Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 217

L is for Later, which is when today's post for the A-Z Challenge will be up. In the meantime you can read yesterday's letter K by clicking here. Or you can join this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.

That I've got covered!

Answer the questions on your own blog, then pop back here tomorrow and add your link to the party.

1. Speaking of April 15th...what's the most 'taxing' thing you've done recently?

2. When did you last take a taxi somewhere and where was that somewhere?

3. What's something you can do today that you couldn't do a year ago?

4. How often is chicken (in some form or fashion) on your menu at home? Which of the following would you most like to see on your table tonight...a chicken salad sandwich, your mom's fried chicken, a Chick-fil-A meal, Cracker Barrel's chicken n' dumplings, a roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings, or 'hold the chicken, I'm a vegetarian'...?

5. What was your favorite television program when you were a kid? What characters do you remember the most?

6. What was the last piece of 'art' you made?

7. What frustrates you most about the Internet?

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

The Good Stuff

I do so wish I were better organized for this year's A-Z Challenge, but since wishing doesn't make it happen, let's just continue with the muddling through.

I mentioned a while back the box of letters I'd stumbled upon during the great basement purge of 2015. Once I found that box the purge became less of a purge and more of let's just sit here in the middle of the floor and read old mail kind of project. Hubs is all about getting a job done, so I ended up bringing the box upstairs to read at my leisure.

K is for Keepers

Every time you move you're more or less forced to decide what to hold on to and what to let go. What you can live without and what holds some sort of value, sentimental or otherwise. What's useful and what's outlived it's usefulness. When you move often, as we have done, this purging happens on a fairly regular basis. You're weary of all the packing and unpacking so you weed out most of the meaningless and are left with just the necessities to cart from pillar to post. 

The necessities and the good stuff.  

Letters from your sister written when you were a young, slightly homesick, eighteen-year-old college student are most definitely the good stuff.  

I've moved ten times since college, and these letters have followed me from one abode to another, across multiple state lines, and even for a time into the dark recesses of a storage unit while we lived across the pond. 

There's something very precious about holding a letter in your hand. A letter written about the everyday ordinary of life at home in 1978.

'...I went to the mall with Dad on Saturday. What a drag! We bought trash cans at Sears....'

'...me and mom went to the PX and Commissary. They had disgusting clothes, but I did find a pretty raincoat which mom put on layaway...'

'...today we went to the diner and the lady asked how many and I said four because I forgot you weren't there....'

I'm sure those words are fairly meaningless to you, but when I read them my heart wells up with something hard to name. Nostalgia, longing, the sweet sweet comfort of a place called home and childhood. 

I'd had a bit of a rough summer the year I went off to college, and my sister wrote me lots of letters. In most of them she begs me to write back, scolds me for my slow responses. I was all caught up in being eighteen, and while I don't remember the details, reading these letters I know I let her down. 

There's one from my mom in the box too, where she gently nudges 'write your sister' and then another saying...'you've mortally wounded her...'.

The girls in my family were not dramatic at all. 

There's a part of me that wishes now I could go back. Write her all the letters she deserved. Tell her how the stories from home made my heart feel light and safe. 

Love within a family is a powerful thing, and I handle the yellowed stationary gently. I tuck it safely back inside the box, ready for another move. 

And I sit at my computer and send an email about my ordinary everyday... 

'...hubs is painting the porch railing today....'

'...we'll be in Washington later this spring...'

'...found some letters you wrote me back in college...
they made my heart explode...they're keepers'. 

Long Story Short

I am not a Saturday blogger. Saturdays are for other things, but I know me and skipping a letter in the A-Z challenge would make me twitch so I'm going to eke out something about something. 

J is for  New Jersey

Home. The place I grew up and the place I raised toddlers and the place we've come back to as 'empty nesters'. As an aside-I'm not a fan of the term 'empty nest'. Firstly it's depressing, and secondly it makes us sound old. And dull. 

We are not old. 

Not that there's anything wrong with old, it's just that we're not there yet. 

And we're definitely not dull. 

Now back to New Jersey. She gets a bad rap. About some things. 

Some of what you hear isn't too far off the mark. 

