It's The Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. For bookkeeping purposes...last week was Volume 665 and next week will be Volume 667. 

Also, I don't actually keep books here. 

Anyway...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 before you run off. Here we go...

1. I saw a meme on Instagram that went like this-'The movie Dirty Dancing came out in 1987 and was set in 1963, so if remade in 2026 it would be set in 2002. Now I need a little lie down in a dark room for a while." 

Time is crazy isn't it? So...what were you up to in the year 2002? 

I'm going to show great restraint in how many pictures I post. But we need a few, right? 

Living in Maryland. We had a boat and were out on it every weekend. We had friends with boats and we'd all raft up together. Lots of fun! 

I was working as the Director of a church Preschool and Kindergarten, and our girls were in grades 7 and 9. I have to say that makes me feel a little bit ancient. 

We got a puppy that year. A Gordon Setter we called the supermodel, the life of the party, and the absolute sweetest pup ever. 

Hubs and I went to St. Lucia for a reward trip with work colleagues. 

We took a family vacation to the Outer Banks of NC and rented a big house in Duck with four other families. 

We went camping a couple of times. Tent camping which we loved. 

We had a really fun family trip to St. Thomas for Thanksgiving.  

And it was another tender Tennessee Christmas spent with hubs family. 

2. "Me? I'm scared of everything..." What's something that scares you that you'd like to try anyway? 

I feel like this kind of question wants bungee jumping or sky diving or some other physical kind of crazy feat as an answer, but those are not things I've ever had a desire to do. 

How about camping with toddlers? Is that scary? I think it would be the fun sort of scary. 

If I dig a little deeper I'd say being bolder in speaking the truth with courage, and sharing my beliefs without holding back.

3. Watermelon-yay or nay? Which melon is your favorite-watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew Of the watermelon food/beverages listed which would you say yes to...

watermelon salsa~watermelon feta salad~watermelon sorbet~

a watermelon Jolly Rancher~a watermelon margarita 

I love watermelon, all melons really , but especially watermelon. Of the food/beverages listed the only one I'd pass on is the Jolly Rancher. As much as I love watermelon I don't love watermelon 'flavored' candies. 

4. August 12th is National Middle Child Day. Are you a middle child? If not, where do you fall in the birth order in your family of origin? Do you think this has influenced your personality? Elaborate. 

There are four children in my family of origin so no real middle. 

Except I do consider myself a middle because three of the four are girls and I'm the middle girl. I have an older sister and a younger sister and then an older brother, but as the only boy and king he doesn't count lol. 

I have a lot of the traits typically associated with middle children which include being "adaptable, easygoing, and independent people who excel at compromise". Middle children are often the peacemakers and that is very much me. Middle children are said to have high self-reliance which can be both good and bad, but my most uttered phrase as a child was-"I can do it myself" so you be the judge. 

I have a 2-yo granddaughter about whom I think you could say, 'the apple does not fall far from the proverbial tree', ahem. 

5. Would you rather talk to everyone at a crowded party for a short time, or have a significant conversation with two people? Explain. 

Probably the second, significant conversations with a couple of people. Huge parties aren't really my thing, but give me a dinner party for 6 or 8 and I'm a happy hostess (or guest). 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of time passing...

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

This Week's Hodgepodge Questions

Last week was Volume 665 and next week will be Volume 667. You're welcome : ) 

And you know the drill. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here on Wednesday (August 12th) to share answers. See you there-

1. I saw a meme on Instagram that went like this-'The movie Dirty Dancing came out in 1987 and was set in 1963, so if remade in 2026 it would be set in 2002. Now I need a little lie down in a dark room for a while." 

Time is crazy isn't it? So...what were you up to in the year 2002? 

2. "Me? I'm scared of everything..." What's something that scares you that you'd like to try anyway? 

3. Watermelon-yay or nay? Which melon is your favorite-watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew. Of the watermelon food/beverages listed which would you say yes to...

watermelon salsa~watermelon feta salad~watermelon sorbet~

a watermelon Jolly Rancher~a watermelon margarita 

4. August 12th is National Middle Child Day. Are you a middle child? If not, where do you fall in the birth order in your family of origin? Do you think this has influenced your personality? Elaborate. 

