Rolling The Dice In The Wednesday Hodgepodge

Welcome to the Hodgepodge! If you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger linking before you. Don't forget to add a link back here in your post somewhere, so your readers can play along too. Here we go-

 

1. Ever played the game Farkle? Are you a risk taker? In games only or also in life?

For those who don't know, Farkle is a dice game and yes, I've played. My daughter2 also gave me a yard version of the game with giant wooden dice to throw onto the grass and it's a lot of fun. 

I will take risks while playing games, but am less of a risk taker in life. I guess it depends on the potential reward?

2. What's your favorite thing about your yard or whatever outdoor space you may have?

The view. I've posted a million pics but what's one more?

Or two?

It's a dog's life for sure!

3. Tell us about the most interesting building you've seen or been in.

Now this is hard, because I've been in so many interesting buildings. Countless castles, castle ruins, and cathedrals all across Europe, sky high towers in Asia, and closer to home NYC. A few favorites are The Houses of Parliament in London, The Guggenheim in NYC and The Colosseum in Rome. 

If I have to pick a 'most interesting' I'm going to say the Abbey at Mont-St.-Michel sitting high atop a tidal island in Normandy France. It was built in the 11th century and the notion of it's intricate and ornate construction on this piece of land in that time period is truly amazing. 

4. In this current season of social distancing, what's something you've come to realize you take for granted in more ordinary times? Do you think you'll make a conscious effort to appreciate whatever that 'it' is once normal life resumes?

A well stocked grocery store. Making plans for future travel, family gatherings, and events. Sitting beside someone in church, at a ball game, concert, restaurant. 

One reason I enjoy keeping up with my blog is it helps me remember things and how I felt about them at the time. When life resumes some sense of normalcy I think reading back will be a gentle reminder to feel gratitude for the ordinary everyday things we missed during this season of strangeness.  

5. Share a favorite song with a springtime flower in the lyrics somewhere.

I love Wildflowers by Tom Petty- 



6. Insert your own random thought here.

Hair salons are reopening in our state next week but sadly my appointment was for this week. Good news though! I was able to get an appt for later this month which felt like a real coup. It's the little things, right? 

Turbulent Waters

Does anyone else feel like the alphabet is about 500 letters long? On the bright side, we've passed the halfway point as of today so whoohoo!

Today's word comes to you courtesy of my sister-in-law,  and I know some of you are thinking 'wow, she's got a lot of family.' You're right. I do, and it's been fun in this season of distance to feel a connection to each one through this little writing exercise on my blog.

Also, every day before I tackle the writing I tell myself I am not going to mention the Corona and then every day it seems I do. It's hard to avoid and while it wasn't my intended theme, its turned out most days to be at least an undercurrent.

Day 14-N is for Navigate

Since this letter happens to land on a Thursday I think I'm going with an old fashioned list, which is how almost all bloggers used to blog on Thursdays, aka The Thursday Thirteen. 

The word navigate is most commonly used in reference to the water, but it can also mean to make one's way over or through. Since our boat is still under cover until the pollen subsides and we're all trying to navigate through life in these uncertain times, let's go with definition #2. 

What are you doing that you're finding helps you on a daily basis to stay positive in your outlook, connected to family and friends, and not crazy-bored-fearful-restless? 

Perhaps you are all of those things at various times, which I think is normal, but in general what are you doing to navigate the choppy waters of 2020?  I read something on a friend's FB page that said while we're all in the same boat, we're not all in the same storm and that resonated with me. 

I don't have little ones at home who need to be fed/bathed/loved/entertained 24/7. I don't have teenagers at home, filled with 1000 disappointments about the life they are missing, we're retired so there are not the job stressors or lack of job stressors so many are feeling, but still everyone is navigating their own life's boat right now and how we stay afloat is worth some thought. 

Here's my list of 13...there might be more but these are some of the things helping me navigate the turbulent waters we find ourselves in today-

1. Prayer, which may sound cliche to some, but is a true lifeline for me. 

2. Maintain a routine. We've learned the importance of this since hubs retired, and have had a few years to practice. I know I need a bit of structure to my days, that a blank canvas all day every day is not for me. I need some to-do's to complete and some things on the calendar to look forward to. 

