Weekend in Review - Monday! Monday!

 Our weekend started on Thursday night! We met Mark's sister and her husband and his twin brother and his wife for dinner. I wrote "sib dinner" in my calendar!! We met at Giuseppi's Cafe. You may remember that Mark doesn't like Italian food . . .but he ate a Muffaletta and was perfectly fine.

I ordered Chicken Piccata . . . I think it was linguini? I did not even make a dent in this bowl!

On Friday, I did homework for HOURS. I finally hopped into the shower around 4:00. I didn't dry my hair - just let it air dry. Mark worked in the yard and was still messing with the sprinkler system when our neighbors pulled up in front of the house and said they were going to grab dinner . . .and for us to come along. Mark ran in and hopped in the shower (in, out, and dressed in 10 minutes). I changed clothes and off we went. It is good for us to be spontaneous. It would have been so easy to say, "nope. we can't." For once, we didn't see anyone we know while out and about! 

We ate at La Paz in a neighborhood near us.

Saturday morning found us on I65 South headed to our daughter's house for our middle granddaughter's birthday. We walked through the door and she asked Pops to go play in her room.

We had not seen our youngest in a while. She is walking now and is so cute!!

She is climbing up on every chair and is so proud of herself.

The party was at the home of the other grandparents . . .and they have a pool!

Our two oldest granddaughters had lots of fun swimming. Other kids arrived shortly thereafter.

Our oldest is 9 and our middle is now 6. The 6 year old idolizes the 9 year old.

I've been in the fruit kebab making era. The wooden picks had tiny disco balls on the end.

The party was a combo "hello kitty" and "toy story" - our granddaughter couldn't decide. Our daughter saw these decorations on a "free" site - they were brand new and free!!

Aunt Alice and Uncle George sent her a new "fancy" coloring book.

You can see all three granddaughters in this photo!

She had asked for Jessie and was so excited that Uncle Glenn and Aunt Lauren and Emma bought it for her.

She also received a Woody doll.

. . .and a Barbie pony

Aunt Becky sent Bullseye - the horse!

A former lunchroom lady makes these birthday cakes from scratch. It was perfectly even all the way across until Mark cut his piece. Our daughter and daughter-in-law both sent this photo to me!!

I can't believe she is six years old!

Rather than drive back on I65 north, which is horrible during beach season, we took the scenic route and drove 231 to Sylacauga and then 280 to home. It took us less than 1 1/2 hours to drive to their house, but projected time for our return trip was well over 2 hours on I65 North. It would have been lots of stop and go traffic . . . and it irritates both of us. We decided 29 extra minutes would be worth it.

Sunday morning found me at work and Sunday afternoon, I did 4 hours of homework while Mark and his siblings and our son worked on cleaning out his mother's house. They are finally getting it ready to go on the market.

I hope you had a great weekend! I always enjoy reading about what other folks are doing!!

Sunday Chatting

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week is less a steal than a cheat. These are AI-generated responses to the request: "What should I ask to get a stranger to open up?"

Spill It!

1. If money wasn't an issue, would you move to a new home? 

We do love our home BUT I might move to a bigger house. Yes, ours is plenty big but I would love a Butler's pantry and a bigger laundry room and a bigger closet (or two) in our bedroom. We have a very small lot, which was one of the things we loved, but I think Mark would like a little more yard. I don't know why. He would like a bigger garage. Some of the houses in our neighborhood have a bonus one car garage at the side of their driveway. We don't have room for that, so a bigger one would be nice. Since money isn't an obstacle, I would hire someone to pack it all up, move us, and unpack us!

2. Do you listen to different music when you're happy than when you're sad?

I used to listen to music more often than I do now. Sometimes when I'm upset, I listen to music and it is definitely different from happy music.

3. What's your favorite way to unwind after a tough day? 

I love to change into comfy clothes and get in my recliner and read a book or watch something on TV. Sometimes I might add a fun beverage. I also love to get together with good friends and laugh and talk.