5. Would you rather talk to everyone at a crowded party for a short time, or have a significant conversation with two people? Explain. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

X Is For Not A Xylophone

These last three letters might just send me over the edge. Let's get to it...

Day 24-X is for boXes 

Listen. This is totally fine. Three tough letters remain and one does what one must to meet the challenge deadline. 

My theme for this A-Z Blog Challenge has been The Things We Keep: Ordinary Objects from A-Z and when I think about the things I keep I think pictures. Ironically, there won't be pictures in this post today because I'm eXhausted, and getting this one written just under the wire. 

While I don't have nearly as many recent photos printed as I do old photos, I still have plenty of both. Some are in scrapbooks, some in frames, most though are in boxes. Now in my defense some of the boxes are actual photo boxes and they're organized with the pictures filed by year. Some are slightly disorganized boxes containing photo albums which I suppose are organized in a sense but still need to be dealt with, and some are shoeboxes filled with an 'I'll get to that later' sort of filing system. 

Hubs and I started cleaning out the attic this winter and it's in pretty good shape at the moment. But there are three large boxes filled with what I've just described and I'm determined to get to them before summer rolls around in roughly 55 days. 

Plenty of time, no? 

So tell me, do you own a real camera or do you take pictures strictly with your phone? Do you print those pictures regularly and if so, now what? Also, how do you organize the photos on your phone? 

I have a hard time letting go of pictures I've snapped. I have plenty that aren't great, yet they still mark a moment in time I want to remember. My mother-in-law used to have an end table whose drawer was filled with the most random assortment of photographs you ever did see, and you couldn't help but rifle through it every time you were there. 

I want a drawer like that. 

Home On The 'Range'

I am definitely winging the April A-Z challenge aka writing the posts the day before, but I'm still here so that's something. It's been kind of fun to think about the things I keep and try to match them with each day's letter.  Here's today's-

Day 18-R is for Recipes

How did you learn to cook? Well, first I suppose I should ask do you cook? I'm always surprised when I meet someone who says they don't cook. How do they eat? Lots of take out apparently, but that would be really tough where I live. 

I learned to cook by watching and helping my mama cook. And she learned to cook by watching and helping her mama, and my girls learned to cook by watching and helping me. I'm enjoying doing some simple cooking now with my grands and I hope they learn to cook by helping too. 

Circle of life. 

Growing up we rarely ate out. We were a family of six and dining out was a real treat. My mom cooked dinner pretty much every night and she was an excellent cook. I don't know if she started out that way, but her mom (my grandma) was also an excellent cook so I imagine she came into her marriage with some kitchen skills. 

One of my first 'cooking' assignments at home was making salad dressing. Good Seasons Italian which didn't involve any actual cooking, but you did need to read the directions, measure, and mix, all of which are a part of cooking. We had salad every night because my mom was ahead of her time in terms of healthy meals. She made almost everything from scratch too. 

When I was a young wife finding my way in my own kitchen I quite often called my mom mid-recipe to ask a question or  confirm some note written on the instructions. My own girls do the same and I love it.

Circle of life. 

I have always loved cookbooks and still enjoy browsing them for inspiration. I know when it comes to cooking we're all about the internet now, and of course I use that too. But there's something about holding a recipe card in my hand and thinking about the person who shared it with me, remembering when I've eaten the dish and the event or occasion it's associated with, that makes the cards feels extra special. 

I have a nice collection of cookbooks but my most consulted is the binder filled with hand written cards, recipes primarily from my mom's kitchen, but also from my sisters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.  I refer to this collection so often that the binding is coming loose and I need to move the pages to a new book. 

I wish I had more recipes written in my mom's hand, but most of the time I would copy the recipe while she was cooking, or she'd tell it to me and I'd transcribe. 

A few years ago for Christmas I put all of our family holiday recipes in binders for my daughters. I wrote those recipes out by hand and it was a true labor of love. 

I won't part with my favorites. They're keepers. And now I feel the urge to make my mama's blueberry pie. 

Linking today with Joanne for Talking About It Tuesdays

Merry April!

Still at that A-Z Blog Challenge thing...

