Hodgepodging for Takeoff. Please Fasten Your Seatbelts.

We took a roadtrip

1600 miles

This is a big country!

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THANK YOU, JOYCE!

1. Where have you found unexpected magic or delight this holiday season?

This is an easy one:  a roadtrip with Mr. C., our oldest son, and his youngest son, traveling in an RV from Minnesota to near the Mexican border in Arizona. It was a long, long drive, about the same distance as driving from London to Moscow, just in case you were considering doing that. Be sure to take enough bottled water, pretzels, almonds, entertaining games, books, and a little chocolate.

Most of the photos in this post were taken in Bisbee, AZ.

And all of this was also possible because our middle son stayed at our house in Wisconsin and took care of Tommy and Smokey!

Tommy doesn't look like he was suffering too much, does he!
I got this reassuring photo in a text message.
But I think Rob could have turned up the heat. LOL

2. What's your favorite type of holiday gathering? Will you/have you gathered in your favorite way this month?

My favorite type of holiday gathering is when the entire family rents a [very large] holiday cottage for a week (or two or three) somewhere in northern or southern England. It wouldn't really matter which, because they're so close together! Wouldn't that be fun?!! But actually, any time the family is gathered at our home is my favorite type of gathering.

3. Time has named 'The Silence Breakers' (women who came forward with stories of harassment)  'person of the year' for 2017. Would you agree? If not, who do you think deserves the title?

I wholeheartedly agree, it's about time, and I hope it continues -  although there seems to be precious little genuine repentance among the perpetrators. It's mostly apologizing for getting caught, and I'm also a bit skeptical of those who, when the 'situation' has been consensual, now come back at a later date purporting to be a victim. I think it's high time to clean house with a major vacuum cleaner, but only God can and does change hearts, and maybe that will also happen to some of those involved as a result of introspection and genuine repentance. By God's grace, it happens many times a day in many places across the globe, with people far less interesting to the media.

Merry Christmas from Bisbee, AZ

4. How did you spend your time this year? Are you happy about that? Elaborate.

Reading, studying, thinking, praying, healing, learning, traveling, praying, visiting family, occasionally blogging, Instagramming, etc. Am I happy about that? I guess so, although it leaves me with other problems. He that hath ears to hear...

5. Bid farewell to 2017 in ten words or less.

Twenty eighteen will be seeing more and better changes, 2017.

My favorite photo from the trip to Arizona:

our son and grandson.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I had to put this video on YouTube just so I could share it with you. It was our seven year old grandson's first flight, and it was such a delight to watch his excitement! He was told to be sure to chew gum on takeoff and landing, so you can see he is really working it! I will cherish this trip and the time spent with this sweet kid. We played so many games of Rock, Paper, Scissors; Tic Tac Toe; Spot It; and read the book Babe and got about five chapters into Mr. Popper's Penguins, etc.  

Just before takeoff, I glanced over at him. He was sitting very still, his eyes closed, his hands folded. I waited a minute and then asked him if he had been praying. Yes, he said. I quietly made the sign of the Cross on his forehead, just as an Amen and a thank you to God for the faith of this little child. God bless him.

Well into the 3 hour flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis
'Bad Piggies,' pretzels, and apple juice

***

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 How much is that piggy in the window??

We'll be back next year, friends.
See you then!

Have a blessed and merry Christmas, 
as we celebrate the birth of
King Jesus, Lord of all.

Source: various places online.

I wanted to find a painting where Jesus and Mary and Joseph

looked slightly more Jewish, rather than Dutch or Scandinavian.

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Hodgepodging Another Birthday and Autumn

September 4, 2017

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1. When you think about your future what do you fear most? Hope for the most?

At some point, getting our farm ready to sell and moving is the thing I fear AND hope for the most.

2. September is National Chicken Month. How often is chicken on the menu at your house? What's a favorite dish made with chicken? What's something you're a 'chicken' about doing or trying?

Chicken is probably on our dinner menu at least twice a week. I love chicken stirfry, chicken penne pasta, chicken vegetable soup, baked chicken, etc. etc. I can't think of what I'm a chicken about at the moment.

It's starting to look very fallish around here.

I picked the wild catnip for kitty entertainment in the winter

The wonderful McIntosh apples from our persevering old tree

will become apple crisp by tomorrow night.

3. What are three things you don't own but wish you did?

A Tardis-style carry-on bag that totally packed weighs no more than 10 pounds. 2 ounces.

A refrigerator that's six feet wide and 1 foot deep.

A silent snowmobile.

Cute little calves and many calf hutches.

The other calves are off the photos.

4. Would you rather be a jack of all trades or a master of one? Elaborate.  If you answered one, which one?

I tend to be more a jack of all trades and master of none. At this point, I would like to be a master of one, but it reminds me, with a chuckle, of our oldest son who, upon hearing his younger sister play the violin (beautifully, I might add) said,

'I'd do anything to be able to play like that.

Well, anything but practice.' 

5. Ketchup or mustard? On what?

Coarse, dark, and spicy mustard - on a burger or chicken sausage. No yellow French's mustard, please.

6.  Insert your own random thought here. 

Over the weekend we were at another grandson's birthday. He is now seven years old and just started school yesterday. He's a fun kid, and made sure that I knew the names of his seven Angry Birds before I left to go home.

