The Luck of the Hodgepodge

It's time to put on one of those silly green hats and participate in the Hodgepodge. (In the interest of full disclosure, my green hat was missing while I wrote this post. In the interest of non-disclosure, all other articles of clothing were in full use.) So once you've finished up with my Hodgepodge of answers to this Hodgepodge of questions (I really like that word!) slide down the rainbow to Joyce's blog and see what everyone else had to say.

1. St. Patrick's Day will be celebrated this coming Saturday...what's a favorite article of clothing you own that contains a touch o' the green?

My eyes are green, and I always wear them.

2. What's a favorite 'green space' in the town, state, or province where you live?

There's almost always something green growing in the back of my fridge, but I don't necessarily think it's a favorite place for me. Obviously it's a favorite place for the green stuff.

3. Do you wish you were taller, shorter, or think you're just about right in the height department?

I like my height, but proportionately, I need to be taller so that I would be skinnier. I think if I were seven feet tall, I'd look really thin. And awkward, but I tend toward that anyway. I like thin.

4. What's the surest way for someone to pick a fight with you?

What with our "green" theme for this week, I had to read this question twice. At first I thought it asked about the surest way to pick someone's nose. Not happening. Come to think of it though, that's probably a good way to pick a fight.

5. Broccoli-Spinach-String Beans-Peas...of the four, your favorite green veg? (Or the one you dislike the least if that first option's too hard. I just know there's some veggie haters out there.)

They all have their place. Some of them are just farther away from me than others.

6. March is National Women's History Month...besides friends, neighbors and the women you're related to, who's a woman in history you admire and why?

Wonder Woman's always been pretty cool. I like the invisible plane (although she was never invisible when she was in it, which seemed to me to be a little glitch in the system), and she really knew how to work her jewelry. Bracelets, anyone?

7. Keep Calm and ____________on.

You fill in the blank.

Keep calm and put your shoes on. You just seem more prepared that way.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I'm rarely prepared, with or without shoes. But it helps if the shoes are cute.

Marching to the Tune of the Hodgepodge

I didn't leap last week, but I will definitely march this week. Come on and join us. After all, who can resist a good marching song? If it makes you feel better, beat a drum while you read my answers. than go on over to Joyce's and sign up with your own.

But wait! You march yourself right down to the end of this post and leave a comment first.

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

March started with a roar, but it may have been more bear than lion. And it had more to do with our schedule than with our weather. Speaking of weather, what would you call a day with plenty of bright sunshine, a light breeze and temperatures in the low 80's? I'm not sure it qualifies as a lion or a lamb. Maybe a lazy housecat?

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.

Each of those lion characters made their mark in their particular film. The real question is, would you still like The Cowardly Lion if he played in Madagascar? Would you still favor Alex if he took Mufasa's place in Lion King?

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

I like to view the sunrise in the east and the sunset in the west. Which is handy since I don't think God plans on changing that formula any time soon.

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

Knowledge is knowing facts. Understanding is knowing what those facts mean. Wisdom is knowing how to use those facts. Knowledge without understanding or wisdom is not much power. And in some ways, it can be very dangerous.

In addition, knowledge without truth can also be dangerous. You can know something, but if that something isn't truth, than it doesn't help much.

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

Snow. Haven't seen it in years, and I saw it on Monday. (I was not in Florida at the time.)

6. Bottled water...your thoughts?

Usually when I open one up, I wonder what garden hose was used to fill it.

7. What's your strongest sense?

Probably my sense of entitlement. Followed closely by my sense of guilt.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Why can't everyone else get their act together so I don't have to? (get my own act together, that is.)

A Little Humble Hodgepodge

And we're ready to start the Hodgepodge again! If you go here you can see what makes everyone proud ... or humble. Or whatever. Anyway, you don't want to miss it! But I don't want to miss your comments, so leave one before you go, will you?

