Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 658

Here are the questions to this week's Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here on Wednesday (June 17th) to share your answers. See you there! 

1. June 17th, 1994 was the day of the infamous O.J. Simpson car chase. What were you doing in 1994? I'm guessing somebody is going to tell me they weren't born yet but that's part of the fun of the Hodgepodge. Lots of generations are represented here. 

2. What's your favorite summer salad that isn't the traditional tossed green lettuce kind of salad? Do you like fresh fruit in a salad (other than in a fruit salad of course)?

3. Is chivalry dead? Should it be? 

4. Would you rather spend a week of your summer vacation in Hawaii or Alaska? Have you ever been to either? Are they two places you really would like to see? How do you feel about 'Hawaiian pizza' aka pineapple on a pizza? Have you ever eaten Baked Alaska? 

5. World Cup play is happening now...are you interested? Watching any matches? Did you or your children play soccer/futbol? There are eleven US cities hosting matches-

-Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York with the stadium in NJ, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle

along with  three cities in Mexico (Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey)

and two in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver)-

You get free tickets to one of these matches. Which city do you choose? Tell us why. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

It's A Winter-ful Life

Hello friends and hello Monday. Linking with Holly (Pink Lady) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books) today for their weekend catch up blog hop. 

So. It snowed. It has been below freezing all weekend long. In South Carolina. Not cool. 

I mean it was actually really really cool, but that's not cool. We Palmetto people like our warm temps and life lived outdoors and occasionally a boat ride mid-winter. Instead we have an icy driveway, frosty fingertips, and lots of time spent at home. I'm not complaining (much) because I love cozy at home days, but I also love getting out and about, and we haven't had a lot of that these past two weekends. 

Wait. Friday we were out and about. Hubs and I had a date. It wasn't a day date, but it definitely still counts. 

Let's back up and capture the whole weekend. There was still a fair amount of ice around all week following last weekend's ice storm, but I could get in and out of the driveway without a problem. We had snow in the forecast so I re-stocked groceries on my way home from my volunteer slot on Thursday afternoon. We went out to dinner that evening with some neighbors we hadn't spent time with in a long while and that was really nice. 

Friday morning I had an appointment to have my hair cut and then my stylist also worked her magic to make it look sun-kissed. It takes half a day but it's worth it. I came home and got straight into some make ahead cooking just in case we had power issues with this second storm. The forecasters were calling for actual snow, and  didn't seem too terribly worried about power outages, but still it's best to be prepared. 

I made a pot of beef stew and a pot of chicken noodle soup and even though we never lost power we enjoyed these dishes all weekend long. I loved having food prepared and not having to cook over the weekend. I should do more of that in all types of weather. 

Friday night hubs and I went to a nearby venue to see the band Lonestar. Raise your hand if you listened to country music in the 90's and 00's and you remember Lonestar. Their biggest hit was a song called Amazed and I think it became a wedding song for a lot of couples who married back in those decades. 

Anyway, this venue is so nice. It's smallish and we were just four rows from the band. The seats are comfortable and parking for a show here is not a problem. I realize all of that makes me sound old, but whatever. 

We enjoyed the performance so much. They're really talented musicians, the guitar player especially. They sang all my old favorites, which took me right back to living beside the Bay, little girls in the house, weekends spent boating with friends,  and country music on the radio. Sigh. 

There are still three original members of Lonestar  with the group, and then two members who joined later but have been with them a while. The keyboardist was the 'boss' and he was funny and had a great rapport with the audience. 

Did I sing along? How could I not? Hubs used to travel a lot with work (always, but particularly often in the 90's), and Lonestar's song,  'I'm Already There' especially makes me think of that season of life. 

Where was I? 

Oh yeah, the weather. We woke up to light snow falling Saturday morning, and it grew heavier as the day went on. We ended up with somewhere between two and three inches I think and that's a lot for our area. 

Somebody loved it. 

Hubs took the little brown dog out to play and he ends up with all these little ice balls stuck to his fur which means he has to be dried and cleaned off afterwards, but he LOVES it. 

Hubs used the leaf blower to get some of the snow off the driveway. It was light and we no longer own a snow shovel so there's that. We watched Clemson basketball and read books and chatted, then had stew for dinner. After dinner it was Tennessee basketball and early to bed. 

Just like the Pioneers. 

Sort of like the Pioneers. 

Not really like the Pioneers except we are going to bed early. 

We knew church was cancelled for Sunday, as were I think all or almost all of the churches in our county, and schools are closed again today. I spent time Sunday morning digging in to the Wayne Grudem book I'm working through this year (Sytematic Theology). It's excellent, but it's not light and requires every ounce of concentration I can muster. A quiet Sunday morning was perfect for this. 

