“High Five” To the Hodgepodge

Wow! Imagine my surprise when I came here to my blog to participate in the Wednesday Hodgepodge, and discovered everything has changed! The new blogging format is completely foreign to me! I’m too old and tired to learn a lot of new tricks, but I’ll give it a try…Thanks to our hostess, Joyce, for this fun distraction each week.

1. Five years ago this month hubs and I relocated from New Jersey to the Palmetto State. What were you doing five years ago this month?

At first, I had no idea what I was doing five years ago, and then the year 2015 hit me like a ton of bricks! 2015 was the year everything went wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) for us.

In January Ed lost his job, in April we discovered termites and mold under our house, and my back “went out” for the first time! I had back surgery in September. We bought a new vehicle the first part of October, then Ed had a heart attack late in October. In November my daughter and I both discovered we had skin cancer on our faces, requiring Mohs surgery, followed by plastic surgery! It makes me stressed just thinking about 2015!

In answer to the question, five years ago, at this time, I was a very miserable person, anticipating my upcoming sixty-first birthday, and back surgery!

2. What was the last 9-5 job you worked? Tell us about it.

My last 9-5 job was being the care taker of five month old twin girls. The hours were 7:30 to 5:30. I retired, after two years, to spend more time with family. Those twin girls are now fifteen years old!

3. Plead the fifth, high five, take five, it’s five o’clock somewhere, or the big 5-0…which number five phrase relates to your life in some way currently? Tell us how.

“Take five” currently relates to my life because I often have to “take five” when scrolling through Facebook or watching the evening news. We are living in some trying times.

4. During this season of spending so much time at home, what distractions get in the way of being your most productive? Or have you been extra productive since this whole thing started?

Health issues tend to be my biggest road block to being productive, but it’s also very easy to get distracted by social media–or that 300 piece puzzle sitting beside my chair! (my latest hobby)

5. Give us a list here of your top five anything.

Five of my favorite gospel songs: (in no special order, and it was hard to stop at just five!)

1. Precious Memories- Alan Jackson
2. What a Beautiful Day (for the Lord to Come Again)- Brian Free
3. 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)- Matt Redman
4. Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)-Chris Tomlin
5. Turn Your Back- Gold City

Random:

I’ve used a ton of bird seed this spring and summer! We have five different bird feeders, and Ed and I’ve been doing some serious bird watching, while being stuck at home. We have cardinals, blue jays, mocking birds, brown thrashers, and two different kinds of dove that regularly visit our bird feeders. We’ve even had some woodpeckers visit our feeders! We didn’t know woodpeckers ate bird seed!

It’s been rewarding to watch the adults raise their babies in nests and bird houses, located around our yard, then watch the babies growing up into adults as they come to feed daily.

I have a once-in-a-lifetime tale of the rescue and survival of one of these babies… but I think I’ll save the story of “Flutterbee” for another day!

R

Good-bye October, Hello Hodgepodge…

Can you believe it’s already the last Wednesday of October?  Me either!  Welcome to The Wednesday Hodgepodge, the mid-week meme, hosted by Joyce FromThisSideOfThePond.  The Hodgepodge is a little of this and a little of that, but it’s always a lot of fun!  Here are this week’s questions, along with my answers:

1. My hubs spent last weekend pheasant hunting. Are there hunters in your family? If so, what do they hunt? Which of the following have you tasted-pheasant, rabbit, venison, duck, goose? Which of those would you most like to taste, or be most willing to taste?

Ed used to do a little bit of hunting, when he was a teenager, but that was long before we met, and he didn’t hunt much.  Our son-in-law, Clint, used to hunt, too, but not since he’s been in our family.  At this time, there are currently no hunters in our family, but if meat prices continue to soar at the grocery store, that could possibly change!  Around here, most people hunt for deer, birds, or wild turkeys.

While we’re on this subject, let me just say that I have a problem with very young children going hunting.  I’ve seen pictures of local children, some as young as five or six, posing with deer they’ve supposedly killed.  This disturbs me–a lot!

As far as what I would eat or what I have eaten, I’ve eaten venison (deer meat) and wild birds (dove & quail), but it’s been quite a while since I’ve done so.  I would be willing to try duck, wild turkey, or goose, but that’s about it.

2. What high spot have you visited that gave you a wonderful ‘bird’s eye view’ of something below?

The last high ‘bird’s eye view’ I had was from top of the light tower, on St. Simon’s Island, and that was probably 25 years ago!  My knees grew weak when I walked out on the ledge, and looked down! I’m afraid of heights, so I usually try to avoid places with a ‘bird’s eye view’.  Besides,  these days, I probably couldn’t hold out to climb all the steps of a lighthouse!

3. Do you have any birds in your home? These could be either real live pets or decorative, as in bird prints, knickknacks, fabric or pottery.

Yes, we have birds!  Up until two weeks ago, we had seven baby chicks living in a box in our pool room.  Thankfully, they’ve moved outside now, to a home of their own, but I still have a green and yellow parakeet named ‘Tweety’, who shares our home.  I don’t know exactly how old ‘Tweety’ is, but he’s lived with us for almost nine years.

4. Tell about a time you ‘killed two birds with one stone’?

How about this past weekend, when we celebrated two different grandchildrens’ birthdays in one weekend? Granddaughter, Madison, turned 8 on September 23.  Grandson, Evan, will turn 1 on October 30.

Evan wasn’t so sure about his ‘smash cake’…

Madison poses with her ‘Frozen’ themed cake

Evan’s party was last Saturday, and Madison’s party was last Sunday!  It was a lot of ‘sweets’, people, and celebrating for one weekend, but, we all survived!

