Mid-week Q&A with Chats & Hodgepodge

 

It’s mid-week and I still feel like I’m dragging my feet. How about you? I have this love/hate relationship with long holidays. On one hand, I LOVE them and the other I HATE them. Mainly because of the after-effect. You know that sluggish, behind feeling one has the rest of the week. Of course, I don’t really hate long weekends THAT much! I mean, I don’t hate them enough to forego them altogether. Nope, I’ll take those long weekends any ole day.

Now, that I have my whining out-of-the-way let me drag my feet over to Patrice’s to see what she & Wendell have to say today.

2. Do you have more photos or artwork on the walls of your home?

We have more photos on display than anything. Years ago, I began removing pictures from our albums to create photo collages. I could do a few more collages but I don’t have space. sigh Perhaps in our dream house one day, I can fill the walls with collages and other family photos. One thing I remember just loving when I was a kid was visiting my grandparents who proudly displayed their photos on the walls, end tables, and table tops.

3. Do you switch your wardrobe(clothing) when the seasons change?

I do switch my clothing as in exchanging warm season articles out for cooler weather clothes. I tend to wear jeans year round with an occasional skirt or dress during spring/summer when going out. Around the house, I’m a t-shirt and shorts gal. By late fall, I’m wearing sweats around the house and when I run errands it’s pretty much 100% of the time jeans, turtleneck, and a fleece vest.

4. How do you keep your recipes: books, cards, computer?

With technology comes to ease and convenience or at least until a disaster strikes such as hard drive failure, but for me, the best way to manage my recipes is on the computer. I simply have a folder called, guessed it, “Recipes” and inside that folder, I have several folders labeled according to the type of food. For example Desserts, Soups, Sandwiches, Salads, & Appetizers, Chicken Dishes, …  I still have a few cookbooks and an old card system, but I rarely use these anymore. I can find just about anything I want to make on the web simply by using Google even if I see an entrée fixed on TV then I just Google it. I like using the American Test Kitchen.

5. What are you looking forward to the most in the month of September?

The one thing I’m looking forward to is the official kickoff of fall.  We are 17 days away and counting! Whoo-hoo!!!

 

 

I’m not done dragging. Why not come along with me as I visit Joyce from Across the Pond for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. In your opinion what’s the most important job in the world? Oh, and parenting is a given so besides parenting, what’s the most important job in the world?

Ah come on, Joyce, no parenting answers, really? There are many important jobs out there, but next to parenting as the most important job in the world would have to be teaching. As a former homeschool mom, I know the joys it brings to not only the student but the teacher. 

It’s fascinating watching a small child develop life skills – reading, writing, and mathematics. These building blocks which will follow a child all the way through adulthood and these basics get used every day. Instilling in small ones the love for learning is essential and while many parents are not called to be a home school educator, they can do things to make sure the child’s passions by reading to them, encourage creative thinking/play, help to develop good motor skills, and hand/eye coördination are small steps to ease from home to school.

2. Share a favorite or not so favorite memory from a childhood birthday.

When I was very young, perhaps 3 or 4 years old I very much wanted a pretend doctor’s kit with the candy pills. Do you remember those?  I recall vividly on my birthday my mother in the kitchen baking me a cake. Strange, though I can’t remember the cake itself. I remember sitting near the old pot belly cast iron stove in the kitchen. It was cold. My birthday falls mid-December, so I would imagine there could have been snow on the ground. Anyhow, I was setting there and Mom handed my present to me, “Happy Birthday, Cathy!” I tore it open expecting to see my very own doctor’s kit like the one in the picture, but when I removed the paper I found a cake box and inside an old empty pill bottle with something inside to make it rattle. My first expression had to be one of great disappointment because I felt it, but I don’t remember complaining or crying or doing anything silly like that. I probably would have gotten a spanking, if I had acted out. All I remember was Mom laughing, then she handed me another gift. As you probably guessed, this was the legitimate birthday present and inside was my very own doctor’s kit equipped with candy pills. It looked a lot like the one in the picture, except it was white…I think. That was one of the best birthday surprises I remember.

3. Peanut butter-crunchy or smooth? Smooth!

4. William Butler Yeats is credited as saying, “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.” Your thoughts?

Happiness largely revolves around circumstances of a person’s life. If a child grows up in normal home life without complications such as an abusive background or without chemically addicted parents then their world is good and more times than not, they are happy well-adjusted kids who turn into happy adults.

I do believe that happiness lies within each of us to make the best of our lives no matter what’s coming down the pike. For children, this may be a challenge at times. I accredit many conflicts a child faces with their attitude of how they handle peer and media pressures. These outside influences subject a developing mind to disapproval or belittlement shrinking a young child’s self-esteem. Some kids can brush this off while others withdraw and secretly hate themselves.

In this statement, I believe I took a long way around to respond. Growth is painful. To say one is happy would be an understatement. How can someone be happy, if they are struggling? I think happiness may be a result of growing, not necessary a reaction to the process.

5. What’s something that makes you cringe?  Seeing crunched up cars in an accident. 

6. Name a song that always puts you in a good mood?  Just about any song that has an upbeat, get-to-your-feet groove puts me in a crazy good mood. But, what that comes to mind is.

 

7. The answer is yes. What’s the question? Do you love ice cream?

8. Insert your own random thought here.

We watched K-19: The Widowmaker with Harrison Ford on Netflix over the weekend. This was an excellent drama. In 1961 on Russian’s maiden voyage of their first nuclear submarine things go scary wrong when a malfunction occurs. It becomes a race against time to save the lives of everyone aboard and to head off a possible world war if the sub goes nuclear.

This inspirational story is based on real events and was only made public after the fall of communism under Ronald Reagan’s administration.  If you haven’t seen it, then you may want to check it out.

For more Wednesday fun, you may want to consider joining me for Wayback Wednesdays!

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