenty’s shower. She does not generally shower anyway so not a big deal but we are working on it. Fifteen complained so much that I sent him to his room and took away movie privileges for the weekend. Fourteen and I went down and worked on it to no avail so we set up a space heater down there. Should work in a bit.
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Happy New Year. We made it through 2020 and 2021.
We had loud fireworks at midnight, as usual. This morning, the sun is out and everything is oddly quiet.
I watched a movie last night about a woman who leaves the city (NY?) after the tragic loss of her husband and young son — and moves to Wyoming, buys a small, very isolated, run-down cabin on a mountain side, gives away her car, throws away her mobile phone.
The roof leaks. There is an outhouse. But she has a massive supply of canned foods.
I know, what could go wrong?
Shades of me in Winchester as a bear breaks into her place while she’s gone, destroys the huge supply of the canned goods she’d planned to live on for the year — tuna, chili, soup — and tears everything, bedding, her garden, to shreds.
Then winter blows in with a vengeance.
She’s having trouble chopping wood for the fire.
“This is not working,” she mutters over and over again as she passes out from the freezing cold and falls to the floor inside her cabin, the door open. She’s found, near death, by a nurse and her helper from the nearby Indian reservation and is slowly brought back to health; the male partner teaches her how to hunt and trap animals for food along with other handy skills. She manages to make a go of it after that.
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It was 4 outside when we woke and it has risen to 7! Snowing lightly still and oh so beautiful! I hear the roads are icy and cars are flipped or stuck in ditches. We aren’t going anywhere for the next couple of days so we shall enjoy our inside looking out!
The juncos have been feeding on the back deck. They are enjoying the nicer bird seed we had for Bertie…I sure do miss that little fella 😞
Tree is down and now I am trying to rearrange furniture … not liking how I have it…I’ve lost my groove!! I’ll just keep playing around with it all…everything looks so bare after the garlands/lights and tree is gone!
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Here we are on a beautiful sunny day waiting until it gets to 50 to take a walk!
I’m reorganizing and putting away things. Had I felt better earlier in the week (like, before the trash went out), I would already have this done.
But, I’m almost back to normal today and now reenergized, I’m returning my house to regular living!
It feels good, frankly.
But I’m having a really hard time remembering it’s Saturday!
It is, right?
🙂
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The up side of not getting decorated is you’re free on Jan. 1.
I do want to get into the garage to pull out a lamp I’ve decided I need in a corner of the living room.
Got the dogs fed (Cowboy now finds the “hidden” pills, separates and extracts them, and carefully sets them aside next to his dish, then continues to finish the meal).
And no, it doesn’t feel like a Saturday at all.
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My real tree went outside two days ago and Christmas is now all on the family room couch and the dining room table awaiting the rubbermaid bins from the shop. It’s just too cold for me to go out and get them. I keep thinking they’ll shatter. (Windchills are still below -40, temps around -35C). I have left ‘winter’ up though. A bunch of smaller trees with fairy lights. They’ll stay until the batteries die… (oh wait, those ones plug in). 🙂
DJ, I am so thankful that Keva’s pain meds are in liquid form – we mix that with a bit of wet food and then give him his kibble once he’s cleaned that up. We did manage to fool him with a few pills over Christmas as we ran out of his liquid meds. Just kept the same routine – and crossed our fingers.
No pipes frozen here, thankfully, and husband is out completing the ploughing he started yesterday.
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a Prayer is a prayer, no matter where it comes from.
God just told me that.
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Michelle – Around here, anything over 40° and sunny is good weather for a walk. Bundle up and go for it!
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My brother in law and his family just left. We had a nice 3 hour visit. 🙂
The pork roast, sauerkraut, carrots, and smashed taters was good. ❤
The kids are un-decorating the tree today. 🎄
There is currently an ongoing debate about whether or not to leave the indoor lights up for longer because they look nice. 💡🕯
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Cowboy can be fooled occasionally when I change up the delivery system (wet food, various kinds of cheese, peanuts butter, peanut butter with honey, pill pockets of various flavors, canned whipped cream, junk-food dog bacon treats, shredded chicken, canned cheese whiz — I’m probably missing a few).
