Zeroing In On The Hodgepodge

Hitting Volume 600 of The Wednesday Hodgepodge today on this last day in the month of April. Thank you for adding your thoughts, your creativity, and your bright ideas to this little link up each week. I've been inspired, entertained, and encouraged by your words.  

If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. If you're here for the final A-Z post in this year's challenge you'll find that in my random thought at the end of the Hodgepodge. Here we go-

1. My very first edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge was published on November 10, 2010 (linked here if you're curious). Tell us something about your life from that era. 

When I hear someone say 2010 it doesn't sound like all that long ago. Then I think about all the life lived since then and it feels like forever. Is fifteen years a long time? 

I don't know why some of these pics wouldn't cooperate in size, but fifteen years in and I'm still technology challenged. 

2010... I had short hair-

...one daughter still in college in South Carolina and one recent (May) college graduate, also living and working in South Carolina. 

Hubs and I were living in the NJ suburbs, a rural corner of the state that was beautiful, expensive, full of wildlife, and a short car ride away from Manhattan. 

We had a Gordon Setter who would have been 8 years old then, and we did lots of hikes in the nearby countryside with her.  Quite a few city walks too. 

Hubs was traveling the globe and I was managing the home front. I did some volunteering, a lot of road trips to both South Carolina (my girls) and South Jersey (my family), and took some fun trips with the hubs too. I learned to blog. I participated in a Women's Bible Study, a book club, a women's club, and Bunco. 

And I went to boot camp at 6 AM five days a week. We had a lot of snow. 

2. What's a song you love that relates to time in some way? 

There are quite a few songs that came to mind when I sat and thought about this, but I feel like I have to say Time In A Bottle by Jim Croce because its perfect. So poignant, so poetic, and so beautifully written. It's timeless. Such a talented songwriter who sadly died young. 

3. May is nearly upon us. When did you last need to yell 'MAY DAY-MAY DAY!!'? 

I haven't had any near disasters that required actual shouting, but I've definitely asked for help recently. This is where I am right now...the most recent call for help was asking hubs to see if he could get the lego hair off a lego head because my grandson wanted to put a helmet on the figure instead. 

These lego heads are the size of my fingernail, maybe smaller, and it was not budging. Hubs had to get some little tool out to make it happen but he succeeded. Whew. 

If you don't know what I'm talking about don't let it keep you up at night lol. 

4. How do you feel about food trucks? Is this a dining experience you enjoy?  Do you have a favorite What's something you've ordered from a food truck? 

I think this might be an unpopular opinion but I'm not a huge fan. I like a table when I eat. I don't care if the food is from a taco truck as long as there's a seat nearby. 

There are a couple of Mexican 'restaurants' here that started as food trucks but have expanded so that they feel more like very casual restaurants now. Still operating out of their truck but the truck stays parked and the owners have added covered patios with tables, along with restrooms and landscaping. One of these 'trucks' we particularly enjoy and visit often. 

5. We're bidding farewell to April...what are three adjectives you might use to describe the month you're leaving behind. 

Busy, yellow, hopeful. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

It's the end of the alphabet today in the April A-Z Blog Challenge. I've enjoyed the push to write and my theme has allowed me to reflect on some of the life lessons I've learned. Today's post will likely not be one that lands in deep water because Z? Hmmm...

Z is for Zigzag

'one of a series of short sharp turns, angles, or alterations in a course'

Like all the years of A-Z-ing here on the blog I'm going to keep this last letter pretty simple. Everyone's happy to be at the finish line and no heavy lifting is needed. Just wrap it up. Today's Hodgepodge actually inspired me to look back at my blog, and looking back at my blog means looking back at my life. 

It's been much more of a zig zag than a straight line. Writing about it is like that too. 

When I started blogging I wrote primarily about life in England and our transition back to the US after several years of living away. There were kids in college, a husband traveling, and a new house in a new town. There was figuring out life in an almost empty nest, navigating family grief, and a lot of praying for the young adults we had raised. 

As time moved forward we celebrated graduations, weddings, retirement, and a new home build in yet another new town. The married kids moved too, started families of their own, and made us grandparents which is a whole 'nother zig in the zag of life. One of the best I'm going to say. 

I got older too. I'm not the mom of college kids I was when I started writing here and I'm glad my blog has come along for the ride. It's a tangible reminder of all the life we've lived and how God has gone before us to every new city, neighborhood, house and circumstance. He's walked beside us as we've zig zagged through decades of marriage, parenting, moving, adjusting, changing, growing and living. 

In the missteps and on the mountaintops He's been there. 

He is faithful. 

'Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, 

for he who promised is faithful.' Hebrews 10:23