Mixing it up with a new random link

For the past year I've been participating every Wednesday in something known as the Random Dozen (RD) hosted over at 2nd cup of Coffee. Lid posted a dozen random questions and people answered on their own blogs. She has decided to retire the RD for now but those of us who played regularly miss it. And because I have a lot of random in my head that needs to go somewhere I've decided to do a linky of my own on Wednesdays.

And now, for your linking pleasure, I'm pleased to present....

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Oh how I love that word. Wednesday Hodgepodge will be slightly different than the RD because for starters, its not a dozen. A dozen random questions on a weekly basis may not sound like much to you but I suspect it could become overwhelming for me so I've settled on a nice even 8 with a twist. Hey, its not called hodgepodge for nothing.

Because I have a whole head full of my own random thoughts on a daily weekly basis that may or may not fit into question format I've decided to make question #8 a freebie. I will come up with seven random questions each week. You will then you add one random thought of your own in slot #8. Not a question...a thought. Anything at all. Well, keep it clean and keep it nice because this blog has been rated G by the motion picture association of America.

Also, if you read here you may have noticed I'm a little on the wordy side. Ahem. I can't help it, I have a lot to say. So my posts will probably have a little more narration than you may be accustomed to...unless of course you already read my blog in which case you know you need to refill your coffee before you dig in here.

I intend to post the questions sometime on Tuesday, put the Mr. Linky up somewhere in the wee hours of Wednesday morn, and then you will link your own blog with the answers on Wednesdays for all the internets to see. That all sounds great on 'paper' but I must warn you I am not the most technically savvy soul out there so fingers crossed, toes crossed, prayers said that all this works the way I'm hoping. If not we'll just roll with it until my daughter straightens it out for me I get the hang of it.

I'm going to answer on Wednesdays too because I have always liked to answer before I read everyone else's responses. What can I say? I'm like a tween and am easily swayed. When did tween become a word? Now see, there's a random thought you could slide into the #8 spot.

Isn't the hodgepodge button oh so cute? I am having a small 'issue' getting the code to show up but will straighten that out today. Once it appears on my sidebar you can copy the code and add it to your post/blog. The button is brought to you courtesy of my darling daughter1 who has a little online business creating buttons, headers and such. If you are interested in a button or header or more for your own blog click here for products and pricing.

And, we're off...

1. Do you think you're more like your mom or your dad?

2. Do you like roller coasters?

3. How did you name your blog and do you now wish you'd thought about it maybe another five minutes before you hit publish? Would you change your blog title if it were not a huge pain in the derriere? (French makes everything sound a little nicer doesn't it?)

4. What is the best wedding gift you received? Not married? Didn't get any gifts? Then what is the best wedding gift you've given?

5. What is the one bill you most hate to pay?

6. Is the glass half full or half empty?

7. What is your favorite word? Okay okay. Calm down. How about one of your favorite words?

8. Now, this is where you insert one random thought of your own...maybe something that struck you as funny, something that recently had you scratching your head in confusion, something that annoyed you a teensy bit, something on your to do list, something you are looking forward to, whatever. As long as it is in keeping with the friendly tone we've all come to know and love on Wednesdays then we're good. Don't make me get out my wooden spoon.

I like the idea of everyone adding a random thought of their own each week. One of the things I most enjoyed about the RD was getting to know lots of different bloggers. I think #8 will only add to that. I hope so anyway. And I have to say those first 7 questions just rolled right on out off the top of my head. Maybe coming up with questions will not be as stressful as I imagined it would be.

Come back tomorrow to post your answers...I'll look forward to seeing you in the hodgepodge! That doesn't have quite the ring of the RD but will be fun just the same.

It was 1980 something...

1985 to be exact

I was a mere quarter century old

a newlywed

without children

living in an apartment in Knoxville Tennessee

I was also bright eyed, tan, and oh so very thin

but that's not really the point of this little post

Hubs was working

I was working

Opportunity knocked

Hubs leapt

its what he does

He prepared

researched

interviewed

and got the new job

a sales rep

hubs is a natural born salesman

as the saying goes, he could sell ice to an Eskimo

This new job was not in Knoxville Tennessee

It was in Richmond Virginia

We moved from our apartment to a townhouse in Richmond

And were suddenly completely on our own

not that we weren't living on our own in Knoxville

but hubs family was just down the road

available

it was in 1985 that travel entered our work vocabulary

and our life

hubs worked and traveled

and worked and traveled

I worked too but with a whole lot less pressure to climb

On Friday night hubs joined a club

the 25 year club

his company hosts a very nice event for the honorees

25 years, 30 years, 40 years, two gentlemen were celebrating 45 years

with the same company

this used to be common

not so much anymore

we may have gone to said event in style...

