Pack your suitcase for the HP- Vol 37

It's that time again-whew! I can't believe it's Wednesday...I need to run a little faster on the treadmill to catch up around here. I'm glad you're playing along in the HP today. Everyone is welcome to join the fun and you'll find the game rules on my sidebar. Add your link at the bottom, after you read my answers of course, and then go visiting.

1. July is National Ice Cream Month...your favorite flavor? Soft serve, hand dipped or frozen yogurt-which do you prefer? And technically yogurt is not ice cream but its hot outside so I'll let that slide for today.

Hand dipped coconut. Or a vanilla soft serve dipped in chocolate shell. What I really love though, is gelato.

In Italy.

2. When you travel do you tend to pack too much or too little?

You'd think with all the packing I do I'd be a pro but I normally pack too much. Except this past weekend I had too little. I was fine but it was so hot I wish I'd had a couple more tops. I normally have just the right clothes but shoes are my downfall. Women need a lot more shoes for a weekend away than men do...at least I think so.

3. What's your favorite cleaning product?

Can I say my husband? He rocks at cleaning the showers. If not I'm going with good old Windex. I hate fingerprints on the glass top coffee table and doggy breath stains on the front windows.

4. What's the greater tragedy-an innocent person imprisoned or a guilty person set free? Explain.

An innocent person imprisoned. Both are a tragedy but the guilty person will ultimately be judged, maybe not in this life but for sure the next. An innocent person imprisoned loses a piece of their life that can never be reclaimed.

5. What's the longest trip you've taken by car?

Hmmm...we've taken a lot of car trips. I think our longest road trip by car would be the trip we took in September 09 from NJ to Prince Edward Island Canada. Or the end of the earth as my hubs likes to say.

It was about 1000 miles one way and most of the drive was beautiful. We both say this was one of our favorite trips ever, and that's sayin' something. I wrote three posts about it which you can read here, here, and here.

6. tennis-golf-canoeing-biking...pick one.

canoeing...I love to canoe and I love the water.

7. What sound drives you crazy?

smacking...as in food. shudder.

the kids on dirt bikes in the woods behind our house sometimes grate too...I understand they are kids but on a peaceful evening the sound is jarring and in my opinion upsets the balance of nature.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I have so very many random thoughts. Sigh.

How 'bout this-we put in a new mailbox. And by we I mean the mailbox guy put in a new mailbox. It required concrete and 100 degree heat and all day and in case anyone has forgotten I have a hubs who travels.

The mailbox has brass numbers on the side but I have very cleverly edited those out. I love the new look...so much better than the old one with the rust spots and the tilting post. It's the little things in life, isn't it?

Questions for the HP-Vol 37

It's possible this is one of those weeks where I'm coming and going but I'd never abandon the Hodgepodge. Well, someday I might but not today. Here are this week's questions...come back tomorrow (Wednesday) to link your answers with all the internets out there.

1. July is National Ice Cream month...your favorite flavor? Soft served, hand dipped, or frozen yogurt...which do you prefer? And technically yogurt is not ice cream but its hot outside so I'll let that slide for today.

2. When you travel do you tend to pack too much or too little?

3. What's your favorite cleaning product?

4. Which is the greater tragedy-an innocent person imprisoned or a guilty person set free? Explain.

5. What's the longest trip you've taken by car?

6. tennis-golf-canoeing-biking...pick one.

7. What sound drives you crazy?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Monday Thirteen

Yes I know this sort of post is supposed to be written on a Thursday and then I'm supposed to call it Thursday thirteen like everybody else, but I have thirteen things today so Monday thirteen it is. I've been traveling and having fun and not reading blogs or writing blogs or commenting on blogs so I have lots to catch up on. I won't be catching you up on everything right now but I am going to throw a few random thoughts out there so I can begin to de-clutter my brain. In my defense I started this list before I left town last week.

1. U2. Oh my stars. They were positively amazing. Seriously, I'm lacking adjectives. Best concert ever.

2. Did I just use the expression, 'Oh my stars'? My grandma used the expression 'Oh my stars'. She also liked to say 'Well Good Gravy' and 'Land Sakes Alive'. She did not however, follow U2. Land Sakes alive has an interesting origin-it stems from that long ago time when people were making the dangerous trek from Europe to America via the rocking rolling sea. As you know, many died or spent weeks or months in misery as they crossed the ocean. As land appeared they would proclaim, "Land, for the sake of God, we're alive" which was shortened to 'land sakes alive'. That's how I sometimes feel when I step off a boat.

