A Chilly Wednesday Hodgepodge

Woohoo! It's Hodgepodge time once again! Read my answers, leave me a comment, and then join the fun by visiting Joyce, and posting the questions & your own answers on your blog, and linking up!

1. Every January 1st since 1976 Lake Superior University has published a list of words they'd like to see banished from the Queen's English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse or just general uselessness (go here to read more about how the words were chosen). Here are the words/phrases they'd like to see banished in 2014-

selfie, twerk/twerking, hashtag, Twittersphere, Mr. Mom, T-bone, ____on steroids, the suffixes -ageddon and -pocalypse added to anything and everything, from the world of politics the words intellectually/morally bankrupt and Obamacare, and from the world of sports the words adversity and fan base

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add?

Amen on all of those! The only ones that haven't particularly bothered me are adversity and fan base, probably because I don't watch much sports and haven't been inundated with them.

I'm sure I'll think of something long after this is posted but that nothing else comes to mind at the moment. Except for the phrase I could care less. It drives me nuts to hear that, and I rarely hear anyone say it correctly anymore, which is I couldn't care less.

2. What one unfinished project nags at you begging to be completed in this new year?

Reorganizing my "area" - files and bookcases and miscellaneous stuff. I'm down to the nuisance miscellaneous things that make me want to just throw them all in the trash, yet that seems a little extreme.

3. When did you last have a bowl of soup? What kind? Homemade or from a can? What's your favorite soup?

Yesterday at lunch. Homemade potato soup at the church with the church staff; We always have Soup Tuesdays and I try not to miss when it's my day off from work. And Monday night I made chicken tortilla soup for the family.

My favorite? Either tortilla soup or cheese soup.

4. Snowed in, snowed under, snow job...which one most applies to your life in recent days, figuratively speaking.

Snowed under. Between working, being exhausted from working, and things at home, I just can't seem to get caught up.

5. What's the funniest movie you've ever seen, or at least one of the funniest?

Anything with Mr. Bean. Weird humor but pretty hilarious.

6. In general, would you say you're clumsy?

Not particularly but I have my moments.

7. Elvis Presley was born on Hodgepodge Day (January 8th) back in 1935. Are you an Elvis fan? What's your favorite Elvis tune? If that's too hard, which Elvis tune do you dislike the least? Click here for a list of his songs.

Not an Elvis fan, although I have a bit more respect for him after learning more of his background this summer when we were in Memphis. I didn't particularly care for his voice but I like a lot of the songs that he sang, although I don't necessarily associate them with him. I'll go with Love Me Tender as one of my faves that I do associate with him.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I know our cold weather is nothing close to what's going on up north but we have definitely had a nippy few days! Even Houston has been cold enough that the TV stations are posting pictures of frozen fountains:

Credit: Andrea Musetti-Camacho / KHOU 11 viewer

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Is it May-bruary?

Um, could someone please turn the thermostat back up outside? It's early May and it was dropping to around 40 degrees last night with a blustery wind. It felt like it was mid-February! I really don't want it to be 104, but 80 sounds really nice, and that's what it usually is in Central Texas right now!

I saw this on FB yesterday and it made me laugh out loud. So much for February being the shortest month!

And if you need something to curl up and read, check out the latest issue of Christian Fiction Online Magazine. The featured author, Jocelyn Green, commented that she felt kind of silly being in a coat and scarf on a magazine in May. . .until it snowed where she lives yesterday! She's a delightful and gifted author and you will want to learn more about her by reading the featured interview.

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Wednesday Hodgepodge

Wednesday means it's time to check in with Joyce and see what questions she has lined up for us today. I'm always amazed with the variety that she comes up with week after week! Thank you, Joyce!

1. Do you think the world became a more dangerous place on September 11, 2001 or did we just become more aware of the danger? How has your own life changed as a result of that day?

Well, it was obviously just as dangerous on September 10th, and we just didn't know it! I think Americans just became more personally aware of the danger because it happened to us. Horrible, dangerous things have happened all over the world for many decades but on September 11th, it got personal.

2. Did you think your parents were too strict when you were growing up? How about in hindsight?

Overall, their values were correct. I wish some of the implementation of those values had been less strict. However, they did the best they knew to do at the time influenced by their understanding of Scripture. And I'm glad the pendulum swung more toward strictness than permissiveness.

