New Year New Hodgepodge-Vol 60

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge...so glad you joined the fun in this brand new year. Be sure to add your link at the end of my post and then hop around and see what everyone else is saying. Here are my answers-

1. What are three words you would use to describe your 2011?

hard

swift

full

Hmmm. I don't think I'll expound right at the moment but I'm thinking there's a blog post brewing in there somewhere.

2. Do you like shrimp? What's your favorite way to have it prepared?

I love shrimp and am not particular about how its prepared...my favorite is probably steamed in Old Bay seasoning with spicy cocktail sauce for dipping. Peel and eat shrimp eaten at a picnic table beside the water on a sunny summer day is pretty close to perfection in my book.

3. Is your house de-Christmased? If so, when did you tackle that job? If not, when will the decorations come down?

It's getting there. Daughter2 and I hit The Container Store yesterday for help with some re-organizing. I outgrew my holiday storage bins about two Christmases ago and have been stashing decorations here, there and everywhere...it was past time for more boxes. Plus, who doesn't love The Container Store? Something about that place makes me ridiculously happy and daughter2 would say the same.

Hubs took the outdoor lights and wreaths down on Sunday and we got the indoor garlands and bows down on Monday. The trees will be undecorated and back in the basement by Friday. I really enjoy my trees in the week between Christmas and New Years Day when life is quieter and there's plenty of time for being still.

4. Do you like to watch scary movies?

Not anything that falls into the horror category but I do love a good mystery. I have an extremely vivid imagination and don't really need anything to add fuel to the fire.

5. ice skating~sledding~ skiing~snowboarding...of the four listed which wintertime activity do you most enjoy?

Definitely not snowboarding. I lack whatever form of coordination is required for that sport. I'm going with skiing...I love the mountains, fresh air, and ski towns...

...especially those nestled into the Alps with their honest to goodness fairy tale charm.

6. Did you have a childhood hideout? Describe it.

Not a hideout per se but my younger sister and I spent a lot of time setting up Barbies under the great big tree in the corner of our backyard. Actually I think the tree was on our neighbors property but this was back in the day before everyone seemed to have fences so it was sort of a communal corner. The tree branches were high and leafy and made a perfect canopy for playing house, dolls, or dress ups.

7. What's a place or space that motivates you?

The water...I do my best thinking there.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

We tried a new salad last night and I have to say it might be the best salad I've ever eaten. I found the recipe on a blog called Just Cook Already. Apparently this recipe is an adapted version of the original served in an Arizona restaurant called Chelsea's Kitchen.

The 'leaves' are brussel sprouts that have been peeled so you don't use the hard bitter core. Before you haters turn up your noses you really should give it a try. The leaves are combined with dried cranberries, dried blueberries, crumbled bacon, almonds, and shaved Parmesan and then topped with a light citrusy mustard vinaigrette. The only bit that's a little time consuming is peeling the sprouts.

It helps to have a daughter in the kitchen acting as sous chef.

This salad is so fresh and pretty and positively scrumptious. I served this as a side to roast chicken but will definitely fix it as a main for a light meal some evening. Click here to get the recipe.

Questions for the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 60

Volume 60. That's a lot of random, isn't it? I still enjoy writing and answering the Hodgepodge and as long as I can say that I'll keep it going.

Here are this week's questions, the first in a new year. Answer on your own blog and then come back tomorrow to link your post and see what the neighbors are saying.

1. What are three words you would use to describe your 2011?

2. Do you like shrimp? What's your favorite way to have it prepared?

3. Is your house de-Christmased? If so when did you tackle that job? If not, when will the decorations come down?

4. Do you like to watch scary movies?

5. ice skating~sledding~skiing~snowboarding~of the four listed which wintertime activity do you most enjoy?

6. Did you have a childhood hideout? Describe it.

7. What's a place or space that motivates you?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Easing into a New Year

First things first...I haven't been on my blog since sometime last week so happy new year! I feel like I should say something deep and profound in this first post of 2012, but to be honest I just don't have it in me today. I'll get back in the blog groove soon but for now I want to linger in the post Christmas haze. Or laze if you want to get all technical.

We've had a week of walks in the woods and naps on the couch. We rang in the new year with homemade fondue and movies at home. Hubs and I were both awake at midnight much to daughter2's surprise and delight. Well, surprise for sure, but I like to think she was also delighted.

We've watched football and cooking shows and spent an afternoon browsing the shelves of Barnes and Noble. Fifty degree weather on the first day of January was all the motivation hubs needed to get the outdoor lights down. He rewarded himself with a spin in the little red car which most years doesn't see the light of day in January.

Daughter2 is home for another week and we've made a few plans which include fun things like dinner in 'The Big Apple', more shopping, trying some new recipes in the kitchen, and finishing a jigsaw puzzle we started after Christmas. It also includes not so fun things like a trip to the Social Security office for a replacement card and taking down the tree decorations.

