lifting up our best selves Sunday

[Harriet]

An excellent choice of person to quote this morning, blessed.

Singing - All best wishes to those who are singing within worship services. It used to be effortless for me and now I must run from it to protect others. (smile) I know the men who asked me to sing with their group last week probably can't understand why I wouldn't just join right in.

Leading - Kathryn and dh, and Dee's dd will be brilliant, I have no doubt.

Hope you get it all put away well, Cathy.

How wonderful there's a potential hormonal help for dgd, Dee, that's already somewhat proven to help.

helia, I can barely imagine HRH in a mall, either. Maybe dh will like the walking spaciousness aspect of it? Of course this time of year it may be too crowded to see that.

Dd went to SS, but I stayed home and watched Lambchop's Special Hannukah with HRH. He had been flipping channels and saw Sherry Lewis' face, which stopped him instantly - he loves her. I found myself thinking that Twins' Mom's children would have been little kids when that came out.

Emptynester, just as soon as I figure out the answer, I'll share with you. As I've mentioned in H and F, I have begun to understand in recent years the phrasing my mother and dear aunts all used .....to "fight weight". To gain is effortless, to lose, a knock-down drag-out battle royale Texas-death-match no-holes-barred smackdown.

Sign have tried to post so many times
will just hit submit whereever I am in cuop and try to return.

[Twins' Mom]

I've been having a wonderful slothful day (still in pajamas, actually) but must get rolling now. Need to leave in about an hour and half for memorial service. Need to s2s, reboot some laundry and do some assorted things, walk the ddogs if it's not raining now.

[Harriet]

Nancy, what fun you are having with new chickens. I'm not sure if you already had a Barred Rock before, but since you do now, I know all three of us - helia, you and I - have a hen in common. Sister hens, lol. Interestingly, we all seem to have only one of those, and others are different breeds. We like variety.

Cowinkie, as you can imagine just about everyone here is saying "oh, if only" regarding the potential of a defensive gun somewhere in a school. There is simply no such thing in our rural/urban/both county as a school without an armed person or two. Schools built in the last 20 years or so have been placed in close proximity to each other and each can also call the other's Resource Officer fast. When a Resource Officer has to leave a campus he/she calls the PD who send a replacement, then they leave. They park so close to the main entrances you have to walk around their cars to get to the door. At the middle school, there are 2 school guards who share the office with the Resource Officer, but I'm unaware if they are authorized to know about any gun in the building - their weapon seems to be the walkie-talkies which never leave their faces as they make their rounds. At the high school, there are 2 Resource Officers, the school guards again, and the 2 ROTC commanders are supposed to be trained in all kinds of emergency situations, but probably forbidden to bring weapons. Agree that the piece of paper sounds lame.

I'm irritated with Associated Press and Reuters today. Even as we talked the news out with dd14 on Friday afternoon, trying to be responsible as suggested on the news, we gave her at least 3 pieces of misinformation that had been broadcast as fact by those two. Good grief. Cardinal rule: If it's an unknown, admit it.

I will say that the coverage of research on relative safety in comparison to different time periods, and comparison worldwide, has been reassuring to me.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

One of the reasons we don't have cable is so we don't have 24 hour news stations. As far as I'm concerned they are 24 hour reality entertainment and do much to manufacture their content. I have not watched any video from CT and have only listened to 1 radio story and read 1 newspaper article (with 2 photos.) I've seen a few other photos on blogsites I read but have not read any 'news coverage' at all because I figure I know all I need to know.

To give you an example of manufactured news, one shot I saw was of reporters in the face of worshippers this morning. The only this disgraceful behaviour will stop is if everyone boycotts the media. Until we do, we are feeding that industry.

Here's the photo I saw. I have no idea where it is from. It purports to be related to CT but it doesn't really matter. In no circumstance, be it a mass killing, a teen suicide, a gay marriage, or any other 'news' event is such behaviour acceptable:

https://twitter.com/AdamGabbatt/status/ ... 49/photo/1

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I'm up from a rest. Didn't sleep. Am slowly starting to get some energy.

The freezing rain ticking against the window is unsettling. We have no where to go and hopefully ds was home before it started in earnest in the city (he left here about an hour before it started here.)

