Thank You, Mr. Bell & Hump-Day Hops!

On this day in history, Alexander Graham Bell got a patent for his revolutionary new invention – the telephone. For many of you, you’re like me, lost without your cell phone. How do you imagine Mr. Bell would marvel over his invention morphing into one of the most universal wonders of all times?

It would be an awesome treat to talk to any of the lovely women I’ll be engaging company with today with Mr. Bell’s wonderful contribution to society, but for now, I’m off hopping from blog to blog. First stop is with Patrice for a little chit-chat on her farmhouse porch or perhaps in the barn with Wendell depending how cold it is in her neck of the woods. It makes no difference because the warmth and friendship is what we all seek. Follow me…

1.Tell me a fond memory of an elderly person?

DH had the most wonderful grandma. Everyone who knew her loved her. I’m not sure a single person who didn’t call her Grandma, other than her children. Grandma Kennedy lived to be almost 97 years old. She was apart of my life for almost 20 years.

During those years, I grew to love and think of her more as my grandma, too. This woman was remarkable. Her memory was sharp as a tack, The one thing we all loved was hearing her tell stories. She was able to recall detail from her past, which blew each of our minds away describing the color of bonnet her sister worn or what kind of day it was or the mood someone was in. She didn’t just do this with details in her life from long ago, but she never missed a beat on any aspect of her past or present. Why, I bet my last nickel her memory was sharper at 96 than mine is at 50.

Grandma’s stories inspired my children’s book, The Tale of Ole Green Eyes, and I dedicated it in memory of her. That’s just how special she was to me. It’ll be nice to see her again when I walk through heaven’s pearly gates. I imagine, she’ll be found with a group of angels sitting around her listening to the beautiful stories only she can tell.

2.What’s your favorite flavor of jam or jelly?

I can’t recall what the difference is between jam and preserves, but I buy preserves. I haven’t bought either jelly or jam in like forever. I love fruit spreads period. To say, which is my favorite makes me squirm just a bit because you know, it’s hard for me to say. But, if I had to pick only one then maybe…just maybe I would go with blueberry.

3.What goes through your mind when you drive by one of those whopping, huge houses that look like something in a magazine?

My first comment is, it’s really pretty. But…there is always a but, it looks cold or it looks impersonal or it looks like a house and not a home or it looks like….Don’t get me wrong, I would love to a beautiful, impressive house. However, it clearly would have to be home first. A place when I gaze upon it from the outside gives is not only lovely, but fills me with a sense of warmth and belonging. Those super expensive houses found in the hills of Hollywood or elsewhere are nice to look at from a distance, but in truth they aren’t for me.

4.What’s your favorite way to relax?

I like watching movies. This is one way we unwind over the weekends. We don’t watch too much TV during the week. We don’t have cable and for the longest time, if we wanted to watch a good movie then we’d have to rely on our DVD library. Now, we can enjoy viewing media from the Internet streamed to our TV with our newly purchased Roku. For the money, this little gizmo is really cool! Oh sure, we’ll continue to buy DVDs for those movies we absolutely LOVE, but we now can watch unlimited movies and TV shows at no extra cost to us.  I really like this, too.

5.What’s your favorite kind of pasta?

When ever I  think pasta, I always think spaghetti. lol. However, if I had my choice of pasta to make then I believe I would make lasagna. It’s not the fun, twirling kind, but I love the all the cheesy goodness found in a nice dish of lasagna. Mmm, good!
Before you scoot off, why not hop along with me to Joyce’s for …

1. Did March come in like a lion or was it something less ferocious in your neck of the woods?

Definitely blew in like a lion. We had some horrible storms sweep through at the end of last week. Thankfully by the time the system reached us things had dissipated somewhat, but there was a lot of funnel cloud activity, thunderstorms, lightening, and hail in our immediate region. We fared well, unlike the folks in Indiana. God bless those who were savagely disturbed by those storms.

1. Speaking of lions, which one’s your film favorite…The Cowardly Lion (Wizard of Oz), Mufasa (The Lion King), Elsa (Born Free), or Alex (Madagascar)? You may notice I left Aslan off the list. Including him would have made this question way too easy for many of you.

The Wizard of Oz has been a long time favorite since childhood. The Lion King is a good movie, but it tore my heart out to see Mufasa die. I found it a bit disturbing. It perplexed me why Disney put a scene like that in their movie considering it’s geared for a young audience. I don’t recall, if I ever saw Born Free and I haven’t seen Madagascar. I did see the old PBS version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, though. I love the Christian symbolism in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles. Even before I knew this, I picked up on the strength of Aslan being like that of our Saviour.