I'm an early riser, and while there's no real reason to be these days I still get up early. Same goes for getting dressed in real clothes and doing the weekly mundane chores that need doing. I guess it's different for everyone, but I know I cannot stay in pajamas for days at a time, unless I'm truly sick. It's depressing. I make my bed every single day and doing that one simple task somehow makes life feel more normal.  

3. FaceTime with my daughter and grandsons in South Korea. They are such sweet happy boys and it's obvious they're well loved and cared for. Seeing them on the screen doing all the things little boys love to do makes my heart and mind feel ten pounds lighter.

4. Cards with friends and my mom each week via Zoom feels almost normal too. We chat and laugh and catch up just like we do when we play cards in person. 

5. Keeping up with friends and family also via a Zoom call keeps them close, maybe not physically but at least in spirit. Also, scheduling calls in advance gives us something to add to the calendar and look forward to. It might be small in the scheme of things, but having something to look forward to later in the week adds a bright spot to a mostly blank slate. 

6. 'Attending' Sunday School and my Women's Bible Study each week (again via Zoom) keeps life moving forward when it quite often seems like we're all at a standstill. We carry on from week to week, moving through our studies as if we're all in the same building. This helps give the days some much appreciated forward momentum. 

6. Menu planning. Trying new recipes and pulling out some old favorites. There are not a lot of things we can plan for right now, but what we'll eat for dinner these next two weeks is something that requires thought and planning and helps me feel productive. 

7. Knowing it's okay not to be productive right now. Embracing this season of stillness and figuring out what I want to take away from it once we're all free to move about and interact with one another in person. Being grateful for time and space to think. 

8. Writing. Moving my observations, feelings, and concerns from the top of my brain into my journal or onto this blog clears my head and helps me see things differently. 

9. Turn off the news. Or at least don't watch a lot of news. This is an absolute key to good mental health right now. 

10. Same goes for how I handle social media these days. If you're posting funny memes, sharing recipes, cute pictures of your children, your mother, or your pet I'm all in. I hide any and all posts where someone is ranting about the government, the President, or the upcoming election. 

I'm not saying these things don't matter, but now is not the time. I won't allow myself to be sucked in to the arguing and the scolding and the finger pointing. It's a mood killer and I'm navigating around those hazards whenever I can. 

11. Read books, work puzzles, solve a crossword, play a board game...keep your mind busy. 

12. Get outside. Fresh air and sunshine do wonders for the soul. 

13. This is a season where navigating our life boats is difficult, treacherous even for some. But even in more ordinary times we are always making choices as to how we see our lives, and whether we're going to allow the challenges we encounter to sink us. My joy does not depend on my circumstances and for that I am eternally grateful. 

Hodgepodge Questions and The A to Z

Before I post this week's questions for the Hodgepodge (scroll down) I want to mention a little something called the A-Z Blog Challenge.

As per my normal way of participating each year, I signed up last minute over the weekend and posting starts Wednesday. That would be tomorrow. I hadn't given any thought to the challenge, but since it seems there's plenty of time to blog these days I jumped on in. Visit this link by April 4th if you'd like to blog along too.

The A-Z Challenge started back in 2010, but my first year participating was 2011. I stuck with it every April through 2016, but this will be my first year back since. The way this challenge works is you post every day during the month of April, using the alphabet as your guide. Since we don't blog on Sundays that conveniently makes room for 26 posts to coincide with 26 letters of the alphabet.

You're not required to have a theme, but I like a theme. I need a jumping off place to give my normal random some structure. In the past I've written about travel (2011), a trip to Asia (2012), parenting (2013), marriage (2014), change (2015), and home (2016).

Since coming up with blog content in the age of social distancing means one must get creative,  I thought it might be fun to make this something of a group activity. I emailed 26 friends/family who I know read my blog and gave each one a letter of the alphabet. I asked them to send me a word beginning with that letter and I'll write my posts around their chosen words.

I thought they might drag their feet a little, but almost everyone responded immediately. And now I have an interesting collection of words that have nothing to do with anything so it will be fun to take off writing and see where I land. Stay tuned!

Now on to this week's Hodgepodge-

We're still here. In our own little houses with plenty of time to blog, so why not join the Wednesday Hodgepodge? Answer the questions on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with the universe. See you there!

