Mid Hodgepodge

Welcome to another week of Hodgepodging smack dab in the middle of May. Answer the questions on your own blog, then add your link at the end of my post. Be sure to leave a comment for the blogger linking before you, because we're all about being neighborly here.

1.  Tell us about a time you found yourself 'in the middle of nowhere'. Was this deliberate? 

Hubs and I enjoy hiking and have landed many times in the middle of nowhere. The first thing that came to mind was a trip we took one April to Dartmoor on the coast of England (to read all about it click here). 

We hiked for miles and miles without seeing another single solitary soul. Nothing but wide open gorgeous countryside and a whole lot of sheep. It felt like we might be the only people on the planet.  

2. What's something you're in the middle of today or this week? 

I suppose the home build would be too obvious an answer? How about furniture shopping? I'm meeting a friend today to sit on some couches and hopefully find a few other bits and pieces we need for the house. 

3. At what age do you think 'middle age' begins? What does it mean to be 'middle aged'? 

It used to be 40 was the magic number, but having lived through that decade already I'm going with 48. That was the first year of my life I considered maybe I'm not as young in person as I am in my head. The bookend of 40 used to be 60, but in my mind that's still very much middle age. 70 is the new 60. 

What does it mean to be middle aged?

I can't read the fine print without assistance. I wake up with mysterious aches and pains known in our house as 'sleep injuries'. I don't take good health for granted, and I spend a lot of time managing said health. I notice and feel gratitude for the small things. I enjoy watching my grown up girls make their way in the world. Life is not an emergency, but I do feel a sense of urgency about time, about the people I love, and about doing what matters for eternity. 

4. Ravioli, stuffed peppers, samosas, deviled eggs, steamed dumplings, peirogis, or a jelly donut...your favorite food (from this list!) with something yummy in the middle. Your favorite not on the list? 

Steamed dumplings or as they say in Shanghai-xiaolongbao. So delicious! I wrote a whole post about them (click here) when I recapped our trip to China back in 2012. 

5. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying,"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." Would you agree? Have you found this to be true in your own life? Feel free to elaborate. 

Oh absolutely I agree. We have a choice to see that opportunity for what it is or to wallow in the hard thing. My daughter and I were talking about this recently, and we decided that in order to know you can do hard things you have to do hard things-ha! I try hard not to wallow...I'm not always successful but I do try. 

6. What's a song you remember loving from your middle school years? Do you love it still? 

Pretty sure I still love most of them because 70's music is the best and you kind of can't help but love it. A few that popped into my head were American Pie by Don McClean, Benny and the Jets by Elton John, Come and Get Your Love by Redbone and this one- Operator by Jim Croce.  He was such a poet. 

I could list a hundred more...

7. May 18th is National Visit Your Relatives Day. Will you celebrate? Which relative would you visit if time, distance, and expense were not considered? 

Now that I know this I'll definitely pop in and see Daughter2, who conveniently is currently my neighbor. We watch a show together on Wednesdays so I guess that's how we'll celebrate. 

If time and distance were not a consideration I'd love to have a cup of tea with my momma and both my girls. East coast, west coast I don't care, as long as we're all around the same table. 

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

Is anyone watching the new TLC show called Outdaughtered ?The Busbys are parents of six girls-a five year old daughter and then the quints who are just over a year old. They are such a cute family, and I hope they stay above the fray that families seem to get swept up in once they get their own show. 

Their program airs on Tuesday nights, but my Daughter2 DVR's it and then we watch together on Wednesdays. 

Reminiscing

When I say Reminiscing I'm talking about the song.

Well likely a bit of remembering too because there's always a lot of that on my blog, but mostly I'm thinking of the song.

It's been playing in my head since Friday night when we went to see Little River Band perform in a nearby smallish venue. I love to see/hear live music in these types of settings and we were on the third row so super close to the stage. We chatted with the other couples in our row while waiting for the show to begin and since this was our first time in the venue a woman sitting nearby warned us it would be loud. Ha. We're okay with loud. I might like to play my music kinda loud. ahem. My girls are laughing right about now.

fyi-it wasn't too loud.

Little River Band was originally a group of musicians from Australia who were popular in the late 1970's and early 80's. Even if you don't recognize the band name you probably know some of their music. Band members have changed some in the course of 30 years but their wonderful sound remains the same.

Wait.

30 years?

That can't be right, can it?

