PB and Hodgepodge

Welcome to another edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for your neighbor there. Hodgepodge links only, please and thank you. If you're visiting from the April A-Z Blog Challenge you'll find today's entry at the end of this post.  Now here we go-

 

1. What puts a spring in your step these days? 

Thinking about the baby boy joining our family in a few long short weeks. 

2. April 2nd was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Did you celebrate? Do you like PB and J? If so how do you like yours? What's your favorite kind of jelly? 

I did not celebrate. I like PB and J but need to be in the mood for it. When I do have a sandwich I like mine lightly toasted, the peanut butter not too thick, and the jelly piled high. I am more of a jelly and peanut butter girl as opposed to the other way round. Actually I'm more of a peanut butter cookie kind of girl, but that wasn't an option here today. 

I'm not sure I can pick a favorite jelly but apricot, red raspberry, and blackberry are all good. 

3. What's a memory you associate with spring flowers?

I've mentioned this a time or two on my blog in seasons past, but my mom used to grow the most amazing iris in a big bed at the corner of our yard. They were as tall as me and whenever I see iris I think of her. I wish I had a picture. I have a pile of slide carousels to go through someday and I'm pretty sure there's one in there. 

4. Three things on your spring bucket list? Do you have a spring bucket list? If not pretend you do. 

I don't have an official written down bucket list, but there's always a seasonal list in my head. Three things this spring-

• a baby shower
• old friends coming to the lake for the first time
• an extended visit with my mama who is coming to town for the baby shower and staying a while

5. One place you will travel this spring? (It might be Europe or it might be the grocery store)

Well sadly it's not Europe but I think we can do better than the grocery store. First up will be a fun trip to Atlanta to celebrate a friend's birthday. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I'm going to try to use this random space on April Wednesdays for my A-Z Blog Challenge entry. If you don't know what I'm talking about go to the first post in my series linked here-Raindrops on Roses. 

Day 5-E is for Easter

Of course it is.

Easter, 1993

I mean look at these cuties from a long time ago and far far away. 

Easter is one of my favorites, and while I may not have a clue whether we'll attend a sunrise service or something later, have no idea who will be round the table and who will be many miles away, don't know if I should mail Easter goodies or will be able to hand some out in person, have not one crumb of dinner purchased, or for that matter one crumb of dinner even planned, I do have the main thing, and that's hope. 

Easter is all about it and if there's anything this world needs more than hope right now I don't know what that might be. Not just any hope though. What this tired trouble earth needs is the hope ushered into the world in the form of a newborn babe and brought to fruition with an empty tomb. 

May you know that hope this Easter. 

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrews 11:11 

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Morning Has Broken

You know it's hard to stay caught up in the April A-Z Blog Challenge when you start off two days behind. I'd like to think this weekend I'll write ahead a letter or two, but who am I kidding? We all know I'll be scrambling til we reach zee end. 

Which is a long time from now. 

 Day 4-D is for Dawn

Is anyone surprised? Certainly not hubs who likes to ask me why I take the same picture every morning-ha! He's a little bit right but not entirely. One amazing thing about the sunrise is that each one is unique. Some more pink than purple. Some more orange than red. Some a little bit of everything splashed across the sky. 

You miss it if you're not careful. You can run for one quick second to grab your camera only to return and find that sun shining high and bright, more risen now than rising. 

I've learned to be still. To not look away. 

I like to get up in the wee hours of the morning before the sun even thinks about coming up. I like to make my coffee and sit in the quiet stillness of a not-yet new day and watch color slowly seep into the world.  Sometimes the light is just right and not only is the sky a pastel paintbox, but it's reflection on the lake is too. 

It's a dreary rainy day here now, but this morning? This morning looked like this-

Even when storm clouds are brewing the sun still rises. Still fills me with gratitude. Still helps set my mind less on earthly things, and more on things above.  

It's a visual reminder we are loved. 

That His mercies are new every morning. 

And we are not forgotten.

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 457

We're back Hodgepodging after last week's quick spring break. Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with the rest of the world wide webbers. See you there!

1. What puts a spring in your step these days? 

2. April 2nd was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Did you celebrate? Do you like PB and J? If so how do you like yours? What's your favorite kind of jelly? 

3. What's a memory you associate with spring flowers?

4. Three things on your spring bucket list? Do you have a spring bucket list? If not pretend you do. 

5. One place you will travel this spring? (It might be Europe or it might be the grocery store)

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Two posts in one day, but one does what one must to catch up with the alphabet in this month's A-Z Blog Challenge. 

Day 3-C is for Celebration

We had a good one this past weekend y'all.   

Hubs has three siblings, all married, and no two living in the same city or even state. His mom has not had all of her children with her in the same place at the same time since June of 2019. That's a long time to be without your people, people. We decided a reunion was long overdue so we messaged all the sibs, synched our calendars, and landed on the weekend of April 1st. April Fool's Day to be precise, but we didn't think about it at the time. We just picked a date that everyone could make happen and we made it happen. 

