A ‘Grand’ Old Hodgepodge…

Wow, has another week flown by already?  The days are zooming by! Wednesday means it’s time for another Hodgepodge, so here I am checking into blog land.  Thanks so much to our hostess, Joyce, for keeping The Hodgepodge going, thus making sure I blog at least once a week.  These days, I need all the help I can get!  Here are today’s questions:

1. Growing up, were you close to your grandparents? Tell us one or two specific things you remember about them.
There were a couple of times, growing up, when I lived with my maternal grandparents for several  months.  You can’t get much closer than that!   I loved my grandma very much, and wanted to be just like her.  My granddaddy passed away when I was fourteen.

Grandma on her 77th birthday in 1980

The things I most remember about grandma were:  (1) She never had idle hands.  While sitting, if she wasn’t sewing or crocheting (which she loved to do), she’d usually have a tissue in her hands, folding or playing with it. (I tend to do this, as well) (2) Grandma also liked to dip snuff. (I chose not do that!)

2. What’s an item you were attached to as a child? What happened to it?

I think my Barbie and Skipper dolls were my favorite toys.  I was already ten or eleven when I got them, but I still spent many happy hours playing with them.  As for what happened to those dolls?  Why, I still have them, of course, along with lots of their friends that I’ve collected since becoming an adult!  (I collected those dolls I’d always wanted as a child, plus a few more)

3. When you look out your window, do you see the forest or the trees (literally and figuratively)? Explain.

Looking out of my window, I can see the forest and the trees…  I see the large sycamore tree that’s growing in my daughter’s backyard–the yard that used to be my backyard, until 10 years ago when we moved next door–and I remember how Ed fussed when I bought that sycamore tree…  I also see the tiny mimosa tree Ed recently dug up and planted in our current yard, even though he hates mimosa trees.  I also see the large magnolia tree that’s planted between our house and our daughter’s house, and I remember what a little twig it was when we planted it almost 40 years ago. Beyond all of that, I can see the “woods” (southern slang for forest) that surround our property on two sides.  Lots and lots of pine trees!

4. Do you like sour candies?  I used to like sour stuff, but I don’t care much for sour candies anymore.  It’s funny how your taste can change.

Which of the ‘sour’ foods listed below would you say is your favorite?  
(grapefruit, Greek yogurt, tart cherries, lemons, limes, sauerkraut, buttermilk, or kumquats) 

Lemons are about the only thing I like that’s on the list.

 Have you ever eaten a kumquat?  Yes, I’ve tasted a kumquat, but I don’t like them.  Ed’s parents used to have a kumquat tree growing in their yard, so they ate them all the time, in season.

What’s your favorite dish containing one of the sour foods on the list?  Lemon pie, of course!

5. July 1st marked the mid point of 2017. In fifteen words or less, tell us how it’s going so far.

Our July has been filled with lots of rain, gnats, and mosquitoes, as usual.

Random:

Our youngest son, Brad, celebrated his 32nd birthday, on Tuesday of last week.  How can this be?  Time slow down!

Anyway, our family all got together to celebrate with him, last Friday. Here’s one of my favorite photos of the evening:

father and son~sharing a moment together

It’s the little things in life that mean the most, like the father/son moment captured in this picture.  One day, when Brad’s son, Evan, turns 32, he’ll look back at this picture and wonder where the years went, too.

Ten Things On Tuesday…

(1) No, I haven’t died or dropped off the face of the earth.  I’ve just been trying to get through the days, one at a time.  Some days are better than others, but there haven’t been any good days [with my back] for about a week.  I’m assuming it’s because the Prednisone has completely worn off. Bummer.

(2) After going for weeks without any rain, we’ve been experiencing afternoon thunder showers every day–including on the Fourth of July.  Fortunately, I’d planned to have our family ‘picnic’ indoors.  Eventually, before the end of the day, the kids managed to steal a few minutes to play in the rain, and in the swimming pool, but Ed got sprinkled on while doing the grilling.

(3) Some folks in our area got a lot more than a thunder shower on July 4th.  They lost their electricity, for part of the day, and some of the streets, in nearby Savannah, were flooded.  Facebook’s feed was filled with photos of folks floating down the flooded streets on tubes!  I guess that could be classified as “making the best of a bad situation.”

