Loving The Hodgepodge

Welcome to February and this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post then go say hi to your neighbor there. Here we go-

1. The Winter Olympics kick off on Friday, February 6th...on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you? (1= eh and 10=watching every event all day every day). What's your favorite Winter Olympic sporting event? 

I love watching the Olympics, summer and winter both. I won't watch all day every day, but I will watch a lot, so giving myself a 7. 

I especially enjoy the love of country and sense of patriotism we typically see and feel at the Olympics. Recently it seems the press want athletes to bad mouth America and I appreciate those who say without hesitation they are proud to represent the USA. 

I enjoy all of the events and will watch whatever happens to be on when I'm available to watch. My favorites are probably alpine skiing, figure skating, hockey, and ski jumping. I like the sledding events too, so yeah, pretty much all of it. 

We stood at the top of the ski jump in Innsbruck and I'm just gonna say people who do this sport are a little bit crazy. Who went first? 

2. In other sporting news, the Superbowl (American football's championship game) will be played on Sunday, February 8th.  So tell us...what's your superpower?

I asked this question last February. Oops. Oh well, perhaps those of you who answered then will have discovered there's some new superpower you now possess. Last year I said napping and emptying the dishwasher, which honestly is kind of sad.  

This time around I'm going to say being a Nana. I love it, love spending time with my grands, love spoiling them when I can, love praying for them daily and for their parents too, and it's a huge part of who I am in this season of life. 

3. Are you a romantic? 

In a word yes, although the world is smudging my normally rose colored glasses somewhat here lately.

I read this description of what it means to say a person might be dubbed a romantic-'someone who expresses strong feelings of love and affection, often through thoughtful gestures...has a deep appreciation for emotional connection and beauty...sometimes holding idealistic views about love.' 

That fits. Mostly.  I'm not sure I'd say I'm idealistic about love. I think love within a marriage requires a daily choice to care for and nurture the relationship, and there's nothing idealistic about that. I do believe happily ever after is possible, but I don't think you get there by happenstance. 

4. Blue cheese-yay or nay? How about feta? If you said yes to one or both, what's a dish you like that calls for one of these? 

I like both, but wouldn't go so far as to say I love both. I definitely like blue cheese on a cheese board, but I don't order blue cheese salad dressing. I prefer Ranch style dressing with blue cheese crumbles. I like feta in small amounts. I love a Greek salad and Greek food in general, which often includes some feta. 

5. What's more important-doing what you love or loving what you do? 

One of those trick questions I see. 

I think both matter, but I'm going to say loving what you do is the more important side of the equation. It's great to do the things you love, if you're fortunate to have work or circumstances that feed your creativity and your God-given gifts, but sometimes that isn't an option. In that case it's more important to find the silver lining, the bright spot, the upside in what you have to do. There always is one. That's me. The romantic. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

February is the month of ❤️...
                                                    

"Love must be a light as much as a flame." Henry David Thoreau

Hiya Monday!

Good Monday morning everyone! We had a lovely weekend and are still soaking up summer here. 

Thursday night we had our monthly wine club get together. Yes I'm going back to Thursday night because Thursday night will always be the start of a weekend for me. I blame college. 

Seared sea scallop with a lemon beurre blanc, Miller Farms pickled radish and watercress

Also, we're retired so as hubs likes to say, 'everyday is Saturday'. 

potato leek soup topped with pork cracklins and basil oil 

Besides the two courses pictured above we also had a veal marsala with wild mushrooms, golden raisin, spaghetti squash, and micro greens. Then a fourth course which included duck confit ragout with house made pappardelle, San Marzano tomatoes, Pecorino, Romano, and Ricotta. 

Dessert was a bananas foster cheesecake with caramel stroopwaffel. Yum! The entire menu was so delicious and the wines were wonderful too.  

We are kind of exhausted. When we got home from dinner hubs announced he was not doing a thing on Friday, and we did manage to have a mostly low key day. There was more catching up on laundry happening (yes, still!) then I spent most of the rest of the day in the office sorting, shredding, filing, and dealing with the paperwork mountain that had accumulated while we were busy enjoying in person time with our family.  

Friday night a couple we knew casually but not real well, invited us out to dinner. It was fun getting to know them better over Italian food eaten at a local restaurant we enjoy. 

Saturday morning we loaded up the car and the little brown dog and drove over the mountain to East Tennessee to spend a couple of days with hubs mama and his brother and sister-in-law too. We had not seen his mama in person since March so were overdue for some actual face time. 

Hubs family lived in Kentucky for a few years when he was a child and my brother and sister-in-law had very recently been back to that same small Kentucky town. They brought back everyone's favorite barbecue and had frozen the extra so we had that for dinner, then caught the sunset before watching more of the Olympics. 

Question-what do we watch when the Olympics end? 

Sunday morning hubs and I accompanied his mama to church and then to a light lunch afterwards. We went back to my brother-in-law's for a short nap (hi hubs!) and then late afternoon some friends hubs and I have known since college invited all of us to their house for dinner.  

I didn't take any pics of the women, but that's hubs in the middle with one of his best buds on the left and his brother on the right. When hubs and I were first married and lived in Knoxville we spent almost every weekend at this couple's house. Seriously we'd pack a bag and bring some board games and our favorite tunes and we'd move in with them for the weekend. They only lived a few miles away from us, but it was just so much fun to make it a whole weekend. 

Our hosts grilled ribs and we talked about many things old and new, but most importantly our high hopes for Tennessee Volunteer football, which we're all excited about. Go VOLS!  

We have a busy week ahead. Our once small, now somewhat larger than small ahem, backyard project is hopefully getting underway today. We shall see. 

One other note before I dive into this day...my daughter1 and her family (husband plus three small children) have moved to England for a six month stay while her hubs completes an orthopedic surgical fellowship. She blogs. Her writing is rich and precious and so real. If you'd like to follow along visit her blog at Sincerely Shannon. Her first entry related to the move is here-Hello, we've moved. They landed a week ago last Thursday then left for vacation the following Monday. Carpe diem! They were determined to squeeze in some fun travel on top of the actual move travel they'd just done before her hubs reports for work. 

We all live large here. 

Linking today's post with Holly and Sarah for their regular Hello Monday blog hop. Happy Monday everyone!