It’s Wednesday and time for the Hodgepodge where Joyce From This Side of the Pond asks the questions for us to answer.

1. Something you’ve done recently that might be considered a labor of love? 

There are lots of obvious things we do everyday that are more routine and learned like Dear making me coffee every morning or me washing his clothes.

One recent thing that isn’t routine is helping at a funeral. There are a lot of behind the scenes tasks that need to be done. If you’ve never been part of these tasks you wouldn’t know about what they involve. For the service you need a memorial table set up. You need to be around to receive any flowers that are delivered before the service. You need to pick up and make sure the sanctuary is clean after the service. When a meal is involved for the family there are preparing, setting up tables, setting out the food, and then waiting till all the eating and visiting is over to clean up. Washing up, drying up, taking tablecloths home to wash, breaking down tables and putting them away, folding chairs and putting them away. Just an average assessment of the hours it takes for volunteers to help in this way is 6-8 hours. I think that qualifies as a labor of love for the grieving family who need extra care and comfort at this time.

2. What’s one thing you love about being the age you are now? 

Being at the age where grandchildren are a part of our lives.

3. What do you value more: careful planning or the freedom to be spontaneous? Elaborate.

My husband reminded me of all of our car purchases and how spontaneous they were. Yikes. No planning. Here’s how the ‘planning’ went; we need a car that will get us safely over the mountain passes, we like Toyotas, let’s look at Rav’s, the dealer has a couple good used ones on the lot. We pick one of the two. We drive away with it. All in one day with no serious planning and investigating, etc. etc.

For a trip with the two of us I’d say careful planning leads to more spontaneous freedom. If we know where we are going and where we are staying our brains are free to enjoy things along the way that haven’t been planned. Does that make sense? I can enjoy spontaneous freedom in small doses on major trips.

4. A home cooked meal or a fancy restaurant? pink or red? watch the sunrise or watch the sunset? wine and cheese or champagne and chocolate? 

There’s a time and a place for all of these choices. We’ve enjoyed home cooked meals and meals at a fancy restaurant when the timing is right. Sometimes pink and sometimes red and sometimes the two together. Starting the day with the sunrise is amazing and rounding a corner to see the sunset is glorious. Let’s start off with a little wine and cheese and end the meal with a chocolate and champagne.

5. What’s your definition of romance? Are you a ‘romantic’? 

Romance is more touchy feely and emotional to me and I’m not that. I do love deeply and my actions speak from that realm and not the romantic realm.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Even though I don’t count my self as a romantic, I do enjoy setting romantic tables.