Wednesday, April 20, 2011

At Home in the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 23

Welcome to another edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge.
We're just rolling right along aren't we?
If you've stopped in today from the A-Z challenge you'll find the letter of the day in question #8. Feel free to join the Hodgepodge too...today or any Wednesday.


1. What are your plans for Easter day/weekend?

The weekend will begin for me on Thursday evening when we collect daughters1 and 2 from the airport. We will kick off the weekend with dinner eaten all together. Daughter2 has made her usual request for chicken divan so more than likely that's what will be on the menu Thursday night. If the rain stays away we'll do something outdoors Friday and Saturday but if the predicted rain arrives we'll hang out and watch movies, play pool and maybe go see Soul Surfer which is on my list.

Sunday we'll go to church and then have a big lunch...baked ham (per daughter2's request) with pineapple stuffing, deviled eggs, and roasted asparagus, followed by something yummy for dessert. Both my girls love to cook and bake so we'll spend some time together in the kitchen for sure.

I still put together Easter baskets for my girls because I enjoy that and I look forward to setting those at their places at the kitchen table just as I have done every Easter for the past twenty three years. On Sunday evening we'll take daughter1 to the train so she can get to her brand new city to begin her brand new job bright and early Monday morning. Daughter2 will go back to uni Monday afternoon. I am so looking forward to having both chicks in the nest for a nice long weekend.

2. Besides Jesus, what one person from the Bible would you most like to meet and why?

Just one? I'm not sure I can pick just one. I'm going with one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament...hey, it's my question, right?

Daniel and Peter.

3. What is one modern day convenience you didn't have as a child that was easy to live without?

Well, in a sense they were all easy to live without because isn't it true that you don't know what you don't know? My first thought is the cell phone. Phones were a whole 'nother animal when I was growing up. No caller id, no call waiting, no mobile devices, no texting, no internet on the phone and for that matter no internet period. The phone in our kitchen had a long chord that was always getting tangled up and I remember stretching that chord around the corner into the next room to talk to my friends.

When my hubs started his first job he was a sales rep and would have to stop at pay phones throughout the day to make calls. He eventually got a mobile phone and it was huge. It came in a suitcase. I'm thankful for cell phones now but I think they've added to our sense of impatience about everything. Before cell phones we weren't available 24/7. If you called someone and they weren't home the phone just rang and rang and you'd say, oh well, I'll try again later. Unless it was a matter of life and death you would not track them down and interrupt whatever it was they were doing. If they were on the line talking to someone else you got a busy signal. You kept calling back until the line was free. I can appreciate the convenience of a cell phone but growing up my mom never sat across from my dad in a restaurant or on vacation while he talked on the phone. Just sayin'

Well now, it seems that turned into a little rant. Sorry.

4. Are you more right brained or left brained? If you're not sure what that means there is an interesting little quiz here.

According to the quiz I'm 59% left brain and 41% right brained. I am pretty much in the middle. Does this mean I'm using both sides of my brain to their fullest or that I'm not using either side of my brain to capacity? Hmmm. I will say this-based on my answers I don't understand why they're saying numerical formulas and technological explanations are my favored form of expression. I would say the opposite is true. I tried a quiz on another site with questions very different from the first and I still came up with left brain dominance. Maybe technology is my friend after all.

5. What is one thing you intended to do today but didn't?

Go to the gym (Tuesday)...car troubles. Silly silly car troubles. And people coming and people going and trucks blocking and the dog restless...did I tell you we've begun work on a patio? We've begun work on a patio.

6. Cadbury Creme Eggs or Reeses Peanut Butter?

I love them both but if I must choose I'm going with Reeses. Daughter2 is a big fan of the Cadbury Creme Eggs and I saw this cute recipe online and think it would be fun to try when she's home.

7. Who was your favorite cartoon character when you were a child?

Quick Draw McGraw and his deputy Baba Looey. Quick Draw was a horse dressed as a sheriff and his sidekick Baba Looey was a Mexican burro who spoke English with a Mexican accent. Probably very un-pc now but it was innocent entertainment in the 1960's.

I loved all the Looney Toons characters too and my favorite was Foghorn Leghorn. My husband might possibly do a most excellent impression. Scooby Doo, Astro Boy, and The Jetsons were other favorites. And here it is the future and we're not flying around in our own personal spaceships are we? How disappointing.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Once again I'm using this space as my A-Z blog challenge post. We are nearing the end of the alphabet and I'm looking forward to getting back to blogging about everyday life. I am happy though, to have so many of our travels now documented and saved to my blog.

