Sum-Sum-Summer Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's summery edition of the Hodgepodge! Answer the questions on your own blog, then add your link to that post at the end of mine. Here we go-

1. What summer activity most takes you back to your own childhood?

Swimming in an outdoor pool. I still love to swim, still love the sense of freedom I feel when I'm underwater. And if my sisters are with me watch out! We may still act like big little kids when we're together in a pool, even though we're all grown up. I don't get to swim outside nearly often enough these days.  

2. What's your favorite summer smell?

Coppertone. Although the other day hubs and I were driving home and smelled charcoal burning on someone's BBQ grill. That scent is a close second.   

3. It's beach season in the US of A...so, how do you feel about sand?

Love it! I love the beach, love the way my toes feel in it, love the view when I'm plopped in a lounge chair on it. Must make that happen sometime this summer. 

4. Sun tea, SunChips, sunflower seeds, Capri Sun, Sunny Delight, Sun-Maid raisins, sun-dried tomatoes...your favorite food or beverage with sun in its name?

If I'm choosing I'll say sun-dried tomatoes. I have a fantastic dip made with sun-dried tomatoes that's a cinch to put together and is always gobbled up. Whenever I make it for someone new I'm asked for the recipe, and people are always surprised it's not complicated. It tastes like it could be complicated. 

5. What's your favorite way to cool off on a hot summer day?

See #1. I love a pool. Or a lake/river/ocean but especially a pool. We don't have daily access to any of that here in the wilds of northwestern NJ, so on super hot days I have to settle for air conditioning. 

6. Share a favorite song with the word sun or sunshine in it's title.

Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles.  There were so many to choose from, but this one always makes my heart feel lighter. I especially love to hear it played at the end of a long cold winter, or if we've been dealing with something that finally works itself out.  Hello wedding date. 

7. Tell us about a time when you had an exceedingly good or a truly awful customer service experience. If it was awful, did you report it? Ever go back there again?

I'm not sure if this was due entirely to awful customer service or if it was also partly cultural, but it happened back when we lived in the UK. My girls and I were doing a little window shopping at our local 'mall', and spied a cute, very simple, T-shirt style sundress on a mannequin in the front of the store. It wasn't in the window, it was on a mannequin on the actual sales floor. 

Daughter1 said she liked it so we popped in for a try-on. Easier said than done! There were none in her size on the rack, but I noted the one on the mannequin was her size. Rather than just pulling it off and leaving a bare model, I told my daughter to go ask the sales girl if she had another or could get that one for us.  

No she could not. Ha! 

Gracious, such ridiculousness. First she said, 'Let me ask the girl in charge of dressing the mannequins.' We're talking H & M here, not Harrods and the dress cost just £10. A second later she came back and said, and I quote, 

'The dresser said she just ironed that one. If she hadn't just ironed it and put it on the model she'd take it off and let you have it, but she just ironed it.' um, okay? Let me insert here for the record, had we purchased this dress that would have been the last time it saw an iron. It was a wrinkle free knit. 

She followed this up by saying, 'She says you can come back tomorrow and she'll take it off then.'

But not today? Now? While I'm standing here with cash? In your store? Apparently not. We all kind of stood there scratching our heads. It felt like there was something obvious we were missing, but we never could figure it out. I finally found my voice and said, 'Isn't the reason you put something on a mannequin in the front of the store to draw customers in and hope they buy?' We laughed about that for a long time. 

Did we go back? Of course...it was H & M. 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

We've got ourselves an official date people.

I cannot begin to tell you what it has taken to get here, but we have a wedding date. Written on our calendar. In ink. Whoohoo!

photo by Angelina Photography, Washington D.C.

A few have asked, but I'm leaving some things purposely vague, either to allow the bride herself to share, or for privacy reasons. The important thing is we have a date and it's official! Here comes the sun!