This is my third time round the Garden State. My parents moved to NJ when I was in Kindergarten and, long story short they stayed. I grew up in a neighborhood with sidewalks and street lights and lots of kids. Where you could ride your bike to the pool or the duck pond and catch fireflies in your own backyard on warm summer nights. 

It was a pretty great place to be a kid. 

I moved south for college. Upon setting my feet in East Tennessee I found my accent and my inner southern girl and pretty soon thereafter, a southern boy. I married him. The south is my adopted home.

In that funny way life has of twisting and turning, we moved back to my earlier homeland, aka NJ, when Daughter1 was a year old. Hubs corporate headquarters were located in NJ, so we always knew it was a possibility. 

We were young and poor. Poor by NJ standards-ha! What you've heard about the ridiculous cost of living here is correct. It is indeed ridiculous. So we bought a house a long way from the office, and we had another baby and we lived on love and macaroni. We called NJ home for five whole years. 

We went on to move and then move again and long story short, we moved back to NJ after six years abroad. Re-entry was brutal. 

We've almost recovered. 

It's been a crazy five+ years in this thing I'll go ahead and call the empty nest. Mostly it feels like we've spent a lot of time schlepping. Our families are scattered and our children live in two different states, now in two different parts of the country, so planes trains and automobiles have been a big part of this season. 

Such is life in the modern world. When our girls were little hubs used to try to convince them we should all live on a compound one day.

Long story short, we don't. 

Which brings me to now. We've stuck our big toe into the retirement pond, and we're figuring out what's next. We've always had a plan and also a dream. That plan and that dream were not set in the Garden State, so long story short we're headed back south. 

The south also gets a bad rap. About some things. 

Some of what you hear isn't too far off the mark.  

I'll talk about the move south another day, but right now you're wondering if I'll miss NJ? 

My answer is yes. 

If there's one thing I've learned in making a bunch of moves, it's that there's always something to miss. On the bright side, there's also always something I'm happy to leave behind. On the front end of a move, I think it's best to focus on the latter, but for the sake of this post how about a list of the other, ala stream of consciousness?

What will I miss about NJ?

I still have family here

my backyard in October

sunrise from my front porch

the view of the mountains as you come up the hill 

my hawk, our deer, mama fox tending her kits, and a black bear lumbering up the drive

my next door neighbor and friends a street over

my women's Bible Study

my hairdresser

hubs work peeps-some of them are my peeps too

my doctor

my boot camp experience

my neighborhood book club

the friendly gal who works the counter at my dry cleaners

Italian food on every corner

good bagels

breakfast at the diner

and New York City a short car ride away

There's more, but that's a snapshot. 

If you had to move tomorrow what would you miss?

Also, we are not moving tomorrow. We still have a house to sell. I'm not making a list of what I won't miss but if I were, selling a house would definitely be on it!

Soar

I is for Be Inspired. And Inspiring

Someone asked me yesterday where I find inspiration for writing. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the things in which I find inspiration today, are the same things that have always inspired me. The manner in which they inspire may change, but not what's at the core.

Nature. I've always found inspiration in the beauty of God's creation. My feet in the sand at the edge of a seemingly endless ocean. The world spread wide from high up on a mountain. The bright red of a cardinal against the dull gray-brown of a not yet springtime landscape. The explosion of gold in my own backyard when October rolls around.

A bright blue sky. A pale blue sky. A starry sky. A great big brilliant moon.

Fluffy white clouds. Wispy clouds. A watercolor sunrise.

Inspiration doesn't only make us want to do something, it makes us feel something. When I notice the beauty that is everywhere, from the tiny perfection in a seashell to the majesty and grandeur of a hawk high overhead, I feel something.

Awe. Gratitude. Peace.

God's word. I grew up in Sunday School, memorizing Bible verses (thanks parents!), and hearing all the wonderful stories of faith the Good Book records. The most amazing thing about the Bible is the timelessness of it's words. Written centuries ago yet as relevant to daily living as if it were penned yesterday.

The words in scripture speak to me no matter what season of life I'm walking through. No self help book, no encyclopedia of knowledge, no parenting tome, no how-to best seller can reach into the corners of my soul the way God's word can.

And what exactly does God's word inspire in me? Self examination, reflection, small course corrections and big life changes to name just a few.