1. What’s your favorite spot from which to view the sunrise or sunset?

You’re going to like my answer, I believe Joyce. One of my favorite spots is at Clingman’s Dome in the Smoky Mountains. We have seen many breathless sunsets in the parking lot, and at the summit tower. It seems we have hiked the trail to capture the sunrise a handful of times, but only two times stand vividly out in my mind. Both times, it was in late summer or early fall. It was so cold in the mountains about an hour before sunrise at that elevation. The hardest part was getting wrapped up in our layers to keep warm. The wind was merciless. Each time we had an infant in tow. The first time, was in 1988 after our first daughter was born. The second time was in 1994 after our son’s birth. We not only had an infant, but two young daughters. They had cameras of their own and didn’t seem to mind the biting temperatures. Here’s a pic from our first trip…

The man’s profile silhouette to the right of the picture is of my DH. He is carrying our DD, Brittany, in one of those baby pouches you wear on the front. You can see everyone has heavy coats on, too. It’s was an exhilarating experience. I would love to do this again now. Maybe, we can venture up after they reopen the park road leading to Clingman’s Dome on March 31st.

1. To what extent is knowledge power and to what extent is truth power? What’s the difference?

Wow, this is really too deep of a question first thing in the morning. Knowledge is something taught that empowers us power in our career or daily life. Truth is a virtue, a characteristic that leads us to a life filled with integrity and in essence gives power to stand for the things which we believe in with great conviction.


5. What’s something peculiar you’ve seen recently?

Oddly, every morning I see the strangest thing – another person staring at me in the mirror. How did the image  of myself from yesteryear get replaced? I looked at my reflection to see a youthful, fresh girl in her 20s to now be replaced by a woman whose face displays fine lines and creases of time. How does one let go of her youth to say hello to growing old? Not that I’m old…yet! But, it’s only a matter of time before it catches me, if I’m lucky.

1. Bottled water…your thoughts?

Too expensive! Years ago, we installed Doulton under-sink water filter with a dedicated faucet for our drinking water.  At the time, I thought it was initially expensive and it was, but in the long haul the expense isn’t nearly as bad as it would be to buy premium bottled water. Not to mention, our filtration system really enhances the water quality. Thankfully, our city water isn’t bad, but the ceramic candle filter removes 99.99% of bacteria and it goes deeper by safeguarding our drinking water from dirt, asbestos, iron, … to 0.2 microns. That’s ubber small particles!

1. What’s your strongest sense?

The nose knows! My sense of smell is my strongest sense. I usually pick up on pleasant aromas or funky odors before anyone else in my family.

1. Insert your own random thought here.

The change in our Daylight Savings will be this coming weekend.  Interestingly, I learned Benjamin Franklin conceived the idea of Daylight Savings. The purpose was to move an hour of morning daylight to the evening to make for a more productive use of our daylight hours. I can see why this was a good idea more 200 years ago, but today?

My first experience with DST was when I was a kid. My understanding was for the time change was to protect school kids in pedestrian related accidents. This really did not make a lot of sense to me because many morning during the school calendar, we walked in the dark to catch our bus. The sun peeped over the horizon about the time the school bus arrived. It wasn’t until now I understand the concern comes more in the evening hours where more pedestrian fatalities occur after 6pm, in particularly after the clock rolls back in the fall.

Growing up, I learned DST had something to do with saving energy, but I think this is of little consequences to how little we actually save or in fact one study concluded more money was spent. Just goes to figure if you leave something like this in the hands of politicians then it’ll cost the consumer more money every time.

Regardless for the reasons, DST wrecks my entire biological clock to a degree. Personally, I wish there wasn’t any sort of time change. As the earth travels its orbit, then our days become longer or shorter and our bodies will acclimate so with less trauma.  I believe the same would hold true with pedestrian safety for shorter days. We instinctively adjust our senses.

One thing I’ve discovered in recent years is DST doesn’t seem to bother me as it once did. I think back on the days I worked outside the home and when my children were really small. My internal clock went haywire.  I wonder why it is now versus then the change isn’t so huge psychologically for me, do you have any clue?

Are you affected by the time change?   If so, how bad? What do you dread the most about the whole DST either fall back or spring forward?

For more randomness, check yesterday’s post: Linky, Andouille Potato Soup, Xbox Zumba Rush, Escala