It is a Splish Splash Hodgepodge

It is Wednesday! Time for the Hodgepodge.

Joyce asks us the questions.

We answer the questions.

  Click here to join in the fun

1. When did you last 'swim against the tide'? Explain.

 I just never really got into saying the Fword. 

The Fword seems to be the thing. I hear it every place I go.

I swim against the tide of saying the Fword.

My real struggle is explaining the Fword to my boys. 

My boys both are in shooting sports and shoot with the Rice Lake Warrbirds. My son Sam is on a squad with some young men who are trying to find who they are?? I do not know, they just swear and say the Fword every chance they get. Why?

When did the Fword become a word? 

I guess I will continue to swim against the tide and I am going to teach my boys to do the same.

 2. What's the last self-help or self-improvement book you read?

3. "Tolerance is a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness." (Sir James Goldsmith) 

Agree or disagree? Discuss. With civility please, because I think we have a good thing going in our very diverse (in geography, age, religion, political persuasion, ethnicity, marital status, upbringing, and cooking abilities) neighborhood here on This Side of the Pond.

We can choose to be tolerant of something and at the same time choose not to participate in that something. While we choose not to participate in that something, may we be setting an example.

 4. What is one of your most vivid memories of the kitchen from your childhood?

I grew up in an old farmhouse. The kitchen was huge! It was the place we spent most of our family time. We had a potbelly stove in our kitchen. My sister and I would cuddle up behind the wall and stove on cold winter nights.  I also loved the cupboards, they were so deep. My sister and I could hide easily in them when we played hide and seek.

 5. How did/do your own children's summers compare with your summers as a child? If you're not a parent, answer as it relates to what you've observed about the current generation of children vs. your own childhood.

I grew up on a dairy farm. I helped make hay the old fashioned way. My dad drove the tractor, the baler was behind the tractor, the hay wagon behind the baler. I would be on the hay wagon with my mom and sister. I loved making hay. We would ride the elevator up to the hay mow. My dad put a rope swing up in the hay mow for my sister and me to play on. The best part about making hay, we always went swimming after. I loved going swimming with my dad. He would toss us up in the air and we would  dive or splash into the water.

My boys are growing up in town. They do get to spend a few weeks on my parents farm each summer. My dad no longer makes his own hay, he has it custom baled into huge round bales. 

My boys have made up their own game with the round bales. Bale jumping! They jump from one bale to the other. I am thankful our boys get to  experience some of what I did with summers on the farm.

6. Tell us what body of water you would most like to be on or near today, and why?

Lake Superior

I love Lake Superior. 

My grandma Martha would take me up to Ashland, Wisconsin to shop and enjoy the lake at a very young age. I just fell in love with the moods of Lake Superior.

I met my husband while he was attending Michigan Tech in  Houghton, Michigan. We dated for two years and many of the explores we enjoyed during those dating years was around Lake Superior.

 7.  Share a favorite song about water, or a favorite song with the word water in it's title, or a favorite song to listen to as you sit beside the water.

Splish, Splash I was taking a bath!

This song just makes me smile.

 

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

If you have not made a York Peppermint Patty Smore, give it a try the next time you have a Smore making day or night. Yummy!