The written word. As a little girl I wrote a lot. Journals, stories, letters, cards, notes about my day in the small squares of my Holly Hobbie calendar. Growing up our house was full of books and we're all readers to this day. I fell in love with words and the way they fed my dreams.

When I began blogging I had no idea what I was getting into. I've always been a thinker, an observer of life, and I enjoy writing. Boom-blog born. Words are my love language and blogging opened the door to a world of wonderful writers. Writers who aren't necessarily published in book form although some are, but others too who have a deep thought, a significant insight, a funny incident, or a me-too tale to relate.

So often I read something and think 'Wow, I wish I'd written that.' Good writers are clever. They make me want to be better at this thing I love so much.

Creative people. There are so many talented people out there in the world, doing all sorts of amazing things. The most creative of them make me think I can be creative too. They make me want to create. I love the ballet, beautiful paintings, music that speaks, and English gardens in full bloom. I'm not skilled at any of those things, but when I'm privy to the power of someone else's talent I'm inspired to keep trying.

Kindness. In all its many forms. When I see it, hear about it, or am the recipient of it myself, I'm inspired. I see good in the world around me and want to hold on to the warm feelings stirred up by that goodness. I want to pay it forward.

I don't think I conciously seek inspiration. It's more like it arrives unbidden, so long as I make time and space for the things I've listed here. Some seasons of life that's been more challenging than others, but seasons they do change.

So what inspires you? What things or places would make your list?

The Help Desk

H is for The Help Desk

Yesterday hubs and I had a form we needed to complete together. The form had been sent to us online in the shape of a google doc. Or excel spreadsheet. Or some blahbiddy blah blah blah.

And so it began.

Hubs has never really spent any time on our home computer. He's always had a laptop for work so any computing he needs to do has been done there. When he retired he had to hand over the laptop, which was maybe the first real thing we hadn't considered in our 'planning for retirement' scheme.

He does have an iPad, but some tasks are difficult to accomplish on an iPad while they're a piece of cake on a regular desktop computer.

Unless you're married to me.

I have other good qualities though.

Hubs has never had any interest in hopping on the home email account at the end of a work day, and really there was no reason for him to do that. He trusted me to pass along any messages that needed passing, and I'm a master at the forwarding of emails, so not a total failure when it comes to technology.

Periodically through the years he's sent me something via email with instructions to 'save this to the house file' or 'the retirement file' or the 'travel' file. Um. OK. I have folders in my email with those headings so when he'd send me something I'd move it to the appropriate folder and forget about it. Every now and then he'd ask for something he sent and I'd retrieve it, usually from email.

Easy peasy.

So now hubs is retired with no laptop just yet, and yesterday we had that darn form to complete online. He pulled up a chair beside me and I proceeded to download the form. It wouldn't open. So he told me to save it as_______ and I did and then he told me to put it in my house file which I did, only he said I needed a house file on my hard drive and where were all those docs he'd been sending me anyway?

One thing always leads to another on the computer, doesn't it?

Where's the house file?

Right here. In my email.

No not the emails, where are the documents you've downloaded that were attached to the emails. You need to have docs saved somewhere on the hard drive or a thumb drive. You've download the attachments and saved them, right?

Um...sometimes. And sometimes I leave them attached to the email and figure I'll worry about that later.

Deep breaths and a little hand wringing and a bit of pacing around the room.

Wait-wait-wait...I do have mostly everything downloaded. Let me just open Word and I'll show you.

Word's not a filing system he says! Excel is not a filing system he says! 

I know that I say. But just let me open Word and get to My Documents.

Wait, you have something called My Documents? So you do have a file separate from your email?

He hovers and gulps air while I open My Documents and files appear.
There are four.

Also about 100 loose docs just hanging out there in the near vicinity of a file.

You have four files? 

Well, there's four of us, so yeah basically that's what I've got.

He was not impressed with my filing system.

Insert more deep breathing and hand wringing and also some vigorous shaking of the head.

But he kissed my forehead anyway, I think because I'm a little bit pathetic. 

As all of this played out it occurred to me that I'm the only member of my family who has never had any sort of computer instruction at all. Everything I know about the computer I've figured out on my own. Granted it's not a lot, and many things I'm likely doing in ten steps that could be done in two, i.e-that whole filing thing I had going on but still, I manage.

