April - Daffodils, Baby Chicks, Dogs, Bunnies, and the Hodgepodge

Daffodils and Baby Chicks

Definitely two signs of spring: Daffodils poking up everywhere (else) and baby chicks being offered for sale at the Farmer's Union Co-op and Farm & Fleet. Every year I think about getting chickens, but so far all I've been brave enough to get is this:

Egg basket, upper left, from Murray McMurray via our son who gave me a gift certificate one Mother's Day, in hopes I'd use it for chickens. And really, I had that gift certificate for the longest time, SO wanting to get chickens, but at that time we still had our sweet GSD Bridger

 Bridger, playing with the bunny

and I just didn't want to ruin his life by yelling at him for playing with the chickens.  :-(

AND, the egg crate (under the plant ladder).  You can see that neither is being used for the purpose for which it was designed.

So today, Joyce over at 'From This Side of the Pond' has us thinking about April. Join in the Hodgepodge by clicking on the button and answering the questions with us. Thanks, Joyce. :-)

1. Since these questions are posting on the first day of April it seems only right to ask-when was the last time you did something foolish? If you can't answer that one, try this one-when was the last time someone fooled you?

Yesterday. Sandra of MadSnapper announced that she was done blogging. I TOTALLY fell for it. Of course she was lying playing an April Fool's joke on us. I don't know why I didn't wake up expecting this sort of thing all day, but it totally caught me off guard. I had even begun writing her a nice letter, asking her to reconsider. No, really. :-) You must visit Sandra if you don't already know her.


2. What's the last biography or non-fiction book you've read? Was it any good?

I read non-fiction almost exclusively, and have to make myself read fiction.  But I do it - occasionally.  But if it's fiction, it better be really good. So the most recent non-fiction are 'What's  Wrong With the World' by G.K. Chesterton or 'After You Believe' by N.T. Wright or 'Failure of the Global Socialist Experiment' by Richard Maybury. It's not unusual to have a few going at the same time. It's what happens, especially when you have a Kindle.  I'll read one for a while then later pick up another, then come back to the first, etc. etc.  And yes, they're all good! And that's why I jump around like that. I can't stay away from any one of them too long. And yes I must have ADHD? But I do eventually get them read. And then there'll be another great Kindle offer on Amazon. Like a friend of mine said last week, 'Just can't resist that shiny new object, can you.' (and that's because she can't either!) :-) But I actually do. There's a lot of trash that Kindle wants me to buy, but I don't. AND there are so many great books for FREE on Kindle. Did you know that?

3. Garlic-friend or foe? What's your favorite dish made with garlic?

Grilled Chicken with Basil Pesto Fettucini

LOVE garlic. Definitely a friend, and it's an ingredient in probably 90 percent of the dinners I make. Probably my favorites are Guacamole or Hummus or Basil Pesto, but favorite 'dish' is  GF Grilled Chicken with Basil Pesto Fettucini. Killer recipe!


4. Several Spring flower festivals happen in the US during the month of April. Of those listed, which would you most like to see in person...The Skagit Tulip Festival in Skagit Washington, The Dogwood Arts Festival in Knoxville Tennessee, The North Carolina Azalea Festival in Wilmington North Carolina or the Daffodil Festival Weekend on Nantucket Island, Massachussets?

 One of the first daffodils in my garden

May 2013

I'd go to the Daffodil Festival in Massachusetts. I love daffodils (the first flower that dares emerge after our long winters), and besides that, it would be such a great hub from which to visit so many fascinating places in New England - and relatively close together.

5. How do you choose which blogs to read?  What is something that will make you stop and read every time? Something that makes you say, 'eh, think I'll skip this one and move on to the next'?

 A good first photo is what grabs me, or an intriguing post title (like Nana Diana's blog on Tuesday) What makes me move on to a different blog is when there's only a few sentences of a post and then a 'read more...' that I am instructed to click on. That annoys me. I know it's all about SEO for blog readership boosting, but I mean seriously, isn't that just too much to ask of me?? I like one-stop shopping, not hopping from here to there to there. And then, to make matters worse, sometimes I'm asked to decipher this horrid 'word verification' that now has like 12 fuzzy, nearly indistinguishable digits!!  Who wants to jump through that hoop? (And I know, I'm asking you to click on the recipe link above, but that's only if you want the best dinner recipe you've had in a long time.)

6. April is National Mathematics Education Month so tell us, when did you last use math?

I use addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, and algebra often! in recalculating recipes, whether for meals or making soap, for figuring how much data I can use on my phone in the next few days before my data has run out, and figuring how many miles I've walked in the mall.  (etc.)

My algebra teacher would be so happy to know that I still use algebra. We had a great time in his class, and I even actually learned something. I remember the principle of the school coming into the algebra room once when we were all tossing M&Ms up into the air and trying to catch them in our mouths (I was really good at that, which I know doesn't surprise you) - and the time he got so mad at one of the bratty boys in our class that he stuffed him into the air vent in the wall and made him stay there, hunkered down into a pathetic little ball until class was over.  And the time he did a parallel handstand on his desk just to impress the boys. Kids just don't know what they're missing these days! And that was only the algebra teacher. The principle of the junior high school (gr. 7-9) would yell so loudly when he was mad that you could hear him from his office all the way down to study hall. And when he picked up a boy by the front of the shirt and slammed him into the lockers, yelling at him through clenched teeth, now that was REALLY exciting! There used to be a REASON for a kid to get up early and ride the bus an hour+ to get to school!

7. In honor of the A-Z challenge kicking off on April 1...choose one word beginning with the letter A to describe your yesterday.

Ah...ah...ah...CHOO!!!  (one word, four syllables)


8. Insert your own random thought here.

So a certain little 3 1/2 year old boy, staying with his other grandma while mommy was in the hospital with the new baby: They were in the grocery store when he spied chocolate chunks and asked Nana to buy them. Since she is very careful with what she allows him to eat, she told him that she wasn't sure his mommy would want him to have those. He recognized the GF  EnjoyLife bag and persisted in his request. (You know what a spot this puts poor Nana in!)

Finally he said, 'Well, just call her with your phone and ask her with your voice.'  

so she did. 

Why did that crack me up? Because in this day of technology, that little guy knows you can

TEXT

or

FACETIME

or 

SKYPE

or

EMAIL

or simply

Call her with your phone and ask her with your voice! 

(for Pete's sake!)

***

Hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday!!

Check out my handcrafted, vegan soaps

Buy Five or More, Get OneFREE

'Woodland Flowers'

Natural, Handcrafted Vegan Soap

...and more! Check out all my handcrafted soaps at

HomemadeSoapNSuch

and at

Our ETSY Shop 

Although I usually forget to do it, there is an outside chance that this post will be linked to one or more of the following: Inspiration Monday and  Mosaic Monday and The Marketplace  and Market Yourself Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and  Making the World Cuter Mondays and You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Treasure Box Tuesday  and  Knick of Time Tuesday (vintage)  and   Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday  and What we Accomplished Wednesday and Whatever Goes Wednesday and  Adorned From Above  and Rurality Blog Hop and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday and Good Fences and  Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Weekend Reflections and  Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and The Charm of Home and  Share Your Creativity and A Favorite Thing Saturday and Weekly Top Shot and Shadow Shot Sunday and  Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday

Pin It