FORE! It's the 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. Here we go-

1. August is National Golf month...do you play? Do you enjoy following golf? Have you ever been to a professional tournament? 

I do not play golf, but I enjoy following golf. Not in an over the top way, but I have my favorite players. Golf is huge where I live and lots of my friends play. It seems like a commitment, and it already feels like I don't have as much time as I'd like for my current hobbies, so have resisted joining in this one. 

I enter the lottery for Augusta tickets, but so far we haven't won. Hubs and I went to the Barclays when we lived in NJ one year. 

His company had a booth there and if you worked a shift you got in to the tournament. 

Our shift was first thing early morning and only lasted an hour so we had the full day to watch players. It was a lot of  fun. 

Also I like golf clothes. Does that count? 

2. Astronaut Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame passed away this past Thursday. Are you interested in outer space and what's happening today in terms of space exploration? If space travel became common in your lifetime would you go? How do you personally relate to the idea of exploring something vast and mysterious...does the idea excite you, intimidate you, or something else? 

I'm interested in space, and my hubs is super interested. He often shares with me things he's reading relating to space, and I also follow a couple of space related sites on social media. 

I won't be venturing in to space, but that has more to do with my propensity for motion sickness than a lack of interest or fear of the unknown. 

3. Describe your communication style in three words. 

Too many words. 

4. Do you have a favorite cookbook? A favorite celebrity chef? Do you watch any cooking shows on TV? 

I know you can get any recipe you need or want online now, but I still love cookbooks. There's something so aesthetically pleasing to me about a hold-in-your-hand cookbook. I have a few favorites depending on what I'm making, and I know which book has my squash casserole recipe, which one has my favorite peanut butter cookie , which one has the stuffed peppers we like, and so on. 

I go to my Joy of Cooking book often, and have several Junior League cookbooks from around the south that have recipes I love in them. I have quite a few cookbooks that are lovely but probably not well known. I like Nigellas cookbooks and own a couple of hers, and I own some of the Pioneer Woman cookbooks too. 

Some of my favorite well known chefs are Bobby Flay, Ina Garten, and Geoffrey Zakarian. And while he's maybe better known as an actor I love following Stanley Tucci too. He has some wonderful recipes! 

My daughter2 and I always watch The Great British Baking Show Together when new seasons roll around. I like The Kitchen and the chefs there. 

5. As a child did you have any back to school traditions? If so, did you carry on those same traditions with your own children? Do you have any back to school traditions you've started on your own? 

The only real tradition I remember from my own childhood would be buying new back to school clothes and shoes. We didn't do a first day photo that I can recall. I do have my 'school pictures' that were taken at school sometime during each year. 

My girls definitely got new clothes prior to a new school year. Then they'd have a little fashion show for dad. I took a front porch first day of school photo most years. 

Those back packs don't look heavy at all. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

When hubs and I were leaving Harbour Town to go back to our airbnb in Palmetto Dunes on Thursday night I spied something pink out of the corner of my eye. I told hubs I thought it might be a Roseate spoonbill. 

Now I know that sounds like a true old lady thing to say, but y'all they are such beautiful birds and I've never seen one up close. I don't care if I sound like a Progressive commercial, these birds are unusual and so pretty.  

Also, we've always loved seeing birds in the wild. That's not something that happened once we hit a certain age. Yes hubs turned the car around for me so I could see for myself,  and there they were-

Their beaks look like spoons. 

Your fun fact for today. Have a nice week everyone! 

The Weekend. FORE!

Good Monday morning! I must begin today by giving props to the weekend weather. Spectacular! Hubs and I spent all day Saturday outdoors and it was De-lightful. Yes, with a capital D. His company had a booth at The Barclays tourney and we volunteered to help cover the Saturday morning shift.

Which began at 7am.

In the morning.

Nearly an hour from home.

In other words, early.

Technically they had two booths, the first one situated just opposite the warm up field.

Grass? Green?

We started out there and it was a great spot to watch players take their practice swings.

Putts? Drives? Can you tell I don't golf?

Vijay Singh set up directly in front of our booth, and while he didn't fare too awfully well in this tourney, he was amazing in the warm up.  He set up some kind of contraption (remember I don't golf) where he hit the ball between two skinny fiberglass poles, set only as wide apart as the width of the ball and never once missed. Never hit the pole. Just slowly, methodically knocked ball after ball through this exceedingly narrow space. Serious skilz!

About 9:30 we moved over to the second booth where spectators got to try their hand at putting. It was a popular booth and stayed busy, so when the reinforcements arrived to relieve us at noon we were ready for a break. Did I mention it was positively gorgeous on Saturday?

We grabbed a quick lunch then went in search of our favorite players. We missed my favorite favorite Phil Mickleson who teed off early and was already through for the day, but we did catch up with Rory McElroy (a crowd favorite) and Bubba Watson, who knocks the ever livin' daylights out of the ball. Bubba was paired with the Japanese player Hadeki Matsuyama and at one point we found ourselves standing beside his cameraman. Hubs said something to him in Japanese and I wish you could have seen his face light up. Hubs is not fluent but he knows enough words and phrases to communicate a little, and the cameraman was definitely not expecting that.