1. February 22nd is National Be Humble Day...what makes you proud? My kids. What keeps you humble? My kids.

2. Where is the catch-all (aka dumping ground) in your house?
My house. Seriously. All of it.

3. Do you make it a point to visit State/National Parks when you travel or even in your own hometown? What's your favorite?
If we happen to, we happen to. Around here we visit Canaveral National Seashore and play in the ocean. I think our last visit was the week before Christmas.

4. How would you define honor?

Don't groan, but it really does depend on what part of speech the word honor is filling. As a noun, such as a man of honor, it means someone who has integrity and faithfulness. As a verb, such as when you honor your parents it means showing respect. Ultimately, someone with honor will do what is right, no matter the cost.

I'm incredibly grateful that I married a man with honor.

 

5. Angel's food or Devil's food-which cake do you prefer?
Devil's food--because chocolate is always the right choice, and because I like the frostings that go with it.

6. What's the most recent road trip you've taken? Where did you go and how many hours did you spend in the car? Do you like to zoom to your destination without stopping or leisurely wind your way there with stops along the way? What is your car snack of choice?
I've learned that traveling with males means conquering the road. They consider it a matter of pride to beat the time off their last trip. Last summer when we were traveling back to Florida from Michigan, I convinced my husband we should take our time and enjoy ourselves. Stop when we see something interesting. He agreed and we stopped shortly after that--spending over two hours at a Cabelas store.

Not quite what I had in mind.

7. Recent headlines told how a preschool child in NC had their packed lunch from home taken away and a school lunch substituted by a school inspector who deemed the homemade lunch unhealthy. Reportedly the parent was then billed for the school lunch (chicken nugget meal) although an update to the story says the parent was not billed. The inspector was conducting a routine inspection of the classroom-he/she was not there solely to peek in the lunchboxes. The packed lunch contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple juice box, a bag of chips, and a banana. You can read the story here. Your thoughts?

I think the kid's lunch would have been better if the mother had also packed a candy bar. I also seriously doubt that chicken nuggets are any more nutritious than turkey and cheese. But at least you might get BBQ sauce.

 

8. Insert your own random thought here.
I love my Ipad. Just sayin'.

The Parallel Presidential Hodgepodge

You know what's going on. You know you've been waiting for it. So spend a few Wednesday moments diving into the Hodgepodge. Come on, what's it gonna hurt?

1. George Washington-Abraham Lincoln-Thomas Jefferson...who would you most like to meet and why?

They were all great in their own way, but I think I would be freaked out to meet any of them because they're dead.

2. What's your favorite chain restaurant?
I don't eat chains. I prefer to stick with food.

3. I spied this question on the Bears at Home blog last week and she gave me permission to steal borrow it - When you look back on your life, do you imagine you'll think about the goals you failed to meet with regret? Or will you look at what you accomplished and say: it was good?
Hmmm. This sounds like a glass half full/half empty kind of question. I'm going to go with the much more important question:  What's in the glass?

4. Grapefruit-take 'em or leave 'em? Given the choice between an orange and a grapefruit which would you choose? Would you prefer it served as is or squeezed into juice?

Well I guess this would answer the last question, wouldn't it? (Mine anyway, not Joyce's.) Orange juice is in the glass, but I don't personally squeeze fruit unless I know them really well.

5. When was the last time you cleaned out a closet? Is there a closet in your home that currently needs cleaning? What are you waiting for?

I cleaned my closet out recently and it looks extremely neat and organized. I just don't know what to do with the pile of leftover stuff in the bedroom floor.

6. You get to have lunch with three famous people...who would you like to see round your table?

I think I'd rather be one of the famous people. And I'd like one of the other famous people to pick up the check.

7. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your ability to parallel park?

I rank this talent somewhere between my talent for cooking (not so great) and my talent for telling other people what to do (I'm fantastic at that. Lots of experience.)

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Do you have any idea how long it took me to come up with a talent where I can excel for my answer to the last question? That's really sad!

