Questions for the Hodgepodge-Vol 69

Here are the questions for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Be sure to come back tomorrow and add your link for all the world to see.

1. Did March come in like a lion or was it something less ferocious in your neck of the woods?

2. Speaking of lions, which one's your film favorite...The Cowardly Lion (Wizard of Oz), Mufasa (The Lion King), Elsa (Born Free), or Alex (Madagascar)? You may notice I left Aslan off the list. Including him would have made this question way too easy for many of you.

3. What's your favorite spot from which to view the sunrise or sunset?

4. To what extent is knowledge power and to what extent is truth power? What's the difference?

5. What's something peculiar you've seen recently?

6. Bottled water...your thoughts?

7. What's your strongest sense?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Sometimes The Couch Calls Your Name

We had a quiet weekend.

No place we had to be.

No planes to catch, no bags to pack, no conference calls at 9 PM on a Sunday night.

Nothing. Nil. Nada.

Let's just stop and appreciate that fact for a minute because it's a rare and beautiful thing around here in the year 2012.

Friday morning I had my third camera lesson. The instructor always gives me an assignment for the week and last time I'd written that down in general terms but then I couldn't figure out how to make the camera repeat what I'd done in my lesson.

As my favorite bear would say- 'Oh bother'.

Good thing I'm not being graded.

In my head I'm being graded which is a little bit depressing but I keep plugging away.

I simmered a big pot of vegetable beef soup most of the day Friday so I wouldn't have to cook on Saturday. Or Friday night. You know my rule book says we eat out on Friday nights. Hubs wholeheartedly supports this notion so we went for Thai food which is pretty much my favorite thing.

Saturday morning we lounged. Is there anything better than coffee sipped at your leisure as bacon sizzles and an unmarked day stretches out in front of you? We've learned to savor that sort of morning.

Hubs got a new phone last week and needed a case for it so we made plans to see a movie and then do a little shopping later in the day. It had to be later in the day because we somehow got sucked into watching The Godfather saga, all four of which were running back to back this weekend. We briefly considered chucking our plan to leave the house but we know us a little too well, and while we like a little bit of lounging we don't like a full day of feeling lazy. We hit record and saved Parts 3 and 4 to the DVR.

The movie theatre was a zoo on Saturday afternoon because The Lorax had just opened and everyone and their offspring must have been there to see it. I could go into a small rant here about the inefficiency of the concession stand employees and how it took every ounce of self restraint I had not to leap over the counter and help them but I'll refrain.

We saw Act of Valor. It was so good and stirred up all kinds of emotion in me. Bravery and courage and sacrifice make my eyes water and my heart well up. Go see it.

After the movie ended we walked around the mall. Hubs was spending too much time looking at I don't know what in the AT T store which is how I ended up with a brand new pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses shop was just opposite the phone store and by the time he finally got there I'd tried on no less than 647 pair. I kinda had to buy, right?

We headed for home, back to our comfy clothes and couch and a bowl of vegetable soup, aka comfort food. We watched some more of The Godfather but since we were both nodding off during part 3 we decided to give up and go to bed.

At 8:50 pm.

Not 9 o'clock.

8:50.

On a Saturday night.

Did I mention we've been going 100 miles an hour here since the first of the year and we needed to hit the brakes? Well that's exactly what we did this weekend. It was riveting stuff to read I know but it can't be all foreign cities and across the sea travel tales around here all the time now, can it? A lot of that will be happening later this spring though, and I feel like I need to rest up. Hubs keeps reminding me I'm going to need to put on my big girl britches for our Asian adventure. Hmmm...it seems he's traveled with me before.

I realize I haven't mentioned Sunday but this post is already long and a little bit dull so I'm going to save that for a blurb of its own. Happy Monday!

Innocence Remembered

Davy Jones passed away yesterday. If you're a member of the under 40 set you may have heard this piece of news and thought to yourself, "hmmm...Davy Jones? Wasn't he a character in Pirates of the Caribbean?' Yes he was but as we all know characters don't really pass away, they remain forever and always within the confines of a book or movie.