I cleaned out my dresser drawers and the drawers in my bathroom vanity this weekend, did some laundry, and hubs ran the vacuum so a few things did get done that needed doing. 

Mostly though it's quiet, beautiful, slick, and only 47 days until Spring. 

If you're talking about your weekend hop over to the host blogs and add your link to the party. 

A Summer's Tale

I mentioned in yesterday's post that there was one anecdote from our week in Hilton Head I wanted to share separately. But first, the back story. 

Because there always is one on From This Side Of The Pond. 

Also, it's not as much fun if I just get straight to it, so let's roll back time to the 1990's. 

Remember the 90's? 

Thirty years ago but whatever. Hubs started working in 1985 for the company he then stayed with for thirty years. The company's headquarters were in Northern New Jersey and we lived there two different times during his career. He started as a rep in Richmond, but we moved not too long after (1989 to be exact) to the main office in NJ. As hubs says, those were some of the most fun years of his work life and this was mostly due to his colleagues. 

Colleagues who became friends. 

New Jersey geography is funny. It's a tiny state but there are many many towns squished side by each and lots of traffic. Lots. Hubs office at that time was situated almost in NYC. Not quite, but close enough you had to get into all the Lincoln Tunnel traffic just to get to work. 

I know young adults today talk a lot about how they can't afford to buy a house, but let me just tell you in 1989, five years married, working good jobs, and we bought a house with no air conditioning, a one car garage, an hour+ commute in some of the world's worst traffic, and a mortgage interest rate of more than 12%. 

Hey, the 90's wasn't all neon windbreakers, beanie babies, and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. 

I'm not saying it's not tough out there today, but our expectations for the kind of house we'd live in were pretty small. 

Anyway, what does all this have to do with Hilton Head in 2025? 

I'm getting there. This post is 90% a trip down memory lane and 10% present day. Back to the 90's. Work friends lived in various towns all around the office town. Nobody lived in office town, and very few lived in the same town as any other but that didn't stop us from socializing together. We thought nothing of driving 45 minutes to have dinner or go to a party at someone's house on weekends. 

We were all young (ish) and most of us were raising children and trying to get ahead, but also loving life and sharing life and encouraging each other in whatever way we could. It's a mega ginormous beast of a company today, but back then it still felt a bit like family. 

After five years in  New Jersey (that first stint) we moved to Maryland, still with the same company, and other friends moved around too. Some we kept in contact with for decades, are still in contact with today. Some have visited the lake and some were in our lives for just a season. When we think back on those friendships, those early hard years of working like crazy and raising children, we think of them with tenderness. 

Okay, back to 2025. Finally. We had plans to go into Harbour Town on Thursday evening, but the kids were worn out and decided they wanted to stay home and order pizza, so hubs and I were on our own.

We walked around for a bit and had a drink at the Quarterdeck's Umbrella Bar in the marina there. 

Charcoal roasted oysters and spicy strawberry margarita with a view. 

We shopped a little then decided to grab dinner at The Crazy Crab. So cute! It's exactly what you think of when you think of a beachside restaurant with it's nautical decor, fishing nets, that sort of thing. 

We'd ordered our food when we noticed a family being seated at the table beside ours. There was a mom with her three small children and what we guessed were the grandparents. As they were seated hubs said,  'that guy looks just like Dan C'.  So I looked more closely at his wife and said, 'you know I'm pretty sure that IS Dan C.' 

Dan C. and his wife are some of those 90's work friends I mentioned above. Friends we haven't seen since the 90's. 

So hubs said, 'Dan?' and the guy immediately turned his head and then he did a triple take before giving hubs a big hug. Their daughter was born about a month after my youngest, and now here she is with her three kids, and we're all grandparents trying to cram thirty years of catching up into an aisle conversation at a Hilton Head restaurant. 

We exchanged new contact info and since they live in HHI now, and also want to come our direction sometime, we hope to make another get together happen. 

I'm a sucker for a small world story. Hubs and I marveled at the odds of this happening and they're miniscule. We've had a few in our lifetime and they always make me feel grateful. I guess some would call it coincidence, some say serendipity. I say it's just one of the many ways God shows us He's got this whole big-little world in His hands. 

Linking today with Joanne at Talking About It Tuesdays 

A Throwback Thursday in 514 Words

I saw a little blurb somewhere recently that said we're closer to the year 2030 than we are to the year 1999. For some reason that doesn't sound right to me, but do the math and you'll find it's true. While 1999 might sound like the not so distant past, when I consider where we are now and where we were then I find myself thinking, 'Only two decades?'.

