Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 387

It's that time again, and here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with the universe.  See you there! 

1. It's fall y'all. What's something you love about this season and also something you don't? 

2. When you think of the colors of fall, which one is your favorite? Is there somewhere you could easily day trip to see the leaves in all their glory? Will you? 

3. What's one thing you've let 'fall' by the wayside during this season of staying home and staying away? 

4. If you're wearing a sweater is it most likely a cardigan, crew neck, v-neck, or zip up hoodie? 

5. What's your secret to dealing with change? 

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

Hodgepodge Sweetness

We are rolling right along through summmer and the weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge...if you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post, then go say howdy to your neighbor. That's what keeps the wheels a-turning.

1. The sweetness of summer...where have you found it recently? If you're in the Southern hemisphere, feel free to find some sweetness in your winter.

Well I've written three posts (so far) about summertime sweetness which you can read here, here, and here. In a nutshell though I'm finding sweetness in the beauty of nature and my adorable grandsons. 

I 'borrowed' these pics from my Daughter1. Sweet! 

2. Take your sweet time, sweet tooth, home sweet home, short but sweet, the sweet smell of success, sweet talk...choose a sweet idiom and tell us how it fits your life currently?

It's 2020, right? Then home sweet home it is. 

3. Sweet as honey, sweet as sugar, or sweet as pie, which phrase do you use when a sweet phrase is called for? What's the last sweet treat you indulged in?

Of the three phrases listed I think I tend to say sweet as pie. As far as sweet treats go, my sister and brother-in-law were here for an outdoor brunch on Saturday and my brother-in-law celebrated a birthday a few days earlier. Daughter2 wanted to bake him something, and since it was breakfast she opted for coffee cake. 

My brother-in-law likes carrot cake so she made a scrumptious carrot coffee cake with a cream cheese glaze. The best part of the cake though, was the topping under the glaze,  a buttery streusel. Yum! Sadly I did not take a picture, but you can find the recipe here. 

4. First thing that comes to mind when you hear the word fidget?

Church? I kind of remember my parents whispering down the pew for us to 'stop fidgeting'. I might still fidget a little in a church pew. I mean if we were actually having church in church instead of online, then you might find me fidgeting. Church from my couch not so much. 

5. Share with us one of your favorite childhood travel memories.

I have quite a few, so it's hard to choose just one. We did not travel the way people travel now. Travel was a treat and not a regular occurrence, which is perhaps part of what makes those trips memorable. 

One of my favorites was a road trip from our home in the Garden State all the way to East Tennessee.  We were dropping my sister off at uni and visiting colleges along the way too as my brother was starting his Junior year of high school. 

I guess I must have been almost 11 and my younger sister was almost 10. We didn't book hotels ahead of time, and we kids begged my dad to stop at various lodgings based solely on the look of their pool. I think he mostly obliged. 

It was also my very first trip to the Smokies, Gatlinburg, and a place some seven years later I'd call my home. In fact I'd marry me a Tennessee boy, but of course nobody had any inkling of that back then. Back then we were all about a hotel with a great pool. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

People are so creative...did you see this story of the 14-year old girl from Libertyville IL who has done chalk drawings featuring her 9- year old little brother every day during quarantine. So clever!! You'll find the link here. 

Still Finding Sweetness

Earlier this summer I wrote a summertime sweetness post, and then another, and today there's another. In this season like no other it's good to seek out beauty, to notice the small things, and to feel grateful. Here's a few things on my list today-

A scrunchy faced baby boy who makes my heart soar from an ocean away-

photo cred: sincerely shannon 

Weekends. We like to say when you're retired everyday is the weekend, and it kind of is, but somehow they still manage to feel like an exhale when an exhale is needed. We finally had a full weekend of gorgeous summertime weather and spent all day Saturday out of doors.

My sister and brother-in-law and my niece and her fiance came for a late morning brunch on the patio and it was fun to catch up in person after months of not catching up in person.

These adorable cousins are both brides-to-be, and it's so much fun to be in this planning season together.

Normally we come and go a lot round here, but one of the blessings of not coming and going is all our plants are getting lots of tlc and it shows. They're blooming and thriving in a time when life feels the opposite.

We've tried to get a mandevilla to climb this little trellis several summers in a row and it seems 2020 is her year. She has been showing off all summer and it makes me so happy to step out on my deck and see her bright pink blooms.

Hubs superhot chili pepper plant is loaded and nearly ready for picking too.

Nothing sweeter than a summertime 'mater samich with a side of Duke's.