It wasn't originally intended to be a surprise, but when we realized early on in the planning nobody had mentioned it to my mother-in-law, we decided to keep quiet. 

And boy did we surprise her! 

We picked her up in Tennessee on our way home from the Bourbon Trail last Monday. We had invited her to spend the week with us at the lake and told her we'd get her home the following Sunday. I got all the beds ready, bathrooms cleaned, groceries mostly purchased, and a lasagne made and frozen ahead of time so she wouldn't be suspicious. 

Hubs smoked a pork butt all day Friday and while she wondered why we were smoking such a ginormous piece of meat for the three of us she didn't worry about it too much. Leftovers, right? One brother lives near my mother-in-law and they turned up on our doorstep about 4 PM. I had the drapes closed in the front of the house because my mother-in-law is sharp as a tack and doesn't miss a thing. 

Hubs came in the room where she and I were working on a sewing project and told her there was a birthday present for her on the front porch, and he wasn't going to carry it inside. She opened the door to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law exclaiming "April Fool's"!! 

And she burst in to tears. 

About an hour later hubs sister drove down the drive. She and her family live in Maryland and her hubs was supposed to be with her but had been in Florida all week, and his flight was cancelled. There was a lot of scheduling and rescheduling that ended with him renting a car and driving the whole way here, but more about him later. 

I said I was going out to get the mail and when I came back in with my sister-in-law, I said to my mother-in-law, "Look what I found in the mail."

And she burst into tears. 

Another hour passed and hubs other brother and sister-in-law, who live in Virginia, arrived. We had them walk around back and sneak in through the lower level. The hubs told his mom to come downstairs, he wanted to show her something. She only got about halfway down when she spotted them. 

And she burst into tears. 

The gang's all here, or so she thought. She knew my brother-in-law had a cancelled flight so she was not expecting him. We were all standing around our kitchen island talking and laughing and he very quietly walked  into the house and slipped into a spot at the island. We all tried our best not to laugh while my mother-in-law looked everywhere in the room except there. He was right in front of her for at least five full minutes before it registered.

And she burst into tears. 

All her kids together for one whole entire weekend was so special. We had the best time eating too much, talking too much, and laughing too much. 

We went into town to browse the shops, we played cornhole and cutthroat pool, talked about our kids, the grandbabies, work, home improvement projects, travel plans, and our aches and pains because hey, we're all that age. Also, my mother-in-law is a pool shark. Who knew? 

The weekend went too fast and these people have trouble NOT talking and standing still for pictures but we took a few anyway. These are her originals-

And they are. 

In every sense of the word.

Brotherly Love

Moving right along in the April A-Z blog challenge with the second letter of the alphabet. My theme this year is 'these are a few of my favorite things'. It feels broad and I'm sure will go in a hundred different directions, or at least 26. 

Day 2-B is for Bourbon

Okay technically bourbon is not one of my favorite things, but we hit the Bourbon Trail a little over a week ago with hubs brother and brothers are one of my favorites. As are birthdays, but I digress. I took a lot of pictures and they gotta go somewhere. 

Also, I don't drink bourbon. 

Anyhoo, my brother-in-law celebrated a birthday a little over a week ago, and my sister-in-law planned a fun long weekend in the Bluegrass State to mark the occasion. 

Best of all daughter2 and her hubs joined the party and we had a great time hanging out, dining out, playing cards, and watching college basketball in our cozy lodgings. 

We stayed in a cute Airbnb in Bardstown and I didn't have to do a thing in terms of booking, planning, or reserving. My sister-in-law had the most perfect itinerary set up well in advance, and note to folks wanting to visit the trail...book ahead. Most places allow cancellation up to the day before and you may not get in to some of the more popular distilleries without a reservation. 

Bourbon country is also horse country and I love the scenery. 

We toured many a distillery and even though I don't drink bourbon I do really enjoy seeing the process, the landscape, and shopping in the small towns that dot this part of the Kentucky countryside. 

While all bourbon is made in much the same way no two distilleries are exactly the same. 

The pregnant lady sipped zero bourbon lest anyone be concerned. She may have ordered two pieces of pie but she did not have even a drop of bourbon-ha! Actually we all had a bite of the pies, but she did do the ordering. 

A highlight for the birthday boy and the hubs was bottling their own at Bardstown Bourbon Company. It's a newer and more modern facility and their marketing department knows what they're doing. 

We had sunny skies all weekend long, but it was cold. And windy. That feels worth a mention. The tours are mostly inside but you do walk outside to get to the rickhouses where the barrels are stored. I had mittens with me which everyone made fun of but were secretly wishing they had thought to bring lol. 

Cheers to the birthday boy, to brothers, and to blogging a Bourbon Trail road trip! 

Raindrops on Roses

Back on the blog after a couple of very busy weeks. I did manage to sign up for this year's April A-Z blog challenge, at the eleventh hour but still, I'm in. I'm not going to be too hard on myself if I fall behind, miss a day and need to combine letters, or run past the last day of the month. I know I'll reach letter Z at some point, just maybe not in April. 

