A Freshly Painted Hodgepodge

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 post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you so the hop keeps hopping. Here we go-

 

1. Do you make an effort to see/hear live music? Last time you went somewhere for the live music? 

We love live music and I'd say we make some effort. Tickets to popular well known acts are ridiculously expensive these days so that's a factor in who we see perform live. We enjoy live music at several local venues where local artists play, some of whom are very talented. We have tickets to see one of my favorite bands in December and I'm looking forward to that. 

Last time we saw live music would be this past weekend. We went to the Fall Festival event in the nearby city which featured three days of all day music on five different stages. We heard some good bands. 

 2.According to HGTV the colors of the year for 2026 are mostly decided. Top paint companies declare a color of the year, and decorators will incorporate that into their new year home and room designs. Here's what's on tap in terms of paint trends for 2026 (check out the link here to see photos)

• Sherwin Williams-universal khaki (inspired by heavy canvas and outdoor gear)
• Behr-hidden gem (a confident shade of teal)
• Valspar-warm eucylyptus (a warm sliver tinted green)
• Dutch Boy-melodious ivory (a honey tinted beige)
• Glidden-warm mahogany (a classic brick red)
• Krylon-matte coffee bean
• Clark and Kensington -Hazelnut Crunch (warm reddish-brown)
• Graham and Brown-Divine Damson (cherry red with a subtle violet undertone)
• Dunn and Edwards-midnight garden (the green that works everywhere) 

First question-did you know there were so many different paint manufacturers? 

I'd heard of more than half of these companies, but two or three were new to me. 

Which color on the list most appeals to you in terms of your own decorating style? 

The walls in my house are mostly a soft neutral-Sherwin Williams Canvas Tan. It's very livable and we still like the color. We have a lot of windows and you see the lake out of most of them so we purposely chose a wall color that wouldn't compete with Mother Nature. The Universal Khaki is a little darker, but similar so maybe that one. I like the matte coffee bean too in terms of a neutral. 

I love dark dramatic paint but it doesn't feel right in this house. 

Do you have plans to do any painting in your home in the coming year, and if so might you choose a color from this list? 

We need to repaint some rooms more than others, but one room moves in to another then another and before you know it everything has to be painted or it looks funny. Maybe in the coming year. Maybe. Hubs says the exterior needs painting too and this would all be a huge project so we'll see. I see it as a two year project-interior one year, exterior the next. Hubs probably sees it more as a two-week project because once he gets hold of a home improvement project he's like a dog with a bone. I'm still recovering from the backyard re-do. 

Now, forget painting walls, which color name appeals to you most? 

Do the same people who come up with nail polish names also weigh in on paint. It seems so. I like the sound of warm eucalyptus. 

3. What's something in your life you have to do-watch-or participate in that's about as exciting as 'watching paint dry'? 

Taxes and insurance. Either and both. 

4 . Tuesday, October 14th is/was National Dessert day...did you/will you celebrate? Tell us how? What's your absolute favorite dessert. Yes, just one. I know!! 

I'm answering these questions on Tuesday morning and probably won't celebrate because I have book club Tuesday afternoon and play Mah Jong Tuesday evening. I did have dessert on Monday night at our wine club dinner...a very light cheesecake with a strawberry topping. It was yummy! 

I have a sweet tooth so choosing just one favorite is hard. I'm going with crème brûlée. 

We make it at home occasionally for dinner guests, and if I'm dining out and see it's on the menu I'll be ordering. 

5. Perhaps today is the day I will __________________________________. 

Organize that out of control cabinet in my laundry room. Except probably not because both my Tuesday and my Wednesday are already pretty full. The question did say 'perhaps'. If it doesn't happen Wednesday it's on my calendar for Friday so it will happen this week. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Are you familiar with something called a Day In The Life post? I've wanted to try one and I invite you to try it too. In a nutshell, you chronicle your thoughts, activities, and experiences throughout a single day. Any day. Nothing big needs to be happening, just everyday ordinary life from the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed. 

Most of the bloggers I've seen do this take a picture every hour or two and then add some words to go with. They're fun to read and you really see how, although our lives are our own, there is much we have in common. I'll be setting an alarm to remember to snap pictures on the day I choose, because that's usually my downfall. 