If you could read that and were nodding your head, you might be from the southland.

The lake is always a little busier on the weekends so we try to save our boating for later in the day on Saturdays. Sunset cruises are my favorite anyway, and I love watching the sky change as clouds move about and the sun sinks low-

Sunday afternoon we hit the neighborhood pool for a swim and had the place pretty much to ourselves.

My book is good. Ha! The Huntress by Kate Quinn. Bonus, someone has been crafty during this time of #stayhome and left sweet reminders all around the neighborhood. We found this one at the pool.

This morning I was up before the birds and the mowers and the buzz of ordinary Monday morning life and I took a deep breath of quiet stillness to help carry me into a somewhat busy week.

Busy for us retirees anyway.

Which in the scheme of things is not all that busy, but there are more than a few things on the calendar so it feels busy-ish.

Hope you found the sweetness of summer in your weekend too!

More Summer Sweetness

Last Monday I wrote about the sweetness of summer and not gonna lie, I had to look a little harder for it this weekend. The weather y'all! What is up with the weather? I live in sunny South Carolina except this year we've had so much rain. And if it's not raining it's cloudy more often than not, so the days aren't feeling the way summer normally feels.

What is normal anyway, in this very abnormal year? Perhaps weird weather is just par for the course. 

Hubs and I did manage a Friday evening boat ride and in case you didn't know, watching the sun slip from the sky will add a splash of sweetness to your weekend. 

Satuday we had plans to take the boat out but the air was coated in a thin layer of Saharan dust storm dust (did I mention the weather has been weird??) so we headed to the plant nursery instead. By car in case anyone is confused. We needed to repot a couple of plants that grew like beanstalks (see there's a bright side to all that rain!) and we wanted to get something for the pots beside our garage which have been sitting empty for a while. 

We opted for Lantana and I love this color combo. Also, I have the most gorgeous shade of geraniums beside my front door which have been blooming big since the first of May. 

Shoutout to my sweet limelight hydrangeas too, which are one of my favorites. 

In other nature related happenings we have a new crop? flock? of baby bluebirds in the house (the bluebird house, not our literal house), and they are noisy and precious. 

I know this photo looks like a big ball of fluff but I have to hold my camera up over my head and tilt it down which means I have no idea if I'm capturing anything or not. Still here they are...a big ball of fluff. 

Watching all the adults care for them is super sweet too. There are at least six parents-aunts-uncles-so I guess bluebirds are quarantining with extended family in 2020.  

Hubs would say this was pretty sweet. 

I was actually sound asleep on the screened porch enjoying the sweetness of a Saturday afternoon nap when he started hollering for me to get the camera. I tried to pretend I didn't hear him (hey, we've all been there, right?) but he wasn't having it. 

It's a ginormous, albeit harmless, black rat snake which supposedly keeps the copperheads and other unsavories at bay so I tried to act like it was cool but if I'm being honest I'm not all that cool with snakes. Or bats. Bats really give me the heebie jeebies. 

Did I tell y'all hubs was on a ladder last week, 18 feet up checking out what we thought was some sort of mark/stain on our covered deck ceiling, and I was holding said ladder to be sure it didn't tip when a bat flew at lightning speed, straight out of the deck light in that crazy erractic way bats fly, and dive bombed us? I might have lost it. Thankfully hubs had the presence of mind not to fall which I guess was pretty sweet. Also, thankfully the pest guy said it was a fluke and not a whole crop? flock? of bats living up there. 

Finally, these sweet things-

I swiped this picture from my daughter and it's everything I imagined when I imagined baby brothers. They are just too sweet! 

Hope you found some sunshine in your weekend too...happy Monday!

Serenity Now

Shhh...

Today's word comes from my sister-in-law (yes, another one), and it's interesting to me how so many of the words I've been given say something about the giver.

Day 17-Q is for Quietude

Maybe not a word I use often, but certainly one I seek. 

To escape the noise in this world and the noise in my head. 

A quiet state. 

                  

Inhale. Exhale. 

                 

Stillness...tranquility...repose. 

We make room in our lives for what matters.

Wishing you moments of quietude in the week ahead.

Once Upon A Time

I'm playing a little bit of catch up today since I was without power earlier in the week and missed a letter.

Today's letters come from my sister and also from a long time dear friend who worked with hubs for many many years. Both made trips to our home in England way back when and the words they chose go together, so it's a combo post today. 

Day 12-L is for London

Day 15-O is for Once

Once upon a time we lived in England. Not London, but nearby in a small village about 15 miles west of the city. A dot on the map where we walked our pup through the commons, met friends for dinner in the local pub, and hopped a train to London any time we pleased. Which was often. 