4. What's the first book you remember from childhood? 

When I was preparing our Sunday school lesson, I was thinking about the book "Heidi." I'm sure there were books before that one, but I definitely remember that one. We spent a lot of time at the library.

5. What made you smile today? 

I'm typing these answers on Friday night. I may have smiled a few times when I was doing my homework. This semester is Human Sexuality. It is a lot of anatomy and I just keep smiling and chuckling thinking about me . . .if I had taken this class back when I was the "normal" college age. I'm going to go ahead and project to Sunday, since that is when you will be reading this. I will work the welcome desk at church and I get to see lots of cute families and I will teach Sunday School and see lots of our friends . . .all of those encounter will include smiles.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Adulting 101 Hodgepodge

I'm joining up with Joyce and friends for this week's hodgepodge. You can visit her blog or you can answer in the comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts!!

1. What's an adult problem nobody prepared you for? 

I had NO idea that I would still feel the need to parent our adult children . . .and that they would not want our advice. Seriously! I know good and well that Mark nor I took his parents advice, so I imagine his parents may have felt the same way. We try to bite our tongues and keep our mouths shut . . .but sometimes, we don't :-). 

2. How tuned in are you to all the recent food related health news? Have you gotten rid of your scratched cookware? Did you pay attention to food additives before they made the news? What's one healthy eating/cooking/food shopping habit you need to adopt?

I try to keep up with food safety news - recalls, etc. We try to eat a healthy diet - fruit, veggies, lean proteins. I don't pay nearly as much attention to food additives as I should. I do worry about red dye - weird one. One of my favorite things to do is meal prep, but I haven't had as much time lately. I need to work out a schedule where I make the time to do it. I still have some scratched cookware, but our cookware is relatively new All Clad. I've been reading up on the use of semaglutides. The uses of the drug interest me.

3. What's getting worse and worse as you get older? How about better and better? 

I'll start with the better and better -- I care less what others think of me. I still want to be nice and look nice and be kind and good and love all of my neighbors, but I don't have time to worry if you are talking about me. In the other direction . . .I guess my memory is getting worse and worse and some of my aches and pains are getting worse. Those things are annoying!!

4. Are you more of an indoor person or an outdoor person? Elaborate. 

I'm an indoor person because of my allergies. I would love to be an outdoor person. Mark would double over laughing about me being an outside person :-) because he knows I'm not.

5. If you had an expert personal assistant today, what would you have them do?

I would have them meal plan and prep for me. Could a personal assistant do that?? I could also use some help running errands -- Mark does a lot of them since he is now retired, but he has been really busy lately. I might also ask them to dry and style my hair every morning . . .and keep the house clean . . .and the laundry done. I need a wife! haha! I did all of those things when I was a stay at home mom. Mark does do a lot of our laundry. I put my work clothes in a special spot in our closet and I wash those each week, but he does a great job on towels and underwear and his clothes.

6. Insert your own random thought here. I'm very pleased with my grade in the Family Life Education class plus it was actually very interesting. By the time you are reading this, it will be Wednesday which is the beginning of the next minimester. I will be taking Human Sexuality for the next 5 weeks. Mark has made so many jokes about the course content. You can imagine. In the fall, there are two 8 week semesters. I think I remember my advisor telling me that the online schedule doesn't exactly line up with the on campus semester system. I qualify for two significant scholarships IF I take two classes in that first eight weeks and two classes in the second eight weeks. I think I'm going to try to do it though I am TERRIFIED of the work load. That means that by Christmas, I will have accrued 18 more hours. I transferred from community college with 60 hours and I have to have 60 more hours to get my B.A. at Samford . . .and if I can do it, by Christmas I'll only need 42. 

On a more fun note, our middle granddaughter will have a birthday this week so we will go to her house this weekend and get to see BOTH of our children (and their spouses) plus all three granddaughters!!

Fourth of July Weekend in Review

Happy Monday to you! We had a really low-key weekend. Mark went to the farm on Thursday and Friday and finished the flooring in the kitchen. I have got to find an old photo of how the kitchen used to look so y'all can see for comparison.