I'm talking about the Davy Jones. Davy Jones who sang vocals in a band popular back in the late 60's and early 70's known as The Monkees. Davy Jones who was a heartthrob of epic proportion. If you're part of the over 40 set and heard this news you may have felt a touch of sadness and a small wave of nostalgia for a more innocent time. Most women my age will tell you that in their once upon a life they dreamed of walking down the aisle with Davy Jones.

The Monkees were were one of the original 'boy bands' and they made records and had their own tv show. Davy also made a famous guest appearance on another show popular during my tween years which was The Brady Bunch. Marcia Brady had a bona fide crush on him and if you surveyed my peers you'd find pretty much all of them remember this particular episode. It aired in 1971. I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade

Do 5th grade girls still play Barbies because we did. My sister and I had quite a few and when friends joined in they'd pack up their Barbies in the original clunky-chunky black Barbie suitcase and carry them over to our house so we could really have a big game.

One of the things we liked to do was assign each Barbie a boyfriend and the three most fought over were Davy Jones, Bobby Sherman, and David Cassidy. This trio of 'teen idols' were all rather boyish in their looks, handsome and neatly dressed, with winning smiles and a twinkle in their eye. They sang pretty harmless stuff about love and life and nobody dropped the F-bomb into their lyrics or called women nasty and derogatory names or wore sunglasses indoors at night (puh-leese!) or talked gangsta when they most assuredly were not anything remotely close.

Oh they may have been dealing with all sorts of yucky stuff behind the scenes but they weren't tweeting it to the universe and they had no fan page on facebook because, duh, there was no facebook. We could innocently crush because if they were abusing drugs or had a foul mouth or demanded a bathtub full of Evian or their hotel room painted black before they'd agree to set foot inside or some other such ridiculousness we never heard about it.

And you know what?

I think that was better.

People like to make fun of that era and granted, the style trends make for an easy target, but I look around at this world sometimes and I long for eleven year old little girls to know the innocence I knew in 1971. There's something to be said for peeling back the layers of life one birthday at a time, to exploring your world bit by bit and not having the entire universe at your fingertips in a google search.

We can't go back. We can't undo technology and I'm not sure I'd even want to if given the chance. I use email daily, write a blog, and I'm on facebook and twitter so obviously I can appreciate some technology. Even so, it saddens me a little to think my future grandchildren will live in a world spinning faster and more furious than we do in the year 2012.

Some days I want to slow it down, add a filter, let us come to the world instead of the other way around.

Days like yesterday when something takes me back to 1971 and suddenly I'm face to face with the memory of my dad mowing the grass on a sunny Saturday morning. The smell of a barbecue grill and fireflies dancing in the dark. The sound of my sister's voice on the telephone, the one with the extra long chord made for stretching and twisting and wrapping as you talked. My brother on his guitar with his bedroom door slightly ajar. The giddy and glorious freedom I felt playing tag with the neighborhood kids in the dusky light of a late summers eve. A sister who was my constant companion and our suitcase full of Barbies.

Daydream believer and a homecoming queen. Imaginations running wild in the safe place called childhood.

Leaping Into the Hodgepodge Vol 68

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge...be sure to add your link to the bottom of my post so we can all stop by and say hi. Here are my answers to this week's questions-

1. The Hodgepodge falls on the last day of the month this year, a leap year. How will you spend that extra day?

Nothing too extraordinary...I'll spend a portion of the extra day waiting on Mr. Tile Guy to touch up the grout in my bathroom shower. We put a new shower in last spring and he recommended a grout re-touch a few months down the road which is where we are now.

I'll do the usual laundry-dust-meal prep, return some library books and drop off/pick up dry cleaning and hopefully finish my book club book so I can pass it on to a neighbor. I'll also spend some time organizing the trillion or so travel docs I've accumulated so far for my Asia trip happening later this spring + our graduation travel happening in May + our post-graduation family vacay happening after that. Being your own travel agent is time consuming.

2. What has recently required a leap of faith on your part?

Parenting. My girls are young adults now and I need to trust that I've poured into them what's needed in order for them to make wise decisions. Not as easy as it sounds.

I think most healthy decisions are a delicate balance of reason and emotion best reached after you've talked all the particulars over with God. At this stage of the game I have to trust that message has been sent and received.

3. We're one week into the season of Lent...are you marking these forty days in some way? Giving something up or adding something extra to normal life? How's it going so far?

