Video Killed The Radio Star

TGIV...we're on the home stretch in the April A-Z Blog Challenge with today's letter. 

V is for Velocity

'the speed of something in a given direction'

Let's talk tech. I know. Not my favorite subject either, but it's here to stay and we gotta deal. 

I'm of the generation who grew up with three channels on the family television set and now here we are posing questions to a genie in a bottle and getting entire essays written in response. Technology moves at the speed of something in a given direction alright, and that direction is forward. 

I want to keep up. 

Maybe want isn't the right word. It feels more true to say I need to keep up. I'm not going to be an early adopter to whatever the next new tech thing is, but I'll get there eventually. 

The generations behind mine have grown up unafraid to use technology, they've discovered ways tech can make some of our daily tasks easier (bill pay, online shopping, and grocery delivery to name just a few), and they get excited about the next new thing on the tech horizon. An unwillingness to acknowledge this marks you as 'old'. 

Now there's nothing wrong with old (it's all of us sooner or later me included), and I realize some of the above is generalizing, but I don't want to be discounted because of this whole glob of knowledge I'm oblivious to, or that I frown upon, or that I'm constantly criticizing.  

I have grandchildren who aren't going to know a world without technology at their fingertips and I want to understand that world. I want to be able to interact with them about the things they encounter on a daily basis and if I'm not keeping up with technology I won't know what in the world they're talking about. 

There's also the social aspect to technology that I can appreciate. And sometimes hate, but I'm thinking more here of what I enjoy about online interactions. I appreciate the real life friends I'm able to keep up with online, old friends I've reconnected with, and new friends I've made in this little space right here. 

While my kids are living nearer to us now in terms of geography, that hasn't always been the case. Facetime meant we could be face to face via the screen and I think of all we would have missed without that virtual connection. 

In a completely different vein...have you noticed how much of our health care is now managed via technology? I get my lab results before my doctor's even read them, and I can track my steps, my heart rate, even my sleep via the watch on my arm. I'm sure all of this will only continue to expand in scope and capability and I want to be able to access the tools I need to navigate my own medical records and care. 

Do you play word games or Sudoku or something along those lines on your phone or computer? Work online crossword puzzles? Read books via Kindle? These are all things we used to do with pen and paper (and still do of course), but now we can enjoy them and exercise our brains while waiting for an appointment, cleaning house, or taking a walk. Too much of anything is too much, and that includes screen time, but it has its place and I want to keep up with what's new and fun.

If you don't keep up the gap just continues to grow and then feels too daunting to tackle. 

Technology doesn't mean I can't continue to make in person time count. I can still write letters to my grandchildren that are thoughtful and worth holding on to. I can read them my favorite books and teach them the board games I grew up playing. I can tell them the stories of my childhood and I can wish the world were another way. 

And I can let them take me by the hand and teach me something new. 

Monthly mUsings

Onward in the A-Z Blog Challenge with today's letter. Today's post will also be linked with Holly and Patty's Monthly Musings party, and somehow I'm going to make it work. 

U is for Understanding

As in understanding and knowing your strengths, your limitations, your capabilities, 

and your healthy boundaries; self-awareness 

I know I should write something deep and introspective here, but instead I'm going to say I've nearly reached my limit in the A-Z Blog Challenge. And because I know myself I'm going to give myself some grace and participate in a fun monthly link up hosted by Holly and Patty (Monthly Musings) instead.

And that's okay. 

Blogging is fun for me, it serves as a stress-reliever, and a place to work things out on paper which often helps to bring clarity of mind. There's an awful lot going on here this week and because I know my limits and my capabilities,  I'm opting for something a little lighter today. 

Monthly Musings with Holly and Patty talking all things spring. Here we go...

  

1. Easter, Passover, or another holiday in the Spring? 

Easter. My favorite day of the year. We had a lovely one this year which I wrote about on Monday (The Weekend Replay).

2. Do you plant a garden? Any tips for those of us without a green thumb? 

Hubs has a green thumb, but we don't plant a garden. We have grown a few vegetables in pots, peppers mostly, but our property is wooded, pine straw-ed, and gently sloped to the lake. We don't have a nice sunny flat spot for planting a garden. 

Plus we're on the go a lot, and I feel like gardens require more daily attention in the summer months than we can give. Fortunately my daughter1's in-laws keep us supplied with fresh produce from their huge garden all summer long. 

3. How do you decorate for Spring? 

I wouldn't say I really decorate for Spring. I put out one or two things for Easter, add springtime hand towels to the bathrooms, and will usually have fresh flowers of some kind on my kitchen island. We haven't done any of our outdoor patio pots yet, but that will happen soon. Flowers on the porch say spring to me. 

