I got so busy Saturday morning that I completely forgot to do any writing! It’s been a pretty great day, all the way around, and I have no reason to believe tomorrow will be any different. I slept in, tested a new pancake recipe for Carolyn Ketchum’s 5th cookbook that she is working on, puttered around the house doing laundry, have been watching Hallmark Christmas movies, experimented with a sourdough bread roll recipe for Thanksgiving dinner, and have an experimental cinnamon roll recipe for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving in the oven right now! It smells pretty delicious in here. As soon as the Instant Pot de-pressurizes I will be able to get dinner on the table – shredded pulled pork with homemade BBQ sauce over the fresh rolls and topped with coleslaw. Did I mention that it smells good in here? Tomorrow I intend to make a batch of cookies, so I can send some to a young friend in college (K – please private message me S’s address! I can’t find it!) and have some lunch treats for hubby for the upcoming week and do some more low-key household chores. This is my idea of a pretty incredible weekend, and though it might not make everyone happy, it certainly does put a smile on my face.
Verse of the Day
November 10, 2018
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
Thoughts on the Verse of the Day
Isn’t that a beautiful phrase! “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.” Rather than spending a lot of time talking or thinking about how marvelous God is, let’s praise him in prayer.
November 11, 2018
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.
Thoughts on the Verse of the Day
Love for things, especially temporary ones, can sure get us into trouble. Even worse, we can begin to think they will make us happy or fill the empty places in our hearts. But if we really sink our hopes and dreams in our Abba Father, we are attached to eternity and what we need most is always with us!
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I Am Thankful For . . .
Saturday – This may sound like a very small thing to be thankful about, but I am so thankful for the days that I get to sleep in, not waking up to the loud and persistent demands of my alarm clock. Even on my day off from work I get up with an alarm, so I can pack a lunch for hubby and make him some breakfast before he heads out for the day. I suppose I could take a nap afterwards, but there is always stuff to do around the house, so I don’t.
Sunday – Today I am so thankful for baking! I find it to be so incredibly peaceful and calming to mix together ingredients and have something delicious and aromatic come out of the oven a short time later.
November 10 –
Area Code Day – Because so many people have cell phones, area codes aren’t as important as they used to be. Area codes USED to be a point of prestige, and those of us who remember as far back as party lines remember the time when someone’s area code told you about where they lived, because they set boundary definitions. Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it? I know that the children of today won’t have any clue about area codes when they are grown – many teens and young adults don’t even. I still find myself looking at an area code and automatically assuming where the call is coming from but so often that isn’t the case any longer! Sometimes I miss those days, where things seemed so clear all of the time, even with phone numbers.
Domino Day – I’m not sure how I missed this one for all this time, but it’s really fun! There is an annual competition where teams of two gather to see how many dominoes they can set up, complete with special challenges, followed by seeing how many of them will fall without messing up. In 2009, which was the last year that had statistics on Wikipedia, they set up 4,800,000 of the tiles, and of those, 4,491,863 fell. That’s pretty amazing, especially since I cannot even fathom how long it must have taken for the set up! This is a competition that has different levels of excitement too! In the scandal of 2005, a sparrow flew in, toppled over 23,000 tiles in the middle of set up. An exterminator was called in and he shot the sparrow, which triggered the oh-so-tender sensibilities of animal activists, and ultimately the exterminator had to pay a fine for performing his job. Seriously, that is messed up.
Marine Corps Birthday – Happy Birthday United States Marine Corps!!! Did you know that the Marine Corps were created during the Revolutionary War? The Continental Congress of the newly created United States of America authorized the creation of the Continental Marines on November 10th, 1775. It was later renamed the U.S. Marine Corps and is often abbreviated as USMC. The Marine Corps has proudly participated in every war that has involved the United States. If you see a Marine today, thank them for their contributions to protecting our country. Active or retired, they deserve our thanks and our appreciation.
November 11 –
Death / Duty Day – It had been a long four years as soldiers fought WWI. On October 17th, 1918 the final Allied push began towards the German border. As the American, British and French armies advanced, the alliance between the Central Powers began to fall apart. Turkey signed an armistice at the end of October, followed on November 3rd by Austria-Hungary. Germany was crumbling from within. The sailors of the High Seas Fleet, when faced with the prospect of returning to sea, mutinied on October 29th. It took a mere few days, and the entire city of Kiel was in their control and revolution spread throughout the country. The Kaiser abdicated on November 9th, slipping across the border into the Netherlands, into exile. A German Republic was declared, and they began to try to reach a peace with the Allies. At long last, early in the morning of November 11th, an armistice was signed in a railroad car that was parked near the front lines near a French forest. The terms of this agreement called for the fighting to stop along the entire Western Front, and it was to begin at exactly 11:00 a.m. that morning. Four years of bloody conflict, and the Great War was at an end. The world celebrated . . . but that’s not the entire story. “…at the front, there was no celebration.” There was an intelligence officer in the American 1st Division, Colonel Thomas Gowenlock, who was on the front on that November morning, and he wrote about his experience a few years later. On that morning of November 11th, Colonel Gowenlock was sitting in his dugout in Le Gros Faux, which was their division headquarters, speaking with a couple of other officers, when someone brought in the message that 1) Hostilities would stop at 11:00 on November 11th, and 2) The Allied troops were not to go beyond the line reached at that hour, on that date, until further orders. He and the other officers looked at each other, letting it sink in that it was over. He looked at his watch; it was 9:00 a.m. There were two hours to go, so he drove over to the bank of the Meuse River to see the finish. There was heavy shelling, that was growing steadily worse. It seemed to him that every battery in the world was trying to burn up their