Where we mastered the art of parallel parking in minuscule spaces, puzzled over the rules of Cricket, and learned a whole new vocabulary.

Where we fell in love with Indian curries, iced buns, and Sunday roasts with a side of yorkshire pudding. 

Where we indulged daily in the pure pleasure of a cuppa with a friend. 

Where we raised teenagers...

Drove left while seated right...

And spent hours in a garden where poppies and foxglove and people grew. 

Where we donned wellies to hike past ancient trees and fields of rapeseed...

Across moors and bridges and old stone walls in the middle of nowhere.

Around bluebell blankets and fields of sheep. 

Through kissing gates that led to wide open spaces and beauty as far as the eye could see. 

Where history was at every turn...

And when the sun shone it was your favorite day of all the days. 

This picture popped up on my Facebook page last week, our first tagged photo on the site some 11 years ago-

We're in front of Buckingham Palace here and asked a stranger to take our picture. Selfies weren't a thing yet, or at least they weren't for us. I think the trend was just getting started back in 2009 but 11 years later we still haven't mastered it, so yeah. We asked a stranger to take a picture and they obliged. 

A moment marked with the click of a camera.
There were a thousand more. 

Once upon a time we fell in love with a place and words and people. 

We are in love with them still. 

Rearranging That To-Do List

It was a beautiful fall day here yesterday, and even though we have no business doing anything but taking care of what feels like a million things that need taking care of, we decided instead to carpe diem. 

Because sometimes you just must.

I find a walk in the woods is the best way to clear my head and should regularly be at the top of my 'to do' list. Pretty sure the world would be a nicer place if we all spent more time in the hushed stillness of God's green earth.

Hubs and I packed a lunch and headed to nearby Whitewater Falls because we haven't seen those up close and in person yet. We only argued a little as to which blue blaze trail marker was the correct blue blaze trail marker, and of course hubs was correct because he's always correct in matters of direction. Why does he even ask me which way I think we should go when he knows I'm always pointing left when we need to go east or up when we need to head south? He likes to talk about where the sun is in the sky and blah blah blah.

Let's just walk, k?

For the record, I don't mind getting a little lost, figuring it out as we go, maybe seeing something unexpected, and just enjoying the sun on my face and the silence of the forest. Hubs however is a man on a mission and we must get to those falls in a timely manner or die trying.

We began the day at the Upper Falls overlook which is a short easy half mile trek (plus 154 steps) to magnificent.

Did I mention we had the pup with us? He only wrecked my zen a little and had an absolute ball. He ran most of the way all day long and could have done another six miles if hubs and I had said let's go.

We did not.

Because the lower falls trail (once you're on the correct path, ahem) is steep and we were tired. I'd visited the website to get some approximate directions prior to leaving home and the lower falls hike was described as roughly two miles in and out. We must have hopped on from a different starting point because our hike was roughly six miles in and out.

We moved the car to catch the lower falls trail which was a mixture of an up and down wooded path, rocky in some spots, a few downed trees to climb over or slip under in others, tree roots to trip you up if you weren't careful, and a brilliant blue sky overhead reminding you no matter what you're walking through beauty is found when you look up.

I thought we'd see more color here but autumn is rolling in to the Upstate ever so slowly this year. It has been hotter than the double hockey sticks and temperatures plus the humidity level have only recently begun to settle down.

One of the prettiest spots on the lower falls trail was right here-

In fact one of us would say it was their favorite part of the day-

He would have been happy to stay right here all day, but we still had a mile and a half-ish to go so we crossed the bridge and carried on.

And as we walked I thought about some stuff. Thinking deep thoughts and hiking go hand in hand which is one reason I enjoy hiking. It's hard to think deep thoughts when you're staring down your to-do list and see a floor that needs vacuuming and clothes that need washing and suitcases that need packing.

Soul searching comes naturally when you're away from it all.

It happens when you're walking along a mostly flat, mostly clear path until suddenly you're not. You encounter rocks and roots that can trip you up and irritate, and the easy pace you were enjoying begins to feel like a slog you need to just get through.

Your destination begins to feel further and further away, but if you put your head down and press on you'll discover those rocks and roots and irritating big and little things you had to get around or over were part of your journey to something beautiful.

Life, y'all.

Then your hubs the planner whips out his little camp stove and makes you a cup of hot apple cider on the spot...

And you're so glad you didn't quit before you got to where you were meant to go.