 7 little angry birds
and I can name them,
but I have no idea what they're angry about

 A sweet and fun grandson

***

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Sense and Sensibility

via

I had no idea that Elinor and Marianne wore
CudlDuds under their dresses!
Now I'll probably get spam from the source.
If my blog is gone next week, you'll know why. 
(and no, I did not do this)

Anyway, my daughter always accused me of having a low EQ (emotional quotient). After reading the book and watching the movie, I took it as a compliment. Marianne would drive me crazy!

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we write the answers.
Plug them into your own blog
and join in!

1. Describe love using all five senses.

With my disability of a low EQ, I have a difficult time even interpreting this question. But if you're looking for a particular thing that says 'love' in all those modes, this might be it:

At least they cover Sight, Sound, and Touch

(Mr. C. said 'especially the Smell part.' )
He's so mean.

2. February is Canned Food Month. What's your favorite food that comes straight from a can?

Black Olives. Nothing else.

3. A principal in a UK school recently sent home a letter to parents requesting they (the parents!) dress appropriately when escorting their children to/from school (basically saying please don't wear your pajamas) You can read the letter here. It's gotten a lot of publicity, both positive and negative. Your thoughts? And do/did you ever make the school run (or hit Starbucks, Walmart, etc) in your pjs?

I've only occasionally (when I'm in a rush to get something mailed out) shown up at our village post office in my pjs, which I don't think anyone else would recognize as pjs: T shirt and black jersey pants. 

4. Crew neck, V-neck, turtleneck, scoop neck...which is most prevalent in your wardrobe?

Scoop necks, almost exclusively. I like to make sure everyone gets to appreciate the wrinkles I've spent YEARS accumulating. I can't breathe in turtlenecks and don't like the seam at the bottom of a V neck. It irritates me.

5. I read here recently a list of four things to avoid so you wake up happier. They were late night snacks, hitting the snooze button, social media just before bed/upon waking, checking emails. 

Are you guilty of any of these behaviors? Which on that list do you need to work harder at avoiding?

I would probably be better off if I left all electronic devices (phone and Kindle) downstairs when I go to bed and if I were to avoid eating popcorn in the evenings. These are hard habits to break!

I think Shrek is drowning.

6. Share something you remember about a house you lived in as a child? Of all the homes you lived in as a child, which did you love best?

I lived in only two different houses as a child. One of my clearest memories of the first house is when I was six or seven years old and sitting at the lunch table with my two older brothers, stalling trying to eat the disgusting tomato soup my mother had lovingly set before me. After an eternity of trying to avoid my soup, my older brother leaned toward me and whispered, 'Hurry up and eat it before it clots.'  That put me off tomato soup for years. 

The house had a very steep stairway which gave me wonderful dreams on many occasions, all of which were nighttime. I would dream that I was standing at the top and took a leap - and floated all the way down to the bottom.

That was before I got a beautiful horse and spent my nighttime dreams galloping across the hayfields with the wind blowing through my hair (unlike the daytime reality of galloping across the hayfields and getting thrown off time after time.)

 What? Where did you come from??

7.Your favorite movie based on a true story?

Most movies I love are based on true stories. The most recent is Bridge of Spies, which I loved enough to pre-order on Amazon. And the UPS man brought it today!  A good movie to watch during a snowstorm. I think I see popcorn in my future.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I'm glad the Iowa Caucuses are over. Why does that word always transport me to Russia! Anyway, it was great fun to see the media unable to control the outcome. For once.

And speaking of Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union, (during Stalin's reign of terror), there is a true, first-hand account of the Soviet prison camps that I think you might find interesting. I did.

From the back cover of
Coming Out of the Ice, by Victor Herman:


"This astonishing true story is the tale of a young American man who was sent to the Soviet Union with his parents by the Ford Motor Company to set up an auto plant. He was eventually thrown into Soviet prisons and could not return to America until forty-five years later. During his life in and out of Russian prisons, he met and fell in love with a beautiful Russian gymnast who followed him into exile and lived with him and their child for a year in Siberia, in a caved chopped out under the ice. Theirs is the compelling story of a romance destined to thrive under even the most desperate conditions. It was 1938 when Victor Herman was inexplicably thrown into prison, after he had become a celebrity in the Soviet Union, having won acclaim as "the Lindbergh of Russia" for his flying and world-record-breaking parachute jumps. But what happened to him was a common nightmare during the Stalin years: those who survived imprisonment and torture were sent north to hard labor in the icy forests and mines, or into exile. Victor was one of the few who survived."

***

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Insensitively,

Happiness is...

...a morning spent with my friend, Deb. While visiting with her at her home, I had to take a few photos. This sweet little bird and birdhouse sit on her hutch. Aren't they cute!

Deb and I have known each other for 40? years. We've had a long and trusting relationship during all the years our children were young and as they grew up and left home. Debbie is the person I know I can go to with a problem, share my heart with her, and trust her to keep a confidence. I know she cares for me and prays for me. What could possibly be better in a friendship.

Outside her house, in the front yard, is this pretty maple tree and another bird house. If I were a bird in that neighborhood, I'd definitely see if there were a vacancy at Deb's.

I had to take the photo of that bird house as seen through the front door window. It was a sweet morning, catching up on the happenings in our families, and hoping to get together again soon for a trip to Stillwater, MN before the snow flies.


And do I have a photo of Deb and me? No. Why? Because the photo I took while holding the camera at arm's length in front of us could be used to scare the rats away. Taking a photo that close up is NOT a good idea.

***

Happiness is...

getting this sweet video from our son. I can't tell you how many times I've played that short clip that just melts Grandma's heart every time I see it!!!

***

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