Wednesday Hodgepodge

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge! Add your link at the end of Joyce's post by clicking here, and let's get this party started. Be sure to mingle, or at least go say hello to the blogger who linked before you. Here are my answers to Joyce's questions for the week.

1. Today is my sister's birthday (yesterday actually). What's one way you're like your siblings? If you don't have siblings, how are you like your lifelong best friend or cousin?
I am an only child, or at least have been since I was young.  My Aunt Shirley's girls are the closest thing I have to sisters and there are four of them.  We are all a bit headstrong and stubborn to varying degrees....just like our moms.  We all are musical in some capacity.  We all love to sing and some of us play instruments.  We have a strong sense of family and love each other madly.  Some of us love to travel and we love doing it together.  We all love the holidays and being together.  Shirley's girls look like their dad's side of the family.  I look like a mix between my mom and dad.

2. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of yourself at age eighteen?
Freedom.  My parents semi-supported me....but I was free.

3. Sculptor-dancer-actor-painter...if you could excel in one of these arts, which would you choose and why?  Actor.  I have always wanted to be on stage in a musical....on Broadway.

4. What's a scent that takes you back in time, and where does it take you?
Pikaki.  On Mary's 50th birthday we went to Hawaii and the heady smell of pikaki reminds me of her.  She died six years after the trip.  Pikaki takes me to a happy place in time.

5. November is for peanut butter lovers (National Peanut Butter Lovers Month). Are you a lover or a hater? What's your favorite dish/recipe that calls for peanut butter?
I am a peanut butter lover to the enth degree.  I love the stuff!.  When my mom could get me to eat nothing else, I would eat peanut butter.  My favorite peanut butter dish is Peanut Butter Cake.  This is the recipe I use and it is wonderful.  I have cheated and used a yellow cake mix for the cake and it is equally as good.

Peanut Butter Cake 1 3/4 c. sifted cake flour 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 c. shortening 1/2 c. peanut butter 1 c. sugar 1 egg, unbeaten 1 tsp. vanilla 2/3 c. milk Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line bottoms of two 8 inch layer cake pans (or one 8x8x2 inch cake pan) with waxed paper; grease paper. Measure flour, baking powder and salt into sifter. Cream shortening and peanut butter in medium bowl until soft; add sugar gradually, creaming until well blended. Beat in egg; stir in vanilla. Sift and add dry ingredients alternately with milk, beating after each addition until batter is smooth. Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake 25 minutes or until center springs back when lightly pressed with fingertips. Cool cake in pans on wire rack 5 minutes; loosen around edges with knife. Turn out onto racks; remove waxed paper. Cool completely. FROSTING: Cream 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup butter together in medium bowl. Stir in 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 tsp. salt. Add 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar gradually. Cream. Frost Peanut Butter Cake!

6. What do people thank you personally for most often?
 Small  and random acts of kindness. 
 
7. What event this year are you most thankful for? My choice to follow God's lead and taking a church as its pastor.  I have been truly blessed at Midway UMC.

8. Insert your own random thought here.  Today is National Saxophone Day and Marooned Without A Compass Day.  Where do they come up with these crazy days.  I love the music of Kenny G.  My favorite song is called, "Auld Lang Syne."  I always have a compass with me.  My father gave it to me when I graduated from high school.  He told me as long as I had a compass I could always find my way home.  The compass he gave me was a bible....and he was right.  As long as I have it and use it I CAN find my way home.