I'm going to host a link up for anyone who wants to play along on Thursday, November 13th, which is almost a month away. You can pick any day between now and then to blog about, then come back here and share your post on the 13th. See you there! 

And also here because like I said, it's a month away. 

A Post-Holiday Hello Monday

Hello friends and happy Monday. 

I'm joining Holly and Sarah for a post-holiday weekend reap today. I took so many pictures of the beautiful sky this weekend I might just post them all. 

I have a hair appointment this morning which is going to throw off my entire day, but I had to take what was available. I had to cancel my normal appointment in order to go to my daughter's house a couple of weeks ago, so I'm overdue and my stylist is fitting me in today. Do you have to book your hair appointments three at a time in order to be sure you get on the calendar, because that's what I have to do?

So how was your holiday weekend? Ours was really fun with a lot of time spent in the water because it was HOT!

Hubs brother and sister-in-law arrived on Wednesday afternoon on their way home from the beach. They brought four pounds of fresh shrimp with them, which we promptly deveined and cooked to have with our dinner. 

They lived in the Chicago area three different times and know their Portillo beef, so they also treated us to dinner Wednesday night by sending a 'to go' order to the southland. If you're a Chicagoan then I don't have to explain, but for those who are not here's the 411-

Portillos beef is a slow-roasted, thinly sliced, beef served on baked Turano French bread. The bread is key. The standard way to serve the sandwich is to put the beef on the roll, splash it with some of their secretly-spiced gravy and then have a cup of gravy on the side for dipping. It's even better topped with their oven-roasted sweet peppers and the hot giardiniera peppers which we love. 

My neighbors joined us because they also have Chicago ties and I wish I'd taken a picture but it's a bit of a production getting it all put together. I'd made a cucumber salad and we all sat around our outdoor table and it was a low-key fun way to kick off the holiday weekend.

We woke up on Independence Day and had coffee on the deck, then spent most of the rest of the day in the lake. It was HOT! but the water temp was perfect. 

For our July 4th dinner hubs grilled ribs to perfection and I made baked beans, cole slaw, and a roasted corn salad, plus there was  more shrimp. 

I made a frozen strawberry pie for dessert, which doesn't actually contain any strawberries, but does have a strawberry topping so I guess the name fits?  I made the Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe linked here.

It does contain mashed raspberries which are what give it the pretty pink color, and the pie is really light and tasty. Also refreshing, which was the name of the game this weekend.

It was HOT!! 

My across the cove neighbor does a ginormous fireworks show and boats start coming to our cove and to the water just outside our cove about an hour before. A neighbor asked if they could tie up to our dock and we said sure and they asked if they could bring a few people as they had friends at their house, and we said sure and y'all!!!

They floated over on a boat filled with 28 people and a few more in a car and it was ka-razy! 

Fun for sure, but also ka-razy!

Kids peeled off that boat and scattered like ants. Adults too! 

God bless America! 

The fireworks display was its usual fabulous happening which we all enjoyed, and then one of the adults who had come by car (and who we did not know) announced she had dropped her keys in the lake. 

Ruh-roh. 

Their car was parked at the top of our driveway, and there it sat until 4 PM the next day. It would have been moved earlier except her brother who arrived from an hour away brought the wrong key so...

All's well that ends well, right? Lol!

We had nowhere to be on Friday except the lake so it was just a funny thing to us. Maybe not so much to the person who dropped the keys, but we spent the day boating and swimming. Late afternoon the most delightful storm rolled in and we sat on the screened porch listening to it roar, feeling the humidity drop to an acceptably breathable level.

I love a storm on the lake, so long as we're all tucked safely indoors. 

Hubs grilled steaks for dinner and afterwards we sat on the deck and watched the sun make a perfectly pink exit. 

Family left Saturday morning, then hubs had some real estate-ing to do for a fair chunk of the day. I put the house mostly back in order, did five loads of laundry, cleaned out the frig, and took care of some paperwork that needed taking care of. 

We have a busy week filled with meetings and appointments and readying the house and the pantry for a big wave of family who will begin arriving this coming weekend. We can't wait to have all the grands here!! 

We also know we need to eat our Wheaties, fill our frig and our sleep tanks to overflowing, and get our steps in so we're in tip top form to keep up with the under six set. No grass grows under their feet when they're here and we gotta keep up!  

Hope your holiday weekend was grand!