guns. At last 11:00 came, but the firing did not stop. The men on both sides had decided to give all they had – their farewell to arms. It was a very natural impulse after the years of war, but also unfortunate and sad that many fell that day, after 11:00 a.m. All over the world, people were celebrating, dancing in the streets, drinking champagne and hailing the armistice that marked the end of the war. Sadly though, many soldiers felt this would be temporary, and that they would soon be called upon to resume the war. The night arrived, it was so quiet, it felt unearthly to them, and it began to eat away at their souls. They sat around log fires, the first they had been able to have at the front, trying to convince themselves that the enemy was not watching them from the darkness beyond the light of the fire. They spoke to each other in quiet, nervous tones, sure that the German bombing planes would come and blast them. These soldiers had had long months of intense strain, always on high alert to the threat of daily mortal danger, always thinking in terms of war and the enemy. The sudden release was physical and psychological agony. Some suffered from a total nervous collapse; some began to be hopeful that they could go home soon, to the ones they loved. Some could only think of the little crosses that marked the graves of their fallen comrades, while some just fell into an exhausted sleep. All of them were confused by how their existence as soldiers felt suddenly meaningless. They did not know what would come next, and many hardly cared. They were numbed by the shock of peace, and what they had been through consumed their every thought – both waking and sleeping. They couldn’t reconcile with the present and couldn’t conceive of a future. Today we understand what those soldiers were going through to be PTSD, but the world wasn’t aware of this yet, so these poor soldiers who had given so much went home, adrift and left to pick up the pieces of their lives. God bless every single one of those soldiers, past and present, and may their sacrifices never be forgotten or minimalized by time.
Forget-Me-Not Day – This is a day to remember family, friends and loved ones. Many folks use this day to get in touch with people they haven’t seen in awhile, those people you don’t want to forget you, of course! Though this day is intended to remember the living, many people also use it to memorialize a loved one who is no longer with us. Some suggestions for celebrating this one would be to maybe send out Forget-Me-Not E-cards to everyone in your address book, send Forget-Me-Not flowers to people (aren’t these out of season right now though?), give Forget Me Not flower seed packets since they are easy to mail, or just give someone a call you haven’t talked to in a long time. Honestly, if you are going to mail out anything, perhaps this is one to plan ahead for next year, and just stick with the e-cards and phone calls for today.
Veterans Day – Today is Veteran’s Day, and though for many people it has come to mean just a day off from work, this is a day that should be taken seriously and spent showing our appreciation for every single veteran who has ever put on a uniform for our country. Because of these men and women, we are free, because of them we can speak for ourselves, choose where and how to worship – or not, and live our lives however we see fit. The toll on our veterans is so high, but many people are unaware of just how high it is. If you have been blessed by personally knowing someone who has served in a foreign war, then perhaps you have been told stories of some of their experiences, but I’m betting you don’t know the inside story, for these are the things they don’t want you to know, but which show them for the truly brave and wonderful people that they are. You may not know how often they lie awake at night wracked with pain from injuries they have suffered during battle. You may not be aware of the horrifying nightmares that wake them when they finally DO fall to sleep. What about their reaction to sudden loud noises? Or the stress they undergo when they are in crowded or loud places? Have you ever thought about the toll that their experiences, and the post-traumatic issues from them, have on their families? When the war is over, or when their time in it is, their battles continue on for the rest of their lives. Life is never “normal” for them again. They may put on a happy face, some can’t no matter how hard they try, but inside they have changed. Some changes are for the better, many are not, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Do you know what though? And this is so important to remember . . . No matter the horror they have gone through, no matter the damage done to their bodies and their minds, they would do it all again. Let that sink in. They would do it all again for YOUR right to live free, for the rights of even those who speak out against them, they would go back to serve this country they love so much, no matter the toll it takes on their lives. Appreciate a Veteran this day, and every day. They have been there for us, let’s be there for them. To all the Veterans in my life – my father, brother, uncles, son, friends and extended “adopted” family . . . Thank you. Thank you for loving our country and our freedoms so much that you sacrificed for us. Thank you seems inadequate, but it’s all I have to give. Thank you. (These are pictures of my father and my son. I love them so much and am so very proud of them, and their service to our country.)
This Day in History –
November 10, 1775 – The United States Marine Corps was created.
November 10, 1951 – Direct dial telephone service is first available coast to coast.
November 10, 1969 – Sesame Street premiered on PBS television.
November 10, 1975 – The Edmund Fitzgerald and its entire crew is lost during a storm on Lake Superior.
November 11, 1620 – Forty-one Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sign a compact calling for a “body Politick” just off the Massachusetts coast.
Food Celebrations of the Day –
November 10
Vanilla Cupcake Day – There’s nothing “plain” about vanilla beans: Culled from the vanilla orchid, they’re one of the most expensive spices on the market! It’s gotten so bad over the past year that I finally just started making my own vanilla and it’s just now getting to the point where it has steeped long enough to use it. It’s quite nice.
November 11
National Sundae Day – To me this seems like one that would be better celebrated in the summer, but I didn’t set it up. This delicious treat was first enjoyed in 1881, when George Hallauer asked Edward C. Berner, the owner of a soda fountain, to fix up a dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce, somewhat like an ice cream soda. This treat grew in popularity but was only sold on Sundays . . . which I assume is where the name got its start.
Well, it’s late and there are some cinnamon rolls just begging to be tasted in the kitchen. Have a great rest of your weekend! God bless you and I’ll see you on Monday.
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Celebration list sources:
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