But he catches on and gets wise to it very quickly. I find the pills lying on the floor.
Tess is the opposite, she eats everything in her dish and will gulp multiple pills down in a doggie pill pocket, no questions asked and begging for more.
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It’s 55 and raining. Been high 40’s low 50’s all week. But no sun and rain every day. ⛈🌧⛈
Tomorrow it’s supposed to drop into the 20’s, but the sun returns. ☀
At this point I’ll take it.
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Hit the wall before the walk. I’m exhausted–even after eating lunch–and will watch a movie or try to read. It’s still vacation, yes?
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I just made coffee for the first time in a while. Kind of late in the day to drink it, I know, but it kind of hits the spot somehow.
Straightening up around here a bit, I foresee a trip to the Salvation Army drop-off center in my future.
I watered Charlie Brown 2 now that we’ve had over a day without rain.
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Water!
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MumseeZ ???????
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If I wait until it hits 50 to take a walk like Michelle I might not go for a walk until March. 🙂
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We didn’t get the tree up until Christmas Eve this year, so I have a feeling we’re going to leave it up until February.
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Yapamom, thanks for checking in, and Happy New Year to you. It’s always a treat to see you here.
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Chas, the frozen pipe thawed.
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It hit 53 and out I went. A beautiful day. Now off to bed at 7:30! LOL
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Good night
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Ahhhh. Coffee. How I’ve missed you.
The 7 day detox ended yesterday. Quite frankly I can’t tell a whole lot of difference. My cousin says she feels amazing when she does one. No brain fog, more energy, etc. Me? Maybe.
I had it in my mind to do a 75 Hard this year. You may remember I started one last January but then Covid. I realized there is just no way I can exercise 45 minutes twice a day and drinking a gallon of water a day is hit or miss so I am doing my own version. I’m on day 2. Amos helps because he gets me up early.
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Oh. Christmas is packed up. The trees are back in the attic with some of the decorations and the rest are stacked in the garage waiting to go up.
I love having Christmas decoration but am alway amazed at how much room we have once they are packed away. Of course my sunroom looks like a daycare.
Tomorrow starts a full calendar at work . In addition to that I have my own real estate stuff going. I’ve been dreading it all week but today had a pep talk with myself. It’s going to be OK. I am lucky to have this and last year was a very good year. I want to repeat it.
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Good morning on this rainy Sundeat morning.
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Good morning. Time for church (A).
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Good morning all! And a happy beginning to the new year for everyone!
I can’t imagine having the tree packed up this early. We haven’t finished the 12 days of Christmas yet, or 3 Kings day! Of course, I didn’t put up a big tree this year…I didn’t put up one at all. I just lightly decorated 2 indoor plants I keep year round. But we had a very blessed holiday season this year. No one at home wanted me to cook and have guests this year; Dad is more sensitive to noise, and C didn’t want people tripping over his oxygen cords. So we were invited to join the family of one of our prayer partners at church.
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7° with snow on the ground and wind blowing. Our farmhouse church is canceled. Time to “go” to another church via the Internet.
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We will also do church via the internet. It shows -34 on my computer right now. When we were young, we would have ventured out. Of course, there was no internet back then. 😀 My grandchildren can barely imagine that.
Glad the pipes got thawed out, mumsee. I know a woman who lives in a mobile home (and has been handicapped for years) who had several pipes frozen after a government agency insulated her home for her! So frustrating.
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Up to fifty eight here by the stove. We have thought of putting in an electric heat source as we get older. But it is not yet high on the priority list. May be why we get a frozen pipe every few years. In this case, it is possibly because daughter does not use her shower.
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Morning! 21 degrees here with bluer than blue sky and sunshine abounding! The roads are all ice still and husband is out there trying to scrape off the top layer of snow for an easier melt. We will watch church via the link our pastor sent to us this morning.
Christmas all put away with small pines remaining here and there. I leave them out year round unadorned…it kind of fits in since we live in the pines 😊
So good to see you all this morning…
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29 here and no heat at church. My husband manages properties and couldn’t get anyone to come yesterday to fix it (no surprise, really). We prayed and he went in to lay hands on it and try to get something going.
