Wednesday Hodgepodge…June 20

We’re back from our anniversary celebration–just in time for me to join Joyce’s Hodgepodge!  I haven’t missed a Hodgepodge yet, and I didn’t want to start today.  Thanks, Joyce, for making mid-week so much fun!

We didn’t get home until six last night,  then we had to pick and shell two rows of peas after that, so forgive me if my answers are a bit crazy today.  I finished writing this at 1 o’clock this morning!

Here are this week’s questions:

1. Summer officially rolls in with the Hodgepodge this week, for those of us in the Northern hemisphere anyway. What song says summer 2012 to you?

It’s funny that Joyce asked this question since I recently spent several days searching for “summer songs” to load onto my new MP3 player.  I found a ton of them!  Nothing says summertime in Georgia better than Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee”, but a newer favorite of mine is “Knee Deep in Paradise” by the Zac Brown Band.

2. What’s your favorite quintessential summer food?

I have two–boiled peanuts and watermelon–and I’ve already had some of both!

3. I’ve spent a lot of time traipsing up and down the NJ Turnpike in recent weeks. Did you know the rest areas on the turnpike are named after people who lived or worked in NJ? Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, James Fenimore Cooper, Molly Pitcher, Joyce Kilmer, Thomas Edison, and Gover Clevland just to name a few. Of those I listed, who would you most like to have known and why?

I’ll say Clara Barton because she was a nurse. We have several “medical people” in our family.  My mother-in-law worked as a nurse in doctor’s offices for years,  hubby, Ed,  has worked as an x-ray tech/paramedic/director of radiology, and one of our daughter-in-laws is an RN.  Between the three of them, they could tell enough “hair raising tales” to fill a book!

4. At what age did you move out of your parent’s house and what prompted the move?

I left home at the age of 17, just two months shy of my 18th birthday, to marry Ed!  It was the best move I ever made!

5. What’s more satisfying to you-saving time or saving money?

At this point in my life, my answer should probably be “saving time” because it’s so precious, but my answer is “saving money” since we are nearing time for Ed to retire.

6. Name something you think brings out the good in people.

Seeing someone “in need” or “in distress”–as in a disaster or illness.

7. This last question comes to you courtesy of Kathy over at Reflections…will you be taking a vacation or a staycation this summer? If so where will you go? If a staycation is on the calendar have you made any special plans to fill the time?

Ed and I are are nearing the end of our vacation.  We spent most of our vacation at home, but we had no problem whatsoever “filling the time”!  We spent the majority of it canning fresh vegetables.  I know that doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, but it had to be done.  However, we also took a brief “time out” and went to the beach for a couple of days!

Random:

As I mentioned earlier, Ed and I just returned from a couple of days at the beach.  We went on a quick “get-away” to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.  I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a trip more!  It was fantastic to spend some “quality time” together and just enjoy each other’s company without any of life’s distractions.  No phones, no computer, no pets, and no garden!  We highly recommend a beach “get-away”, and plan to take another one in the near future!

Ed and I took the camera and tripod with us on the trip, and snapped a couple of “timed” photos of us beside the ocean.  I’m sure we looked quite comical out there trying to get everything all set up, but here’s us on our 40th anniversary…

With “wind in our hair and sand in our shoes”…