A Poetic Hodgepodge

Welcome to October and the first Wednesday Hodgepodge of the month. 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. We all know comments keep the blog world cozy. Here we go-

1. Hey, it's October...what's one fun thing on your October calendar? 

We'll be traveling for a wedding later this month, we have a wine dinner on the calendar, I have a facial booked, and my women's Bible Study starts back up after an extended summer break. These are all things I'm looking forward to in October. 

2. Thursday is National Poetry Day...do you like to read poetry? If so, what's a favorite poem, or whose poetry do you especially enjoy? 

I do like to read poetry. Sometimes I try to memorize poetry and wish I'd done more of that when I was a little younger and my brain had space and ability. One of my favorite poems is  Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. My dad used to recite it from time to time, and I always think of him when I hear it. I love the children's poem Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene Field. 

In terms of more contemporary poets I love following Laura Wifler on Instagram. Her writing is absolutely beautiful (@laurawifler)

3. Tell us about something you've seen recently that could be described as 'poetry in motion'. 

I haven't seen any ballet lately, but I have seen flowers dancing on the breeze. That feels a lot like poetry to me. 

4. What's one song on your autumn playlist? Do you have an autumn playlist? If not, pretend you do. If yes, then feel free to share more than one. 

 Songs on my autumn playlist are not necessarily specifically about the season, but they do tend to be 'moody' because that says fall to me. One song on my list?  So Far Away by Carole King. 

5. Share a quote that inspires you this time of year especially. 

"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go." author unknown 

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

Spent Monday in the English countryside with our girl and her crew. A rainbow on the drive home made the sweetest ending to our UK travels. Cheers! 

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Oh Hey Monday

Let's recap the weekend that was. We were home again, two in a row so whoohoo! I love at home weekends, especially this time of year. I also love weekends away, but there's gotta be a few at home to help us keep our balance.  

Friday night hubs and I sat on the deck and listened to music. Complete chill at the end of a busy week,  and in general this is where you'll find us on Friday nights for the next six months-ish. 

Or you might also find us here-

The pup  loves morning coffee on the dock with his best bud. 

I was out Tuesday night when hubs texted asking if we could have a few people over for the Derby on Saturday. I said sure and next thing ya know we have twenty coming to celebrate the run for the roses with party snacks and mint juleps. 

I do love a good theme party and if I'd had more notice I'd have gone to town with recipes and decor, but Amazon to the rescue and we managed to get a few fun things for our fun people. 

Everyone was bringing some sort of appetizer and hubs got right to work on his super special julep juice.  He fired up the green egg for wings (these were his very best ever!!) and I found a recipe online for Derby Pie cupcakes. 

If you've never had Derby Pie it's a gooey chocolatey nutty pie and it's scrumptious but not practical for a party, so I thought the cupcakes (recipe here) would be an easy option. I was so wrong. I think I used every bowl in my kitchen for this one. You first had to mix the batter ingredients and then you had to make a 'pie filling' on the stove, and when that was done you put the filling into two bowls, then you took three quarters from one bowl and put that in yet another bowl and on and on it went.  

Holy moly talk about labor intensive. 

Part of the filling also had to be poured onto a cookie sheet and baked. When it was done it had a toffee like texture and you broke it apart and added it to the icing. Oh my it was so yummy! 

The cupcakes didn't look especially pretty, but the taste was five stars. Sorry for the blurry photo...it came to me thirdhand. Did you watch the race? What a finish!! 

Sunday morning as we had coffee on the deck we noticed a blue heron on the shoreline. We watched him stalk a chipmunk in the rocks behind our firepit before nabbing it with precision, and then of course 'digesting' it.

After he'd dunked it in the lake several times to be very certain it was dead. It's one part icky and two parts completely fascinating. Another blurry photo but I had to zoom in about 150% so as not to scare him off. 

Our neighborhood wine club met Sunday evening which is always a lot of fun, and then we came home to this...

No better way to usher in a new week than with the visible reminder God keeps his promises.  

I'm linking up with Holly and Sarah again this week for their Hello Monday blog party..now tell me how was your weekend? 

2020 Tom Foolery

It's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged anything more than the weekly Hodgepodge, so thought I'd play catch up here today. Talk about what's been been going on in our little corner of the world.

So what has been going on?

Well there's a pandemic. Did you hear? Ha! Whew. It's getting old, isn't it? I heard someone say it's starting to feel like a heavy wet blanket across the shoulders and I think she's right.  Today when I got up I thought, "I need a day off." From what though? It's not like we're doing all that much but I feel like I need a day off anyway.

Earlier this week, or actually I guess it was last week, but who really knows because everyday is a lot like the one before, and a-ny-way...I opened the sliders to greet the morning, steaming cup of coffee in hand, took a deep breath, and yuck. The air smelled so fishy.

We live on what is one of the cleanest lakes in all of North America and it never ever smells fishy, but this day it was definitely smelling fishy. I looked out towards the dock and saw a huuuge turkey vulture eating breakfast, right there on our shoreline.

Raise your hand if turkey vultures kind of skeeve you out? Yeah.

I told hubs he needed to walk down there, because I don't care if it is 2020, investigating and dealing with dead stuff is a man's job. It was in the handbook we were given when we said I Do.

There wasn't a handbook, but I do have a mental list of rules and this is one of them, which hubs knows so he walked down there and then yelled for me to bring the camera. Hmmm. I yelled back, 'Is this going to be something I can't unsee?' and yes it was, but I brought the camera anyway.

Y'all. This vulture was chowing down on the biggest catfish I've ever seen. His head was the size of a basketball and with his mouth wide open he looked even bigger. Hubs dealt with it, but all I could think about was how a vulture casually dining on the worlds biggest catfish right in my backyard is pretty much 2020 in a nutshell.

Let's change topics. We had an earthquake. I know! We were sitting on our deck early Sunday morning and we felt the rumble, the deck shook a little which was a bit disconcerting, and our hanging lanterns started swaying. It lasted long enough to make you think, and we found out later a quake measuring 5.1 on the scale had it's epicenter about three hours from us.

We also were treated to a rainbow last week which I guess balances things out. We've had so many rainbows this summer, so many crazy rainstorms where the sun keeps right on shining, I guess even the weather doesn't know which way is up right now. I do love a rainbow though, and while this one wasn't quite as vivid as the last it was still so pretty. After the weather cleared hubs and I hopped on the boat to catch the sunset because we knew we'd get a good one.

We were right.

This has nothing to do with the weather or unusual occurrences (unless you count people coming over for dinner as an unusual occurrence), but we had some friends come for dinner Monday evening (outdoors of course) and I baked this salted caramel butter cake that was as delicious as it sounds.

I took this right after I poured the caramel butter sauce over the cake, and after it cools you remove it from the pan and drizzle the top with a salted caramel syrup. So good! You can find the recipe here. 

In other delicious news, this little guy is all of nine months old now and he is such a joy.

photo credit: Sincerely Shannon 

Big brother started a little preschool program two mornings a week and we are just loving watching them both grow and learn and discover something new about the world every day.

photo credit: Sincerely Shannon 

The distance stinks, and hubs and I might throw tiny little pity parties for one another now and then, never in the same moment though, which helps. My daughter is wonderful about keeping us connected, which we appreciate more than words can say.

Sunday evening we kayaked with a few neighbors over to a nearby island because you never ever tire of sunsets on the lake and this one was a beauty.

The temperature was perfection, the night quiet, and the lake still. With every exhale you feel your cares float further and further away.

When life is fragile and uncertain it helps to know the One who sets the sun.