Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Numbering The Hodgepodge

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge! How is everyone? Out and about or napping on the couch more often than you should? I'm asking for a friend. 

If you've answered this week's questions add your link to the end of my post, then go say howdy to your neighbor. Everybody's got time, right? Here we go-

1. In a single sentence tell us something about your 40's. If you haven't reached that milestone yet tell us something (in a single sentence) about whatever decade you're in now.

If you read my blog you know I wrote an entire post on this topic yesterday. You can read it here. A single sentence is tough because that's ten years of living, but let's go with this quote attributed to Danny Kaye-

"Life is a great big canvas. Throw all the paint on it you can." 

2. Life begins at forty. Agree or disagree? Tell us why. And if not at forty, when?

I think the spirit of this sentiment is somewhat true. I also think life is what you make it at any age, so there's that. For me 40 was probably the age where I felt like I knew myself, gave myself grace when grace was needed, had figured out what real friendship looks like, and felt less need to control the universe. At 40 I realized I wasn't young anymore, but I wasn't old either and I embraced that. 

Now in my fifties I pitched a minor rebellion but in my 40's all was well. 

3. Share a favorite book, song, or quote with a number featured in it somewhere.

Let's go with books today. I'm sharing several that I loved because I'm not good at just one-

The Million Dollar Boy by Monica Wood
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

4. A picture's worth a thousand words, a stitch in time saves nine, back to square one, catch-22, on cloud nine, my two cents...pick a number phrase and tell us how it applies to your life currently.

Catch 22 feels like it fits. There are a couple of definitions, but I think 'a situation presenting two equally undesirable solutions' is the thesis of our current social distancing predicament. 

Stay away and potentially stay well while the economy crashes.
Revive the economy with business as usual and face a potential health care crisis. 

Ugh. I feel for the people in charge trying to make decisions in this confusing and uncertain time we find ourselves navigating. 

5. Last time you drove more than 40 miles from home? More than 400 miles from home? Where were you going? Was it before or after this current season of social distancing?

I honestly don't think I've been more than 40 miles from home since the stay home way of living began, which for us was April 7th. We'd been at it a week or two prior, and since then I've only been to a couple of local grocery stores and the plant nursery, all of which are less than 40 miles from here. 

Hubs and I did drive to Florida to visit friends in early March before this whole thing started and that was definitely more than 400 miles. We enjoy road trips, and I think that's the wave of the future at least for the short term. Not sure when we'll be boarding an airplane again to jet off somewhere fun. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Daughter1 gave the hubs a hammock for Christmas and now that it's hammock weather we ordered a stand so we could get it set up. Y'all. It is ginormous. This stand rivals Noah's Ark in size. I look like the princess and the pea in this picture. 


It is so incredibly comfy and now we just need to figure out where to put it. Currently it's sitting on the lower driveway which has a great view of the lake, but I picture myself tipping out onto the concrete so we'll likely need to relocate. Maybe the hillside once we level out a space in the mulch there. 

And yes I know it's technically hubs hammock but there's plenty of room for two. 

Same as the Ark. 



15 comments:

  1. Hmm, control during the 40's. Sounds all too familiar to me. Working on that which is especially challenging during these times. Ultimately I know that there is only One in control and He holds the world in His hands!
    Enjoy your hubby's hammock ;)

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  2. My 40's were a difficult time for me. I had a blog back then called Paint Splotches and that quote by Danny Kaye was the tag line for it. Love that hammock! Will it fit on a corner of your deck?

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  3. No way would I want to be in charge of making decisions during this pandemic. Last week I was talking to the Superintendent of Schools in my county and I could see the frustration on his face (even though I said nothing about school opening back up).

    Love the hammock.

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  4. Love that hammock! It's hard to know who to listen to and trust in this pandemic for sure. I knew someone would come up with books with numbers in the title. Dear and I couldn't. :) Hope your next decade is one filled with lots of good things!! We're out the door so I had to write this comment fast. I'll catch up with everyone after we've driven our 140 miles today!

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  5. Oh my, that hammock! I really like the stand you found and can see it situated down closer to the water nestled under the trees. Perfect! This was a fun group of questions again this week, so thank you for the time you always put into it. And seriously, you can't be a day over 40 right now.

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  6. I love your hubby's hammock! I have one, too, but can't use it anymore due to my back issues. Sigh.
    I'd hesitate to fly again, too. I'm just not sure about this "new normal" we keep hearing about.
    Kathy (Reflections)

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  7. I was a huge fan of Danny Kaye's and I've never known that quote! My age never bothered me until I turned 60. It was like "no, my grandparents were 60!" Catch 22 is a great answer the current situation. I agree, I think road trips are the answer now. We always did road trips in our 20's and 30's. I would love to be laying in that hammock by the lake!!!

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  8. I love the hammock, but definitely believe you should set it over grass. I fell out of a hammock and so did my brother recently, who was healing from a broken femur. Take care. I love where you live.

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  9. My minor rebillion was when I hit 55. I realized I had told everybody I was 54 for two years. Guess didn't want to be the double nickles. So I had to "age" 2 years when I went to 56.

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  10. That hammock looks amazing!! It was fun reminiscing about my 40s and I used quite a few sentences rather than just one! Thanks for the Hodgepodge, Joyce!!

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  11. Caleb has a hammock he likes to hang when we go camping. It's funny to see Titus in it too, it kinda swallows him up.

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  12. That's a great hammock but yes as others have said it needs to be on grass! They're not the easiest things to get out of lol. I don't think we'll be flying anywhere soon, or even going out and about much either until things have improved dramatically. We can't even go and visit our kids yet.

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  13. Love that picture of you in the Hammock, what a view!!!

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  14. Oh, I love that quote from Danny Kaye!

    Catch-22 fits the situation perfectly.

    We may have a trip coming up soon; have had the tickets for many months, but I am not looking forward to flying (something I usually enjoy). We had planned on visiting multiple states and national parks; not sure what that will look like in the new normal. If we have to quarantine for a couple of weeks in each state, that part of the trip will likely be scrapped.

    Thanks for hosting and the hammock is wonderful!

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  15. Love the hammock! We have one very similar. Ours came with "safety straps." They prevent you from being tossed out! I'd definitely look into that. I looked at ours and I believe they could be relatively easily added to any hammock that didn't have them. I will attempt to send you a photo of the straps. Not sure if I can upload one here.

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