3. Share one random but candid fact about yourself.

I have never dyed my hair.

4. Would your nearest and dearest describe you as simple or far too complicated?

I think they would say I'm simple. (Not simple-minded, mind you!)

5. What is your favorite stadium or carnival food?

State Fair corn dogs.

6. Tornado, hurricane, earthquake...how many of these natural disasters have you experienced? Which event do you think would be the scariest?

When I was six weeks old, Hurricane Carla hit Houston. That was a huge hurricane - filled up the entire Gulf of Mexico. We lost shingles off of our house. Of course, I don't remember a thing about it! I experienced the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in 2008 - my mom died the day it hit and we couldn't take her body to Houston for a burial for ten days because of all the damage to the funeral home and cemetery.

I think a tornado would be very frightening, but an earthquake sounds to me like it would be the most unsettling (pun intended!). The ground is supposed to be solid and immovable, so having it shake beneath my feet would be completely unnerving and terrifying.

7. Labor Day weekend is approaching so a work related question seems appropriate. Growing up, did your parents assign you regular chores? Were you paid for doing those chores? If you're a parent do you assign chores to your own children? Why or why not?

That last question was inspired by a post Mindee wrote on Monday. Everyone go say hi to Mindee-she blogs at Our Front Door and she's funny.

We didn't have a specific chore list. Our chores were whatever we were told to do. Generally, we were expected to help set the table, clear the table, and put up the food at meal times. Make our beds. In the summers we did our share of dusting and vacuuming. But it wasn't a scheduled thing. My mom wasn't that organized. And we certainly didn't get paid!

The only thing we did get paid for was mowing the grass when we got older. I think one of my sisters got paid for painting the garage one summer. And sometimes I would get a quarter for raking the leaves in the fall.

My kids have a few assigned chores. I should have assigned more but there are a variety of reasons why that did not happen which I won't go into here.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Good-bye, August. You contain birthdays and anniversaries and I've always loved you, but I am so done with you this year. You've brought us sweltering record-breaking heat, a concussion for my daughter, and taken my boy off to college. And my own odometer turned over to the next decade. That is plenty for one month, thankyouverymuch! So just take Sunday's all-time high temperature, 112, with you. No need to share with September; I'm sure it can get along without you very well.

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Wednesday Hot-Podge!

From taking my boy to college to my girl turning 16 and starting her junior year in high school, this has been an emotional week for mom! I'm happy to kick back and relax with a bit of Hodgepodge! Although, as you'll understand when you read #8, I took a few liberties with the title!


1. What is something that bothers you if it's not done perfectly?

Life.

I do struggle with perfectionism in a lot of areas. Spelling and grammar are probably the ones that I'm the pickiest on, though. It especially makes me cringe to hear journalists, newscasters, etc. display their lack of polish in this area, and newspaper articles and headlines make me wonder if anyone even knows what a copy editor is or if they have ever seen a dictionary or style manual before.

Did I mention this is a big deal to me?!

2. Do you think a 6th sense exists? Explain.

I can't prove it, but my intuition tells me it does. (Who let the smart aleck on this blog today?!)

Sometimes it's the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it's just a gut feeling. It's hard to identify what contributes to it specifically - wisdom from past experiences? The ability to think even when we aren't consciously doing so?

3. Do you say your goodbyes slowly, quickly, or not at all?

It's all relative. Literally. I come from a family of slow good-bye-ers and married a family of quick leavers, so I'm kinda in the middle now. I don't like dragging it out, but I don't just hop up and go, either.

4. On a scale of 1-10, with ten being hot hot hot, what level of spice do you like in your food? What's your favorite 'spicy' dish?

I guess I'd say a 5 or a 6. I still like to be able to taste the food. My man doesn't think it's hot enough unless it makes him sweat! Asking a Texan a favorite "spicy" dish? That's hard. I love Enchilada Suizas. (Cheese or chicken enchiladas with a sour cream sauce.) And chicken flautas.

5. What is one of your all time favorite commercial jingles?

Oh, you're going to get them all going in my mind. I knew them all when I was a kid.

I guess one of my favorites is this one:



6. Plane, train, boat or auto...your preferred method of travel?

If I'm by myself, I'd much rather fly if it's more than 3-4 hours. Otherwise, the car is fine.

