I Choose Joy Hodgepodge

Wednesday Hodgepodge is back this week. Thank you Joyce From This Side of the Pond for the questions!

1. Did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in some way? If so tell us how. Are you a fan of corned beef? Cabbage? The color green? Yes, yes, and yes. 

This year St. Patrick’s day landed on the Friday that our kids drove over from the Westside to celebrate birthdays over the weekend. All of us, except for Andrew, gathered Friday evening for a Corned Beef and Cabbage meal. Our weekend was packed solid with celebrations. Addy’s party on Saturday afternoon and a belated celebration for me Saturday evening.

2. March 22nd is National Goof Off Day…will you celebrate? Your favorite way to goof off? Last time you had a whole day to spend ‘goofing off’? 

My favorite way to goof off is to do nothing and stay in my jammies and robe for most of the morning. Wednesdays is not usually a goof off day for me. Wednesday morning I join some other gals at church for prayer meeting at 9am. After prayer I usually stop at Wal-Mart or Super 1 to pick up any needed groceries since I’m in town already. On this particular Wednesday we are having 2 other couples over for cards at 5 so I’ll be making some kind of a dessert for us to share during our card evening. Hand and Foot is what we play (Canasta?).

3. Something on your to-do list that has been there more than a month? Will this be the month you finally cross it off? 

Usually in late Fall the planters should be cleared of old growth and prepared for winter. We had early snow that covered our planters and Dear had a stroke on November 5th so any outside work got put on the back burner. Before March is over I hope to be able to clear out all the soggy and dead growth to give way to the Spring growth. On Monday and Tuesday of this week the weather was right to get a start on this task. My back can only take so much each day. I have 4 of the 7 planters done. Dear was able to gather many of the fallen branches from our evergreens and chop them down to size for the burn pile. So thankful that we are still physically able to accomplish some of these tasks.

4. In your opinion, what emotion is the most beneficial? Which one is the least useful? 

I think many emotions can be both beneficial and detrimental depending on the degree they are felt and acted upon. Example: There is healthy fear and a debilitating fear.  There is a place for sadness and grief but not despair.

Since we are asked to choose. I’ll choose JOY! Joy lifts up and it is encouraging to be around a joyful person. For my least useful choice I’ll go with anger even though there is a place for anger we are apt to go overboard if we let this emotion take over.

5. What was your favorite thing to do as a kid? Elaborate. 

Read! I can still remember what a joy it was to be able to hold a book in my primary years and read it. Dick and Jane most likely. Then that joy grew. My siblings and I would walk to the library and check out our quota of books to bring home to read. I remember scanning the shelves of books to choose the right ones. In later elementary years a bookmobile would come to our school and I enjoyed that chance to choose books to read, too.

It was 1.7 miles one way from our home in Pico Rivera to the Montebello Library that sat on the grounds of Montebello City park. That library is now a Senior Center. We walked out of our neighborhood (Montebello Gardens) to Whittier Blvd, across the Rio Hondo River bridge and straight on to the library.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Our sweet granddaughter who turned six on the first day of Spring, Monday.

Her party was on Saturday. We are so thankful to God that we get to have a granddaughter and grandson to love and watch grow. Posts of the Magical Unicorn Party Here, Here and Here.

We had a wonderful packed weekend. Our Westside kids drove home on Sunday.

FFF ~ Welcome Fall Schedules!

It’s that time of the week when it’s good to look back and consider the good things that have happened. Friday’s Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.  Click on over to join in this worthwhile exercise.

I enjoy this time of year… the end of summer and the beginning of Fall. I like the new order that Fall brings to my life.

1. Church was all a buzz on Sunday with the launching of all the Fall programs.

2. Women’s Bible Study started on Tuesday morning and I’m excited about the study on the Parables. I’m new to this group/church but I was put in a group with a friend from my past. We were bleacher/sideline buddies because our boys played soccer together in high school. It was great to see her and to catch up a little on Josh and David’s lives. The guys are in their 30’s now…

3. We have our wedding planner assigned for Katie’s wedding and we are looking forward to meeting with her about the details and having a food tasting with the chefs.

