Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. Thank you to Joyce at From This Side of the Pond for the questions.

I would love to read your answers. You can answer in the comments or you may copy and paste the questions into your own blog and connect up here.

1. January 25th is National Opposites Day. 'They' say opposites attract...do you agree, and if so is that a good thing? Or do you subscribe more to a 'birds of a feather' philosophy? My husband would immediately say “birds of a feather” but I’m not so sure about that. My husband and I are very different yet we do have the same values. We both believe in God and we both are active in our church and Sunday School class. Now that we are older, we both LOVE to travel and we love to entertain but we have ZERO NADA ZIP hobbies that are the same. Wait – I take that back. We both exercise every day and I guess that is a hobby. I love to read. He never reads. He loves the outdoors. I have major allergies that prevent many outdoor activities. He doesn’t mind sweating. I really hate to sweat.  He is more conservative politically than I am.  I imagine (not sure if this is true or not – maybe y’all can tell me) . . .I imagine that couples who are very much “birds of a feather” might be the couples who rarely fight or get irritated with one another. We don’t always agree on everything which can lead us to have a “disagreement” . . . or stronger. I can’t wait to read answers from other folks on this one.

2. Something you're glad to have behind you? Something you're glad is ahead of you? When I turned 50 I said that I was leaving all drama behind. That is not totally true but it is mostly true. I think I’m glad to have child rearing behind us. Looking forward, I’m glad that we are hopefully going to have some good empty nest years filled with fun, friends, and travel.

3. Your favorite hot food? Cold food? Are you a fan of breakfast for dinner? I love a good bowl of hot soup. I don’t want it lukewarm. I want my soup hot.  I also love a fluffy and hot baked potato and a good steak. Alright, I also love good Mexican food! I can’t pick a favorite hot food. I really love French fries hot out of the “grease” (not my air fryer ones) with salt and ketchup. My favorite cold food is an ice cold diet pepsi. That isn’t food though.  How about a frozen margarita? Nope, not food either. I’ve been cutting up ripe bananas and freezing them on a cookie sheet. When frozen, I put a couple of bananas into the food processor and whir away. I then add about 8 or 10 frozen cherries and then I add a handful of fresh blueberries. I whir all of this until it is the texture of ice cream. It is delicious y’all. Oh my goodness – no sugar other than the natural sugar in the fruit and it is almost better than ice cream. Regarding breakfast for dinner . . . I think I probably like it better for dinner than in the morning.

4. Are you someone who always arrives to appointments/events early or do you tend to run late? Last thing you were late for? I don’t remember when I was younger whether I was on time or not. I think my daddy was always early so I probably was early or ontime even when I was younger. Mark is ALWAYS on time so for all of our married years, we have been early. Last Sunday I was running a little late. Mark left ahead of me in one car and I just couldn’t get myself together. Since I’m employed by the church, I usually get there around 8:00 on Sunday mornings and work some before worship. I came sliding in the door very close to 8:30 last week.

5. "What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?" John Steinbeck....Your thoughts? Nope! I like a couple of days of cold a year with maybe one day of a little snow and then I’m ready for spring and summer weather. Where I live, we don’t have harsh winters but we do have all four seasons . . .there are some days where we might experience more than one season . . .literally in one day. It could be in the 20’s during the night and swing up to the 60’s. We usually only  have a couple of months of winter and I’m always ready for it to go away. The good news is that even in the winter, we usually have a week or so of cold temps (lows in the 20’s high’s in the 30’s or 40’s) and then we have a milder week where highs are in the upper 50’s and low 60’s. Then we might have a few more days of cold and then a few days that are a tad warmer. On my old phone I had a picture of the thermometer on my dashboard. It was February and it was 82 outside. We just never know!

6. Insert your own random thought here. It has been a long time since I was a college student and every day I am totally amazed at the changes. I’m also totally amazed at what I’m learning in my sociology class. Taking the class online isn’t that big of a deal to me because we’ve done so many zoom calls over the last 2 years. My daughter teased me about being the teacher’s pet because so far I’m doing really well. We have had assignments but no exams yet. The first exam is the first weekend in February and I’m a little nervous about retaining 3 chapters worth of material plus 2 Ted Talks plus 1 youtube video plus several lectures and a whole lot of "vocabulary" type words. EEK! I hope my brain isn’t too old to retain it all.