I'm the one in the black dress...

many years have passed since hubs signed on as a brand new sales rep

we have had six work related moves

he hasn't been a sales rep since 1989

hubs loves a challenge

and has had no less than 10 roles in the past 25 years

all with the same company

go hubs!

we've made some wonderful friends thru his job

we've seen babies born and babies married

we enjoy these friendships with co-workers spread far and wide

an unexpected blessing in a job

I'm thankful every day for hubs job

and most especially for how hard he has worked all our married life

I do not ever take that for granted

I pray my daughters find husbands with a work ethic like hubs

I pray my daughters have a work ethic like hubs

He has been a good role model and example to his girls

ambitious

determined

flexible

creative

kind

full of integrity

self-discipline

and humor

Something we used to hear quite often when we moved overseas was that Americans live to work and Europeans work to live. Finding the right balance between work and life is a tricky thing sometimes. I think my hubs has done it well.

TGIN

Thank Goodness its November. Except what happened to October? Do you know that saying, "The further I go, the behinder I get"...well that's kind of how I feel about the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted over at South Breeze Farm this year. The idea is to list one thing you are thankful for every day during the month of November. I participated last year and loved it. And it seems that every day this month I've told myself I'd catch up and post my list, but then I don't.

I'm determined to get this up before the weekend and I'm going to run it on the sidebar of my blog like I did last year. Everyone is welcome to participate...just click on the button below and it will take you to Leah's blog.

Today I'm thankful for weekends. My husband travels a lot so I enjoy having him home on the weekends. He occasionally has travel on the weekends but that's pretty rare. When he's in town we like to catch up, relax, watch football, sometimes cook together, and we also usually get out and hike or explore some new area around our town. The weekend pace is not the same as our weekday pace around here and I enjoy the change. And usually a nap on the couch. In fact, I think a nap on the couch may deserve its own day of thankfulness.

Mo-o-om! She's looking at me...tell her to stop looking at me

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday.

Happy Birthday sister2!

I am the third of four children.

Sister2 is the baby of the family and we are one year apart.

One year.

What were my parents thinking?

Perhaps they weren't?

I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was the easiest baby of the four my mom birthed.

Baby sister may have been the most difficult.

Okay, that was just me being nice.

There's really no maybe about it.

She was born in New Mexico.

While my dad was abroad.

And by abroad I mean he was stationed as a Marine in Okinawa, not loving life in a charming English village.

Ahem.

Here's the back story-

I was born in sunny beautiful idyllic Hawaii.

I'm sure all babies born in Hawaii are considered the best babies their mamas have birthed because, come on.... I mean the weather?

What is there to stress out about, even at birth?

When my dad was given orders to go overseas my mama was with child.

Again.

So she shlepped her eight year old and her six year old and her one year old and her pregnant self to New Mexico where we all moved into my grandparent's oh so cute, but teeny tiny house.

Shades of The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do.

Yeah.

Kind of like that.

It was into this sister2 was born.

And she was not happy.

At all.

She was probably annoyed we had uprooted her from the tropical location where she had envisioned taking her first breath.

Nothing against New Mexico.

I love New Mexico.

But I think we can all agree New Mexico is not Hawaii.

Anyway, she was what they called a failure to thrive baby.

And do you know what?

They cry a lot.

Thank heaven for grandparents and their arms.

My mother, who is now 80 years old, can still recall a 24 hour period where sister2 cried without ceasing.

They just rotated her around from mother to grandmother to grandfather.

While I slept like an angel in my little bitty bed.

Just sayin'.

In her defense she was sick so many times that first year of her life.

She had several bouts of pneumonia and in general a rough start which would naturally make one a little bit feisty.

And so we grew.

Daddy came home and we moved to South Carolina and then to Virginia and then to New Jersey and there we settled.

Older sister1 and I never had any real arguments that I can recall.

I adored her.

She adored me.