Remember when technology wasn't?

I mean I know there's always been technology of one sort or another, and it's always been on a fast track forward, but gosh there are days I miss my color coded manila file folders in the metal cabinet and a typewriter whose biggest aggravation involved carbon paper and an inky black tape that needed changing.

Doesn't all change make us think wistfully about what we left behind, until we fully embrace the new?

Once you've passed the '50 mile mark' you discover your brain doesn't work quite the way you always counted on it to work. At least mine doesn't. Neither does my hair, my teeth, or my eyes all of which require more attention now than in years past.

Learning something new that's not really new and I'm the last one to get on board, feels like exercising my brain. I like the sense of accomplishment I feel when I figure something out on my fancy phone or my temperamental computer even if my daughters have to show me the same trick or shortcut umpteen times in order for it to sink in.

The world is moving and changing in a thousand ways a million times a day. I know some argue that technology is removing all the personal from our interactions, and I guess in a lot of ways that's true. I also know without it I wouldn't see my daughters faces while we talk with hundreds, even thousands of miles of geography between us.

I'm thinking if I keep up, one day they'll be a hologram in my living room instead of on the other end of a Facetime call. Or someone will have figured out how to beam me there, or them here. And as wild and impossible as that sounds remember thirty years ago we couldn't begin to imagine walking around with a phone turned computer in our pocket. We barely knew what a computer was and phones were still attached to walls.

But here's the thing...someone did imagine it because here we are, walking around with computers in our pockets and in the form of wrist watches and all manner of crazy. I'll keep plugging away on my desktop and my iPad and my phone, and when that kid who's now nine comes up with a better way for me to have face time with my girls in the year 2045 I'll be ready.

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the the joy and glory of the climb.'~Winston Churchill

Growing Up Hodgepodge Style

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you're visiting from the A-Z challenge today, you'll find my post for Letter G by scrolling down to #8. Also, this post is long and for that I apologize. That's what happens when you aim too high-ha!

You're welcome to join the Hodgepodge here on Wednesdays, but I do ask you not link unless you've answered today's questions. Thanks for that! Now here we go-

1. Besides left over Easter goodies, what's something currently kept in a basket at your house?

Plastic bags. I have my grocery bags in a big basket inside my pantry. Works for me Wednesday. Is that still a thing on the Internets? 

2. 'The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.' ~Michelangelo Buonarroti 

So which one are you...the one who aims too high, or the one who aims too low? Have you ever seen The Sistine Chapel? Did you know Michelangelo's surname prior to answering this question?

I can go either way depending what it is we're talking about. In general I think it's good to aim high. If I miss the mark I can always re-aim. 

I've been to the Sistine Chapel. It was chock-a-block full of people, but still amazing to see. My lucky duck of a hubs once had a private after hours tour with a small group of work colleagues where he could snap pictures like this one-

I wasn't with him on this trip. I was at home doing something equally fun I'm sure. 
Probably eating popcorn for dinner wishing I was in Italy. 

3. April 7th is National Beer Day. Hmmm...wonder how that's celebrated? Do you like beer? Have a favorite? If you're not a beer drinker do you have any recipes you enjoy cooking that call for beer?

I'm not a beer drinker. I know there are all sorts of recipes out there calling for beer, but I can't recall ever trying one at home. 

4. When did you last travel somewhere new? Tell us where? How'd it go?

We went to a wonderful wedding in the Texas hill country on Pi Day. That date definitely makes it easy to remember an anniversary! We spent one night in Austin, and two nights out in the country in a little town called Dripping Springs. It was fabulous! You can read what I wrote in far too much detail by clicking here. 

5. The value of _________________________is greatly overrated.

Rap music?...sorry fans. 

6. What's a pet peeve of yours when it comes to restaurant dining?

Parents who allow their children to run amok. Sorry parents. I know it's a tough job, I've been there myself. I also get that some little tushes were not made for sitting, but allowing them to run around, especially to wander far from their own table is just inconsiderate.  