Okay, now go click on that link and see what everyone else had to say. But I've got to warn you:  not everyone puts their answers in the same nifty red shade. Just thought you oughta know.

 

Hello, Hodgepodge!

It's another Hodgepodge Day, which means it's another day where my computer does not like the Hodgepodge picture and link. In spite of that, you can still click here and go see Joyce, who is the originator of the Hodgepodge. Read through and comment on her answers, and then you can click through everyone else's links to see what they had to say.

Don't forget to read mine first, though. After all, I could use a comment or ten.

1. It's that most wonderful time of the year...tax season! Do you complete your own returns or farm that job out to the professionals? 

It is not tax season yet because it's not April. And when that season rolls around, we don't do our own returns, but neither do we look to professional farmers for help. Wait, that wasn't the question, was it?

2. This next question comes from Kansas Bob...he posed it in his response to something I asked in an earlier Wednesday post and I asked him if I could add it to the Hodgepodge some day. Today's the day....

Which do you think has changed you more-love or pain?
I'd say it's fifty-fifty because sometimes love is a pain and sometimes it's a pain to love.

3. Tangerine Tango has been named color of the year for 2012. Your thoughts? Would I find this color anywhere in your house? How about in your closet? If not, will you be adding this color to your life in some way in 2012? If you're not sure what tangerine tango looks like click here.
I am not in favor of fruit colors, either in my house or on my body. Who picks the color of the year anyway? And can they be replaced?

4. Are you a collector? What do you collect and does it get admired, used, and/or dusted regularly?

I collect children. (I've had six of them.) Sometimes they're admired and sometimes their useful, but I never dust them. (They don't dust either, which is why they're only useful sometimes.)

5. February is National Heart Month...besides a green salad what is one tasty heart healthy dish you like to prepare?

There are so many foreign phrases in this question! Phrases like heart healthy and like to prepare. I'm not a fan of either of those expressions. Let's just say I'll start ordering the vegetable skewer instead of the baked potato when we eat out and leave it at that.

6. When was the last time you had car trouble?

The most car trouble I've had lately is finding a vehicle to use that someone else isn't already using.

7. Have you been more demanding on yourself lately or less? Is that a good trend?
I make a lot of demands on myself, but I never meet those demands so I also annoy myself.

8. Insert your own random thought here.
Tomorrow is Groundhog's Day and we'll find out if we get six more weeks of winter. I'm not sure if I can handle six more weeks of this weather. Yesterday the temperature only got up to 73 degrees, and I froze all day.

Don't hate me for that. Just smile and think of how miserable I'm going to be next July.

The Demon Curl

So I have not blogged in a month, and the last time I blogged, my husband was in the hospital. I blogged from his hospital room because we live in that in-the-moment live-as-it-is-happening world. And then I didn't blog for a month for a variety of reasons. But rather than bore you with details of why I have ignored you for a month, I will sum it all up with one word:

Vomiting

There was vomiting involved and therefore I did not blog. Now aren't you glad I'm not including details?

Warning: that does not preclude me from including details at a later date. I'm just not going to do it today.

I have lots to tell you about the state of my husband's health, but I'm not going to blog about that today either.

Big important stuff has happened in our family, but I don't really feel like talking about that either. So instead I'm going to blog about my hair.

I certainly have my priorities in order.

Every so often I get in this grow-my-hair-out mood. Apparently I also occasionally fall into the string-all-my-words-together-with-hyphens mood as well. At any rate, everyone knows that when you are growing your hair out, you have to go through the growing out stage where your hair has no discernable style, and you pretend to deal with it by incorporating various hair accessories such as scrunchies, clips (or in my case) combs and headbands. You push and hold all this extra hair in place until it grows to the length you want it to be. Then you can have a normal hairstyle again that doesn't involve sticking something plastic into your tresses each day.

