Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Wednesday's Hodgepodge!


Happy Wednesday, everyone! I'm posting my Wednesday Hodgepodge kind of late but I was determined to participate this week! :-)
It's a bit late to join in this week, but you are most welcome to do so next Wednesday! Just go over to Joyce's blog, read the instructions and join in!!
1. Have you ever been on a real sleigh ride? How about the warm weather version - a carriage ride?
Oh yes! I took a carriage ride through Central Park in NYC with my New York girlfriends.....I have a picture somewhere. The one memory I have of our excursion was that our driver was not very courteous and did not want to answer any questions that we might have. But other than that, it was fun.
And, for my birthday one year, my friend Becky took me to One Nation for dinner, which WAS a wonderful restaurant at the top of the Nationwide building in Columbus but it is no longer there...*sigh*.... and then we took a carriage ride through Victorian Village. It was so freezing cold!!! And it was snowing just enough to make it absolutely beautiful BUT did I mention that it.was.so.cold?!?!?

2. What's your policy on 'chain mail'...you know, the emails you receive that are often some sort of poem/blessing/good wish that ask you to send it on to 10 or 12 friends? Do you delete without opening, read and trash, read and trash and then worry you won't be blessed/lucky/protected? Do you delete the sender from your contacts or just go ahead and send the love onward?
If I have alot of email and not alot of time, I just go through and delete most of the fwd's, unless one looks really interesting or if it is from Daniel....the son.....:-).....then I read it/them.
If I am at the library where I can really go through them quickly, I will look at most of them.
If I see one that is REALLY good, i.e. funny, interesting, encouraging...I will forward it to just a very select few who I am sure will like it or appreciate it.
Oh, and the ones about being blessed/lucky/protected? In the words of Tigger....ppsshaawww.....DELETED! :-)

3. Who is your favorite character in any of the Christmas movies and why?
I looooove Elf. He is just so sincere, honest and child-like.


4. Share a favorite quote.
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these." ~ George Washington Carver


5. What's your favorite holiday scent?
It would have to be cinnamon or a blend of cinnamon and another scent!

6. Does the Christmas season stress you out? In what way?
No, because we do not do alot of gift-giving, so there is not alot of shopping to do or gift-wrapping and all. Now, there are parties and banquets and our annual family get-together but these are spaced far enough apart that they are not stressful, so all is well. :-)
I only have one small tree that I put up in the house and just a few other very simple decorations, so that is fairly easy.
AND Ed and I put the outside decorations up in record time last week! I used to think the wreaths had to be PERFECT and the pine swags and the bows, but discovered......when I was so down with my back and hips for a few years.....that they didn't have to be.
I learned to give those puppies a quick fluff and pat and on the windows they went and looked just fine! :-)
Being down physically really helps you to learn what is really important and what really matters and that things don't have to be perfect AND life will still on! Imagine! :-)

7. What's the best thing about your life right now?
Being me. I mean, I am comfortable in my own skin at 59....finally. I like being a mature, older woman. I've learned so much through the years. I feel calmer and more stable than I've ever been. I've learned to trust the Lord in every situation because He's been so faithful through the years in helping me through trials that I thought I might never survive.
I've learned what love isn't. And that is a good thing. :-) Love isn't romance and candlelight and a box of candy.
No, it is being awakened by your wife, who just had major surgery, every two hours to tell you that she has to go to the bathroom. You (being my precious husband, Ed) gently say...."Turn on the light and give me a minute to get awake,k?". And you proceed to do all that it took just for me to get out of bed and to the bathroom, just to have to get me all settled back into bed again just to have to do it all over again in a couple of hours and never once....not once....did you complain. You just loved me through my recovery......twice.
Oh, and before the surgeries.....well, you just loved me through the pain and frustrations that I felt while learning to live life on a much smaller scale because of my physical limitations.
So, in a nutshell? The best thing in my life right now is being me and being able to be me with the best husband that the Lord could have ever given me!

8. Insert your own random thought here.
This being a grandmother is more wonderful than I could ever put into words. The following quotes shed some light on this most wonderful of relationships, that of you, as a grandparent, helping to raise and loving YOUR child's child.


"Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children." ~ Alex Haley

"Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild." ~ Welsh Proverb

"What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And, most importantly, cookies." ~ Rudolph Giuliani

"Our grandchildren accept us for ourselves, without rebuke or effort to change us, as no one in our entire lives has ever done, not our parents, siblings, spouses, friends - and hardly ever our own grown children." ~ Ruth Goode

"It is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of their grace." ~Christopher Morley












3 comments:

Joyce said...

Glad you played today....we still do a lot of gift giving and I'm finding that sort of sressful this year. I'm doing mostly online but still its a job.

Elf is a favorite here too!

GT said...

I loved reading your thoughts here....thanks for sharing.

Barbara H. said...

My husband is an excellent care-taker, too.

I don't pass along any kind of chain mail it it promises something good or threatens something bad. If I like it otherwise I'll just copy and paste the poem or story or whatever and send it to people. But most of those things have been around the Internet multiple times now.

Enjoyed your answers.