Down in a hole hodgepodge

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 405

Jumping in with Joyce and others for the Wednesday Hodgepodge. I would love to hear your answers to the questions. If you have a blog, copy and paste the questions into your own blog, answer, and connect over at From This Side of the Pond.

1. Have you done more binge watching this past year than in 'normal' years? Any plans to break that habit in 2021? Tell us one or two shows you binged last year that you really liked. 

Our binge watching consists of allowing ourselves to watch 1 episode per night. A few times we have splurged and watched 2! hahaha! We watched Third Rock From the Sun, Chuck, and now we are watching Absentia and it is absolutely gripping. It is a thriller. It is not a show to watch with your children but we are empty nesters so no problems there! We have two episodes left and are going to wait until Friday and Saturday to watch them. Hubby found out this week that they are releasing season 4 in July!!

2. January 26th is Australia Day. Have you ever visited or lived in Australia? Have you ever tasted Vegemite, and if so what did you think?  Is a trip down under on your bucket list? We answered a question about travel three months ago (the October 21st Hodgepodge), but let's revisit now...where are you when it comes to planning or even imagining travel this year? 

I've never been to Australia but think it would be so cool to visit Australia and New Zealand. I've never tasted Vegemite. What does it taste like? We have actually planned a trip to the beach for June with our children and grandchildren. I hope we can at least do that this summer. Yesterday, my husband arrived home from work with a piece of paper where he had been researching trips to Tibet and surrounding areas. That would be such a cool trip. We have our 2022 trip planned to Germany and Italy (was supposed to happen in June of 2020 . . .it was cancelled).

3. Something that zaps your energy? Something that energizes you? I'm either an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert. So being with people often energizes me but sometimes it zaps me, too. 

4. On a scale of 1-10 what are your eating habits like these days? (1=all junk food all the time and 10= juicing every green thing in the frig) Healthiest meal you've eaten in the last week or so? 

We've never been juicers but as my husband said last weekend, "we are eating high on the hog." For those of you who have never lived in the south that means we have been eating well. We've been eating well planned meals with lean proteins and lots of good veggies.

The picture does not do this justice.
It is a lightened up version of
Alice Springs Chicken. Recipe is
from Pound Dropper (with my
modifications).

These are a new favorite - also by 
Pound Dropper. They are sausage
and cheese drop biscuits but I
made them in muffin tins.

5. What's your most often 'Back in my day....' thing to say? I was recently talking about being a young mother and said, "back in my day, we didn't have social media." I was saying how alone I felt at home with preemie twins and I felt like everything I did was wrong. I was wondering if social media would have helped me or hurt. I think help because I could have asked "anyone ever , . ." and surely someone out there would have experienced the same thing.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I shared with y'all that my aunt died and her funeral was last week. This weekend I took a dive into an envelope of old pictures. I think my step-mom passed the envelope to me a few years before she died. I was cleaning out a closet and found the envelope. I posted on social media that I had fallen down an "old picture hole." It was glorious and sad and bittersweet. I texted with a first cousin on both sides of my family trying to figure out who the people are in some of the pictures. After the pandemic is over, I need to get with my sisters and we need to figure out who is in the pictures.

These are pictures of me with my mom
and dad. I was the baby of the family.
There are a lot of pictures of me in the
pile so I guess that is why my
step-mom gave the envelope to me.

The pictures were so dusty that I spread a blanket
on the island and I had to wear a mask the
whole time. Pandemic masks to the rescue!

I L.O.V.E. this picture of my mom.
She worked for a brief time at a
cement plant (I think that is correct)
and I'm wondering if this was at work.
She was so tiny - she was maybe 5' 2"
tall and weighed 102 pounds. She has
been dead since I was 15. I wish
I had known her longer. Everyone
says I look like her. (I wish I weighed
102 pounds!)