Didn't know when you started reading today that this post would be both random and educational, did you?

3. You need a picture of U2, right?

Wait...that's not Bono. That is actually hubs and his brother who just so happened to be at the concert too. He lives a long long way from NJ so we don't get to see him very often. His company box was on the other side of the stadium from our company box and fyi-Giants Stadium is pretty darn big and the security around the corporate boxes is tight. Hubs made friends with one of the area supervisors on our side of the stadium and he happily escorted us over to the other side so we could say hi to the brother before the show started. Nice people are nice.

4. Here's the set-

Positively massive and it had so many tricks of lighting and sight and sound. The screens were just incredible and it's all impossible to capture in a photo but really, it was amazing!

5. Let's change topics and talk about my recent new addictions. Blue Diamond Wasabi Soy almonds would be one. If you haven't tried them and you like a little zing in your snacks then these are for you my friend.

6. Here's my other new addiction-Pinterest. I knew I shouldn't even go there but go there I did. There is pretty and clever in abundance on this site and I cannot look away. I'm at JoDaley if you are already there or you want an invite to join.

7. Words With Friends is an old addiction but if you play send me your screen name-again, Jodaley

8. I really don't need more addictions. I have a blog, remember?

9. Hubs and I might be a little bit intense. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything but is just something I've been thinking about lately. I especially noticed this when daughter1 was home recently. She'd only been in the house a short while before we were more or less grilling her about her job. Sometimes we are too much. We know this but we just can't seem to help it.

10. My new favorite website-What Kate Wore. Is anyone else more than a little bit fascinated by the Duchess of Cambridge? This website is devoted to her wardrobe.

11. The Bachelorette. Land sakes alive, please just let this season end.

12. I saw a few minutes of the new show 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show last week...they actually sicced a dog on someone. Good gravy! I won't be watching this one. Is that how you spell sicced?

13. #13 already? I haven't even mentioned the weekend but the weekend deserves its own post which will be coming. It's all in my head right now but I'll get it on my blog just as soon as I get life reorganized at home. Traveling tends to turn things upside down, doesn't it?

A 'Beautiful Day' in the Wednesday Hodgepodge Vol 36

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge....is it just me or does the summer seem to be flying by? Here are my answers to this week's questions. Add your answers in a link at the bottom and then go see what the neighbors have to say. After you see what I have to say of course.

1. July 20th marks the anniversary of the first time man stood on the moon. Flash forward 42 years to July 8, 2011 which marked the start of the final Space Shuttle mission. Should we continue to explore space? Should nations devote more or fewer of their resources to exploring space? Would you want to go into space if the opportunity arose?

We've learned a lot thru space exploration, and not just about space so yes, I think it needs to continue. Things like invisalign, scratch resistant lenses, global positioning satellites, cordless phones, weather and security surveillance, Kevlar, carbon dioxide filters...all of these products have NASA connections.

I will go into space when I can be transported there in the blink of an eye. If I have to zoom there in a rocket type contraption that involves spinning in a small confined space then you can forget it.

2. What are three things in your freezer?

Ice, because every drink needs some. See question 4. I recently bought a box of NY Strip steaks and a box of ahi tuna steaks from a well known company that sells door to door. We had some of the tuna on Sunday and it was delish.

3. If you could see any band/artist perform live tonite who would it be? It has to be someone living-no Beatles, Elvis, etc.

This one...seeing them perform live has been on my wish list for a long long time.

4. Ice-cubed or crushed? Or are you one of those people who don't like ice?

This ridiculous question is the kind I can spend far too much time thinking about. If there's a choice make it crushed but really, as long as there is ice of some sort I'm happy. I like a lot of ice in my drinks and six+ years living in a country where that is not the common practice did nothing to change my opinion. True story-daughter1 and I were in a restaurant in the UK one time and she asked for a coke with ice and the waitress said, "We're out" and daughter1 said, "Out of coke?" and the waitress said, "No, out of ice" to which daughter1 said in an incredulous tone-'You're out of frozen water?" Daughter1 never got used to the no ice thing either.

So funny how you can miss even the little things that bugged you about a place too.

5. The owner of a small restaurant outside of Pittsburgh recently announced he was banning children under six, saying they regularly disrupted other customer's meals. You can read the story here in more detail but isn't this a perfect topic to discuss in our Wednesday Hodgepodge? Have at it friends...what are your thoughts?

We always took our girls to nice restaurants, starting from the time they were very young. I think this is how children learn to behave in civilized eating establishments. By eating in them. If you only take your kids to venues like the Golden Arches then they are never going to learn that running and shouting and eating while playing are not the accepted form of behavior in most public places.