We're a happy fam-i-ly.

But there were so many years between us that we were not living the same stages of life at the same time.

Nor were we sharing a bedroom.

Or a closet.

Or air.

Sister2 and I shared a bedroom most of our childhood.

We loved it.

We hated it.

We loved it.

We hated it.

Having a sister so close in age is a complicated thing.

I remember talking in the dark of night across the space between our twin beds.

I remember her throwing a hairbrush at me when I did something that I cannot now recall but that surely made her angry.

I remember dragging our barbies and our kiddles outside and playing for hours under the shade of a big tree in the backyard.

I remember answering the question, "Are you two twins?" at least a hundred million times.

I remember looking at sister2 and her looking back at me and us shrugging our shoulders.

Why do they ask that question we wondered?

I remember the endless negotiating we did over household chores and most especially, cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.

I remember telling off one of her mean boyfriends in the parking lot of his job.

I remember her bathing my first born baby girl in the sink.

Baby girl is now 22.

But never fear.

Sister2 has a baby of her own these days.

Well, he's four so not really a baby anymore but still.

Remember how I said sister2 is one year younger than me?

Remember how I celebrated a BIG birthday this year?

Remember how I said sister2 has a four year old?

Life is funny.

And fun.

Sister2 and I learned a few things from one another growing up side by side.

I suspect her list would be much like mine...

I learned to compromise.

I learned to share.

I learned to tattle.

I learned to keep a secret.

I learned to argue.

And defend.

And duck.

I learned to laugh.

And a lot about love.

"She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child." ~ Barbara Alpert

Happy Birthday Beebug!

And for the record...

I'm almost positive I never wanted to be an only child.

Baby Come Back

So it's Wednesday and since I have been in the habit of answering random questions on a meme almost every Wednesday for the past year, and since that meme has now come to an end, and since habits are notoriously hard to break I figured I'd just plow ahead with my own version of the Random Dozen. I will also be continuing my love affair with the run on sentence. And I cannot guarantee there will always be a dozen but there will for sure be random happening here on Wednesdays. I may even come up with a link of my own but I haven't gotten that far yet so today you'll have to settle for just moi...

1. It's chilly here in the Northeast. In fact...gasp... there was frost on my lawn this morning. If you have just stumbled upon my blog you should know that posts I label as random pretty much all start off with a weather report. I like to be helpful like that.

2. Hubs is in Mexico on business this week. There is no frost in sight. Lucky hubs.

3. Today we get to experience what I like to call the post election day furor. yee.haw.

4. Got a shoe box laying around? Why not pack it up and participate in something known as Operation Christmas Child? Samaritan's Purse is a wonderful organization that is out there in the trenches meeting the needs of the world's poor, sick, and suffering on a daily basis. Each November they collect shoe boxes that have been filled with items such as small toys, toiletries, and school supplies and they deliver them to children around the world. Last year over 8 million shoe boxes were donated.

I really encourage you to visit their website and read more. You choose the age range you'd like to shop for and you decide if you want to pack a box for a boy or a girl. They ask for a $7 donation to cover the cost of shipping, which is the equivalent of a couple of drinks at Starbucks just to give it some perspective. Collection this year will be the week of November 15-22nd and you'll find easy to follow step by step instructions on their site. Stop by and bless a hungry, hurting child today...I'm pretty sure you'll find the blessing goes both ways.

5. In other news, I have spent a good part of this week reliving a piece of my Jr. High life. Back in Jr. High my orthodontic bill single handedly funded my doc's lovely oceanside vacation home. I had all the bells and whistles and I hated it with a passion. I could appreciate the need but I despised all things orthodontic. Back in the 'olden days' patients were not instructed to continue wearing those disgusting retainers every once in a while for the remainder of their natural born lives so naturally, I did not.

6. Flash forward a few, ahem, decades and my teeth have once again shifted. Not in a big way but enough so that I notice. So this past Monday I hopped on the Invisalign bandwagon. If you don't know what Invisalign is it is essentially two clear plastic trays that fit tightly to the teeth, similar to what you'd use if you were bleaching. You wear them 24/7 except when you are eating and I will have new trays every two weeks. Over the course of time they will move my teeth back to the place they are supposed to be. The place my parents paid a gazillion dollars to have them sit. I'd show you a picture but they really are invisible.

