Isaiah 6:8

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Happy New Year Hodge Podge




Happy New Year! The Hodgepodge is back and I'm glad you are too. If you've answered this week's questions add your link by clicking here and going to Joyce's blog.  I hope you will join the party. Please visit the blogger who links before you since that's the neighborly thing to do. Here we go-
1.  Are you ready for new? Is 2016 likely to be very different than 2015? Do you want it to be?
I love the concept of the New Year.  It is fresh and pristine.  It is a chance for me to make things right and change things I did not like about last year.  I love it!  I hope it is different...and I am hoping and praying it is.   On New Years Day I was handed 365 clean pages to fill out....I hope it is a best seller!
2.  January 6th is National Technology Day. Currently, what is your single biggest struggle or frustration when it comes to technology?  Currently? The Internet at the house is somewhat intermittent. Many days I log onto the computer and get a message saying I'm not connected. Grrr... I have to refresh it a few times and eventually it connects. The wireless printer has to be shut down and rebooted every time I want to print because of this irregularity, and it affects our phone, tv, tablets....all of it!   The struggle is real, but a very first world problem.  I actually have two frustrations.  It is not bad enough that I live so far back in the woods that I have these problems at home....I teach!  I teach at a rural school with limited technology.  Many of my lesson plans I used at BRHS are designed for classes where each student had access to an I-Pad.  Here...if they have smart phones I am lucky.  We want our students to be able to compete with other schools in the real world....but how can they without the technology to compete.
3.  It's that time again...time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words (or phrases) they'd like to see banished (for over-use, mis-use, or general uselessness) in 2016.  You can read more about the decision making process here, but this year's top vote getters are-  So (at the start of every single sentence), conversation (as in hotly debated topics where we're invited to 'join the conversation'), problematic, stakeholder, price point, secret sauce, break the Internet, walk it back, presser, manspreading (common in larger cities where some men take up the entire bus or train seat by sitting wide), vape, giving me life (refers to anything that may excite a person or make them laugh), and physicality  Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add?  None of the words listed bother me too the point of wanting them banished. Break the Internet I could do without....because it usually has to do with the Khardashians...or Bruce/Caitlin Jenner.  If I lived another hundred years I could do without either of them.  What word would I add to the list? Honestly, I can't think of the first one right now.
4.  Share one of your current health related goals.  Manage my diabetes better.
5.  Let's talk fifty shades of gray. As in the color. Gray is currently a popular color in home decor, pain, wardrobes, wedding party attire, and more. Are you a fan? Do you have the color in some variation in your home or wardrobe? Gray hair, the old gray mare, gray matter, gray area...which gray idiom can you most relate to right now?  I like gray. I think the color can be too sterile and cold and needs another color to give it life.  I wear a good bit of gray as a complement color to navy, black, etc.  I have a couple of gray areas in my life right now....and my hair is pretty white.
6.  Certain foods are considered 'lucky' if eaten on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.  Cooked greens to bring economic fortune, black-eyed peas or lentils also symbolize money, pork which symbolizes progress, fish for good luck, and if you're in Spain 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight.  Did you eat any lucky foods on the first day of the year? Is that a tradition in your home? Of the foods listed, which most appeals to you?  My mother insisted on peas, pork, and greens for New Years day.  It is a custom I still follow.  I actually like them so it is not a big deal to eat them on New Years Day. 
7.  What's the single biggest time waster in your life and what, if anything, will  you do about it this year?  TV.  Plain and simple.  I don't always WATCH it....sometimes it is just on for white noise....but I have stopped being productive when a Hallmark Movie I want to see comes on....even if I have seen it a bazillion times.  I plan this year to watch my TV consumption.
8.  Insert your own random thought here.  I actually have two and can't choose today so I am going to bore you with both.   Did you make Gingerbread Houses over the holiday.  I do not....but a friend of mine did with her grandchildren.  They iced the walls together and the kids went to bed....during the night my friend her a sound in the kitchen and when she went in....the walls of all four of the houses were laying on the ground broken.  That is my luck.  Do you make those cute iced Christmas cookies?  What recipe do you use?  Soft or hard?

4 comments:

Carrie B said...

Ohh, that's too bad about the gingerbread house! Although, I think the draw of those is the actually making of it and notsomuch afterwards. Ha.

Debby@Just Breathe said...

So sorry for your internet issues. Our DVR's have been rebooting a few times a day recently! I agree we could do without the Khardashian's and Caitlin. One of these years I have to try that New Year's tradition. I do enjoy the New Hallmark movies that are on during the Holiday's otherwise I don't watch that channel much. I do enjoy some evening shows. I need to be more productive during the day. We didn't do a gingerbread house this year and I haven't made frosted cookies in a long time but I was really good at it. I'll have to scan the recipe I use to use and email it to you, I thought it was the best.

Debi said...

I've made gingerbread houses in the past with my grands... my heart would break if they fell apart after all that hard work! Hubby and I cut down on our TV time last year... a lot of times it was, as you mentioned, white noise. We discovered that our cable company had an oldies music station, so unless one of our very favorite shows is on, we listen to music instead.

Joyce said...

There was a season where we made gingerbread houses, but haven't done it in a few years. I might pull that tradition back out when I have grands. Happy new year!