(4) Ed discovered that our one-and-only convenience store was closed on July 4th, when we needed to buy a bag of ice.  So much for convenience…  He had to drive another six miles  just to buy some ice.  You’d think all convenience stores would be open on July 4th, wouldn’t you?

(5) Our youngest son was baptized on the Friday morning before the Fourth of July.  He didn’t let anybody know he was going to do this, other than his wife, and the pastor, of course.  He chose to be baptized the old-fashioned way, in the river. This mother was a little bit disappointed that she missed this special moment in her youngest son’s life, but is happy for him, none-the-less.

(6) Speaking of special moments in one’s life–that same youngest son will turn “30” on this coming Saturday.  Where has the time gone?  It seems like only yesterday he wasn’t much bigger than his son, Evan, who will soon turn two!

Last year’s birthday celebration

A lot of things have changed since last year’s birthday celebration.  In addition to everyone being another year older, Ed’s retired, both Brad and Jennifer have new jobs, and Brad and Jennifer have moved out of their home in the city and back to our hometown.  None of these changes were expected, last year, with the exception of everyone growing older.

(7) Speaking of special moments and milestones, today is my daughter and her husband’s wedding anniversary!  They were married on a very hot July evening, fourteen years ago.  All anniversaries are special, but, I think, this one just might have a little more meaning to them than some in the past. I wish the two of them many more happy years ahead!

July 7, 2001

(8) I received my packet of ‘new patient forms’ [for my neurologist appointment, in two weeks], yesterday.  They’re a bit overwhelming, and it may take me the next two weeks just to get them filled out.  I’ve never had to ‘bubble in’ ovals (with a #2 pencil, no less) on patient information forms before!  I’m both looking forward to and dreading this appointment, all at the same time.

(9) Lately, we’ve been letting our newer flock of hens out to ‘free range’ late in the afternoons.  We give them about an hour, at the end of  each day, to roam out of their pen.  They seem to enjoy this time, and look forward to it very  much.  The two older red hens [who free range all the time] tried to act like bullies, at first, but things seem to be getting better now that it’s been a few days.

(10) It’s been three days since Ed’s seen “Trouble” the cat.  For three days in a row,  she’s been a ‘no show’ at feeding time.  We were sure something had happened to her because, normally, she’s always at the house, waiting to be fed.  Yesterday, we found out that she’s been visiting with our oldest son and his family, again!  He said that his little boys have been feeding her and trying to get her to stay. I hope she does, but I won’t hold my breath!  “Trouble” has a mind of her own.

Over The River And Through The Woods…

You may recall that our youngest son, Brad, and is wife, Jennifer,  flew the family coop back in November.  They decided to try living in the city, so they bought a home about an hour away from the family farm.  The weekend before Christmas, the couple invited our family over for lunch on Sunday.

Brad and Jennifer still have several boxes of stuff remaining at Ed’s mom’s house, so Ed and I offered to bring a carload to them on our visit.  Since my car is small, we decided to load Ed’s mom’s car and drive it.

In the meantime, our son-in-law, Clint, woke up not feeling well, and wasn’t able to make the trip.  Our daughter and granddaughter asked if they could ride with us.  So, Ed went to his mom’s, and unloaded enough stuff out of his mom’s car to make room for two more people…

When Ed returned to our house, from his mom’s house, her car was making an awful noise.  Apparently, the pulley that works the air conditioner was squealing.  I quickly told Ed, “I’m not going anywhere in that car!”  So poor Ed, took his mom’s car back to her house, still loaded with Brad and Jennifer’s stuff (but not as much as before, since he’d just unloaded half of it!)

Finally, the four of us loaded up in my small car, bound for Brad and Jennifer’s house…About the time we started to leave the yard, our daughter noticed she had stepped in dog poop!  She quickly got out and changed shoes, while Ed washed off the floor mat.  We made one more quick stop to Ed’s mom’s again– to pack what we could in the back of my car–which wasn’t much!  While trying to load my car, our daughter noticed that she had dog poop on the leg of her jeans…so back home we went, so she could change clothes!