Has it really been 30 years since I was in my lovely dorm room with the built in bunk bed and the cinder block wall and no a.c. listening to Little River Band on something that was not a CD because there was no such thing as a CD?

Nothing in that last sentence dates me, does it?

One thing did make us feel a little bit old. As I said the venue was not huge, a former movie theater with the screens removed to make way for a good sized stage. Most of the crowd was our age, give or take ten years. A couple who appeared to be just a few years younger than us took the seats across the aisle from ours. They were reluctantly accompanied by their tween-aged son who so obviously wanted to be anywhere but there on a Friday night in March. Oh, he was not a happy camper.

How did we know this? Well, let's see, it might have been the fact that he was the only under-25 in attendance, the surly look on his face, the slouch, or quite possibly it was the eye daggers aimed at mom and dad.

Fortunately when he dressed for the evening he anticipated a little bit of what he was in for because when his mama literally leapt out of her seat and ran to the stage and hmmm...how to say this nicely?....shook her groove thing? he was able to pull his hoodie completely over his face. If there had been a hole in the floor he'd have been in it.

His mother was o-bli-vi-ous.

I think she was a lost in 1980 for a minute or ten.

Nothing like watching that to remind you you're not 20 anymore.

One other little fun thing about the evening was that we got to meet the keyboard player...such a nice guy and so talented. Good hair too which is something held in high regard at our house.

Turns out he's from tiny town Virginia and one of our college pals is a mutual friend. This friend sent the keyboard player a facebook message saying we'd be at the show so he looked for us afterwards and we chatted. This wouldn't have happened back in 1980 ya know. We'd have had to stalk the band the old fashioned way.

Time marches on.

It was a fun evening and we were both a little bit hoarse on Saturday.

I'm pretty sure I heard my hubs invite the band to stay at our house next time they're here.

I told you I have to watch him every minute.

Some things never change.

Some people call me Maurice....

I've been at my mom's since Tuesday which explains why I've been mostly incommunicado from the blogosphere this week. I faked you out with my Hodgepodge posts, didn't I? Can't let the criminal element know I'm out of town....I'm certain they sit around reading my blog.

Anyway, I'm home now and it's Friday afternoon and I've opened my email inbox and my blog inbox and my facebook and WOW!...a lot happens when you don't check in regularly. I'll catch up this weekend but today I wanted to join Flashback Friday over on Linda's blog. You can read the full prompt here but essentially she's asked about what sorts of fads and expressions were popular when we were growing up. Since it's such a huge topic I've decided to focus on the expressions because I'm kinda all about words here.

I consider myself a child of the 1970's. My birthday and age aren't really a secret since I wrote a post or ten about my BIG day back in September. I'll go ahead and save you the trouble of doing the math and tell you I turned 10 years old in 1970. I'm sure my undying love of music from that decade is all tied up with the fact that it was the soundtrack to my adolescence. And also because it's the best music ever. Period.

When I read the prompt I started thinking about what words and expressions were popular back in the day and there were zillions. It's possible a few of them seeped so deeply into my vocabulary that I continue to periodically throw them out there today, not so much in public but definitely in my own home.

I asked my hubs what expressions he remembered and the first word that popped out of his mouth was, guess what? Psyche! I already wrote about his love of that term here so I won't rehash it now but wow, has it been around for 30+ years? Were the 70's more than three decades ago? Am I old?

C.B. radios were a big thing back in the 70's and came with their own lingo, some of which spilled over into everyday speech...Hey Good Buddy, Smokies (police officers) and especially 'Keep on Truckin' although I am pretty certain I never uttered the words, 'Keep on Truckin'. I mean, C.B. radios were big out on the interstate highways but not so much in the leafy suburbs of southern NJ.

The television show Saturday Night Live debuted in the 70's and many popular expressions made their way into our everyday speech as a result...'Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!' was huge. Steve Martin used it regularly and thus so did teenage America. He also used the phrase, "Everything copasetic?" and I still like that one.

Another word you heard a lot in the 70's was 'turkey' as in, 'Don't be a turkey.' Insulting, but usually meant in a joking way.

We could still take a joke in the 1970s.

How about the word, 'bummer'? Do people still use this word...besides me I mean? I definitely used this one growing up...'that's a bummer', 'what a bummer', or just plain 'bummer'. Oh, and also ripoff...that was huge. Because when you're a teenager and parents put the kibosh on your fun it felt good to shout, 'What a rip-off!!!' as you were sent to your room.

