Hodgepodge and Sweet Tea

Welcome to the last Hodgepodge of the month. Wow-that was fast! If you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger linking before you.

One item of business...there will not be a Wednesday Hodgepodge next week (March 7). We'll be back in action the following week (March 14th). Thanks!

Here we go-

1. Are you currently operating at 100% capacity? If not, what % are you? What's keeping you there?

Oh wow, surely this is not 100%??? What does 100% feel like when you're a few decades past twenty? In my 20's I was almost always operating at 100%, but I am not 20 an.y.more. I'm probably somewhere around 75% right now which isn't bad, but it's not 100% that's for sure. 

What's keeping me there? Various aches and pains, middle age and the metabolism to go with, and my neck. If you're still in your 20's that last bit means absolutely nothing, but if you're post-40 you know what I'm talking about. 

2.  Have you done your taxes? Planned/booked a summer holiday? Thought about or started your 'spring cleaning'? Besides what's listed here, tell us one task that needs doing before spring rolls around.

We have not 'done' our taxes but we have sent our organizer in to the professionals and once that icky task is completed I kind of feel like they're done. Our portion of the process is pretty much done, other than reviewing, signing, and paying.  

We haven't booked a summer holiday because we live on a lake and have a steady stream of houseguests all summer long. Actually all the company does require quite a bit of planning and coordinating dates so I have been keeping up with that. Our calendar is filling up and we're excited to see friends and family for summer fun right here at home. There's boating and swimming and cornhole and cookouts and lots and lots of porch sitting. We try our best to spend summer right here at home and get away during other seasons of the year. 

Spring Cleaning? I've started making a list of a few things I want to accomplish, but that's as far as I've gotten. As far as other tasks that need doing, there will be some yard clean up, but hubs has that covered, and we need to have the gutters cleaned so will schedule that soon. 

3. What's a favorite food from your part of the country?

From my post title you might be able to guess, but since sweet tea is technically a beverage let's go with another local favorite-shrimp and grits. I'm sure there are people turning up their noses here, but don't knock it til you've tried it. There are a number of variations, but this restaurant's version is definitely one of our favorites. 

4. This isn't a leap year, but let's run with it anyway...look before you leap, a leap of faith, grow by leaps and bounds, leap to conclusions, leap at the opportunity...which phrase might best be applied to your life currently (or recently)? Explain.

None of the above really fit. How about 'leap for joy'? 

I might not have a summer holiday planned, but I do have a trip to see the mancub coming up soon, and that definitely qualifies.

5. As the month draws to a close list five fun and/or fabulous things (large or small) you noticed or experienced in February.

hiking in shorts! In February! (I wrote about it here)
Winter Olympics on TV
perfectly pink sunrises
waterfalls
lots of time spent with a daughter in the house

6. Insert your own random thought here.

So now that the Olympics are over what's everybody watching? 

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 343

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to share answers with your friends and neighbors. One item of business...there will not be a Wednesday Hodgepodge next week (March 7). We'll be back in action the following week (March 14th). Thanks!

Now back to today-

1. Are you currently operating at 100% capacity? If not, what % are you? What's keeping you there?

2.  Have you done your taxes? Planned/booked a summer holiday? Thought about or started your 'spring cleaning'? Besides what's listed here, tell us one task that needs doing before spring rolls around.

3. What's a favorite food from your part of the country?

4. This isn't a leap year, but let's run with it anyway...look before you leap, a leap of faith, grow by leaps and bounds, leap to conclusions, leap at the opportunity...which phrase might best be applied to your life currently (or recently)? Explain.

5. As the month draws to a close list five fun and/or fabulous things (large or small) you noticed or experienced in February.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Who Wears Short Shorts?

Not me. I just wear regular shorts, but I wear them in FEBRUARY!

Hubs and I have been enjoying the great outdoors this weekend and yesterday I was in shorts. In FEBRUARY! It's been crazy humid and the pollen is already making an appearance but y'all! I wore shorts! In FEBRUARY! 

Toto I don't think we're in Kansas North Jersey anymore.

There are a number of waterfalls an easy drive from us, and we're determined to get out and see as many as we can up close and personal. One is just a few minutes from the house and we pass the park entrance sign on an almost weekly basis. Every time we drive by we say, "hmmm...wonder what's up there?" On Friday we finally made the turn in to see what's what.