We have an older congregation and because the praise team all came down with COVID. No singers today.
I’m going to dress like I’m outside–but I’m wondering if it will actually be colder because there hasn’t been heat in the building for a few days.
An adventure for 2022!
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Hey! It worked!
Some heat–it’s now up to 56 inside the church! I may not need my scarf! 😉
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Peter – Could your house church do a Zoom kind of meeting when they can’t meet in person? Or the pastor take a video of himself preaching his sermon and send it in email or something?
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Debra, I would have loved to leave it up until Epiphany but January is busy and yesterday made sense.
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Long road trip day. I had a chance to listen to a sermon by a substitute pastor at my church. He did an excellent sermon. Thankful we all got to listen to that. Now we are listening to jazz that Wesley and Art enjoy, Thelonious Monk.
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It’s a rainy day in Georgia.
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Although Nightingale has the day off for the end of her vacation, I watched my church service online this morning because I’ve been feeling kind of strange the past few days – tired, worn down, a little dizzy at times.
I’m not even sure it is a physical problem, but suspect it may be an emotional/mental thing. Finally getting to see Chickadee was a relief, but her revelation that she is transgender (although she says that she does not feel totally male, but about 2/3 male) was an emotional bombshell for me. So even though the grief of her estrangement has come to an end, a new grief for her has taken its place. 😦
And although Nightingale fully understood my grief over Chickadee’s absence and lack of communication over the past year, she doesn’t really understand my grief over this latest news, so I don’t talk about it with her. She is not all onboard with the whole transgender thing, but isn’t as bothered by this as I thought she might be. I think she is a bit skeptical about it, but is keeping a “live and let live”/”to each his own” kind of attitude about it.
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Btw, Chickadee is neither dressing nor acting like a “typical male”. She still looks and acts much like a female, just not in the stereotypical way some would think of. I really think that YA and CBF have convinced her that not being “typically female” means that she is not female. I hate this for her. Her therapist is encouraging her in this, too. 😦
On a Facebook page for parents of trans and non-binary people, one mom was asking a question about how to help her seven year old transgender child not be bullied in school. Another mom posted about her four-and-a-half year old who has been “transitioning” since age two! (The beloved grandparents of that four year old – who had had a close relationship with the mom and child – are moving away because they cannot bring themselves to use the child’s supposedly preferred name and pronouns and it has been affecting their relationship. So tragic for all involved!)
My heart aches for all of these people who are so confused and deluded, and for the families that are so affected by this. I don’t know which is sadder – the parents who ache over their child’s choices or the parents who embrace it and encourage it. God have mercy on all of them, and all of us!
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On a lighter note. . .We didn’t put our tree up this year.
Because we never took it down last year! 😀
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But we had taken off everything but the lights last year.
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I’m live-streaming today as well. It’s a beautiful day out, sunny and crisp, but my lower back went our, or something, during the night and I could barely walked the couple times I had to get up to let Cowboy out. I went back to sleep, got up slowly and am now feeling much better.
I did “something” to it, I guess. I did “turn” – rotate – the new, humongous big and heavy mattress yesterday, maybe I did something to my back doing that, I don’t know.
I missed some of the usual things that I love about Christmas this year, including a tree and decorating very much, but it was “one of those” years I suppose.
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It got up to 59 degrees inside the church by the time we left–and I removed my stocking cap halfway through–so lovely.
The pastor commented that our online viewing was now the biggest congregation–60-70 households each week.
Thankful for that option, even if we didn’t take it.
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You have all heard me say I have enough gay friends and relatives to have my own parade BUT…this transgender, transitioning stuff in small children is beyond ridiculous. I WANTED TO BE A BOY WHEN I WAS LITTLE!!!! Why? Just because. Maybe because people teased my father, “That’s a mighty fine looking little boy you got there Jimmy”. It’s only in the last few years I realized they were teasing my father, NOT really serious that I was ugly and looked like a boy.
Anyway, as I got older I was pretty OK with being a girl! Glad I didn’t have parents who would have indulged me.
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* lower back went out
* I could barely walk
Sigh.