7. When I first investigated Invisilign my dentist said he'd do the workup and then I could decide if I wanted to go forward with the program. He predicted I'd be in them for 18 months and I gotta say that did not thrill me. However, after Invisalign did their workup my protocol is much shorter. I will wear the bottom tray four months and the top for six. I don't think I'd recommend this system for a kid because you do remove the trays when you eat and if you've ever had a kid in orthodontics then you know how many retainers are lost to a napkin being tossed in the trash with the retainer inside. I'm a grown up so supposedly I will not be accidentally throwing the trays away.

8. On the bright side I predict when this is all over not only will my teeth once again be perfectly straight but I will also be a few pounds lighter. I mean when you have to take those plastic trays out every time you want to eat it kinda cuts down on the snacking. I will also be oh so calm, cool, and collected too because I cannot spend my morning consuming coffee and my afternoon consuming tea without removing the trays so sadly my caffeine consumption is going way down.

9. The first couple of days my teeth throbbed. Miserable. I had a flashback to my whiny Jr. High self. So did my hubs. Actually he didn't know my Jr. High self but he got a glimpse of her this week.

10. Aren't you glad you stopped in here today to read about my achin' teeth?

11. My girls both had orthodontics. One child, who shall remain nameless, may not have handled it quite as well as the other. Ahem. She knows who she is. She may even have a blog. Anyway, we were living in the UK then and if you have a child in orthodontics you know how crazy the fees are. Well, the exchange rate in those days meant the pound was twice the dollar so essentially we paid double the price of the hardware. They do have lovely smiles today though, wouldn't you say...

12. Have I mentioned here that I like 70's music? I know some of you think my title is just a title and do not recognize the song from whence it came so I give you Player. Hey, I aim to please. You are welcome.

Quoting Garfield

Good Morning Voting Public.

Yes, that would be you.

And me.

We're it.

We're all we've got.

And I'm speaking to everyone here.

There is much to complain about in our political system. Much bickering. Much that disgusts. Much that saddens. Much that makes you want to put your head under a pillow until the quadruple whammy of political advertising ceases and desists. Living in Northern NJ means we get to see and hear all the ads run by all the candidates in FOUR states (NJ, NY, CT, and PA).

You're jealous I know.

When I said I was quoting Garfield today I'm sure you know I was referring to James Garfield the former US President, and not Garfield the cat. If you were hoping for a quote from the cat I'm sorry to disappoint. But Garfield the former President said something pretty wise a hundred and thirty some years ago and which continues to ring true today-

"Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature...If the next centennial does not find us a great nation...it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces." President James Garfield, 1877

'The people' isn't someone else.

It's us.

You and me.

We're it.

We're all we've got.

Will you be voting today?

There was sun, there was sand, there was saying I do

We spent the weekend here...

Naples Florida.

The hotel was fabulous.

In fact, the entire weekend could not have been more perfect.

Even the weather was all sunshine and happiness.

We were in town to attend a wedding...

the wedding of a sweet sweet girl and her handsome groom.

Tissue please.

A reception followed the beautiful ceremony.

Spectacular...

right down to the last detail.

I have to say that my hubs has the best tuxedo shirt around.

With his jacket on it looks pretty ordinary, run of the mill even...

He bought it in London and the tailor does one a year using all the different patterns of the shirts he's made the previous twelve months.

One sleeve is striped one color, the second sleeve may be another and the

back is two or three patterns worked together.

Yes I asked if I could take a picture of the back of his shirt.

Surely he knew it would end up here.

Essentially its a party in a shirt.

If you know my hubs you will know this works for him.

Case in point-do you see the trumpet on the end?

Hubs may or may not have played that trumpet at some point during the evening.

The band was phenomenal.

And obviously nice too.

Best of all I got to spend the whole weekend catching up with a special good friend...

We've known each other for over 20 years, since living in NJ the first time round-1989.

My youngest daughter and her oldest daughter are great pals too.

We have both moved here, there, and everywhere but ended up together again in the UK, living out of each other's pocket as the saying goes.

We both moved back to the states at the same time but they're a few states away so we don't see each other as often as we'd like.

She and I did a lot of talking this weekend.

A lot a lot.

The weekend was too short.

And went too fast.

I woke up in NJ this morning.

It was 36 degrees.

Sigh.