The thing is, if you're in a restaurant you have to be prepared to deal with whatever your child dishes out. That might mean that sometimes you pick up and leave before you've gotten your meal. If Johnny isn't getting with the program then no, he shouldn't be ignored by his parents. He should be taken out of the restaurant as a courtesy to the other patrons. There are seasons to parenting and having young kids means that sometimes we don't get to do what we want. I love children and have worked with children in some capacity or other most of my adult life. I have a lot of patience when it comes to kids of all sorts and variety. I have less patience for parents who pretend they don't notice that their child is disrupting all of life around them in a public venue.

6. What was your first car? How did it come to be yours?

My first car wasn't really my car but our family's second car that I was allowed to drive. It was a Chevy Nova, kind of an ugly rust color and it had brakes that when barely tapped had the potential to catapult you through the windshield. Perfect for a brand new driver.

You're jealous I know.

My real first car was a Toyota Celica and it was a great car. My parents surprised me with it my senior year of college just before I was to begin student teaching.

I had never driven a stick shift before but my brother taught me on some pretty steep Tennessee hills which, as it turned out, was a good place to learn.

7. If I had a nickel for every time I vacuumed up the dog's hair I'd be rich.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Regarding question #3-

tonite my wish is coming true.

Solving the Rubik's Cube

It's Tuesday which means I need to post the questions for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. You'll find the questions at the end of this post but please don't skip the lovely deliciousness I am going to share with you first.

Daughter1 was home for the weekend and she'd seen something online she wanted us to try and so we did. Because that's what mothers and daughters do...they try new things together. It's called an edible Rubik's Cube on some of the websites I've seen so we'll go with that because it does kind of look like a Rubik's Cube. If you were born post 1980 you might need to visit our friend Google. Anyhoo-here are the ingredients. You will not need a pen for this one.

watermelon

kiwi

feta cheese

The quantity depends on just how tall you want your cube to be but we used about half a watermelon, six kiwi, and one package of feta. There is a bit of waste since you need everything to be identical in shape but we just threw the scraps into a bowl and that made a nice snack later.

Cut the ingredients into cubes and you want the cubes to be the same size or at least as close to that as you can get. Then you work your puzzle. Layer the fruit and cheese in an aesthetically pleasing pattern and stack until you have what you want.

Here we are putting ours together-

It would appear I'm trying to correct my daughter the artiste. Why?? She is definitely the one with the eye for the lovely so why am I fixing her kiwi placement? Because I'm a control freak that's why.

That's the US women's soccer team getting beat by Japan on the TV in the background. Bother.

Wouldn't it be fun to bring this into a dinner party? Ours is a little more Jenga than Rubiks and we agreed that next time we'd use a small square or rectangular cookie cutter to achieve perfection. I believe I mentioned I'm a control freak, didn't I?

Now, on to the questions for the Wednesday Hodgepodge...answer these on your own blog and then come back tomorrow to link answers. The more the merrier so don't be shy!

1. July 20th marks the anniversary of the first time man stood on the moon. Flash forward 42 years to July 8, 2011 which marked the start of the final Space Shuttle mission. Should we continue to explore space? Should nations devote more or fewer of their resources to exploring space? Would you want to go into space if the opportunity arose?

2. What are three things in your freezer?

3. If you could see any band/artist perform live tonite who would it be? It has to be someone living...no Beatles, Elvis, etc.

4. Ice-cubed or crushed? Or are you one of those people who don't like ice?

5. The owner of a small restaurant outside of Pittsburgh recently announced he was banning children under six, saying they regularly disrupted other customer's meals. You can read the story in more detail here but isn't this a perfect topic to discuss in our Wednesday Hodgepodge? Have at it friends...what are your thoughts?

6. What was your first car? How did it come to be yours?

7. If I had a nickle for every time I _________________ I'd be rich.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Good Morning Merry Sunshine

Good Monday morning...how did your day start? I awakened to the sound of the dog throwing up at approximately 5:15 am which is always a wonderful way to begin a new week. It's amazing how fast you can move from a dead sleep to a sprint when you realize what's about to happen. I was almost quick enough but sadly, almost doesn't count. sigh.

My weekend started out with a little excitement too. I was running errands on Friday when this happened about three cars ahead of me, coming down the hill in the opposite direction.