We are all about the out of doors here and when you're inside your gaze naturally travels in that direction, so I'm careful not to compete. I don't add a lot of seasonal decor anytime other than Christmas. 

4. Desserts that just say spring to you? 

I think anything lemon makes a nice springtime dessert. 

I made mini carrot cakes for Easter and that felt appropriate for spring. 

A fruit tart or crumble of some kind is another favorite springtime dessert. 

5. Favorite spring flowers? 

Lilacs. But also tulips, pansies, and iris. 

6. Best tips for hosting spring events? 

I love a good theme so choosing to host around a springtime event like Easter, The Derby, Cinco de Mayo, or Mother's Day gives you a direction to run. 

I like outdoor gatherings whenever possible, but you need to plan for the weather and have both sun and shade options. And an indoor backup just in case. 

People want your company more than they want an exhausted distracted host, so let people bring something if they offer. Food doesn't have to be complicated. Light and fresh is the way to go in spring.

You can't go wrong with fresh flowers. 

7. Favorite beverage or cocktail that makes you think of Spring? 

I made my first pitcher of the sweet tea season on Easter Sunday. I live in the south and sweet tea is available everywhere here year round, but I typically don't make it at home until Easter. I'll keep a pitcher in the frig from now until probably Thanksgiving. 

Besides iced tea a glass of Rosé or Prosecco sipped on a sunny patio would be another springtime favorite. 

8. Vegetable garden, flower garden, both or neither? 

As in my own, or what do I enjoy? I love beautiful gardens and a day trip to a garden in bloom is one of my favorite kind of outings. I love to visit gardens when we travel somewhere new. I saw more than a few gardens when we lived in the UK, but there are many beautiful blooms here in the US too-

Tulip Town, Skagit Valley, Washington, 2017

9. Favorite Easter candy? 

Finally an easy one...jellybeans of course. They're my kryptonite. Been working my way through this jar for the past month. 

I won't say how many times I've topped it up. 

10. Marshmallow peeps? Gross or yes please? 

I'm somewhere in the middle on these. I like the way they look better than the way they taste, but I wouldn't say they're gross. 

I love the colors of spring, along with the flavors and scents of spring, but the pollen not so much. It makes me love spring just a little bit less than I would if we didn't have to deal with all that yellow dust. Thankfully the pollen season is nearing an end, and it's pouring rain as I type this which will help a lot. 

Happy Spring y'all! 

A Hodgepodge Picnic

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my blog, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go...

1. The Hodgepodge lands on National Picnic Day...will you celebrate? Do you enjoy picnics? Dining out of doors picnic or otherwise? What are three or four things I'd find in your picnic basket? 

I do like a picnic and dining al fresco is my absolute favorite. If we're somewhere with outdoor seating and the weather is conducive to it we will opt to sit outside. It's supposed to rain here on Wednesday so a picnic is unlikely. 

Three or four things you'd find in my picnic basket?  Fruit, something sweet, bread or crackers of some kind, and cheese. We do a lot of boat picnics in the summer and lean more towards the charcuterie style of eating there. 

2.  A time recently where you felt 'antsy'? 

I'm not a restless person so this is a tough one. I suppose I feel a little antsy about getting the 'kids' moved into their new house. Everything has gone super smoothly so far but we're all just anxious to have the keys handed over and get them settled. So many hoops to jump through in a move, and they have furniture in storage and some belongings here and some at the in-laws and it's not really my donut, but I feel a little antsy with all the boxes that have needed ticking. They've pretty much all been ticked at this point so just waiting now for closing day to arrive. 

3. As the saying goes...'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'  Do you like lemonade? When did you recently need to make lemonade out of lemons, figuratively speaking?

Well I suppose Easter Sunday might qualify. We envisioned a full pew at church and a full table for dinner, but my son-in-law ended up missing the whole day. There was no choice but to roll with it, he was on call and ended up having a very busy day, which I guess is par for the course on a holiday weekend. We had a nice time with his mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law though. This is how life goes sometimes and in general we're good at making the most of things. I told my grandsons we might need to make a 'flat Daddy' to hold up in family photos when he's working. 

I do like lemonade, but what I really like is an Arnold Palmer-half lemonade/half iced tea. 

4. Recently five 'celebrities' made a brief (ll minute) foray into space aboard Jeff Bezos Blue Origin rocket. Did you hear about this? Your thoughts? If money were no object is this something you'd like to do someday? 