I didn't grow up with the tradition of giving something up for Lent although some years I have chosen to do just that. This year I borrowed an idea I'd seen on Kelly's Korner and I'm sending a handwritten letter or a card to someone via snail mail each day of the Lenten season. I'm writing family, the children we sponsor through World Vision, friends who may need some encouragement, and anyone else who is brought to mind. I am loving this exercise!

4. When was the last time you sat beside a fire?

We have a gas fireplace in our family room but rarely turn it on. In fact we didn't use it at all the first two years we lived here but last fall I had it inspected and we've run it a time or two. Not often because it wreaks havoc with the already too high gas bill, but once in a while on super cold days we'll flip it on. Haven't had many of those this winter either. We had an outdoor firepit built last Spring and have really enjoyed that. Here's some of my family chillaxing over the Christmas break-

I think December was the last time we sat out there but I look forward to more of that once winter wraps up.

5. Surf and turf is on the menu. Do you order as is or do you ask for just the surf (lobster), just the turf (steak) or a menu so you can select another option?

Surf and turf.

Bring it.

Is it kind of obnoxious for a 51 year old woman to say bring it?

No need to respond....I think I already know the answer.

Just to reiterate-I am way younger in my head.

6. If you could have any television show back, not in reruns but in new episodes, what program would you choose?

I asked my hubs this question and we had the same answer. The first thing that popped into my head was The Andy Griffith Show. So sweet and funny, plus the whole family could watch without anyone needing to squirm or suddenly remember they needed to check on something in the other room.

It seems like most of the comedy shows that today bill themselves as 'for the family' will eventually decide to explore super serious, often controversial issues. They start off as family fare but once they gravitate towards these topics they become too overtly p.c. and inappropriate.

You could watch Andy with your grandma or your teenager or your 7-year old and everyone felt warm and fuzzy when the credits rolled.

7. They say an elephant never forgets. These days would you say your memory is more like an elephant or a gnat?

A gnat.

A gnat that has been stomped on by a big fat giant elephant.

The dulling of my memory is my second least favorite thing about mid-life.

My suddenly non-existent metabolism gets the blue ribbon in case you're wondering.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

This is the last day of the February photo challenge and, as has become my custom with this venture, I'm breaking the rules. Today's prompt is 'something you're listening to' but I prefer Monday's prompt which was-'something you ate'.

Of course I do.

I had to bring snack to Bible Study this week so I made a recipe I'd seen on Pinterest-Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze.

Positively scrumptious!

You'll find the recipe here.

You're welcome.

One for the Money, Two for the Hodgepodge

Before I post the questions for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge I'm going to subject you to my picture for today's photo challenge prompt-'money'. I actually have something that works for this one.

If you read here you know my hubs travels all around the world and he typically comes home with a bill or two of currency from where ever he's been. Most of Europe is on the Euro now which I suppose makes life more convenient but definitely not as interesting.

Anyway, I have some odds and ends bills from hither and yon and recently had a few of them framed and matted. The money isn't uniform in size which made the project a little challenging but I'm really happy with the finished product-

From l-r we have United Arab Emirates, China, India, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, and South Africa. That's a start.

Now on to the questions for this week's Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog and then come back tomorrow to link with everyone else who plays along. Be sure to add a link to my blog or the button (code is in my sidebar under the button-just copy and paste) in your post. That way, visitors to your blog will be directed back here so they can join the party too.

1. The Hodgepodge falls on the last day of February this year, a leap year. How will you spend that extra day?

2. What has recently required a leap of faith on your part?

3. We're one week into the season of Lent...are you marking these 40 days in some way? Giving something up or adding something extra to normal life? How's it going so far?

4. When was the last time you sat beside a fire?

5. Surf and Turf is on the menu. Do you order as is or do you ask for just the surf (lobster), just the turf (steak), or a menu so you can select another option?

6. If you could have any television program back, not in reruns but in new episodes, what program would you choose?

7. They say an elephant never forgets. These days would you say your memory is more like an elephant or a gnat?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Real Life, Blog Life on a Monday

Sometimes its hard to put the right words together. Sometimes your days and your head and your heart are filled with stuff you don't feel comfortable putting out there on your blog. Because the story isn't yours you don't say a lot about it here.