7. What is something you take for granted?

I used to take cold water out of the tap for granted until this summer. And rain. Today we will break an 86-year-old record (we tied it yesterday): this will be the 70th day this year in triple digits. Those aren't consecutive days, but almost. We had only two days in July below 100 - both were 99 - and just one in August, when it "only" reached 97. They expect us to be well over 100 until after September 1. When we turn on our indoor cold water tap, the water just won't get cool. The pipes in the ground and the water tanks are just too hot. There's nothing like brushing your teeth with warm water, but at least there's still water coming out. We DESPERATELY need rain.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

For those of you who only visit on Wednesdays, you do not want to miss a couple of posts and giveaways from earlier this week. If you love the song Indescribable and if you've been blessed by the new song Blessings, don't miss my interview with songwriter and recording artist Laura Story. I promise you will be blessed. And you might win a copy of her CD! Also, I had the incredible privilege of meeting the mom of Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton in Atlanta and I have a review and giveaway of Cheri's book Raising A Soul Surfer!

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It's SNOWING!

It's been snowing off and on this morning but mostly just raining with some sleet. But when it started coming down relatively hard and had such big flakes I had to run outside and take some pictures! It has already lessened to a much finer mist of snow.

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Weather Woes

This time of year, the weather drives me crazy.

Yesterday was absolutely bea-you-ti-ful, sunny and with a high of 77. I love spring! Except it is still winter. I even told a friend "This gives me spring fever, but I know the cold weather isn't over."

This morning I looked at the forecast, and sure enough, tomorrow we are supposed to plummet to the low 30's with rain and a slight possibility of the "wintry mix".

But I've seen a glimpse of spring and it makes me smile.

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Thursday Things

I got home Wednesday afternoon from Houston, where I spent a couple of days so I could take my MIL for a procedure. There's nothing like warm fuzzies from your girl on the telephone to make you feel irreplaceable. As in:

My Girl: Mom, no offense, but I like it when you aren't here.
Me: Why?
My Girl: Because we either order pizza or go out to eat.

Now I know how I rate!

On the way back from Houston, I passed a road crew picking up litter. Actually they were stopped for lunch and the guys were scattered across the median eating their lunches. It was 44 degrees - not the ideal temperature for a picnic!

But those guys didn't have it as bad as this Secret Service Agent; I don't know how much he gets paid, but it isn't enough!



Guess it really is the White house right now!



I'm sure they've been accused of it many times, but it appears there really is a snow job going on at the Capitol!



And in case those of you enduring the umpteenth day of the kids being out of school, here's some suggestions of things they can do outside:





BTW, it's always good to clean up the kitchen before you go to bed. Otherwise, you might end up confessing it on the news: I heard the plates I didn't wash from dinner rattle," said Alice Fabbre of Joliet.(Regarding the Illinois earthquake Wednesday morning; from Chicago Breaking News center.)


Pictures from Google Images

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Snow Beautiful but Waaay Too Short!

The rumors are true: it snowed in Central Texas today! It lasted maybe half an hour and then the sun immediately started burning those clouds away. Nothing stuck, but it was oh-so-pretty swirling around in the air. It actually came down fairly hard -- more than just a dusting of flurries -- and there were some pretty big flakes. I just wish it had lasted long enough for me to get home and take a couple of pictures. Even Houston is getting more snow than we did!

It sure was pretty while it lasted!

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Monday Miscellany

The strangest thing happened here over the weekend. Water kept falling out of the sky. We haven't seen anything like that in quite some time. It's going to take a lot more of it to get us out of our 30-inches-below-normal drought and get Lake Travis up, which is 50 feet lower than normal. But it's a start! And it kept the temperature down and made it feel like fall!

I may be the last person to discover this, but I found the coolest widget. When I have a giveaway, I get weary of pulling up a new window and going to the random number generator site to pick the winner. But I just discovered they have a widget that is now in my sidebar, and now I can enter the range of numbers right here on my blog and get the winner! Is this not the coolest thing or what?!


Busy day today - our new Senior Pastor arrived this weekend so I'm fixing some breakfast goodies for tomorrow's staff meeting. One thing I'm going to make is something a friend of my MIL's brought when we were in Houston following my FIL's death. It's her trademark coffeecake, and Oh. My. Goodness! It is so absolutely delicious. She shared the recipe and I've found very similar ones on the internet. I'm not sure why it has the name it does; it could just as easily be called Baptist Coffee Cake! And I have to admit: the make-everything-from-scratch snob traditionalist that I am can always tell when a cake has been made from a mix, even if it's been "doctored up." Until this one. I was stunned when she read me the ingredients over the phone.