Can I just say, I'm never very good at the growing out stage. I know I'm impatient, but in my defense, my hair has a mind of its own. I never wear hats because my hair literally grabs any headcovering I attempt, and throws it off my head. Seriously. It's happened more than once. So when I start using combs and headbands, I'm trying to push down and conceal rogue hair strands that want to strike out on their own. Inevitably, I get tired of rogue hair long before I achieve the length I want, and I end up getting my hair cut again.

This time around I went without getting my hair cut since September. Can I just say, that's a lot of wild hair. Someone advised me that, instead of getting it cut, I should have it thinned because then it would be easier to control. That made sense to me so I had someone thin my hair with a razor.

I ended up with rogue hair that had no back up. Just wispy, long curls and trendils that stuck up in every direction. And it wasn't in that wildly sexy, uninhibited way that curly hair is in the movies and on TV. It was just nasty bristle-brush wild.

I finally gave in yesterday and went and got it cut. While at the salon, I got a text from my hair-thinner, who is not a professional stylist. She couldn't believe I was giving in when I had worked for so long to grow it out. She continued to fuss until I got home and showed her the results of a moderate trimming. Then even she agreed that it looked much better.

As I detailed how much I hated when my hair stuck out in every direction, she contradicted me and said it never did that. Except for the demon curl.

The demon curl?

"Yeah," she said. "Sometimes you run your hands through your hair and then you have a curl in the very front that stands straight up and points at people you're talking to."

And she was just now mentioning this to me?

At any rate, the demon curl is no more. And I think I'm over trying to grow my hair out for a while.

I also think I'm not going to listen to her hair advice anymore.

Now wasn't that more interesting than talking about vomiting?

Full Speed Ahead

So since I took most of the month of December off from blogging, I should have a lot to say. I thought about doing a recap of our Christmas, but that's old news now, isn't it? And anyway, I can probably sum it up with one word:

Wonderful

It wasn't perfect. For some reason, Matt and Kylee felt they needed to travel up to spend the holidays with her folks. I agreed to let them go because I had no choice I'm unselfish like that. After all, I insisted on having them here last year, so it was only fair.

On the plus side, our daughter was home for Christmas for the first time in four years. That definitely made the holidays wonderful!

I also thought I could celebrate my return to blogland and my first post of the new year by writing something profound.

I got nothing.

So instead I decided to write my first post of 2012 from the emergency room. Because nothing says Happy New Year like taking your spouse to the hospital in the middle of the night because he woke up with chest pains.

Yes, I'm blogging from his examining room. Don't judge me. It's helping me stay awake.

I am not a calloused woman. I waited until we we sure he was out of immediate danger before I started blogging. They're not sure what the problem is, but all his tests look good so they're pretty sure it's not his heart. Probably. No one really likes to say for sure because people in the medical profession hate to be wrong.

I will say this--if you've ever had to sit for hours in an emergency waiting room, try telling them you have chest pains. They move pretty quickly for that.

So no heart attack, but his blood pressure is quite high. He has a tendency towards that. And it just got higher when they came in to draw blood. Because he has a fear of needles like that.

Can't imagine what's causing Indiana stress. Couldn't be the six kids-- they're always good as gold. Except when they aren't. But we're getting even. We snuck off to the emergency room during the night. Won't they be surprised when they wake up.

Won't we be surprised if they're all still asleep by the time we get home!

Might be Indiana's job is causing him stress, but I can't see why. Everyone knows that being a pastor is not stressful. They only work on Sundays, don't they?

Sorry. I tend to get a little sarcastic and cranky when I've had less than four hours of sleep.

Right now I'm cranky because we're sitting here killing time. Once all the initial tests were done and they discovered we were in no immediate danger, they've left us alone. if we weren't directly across from the nurses' station, I might try to take a nap. Guess that's first on my to do list when we get out of here.

So Happy New year. Hope 2012 is all you want it to be.

We're starting it out with a bang.