While he was at the farm, I was still riding high on steroids so I cleaned the house (somewhat). I read a little and rode the stationary bike. I ran to Publix for a few things.

We had plans for dinner on Friday, the 4th and Mark texted at 1:00 that he was headed home from the farm. The drive takes a couple of hours so he would be home in plenty of time to head to his sister's house for dinner. Mark didn't check Waze before he started home. Big mistake. There are two ways to drive to and from the farm - I-20 or Highway 280. He detests Hwy 280 because there are 23 traffic lights over a several mile stretch. He got to I-20 and traffic was stopped. He called and I looked it up and I-20 had been closed for SIX - yes, 6 hours, due to an 18 wheeler accident. They literally had a crane in the middle of the interstate trying to get the 18 wheeler out of the hole and everyone had to exit into a small lake town. There were two lanes merging into one exit lane, along with the dingbats who decided to make the shoulder a third lane. Right at the last moment, Mark saw the workmen picking up the big orange traffic cones. They were opening the interstate! A normal hour and 45 minute drive became at least a 3 1/2 hour trip, but he made it home in time. We were only a few minutes late. She made stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer using an old recipe of mine that she found in her mother's recipe drawer. I took a big green salad and I even made the homemade lemon dressing. Susie had smoked a couple of chickens and slabs of ribs and she had baked beans and corn on the cob. She made date bars for dessert - Mark loves them! The four of us were a small group, but we enjoyed each other's company.

Saturday morning found us staying in the bed until 7:30. I felt like we slept away the day. I usually get up at 5:00 and due to the steroids, I had slept very little the previous two days so I'm assuming I needed that rest. When we got up, we heard about the flash flooding and I was so sad. My mother's heart just grieves with these families. We have no true personal connection with any of the families, but one little girl was from here.

Mark worked in the yard - digging up around the sprinkler system in order to add two more sprinkler heads. Some of the new landscaping was not getting enough water. He also did some "park fishing" - he was testing out a rod, reel, and line.

We invited our good neighbors, Lu and Dave, over for dinner. They brought some produce fresh from their tiny garden. She brought some potatoes to roast and some of them were purple. They tasted almost like a cross between a sweet potato and a white potato! They brought some chicken from the day before and Mark grilled salmon, halibut, and Lingcod. We talked about travel and family and friends and had a nice quiet evening.

Sunday morning found me back at work. It was a very slow day at church. We are normally a hopping place on Sunday mornings but we have lots of members who have lake houses and beach houses plus a lot of our congregation has been traveling internationally this summer. My co-worker and her husband and two boys are out west doing a two week trek through some National Parks. I worked from 7-11 and then I headed home. It is so hot here that Mark had actually stayed home from church so that he could do as much sprinkler repair as possible before the heat index hit over 100. We ate leftovers for lunch and we took a nap and we ran over to his brother's empty house to check on it and get the mail. I'm ready for Mark and his siblings to sell their mother's house (they are working on it) and sell Bill's house so they can stop messing with them.

me at the Welcome Desk on Sunday morning
very little make-up!

We enjoyed Susie's mushrooms so much on Friday night, I drug out my original recipe and made stuffed mushrooms for us for dinner. We were laughing about how that was my "go-to" appetizer that I made everytime we had company as newlyweds. They are so easy - a little bacon; a little cheese; a little chopped mushroom stems; a tad of Grey Poupon and a tad of mayo. Mix, stuff, and broil.

We watched the last two episodes of Justified last night. I wsn't sure how they planned to end it, but I actually liked the ending.

Now it is Monday morning at 5:33 a.m. and I'll be headed back to work in a couple of hours.

Did you have any fun this weekend? Tell me about it - I would love to hear!!

FAB Sunday Stealing

 

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Since it's the 4th of July weekend, we're going to keep this simple. We stole this from a blogger named Idzie, who called this the F.A.B. (film, audio, book) meme.

F.A.B.