JEWISH COFFEE CAKE
1 pkg yellow or white cake mix
1/2 c. cooking oil
4 eggs
1 small pkg vanilla instant pudding
1 c. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix above ingredients with mixer and set aside.

Combine the following:
1/3 c. sugar
1 tsp. cocoa
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. nuts

Mix with fork into batter. Pour into greased and floured bundt pan OR 2 loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes until done.

She said this also freezes well, and she sometimes makes it in the little individual loaf pans - the recipe fills about 7 of those and she bakes it about 20-25 minutes. Just adjust time for your oven.

Thanks for your kind words and prayers this past weekend. I probably sounded more gloomy than I actually was, although it was weird knowing I was passing that one year milestone. And if I ever get too melancholy, all I have to do is remind myself how often my mom drove me nuts! LOL

God is good. How easily those words roll off believers' tongues, especially when prayers are answered favorably. But how often do we hear someone say "The tumor is malignant. God is good."? Because really, those statements are actually independent of one another. The goodness of God's character is not altered by our circumstances. Yet we do indeed often wrestle with how and why God in His infinite goodness allows so much evil and suffering, especially that which we see on a global scale. Well, let me just throw out a little teaser that I am in the midst of reading Randy Alcorn's about-to-be-released book If God Is Good, and WOW! It is phenomenal. I will be featuring and reviewing it next week. Don't miss it.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous, on the matter of books, I couldn't resist leaving you with this little gem I ran across:

Last night, I kept dreaming that I had written Lord of the Rings.
The wife said I'd been tolkien in my sleep.

Have a great Monday!


Rain photo courtesy of stock.xchng

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Monday, Monday

The Plan:
Take the kids to school.
Enjoy coffee and breakfast.
Blog a bit.
Do some laundry.

The Reality:
Take the kids to school after the van reluctantly starts with a sputter.
Do not turn the car off - grab breakfast from a drive-thru.
Go straight to the dealer.
Sit and wait.
Get a new battery installed.

While the morning did not go as planned, and it was exasperating that the battery was a mere two months past the "free replacement" warranty period, I am thankful that I was not stranded somewhere having to ask a stranger to for a jump-start.

I'm not the only one, apparently. Shops around town are reporting record numbers of battery replacements due to the incredible heat wave we've been having. Forget about cooking an egg on the sidewalk - the heat is cooking the liquid right out of the batteries.

Of the 76 days from June 13 through August 27, only 9 of them have been below 100 here. And most have been in the 103-106 degree range.

But wonder of wonders, at 2:30 today, it is a mere 88 degrees and we might not even hit 95.

Wonder where our sweaters are. . . .

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Today's Forecast: Missing My Dad

My dad loved the weather. Growing up in a poor sharecropper family, keeping an eye on the weather was crucial. But his interest went far beyond that. After he died in 1996, we unearthed a 5-year diary he had kept during his days as a WWII Navy Seabee and the surrounding years. Each day probably had 4-6 sentences about what happened that day.

Every single day he recorded the weather for that day.

He was the first of his family to go to college, a privilege only made possible by the Navy. As a Seabee, it makes sense that he became a mechanical engineer, but I always wondered if he secretly wished to be a meteorologist.

Each year he cut the Hurricane Tracking Chart out of the paper and plotted whatever storms threatened or came into the Gulf. One of his all-time favorite gifts was the cross-stitched tracking chart I made and framed for him.

We have old 8mm home movies of the early stages of Hurricane Carla moving into Galveston in September 1961. I was barely a month old, but he drove with the rest of the kids the hour to Galveston to watch it. He was so utterly cautious and conservative in every other aspect of his life that it still amazes me that he did that.

And last September, I joked that he was on the front row of heaven (and probably asked God to time it as such) when my mom died the morning Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast!

(The first Thanksgiving and Christmas after he died didn't bother me too much. The first hurricane season? Caught me totally off-guard and blew me away! Pun intended!)

And while I'm not as avid as my dad, I do like weather. The extremes are fascinating, and it's an incredible display of God's power.

So of course I had to document the last half of this scorching, sweltering, searing month that is finally coming to a close.