I have no idea how this occurred other than to say I could see it was a young driver and the curve there is a little on the sharp side. Still, I think you have to be going pretty fast to flip a truck on a residential road in traffic in the middle of the day. The driver appeared to be okay-climbed out on her own and was sitting up on the grass. I had the impression the driver was a girl but it may have been a boy (I was trying not to have an accident myself as I was rerouted around the scene). When you have young drivers in your house this sort of thing rockets your stomach straight into your throat and causes your heart to pound. It also makes you want to call your kids and give them 'a lecture' on defensive driving but you resist and just tell them you love them a lot and to please be careful when they're out and about.

On a happier note-we had a super fun weekend except as is always always always the case when daughters are home visiting, the weekend went by at supersonic speed. We picked up daughter1 and her boyfriend at the train station on Friday night and returned them to the train station yesterday. The blink of an eye.

I don't think I've mentioned my favorite blog topic lately-the weather. Glor-i-ous! Check this out-

Hubs laughed when he saw this picture but I'm sorry, a cloudless blue sky Saturday requires a picture, don't you think?

First thing on the agenda Saturday was waking everybody up. It is no easy task to get a 20-something up and moving on a Saturday morning, especially when she had been up almost all night on Thursday thanks to a certain boy named Harry Potter. The boyfriend slept in too but the thing about boys is they can be up and ready to go in a matter of minutes.

20-something girls must first employ all their hair products and brushes and tools to make themselves look adorable even though when you are 20-something you pretty much always look adorable.

We headed out into the very lovely NJ countryside around noon and our first stop was a small farm winery for a tour and tasting. We tasted wine right out of the barrel which was interesting. The vineyards are so pretty...guess why they call it a farm winery?

After we left the winery we headed across the road into New York state and had a lovely lunch in one of our favorite small towns. We wound around a bit more and stopped at a second farm winery, this one with the most beautiful scenery...

No sheep but still, there's a reason they're called farm wineries...

I would have liked a tour of the house too...just look at the cellar cut into the side of the hill-

We came back towards home and stopped at a local restaurant where people bring their classic cars on Saturday nights. The hubs and the boyfriend were in 7th heaven and I took this opportunity to educate daughter1 on something else that might be considered a classic....

...the 8-track tape. She'd never seen one before and this person had some good ones. Why yes, I did put my camera inside someone's '79 Trans Am for a picture. I have a blog ya know!

Couldn't really top that so we headed for home. Hubs grilled steaks and it cooled off so we sat around the most beautiful fire and roasted marshmallows and told stories and laughed a lot.

Let's discuss this picture for a second. There are many things wrong-the lighting, the angle, the smoke from the fire making it a little blurry. The lights are on in my kitchen and they're creating funny reflections. And no, those are not dead bodies in the background-hubs had already covered the table and lounge chairs for the evening. But when I see this picture I don't pay a lot of attention to those things. It makes me happy.

Like the weekend.

Like every weekend with a daughter in the house.

Water water everywhere

I love water.

Pools, rivers, oceans...doesn't matter, I love it all.

Being near the water, in the water, on the water, or even at the edge looking out, there is something about water that makes me feel like anything is possible.

From the time my girls were itty bitty we spent summers at the pool, the beach, and later on our boat on the river.

Both my girls have always loved the water.

We are the people at the beach who are still in the water at 7 PM.

In fact our favorite time of day on the water anywhere is the 4-7 time slot.

Hubs grew up swimming on a swim team.

He earned the nickname Aqua Lung while on a work trip a while back because he was down deep in the ocean with the scuba divers wearing only a snorkel (and a swimsuit of course).

Obviously he loves the water too.

Essentially, we're a family of fish.

We've had a most crazy summer schedule leaping from one weekend's events to another weekend's events with the in between days spent in regroup mode.

I'm not complaining because it is lots of fun stuff with lots of our most favorite fun people but still, it doesn't quite feel like summer.

Maybe that's because deep down inside I believe summer is spelled

w-a-t-e-r.

And ours this year is missing that.

In fact, we haven't had any water at all in our summer so far unless you count rain.

No, we're not counting rain.

We have a couple of weekends planned late in the summer where there will most definitely be water.

I look forward to those weekends.

Summers need water.

There needs to be swimming...

and dancing.

Skiing~

and tubing~

you need to feel the sun on your face,

while the wind whips your hair and the sea gently sprays.

There has to be some sand between your toes

skim boards

and diving boards too.

There needs to be a walk along the shore

and a secret shared while sitting next to the sea.

When I stand in front of the ocean I always wonder how anyone can think this world just 'happened'.

A summer spent by the water is where memories are made-

And where the future is imagined.

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),

It's always our self we find in the sea."

~e.e. cummings