I may not play golf, but I do appreciate the beauty of a golf course and Ridgewood Country Club is a beautiful course. There are mega rules about picture taking which is probably why I look a little stressed in our selfie on the 17th. Y'all know I don't like to break the rules. There was no play happening when we snapped this, but the picture police were out in force.

Hubs doesn't look worried.

It was a fun day and did I mention the weather? Sunday was another beauty and if this is the prelude to fall I say bring it!

So what did you do this weekend? And more importantly was the sun shining, a breeze blowing, and did a clear blue sky make you happy?

Red, White, and Hot

Whew...that actually felt like a long weekend. Technically for us it was because we had a couple of extra days attached. Hubs arrived home from Brazil Friday morning so he napped and took the rest of the day off. He wanted to play a round of golf and for some reason he wanted me to go along too...we live in a golf course community so I was kind of interested in checking out the course. I've heard it's pretty tough because much of it is uphill but it is beautiful.

So guess what? Apparently I talk too much to be an excellent golfing companion. Who knew? Oh, and I also drive the cart just a little too fast or as hubs says, "You are scaring me to death" which is no small thing because he doesn't scare easily. It was fun y'all...there are some very steep hills and a few times I commented that it felt sort of like the Hillbilly Golf we used to play on the mountainside in Gatlinburg, Tennessee which was miniature golf and really fun. Hubs commented that usually the caddie is not quite so chatty.

We woke up to another scorcher on Saturday so we did a few things around the house, watched some World Cup play and then that evening we headed to the nearby Baseball Stadium to see our local team in action. They are part of the Can-Am league and I love going to games in these smaller stadiums. We sat directly behind home plate and the tickets were just $12. I decided I better pay attention during the game just in case the catcher wasn't any good.

Our seats were in the shade which was glorious because the players seriously looked like they might melt before they took their first swing. Between innings all sorts of fun and games transpired and its kind of a wonder the players can concentrate what with all the fan events... there is tire racing, hamburger eating, hula hooping...at one point they even put a mattress on the sideline and the team mascot wrestled a 10 year old boy. I don't know who does their event planning but whoever it is certainly earns their money! We lost by one run but there were fireworks after the game which kind of made up for it. Oh, and this guy was one row in front of us...he's Judge Andrew Napolitano, a frequent guest on Fox news.

Sunday dawned hot and steamy. A-gain. Our local parade started at 1PM which, hello, it's HOT, but we managed to squeeze our chairs into some shade and watched what I'm sure most small town folks watched all across America...

...many many firetrucks, a few Classic cars carrying various folks, the Miss Small Town crown holder who definitely had that pageant wave perfected, the local water ski and swim teams and of course the veterans. Most entrants were throwing candy which in essence is a moving pinata. And just like at a birthday party you end up with some kids hogging all the candy and some kids crying because they didn't get any. We stayed out of the fray...not even the promise of a tootsie roll could make me budge from my shady corner.

When the parade ended we went home to the blessed air conditioning for a while. We grilled some steaks before we headed back to town for the evening festivities. Hubs insisted we take the supermodel with us which sounds crazy because most dogs have a thing about fireworks and loud noises but not our pup. She loves a crowd, loves to be admired, and will let anybody in the universe pet her. Our first stop was the local park where a blues festival was happening. Dixie managed to wipe her muddy face on my white capris before I'd even gotten myself into the chair but I got over it. It took a few minutes but I did. It was really just too hot to be annoyed about that. We love live music so we found some shade, plopped our lawn chairs down and listened to some really good blues while the pup stalked squirrels and all was forgiven.

When the music ended we carried our chairs into town to sit closer to the lake for the fireworks display. Dixie never so much as perked up an ear when the show started. There was an adorable little three year old girl sitting beside us with her mom and grandma. I felt sorta bad because all this little girl wanted to do was pet our dog and I know the mom wanted her to ooh and ahh over the fireworks. The mom was wonderful though and she didn't make a big deal about it...she just went with it which was sweet. I wanted to tell her that in a few years she will look back on this night and say, "Remember that year we watched the fireworks at the lake and all she wanted to do was pet that silly dog?" Because those are the kind of things you remember.

We decided to stop for ice cream after the show and Dixie always gets her own scoop of vanilla. She really is a beautiful dog and people always comment on her pretty coat and her gentle disposition and her excellent behavior. Of course these people have never seen her snatch a turkey sandwich off the counter when your back is turned and gobble it down before you can blink. Or drink the cup of freshly brewed coffee you just poured for yourself but left unattended for a split second. A few folks watched her 'thoroughly enjoy' the ice cream though and they may have changed their mind about her manners. Drool. Ick.

I love the 4th of July...it's one of my favorite days. I love to see flags flying. I love to see people dressed in red white and blue... to hear the patriotic music...to wave to the veterans in hometown parades. I love the heat and the hot dogs and the history. And most especially I love that for one brief moment we seem to put aside our differences and celebrate all that is good about America.