Dinner is heating in the oven (leftover tourtiere from last night.) I might put up a Christmas tree tonight. Or watch Christmas movies.

[CathyS]

The dresser in the MBR is clear.

The table in the spare room is clear... somehow most of the stuff ended up on our bed.

I've been watching 5 of the 6 cruise ships sail away from Port Everglades on their 2 live webcams. 1 ship is still in port until 8 p.m. I had my speakers turned up to listen to the ships horns as they left.

[BookSaver]

Hmmm, looks as if I've been playing Emptynester's sloth game today. DH and I went for lunch at McD's so he could get a rib sandwich. We had to stop back at the store we went to last night to exchange 1 thing (he grabbed the wrong size) and return some alleged odor-removal spray.

I tried the spray in my office last night, and the scent of the spray was so awful that it gave me an instant headache. It was the store's brand, and maybe I should have gotten the name-brand Feb spray instead. After such a bad reaction, though, I decided to return for refund rather than exchange. Instant declutter! Next time I'll just burn an unscented candle.

Ivy ~ I almost missed your question to me about bookshelves, I just caught it when I was checking on something in Friday's posts.

Yes, we have bookshelves and quite a collection of books. I like being surrounded by books and have some in almost every room in the house. I also have some boxes full from various used book sales. We could use another set of shelves, but I keep telling myself that when I can find a long block of time to weed out a bunch that no longer interest either of us, we'll be able to get by with the shelves we already have.

For now, other declutter spots have higher priority and the extra books don't bother us.

I find it rather confusing to go into someone else's house and not see a single book, not even a cookbook. Like I can feel that something isn't right or is out of balance, but it takes me awhile to figure it out until I finally notice the lack of books.

[blessedw2]

good night all... signing off of work

finished car
much put away

[OKay]

The last 3 days have been absolutely wonderful. Filled fulled of special treasured moments. My bucket of energy has been seriously depleted but I'm so thrilled that the tiredness is overshadowed. I can't stop smiling as I think about all the fun we had.

I love my church family but they are so chaotic on a Sunday morning!

So true! The person who normally leads off our service starts with a high energy song that she refers to as her "Get on in here" song. It is a kind way that notifies everyone that it is time to find a seat because the service is going to begin.

[Ivy]

Hello Villagers!

Thanks for your comforting words, Blessed!

Booksaver, I have 2 bookcases, but I put books inside baskets, small storage bins, and sometimes I stack them, decoratively, in the summer and put a sea shell on top of the little stack. It's a display idea I saw in a catalog. Also, I have book ends, too, which I'm currently not using, because I'm trying to think up a place to use it at. They're cut crystal from my Dsis, so of course I want to use them! Maybe after Christmas decorations are put away, in the New Year, I can find a pretty spot.

I didn't feel good at all this a.m., with cold-type symptoms, so took children's elixir and the pain from arthritis and scoliosis in between the shoulders hurt so bad, so DH put an Icy Hot pain patch on it after my hot shower. I wrote in my journal, which is always cathartic, prayed for myself and for others, and did emails. My Dsis emailed, so did my Ddil, and 1 BFF. It was fun to answer them..

I ended up starting the stuffed dog toy for a grandson, but got so tired after lunch, I took a break from crochet and took a 45 min. nap. I'm on laundry load #3 and after dinner we'll run the DW because we have a big storm approaching with forecast 60 m. p. h. gusts and it also says there could be some power outages, too. We have a cable modem, so if it goes out, our internet is out, but if the cable stays on, we have a generator and I can email on my Nook because we were told computers use up too much juice and it's not healthy to run a computer on a generator. One of our lights did something strange on the generator, too, once. It's a Halogen light, too. So now it is dimmer.

I dusted the house, put some books in a small bin, with titles facing up, to get quickly. I sorted baby patterns into page protectors for the binder and have a project of sorting going on and putting them into files. The mess is in the bunny/craft room, which is nice to do that sort of thing away from the main area of the house.

I'm going to run and listen to President Obama talk now. You all take care, have a great upcoming week, and I hope you had a nice Sunday, too.