F. Film: What movie or tv show are you watching? Breaking Bad (can't decide if I like it or not), Young Sheldon, Justified (I'm writing this on Friday morning. We may have finished Justified by Sunday. We both hate for it to end.) We just finished Bad Sisters (loved the Irish accents). We are still watching the Mentalist. At this point, we can get up and wander around while watching. I can't wait for y'all to tell us what you are watching! Mark starts feeling panicked when whatever we are watching comes to an end.

A. Audio: What are you listening to? I'm not listening regularly, but I have "How to Win Friends and Influence People" on audible. I listen randomly. I thought it was funny that I've been listening to the book and when I was watching Young Sheldon on Friday night . . .Sheldon was reading the same book!

B. Book: What are you reading? I just finished the second book - "Kills Well With Others" by Deanna Raybourne. I mentioned the first one a week or so ago - "Killers of a Certain Age." I'm reading "Reckoning Hour" by Peter O'Mahoney. This is the first in the Dean Lincoln Legal Thriller series. I think it was my free kindle choice for the month. It is ok so far. 

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Currently on Saturday

First of all, is today really Saturday? I took a couple of days of vacation and I can't keep track of what day it is!

Currently, I guess it is Saturday. It is 89 degrees and it feels like 94. The sun is shining and the sky is blue with lots of white clouds.

Currently, I am enjoying a few days off. I've still checked my work email every day but unless it is urgent, I haven't' answered it. I have to go back to work in the morning (Sunday) so I'll be back in the groove next week.

Currently, I just finished a book, "Reckoning Hour" by Peter O'Mahoney. It was pretty good. I think I'll read "The Pastor's Wife" next. The author is Lyndee Walker. Both O'Mahoney and Walker are new authors to me.

Currently, I've been making and eating a weird thing. I take about a cup of plain fat-free Greek yogurt. I put a piece of parchment paper on a small cookie sheet and I spread the yogurt out all over the sheet. It is a very thin layer of yogurt. Today I sprinkled a little non-caloric sweetner on the yogurt. I didn't do that with the last batch. I'll let you know if I can tell a difference. I think sprinkle a ton of blueberries on top of the yogurt. Then I melt 1/4 cup no sugar added Lily's dark chocolate mini morsels in a measuring cup, along with a teaspoon of coconut oil (how is it oil if it is solid??). I drizzle the chocolate over the berries and yogurt.  I place the cookie sheet in the deep freeze for a couple of hours and after it freezes, I break it up into pieces and put it in a freezer bag. It is so good.

Currently, I am buying . . .well the designer and I are looking for two pieces of furniture and a wall hanging. I ordered some accessories to put on the hearth since we aren't lighting a fire at this time of the year. When those items arrive and I arrange I can show y'all a photo if you want to see. I don't think they will arrive before next weekend.

Currently, I am very sad as we've read about the flooding in Texas. We got a text from work today that a church member's daughter is at a camp adjacent to the damaged camp. The daughter is a college student so I'm wondering if she is a counselor. Her parents arrived in Texas this morning. I also received an email sent to the student body at the college I attend, Samford University. One of the little girls that died is the child of one of the professors. She was 8 years old. That has just shattered my heart. Mark finally told me to stop looking at the news online because I just kept crying.

So . . .currently, what are you doing? What are you reading or eating or making or buying or feeling?

Thursday Thoughts and Tangents

The final is over. Hallelujah! It took me over 3 1/2 hours to finish it.

I had an appointment with the ENT yesterday. I have a sinus infection so I got a steroid shot and an antibiotic shot along with a prescription for antibiotics and a steroid pack. I slept about 4 1/2 hours last night and I'm still wide awake tonight at 10:22 . . .so I decided to write, "Thursday Thoughts and Tangents." 

We started a 5th Sunday Fellowship this year. Our second one was this past Sunday. It was well attended. Last time I ordered from Krispy Kreme and they really messed up the order and wouldn't respond when I asked for a partial refund. This time, I ordered Hero doughnuts - local and excellent. They delivered exactly what I ordered and even delivered a few minutes early. They called on Friday to verify my order.

I grabbed a quick photo of Mark and his buddy, Duane.

 

Tuesday night, our young professionals met at Moss Rock Tacos for dinner. On Tuesday nights they offer a selection of three tacos for $3 each and $2.50 Mexican beer.