Hubs has crazy travel coming up this month and he especially needed the down time we always seem to find at the end of a year. We both needed time to lay low and enjoy the gift of very un-December like weather.

I've taken lots of pictures in an attempt to figure out my new camera. We've trekked thru the woods to the top of our backyard hill and watched the hawk fly and the wild turkeys scatter. The forest is what our bird dog likes to call her happy place.

We've stood beside the quiet calm of our little town's lake and gained a new appreciation for the phrase, 'busy as a beaver'.

I should be this industrious in the new year.

In the month leading up to Christmas my blog was a little heavy on the 'how I spent my weekend' type of postings and a little light on substance. That's okay because life was busy and I'm going to be kind to myself and let me off the hook.

There is something about a new year that fills me with hope. Hope that I'll be better disciplined and less wasteful of the gift of a single hour. Hope that I'll make fewer excuses and log more hours in the gym/pool/countryside. Hope that I'll serve more and want less. More kindness, less irritation. Hope that I'll pray more and worry less. Hope that I'll seize the moment and be more intentional about how I spend my time and live my life.

Hope is good, essential actually, but if we want the things we hope for to become the things we have, then action is required. I don't know about you but I'm hoping this new year is action-packed.

"Start by doing what is necessary; next do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." St. Francis of Assisi

A traditionally traditional Christmas recap

Posting my Christmas recap feels a little bit like asking people to come over to see my vacation photos, but what's a blog for if not to talk about yourself? Actually having Christmas pictures on my blog from the last two years came in handy when we were trying to remember how the garland wraps around the banisters and where we'd moved the green chair in order to accommodate the tree and where we needed to hang the outdoor wreaths.

Everybody gets in on the fun around here~

We have a tradition of spending every other Christmas with my family and every other Christmas with hubs family. In all the years we've been married this is how it's been with the exception of just two Christmases we decided to stay in England. We trekked to the states from the UK four Christmases in a row and decided that airport crowds and hassle and then shuffling from pillar to post once we got here made it hard to remember the meaning of the season.

And I'm sure one year in the not too distant future we'll create new traditions as my girls marry and start families of their own. But we won't talk about that today because this year both girlies were exactly where they should be-tucked sweetly in to their own beds upstairs. Well, tucked sweetly onto an air mattress on the floor upstairs because we had us a houseful.

Daughter1 has a grown up job now so she didn't get home until Friday evening. If you have kids living away from home you know exactly how wonderful it feels to have all your little chicks in the nest. There is nothing better. We all got busy Christmas Eve day with last minute meal preparations, wrapping, and tidying. My big sister, brother in law, and niece drove up with my mom later in the afternoon. I tried to keep dinner low key in the work department and had a roasted turkey breast and rolls, broccoli salad, and lots of snack type sides.

We made something called Grinch punch which was delicious and very Grinch-like in color. I have punch cups that match my bowl but at Christmas time we always drink punch out of the cups Daughter2 and I collected on our many trips to various German Christmas markets thru the years.

We went to a 9 PM candlelight church service and afterwards the girls opened one gift as tradition dictates and that gift is always pjs. I'm going to see how many times I can use the word 'tradition' in a post.

Here's another one...the picture on the steps. Seemingly patient on the outside but inside it's a whole 'nother story.

I think we may have started a brand new tradition. ahem.

Christmas morning we had stockings and our traditional sausage and egg casserole for breakfast before my brother and sister in law arrived to join the party. They were followed by my little sister, brother in law and five year old nephew.

He may have been a little bit excited.

Apparently Mrs. Claus was a very good girl this year because Santa surprised her with a brand new camera. Course I don't know how to use it but no worries...he also arranged for a lesson with a local photographer and soon I'll be tossing out words like aperture and shutter speed with the best of them. I'm going to try not to annoy my family too much with all my picture taking but I'm not making any promises.

We always do snacks and punch on Christmas afternoon and this year we added an outdoor fire to the festivities. I think when we host that will be a new tradition.

These girls got all crafty and made some fun Santa hors d'oeuvres. A little labor intensive but super cute and tasty. Dinner was ham with all the trimmings and literally dozens of cookies for dessert.

It was a good day.

There were stolen kisses-

a few surprises...

a little Christmas cracker silliness...

and a whole lot of smiles...

My favorite thing?

That's easy...

"It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. The humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart." ~ Marjorie Holmes, American writer

Ringing in the Hodgepodge Vol 59

I'm currently (still?) drowning in a sea of sheets and towels which is what happens when thirteen people come to stay. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. I'm going to dive right into this week's Hodgepodge and save my Christmas recap for tomorrow's post.

Remember Christmas?

I still want to post some thoughts and pictures for posterity and I'm sure right now my girls are laughing at the word 'posterity'. We watched some old family videos over the holidays and apparently I uttered that phrase every time we pulled out the camera...'Now we have it saved for posterity.'