1. Has spring sprung in your part of the world? How can you tell? Did March come in like a lion where you live? Going out like a lamb or something more ferocious?

2. The last thing that caused you to spring to your feet?

3. Do you have a spring clean to-do list? What's one chore on the list you've already managed to accomplish? What spring clean chore do you most dread?

4. Tell us something you've learned about yourself or the wider world as a result of social distancing/the virus crisis.

5. Something you love that's the color pink?

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Monday March Madness

Not the fun kind of March madness because fun was cancelled this month, wasn't it?

Well maybe not cancelled but we are definitely having to work for it. Pretty soon all my blog posts will be titled 'what I ate this week'. We're all learning to get creative and figure out new ways of connecting and socializing from at least ten feet away.

Are you on Zoom? We had a Zoom call with a group of college friends Friday night, and another with a former work colleague of the hubs on Saturday. I don't know why we never did this prior to social distancing because it's a great way to connect as a group and we laughed a lot. I even played cards with friends last week via Zoom and our Sunday School class is meeting that way as well.

Temps have climbed into the 80's here which is delightful. We haven't dropped the boat in the water yet, since pollen has run amok-

Don't think we'll be dining out here just yet, but I am looking forward to al fresco dinners in the near future. And once most of the pollen is down we'll be back to meeting up with friends by water. Everyone can stay safely on their own boats a healthy distance away and life might feel a little bit ordinary. Whoohoo!

Hubs has been spending his at-home time painting all the trim in the house. He enjoys a project and this is a tedious job that needed to be done. He's a meticulous painter and it all looks so crisp and clean. Perhaps if we're confined to home much longer he'll get to some of the walls too?

We've cooked some stuff. Ha! We're all cooking these days aren't we? We tried a new recipe on Saturday for grilled shrimp tacos with avocado salsa and it was a keeper.

So easy and I'll definitely make this one again. I found the recipe here.

Still have two dogs to walk which is a happy distraction and a reason to leave the house. I'm watching very little news, but do tune in to hear our governor's updates and catch headlines to see if there are new developments to be aware of on any given day.

We started watching a program on netflix called Tales By Light and are enjoying that. Each episode features a photographer taking pictures of something fabulous somewhere in the world and their shots are pretty amazing. My daughter and I have been binging old seasons of The Great British Baking Show and are completely addicted. I'm determined to bake something I've never tried before using my one packet of yeast, which I was lucky to get. Suddenly everybody's a baker.

Speaking of baking, daughter2 and I finished a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle last week-

It ended up being 998 pieces thanks to a lightning fast little brown dog who shall remain nameless, ahem, but still fun and really pretty. How long do you leave a completed puzzle set up? We wrapped this one up on Thursday and I put it back in the box Saturday. Since it looks like staying home is the name of the game for a while longer I need the table space to start another.

So that's about it-reading, cooking, walking the dogs, working puzzles, a little TV, a few home cleaning/organizing projects, and more blogging than I've done in months are what's filling the time here. I have to say many of these activities are things I enjoy doing anyway, even when social distancing isn't the norm.

How 'bout you? What are you doing to stay busy?

Hey Hodgepodgers! No That's Not A Mistake

Before I dive in to the word prompt of the day I want to throw something out there. For eight years I hosted a blog link up every week called The Wednesday Hodgepodge. I asked a few random questions each Tuesday and bloggers answered on their own blogs, then linked back to mine on Wednesday so everyone could share answers. It was fun but in 2018, after 360 episodes, I declared it done. It felt like it had run it's course and had also become something of a burden to my already very busy life.

But hey, life isn't quite so busy at the moment and while we're all pretty much housebound I thought I might ressurect it for a bit. It was a great connector of people and I feel like we're all longing to connect someway somehow.  If you're a blogger and this is something you'd like to see happen, let me know. It was always a word of mouth kind of thing but it worked. If there's enough interest we'll start next week so stay tuned.

Okay on to Day 9 in the ten day writing challenge...

The word prompt-mistake 

Make no mistake..I'm a glass half full, where's the silver lining, let's find the sunny side of life kind of girl. Which can be a challenge in this weird new normal we're currently experiencing, but still I'm going to try.

A list of thirteen always feels appropriate on a Thursday so how about thirteen small blessings to be found in all this at home togetherness.

