HODGEPODGE WEDNESDAY

1.  Share one fun thing you did last week while the Hodgepodge was on "spring break".  Well I think the most fun I had last week was the time spent with my grandson Jeffie on his ninth birthday.  You can read all about it in my previous post, so I don't want to bore my other readers with a repeat story, but any "one on one" time I get with any of my grandkids is ALWAYS a fun time well spent!  

2.  April 10th is National Sibling Day...do you have siblings, and if so are you close?  Share a favorite story featuring one or all of your siblings.  If you don't have siblings, did you ever wish you did?  I come from a large family.  I have 2 brothers, and 3 sisters.  I am really pretty close with them all, but probably closest with my sister who is only 18 months older than I am.  I could tell sooo many stories it might be hard to pick out just one.  Lets see....I think I might want to tell about the time in my life coming up on 3 years ago now (come June) when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, moving out of our home of 25 years, and completely remodeling the one we had just bought to move into.  It was all happening at the exact same time of course and to say I was overwhelmed would have been putting it mildly.  But two of my sisters stepped in and really just made it all happen for me.  Spent hours and hours literally packing up my life from one house and helping me arrange it in the new one, driving me around, going to doc appointments with me, hashing things over and over and over with me, praying with me, laughing and crying with me.  They were truly God's hands and feet while I went through all of that, and I will never forget it.  They have been with me through all of life's big moments (both the joyful and the sad) and there is really no one who could ever take their place.

MY MOM, DAUGHTER, DIL, SISTERS, AND SOME OF MY NIECES.  I MADE US ALL THESE THANKSGIVING APRONS TO WEAR ON THE LAST THANKSGIVING IN OUR OLD HOUSE...SUCH A FUN TIME!  I AM THE FOURTH FROM THE LEFT AND I WAS WEARING ONE THAT I RECEIVED THAT YEAR FROM SUE AT TO LIVE, LOVE AND JOURNAL OUR DAYS!  I LOVED IT!

3.  Is it important to you to buy American?  Why or why not?  How much of an effort do you make to buy American?  If you're not American, insert your own country in the blank.  I guess I do whenever I can, or whenever it is best.  It isn't something I have ever been very militant about though.  If someone else has a superior product at a better price I have usually gone that way to be honest.  Maybe I should give this more thought....

4.  Besides The Bible. what book has impacted your spirituality in some way?  Oh goodness there have been MANY over the years.  Many devotionals over the years including recently Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.  What Happens when Women Pray by Evelyn Christenson was another one that greatly effected me.   The Strong Willed Child by James Dobson was another (I had a few, haha).  But even some fictional ones have made quite an impact.  Several of Karen Kingsbuy books have been wonderful.  But the most recent fictional series was The Chronicles of the Kings by Lynn Austin.  They were so powerful, I could barely put them down.

5.  April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes.  Do you find rainy days calming or depressing?  When were you last caught in a rainstorm?  What's blooming in your neck of the woods today?  Living in So. California there are not really many rainy days at all, so I usually find them calming.  I enjoy being inside and listening to it fall.  If I lived somewhere where it rained frequently, I think it would end up depressing me.  We were caught in a HUGE rainstorm in the desert on our way to Melody's last spring.  It was amazing.  The lighting flashed and the thunder roared and the rain pounded down, and the wind whipped it all around.  I enjoyed it.  What isn't blooming would be more like it?  Everything is in FULL bloom around here.

6.  What's your favorite yellow food?  Does yellow cake count?  Just kidding.  I LOVE yellow squash.  Steamed and lightly seasoned, it is hard to beat.

7.  April is National Poetry Month....what's a poem that holds special meaning for you, and why is it special?  I think it would be The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson.  haha.  I think it is because when my children were growing up they had a speech meet every year at their school during the month of April.  3 of my children won a first place ribbon saying that particular poem.  To this day I can repeat it word for word, and I bet they could too.  It just always brings me back to those days.

How do you like to go up in a swing, 

Up in the air so blue? 

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing 

Ever a child can do! 

Up in the air and over the wall, 

Till I can see so wide, 

River and trees and cattle and all 

Over the countryside-- 

Till I look down on the garden green, 

Down on the roof so brown-- 

Up in the air I go flying again, 

Up in the air and down! 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.  Well as usual I could just go on forever with my "random" thoughts, but the main ones floating around in my head today are....first, the message we heard at church on Sunday by my son James.  It was just soo good, and brought with it conviction and REAL thought.  I am still pondering it all and asking myself this question everyday (and more than once a day!)  IS Jesus REALLY King of my life?  I think it is soo easy sometimes (at least for me) to claim to be Christian, believe it deep in my soul, and wonder why others are missing out on this way of life.  And yet, DO I REALLY live it out?  In EVERY way.  If you would like to hear the message for yourself, you can click here, and follow the link under sermons for April 7th.  And then, I am thinking how grateful I am that mom has FINALLY been released from her hard neck brace!!  YAY!!  It was a LONG 4 months!  She will wear the soft one for a couple more weeks, and she is completely finished.  And finally, I am looking forward to getting back to my sewing tomorrow.  I have some PRECIOUS fabrics and I am itching to get at it!  I just had to add this...soo true!

To join the other Hodgepodgers you can click HERE.  How I appreciate Joyce at From this side of the Pond.  All of her blog posts bless me so!