Anyway, just the thought of getting dressed and in and out of the car to sit in one of the hard, folding chairs we have for the outdoor service, standing and sitting for the songs — was a little too much “first thing” this morning.
Thankfully, things seem to be easing up and the bad “tweak,” I hope, is fading completely.
Kizzie, it’s interesting/curious/disheartening how off-center our secular society has become in so many of these issues. They reflect what is “the norm,” we representing something quite curious to our non-believing family, neighbors and friends.
But that’s probably more typical, historically — that Christians stand out as a “peculiar” people. We in the West, especially America, I think, have been living in what historically has probably been an unusual period in which the civil religion has reflected Christian morality for the most part. We all were brought up in that environment, as were our parents and their parents.
It seemed normal. But historically it probably wasn’t normal at all, it was an anomaly?
So we find ourselves now in a bit of culture shock as we see our culture being swept in a direction that seems so abnormal and even dangerous. But it’s not really unusual in the long view.
God’s sovereignty is our only comfort and hope, ultimately, in times like these (or in any times). We’ve been lulled into a false sense of comfort in the U.S. where the civil relation mimicked true religion outwardly in its morals.
Now that’s giving way and crumbling around us and it’s hard to watch.
But God knows. He controls history and we are/everything is right on schedule, as a friend of mine would say.
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Kim, as kids, boys just had so many more fun options than girls. So I don’t think it was unusual for more active and outdoorsy girls to have those feelings.
But rather than understanding that the sexes, especially in childhood, are not so set and separate in categories as culture seems to think, now we’re getting caught up in the transgender wave.
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It surely i long asy dfown here
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That’s OK. I came to check in and see if you were here.
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Nail-biter game between LA Rams & Baltimore Ravens …
Rams 20-19 in the end.
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Kizzie – We’ve done Zoom sometimes, but the pastor prefers not to do it if everyone is not there. When either we or the other family cannot attend, we use Zoom, but the pastor does not like it to be all Zoom. Not sure why, but he is “old school” in many ways. So today, we joined our other church (the one we go to for midweek services) for its Zoom meeting.
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Now I have to root for Dallas (a win by them helps the Rams playoffs possibilities)
Peter, remember how bad the Rams were when they first came to LA?
Fortunately, sports teams are fluid.
Looks like the Super Bowl will be played at our new So-Fi (Rams) stadium, in the city (Inglewood) where I mostly grew up.
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In Chickadee’s case, she was never a tomboy, and seemed to enjoy “girl things” just as much as any other girl.
But she felt different inside, probably because of Asperger’s Syndrome or some other point on the autism spectrum. And that has been defined for her (by YA and CBF) that she must be transgender.
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Kizzie, That makes no sense, of course. But it rather reflects the environment she’s in right now
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I know I my b alone in thid. But zi don’t blieve there is a “transgender”.
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DJ, “our” team against “your” team. It was a nail-biter for sure.
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Chas, not certain you are alone in that.
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Poor children being laid on the altar of their parent’s ego and pride and rebellion against God. There are adults who have gone through it and been awoken to the fact that it was not at all what they thought. One can only pray others will be brought through without too much damage done to their bodies. God is in the business of salvation, thankfully.
I will be curious to see if your love and acceptance dull the pull for Chickadee to accept this stuff. In the still of the night God reaches many.
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And we all agree in prayer for Miss Chickadee….you do not travel this road alone Kizzie…we are here standing in the gap for your girl. Our Lord knows our hearts in this matter and He is the One who created her… ♥️
It’s been a quiet evening around here. We have had hot chocolate and I still have piano Christmas music playing…so calming and beautiful.
I finally spoke with my neighbor this afternoon and tried to explain to her about daughter having Covid. She put her husband on the phone and I told him how it was going on over here. He appreciated the care we are taking to keep them safe. I told him perhaps in another week or two we could make plans for me to take her to lunch. She is missing our chats and fun together but I think she understood.
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DJ – I remember how bad the Cardinals were before they moved from St. Louis (the Cardiac Cardinals they were called) to Arizona, and how bad the Rams were when they first came to St. Louis. They got good with Kurt Warner, then got bad again. It must be that leaving St. Louis helps teams improve.
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