In 1999 my girls were 9 and 11. Wait, what?

And now it's 2019 and I'm a long, long way from the every day parenting of tweens (although nobody was calling them that back then). The telling them to brush their teeth and don't forget your backpack and I'm picking you up after school because you have a piano lesson kind of everyday ordinary that's both exhausting and precious.

I glanced back through some pictures from that year and saw a family camping trip, Halloween costumes, and The Bay Bridge Walk.

I saw neighbors dressed in 70's wear for hubs big birthday.

I saw pink bathing suits in the summer sun and girl scouts at Antietam.

I saw blue eyes and innocence.
Blond hair and soft smiles.

The words to Baby Hit Me One More Time might have scrolled across my brain.
I might be singing it right now.

N'Sync or Backstreet Boys? How do you choose? We couldn't Google them back in the day, or maybe we could have at some point during that year, but mostly we didn't know what Google was. It was born in 1999.

I do know many a Friday night was spent at Blockbuster agonizing, debating, and compromising over which movie we would rent. "Are we old enough to watch Titanic?" NO! Raise your hand if you miss Friday nights at Blockbuster.

Raise your hand if ruled television viewing with an iron fist in 1999.
It was easier back then.

In 1999 the Euro was established as the common currency of the European Union. Pshh. Who needs to pay attention to that? As it turns out we did, but the European Union was nowhere on our radar in 1999. Do you know what was on our radar in 1999? Y2K.

Everyone had their knickers in a knot over the looming technological disaster that would hit at the stroke of midnight all because the new decade would end in 000. We stashed cash. We bought bottled water. We filled our gas tanks. We had cans of cans of canned food and powdered milk. We went to bed singing along with Prince on New Year's Eve and woke up in the year 2000, everything still humming merrily along.

1999. One year in the life of a family. One year of mothering daughters who laughed easily and loved big. Daughters who made me want to be more like them.  

We went to Disney World in November of 1999. Hubs had a work trip and we joined him after.
Time marches on y'all and thankfully so does fashion.

And little girls grow into women, and moms of once upon tweens become grandmothers who smile at the way they still laugh easy and love big. Still make me want to be more like them.

Hit Me Hodgepodge One More Time

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered the questions today add your link at the end of my post. Be sure to leave a comment for your neighbor because that's what makes the Hodgepodge roll. Here we go-

  

1. What keeps you blogging?

My love of writing, my love for the written word, the space and opportunity provided to record events and memories and the everyday ordinary stuff of life. What in the world would I do with all the words in my head if I didn't blog? 

2. Some people like to travel in the winter months. Do you enjoy the beach in winter? According to Southern Living the best U.S. beach towns to visit this winter are-

St Simons Island (Georgia), Hilton Head (South Carolina), Bald Head Island (North Carolina), Seaside (Florida), Bay St. Louis (Mississippi), Cape San Blas (Florida), South Padre Island (Texas), Folly Beach (South Carolina), Chincoteague (Virginia), Duck Key (Florida), Nags Head (North Carolina), and Fairhope (Alabama)

Have you been to any of the towns listed (in any season)? Which on the list appeals to you most this winter?

My love of travel in any season of the year is a well established fact on From This Side Of The Pond. I am trying to avoid air travel in the middle of this year's flu season, but many of these beach destinations are within a day's drive so could happen.  I've been to Hilton Head, Folly Beach, Duck Key, and Nags Head. Hilton Head is the only one I've visited in the winter months, and like I said I think the beach is beautiful year round. I love Duck Key and would probably opt for that one in the winter months. Or Seaside. I've never been but have heard it's lovely.

3. What's a song you're embarrassed to know all the lyrics to? Are you really embarrassed or do just think you should be?

I don't think I'm embarrassed to know any song lyrics, but I suppose it might depend on the setting in which I were asked to share. In the privacy of my own shower/car/kitchen there's no song I'm too embarrassed by to sing. 

How 'bout Britney Spears Hit Me Baby One more time or The Spice Girls Wannabe? What can I say...my girls were children of the 90's, and honestly I'm not really embarrassed to know the lyrics. Actually singing the lyrics in the presence of anyone outside my immediate family would be embarrassing but that's not what the question asked. 

4. When you were a kid what's something you thought would be fantastic as an adult, but now that you're an adult you realize it's not all that fantastic?

Eating what I wanted whenever I wanted. 

5. Share a quote you hope will inspire you in 2018.

"If you wait for inspiration to write you're not a writer. You're a waiter." Dan Poynter

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Paying taxes and going to the dentist. 
How I spent my Tuesday. 
Good times!