Day 15-O is for Ornaments 

I didn't overthink this one, but went with something obvious. I was inspired by the attic cleanout we started at the end of March and will finish sometime soon. I have several bins of photo albums left to tackle still and will need a full couple of days to go through them. I know myself and know I'll get majorly sidetracked looking at old pictures, so the job will take longer than it should. 

But that's a post for another day. Today we're talking Christmas, or more specifically Christmas ornaments. 

I think the trend now is to have fancy trees or themed trees, but in our house we always like something more homespun. Our tree is filled with ornaments that mean something to us, and I feel sentimental about almost every one. They are in a way, the story of us. 

There's one from our 'first married Christmas'-

Babies born-

Places we've lived-

Beloved pets-

Cities we've traveled to-

hobbies-

and my favorite...those made by little hands-

I love pulling the boxes out every year and taking a stroll down memory lane. 

A Circle Of Names

We're a little more than halfway through the alphabet and this is usually the point where I start to run out of steam. I ask my family to help by giving me a word, and sometimes that works. Today I got nothin'. 

As in N is for Nothin'. 

When I really started thinking about things I've kept, or things I want to keep, that begin with the letter N I came up with one thing, and when I told hubs he said it was a little lame. 

But lame is better than nothin', right? Hubs and I agree the object isn't lame, it's just hard to make it a blog post, but of course that won't stop me. 

 Day 14-N is for Nana's Necklace 

My Nana necklace-

Rest assured I will not be posting a picture of my neck here because just because. 

Eight years ago I became a Nana, and for my birthday a couple of months later daughter1 bought me a necklace with two small charms. One was a bar with the word Nana engraved on it and the second was a round charm with the mancub's name engraved on it. I flipped the charms over in the photo because I try not to use their names on the blog. This necklace is such a treasure. 

Becoming a grandmother is just all around grand. 

When baby boy number two was born, aka Max, daughter1 gifted me another round charm with his name engraved there. His actual name, not Max which is his blog name. 

Then along came baby boy number three, and daughter1 shared the charm link with her sister and daughter2 added yet another round disc to the chain with her baby boy's name engraved there. 

A few months later Little Miss arrived and a fourth round charm was added, and then grandbaby number five joined the party and one more charm was added to the chain with her name on it. 

I've told my girls if there are any more babies I'll need a bigger chain. 

I love this necklace so much and wear it pretty much every day. I tend to handle it now and then too, and when I do I say a quiet prayer for these precious little people who have brought so much joy to my life. 

This necklace is a keeper. 

Just Write

 I don't normally blog on the weekends, but it's April so Saturday blogging it is...

Day 10-J is for Journals 

Did you keep a diary when you were a child? What about now? Do you journal? Have a blog? 

I use my blog as a form of journaling, although I think all bloggers would agree not everything in your life is meant to be shared in a public forum. Hard as it is to believe there are many things going on in my life and in my head that don't make it on to the blog. 

I do love this space though, and I love blogging. I love the connections I've made with people through my blog, the things I've learned, and the encouragement I've received. But I also have a journal. 

Actually I have a whole stack of journals dating back to my earliest days of motherhood. I grabbed three off the pile and snapped a photo but there's more where they came from.  

I don't write in a journal every day, and sometimes it's just a sentence or two, something I read that stayed with me, notes on a sermon or bible study I'm doing, maybe venting about something that I need to vent about but don't want to actually vent in person, and a lot of swirling thoughts and observations about life are all recorded on these pages. 

There's a quote (attributed I think to Flannery O'Connor)  that says something along the lines of, 'I don't know what I think until I read what I write', and that feels very true for me. Journaling helps me make sense of things that don't always make sense. I especially love reading back years later on what I've written, and seeing how something played out, or if I still feel the same way now as I did then. 

I keep my journals, but do I keep them forever? I can't imagine throwing one away, but do I want my girls reading them someday? I'm honestly not sure. Would I want to read my mother's journals? I'd definitely be curious, but there's something about the idea that feels like invading her privacy on a pretty grand scale too. 

So what say you? Would you pass them on to your children's children or burn them in the backyard firepit? 