4. Woohoo I cleaned out my pantry! The benefit of that is that there were a few items that I really needed to use up before they were way too old for human consumption so I’ve been creative in the kitchen this week. We’ve had home cooked meals way too many nights in a row. Thankfully we are going out tonight.

5. I finished reading the Penderwicks book series by Jeanne Birdsall that I really enjoyed and am now reading a series by Gail R. Fraser about the little town of Lumby.

Before I sign off head over to Mennonite Girls Can Cook on Friday for the recipe to put this pasta salad together.

Hope you all had a good week. I hope to get around and see what has been happening in your neck of the woods…

Friday Was…

…a great day to brew a pot of tea and read a Tea Shop Murder Mystery. See my great old Tea Cozy from the early 70’s? A friend of ours in England made that for us as a wedding gift. It really does keep my tea pot nice and cozy. Today was not a hot day in the Northwest so Katie and I enjoyed our nice hot tea and sitting in a comfy chair with our throws and reading the day away…

I also managed to cook up a pot of Polenta Sausage Soup which I’ll post in the future on MGCC. The weather has never been a factor in when I enjoy soup. I like soup on a hot summer day as well as a brisk Fall day. How about you?

Speaking of Mennonite Girls Can Cook head over and get the 2 ingredient recipe I posted for a nice fruit dip to have with all that wonderful fresh fruit this time of year!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with blurred out versions and photobucket stamped versions. 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.

K is for Katie!

K is for Katie

K is for our Katie. Katherine on her birth certificate. This photo was taken by Jamie Spiro. This is a repost from a few years back but I was stumped for the letter K and am always ready to share about our wonderful daughter Katie.

Our Katie has an amazing amount of knowledge stored in her brain and I will show you some photos that might explain where some of that knowledge comes from.

At a very young age if Katie went missing this is where you would find her.

She was most drawn to books with words, not picture books. We had a few old school reading books and these are the ones she’d pull off the shelf and carefully go through.

As you can see she did not have a shortage of toys but she always seemed to go for the books.

We didn’t realize how well she could read until a trip to Meadowdale Beach Park with our friends the Spiro’s. Jody was walking hand in hand with Katie when they came to the tunnel under the railroad tracks that took you to the beach side of the park. As they approached this tunnel with this sign Katie said quite clearly to my friend Jody, “Caution Low Head Clearance”

We realized then that we had an almost 4 year old who definitely knew how to read. Who knows how much she was reading without us knowing before this experience.

Here’s Katie in a Kilt that I bought in Scotland in 1973! Hard to believe it fit me once.

Here’s our Katie in 2010 on the night she got engaged to Andrew.

Katie and Andrew were married at the Magistrate’s office in North Carolina when she visited Andrew March 11, 2011. He is deployed at present and when he returns we will be having an official wedding. Right now it looks like that wedding could be on March 11, 2012. We have to wait on the Marines to know for sure. For those of you who pray, please pray for our Andrew in Afghanistan and for our Katie as she waits for his safe return. Semper Fi!

I’m linking to Alphabe-Thursday with our great teacher Jenny! Thank you Jenny for keeping us on track.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with blurred out versions and photobucket stamped versions. 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.

ABC Wednesday ~ Q is for Quiet

Quiet Places That I Enjoy…

 

Quiet Places in my world are important for me to experience. It gives me a sense of awe and helps me to worship the God of the universe who made everything that’s good for us to enjoy. Hope you find some Quiet this week.

For more ABC Posts visit the ABC Blog.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Fall Into Reading ~ 2008

It’s time to join Katrina at Callapidder Days for another round of Reading Fun starting September 22 and going till December 20th.

 

Fall is filling up with obligations on my part so I’m only going to put a few books on my Fall reading list. I’ll be reading my Bible on my quest to read every book of the Bible several times in a month before I move on to the next. I’m in the book of Mark right now. So here are the other books on my list.

Beatrix Potter -A Life of Nature ~ by Linda Lear

Father Brown Crime Stories ~ by G.K. Chesterton

Transforming Grace ~ by Jerry Bridges

The Heart of the Family ~ by Elizabeth Goudge

Green Dolphin Street ~ by Elizabeth Goudge

I might even re-read The Wind in the Willows

Happy Tea and Reading Weather to one and all. Enjoy…

For more Fall book reading lists click here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!