Wednesday Hodgepodge January 27, 2016

Also known as the Hodgepodge after the Snowpocalypse.

1. Share a winter memory from your childhood. 

My most vivid memories involve sitting in the house listening for the school closing notice on the radio.  Although my father taught in the same district, the radio often told us that school was closed before the phone tree reached him (old technology....).  Once closing was announced, I remember discussions with my brother about where to sled.  Good thing our parents didn't know about some of the places we went.  As a parent and grandparent myself I can't believe we went down some of those hills! I still have my old Flexible Flyer!

 2. What was on your blog this time last year? (Besides the Hodgepodge of course!) If you weren't blogging, what in the world were you doing with all that free time? 

I didn't have this blog this time last year. What was I doing?  Reading y'all's blogs, of course!

3. Ellen Goodman is quoted as saying, 'We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.' 

Do you see more flaws or more potential in your life at the start of a new year? Have you done anything specific this month to address either one? Does the new year truly begin for you on January 1, or is there some other month of the year that feels like a fresh start and new beginning?

This year I've begun to address the many pounds that have crept on over the last twenty years or so and have finally jumped on the high protein/low carb bandwagon.  My inspiration was a book called Always Hungry by David Ludwig, MD, PhD.  It's not as hard as I thought, but I'm only in the first week.  Time and the scale will tell.





4. Who's an athlete you admire or respect and why?

I'm not a big sports fan, but I admired the late Arthur Ashe.




5. Do you like cream in your coffee? Whipped cream on your pumpkin pie? Cream cheese on a bagel? Sour cream on a baked potato? Cream of wheat for breakfast? Have you ever had a scone with clotted cream? Of all the creamy foods mentioned, which one sounds most appealing to you right this very minute?

A great benefit of my new eating regimen described above is that cream is actually allowed.  Unfortunately, the bagel, baked potato, and the scone aren't.  However, I could totally get behind some unsweetened whipped cream on my berries for dessert.




6. Where were you last kept waiting for 'hours on end'? Or for what felt like hours on end? How well did you cope?

I had to wait a good hour for maybe ten minutes of actual contact with the orthopedist last week.  Most of it was in the exam room.  I think I'd rather wait in the waiting room, because being confined in a small windowless room is no fun.  Unfortunately, I didn't bring enough reading material.



7. Believe it or not, when next week's Hodgepodge rolls around it will be February. Huh?!? Bid adieu here to January in seven words or less.

See ya next year!



8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I'm going to keep my random thoughts about politics to myself (aren't y'all glad?).  What I will say is that having taught myself magic loop knitting from a YouTube video this afternoon, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.