Except May is also very busy so I am aiming for April. 

If you have no idea what I'm talking about the A-Z challenge is pretty simple. You blog every day of the week except Sundays in the month of April. Yes I know today is Sunday, but I'm just coming up for air here which means I'm already starting off behind. Like I said... I'll get there. 

When you take Sundays out of the equation in the month of April you're left with 26 days of posting, one for every letter of the alphabet. Your posts can be themed or not and mine are generally very loosely themed. I have been participating every April since 2011 and enjoy the process. 

I can't do deep and heavy right now so I'm going with something fun. Although sometimes my blog has a way of going places I didn't anticipate so I guess anything is possible. 

It's 2022 and 'these are a few of my favorite things'. 
26 things to be exact. 

Here we go-

Day 1-A is for America

America is a bit of a mess these days, isn't she? Originally I thought I might write 26 posts on this word alone, but that feels too hard at the moment so I'll keep it to one letter. Probably. 

I love America. I've lived away from America and I have traveled to many many places around the globe, but America is home. I view the wider world from the lens of this country, for better or worse and honestly it's almost always a bit of both. 

America is not a perfect place, but it is a good place to call home. One of the best in fact, yet it seems lately we're determined to hyper focus our lens on all her imperfections and only her imperfections. Do they exist? Of course! We could make a list right now of all that's wrong with this country, but let' s not. Let's focus the camera for just one minute on what's good and right and hopeful. 

What do I love about America? 

I love her can-do spirit. 

I love her wide open spaces and her too noisy cities. I love her diversity of thought, experience, culture, food, and climate. I love her music, college football, and small town USA. 

I love her many freedoms and the men and women who fight to preserve them. 

I love her natural beauty and her volunteerism. Her history and her modernity. Her compassion and her fortitude. Her southern drawl, New England clam chowder, purple mountains majesty and the way the sun sinks into the Gulf on a warm July night.

I love her optimism. It may be harder to find these days, but step away from the angry rhetoric filling our screens and our news feeds and sometimes even our neighborhoods, and you'll find the extraordinary. Everyday people working hard, loving their families, helping their neighbors, and praying God's blessings on this nation we call home. 

Time For The Hodgepodge

Another week, another Hodgepodge. Just a reminder there will not be a Hodgepodge next week (3/30) as I need a breather. We'll be back the following week, April 6th. Time flies doesn't it? 

Anyhoo, we're here this week with a brand new set of questions. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to add your link to the party. See you there! 

1. What's something you never seem to have enough time for? 

Big organizational projects. Do I not have enough time or do I not make the time? Hmmm... I suppose I have all the time in the world but I prioritize other things over these things so they don't get always get done. For one thing I feel like a need a big chunk of time for these projects and I don't often have an uninterrupted big chunk of time.  I have an hour here and a couple of hours there and I don't like to try to do a big project in tiny little pieces. 

I need to learn to like doing big projects in tiny little pieces. 

2. If you could turn back time and relive just one day in your life, which day would you choose and why? 

This is a hard question. For starters I would never want to actually turn back time. The idea of that is a little bit frightening, knowing what we know, playing timekeeper of the universe when the universe already has the perfect Timekeeper. For the sake of answering though, I'll play along. 

When I started to really think about this question it felt familiar. Then I remembered I had written an entire post on this topic seven years ago (seven!!) so rather than re-invent the wheel I'll link it here. I re-read it and the sentiment still rings true. Here ya go-

Play It Again Or Maybe Don't 

3. Something you enjoy making that takes a long time to prepare/cook? 

There's a buttercream candy I make at Christmas time that takes a long time to put together. Each piece is hand dipped and you can usually tell which ones were towards the end of the process because they are somewhat less than perfect.  The recipe makes close to 100 so I generally run out of patience before I run out of chocolate. 

My family says they're worth it. 

4. A time recently where you needed/gave yourself a 'time out'? How do you do that? 

A time out for me generally involves filling my bathtub all the way up with steaming hot water, dimming the lights, and soaking until all the crankies have dissolved. It happens at least once a week. A hot bath is good for what ails you, the physical and the mental. 

5. Something you've done recently that you'd describe as a 'good time'? 

We had a fun weekend showering Daughter2 with love and baby boy goodies. I wrote about it in a post here- Shower The People You Love With Love

Y'all didn't have anything to do today but read my blog, right? 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

One fun thing I forgot to mention in my shower post was my wrapping paper. Stay with me, because it was super special. 

When I was going through my gift wrap station (aka the bags and bins in the attic) my eye landed on a roll of paper that looked familiar. I pulled it out only to discover it wasn't wrapping paper at all, but rather a roll of wallpaper from a baby girl's very first bedroom. The one we brought her home to. The one my dad spent one whole entire day getting the pattern to line up just exactly right. 

This one-

I don't know how this roll ended up in the gift wrap 'station' but what fun it was to wrap baby boy's gift in his momma's nursery wall covering. 

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

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