Quincentennial Hodgepodge

Feel free to copy and paste the questions into your own blog or answer in the comments. See my random thought regarding the importance of this hodgepodge.

1. Last time you drove/flew 500 miles (ish)? What's a place you'd like to visit that lies approximately 500 miles from your current location? About 15 years ago, I drove from our house to Charlotte, NC for a conference. It was the longest I had ever driven alone. It isn’t 500 miles but it is quite far. Several years ago Mark and I drove to Savannah and then on to Charleston. The Charleston to Birmingham trip is closer to 500 miles. I have flown 500+ miles quite a few times – the most recent in February to Israel. In June of 2022, we flew to Italy and flew home from Munich, Germany. In October of 2021, we flew to Dublin, Ireland.

2. Tell us about a time recently it felt like you were 'racing against the clock'. I often feel as if I’m racing against the clock – lots to do and never quite enough time.

3. Have you ever attended any really large sporting events? What was your impression of the experience?  We live in the south and SEC football is HUGE in the south. In the state of Alabama, the big rivalry is between Auburn University (our team) and the University of Alabama. I’ve been to that game and it is HUGE. I’ve also been to several other Auburn (and Alabama) games over the years. For those of you who live in other places where football isn’t HUGE, this should put it in perspective. The Jordan-Hare Stadium (Auburn) is the nation’s 10^th largest (I think their ranking has dropped below the top 10 now) on campus stadium with a capacity of 87,451 people. The Bryant Denny stadium (U of A) holds over 100,000 people.  My impression of these events . . .I actually love the excitement of the crowd and the smell of stadium food! I love to watch people and there are some interesting folks at these events.

The Superbowl, The Kentucky Derby, The World Series, FIFA World Cup, The Indianapolis 500, The Daytona 500, The Olympics, The Masters, Wimbledon, The Boston Marathon, March Madness, Tour de France, Monaco's Grand Prix, The Open (golf), The Ryder Cup, The Stanley Cup Finals..of the events listed which would you most like to attend in person? Or maybe one that's not listed? I’ve never been to any of these events and they are definitely bigger than SEC football. I would love to attend an Olympic event or the Tour de France. I think it would be cool to attend/watch America’s Cup!

4. Are you an iced tea drinker? If so, do you drink it year round, or only in the spring and summer months? Do you make your own or buy it bottled? Sweet or unsweet? Flavored? Lemon or no lemon? How about a Long Island Iced Tea? I do like iced tea. We always drink unsweetened ice tea at Sunday lunch at my mother-in-law’s house and we drink it year round. We make our own using tea bags – I think we use decaf tea bags and we put the bags in a teapot and pour boiling water over them and let them steep. I do love a Long Island Iced Tea but they are DANGEROUS. They are so smooth when they go down that you could very easily drink too much . . .not that I would know about that hahahaha!

5. April 20th is Volunteer Recognition Day...do you volunteer in some way? Tell us about it. If not, tell us about a volunteer you appreciate. I do volunteer by cooking and hosting a young adult study every week but my husband is the bigger volunteer of the two of us. Pre-covid, he cooked dinner once a month at a local shelter and he did it for years. He doesn’t do that anymore but now he works at our Hub. I mentioned the Hub in a previous post. It is located at our other church campus/location and we are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked (not literally), furnishing apartments, and loving on people. Mark volunteers two days a week at the Hub since he has retired.

6. Insert your own random thought here. Joyce has provided questions for 500 Hodgepodge posts. She deserves a round of applause from all of us. Thank you so much! I love this “community” of folks and look forward to visiting the other blogs and reading as many of the answers as possible every week. I actually had to google the word for 500 and I hope that google led me in the right direction -- quincentennial!