Even though these falls are situated within a state park vehicle parking can be wonky at the trail head. We knew this before driving in, because I always like to hop online and read travel tips before we go. Other visitors to the area said to park on the road, but it looked like we might get blocked in by hikers who had not read the parking instructions online. We decided to park at the ranger station then walked along the road to the trail head. Easy peasy. Also the ranger was very nice and gave us a couple of options for hiking.

Before heading to the trail we walked up the hill near the station to check out two historic buildings on site, The Stone Block House and The Trader's Brick House.

Following some raids by Creek Indians the State of SC had these block houses put up along the frontier and then protected by a small group of militiamen. The Brick House was a trading post established in 1795 that exchanged everything from ammunition to livestock.

Both buildings are boarded up now so you can't go inside...

...although someone thought there might be a way- ahem. Still so interesting to see and read about and imagine what the world was like a couple of hundred years ago. When we hike we're always on the lookout for an arrowhead or some other remnant of days gone by.

The hike into the falls was about a mile on a well-marked trail. The poplars are leafing out and we saw lots of lovely little trillium peeking out of the ground too.

The falls are about fifty feet in height and they're beautiful.

Since Saturday promised to be even warmer than Friday we ventured the next day to another nearby area known as Riley Moore Falls. It pays to do a little bit of research before you hike because this is not one you'd happen upon without a little bit of direction. You travel about three miles on a mostly gravel road and then we parked and walked another mile or so down a muddy road to the trail head. Note to self-that downhill road is gonna be uphill all the way back.

The trail itself is well marked and continues downward through thick woods before opening up to a wide expanse of beach and a really pretty waterfall.

Riley Moore Falls are only about twelve feet high, but they're a hundred feet wide and the beachy area makes you want to linger.

Here's my mountain goat-

He coaxed me up there and we had a picnic lunch on that highest rock.

You can tell from my smile I much prefer terra firma.

Or maybe that smile is all because the sun is shining, there's beauty in this wild world, and oh yeah...

I'm wearing shorts.
In February!

Balancing The Hodgepodge

Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger linking before you. We're all about keeping things friendly here on This Side Of The Pond-

1. Where do you go when you need some inspiration?

My back porch. Or outdoors somewhere. There's something about being outside that shakes the cobwebs free and helps me refocus. I also enjoy reading something well written, sometimes music does it too. 

2. What's under your bed?

Absolutely nothing. Well maybe a little dust but besides that absolutely nothing. 

3. Thursday, February 22nd is National Chili Day, National Margarita Day, and National Cook a Sweet Potato Day. Of the three which would you most like to celebrate? Is that likely?

Since I'm answering this question at 8 o'clock in the morning none of the the options sound too appealing. I'd probably enjoy celebrating Margarita Day the most because a margarita feels celebratory. No plans for that this week, and since I made chili over the weekend I guess cooking a sweet potato is the most likely. 

4. What are you 'snowed under' with right now?

I'm not really snowed under but I do have two or three things that need my attention and I guess they might qualify. Taxes spring instantly to mind. 

5. Tell us three to five things that make you feel balanced?

My morning quiet time, prayer, being on the water or really anywhere outdoors where there's some sort of natural beauty, journaling, and having my family all gathered round the table sharing a meal. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I feel like this week's Hodgepodge is a bit ho-hum, so in keeping with that theme let's talk about the weather. My daughter in Washington State laughs when I dare mention gray skies because she knows gray skies, but maybe it's because we typically have so many blue sky days that the gray seem more pronounced? 

On the bright side (because there always is one)... it's not snow. And what I really love about this time of year is that peek into spring we're given every now and then. 

Sunday for example-

Sunday was glorious and perfect for porch sitting with my people. 
Come on spring! 

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 342

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here tomorrow to add your link to the party. See you there!

1. Where do you go when you need some inspiration?

2. What's under your bed?

3. Thursday, February 22nd is National Chili Day, National Margarita Day, and National Cook a Sweet Potato Day. Of the three which would you most like to celebrate? Is that likely?

4. What are you 'snowed under' with right now?

5. Tell us three to five things that make you feel balanced?

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Five Minutes of Why

I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday today and here's the drill-Kate posts a one word prompt, you set your timer and write for five minutes flat, no editing or over thinking.

I'll be honest here and say these prompts lend themselves to deep thought and I often struggle to articulate deep thought in just five minutes. I need more like five hundred to make my point, but still I try. I like the way this exercise stretches me and often forces me to examine my faith and put what I see there into words. I especially love seeing all the many directions in which writers run with a single word.