Jessie loves to bake cookies and she brought patriotic cookies for everyone.

We ate outside and we had a great time. There were more of us than I caught in the photo. We laughed so much.

I took Wednesday off because my final was supposed to be live first thing . . .it wasn't available until 3:00 p.m. I had a list of other things I wanted to do plus a doctor's appointment. I headed downtown to the Jefferson County Health Department Vital Records office to get death certificates for two more family members.

When my niece was cleaning out my sister's belongings, she found some savings bonds from 1943 and 1945. I'm working on cashing those in but it has required so many documents. I turned in the requests and paid my money and waited . . .and waited. The employees were so nice. I finally had to tell the nice lady that I had a doctor's appointment and I would come back after the appointment. The deal is that I was downtown and had to head south of town for the doctor's appointment. Of course, I literally had just merged onto I65 and she called to tell me it was ready, but I didn't have time to turn around and still make it on-time.

I made it to the doctor and had a nasal endoscope where he saw a few new polyps on one side and signs of infection on the other side. (read paragraph one).

Then I hopped back into the car and headed back to the Vital Records office downtown.

It was around 3:00 in the afternoon and I had not eaten in hours and hours so I actually treated myself to an order of Milo's fries.

Cool fact - My grandpa was born in 1894 and died on the day after Christmas in 1979. He was 85 years old when he died. I knew that my mom was only 50 when she died. I didn't realize that my daddy was just 61.

When I got home, my final was finally available (pun intended). It was 10 essay questions and it took me a long time - over 3 1/2 hours. Whew!! Mark dug around in the freezer and found some poppyseed chicken and heated it up for us to eat for dinner.

Mark left for the farm this morning. He is working hard on the farmhouse.

Later in the morning, I saw movement on the screened porch. Look at that rascal -- there was a chipmunk inside the porch.

I finally had to raise the garage door and I hope he ran out. I haven't seen him since.

So what did I do today? I answered some work emails. I found an error on my paycheck and emailed my co-worker. I measured our rug on the front porch and ordered a new one. I texted and emailed with Liz, the designer, about a couple of pieces of furniture. I made our menus for next week and ordered groceries. I went to the gas station and I picked up some prescriptions for both of us. I rode my stationary bike for 30 minutes. I wrote a letter to the savings bond people which I will print next week and mail with all of the other paperwork. I even sat outside in the sun for a few minutes. I also signed up for Netflix. I watched two episodes of Breaking Bad. Why does someone always throw up? Now I've watched a bunch of episodes of Young Sheldon. Sheldon got carsick . . .why does someone always throw up? Seriously! The episode on right now is the one about the brisket recipe!!

The country club nearby had fireworks tonight - I could hear them more than see them. The shutter was too slow to catch the actual firework but it made the sky bright.

I'm going to brush my teeth and try to go to sleep tonight. If not, I guess I'll sleep eventually! The good thing about steroids is that all the other normal "hurts" don't hurt right now!!

Have any of you taken Metformin orWegovy? I've got to get the rest of this weight off.

I guess tonight's post truly was Thursday Thoughts and Tangents haha!

Free to Write My Hodgepodge Answers!

 

1. What does freedom mean to you? 

Freedom means I can make the choices I feel are right for me and my family, without fear of punishment or control. It means I can believe what I want to believe, speak my mind, and live according to my values. Freedom is also being able to travel anywhere in our country, explore new places, and meet different people without restriction.

Freedom means having opportunities—like going to school (even at 67 years old) and choosing a job I enjoy. It also means being able to stand up for what I believe in, even if others disagree, though sometimes I find it hard to do. It means I can go to church and freely worship God. It means I can have a blog and write about whatever I choose.

But freedom isn't free. It means someone, somewhere, fought for it—and many still do. I’m grateful for those who protect our rights and for the responsibility we all share to respect each other’s freedoms.

2. How will you celebrate Independence Day this year? If you live outside the USA answer this question as it relates to your own country's patriotic holiday, wherever that may land on the calendar. 