Getting The Wrinkles Out

 We're officially one third of the way through the alphabet with today's letter. Carry on A-Zers...

Day 9-I is for Iron 

Do you have an iron? Do you use it? This might seem like a funny question because doesn't everyone iron? 

No. No they do not. 

Recently there was a question relating to ironing in my weekly Hodgepodge link up and I was surprised at how many people said they never iron, that they haven't ironed anything in years. They just use a wrinkle release or buy clothing made of fabric that doesn't require ironing and I was left scratching my head. 

My daughter2 informed me recently that she actually has two irons. She needed to iron something one day and couldn't find hers so thought maybe she'd gotten rid of it in a move (obviously she wasn't ironing often) so she was forced to buy another. Then she found the one she thought was gone and now has two. Not sure she irons enough to warrant having two irons, but we visit and we iron so we're glad she owns one. Not everybody does. 

She also told me when she got it out to iron something her children were mesmerized. Apparently they had never laid eyes on this particular appliance. 

My hubs would not last a week without an iron. He likes things crisp. Not nearly as much as he did when we were first married, or in all those years he wore a suit and tie to work, but even in retirement he still isn't one to wear a wrinkled shirt. My mother always loved telling the story of being at our house one time when hubs was still working, still wearing real shirts (none of that casual Friday nonsense) and she watched my husband take a freshly starched shirt out of the plastic bag the cleaners had put it in, and iron it just a little bit more. True story. 

So what does this have to do with my theme? Well obviously I own an iron and obviously it's something I'm going to keep, but also it's a tough letter and when I started thinking about what to choose this word came to mind. There's something satisfying about running a hot iron over a crease running down the front of a shirt and seeing it disappear. 

I remember my mama setting up her ironing board in our den. She'd put it as low as it would go and set a chair behind it and have a stack of clothes to iron beside her. She'd also have her spray starch and distilled water and she might watch a little tv while she ironed. I honestly don't remember my mother watching tv when I was growing up except when she was tackling this chore. 

Maybe she appreciated sitting down for an hour? 

My dad was in the Marine Corps and my mom ironed his uniforms to perfection. She ironed a lot of tablecloths too and took such care in doing the job. Ironing a tablecloth is tedious. I send my tablecloths to the cleaners, and it's rare for me to iron a huge stack of anything in a single sitting. We're an iron as you go household so if I'm planning to wear something that needs to be ironed I do it then. 

Thinking about my mama sitting behind her ironing board is a picture of homemaking I don't think we see a lot these days. I suppose when I picture my mama ironing I think of it as one of the very many ways she showed love to her family. 

And that's a memory worth keeping. 

Tugging At The Heartstrings

We're moving right along in the April A-Z blog challenge and I bet if you read here regularly you already know what my letter H post will be about...

Day 8-H is for Hedgehogs

Last year in the A-Z I learned a new word-familects. I wrote about it here (The A-Z Yadda Yadda Yadda), but in a nutshell the word familects means one family's way of speaking. It can be anything from expressions to nicknames to stories told. 

Today's word falls firmly under the heading of familects.

It started with a relatively small, wildly funny (to my family) incident and as these things sometimes do it's taken on a life of its own as the years fly by.

When we lived in the UK we had a pretty pond in our back garden patio. One day I stepped outside and noticed what I thought was a big leaf floating on the pond. I innocently stuck my hand in to grab it only to discover it was a hedgehog. 

Let the shrieking commence. 

My girls came running thinking something terrible had ocurred (it had! I grabbed a dead hedgehog I thought was a leaf!! with my bare hands!!)  and much hysterical laughter and hijinks ensued as they tried to recapture the hedgehog who was once again floating in the pond. I'd flung it away from me in a fast and furious manner and as luck would have it that little hedgehog landed right back in the pond. 

So anyway, here we are some twenty years later and my girls still cannot resist buying me things they see with hedgehogs on them or sending me hedgehog memes and I still cannot resist buying them things I see with hedgehogs, and they know every single Christmas there will for sure be some sort of hedgehog related gift in their stocking or under the tree. 

Case in point-

A maternity nightgown with a momma and baby hedgehog walking across the front. 