Another word that was huge back in the day was 'duh' or even better, 'no duh'. Said whenever someone stated the obvious which must have been often because I remember it becoming really tiresome. And it had to be said in a particular tone so that the person on the receiving end would be made to feel like an idiot.

Evidently Charlie Sheen is bringing it back, as in-'I'm a winner, duh.'

He's seriously not right.

No duh.

Speaking of drugs, ahem...when it comes to words the drug culture of the 70's also added to our vocabulary. I have a crystal clear memory of riding somewhere in the car with my sweet mom when Steve Miller's-The Joker started playing on the radio. My mom looked at me, her innocent and naive thirteen year old daughter, and asked, 'What's a toker?' I remember feeling nervous and embarrassed as I did my best to explain. Did I even know?

More importantly, what's 'the Pompatus of Love?' and why didn't she ask me that one. Isn't that the question most people ask when they hear The Joker? I still can't answer.

I could go on and on but I need to book. This was cool-city and I was stoked to be part of Flashback Friday today...it rocked to the max. I hope your weekend is decent and you get to hang and chill with your peeps.

Oh seriously, I never talked like that.

Okay, maybe that last bit might have been me but for the most part while I didn't use a lot of slang I did hear a lot of slang and those words and expressions are all tangled up with my childhood memories.

Have I mentioned my favorite thing about the decade was the music?

I heart the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 13

Welcome to the weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge...if you're lurking why not join the party?

Be sure to add your link to the bottom of this post and then add the Hodgepodge button or a link to my blog in your post so people know where to find the fun.

That would be here.

In the Hodgepodge.

Every Wednesday.

Enjoy!

1. What is more important to you-doing what you love or loving what you do?

Sometimes I stump my very own self with these questions. What seems like a simple question on the surface is actually somewhat complicated underneath. I am going to say loving what you do. I think its wonderful to be able to do whatever it is you love to do in life but oftentimes we're not that fortunate. I think it's important for me to learn to love what I am doing, otherwise I will go thru life feeling restless and unhappy. Contentment is huge in my book.

2. Do you like bleu cheese?

Yes. Sadly I don't think I've ever met a cheese I didn't like.

3. What is the most difficult emotion for you to handle?

Fear....as in nervousness. I carry on a running conversation with God and also with myself when it comes to anxiety and worry. I've made great strides but its still probably the emotion I find hardest to handle.

4. Fresh flowers or chocolate?

Fresh flowers. Don't get me wrong...I love chocolate and its part of the food pyramid in my house, but there is nothing like fresh flowers to brighten a dreary winter day. Have I mentioned I'm a teensy bit tired of winter?

5. What's a song you love that has the word 'love' in the title? It doesn't have to be a 'love song'.

I could put 100 answers in this space.

Really.

How He Loves by The David Crowder band is maybe my favorite song ever but I'm not going with that one. Instead I'm going with the very first song that popped into my head and that's Love Train by The O'Jays. How can you not love this song? Doesn't it make you want to sing along?

In our house we smile at the words to the very first verse "...the next stop- that we make- will be England..." ...when Daughter1 was in grade 9 we lived in Maryland and she was in her high school's rock and roll revue. In one number she sang and danced to this song. She had no idea that just five short months later her next stop really would be England. Its a happy song. Plus I'm pretty sure you know how I feel about music of the 1970's.

6. Are you the person you wanted to be when you grew up?

No. Well, sort of but not completely, no. I don't think I'll elaborate.

7. Any special Valentine's Day plans?

I'm somewhat pleased with myself this year as I managed to order a treat for my girls to be delivered to their mailboxes on time. On time is key. Plus, I put packages into the mail for them that will also arrive on time...special gifts the hubs bought for his girls in China. I even managed to order a little something for the hubs which will also arrive on time. I'm patting myself on the back for doing these things far enough in advance that special delivery wasn't necessary.

Hubs and I will probably have a nice dinner someplace, maybe even at home because we like to cook together. And it will most likely be this weekend since I'm pretty sure my Valentine is traveling on the actual day.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

'The King's Speech' is the best movie I've seen in a long time. You don't even need to love all things British or enjoy history or to have at one time been employed as a Speech Therapist to enjoy this film. It is fabulous!