As of this moment, we have no plans. I would like to have plans. I don't even know if any of our friends will be in town!!

There will be fireworks on Tuesday night at a nearby location. I may try to go park in a lot nearby and watch.

3. This or that...red, white, or blue? Stars or stripes? Watermelon, home made ice cream, or blueberry pie? How do you feel about fireworks?  

I love blue . . .but, also red! I will vote for stars. Watermelon is always a winner for me.

4. What have you purchased recently that made you excited? 

I haven't made any fun purchases lately. I am on the hunt for a couple of pieces for our house.

5. I'm thankful to live in America (or fill in whatever country you call home) because

I feel safe (most of the time haha!). Also, I'm thankful to live in the USA for all of the reasons I listed in #1.

6. Insert your own random thought here. I'm typing these answers on Sunday afternoon while it storms outside. I plan to work about a day and a half this week and by the time you read this, hopefully I will be taking a day or two off. We don't have any plans, but I plan to rest, if possible.

Going to the Chapel (in Auburn)

Since Mark and I host the young adults every week, we grow to love many of them like our own children. We love when they invite us to their weddings.

On Saturday, we dressed and hopped in the car to drive to Auburn, which is about two hours and 15 minutes from our house.

We were headed to the Auburn United Methodist Church.

Mark and our kids and our daughter-in-law all graduated from Auburn and everytime we go back, we are astonished at the changes in the city. So many of the older homes and buildings have been torn down and they have put all of these fancy apartment buildings on the campus.

The chapel at Auburn UMC looked the same as the last time we were there.

The pipe organ is so cool - the pipes have designs painted on them!

The organ wasn't played during the wedding.

The reception was at a farm between Auburn and I-85. We had

been to this farm a couple of years ago for the wedding of Kyle and Hannah (third and fourth from the left).

Below - here we are with quite a few of the young adults from our Tuesday night group.

Cole is on the left, Mark, Kyle, and Matthew.

Lindsay, the bride, is a librarian for the medical school here in Birmingham. The seating chart was done on library cards! They were so cute!!

Both Hannahs were in the wedding. Below is Hannah J. making her entrance as they introduced the wedding party.

The menu was bourbon crusted pork tenderloin, chicken, salad, potatoes, and asparagus. In addition to wedding cake, they had a local ice cream truck for dessert.

It looks like Nancy, Daphne, and I planned our wardrobe to match! The bride's mom, Nancy, Daphne, Mark, and I were all in the singles group at Trinity when we were young. I love the full circle that now Lindsay has been in the singles group that meets at our house.

We were able to grab a quick group photo with the bride and groom.

We ate our dinner fairly quickly and hopped in the car to drive the two hours back to Birmingham. It was after 10:00 when we got home and I had to be up and out the door by 6;30 on Sunday morning. Needless to say, we took a Sunday afternoon power nap!!

What did you do over the weekend?

 

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday Stealing!

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week we return to steal again from Manic Monday, a blog that is no more.

Just Another Manic Monday

1. What is something you should throw away, but just can't bring yourself to part with? 

Sometimes I have a hard time throwing away sentimental items. Mark nor I are "keepers." We don't like clutter and we don't have a lot of tchotchkes (I looked up the spelling for that word! There are a lot of consonants and very few vowels in that word!!). We still have full cabinets, closets, attic, and garage. My office upstairs might be the one room that has too much stuff. That is where the sentimental things, like art from our granddaughters, goes to live.

Lots of artwork from trips in the hallway
and family photos and kid's drawings in my office

2. When you make yourself a sandwich, do you cut it on the diagonal, straight up the middle, or not at all? 

The only sandwich I usually cut is a grilled cheese. After making the sandwich, I cut the crusts off and eat those first. Sometimes I cut the sandwich into four little squares and sometimes I just eat the rest of the sandwich whole (minus crusts that I've already eaten). 

3. What song or sound brings back memories of childhood? 

Jesus loves the little children. 

All the children of the world. 

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. 