An hour later, after crossing at least one river, and riding through some woods, we arrived in the city.  We drove up to Brad’s house about 10:30.  Apparently, Jennifer wasn’t expecting us quite so early, and we found her in a nightshirt, with a towel on her head.  She was mortified.  I laughed and told her we were “just people”.

Jennifer had worked the day before, until sometime in the night.  Then, after getting home, she baked until midnight.  She’d gotten up early on Sunday, and made two pans of lasagna for lunch.  In other words, she’d gone to a lot of trouble for us.

About the time we arrived earlier than expected,  Jennifer’s phone buzzed with a text, saying  our oldest son and his family wouldn’t be able to attend lunch.  I felt really bad for Jennifer.  After working so hard, one-half of her guests didn’t come, while the other one-half arrived early.  (And did I mention that I had to bring my own lunch because I was on a yeast eradication diet???)  I reassured Jennifer, that she could freeze the extra lasagna for later.  Meanwhile, Brad quickly shuffled all of us off to Wal-mart down the street, while Jennifer got dressed and finished up lunch.

Lunch looked delicious.  I ate some salad, along with the tuna I’d brought from home.  I tasted a bite of Jennifer’s lasagna, and a crumb of one of the cookies she’d baked.  My mouth ran water as I looked at the loaf of Italian bread and the pecan pie, but I didn’t give in, as I was desperate to rid myself of the yeast that had invaded my body.

Following lunch, Brad and Jennifer gave us a tour around their huge subdivision.  Granddaughter, Madison, enjoyed trying out the playground, and the pool would have been very inviting if it hadn’t been winter.  There’s also a nice gym, so there’s no excuse for being out of shape!  It felt a bit like a vacation resort.  We joked with Brad and Jennifer that perhaps we could switch homes for vacation!

All too soon, the afternoon had passed, and it was time to return home.  Sadly, we bid Brad and Jennifer farewell, and headed back home.  It reminded me so much of times past, when Ed and I were the ones living in the city.  We were always so happy to have our families visit, but it was sad when they had to leave.  I never once thought about how our parents might be feeling.  Now I know, they were sad, too…

Brad’s Letter To Santa…

If you know me, you know I save almost everything!  I’m not a hoarder by any means, but I do love to hold onto my stuff.

When the children were growing up I kept a lot of their school papers, newspaper clippings, and even dried flowers from proms and such.  A few years ago, I presented each one of my grown children with a plastic tub full of “things” from their childhood.  I thought I’d given them everything, but lo and behold, this week I ran across a small tub of  special things that I kept for myself.  Among those things I found this…

It is a letter to Santa, written by our youngest son, Brad, at age seven.  Did you notice the date on the letter?  It was back in 1992–nineteen years ago!  My how time flies.  Santa Claus granted Brad’s wish, and I have a picture to prove it!

It’s times like these that make me glad I save those little things…My precious little “Joe Montana Wannabe” is now a twenty-six year old man!  I’m pretty sure I saved that little football outfit and put it in Brad’s tub, too!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Fun Friday Photos…

I enjoyed sharing some of my “funny photos” with you last Friday, so today I’m going to do it again.  I hope you at least get a smile from some of these…

Did you know that my cat, Bobs, is so smart that she can actualy read???  Well, actually she’s not smart enough to read, but she has a love/hate relationship going on with this particular book!  The book is called “Peter Cottontail”, and it plays the song whenever the book is opened–and sometimes it plays when it’s closed!  Everytime the book plays that annoying electronic music,  Bobs goes wild!  She either claws at the cover of the book, or sits and stares at it!  Strange, but true.

Have you ever dressed your dog up for Halloween?  We have!  This is “Big Buddy”, aka “Gizmo”.  He belonged to my daughter several years ago–and she dressed him up as a clown once–in the pre-children days.  Big Buddy was always a good sport.  He was more well-behaved than most children that I know.  Sadly, Big Buddy became a victim of the “tainted dog food” scam a few years back, and is no longer with us. 