Who really dislikes seeing themselves on video?

Actually, it's not the seeing I mind so much as the hearing. Yowza.

A-ny-way...the Hodgepodge...here are my answers. Add your link to the bottom of my post and then go say happy new year to others who are playing along today too.

1. Share something you loved about your Christmas day.

We spent Christmas with my family this year and I love to see the cousins all together. It doesn't happen nearly often enough so when it does it's special.

2. You get to put five items in a time capsule to be opened in 100 years, what items would you choose and why?

• an ipad loaded with music and a few popular movies...I think its safe to say technology is only going to move faster.

• a cell phone which I imagine will be viewed with mouths agape, much the same way my kids look at me when I tell them our phone used to be attached to the wall but had a cord that was 25 feet long. I guess you could say it was 'mobile'-ha! You had to actually dial it and if there was a 9 in the number you were calling that dial had to go allllll the way around. If the person you were trying to reach wasn't home the phone just rang and rang and rang and if they were talking to someone else you got a busy signal, sometimes for hours. Technology isn't all bad. Just sayin'.

• my blog bound into a book for a look at everyday life in the year 2011. Hearth and home, faith, motherhood, leisure and world travel. My blog covers all of that, right?

• a complete outfit...blue jeans, my suede boots with the cute heel, a sweater and scarf, a fun bag and some casual jewelry. We think these items look great now but I'm pretty sure that's what we thought when we were wearing scrunchies and shoulder pads back in 1980.

• a Starbucks mug and menu...we are a culture obsessed with coffee and it would be remiss not to mention it.

3. What do you like on a cracker?

I have a favorite cheese ball recipe I like on a cracker. Daughter2 put it together this year for snacking on Christmas afternoon. I must add that this girl has been quite the cook since arriving home from uni for her winter break. I'm a little bit spoiled with her in the kitchen and am wondering if she really needs that last semester of college?

4. Do you make resolutions? How'd that work out for you this past year?

I do think about my life and what I want to accomplish or improve. Most years I do put some of my goals in writing.

Last year's goals? I guess I'd give myself a C+. That's what's so great about a new year...it's another chance to get things right.

5. What's a song or song lyric you'll associate with 2011?

What Faith Can Do by Kutless

"...I've seen dreams that move the mountains

Hope that doesn't ever end

Even when the sky is falling

I've seen miracles just happen

Silent prayers get answered

Broken hearts become brand new

That's what faith can do..."

6. How will you ring in the new year?

We don't have any special plans at the moment. I think it will be just the three of us here on New Year's Eve since Daughter1 had to go back to work this week and will ring in the new year with her honey. We will likely keep it low key, maybe make fondue for dinner which is always fun and then watch movies and see the ball drop on tv.

7. What is something you look forward to in 2012?

Daughter2 will graduate from uni in May and that's pretty exciting. Mostly though my thoughts are completely focused on my niece and I look forward to the day she beats leukemia and her excellent health is restored.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

My sister has a birthday the day after Christmas and even though we have no less than fifteen kinds of cookies in the house we still needed an extra special something to mark the day. Since my sister collects pigs daughter2 baked these cupcakes which are just too adorable.

We found the idea on Pinterest and the recipe suggested pink wafer cookies for the ears. We used pink bubble tape instead which was super easy to work with and could be cut with scissors.

Happy New Year to you all!

Happy Hodgepodge Questions Vol 59

I hope your holiday was grand. I've had a houseful of company and still need to write my Christmas recap, but in the meantime here are the questions for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Come back tomorrow to link answers with the whole wide world.

1. Share something you loved about your Christmas Day.

2. You get to put five items in a time capsule to be opened in 100 years, what items would you choose and why?

3. What do you like on a cracker?

4. Do you make resolutions at the start of a new year? How'd that work out for you this past year?

5. What's a song or song lyric you'll associate with 2011?

6. How will you ring in the new year?

7. What is something you look forward to in 2012?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Five Things Friday on Christmas Eve Eve

Merry Christmas Eve Eve...we have been baking and wrapping and shopping and talking. Always lots of talking with Daughter2 in the house which makes my heart so happy. Tonite Daughter1 joins the party and my little family will be complete.

The weather has been ridiculously warm and un-December like around here. I'm not complaining, just reporting the facts. Its supposed to turn colder tomorrow, just in time for Christmas, but there's no snow in our forecast. That's okay with me since I have family that needs to get here.

Daughter2 got home a week ago and has been the queen of baking. So far she's made eight kinds of cookies...here's a peek at some of them-

Last night for dinner she fixed The Pioneer Woman's recipe for spicy lemon garlic shrimp. Let's just say it might be a little bit hard to return her to university in January.

Finally, I'm posting our Christmas card picture here, without our names of course because this is the internet. I pray you feel the peace and joy this season brings and know the love God brought to earth in the gift of his very own Son.

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift." 2 Corinthians 9:15