An Unseasonable Hodgpodge

Greetings from the tropics!

Just kidding.
But if I didn't know better and someone led me outside blindfolded,
I might very well be convinced that I was in the Bahamas.
This is what it really looks like when I walk out my door...

...plenty of falling leaves and a tad of color but it feels nothing like fall right now.
Our local weather forecasters totally missed it.
Thanks to Hurricane Nate, we are experiencing this "lovely" taste of the tropics.
Now don't get me wrong, I love a tropical paradise when the surroundings match the temps...
...but this is a bit extreme.
Oh, and remember that chili I was going to make over the weekend?
Well, the hamburger meat is now in the freezer
and the other ingredients are waiting (impatiently) on the pantry shelf.
I even bought that bag of tortilla chips for my nachos...MAN!
So.....my taste buds have been put on hold.
~
I'll stop complaining about the weather now because it's time for Joyce's Hodgepodge,
and because I can't do anything about it anyway!

You know the drill...she asks the questions and we answer them on our blogs.
Here are this week's questions:
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1. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your sense of direction? 1=can't find my way out of a paper bag and 10=if I've been somewhere once I can find it blindfolded ten years later.

I think I have a pretty good sense of direction and would probably rate myself at about a "7". And this all depends on if I am doing the driving or the navigating. If I am just one of several passengers, you might as well forget it if we are heading somewhere unfamiliar...I am usually too busy running my mouth rather than paying attention to the route. Normally, it just takes a couple of times to feel confident about where I am going and I rely a lot on landmarks, not necessarily the road signs since I don't see them well until I am right up on them!

When was the last time you looked at/used a map you could hold in your hand? (phones don't count!)

It has probably well over a year. I have only had my iPhone that long and did not have a car with a built-in navigation system until I got my CR-V earlier this year. I didn't use an atlas but I did print directions off Google maps and go by them.

Back east, down south, out west, up north...choose one of these directional expressions and tell us why you chose it.

I've never been out west and I've always lived closer to the east or the southeast. That would leave up north. There are many places much more "northern" than Ohio but that has pretty much been where most of my northern travels have been limited to.

2. Did you do more talking or listening yesterday? Talking. Is that typical? Yes, but not the rule. Describe your yesterday in one word. Positive.

3. Time, money, water-power-resources, opportunity...which one on the list are you most guilty of wasting? What might you do to change that?

If I am being honest (and that is how we are to answer these questions, right?), I have to admit that I find myself wasting time more than anything, which can then become a wasted opportunity, am I right? I don't think that we need to be busy 100% of the time...we all need down time to just do nothing in particular or to do the things we like to do. This is how I see myself, anyway. I have never had anyone else tell me that I'm a time waster. Lord knows that there are many things on my to-do list...and the key word here is LIST. When I make a list, I get 'er done!

4. Did  your family take regular vacations when you were a kid? Tell us something you remember about a family roadtrip from your own childhood.

When I was growing up, a family road trip consisted of piling in the old Buick on a Sunday afternoon and heading about 20-30 miles out to the country to visit various aunts, uncles and cousins. We had a blast traveling down those back roads, especially when we convinced Dad to take that hill just a little faster (when there were no other cars coming, of course). Losing our stomachs when we reached the bottom of the hill was the high point of the day! I wrote more about the things that make me go aaahhhh over on my childhood memories blog. When you are a family with that many kids and Dad was the one and only breadwinner, an actual vacation was something we knew nothing about. But you know what? I never ever had one regret about the way I grew up and what we could and could not afford...you don't miss something you never had. I was actually about 13 or so before I left the state of Ohio. My youngest older brother took me and two of sisters on a road trip to South Carolina to visit our older brother and his family. I not only got to experience the Smokey Mountains along the way, and stepping into the Atlantic Ocean at Myrtle Beach for the first time was all it took for me to want to go back to those places as often as I could...or anywhere else for that matter.

5. If you could grow anything you wanted, what would you grow? Why?

Sunflowers and milkweed because they both attract butterflies...

...and because milkweed pods and those wispy seeds are among my favorite things. I'm still a little upset that the field of milkweed, the one pictured above, has gotten mowed down twice this year. 😒

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Gee, a nice warm bowl of chili sure would hit the spot. Some day.

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So that's it for this Hodgepodge...and enjoy your break, Joyce. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be some baby lovin' on your itinerary. 👶

And maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll be wearing my winter duds, who knows?