 5. Your favorite song with a bird in its title?

An old song comes to mind:  On the Wings of a Dove by Ferlin Husky.  This [somewhat spiritual] song was popular when I was a child (in 1960), but I still love it today!  I was happy to find the song on YouTube, and decided to share it for those who may have never heard it. (That would probably include my own children, too)

6. What most recently gave you goose bumps?

Watching the new show ‘Stalker’ gives me goose bumps!  What a ‘sit on the edge of your seat’ kind of show!  Last week’s episode, ‘Phobia’,  actually had me squirming and yelling, when a woman woke up to find over thirty snakes in her bedroom–one of which was in her bed!  Snakes definitely qualify as one of my phobias!  (I got goosebumps again, yesterday, when Ed found a HUGE snake’s skin near our back yard!)

7. Halloween is this Friday…any plans? Did you trick or treat as a child? Carve pumpkins? Share your most memorable costume.

Although Halloween isn’t until Friday, our town will have its ‘trick-or-treat night’ on Thursday night–our town is ‘funny’ that way.  They only do ‘trick-or-treat’ on Tuesday or Thursday nights. Go figure!   We have no plans (yet) for Halloween, but our grandchildren will stop by on Thursday night to collect the ‘treats’ that I have waiting for them.

Yes, I did go trick-or-treating, as a child.  Back then, we were  lucky if we got a mask to wear for Halloween. If we weren’t lucky enough to get a mask, from the dime store, we dressed up in old clothes, put smut on our faces, and went trick-or-treating as a hobo. There was also the old standby of wearing a white sheet over our heads, and pretending to be a ghost, too. I think we had more fun, back then, than the children do now!

My most memorable Halloween costume is from just three years ago, when Ed and I dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, for our last family Halloween Party.

As for carving pumpkins, I never did that when I was a child.  I watched Ed carve a few jack-o-lanterns with our own children, although I’ve never tried it myself.  I’d probably make a mess of the pumpkin!

Random:

With Halloween just around the corner, I’m sharing my Halloween montage again. It’s a collection of some of my favorite Halloween pictures.  I really need to make another one of these, and include some Halloween photos of the two newest ‘grands’.  Enjoy!

Friday Fragments…

I must say, this week has been relatively calm compared to last week!  No hammering, no sawing, and no unintentional cutting of our electrical wires, since the workmen finished their part of our construction, last Friday.  Thank goodness for the quiet and calm!

Ed and I still have some work to do on the porch before it’s  completely finished.  We have some painting to do, and Ed needs to cut off the new posts of our step railings.  I’m sure we’ll get this stuff accomplished–eventually.  There’s always something to do, and there’s never enough time to get it done!

Speaking of the ‘wire cutting incident’, when Ed put the wires back together, he accidentally traded places with two of our light switches.  As a result, every time I turn on the lights in the living room, I end up turning on the ceiling fan instead (they’re on separate switches)!  I wonder how long it will take to retrain my weary brain to flip the first switch instead of the second one.  Ed offered to switch them back around, but I figured a challenge is good for me!  Eight days and counting…  I still haven’t retrained my brain!

We bought a new charcoal grill, a couple of weeks ago.  Ed finally got around to putting it together yesterday.  Our plan is to grill on Easter Sunday.  It will be something we haven’t done before.  Somehow, the thought of slaving over a ham or a turkey just didn’t seem appealing, this year.  Oops, is my age showing?

We had a mini storm on Monday afternoon.  The wind blew in from the west, which is never a good thing, because we still have lots of tall pine trees on that side of our house.  Ed and I watched in horror as the tops of those pines twisted and twirled in the wind!  Some good-sized limbs fell near the chicken house, and nearly gave ‘the girls’ a heart attack!  We later learned that a tornado had touched down just a few miles away.

Some of our garden has sprouted!  Most of the seeds that we planted last Tuesday have now come up.  It sure looks good to look down the rows and see those little green vegetable plants!  Unfortunately, weeds will soon follow.  I guess I’d better get ready to hoe!  One more thing to add to our ‘to do’ list.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying watching the birds around the yard.  They’ve been enjoying the warm temperatures and sunshine.  Our daughter has a couple of bluebirds nesting in a bird house in her yard.  Apparently, they have babies because I watched them taking food into the bird house, on Saturday.  Some mockingbirds have a nest in the cedar tree, as usual.  Ed and I, also, have a cardinal couple who regularly come to pick up the stray food from around our chicken’s pen.  We have a bird feeder, but this couple seems to enjoy stealing the scratch food.

I’ve spent a great deal of this week trying to finish and upload the last of my video montages from One True Media over to YouTube, since One True Media is going out of business next month.  I only have six weeks left before all of my videos will be deleted, unless they’re published on YouTube.  Unfortunately, lots of other customers must be doing the same thing because it’s taking FOREVER to get a video to process!  I spent two days waiting for the video, below, to process!  Believe it or not, I’ve posted 77 video montages to YouTube, over the past three years.

Here is a montage of our tree cutting experience, last summer.  It’s worth watching, especially if you’ve never seen anyone walk up, tie off, then cut down some VERY TALL pine trees (which happen to have been located VERY CLOSE to our house)!  It amazed me to learn that the tree climber had once fallen from a tree, landed on a concrete picnic table, and shattered one side of his entire body!  He wasn’t even expected to survive, yet there he was, climbing trees again, believe it or not!

Thanks to Mrs. 4-4-4-4 at Half-Past Kissin’ Time  for hosting Friday Fragments each week.  It’s always fun to link up and see what everyone else is ‘fragging’ about, and she’s, also, having a celebration all month! You should check it out!

Have a great weekend, everybody!  I’ll see you on Monday 🙂