Wednesday Hodgepodge January 13, 2016

1. Share one thing that really makes your day.

Getting a text with a picture of my granddaughters really makes my day!  They are the cutest girls ever--and I'm not in the least biased.




2. Lots of these kinds of lists out there, but one found here says the fifteen most colorful places on earth are:

Vernazza, Cinque Terre, Italy~Burano, Italy~Havana, Cuba~Rio de Janiero, Brazil~Chefchaouen, Morocco~Balat, Istanbul, Turkey~Menton, France~Jodhpur, India~La Baca, Buenos Aires, Argentina~Guanajuato, Mexico~Capetown, South Africa~Valparaiso, Chile~Wroclaw, Poland~San Francisco, California~and Pelourhino, Salvador, Brazil.  

Of those listed which would you most like to see up close and in person? Of all the places you've seen or traveled in your own life, what would you say was one of the most colorful?

I think I'd like to see Havana before it gets completely commercialized.  I've been to San Francisco, and while I think it's a very colorful place, I'm surprised at the places that aren't on this list.  If I were compiling a list I would add Santa Fe, NM and Victoria, BC to the list.



3."Everything you want is on the other side of fear." Jack Canfield  In general, would you agree or disagree with that statement? Why?

I'd have to agree with this statement.  Everything in life I've done that matters most--marriage, parenting, ordination--has involved conquering fear.  Someone wrote a book years ago with a title that was something like Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.  Maybe I'll get around to finding it and reading it one of these days!





4. Imagine you're stranded on a desert island and dessert appears...what do you hope it is? Do you ever struggle to remember which spelling is desert and which is dessert?

I certainly hope it's bread pudding, my current favorite dessert.  The difference is spelling between desert and dessert is no problem for me, but I'm a bit of a nerd :)




5. What song almost always makes you cry?

Once in Royal David's City makes me cry every time I hear it or sing it.  I love it's description of the Incarnation.



6. January is National Soup Month.  Everything from soup to nuts, in the soup, thick as pea soup, souped up...which saying most recently applies to your life in some way? Explain.

I LOVE soup--for me it's the ultimate comfort food.  And I have spent many hours over the years volunteering in soup kitchens, first as a meal preparer and server and later as a chaplain.



7. Write a two word note to your younger self. What does it say?

The note says "Don't worry," not because there isn't anything to worry about, but because much of the worrying I've done during my life was completely unnecessary.



8. Insert your own random thought here.

Lately I've been thinking about the next decades of my life.  Of course I don't know how many are left (I'm 61) and for how many of them I'll enjoy full vigor.  My mother began her ten-year decline in her mid 70s, which for me is not all that far away.