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

I remember singing that song in Sunday School and Vacation Bible school as a kid. I imagine it isn't politically correct in 2025. From what I understand, the song was meant to be more inclusive back in the 1960's, but today it may be racist, and if so, I truly apologize for even typing the lyrics. 

I think one of the sounds that brings back childhood memories would be lawnmowers on Saturday mornings (along with the smell of freshly mown grass).

You didn't ask this -- but a smell that takes me back to childhood is of a roast cooking in the oven or homemade vegetable beef soup cooking on the stove.

4. Who is the first person you call when you have good news? 

If Mark isn't with me, he is usually the first person I call! I usally call or text our kids, too.

5. Have you ever set out on a walk in the rain? 

Are you asking if I went on a walk in the rain for pleasure or exercise? I have, but not in a few years. When we are traveling in another country and are there for a limited amount of time, we head out in the rain quite often.

Kylemore Abbey in the rain (horrible selfie) Galway, Ireland

Rain jackets on a cold and rainy day in Israel

It's a Hodgepodge

 

1. What does adventure mean to you? 

Adventure is something "out of the norm" for me. It can also be a healthy way to look at things. One time we had a HUGE snowstorm in Alabama. We even had green lightning. Our kids were in kindergarten. When things thawed and Mark was back at work, his co-worker said, "we just looked at the whole thing as an adventure." It wasn't planned, but when it happened they rolled with it and called it an adventure. 

I also think that our international travels are an adventure. Mark and I love going to new places and seeing and learning new things.

2.  What are your thoughts on tipping? What businesses or service providers do you regularly tip? Do you resent being asked if you'd like to add a tip? What about when a suggested amount is presented? 

Since covid, I routinely tip at least 20%, unless the service is horrible (which rarely happens). Every Wednesday, Mark eats breakfast with several other guys. Their server has Mark's coffee ready almost as soon as he walks through the door. They tip her generously every week, and then at Christmas, the give her a Christmas card with a very nice tip enclosed. I tip servers in restaurants. I tip the nail tech when I get a pedicure (20-25% - depends on how good the massage is!). I tip my hair stylist - usually a flat $25. I struggle with tipping when I order at the counter. There is a place in town where I eat at least once a month. You order at a counter, but they do deliver your food to the table. They have the percentage amounts on the screen as you pay. There have been a few times where having the suggested amounts on the screen have actually "hurt" the server. I pick one, but might have tipped more if I were just adding it on.

3. I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream...do we? Is ice cream a favorite treat at your house? What's your favorite flavor? Regular, soft serve, gelato, sherbet, or some sort of non-dairy version of ice cream...what's your pleasure? 

We only buy ice cream if we are serving a dessert to company that needs ice cream (cobbler, apple roll, etc.). I don't eat it anymore, but I do love a good strawberry or a chocolate and peanut butter flavor. I actually like all of the kinds. Mark and I make "banana ice cream" about once a week. We slice very ripe bananas and freeze them. We then put them in the food processor along with a few blueberries or a couple of strawberries or some fresh frozen peaches . . .chop and blend until creamy. It may sound weird, but it is delicious.

4. What's your 'back in my day, we____________________ ' story or saying? 

Back in my day, if you missed your favorite TV show . . .you missed it! VCR's had not been invented yet. There were no streaming services. Actually, we had 3 TV channels - period. Also, back in my day, all phones had cords and you hoped your phone had a really long cord so you could pull it into another room away from your family. I remember when rotary dials went away. I remember when we got our first cordless phone!! I also remember when I got my first cell phone. It was MASSIVE.

Ours was very similar to this one!

our phone looked like this!

5. Somehow this is our last Hodgepodge in the month of June. Next week's Hodgepodge lands in July. Wow. Sum up your June using three adjectives. 

Full. Emotional. Purposeful

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

By this time next week, I will have my first class at Samford University under my belt. (Summer semester for me consists of two five week terms.) I have been terribly worried about my transition from community college to a four year university . . .but I'm closing in on the end of the first class!! My final is July 2. I have two projects due this week. I emailed the professor and asked if there would be a study guide for the final. NOPE. oh well . . .