1. My family is going to have to play games with me. They will laugh and possibly roll their eyes, but they won't be surprised to see this is the first thing I thought of in terms of silver linings.

2. While the grocery bill is still high, our dining out bill is $0.

3.Since nobody has to leave the house for work at 6:15 in the morning I'm sleeping in.  Hubs would say that's not really true because it's still black as night when I get up, but! it's not 5:45 am so that's something.

4. My baseboards are going to be the cleanest they've been since we moved in three and a half years ago.

5. Lots of time to read and not feel like I should be doing something else.

6. A grown up daughter in the house 24/7

7. I saw a meme that said Issac Newton more or less invented Calculus while Cambridge was closed due to the plague, so surely I can write a blog post or two.

8. Speaking of memes...parents unexpectedly managing school at home for an indeterminate period of time are creating some of the funniest stuff on the Internet right now.

9. The Internet. I know we have mixed emotions about technology at our fingertips, but in this season of keeping your physical distance it's a blessing to connect via our devices.

10. The opportunity we've been given to examine our priorities and make adjustments going forward.

11. Less waste. Thinking twice before randomly grabbing a handful of paper towels when one will do the trick. Using all the food in the frig. Fewer trips in the car.

12. The reminder that we need far less than we think we need.

13. Gratitude. For all the things we are suddenly aware we enjoy and take for granted when life is not interrupted by a virus...dinner in a restaurant, sitting in a church pew, an airplane whisking us away to somewhere wonderful, cheering on our favorite team with a few thousand other folks, visiting an older loved one face to face and so much more.

So what's one small blessing you've found in the middle of the crazy?

On The Street Where You Live

So how is everyone managing so far with the whole social distancing thing? My teacher daughter is working from home and in case anyone wonders what teachers are doing with all that 'free time' they're getting paid for, let me assure you they are working.

The school system requires teachers to keep 'office hours' from 7:30-3:30 and I'm pretty sure she'll hear her message notification sound in her sleep. In addition she is completing report cards, uploading videos, walking parents through the day's work, reading aloud to her students, speaking to parents by phone and email, answering questions, and creating more lesson plans in the event this e-learning turns into 'the remainder of the year'.

Also I'm not sure the Internet was ready for every single person in the US of A to log on today.

Hubs and I are tackling some of those spring cleaning jobs that need tackling. I scoured bathrooms, hubs vacuumed, we covered our porch furniture and temporarily rolled up the outdoor rug because pollen season is officially upon us. I baked a loaf of banana bread with my overly ripe bananas and figured out what I can make for dinner with ingredients from my frig.

It's gray and dreary outside which seems to fit the general mood of the world right now, but everyone needs to strap in and stay the course. We've had a few people call and ask us to do things but y'all! Social distancing means distance from all things social. There are some essential interactions that have to happen but non-essential activities (aka all the fun stuff) need to be put on hold. It's not forever and we can do this.

Let's carry on with the ten day writing challenge shall we...

Day 8-the word prompt is street

I grew up on a street where kids played outside til dark or til their mamas called them home. Where we couldn't wait for Saturday. Where we went door to door selling girl scout cookies and rode bicycles 'Look! No hands!

Where teenagers mowed lawns and washed the family car with a bucket and a sponge.Where we played freeze tag on the front lawn, had garage sales and block parties and knew all the neighbors, not just the ones next door.

Where we walked to school, learned to cross at the corner, say hello when spoken to. Where flags flew and gardens grew and just washed sheets were pinned to a line. Where dinner was at 6 and the evening only news right after.

Where we didn't know what went on behind every closed door.

Where you wore new shoes in September and galoshes when it rained. Where dogs were walked and pumpkins carved and windows were thrown wide open in the coolness of spring.

Where the whole family shared a phone and a couple of cars and only the grown ups drank coffee.

I grew up on a street with backyard swingsets and driveway hopscotch. Where we jumped ropes and kicked cans and tightened skates with a key worn round your neck. Where snow days meant pulling a saucer to the top of the road, then hanging on tight as you careened back down. Where Santa came by firetruck every Christmas Eve.

I grew up on a street where the scent of a charcoal grill said summer's here. Where the world was it's own kind of crazy but not held in your hand or attached to your ear.

I grew up on a street that said be a kid because childhood is a precious thing and should not be hurried.