I hear music...sweet, sweet music

Today's Flashback Friday post is all about music so I couldn't pass that one up. Even though I have had overnight guests here who needed breakfast and we have a child to pick up at the Newark airport in Friday traffic I am still going to play along. Daughter1 is coming home for a long weekend so she can attend the wedding of a childhood friend and we can't wait to have her home with us for a few days. She hasn't spent much time in this house and it always makes me smile to see her sleeping snug in her own bed.

Okay, I'm supposed to be talking about music which happens to be one of my favorite things in the world. I love music. Lots of different types of music. However, I myself am not musically inclined. As a young girl I always wanted to play the piano but we didn't have one growing up so that didn't happen. I did enjoy singing in our church youth choir all thru my high school years but let's be honest and say that was more about the friends I made there and not so much about my singing ability. Which, lets also be honest and say is minimal.

My husband is very musical and comes from a family where everyone plays an instrument and sings in tune. Well, not sure about my fil but everyone else, yes. Hubs played the trumpet growing up. And he sings and as I've mentioned here a time or ten, he never met a microphone he didn't want to step behind. He definitely has an ear for music...sometimes he annoys me when we're in the car and he changes the radio station before I even know what song is playing. I mean I haven't even caught the first note and I need several to identify the song anyway and he says 'oh, we don't like that one.' He only needs one note, sometimes only a half a note. I wanted my girls to have music because I think it adds so much to our lives. Both of my girls thankfully got their dad's genes here and both have lovely singing voices and between them play the piano, violin and guitar.

Growing up we listened to music on a transistor radio and we listened to a lot of am stations.WIBG, WFIL Philadelphia anyone? I remember getting my first stereo which also contained an 8-track tape player. Exciting times they were. I remember buying albums and finally seeing what the band actually looked like...no videos back then or video channels and of course no internet either so unless you saw a band in concert or bought their album you had no idea what they looked like. Even then sometimes the covers were something funky and you still had no clue. I know the sound is better on a CD but a CD case does not evoke the same feeling as the one you got perusing a brand new album. We still have our stereo up and running and sometimes play our albums.

My parents were pretty good when it came to what we listened to. I mostly remember going in my room and closing the door and if I wanted to play it loud (which is how I like my music still) I would put on my headphones. And headphones when I was a teenager were not teeny tiny little ear buds. They were huge. We did not know that CD's, walkmen, MP3 players and later, something called an ipod would be a part of our future. We listened to our albums on stereos with speakers the size of small children and we liked it.

I have siblings who are five and seven years older than me so they were teenagers in the late sixties and early seventies and I grew up listening to their music. I loved it...The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Herman's Hermits, too many to name really. Sometimes my younger sister and I would go into my older sisters room and we'd blast her stereo and dance on her canopy bed. We had little carrying cases of 45's too...remember the little insert that went in the center hole so they would play on a regular stereo? My younger sister and I shared a room and my brother's room was beside ours. He played the guitar and I remember the early days of his playing and listening thru the bedroom wall as he strummed House of the Rising Sun over and over and over. And over and over and over.

My dad loved country music which was not really anything like today's country music but he loved his Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride. My dad could not carry a tune at all but that did not stop him from singing along. My parents played a lot of Christian music too which I guess was contemporary in its day but I don't think they called it that back then. I loved the Gaithers and I can still remember the sound of George Beverly Shea singing "How Great Thou Art" which is one of my favorite hymns of all time.

What I really love about music is the ability it has to make you feel deeply and suddenly. Music carries you back to a place and time and I love the way I can be plodding along thru life and hear a song and suddenly be transported back to 1977. Or 1997. Music and memory go hand in hand for me.

I could never pick a favorite song but every now and then hubs and I will hear a song and say, 'Oh that one's on my all time top 10 list.' Which I kind of keep in my head and have never written down. I like the music of the 70's and early 80's the best probably because it was the soundtrack to my teenage/young adult years. And also because it was the best. I like country music today. I like beach music. I listen to a lot of contemporary Christian music and I like a lot of music from Broadway too. I never get tired of the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera.

If I were naming favorite tunes I'd have to do it by category and even then I'm not sure I could do it. Music is as much about the mood I'm in and what is going on in my life as it is about the actual notes. There are a few songwriters who I think have a bit of the poet in them and I keep a running list of favorite song lines in my head too. A lot goes on in my head people. Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Jim Croce...they fall into this category.