I did hear about it. I mean I suppose they were technically in space, but calling themselves astronauts feels like a giant stretch to me. As far as this being something I'd want to do someday? That's a hard no. A very very hard no. Like concrete lol. 

5. Favorite thing about the 'space' you're sitting in right now? 

I'm in my office and my favorite thing about it is the quiet. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I enjoyed posting some Easter throwbacks in this space in the weeks leading up to the day, and I think I might do the same now for Mother's Day which is the next holiday on tap. There are just three Wednesdays before Mother's Day is here, which is hard to believe but the calendar doesn't lie. 

I cut myself some slack on Wednesdays in the A-Z Blog Challenge and work the Wednesday letters in to my random thought space too. Two posts on Hodgepodge Day would be one too many for me. Here goes- 

T is for time passages

'the process of time going past'

My very first Mother's Day with the one who made me a momma...

1988

And here's that same little girl on her very first Mother's Day, with the one who made her a momma...

2017

'Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.' Alice Walker 

Life Lessons From the Window Seat

S is for Seven. After today that's how many letters remain in the April A-Z Blog Challenge. It's been fun and it's been a challenge. Blogging with a houseful of people requires a bit of finagling. Onward...

S is for Sunrise 

'the apparent rising of the sun above the horizon; 

also: the accompanying atmospheric effects'

If you've been reading here for a while then you know I have a small obsession with the sunrise. We have prime viewing out of any window on the backside of our house, but my favorite place to watch it happen is from the upper deck. 

And I like to snap a photo while I'm there. 

Or ten photos. 

Or possibly 365. 

Hubs teases and asks me why I take the same picture every morning but I assure him I do not. One sunrise is not like any other and my pictures are the proof. 

Recently Joanne (Slices of Life) shared some of her favorite sunrises and sunsets and it got me thinking about why it is I'm so drawn to the early morning skies. Why all the sunrises? And why now? 

One of the reasons I'm more tuned in to the sunrise in this house is because it's hard to miss. I step quietly out of my bedroom in the early hours of the morning and there it is. Sometimes soft and dreamy brushstrokes in a pastel painted sky...

...sometimes awash with all the colors of the rainbow. 

It can, quite literally, take my breath away. There are things about the sunrise that speak to me in this season that feel almost sacred. 

The sunrise tells me it's a new day, with no mistakes in it yet. A fresh start. Blank slate. No regrets. 

The sunrise fills me with hope. Anything is possible at the start of a brand new day. 

The sunrise says slow down. Breathe. Be present. 

It also tells me time moves fast. If you're not paying attention you'll miss it. Life is like that too. 

The sun rising fills me with awe for the One who made it, for the staggering beauty of this world, and the power so evident in nature.

 

The sunrise reminds me of the value of stillness and quiet, things I'm always looking for in this too noisy world.

The sunrise reminds me of the faithfulness of God. Every single day the sun rises. He never fails. 

My favorite verse, which is in my blog header but worth posting twice...

'The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; 

they are new every morning." Lamentations 3:22-23

The Weekend Replay

Good Monday morning friends. I'm still A-Z-ing, so using today's letter as part of my weekend recap, which I'll link with Holly and Sarah. 

R is for Resurrection

'because that's the reason for the season'

We had a nice weekend centered around Easter, which is my favorite day of the year. The meaning behind this day is what gives me hope for the future and strength for the day. In church this morning the first song sung was Because He Lives...

'because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He Lives, all fear is gone, because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.'

I pray everyone reading today knows the truth contained in these lyrics. 

On Friday we made Resurrection rolls with the grands. I'd never made them before, but have seen them all over the Internet for years, and my daughter had done them in Easters prior. Super simple, but a really powerful visual for little ones to go along with the story of Easter. 

You roll a large marshmallow in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon, then wrap a crescent roll around the marshmallow. You can talk about Jesus body being prepared for burial to go along with this. The rolls go into the oven and you wait for them to cook, which allows you to talk about Jesus being dead for three days. 

When you take the rolls out of the oven and cut into one, the marshmallow has melted which makes the roll look empty, just like the tomb. The kids seem to make the connections too which is fun to see. 

After the roll baking was finished I ran some errands including last minute grocery items, the dry cleaning, and paper goods from Hobby Lobby. It's hard not to wander the entire store when I'm in Hobby Lobby but I stayed focused. We had dinner at home Friday night, and I'm guessing we went to bed early, although I can't say for sure. It's a safe guess though -ha! 

Saturday morning we dyed eggs. In my dining room, because  we like to live dangerously here. 