Last summer hubs and I were dining outdoors at a local spot. A couple of moms with their primary school aged girls were on the far side of the patio from our table, yet their girls spent most of the evening doing gymnastics just beside us. At one point they walked up to three or four tables and asked for $1, I think to perform a trick. They collected some $1s and eventually wandered back to their parents who never said a word.  

7. It's Poetry Month...share a favorite poem, either the title, a few lines you find meaningful, or the whole kit and caboodle.

The Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. 

Makes me think of my dad who had it memorized and would recite it when asked. He couldn't say no to my niece who was completely enamored of this poem and my dad's rendition of it. 

"It was many and many a year ago, 
In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
Than to love and be loved by me...."

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Using this space again today for my A-Z Challenge post, brought to you today by the letter G. 

G is for God Made Girls

I was thinking recently about having grown up children. 
Is the term 'grown up children' an oxymoron? 

Regardless, they're my children and they're grown, and having grown up children is far more interesting than I imagined it would be back when they were small.  

I also imagined having grown up children would be a piece of cake compared to negotiating with pint sized people, but it's really not...it's just a different kind of hard and wonderful. You learn as you grow that every season takes faith, guts, and a sense of humor.  

I can't explain how much I enjoy having real conversations with people I birthed, people who are so much like me, yet who are uniquely themselves. 

Daughter2 phoned me Tuesday afternoon and we caught up on all manner of topics, and then I said I needed to go because we had to pick up my car from the dealer before they closed and she said, quite casually-'Call me back because I need to tell you something.'  

Now. For those of you still in the trenches. There is something about hearing those six little words on the lips of your 20-something that cause your heart to momentarily skip a beat.  And in that space where a beat should be you very quickly do a mental review of your child checklist-

mature-check 
responsible-check
completely fabulous-check

Still...those words... 'I need to tell you something'. It's hard not to flash back to your mischievous toddler as you exhale and ask what most moms of 20-somethings would ask..'Is it something good?' 

Ha! Of course. Daughter2 is a second year teacher, which means she's in the middle of an official evaluation year. She wanted to share with me the results of her review which were exemplary. 

I could have told them that. 

My precocious, passionate, strong-willed beautiful girl, the one who spoke early and laughed much, the one who at age two from the confines of the naughty step would pull her pacifier from her mouth and say to her mama with every ounce of righteous indignation her tiny self could muster, 'You're not the boss of me'....that little girl is exemplary. 

Growth happens in each one of us, not so much by accident as by design. We moms are given the awesome privilege and responsibility of noticing our child's particular strengths and inclinations so we can nurture, guide, and re-direct when re-direction is needed. 

I remember the way my small children could exhaust and energize me in the same day.

My heart spills over when I acknowledge all I've learned about unconditional love by loving them. 

I smile at how they grew me up when I thought it was the other way around. 

I'm so grateful for the the many ways they continue to shape and change how I see myself and the world around me. 

Are we ever all grown up?

Back to the Future

If you're looking for this week's Hodgepodge questions, you'll find them here. 

It always takes me about three quarters of the challenge to figure out how to manage the Hodgepodge and the alphabet in the same week. Since I host a meme here on Wednesdays that I try my best to keep going during the month of April, and since I post questions for that meme on Tuesdays, I struggle a little with where to incorporate the letter of the day.

If I were organized I'd have my posts pre-scheduled and would have somehow inserted today's letter F into the Hodgepodge questions I posted earlier. Sadly I'm not at the top of my blogging game, so a separate post it is.

Also, I'm not sure why I felt the need to explain all that but chalk it up to my DNA, which is perhaps a post for another time.

F is for Flux

The weather is depressing here today. Just gonna say it. We've had a serious shortage of sunshine this winter and today I'm feeling it. I have to give myself a pep talk on days like today, where the skies are an unrelenting shade of gray. Makes me want to curl up on the couch and count the days til Spring.

-22. That's how many days til spring. Hmmm....

Hubs and I went for a walk in a nearby nature preserve this morning. It's good to walk and remember change comes eventually. That we move from a state of flux to one of motion. There are days I want to hurry the future into the present, but winter weather doesn't work that way.

Neither does life.

In thinking about how I feel and write on the subject of change, it occured to me that most of my thoughts run along the lines of resist and avoid.

Springtime days that look like winter remind me change is sometimes longed for too.