Austin High Temperatures, June 2009

June 13 - 100
June 14 - 100
June 15 - 101
June 16 - 101
June 17 - 100
June 18 - 100
June 19 - 97
June 20 - 102
June 21 - 101
June 22 - 101
June 23 - 103
June 24 - 105
June 25 - 106
June 26 - 105
June 27 - 105
June 28 - 103
June 29 - 106

I don't know what caused the "cold front" on the 19th; it's not like we got a single drop of rain the entire month! Although I do hear some rumbles off in the distance this morning. One can only hope. I better check the radar.

I am my daddy's girl!

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Giveaway & Melting Away

I've given up on trying to figure out how to repost something so it shows up again in the readers. So I'll just add this new post to say be sure to read this post for a giveaway before noon Friday!

I was desperate to look at these pictures. . .





. . .to remind myself why I don't live in Minnesota. Because right now it's awfully tempting.

Yesterday it was 105 here. Forecast for today is the same. Today will be the 11th day in a row of triple-digit temperatures.

It's only June, people. Can we just skip July and August?

In fact, the paper today says this is the 5th hottest June since 1854. At least we aren't wearing hoop skirts and petticoats. Especially when getting in a van that's been parked for an hour in full sun at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Even a hailstorm sounds appealing.

Makes me feel like I'm in the old song from the Sons of the Pioneers record we had when I was a kid. I was going to post their classic version, but this version cracks me up. The second half made me laugh out loud.


Stay cool!

(And don't forget the giveaway!)

Snow pictures courtesy of Kelly at Love Well.
Sun picture courtesy of stock xchng.

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This Seems Familiar

A little before 8:00 p.m. last night, I noticed it was darker than normal outside, and the sky had a funny tinge to it. So we turned on the TV and sure enough, the radar was lit up like Christmas. And then the local weather guy said those dreaded words.

"Tornado warning."

"Hail".

And we were right in the storm's path.

While the kids and I watched the TV report, my man went out and watched the sky. And found a huge padded piece of vinyl or plastic or something in the garage and covered my van. He didn't bother with his, since it is finally scheduled to go in on Monday to get the dings removed from our March storm. (Our roof hasn't been fixed yet either. This is precisely why we haven't been in a hurry.)

A couple of tornados briefly touched down about a mile or two on either side of us. And the hail was relatively short-lived and only the size of large marbles or quarters. No golfballs at our house this time.

But I bet a few folks in the neighborhood with their brand new roofs were cringing.

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All Hail the Power. . . of Texas Weather

Sorry, I couldn't help myself with that title. Because just as we sat down to dinner tonight all hail broke loose. As my girl said, this is the closest we got to snow this year! And wow, talk about noisy!!






Golf, anyone?





I know you wish you lived in such an upscale neighborhood where the driveways are carpeted!


An hour later, I took my girl to youth group and the sun was shining!

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Blink and You'll Miss It

The age-old saying is if you don't like the weather in Texas, wait 10 minutes and it will change.

Yesterday's high here in the capital city of Texas was 81.


Midnight at the Capitol

Yet another reason to Keep Austin Weird. Unfortunately for the kids, but fortunately for those of us with casts, it lasted about 30 minutes. Some ice on roofs and cars is all that can be seen this morning.

Photo: Austin American-Statesman

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Finally!

Today's Forecast

High 72°F

Low 49°F

Can I get an Amen? Fall has come to Central Texas! (For a day or so, anyway - by Saturday it's supposed to be back in the mid-80s!)

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SIZZLE!

Today is the First Day of Summer.

Seriously.

So those first 19 days of June -- 13 of which reached 100-103 and another 4 which were 99 here in Central Texas -- were simply Spring?!

Oh. Joy.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

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Brrrr!

Oh. My.

We've been at 100 or 101 degrees for 5 out of the 8 days of June thus far in our fair city.

But I just checked the weather at Rocky Mountain National Park, where my guys are camping tonight on their way to Yellowstone. As I type this, it is 27 degrees there. With a 30 mph wind, making it feel like 11. Yes, they are in a tent. Boy Scouts don't believe in cabins.

And the forecast for Yellowstone this week? A 40-60% chance of "snow showers" 3 of the 5 days they are there.

I'm sure Kelly thinks this is hilarious. I, on the other hand, am no longer concerned about "black" bears - I think polar bears seem more likely!

My bed is going to feel awfully nice tonight!

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