Hello March Hodgepodge

If it’s Wednesday it must be Hodgepodge. Jo From This Side of the Pond is coming in like a lion with these questions for the first Wednesday in March.

1. Is March coming in like a lion where you live?

So far March is not coming in like a lion here in the northeastern corner of Washington state.

Aslan, Simba, Elsa, The Cowardly Lion…your favorite ‘famous’ lion? 

Aslan is my favorite lion introduced in the Narnia series of books by C.S. Lewis.

When a young girl from America wrote C.S. Lewis a letter asking what name Aslan used in our world, he replied:

“As to Aslan’s other name, well, I want you to guess. Has there been anyone in this world who

  1. Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas?
  2. Said he was the Son of the Great Emperor?
  3. Gave himself for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people?
  4. Came to life again?
  5. Is someone spoken of as a lamb?

Don’t you really know His name in this world? Think it over and let me know your answer.” 

2. In what way do you ‘march to the beat of your own drum’? 

I don’t wait around for my dear husband to plan special events for us. I’m more of a planner and schemer and he is perfectly happy to enjoy and pay for my schemes. This has worked well in our relationship. He’s happy for most of the roads we’ve traveled because I plow ahead.

3. What item that you don’t have already, would you most like to own? Any chance of that happening soon? 

The only thing that I can come up with that seems a little alluring in times like these is a very small self contained camping vehicle. Maybe something like this…

Something that is easier to drive than a huge motorhome. There is no chance of this happening soon or ever.

4. March is National Flour Month…are you a baker? Cookies-cakes-or pies…your favorite sweet treat to bake?

I like to bake cookies and cakes…not pies.

What’s the last non-sweet thing you made that called for flour? 

Potato pancakes.

5. There are 31 days in the month of March…where were you and what were you doing when you were 31? If you haven’t hit that milestone yet, then tell us where you were and what you were doing 31 months ago? (if math is not your thing, that would be August 3, 2018)

I’ve hit that milestone 2 times over. When I was 31 our two sons were 3 and 1. I was busy being a full time mother/homemaker. We were living in our second home in Huntington Beach, California. We lived around the corner from my sister Vera and her husband Nick. They also had two children who were 6 and 4. Lots of fun cousin times happened in Huntington Beach. We all attended the same church, Huntington Beach E.V. Free. Before I was a full-time mother/homemaker I was an elementary school teacher in the Montebello Unified School District east of Los Angeles.

This photo was taken at Forest Home Christian Camp in California. We signed up for a work weekend at the camp over Mother’s Day in 1982. We worked on various projects to get the camp ready for summer camping season. Dear’s folks came up and shared a Mother’s Day lunch that the camp provided on Sunday of the weekend. I am 31 in this photo.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Here’s a real lion. I took this photo at the zoo in Dallas, I think.

Daffodils and Sunshine

Although we were short on sunshine this past weekend we had some nice sunshine last week. I bought some daffodils that always have a way of adding sunshine to a table. They also make me smile. Today is Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. The day before the season of Lent begins. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up leading up to Easter Sunday. In the U.K. this is Pancake Day. Shrove comes from the old word “shrive” which means to confess. Will you be eating pancakes today?

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daffodils 008

daffodils 009We had a great visit with our middle son and his girlfriend this weekend. I did not take one photo. We ate, played games, ate some more. Now that Dan has his own house we are slowly sending over his leftover belongings from our house. You know how that goes if you have adult children. This time around he was able to load 2 motorcycles in the bed of his truck to take back with him. I really do hope he didn’t take Dear’s head cold back with him. The roads were quite nasty on their trip home and on Monday the pass that they took was closed to traffic most of the day.

Everyone was talking about March challenges this weekend. Maybe I’ll challenge myself to do something in March, too. I’m thinking along the lines of exercise. How about you?

Those daffodils are now 13 inches high. It’s amazing how fast they’ve grown.

God Is Goodness, God Is Love ~ Hymn

God is Goodness, God is Love

Songbirds in the woodlands sing it,
Flowers breathe it in the grove,
Bells in tow’r and steeple ring it,—
God is goodness, God is love.

Refrain

Lift your voices, happy, happy voices,
And the sunny hours of life improve;
Praise Him for His countless blessings,—
God is goodness, God is love.

Smiling plains and vales display it,
Breezes tell it as they rove,
Rivers, rills, and brooklets say it,—
God is goodness, God is love.

Refrain

Lakes and seas with joy reveal it,
Suns proclaim it from above,
In our hearts today we feel it,—
God is goodness, God is love.

Refrain

Words: James Rowe, circa 1910.

Hello March!

So much to look forward to in this month.

No palm trees in our future in March.

We’re enjoying the calm before the storm of wedding activity. On Leap Day we took the day off and were in our robes all day long!

Today Katie and I are going to the hairdresser. I will get my roots looked after and Katie is having the practice run on her hairstyle for the wedding.

We had snowflakes yesterday and I’m really hoping that is the last of it till after the Ides of March.

Hope your March brings you many good things.

10 days to go…

The Wind Blows Cold…

 

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

~Charles Dickens

That really describes Wednesday. It was extreme in contrasts. We will see what Thursday holds for us.

I need to get a smog check on one of our cars and I hope to get some laundry done now that the washer and dryer is in it’s new location and all hooked up and vented. What does your day hold?

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.