Do you see this little pink, screaming, “bundle of joy”?  She replaced “Big Buddy”.  Life was much quieter living with the dog!  Of course, she is sweet and cuddly some of the time.  Unfortunately, she has her moments–her “Maddie Moments”, her “Jack Attacks” or what her mama usually refers to as  a “meltdown”.  This photo is old.  She’s almost five years old now!

Times have changed, but some things haven’t…Yeah!  She’s having a full-blown meltdown in this picture.  Did I mention that we have seen this face a lot over the past four years?!  Gotta’ love our little Maddie though.  Life just wouldn’t be the same without her!

We figured out at an early age that Maddie loves to eat!  The child lives for breakfast, lunch, and supper.  She’s not quite five yet, and she will already call “dibs” on certain foods in the refrigerator 🙂  In case you haven’t figured it out from the photo–let me tell you–Maddie hates to have her hair combed!  She hated it then, and she hates it now!

One of Maddie’s favorite pastimes is–watching television!  Yeah, we don’t want television to be a waste of time at our house, so we’re bringing her up watching “informative” television shows–like Fox News and  “Glen Beck”!  Oh darn, his show went off the air…I guess we’ll just have to record  some episodes of “Hannity” for her!  We want her view of the world to be “fair and balanced”. 

See this bumper sticker?  A few years back, on our son, Brad’s, 21st birthday, a co-worker played a joke on him, by putting this bumper sticker on Brad’s car…I wonder how many people read it before Brad discovered that it was on his car???  I thought it was sort of funny when I saw it!

Wanna’ know what Brad thought about his bumper sticker?  Just read the pendant that he’s holding, and you’ll know!  Among Brad’s  other many thoughtful birthday gifts was a “grow a girlfriend”.  Sorry I don’t have a photo of her to show you!  He placed her in water and she grew…and grew…and grew.

And this last photo…well, what can I say???   If you never hear from me again after today, it’s because the son in the photo killed me after he found out I put this photo on my blog… It was Christmas 2005, and we were all feeling a bit crazy!  It was just after our oldest son got engaged, and for Christmas we gave his bride-to-be a pair of pink panties that said “bride-to-be” on the front…and for some reason, her hubby-to-be felt compelled to try them on–and he did!

And on that note, I’ll say “have a great weekend, everyone”!  Smile!  It makes people wonder what you’re up to…

They’re Baaack…

My six words for today :  There is life after the honeymoon!

Yes, it’s true.  The newlyweds, Brad and Jennifer, arrived home from their cruise on Thursday afternoon.  We were really glad to see them after five days!  They looked tanned and happy!  Actually, Brad looked a little bit “sun-burned” and happy!  The couple brought back tons of photographs, which they shared with us Thursday evening.

The couple spent one day visiting “Atlantis”.  I’m so glad they managed to get tickets to go!  Two days before the wedding Brad hadn’t been successful in obtaining tickets on-line.  Jennifer wasn’t happy…I feared the marriage was in trouble before it had even begun, because visiting Atlantis was their main reason for booking the cruise!  I’m glad it worked out in the end! 

 

Jennifer says visiting Atlantis was the “highlight” of their honeymoon–that and the “towel creations” that they found in their cabin each day!  Jennifer was fascinated by them, and took photographs of each one!

  Brad states that the highlight of the honeymoon for him was getting to meet South Carolina Gamecocks coach, Steve Spurrier, on the cruise,–and getting his photograph taken with him twice!  I can actually see the excitement on Brad’s face!  Only Brad would have the guts to strike up a conversation with someone famous…then get him to pose for a photograph twice!

It’s good to have our family all back on the family farm again!  Only it didn’t last, ’cause our oldest son and his family left this morning for a vacation trip to the lake…Next it will be our daughter and her family’s turn to hit the beach for a few days…Fun, fun, fun!   Now that the wedding is behind us, I’m ready for another get-away, myself!

I really enjoyed looking at Brad and Jenn’s awesome photographs!  Seeing those sandy white beaches and all of that sparkling blue water just makes me more determined than ever, to see those sights one day!  I really liked the towel creations, too!  Who knows…a cruise may be in our future one of these days–I’m adding it to my “bucket list” right now! 

**Photos were borrowed from Brad/Jenn’s Facebook page.