Behind every little blog there is a lot of life. My niece is a part of ours and as such we're part of a story that isn't being told here. She's been in the hospital essentially since mid-August. All but roughly 2o days since first being admitted and diagnosed with leukemia have been spent in hospital. Six months.

In writing about the everyday nonsense that I record here I'm not pretending her story isn't happening. I want to be respectful of her privacy and also allow her story to be told in first person, by her. Or her parents. The thing is, that story is the backdrop to our lives right now and some days I struggle to write about the trivial. Let's face it, most of the stuff we blog about is trivial.

I have two choices. I stop writing or I write but refrain from talking about a piece of our very real family story on a daily basis. I've opted for the latter because writing has become a necessary outlet, but every now and then I feel the need to acknowledge here that a big chunk of our everyday life is not being talked about on my blog. And that's okay.

It was a quiet weekend here at the ole homestead and no, I don't live on a farm but I like that phrase. I live in the suburbs. With a lot of wildlife all around. So kinda like the woodland version of a homestead. What was I saying again? Hubs worked out his schedule so he could spend the weekend with his brother and sister in law and our niece. Sometimes when families are separated by geographical distance you need to get on an airplane and be near. I drowned myself in paperwork and attempted not to lift off the ground in the icky cold wind. It's still February in case anyone had begun to think otherwise.

How did I fill the rest of the weekend hours?

Well I got that pesky tax organizer submitted to the accountants so yay me! I also met with our attorney about updating our wills.

Wills and taxes.

Don't be jealous.

I had my second lesson with a local photographer.

I vacuumed.

I wrote.

I talked to my girls on the phone.

I listened to music.

I ran some errands.

I went to church.

I thought about the A-Z blog challenge coming up in April and tried to come up with a plan. If you'd like to join the fun go here to link up and get details. I participated last year and really enjoyed it. I used that month as an opportunity to record some of our happiest travel memories and it helped to have a theme. I sorta kinda maybe came up with one for this year's challenge.

It may or may not involve travel.

Remember how I said I have a big trip this spring?

Moving on.

The Oscars...did you watch?

I'm all about the fashion.

My favorites were Gwyneth Paltrow, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, and George Clooney's date-Stacy Kiebler. She had the best accessory, wink wink.

I wish I had Robin Roberts arms.

Just sayin'.

While I did a lot of writing this weekend I did not do a lot of picture taking. I made an attempt at capturing one of the February photo challenge prompts and that was Day 26-'night'.

There is something very comforting to me about seeing the moon in the night sky. No matter if its gloriously full and bright or the tiniest sliver of a fingernail it is a reminder at each day's end that Someone far bigger than me holds the universe and each one of us in it in the palm of His hand.

These boots were made for walking

I really do want to be caught up on the February Photo Challenge but I just don't see that happening. Today's prompt is 'inside your bathroom cabinet' so here's a picture of my shoe.

You followed that logic, right?

'Shoe' was yesterday's prompt, which I missed, so in the crazy mixed up random that is my blog I decided to skip photographing the inside of my bathroom cabinet and am posting a picture for the shoe prompt instead. The inside of my cabinet feels way too personal, plus why would I ever want a picture of that?

Course you may be wondering why I'd ever want a picture of my shoe and the answer to that question is I wouldn't, but I did take one recently in anticipation of the shoe prompt so I'm running with it.

This shoe is never kept in my closet because it's almost always muddy. It was purchased (along with its mate of course) for one of my girlies many moons ago, just prior to a Young Life Service project trip. They spent most of the project week in Romania that year standing in water that looked something like this-

circa 2006

We threw their clothes away when they got home but hubs power washed the boots and I wear them for hiking. They also brought home a nasty cough, hearts overflowing, and a boatload of memories that all the power washing in the world cannot erase.

Young Life.

Every kid, Everywhere, For Eternity.

Not just a slogan.

In all our many travels while living abroad if you ask my girls what was their favorite trip they both immediately say Romania. It was hard, get-your-hands-dirty, kind of work.

It was Jesus loves the little children of the world.

It was life changing.

There's my boot!

On the foot of my daughter.

In Romania.

Sigh.

If only these boots could talk.