Obviously I haven't started my timer yet-ha!

Today's prompt-why

When my girls were little instead of asking why they used to ask "how becomes?" I don't know exactly when and how this came to be, but instead of asking why it was always "Mommy how becomes I can't go outside and play?" or "How becomes Poppie lives in heaven instead of here with us?" or "How becomes your hair is brown and mine is different?"

I think maybe the phrase came about because when they asked a question I answered, and my answer almost always began with the word because. How becomes was an extension of that.

I remember the innocence of my children, their curiosity, their sense of feeling safe in the world. Bad things happened but they were mostly shielded from them. It's a different world in 2018 with everything on display all day every day. Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, violence of the human kind...no place sacred, no place safe.

How becomes the world is such a mess?

Well that's a tough one. A question for the ages really because a messy world is nothing new. When my children were small and they'd ask a tough question quite often my answer was simply this-'Because Mommy says so'. Small children are most of the time more than okay with that answer. In fact it was the answer they were looking for. They don't need details, they just need to know someone bigger is in charge.

We're all small children when evil looms large in our newsfeeds and our school buildings, our churches and movie theatres and on and on it goes.

Someone bigger is in charge.

Every time something tragic occurs I'm reminded this earth is not my home. That I'm a traveler in an imperfect world, and that God has something infinitely better planned. That He knows the end from the beginning and we only see in part.

For those who don't acknowledge the existence of God that all sounds trite and convenient, like you're taking the easy way out. Except it's not easy. It's not easy to look at a world gone mad and say something better is coming.

So how becomes I believe it?

Because God has promised that very thing and He has never ever failed to keep His word.

Thursday Things

Let's discuss some random things because that's what Thursday blogging is for, right? Sometimes random isn't that interesting, but nine years of blogging has taught me you can't predict what people will latch on to and say 'hey I feel the same'. That's one of my favorite things about writing and partly why I enjoy it so much.

First! Let's pause and give the weather it's due. 70 degrees in the middle of February feels absolutely fabulous. I almost feel like I could get in the lake today, except the lake temp isn't quite 70. Soon though!

Keep calm and winter on.

And by winter I mean 70 degree Thursdays.

We had a nice Valentine's Day yesterday. When you wake up to skies that look like this it's really hard not to feel the love-

Also, when you're this boy's Nana, but I digress-

I had a doctor's appointment in the morning then worked on our tax organizer a little in the afternoon, but still...a nice day. Hubs and I relaxed before dinner with a yummy cheese tray and a glass of bubbly while we listened to power ballads from the 1980s. Shoutout to the Wednesday Hodgepodge for inspiring our Pandora search.

On Tuesday of this week Daughter2 came out to the house for dinner and I helped her make slime for her kindergarten class. Technically I was making dinner while she was making slime, but it was more of a project than she'd anticipated so I helped.

I'm a bit of a messy cook and she's a bit of a messy cook and there was glitter (shhh...don't tell hubs!) but we finally got 'er done.

Excellent teachers are such a gift. They're always thinking about what they can do to help students learn-grow-feel valued. When they're not at school they're thinking about school and I'm not sure that's always recognized and appreciated the way it should be. Teachers are called upon these days for so very much and if you don't understand that you're not watching the news.

We've had Daughter2's dog with us all week and hubs and I have enjoyed walking the neighborhood trails with her. So pretty in the woods right now.

Did I mention it's 70 degrees today???

Who's watching the Olympics? What are you loving most? I think the US pairs skating duo (Alexa and Chris Knierim) are adorable and I'm a little bit surprised at how much I've enjoyed the snowboarding competitions, male and female both.

I think it's kind of funny the way the commentators talk about the medal categories. Like anything less than gold is just eh. Speaking as someone who can't climb down a step ladder without a trip to the ER I think silver and bronze are pretty great too.

I had to run in the drug store for one thing this week and who else has a hard time peeling themselves away from the drug store? I love the mix of random merchandise...makeup, greeting cards, holiday treats....it's hard for me to run in for 'just one thing'.

Tomorrow is Friday and I'm determined to participate in the Five Minute link up (here), no matter the word prompt. These last few prompts have been doozies and felt too deep for my winter brain so I've
chickened out passed. Tomorrow's the day though. I mean it can't be all random nonsense round here now, can it?