While the back and forth gifting is mostly a mother-daughter thing, every now and then hubs jumps in with something fun, like these sweet little kissing hedgehog salt and pepper shakers. 

We can't let it go. Nor do we want to. 

Now, here's where familects come in. Unless you're my daughter or my husband I don't want you to buy me hedgehog tchotchkes. Because those would just be tchotchkes. 

But a hedgehog gift or card or meme from one of my girls? Well that means something more. It means they remember the koi pond with the beautiful iris, and the house we all loved for so many reasons, but especially the garden where so very much grew, including, and most of all, us.  I like to think that when a hedgehog catches their eye, whether on a greeting card or a cookie tin or whatever it may be, they're carried back to that garden for a moment. 

Teenagers...sisters...a mother who loved them so much they knew they could laugh at her ridiculousness and that she'd laugh with them. We didn't have camera phones back then, so there's no photo of the happening. It's all just a memory now, but I hope the same wave of tender affection I feel for my daughters when I think about that day washes over them too.  

I hope they know their momma will love all the hedgehog stuff they wanna give her, not because she loves hedgehogs, but because she loves the memory of teenagers in the house, life in a British garden, and growing up girls.

G It's The Hodgepodge

Welcome to another week in the Wednesday Hodgepodge, and if you're keeping up, it's also week two in the April A-Z Blog Challenge. Today's post is brought to you by the letter G and you'll find my thoughts for the A-Z in the random thought space aka question #6. 

1. Egg on your face, putting all your eggs in one basket, a good egg, walk on eggshells, nest egg, or a tough egg to crack...which eggy idiom currently applies to your life in some way? Explain

None particularly feel like they relate to my life at the moment so let's go with 'a good egg'. 

My hubs is a good egg. 

2. April 7th is National Beer Day...are you a beer drinker? If so do you have a favorite? Beer battered fish, beer bread, beer can chicken, beer brats...which one sounds good to you? Have you made any of these? 

I've never been a beer drinker but I do like all the recipes mentioned that call for beer. I don't think I've ever made beer battered fish but have certainly eaten it many times. Hubs is in charge of brats here and he makes them using beer because our Wisconsin friends tell us that's the secret to a perfectly cooked brat. 

3. Do you have siblings? What's the best thing about being your sibling? If you don't have siblings, what would you say are the pros and cons of being an only child? 

I do have siblings, two sisters and a brother and I'm grateful my parents had a bunch of kids. I guess four counts as a bunch? Well I'm sure it felt like a bunch to them. 

The best thing about being my sibling? 

Dear sibs...You're my lifelong besties, my confidantes, my memory keepers and I hope you consider me the same. I always root for your success, and you can count on me to love and pray for you forever and ever amen. 

4. How do you feel about floral scents in products? Do you have a favorite?

I'm not a big fan of floral scents unless we're talking actual flowers. I particularly find anything labeled rose scented to be way too much. I do like the scent of lavender so that one might be an exception to my no floral rule, but so often floral scented products are too heavily scented for my taste. I prefer citrus and I suppose lemon trees bloom so maybe that is technically a floral.  

5. What's one thing in your home that begins with the letter G that you would say is a keeper, something you'll hold on to? Tell us why. 

I've used my random thought today to answer this question. One does what one must when trying to blog through the alphabet and also host a weekly link up.  

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I'm still at this A-Z Blog challenge thing (for details go here-) and today we've reached the letter G. 

Day 7-G is for a Grandchild's Countdown Calendar 

Today I'm talking about this sweet little countdown calendar my daughter1 made for us when she was pregnant with our first grandbaby, known here as The Mancub. 

He turns nine this summer but I hold on to it still. 

The months before he was born I kept this little calendar on my kitchen window sill and couldn't wait to flip the blocks as the weeks and months were counted down. 

Once he was here I kept the set on a shelf in my closet, until two years later when grandson number 2 was on the way. 7000 miles and an ocean between us, but still back to the windowsill it went. 

Not quite three years passed before grandson number three joined the party...

And then a few short months later our first granddaughter...

 And then another quick year went by and we were celebrating the arrival of granddaughter number two. 