Several people said they were curious as to what I'd blog about for some of the 'tricky' letters. I guess Q qualifies as a tricky letter but for me this one is easy.

Q is for Quilon


In the UK it is common for houses to have names and Quilon was ours. The house had a number too but you could address a letter to me at 'Quilon' and as long as you had the post code (zip code) written correctly the letter would reach me.

I loved this house.It oozed charm from the moment you stepped thru the front door. The front door that incidentally had no handle. Oh if you live in the UK you know what I mean. Even the 'sidewalk' was pretty.


The front room had gorgeous wood on the walls which I'd love to replicate here somewhere.


This was the view from the eating area in our kitchen...


I loved to get up in the morning and open up the French doors and admire the garden. I guess I have blabbed often enough about how much I loved my garden. That lawn was made for croquet don't you think?


You are not alone in that thought.


Every Thursday night for four years we had Young Life kids and leaders in our house.



They loved the garden too and many a game of futbol, football, frisbee, and tag were played on this lawn. The only thing they ever broke was a ceramic planter sitting inside my kitchen window. Yes, inside. A football may have been thrown just a little bit too enthusiastically.


And only twice did someone fall in the pond.


Lavender.
How can you not love a lavender garden?


The dining room was sunny and faced the front of the house.
We used our dining room a lot.
I love a pretty dining room.

The bedrooms were tiny and between the four of them there was only one legitimate closet. We used armoires and we lived with a lot less clothes. It's possible. My girls complained every so often about the wallpaper and the chintz but they loved this house every bit as much as the hubs and I did.


We had a big laundry room which was unusual and a big pantry, also unusual. We spent most of our time in the sitting room which had a cozy fireplace that was almost always roaring, sometimes even as late as July, and pretty French doors facing out into the garden.


I told you I loved this garden, didn't I?

When we moved to the UK we became renters. I hadn't been a renter since 1986 and I wondered if the house would feel like my own. The owners were a wonderful family with two daughters identical in age to our daughters.


They were transferred to another part of England but they loved this house and they wanted their tenants to love it too.


And we did.

'A house is a home when it shelters the body and comforts the soul.'
Phillip Moffitt

33 comments:

  1. Oh my word...that house is DIVINE!!! Loved the pictures and the stories!!

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  2. Stunning! Breathtaking! Gorgeous! Charming! What can I say? The Quintessential Home & Garden! No wonder you loved it. Storybook setting, I'd say.

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  3. Quilon is beautiful! Just like a storybook! It looks like a magical, happy place with many sweet memories for you. Thanks for sharing it. Wishing a blessed Easter to you and your family.

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  4. That home is so impressive and completes my fantasy of and English home. How fortunate you were to have found that lovely house and to have turned it into a home.

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  5. Love all the photos. We used to play croquet at my grandparents. I miss them. Gotta dash. Have a fabulous day. Blessings, SusanD

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  6. I thought the same thing after I took the quiz. I think it's wrong. :)
    What a beautiful house! How neat is it that the owners had 2 girls the same age as your girlies?
    I still do Easter baskets, too. OS came in last weekend, so the Easter bunny came early for him.

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  7. Joyce you really are showing England at its very best with your pictures and descriptions!! Thank you :)

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  8. you really make me want to go back to England rightthissecond! even though I just got back yesterday :)

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  9. I remember those long phone cords!

    I loved The Jetsons too, forgot about them! I would like to cook and clean like they did!

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  10. Beautiful house, garden and post. Ham for Easter Dinner, not lamb? I love ham and will have it too. Enjoy your Easter, it sounds like fun.

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  11. Totally miss England especially after reading your post and seeing the pics of your house, which is right around the corner from our first house in England. Loved that neighborhood so much and I remember walking by your house many times the year before you lived there and loving those flowers on that wall...so pretty! Ok, ready to go back NOW!

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  12. I love that home! its so pretty! You have lived in some beautiful places.
    P.S. I still make my girls Easter baskets too!

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  13. What a fun Hodgepodge this week! I hope you have a fantastic weekend with your girls.

    Your home and garden in the UK looked like something out of a storybook! What great photographs of everything, too.

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  14. There are days that I think it's not possible to envy you any more than I already do...then I see your adorable Quilon and garden and I turn florescent green again. Just kidding..sort of...thanks for hosting Hodgepodge...it's easy and fun.