All went well and it was a fun morning for everyone. Hubs carried on his tradition of dyeing one 'ugly egg' and the kids get a kick out of that. 

After we got that cleaned up I did some prep work for the next day's dinner, along with making a dessert to take to a neighbor's house that evening. I've been trying to bake each of the Southern Living Cake of the Month cakes this year and I made the April recipe on Saturday. A definite win and I'll make again. 

April's recipe is mini carrot cakes. So cute! I love the presentation. You bake the carrot cake recipe in sheet cake format, then use a small biscuit cutter to cut circles. It makes 12 cakes, so you cut 24 circles, then pipe icing on one, stack another on top, then pipe some more. 

The icing is a coconut butter cream, and both the cake and the icing were super delish. My daughter did the piping so it was a team effort. 

I also went ahead and made my pineapple stuffing for Sunday's dinner because it does well sitting in the frig overnight. I love to do whatever I can ahead of time. If you don't know what pineapple stuffing is I use this recipe. It's the texture of stuffing, but sweet. 

We had plans to go to the neighbors for dinner and cards Saturday night and I was bringing dessert. I made Ina Garten's triple berry crumble and it's scrumptious. The berries are really sweet right now so I cut the sugar by quite a bit, but it wasn't noticeable. I thought I took a picture, but can't find it so maybe not. All that baking and I am kinda wishing I'd taken a picture of my kitchen after, but I didn't think of it. 

Sunday morning the kids woke up to their Easter baskets followed by cinnamon rolls for breakfast. What's one more sweet thing today, right?  My son-in-law was on call this weekend and suffice it to say if you're a surgeon on call on a holiday weekend you'll be working. He was able to see the kids dressed and get in a quick family photo, but then we didn't see him again until we were wiping down counters and getting ready for bed. 

Hubs and I went to church with our daughter and her littles and the music was wonderful and the message  so good. We got home and changed into comfy clothes then got busy putting together our lunch/dinner.  Her in-laws, both the mom and dad and the sister-in-law and her hubs,  arrived around 1 and the kids did their egg hunt. Then we all chatted, the kids played, hubs manned the grill with our ham upon it, and I finished up the rest of the sides. 

I normally love to break out my china on Easter Sunday, but this year we decided to dine al fresco in the new space so I went with paper plates and have zero regrets. 

Daughter1's mother-in-law brought her famous banana pudding and her sister-in-law brought homemade mac and cheese which were both so good. 

We had a fun little Easter Bunny charcuterie while we were waiting on dinner. Besides the ham we also had roasted honey-balsamic green beans and carrots, the pineapple stuffing, deviled eggs, and I also made Nigella Lawson's pea-mint-avocado salad which was really good. 

I used just butter lettuce instead of adding chicory, and I go easy on the mint. I also throw a handful of parmesan on top before tossing because it seems like it needs a little salty something. We all loved it. So fresh!  

The in-laws headed home and we finished the clean up, the putting away of the leftovers, and then I crawled into bed to finish this post. It was a beautiful day filled with family, good food, and many reminders of our faithful loving God. We missed our Tennessee littles and their parents, but will see them soon. 

I hope your weekend was a good one. You can read more Hello Monday posts by visiting Holly (Pink Lady Blog) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books). Have a great week everyone! 

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 599

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here on Wednesday (April 23rd) to share your answers. See you there! 

1. The Hodgepodge lands on National Picnic Day...will you celebrate? Do you enjoy picnics? Dining out of doors picnic or otherwise? What are three or four things I'd find in your picnic basket? 

2.  A time recently where you felt 'antsy'? 

3. As the saying goes...'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'  Do you like lemonade? When did you recently need to make lemonade out of lemons, figuratively speaking?

4. Recently five 'celebrities' made a brief (ll minute) foray into space aboard Jeff Bezos Blue Origin rocket. Did you hear about this? Your thoughts? If money were no object is this something you'd like to do someday? 

5. Favorite thing about the 'space' you're sitting in right now? 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Day 17 In The A-Z

Finishing out this week's letter in the A-Z Blog Challenge with my usual Saturday list of little things I love. Today's letter might be tricky so let's get to it...

Q is for A Quantity of Small Favorite Things 

quick thinking

questions answered

questions pondered

homemade quiche

quotes that inspire

Quilon (my England house)

quality time with my girls

quiet mornings

quarters won in Mah Jong

quarrels ended

queso 

fears quelled

quaint small towns 

decisions made without any qualms 

quirky roadside attractions

a bad habit quit

quintessential British speech

the music of Queen

no queue at the DMV

a cozy quilt