You should know I'm in two different states, four different cities, and one foreign country in these pictures. We get around-ha! This little calendar has spent a lot of time on my windowsill in the past nine years, and now grandbaby number 5 is two years old. 

So do I keep it? 

Of course. I mean I don't know if there will be more grandbabies here, but I know this little calendar is a sweet reminder of some of the happiest days and years of our lives. 

It's back in my closet for now, and who knows? Maybe one day I'll gift it back to my daughter when she's preparing to welcome a grandbaby of her own. Wouldn't that be fun?! 

Antiques Homeshow

 Chugging right along in the A-Z Blog Challenge...

Day 6-F is for Furniture

A lot of people when they retire, and particularly when they move from something like the suburbs out to the lake, sell all of their furniture along with their house and just buy new. If you've had somewhat traditional furniture with lots of dark wood it's understandable to want to make a change, find furnishings that are lighter, airier, more minimalist with less mass. 

When we moved to the lake, or rather as we prepared to move, we put everything we owned in storage and lived in a rental apartment with rental furniture for the whole year we were building. We weren't sure exactly what our new finished space would look like so we held on to a lot and figured we'd deal with it on this end. 

We knew we wanted a king sized mattress as opposed to our then queen, so the plan was we'd put our bedroom furniture into one of the guest rooms and buy new for our room. Which we did and we love it, but it's lighter in tone than most of what we own. 

We love wood and we love dark rich wood tones especially. Gray toned everything was really popular when we were building, but we knew that wasn't us. In fact when we were choosing the color stain for our trim and staircase we both pointed to the exact same sample our decorator was holding up at the exact same time. She said, 'well you definitely know what you like'. 

We have a few antiques, purchased when we lived in the UK, and we weren't ready to part with them to make room for something new. So we embraced the wood, and we kept the things that made us happy. 

Like this-

A monk's bench we purchased on a fun day shopping with friends in a little town called Hungerford in Berkshire UK. It was a great day out, despite the hysterical call we got from our daughter1 (a university student on the other side of the pond) as we were on our way home where she finally managed to say she'd had a car accident.  

Waiting to hear how bad it was took about ten years off my life, but no one was injured and we had a little chat afterwards about how that needs to be the first thing out of her mouth as opposed to the last. 

Memories are a funny thing and when I look at this bench I'm reminded of village life, of how much I loved getting in the car or hopping on a train and browsing a new to us town, and also those college years where we lived an ocean away from our girls and we all grew up in ways that would serve us well in the decade that followed. 

We sit photographs on the Monk's Bench now, photos of that same daughter's wedding that happened six years later. It's tucked along a wall beside our sliders and we framed botanical prints to hang above it so it works. 

We had our girl's portraits painted on the very first 'out of the UK trip' we took when we first moved to England. 

They're not antiques, but they are more than 20 years old and still hang in our bedroom today. While the girls in these portraits are now grown married women we look at these paintings and remember that special first trip ...

...the funny hotel room with the questionable television and Thanksgiving dinner eaten on the Eurostar, fish!,  which felt so, so wrong to my kids, but who wouldn't trade the moment now for the best roast turkey in America. 

This clock-

Bought in a little shop in a village very near our home that we frequented often. We happen to have the exact right space for it in this house and I can't imagine letting it go. 

And hubs has this tantalus which I remember the seller telling us was something the Americans were buying up, but we'd been looking for one the whole time we lived there and this one is so pretty. 

It sits on a commode in my dining room. Also purchased on our trip to Hungerford and hubs turned it into a drinks cabinet which is something I love about antiques. Finding new ways to make the old pieces fit into our more modern living spaces. 

We still have the first big furniture purchase we made as a married couple, our dining room set. I know one day it won't fit in our living space, and maybe someday one of my girls will want it or maybe not. We could reno it and make it less formal but for now it makes me happy. 

We've parted with some things through the years, usually by giving to someone who needs whatever it is we don't. I dislike the hassle of selling stuff and in general would rather donate than deal with a sale. 

As I'm writing these posts and thinking about what I hold on to I realize the why is really pretty simple. The things I keep are anchors to the moments and milestones in my life. They're markers in the story of me. 

Linking today's A-Z post with Joanne for Talking About It Tuesdays