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  15. My youngest said we must have ham for dinner on Easter Sunday...we hope to fix lamb on the grill over the weekend but the weather is not looking too promising!

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  16. Joyce,
    I was 57/43...that explains why we are both practically perfect. Great post, as always.
    DC

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  17. Joining in on the Hodgepodge fun today!

    Oh my stars...talk about picturesque....that home in England is just too amazing! I can see why you enjoyed it! Just too beautiful!



    Blessings
    R

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  18. Oh. My. Word. That house ... there just aren't words to describe it! Just no words at all! Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing photos of it with us!

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  19. Absolutely the quintessential English cottage -- what a lovely, lovely experience for you and your family!!

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  20. I am linking up for the first time today. I enjoyed your Hodgepodge questions. Look forward to coming back :)

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  21. Wow! That house is like something out of a dream - I LOVE it!

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  22. My husband loves Quick Draw, too! I found him the game on craigslist for Christmas. Thank goodness people are packrats!

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  23. Those pictures. are. awesome. I want to go to there (just channeling my inner Liz Lemon for a second, but seriously I do).

    Just so you know I am left brained too (57% 43%, so kind of like yours I'm almost in the middle as well, great minds!!).

    And I am an unabashed devotee of the cadbury creme egg. I would go eat one for breakfast right now if there were any in the house. Alas there are not.

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  24. I am so doing this next Wednesday! What fun!

    All four of our daughters will be home for Easter! I can't hardly stand the waiting! The first one arrives tomorrow night!!!!

    I would have said Job as my bible character but then I live with a Job--Hubs. LOL I think David and Ruth would tie as old testament people I'd like to meet and Peter in the new testament.

    I loved looking at your photos! Just beautiful!

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  25. Your Easter sounds perfect. I don't do baskets anymore but I do buy them gifts. How exciting for daughter #1. Have a wonderful time with your girls. I use my cell phone bascially in an emergency sense. I won't let it take over my life. (this computer already does that!)Thanks for the fun recipe link. I am in love with Quilon. Like your own little castle but of course not little at all. That home is everything I have ever pictures in my mind for someone living in the UK. Absolutely gorgeous!
    Can't believe that yard. Well I guess you can't even call it a yard, it's part of a charming estate. I bet it was hard to leave.
    I am so glad that you and your family got to experience living there. Happy Easter!

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  26. OMG--love the house!!! Glad you still fix Easter Baskets for your daughters. Daughter #2 reminded me to fix the baskets--now she is 21 and still looks forward to it.
    I remember stretching the phone cord around to the other room to talk in private and then having to untangle it!!!!

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  27. Sounds like you have a wonderful weekend coming up!

    I have mixed emotions about cell phones, too. I love them for a lot of reasons, but I hate that people think they have to answer it when they are talking to other people in person. We have voice mail for a reason!

    I came out being more left- than right-brained, too, but numerical formulas and technological explanations are not my thing, either, and I am more verbal than they say.

    I do remember those cartoon characters!

    I LOVE that house! It is gorgeous.

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  28. You probably saw that I "misunderstood" your question Nr. 2. Sorry, I was in a hurry and my computer was acting up.

    You really had a gorgeous house in England. Amazing garden. No wonder you loved living there.
    I forgot about those cartoons. I loved Scooby Doo too. :)

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  29. You're right, Quillon is beautiful! Loved seeing the pictures. Definitely take time to see Soul Surfer, it is well worth it. My youngest and I saw it last weekend and loved it.

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  30. My Aunt's home in Sussex was called Rock Cottages. What a lovely spot with a grand garden!
    I named this house that we live in now The Lake House.
    Are you doing anything special next week for the wedding?

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  31. I was almost 70% right brained! I always knew I was, but that's a high number.

    Will try ot link up next week. This week is a blurrrrrr.

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  32. Wow - your house was absolutely gorgeous!!! Did your hubby have to mow all of that lawn, though? Yikes! And I always try to answer the Hodgepodge Questions on my own blog before I read anyone else's answers, that way they are not influenced by what I have already read... but how cool to read yours and find that we both want to meet Peter! :-) Oh yes, and I SO should have said Daniel, since I am doing a Beth Moore study on Daniel right now... what can I say... I'm sleep deprived :-)

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  33. What fun answers! Love your pictures, oh my gosh, it is beautiful there. I am enjoying traveling through your pics. Thanks for sharing!
    until next time... nel

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