If I had to choose I'd say my favorite bands are The Eagles and U2. Fantastic music with lyrics that actually say something. If we are talking country music I love Kenny Chesney, Rascall Flats, and Brooks and Dunn. In the Contemporary Christian genre I listen to a lot of David Crowder Band and Point of Grace and I love old hymns too. My new favorite band which crosses lines when it comes to genre is NeedtoBreathe...they are amazingly talented and I have played their Outsiders cd at least a thousand times.

I feel like I need to link to a song here but how in the world can I pick just one? But I will...this is one of my all time favorites...one among hundreds...how can anyone not love the music of The Temptations?

And just in case you don't know NeedtoBreathe I feel I need to educate you...my daughter1 got me hooked on their music back before they were very well known. Bear attended the same uni as my girls and the band played at some fraternity events where daughter1 heard them and fell instantly in love with their music. Their song Something Beautiful is played a lot on the radio now but here's the title song....

Be sure to stop by Linda's blog today to read more Flashback Friday musical posts.

I Write the Randoms that the Whole World Reads

Okay, maybe not the whole world but a few of you read here. It Looks like we made it...to another weekly random. How many Barry Manilow lyrics can I incorporate into this post? More than one apparently. Come play along by answering this week's questions on your own blog...be sure to link your answers over at 2nd cup of Coffee...we can't smile without you. Okay I'll stop now.

1. Ever had any run-ins with the "library police?"

Well, nothing on the scale of George Washington, that’s for sure. Maybe a few cents here and there...

2. Do you have a special organizational plan and place for wrapping paper, gift bags, etc., or do you just purchase whatever you need as you give gifts?

Hmmm…organizational plan? That would probably be good. Lets say at the moment I have a semi-organized plan. What I have is organized but I don’t have much in stock.

3. Have you ever been in (first-hand witness) a natural disaster?

Not really. We did experience a hurricane in Maryland one year that downed some huge trees, one of which crushed my neighbors car...we lost power for several days too. Hubs was out of town and it was my birthday and my mom was visiting. We played a lot of board games by the light of our camping lantern. I’ve had better birthdays.

4. What's your favorite Barry Manilow song?

I’m going with Weekend in New England but it could also be I Write the Songs or of course, Mandy. My hubs once rode in an elevator with Barry Manilow and his bodyguard. That would be Barry's bodyguard, not my hubs bodyguard...my hubs doesn't actually require a bodyguard.

5. What's the best costume you've ever worn?

Nothing really stands out..when I taught school and I was required to be dressed in costume for a class Halloween party I was either Raggedy Ann or a chef. Not sure you'd call them great costumes but I could manage the costume and a room full of kindergartners who had consumed too many treats, all without losing my mind so for me they were great. And the kids loved them.

6. Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?

It’s a toss up. I love words. Have I mentioned that here before?

7. What's your favorite breakfast food?

I love eggs fixed any which way (except raw, ala Rocky) but my absolute favorite breakfast is probably French Toast. I couldn’t begin to even guess when I last had any though. My standard breakfast these days is a bowl of Special K with Red Berries and skim milk. It’s pretty good.

8. Have you ever purchased anything from an infomercial?

Only one thing. Well technically it was 7 things. It was a Time-Life CD set of seventies music. And it was/is fantastic. This was shortly before my hubs 40^th birthday and I was throwing him a 70s’ themed party so we’d been looking for music from our youth. We had been over at a friend’s house and had come home very late. Exceedingly late. We flipped on the TV and the infomercial for the CD set was playing. Hubs got a little carried away in all the excitement and after he placed the order he felt the need to phone our friends and share the good news. Ooops. Forgot it was the middle of the night. Fortunately they were good friends. We still listen to that set a lot and it was worth every single solitary penny. The day it arrived we invited our friends over and we sat in our family room and listened to the entire set (yes, seven complete discs) while the kids played downstairs in our playroom. They periodically opened the door and shouted, “Would you parents turn that music down??!!”

I figured there'd be lots of Barry Manilow links on the Random today so instead I'm going to link to a song from the set we bought that we’d all completely forgotten about until we heard it on the CD...ya gotta love the 70's.

9. Have you ever crawled through a window?

Uh, no.

10. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Not really. Extreme interest at first sight-yes.

11. How many pairs of jeans do you own?

Roughly five…give or take a pair or four.

12. If someone were going to bake a cake to honor/represent you, what would it be? (Think creatively, like Duff and Crew on "Ace of Cakes.")

Perhaps a suitcase? Windsor Castle? A stack of books? Any of those would work for me.