What's Up Wednesday Hodgepodge - July 2023

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On the last Wednesday of each month, Shaeffer & Shay host a link-up to talk a bit about what's going on in our worlds - food, entertainment, plans, fashion, work, whatever - in the What's Up Wednesday linky party. 

What We're Eating This Week . . . The past week has been a lot of eating out. We went to Bubbly Hall on Saturday night and I had the loaded fries with chicken from Just Chicken. We got Jet's Pizza on Sunday, ate leftovers on Monday, and yesterday we were at a baseball game so obviously we had hot dogs.

What I'm Reminiscing About . . . Just yesterday I finished up a Tell Us About post that reminisced about the last time we visited my family in Calgary. We just bought plane tickets for this fall, and it's been ten years since we were there. We went in October 2013 for my parents' 50th anniversary, and this fall we'll be there for their 60th. (See Tell Us About . . . Travel: Alberta Bound for more.)

Mom and Dad and us kids

What I'm Loving . . . having two cars again! Makes my work day a lot easier and shorter too, since I don't have to drive my husband to work first or pick him up at the end of the day.

Yes, we bought the same car, in the same color,
just a different year!

This kind of traffic jam sometimes happens
on the driveway to work!

What We've Been Up To . . . I started working part-time a couple weeks ago, and on the weekend we bought a second vehicle so we don't have to share the commutes. We bought our plane tickets to Calgary for later this year. It was also time to pay our house insurance and property taxes so an awful lot of money left our bank account over the past week or two! Yesterday we went with our kids and a group from church to the Columbus Clippers ballgame.

my workspace still needs a bit of 
clean-up and customization

What I'm Dreading . . . There's one part of my new job that I don't feel confident about, and that's being available on the phone line. I wouldn't say I dread it, but if there was something in the job description I could opt out of, that would be it!

What I'm Working On . . . trying to figure out a weekday schedule that allows me to get some stuff done at home, and carves out a daily time to practice for chorus.

What I'm Excited About . . . Our trip to Maryland is coming up in a couple weeks, and I'm very excited about that! We're all getting together to celebrate Aubrey's first birthday, so lots of family fun, and hopefully some time to see friends as well. I'll get more excited about the Alberta trip later on!

What I'm Watching/Reading . . . Haven't really watched anything other than parts of the season of Alone that my husband was watching. 

For all the details on what I'm reading, see my book blog at Just A Second.

I'm currently working on:

Rebecca (Daughters of the Lost Colony Book 3) by Shannon McNear

Composition As Conversation by Heather M. Hoover

Reykjavík: A Crime Story by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir

The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by Jaime Jo Wright

Recently completed:

A Perilous Perspective by Anna Lee Huber

Up next:

The Starlet Spy by Rachel Scott McDaniel

Queen of Exiles by Vanessa Riley

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Murder Most Fair by Anna Lee Huber

A Fatal Illusion by Anna Lee Huber

What I'm Listening To . . . Right now, listening to The Riot on RadioU. 

What I'm Wearing . . . t-shirts and jeans are standard for work, and for the most part I'm glad it's casual! I have worn my swimsuit often over the past month, as we're trying to make use of the pool.

What I'm Doing This Weekend . . . Well, speaking of the pool . . . the only plans we've really made for the weekend are to have the kids over and go swimming. The state fair is happening right now so maybe we'll do that too? 

What I'm Looking Forward To Next Month . . . Our anniversary is at the beginning of August so I'm looking forward to that. We haven't decided where to go for dinner yet, but the Brazilian steakhouse is a top contender. The first weekend in August is the chorus working retreat so I'm looking forward to spending that Friday evening and all day Saturday rehearsing and getting to know some of my singing sisters better.

What Else Is New . . . We went to see one of the free outdoor movies in town and it was a beautiful night for it. We're hoping to make it to one or two of the family movies later this summer, and take our granddaughter. 

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A hodgepodge is a jumble or assortment of things that might not appear to belong together. Joyce at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly link-up called Wednesday Hodgepodge that is a little collection of questions for bloggers to answer just for fun and to get to know each other. I always look forward to chatting with friends over coffee, so pour a cup of your favorite and let's visit for a few minutes!

Here are this week's questions - and my answers - for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. July 25th is National Merry-Go-Round Day. Do you call it a merry-go-round or a carousel? When was the last time you rode one? Did you enjoy that? Metaphorically speaking, what's something in your life right now that feels like a merry-go-round?

I call the one at the playground a merry-go-round, and the one with painted horses and calliope music a carousel. To me, the terms aren't interchangeable, although I've often heard the carousel called a merry-go-round. I can't think for sure when the last time I rode the carousel, but it might have been when we were at Disney in 2018 and yes, I enjoyed it!

 

Less enjoyable are the merry-go-round aspects of daily life. Sometimes keeping the house cleaned up, especially the kitchen, feels like a merry-go-round. Just as soon as I get it done, we're right back to having dirty dishes piling up. It doesn't help that we have such a small counterspace to work with. 

  

2. What word do you have a hard time pronouncing? What word do you have a hard time spelling? What's your favorite word in another language?

 

Calliope. I don't have a hard time with it any more, but I thought of it immediately (not just because I mentioned it in the previous answer!) because it was one of those words that I'd only seen and never heard until I was an adult, and my husband laughed at me when I pronounced it like "kal-ee-ope". He still teases me about it sometimes! I am a word nerd so spelling doesn't usually stump me, but I sometimes stop to think about words like "occasionally" or "recommend" to remember which letters are doubled and which aren't. (Did I spell them correctly just now? Now I'm second-guessing myself!)

My favorite words in another language are probably all German. I have some favorite Low German words that I use sprinkled into my English, because they are just more fun than the English words. Like 'schaup' (dustpan) and 'verechnung' (balancing accounts) - and I've guessed at those spellings because Low German doesn't have a long history of standard spelling. And there are so many benign Low German words that we use as expletives - 'pilskje' (mushrooms or mold) and 'Deutschland' come to mind. I'm learning proper German in Duolingo so I've got favorites there too. Schadenfreude is a wonderful German word that doesn't have a good English word that means the same. Hässlich is another great German word. It means 'ugly' but we used to use it to mean 'unruly' or 'badly behaved' and I'm not sure whether that's a Low German usage or if it's used that way in proper German too.

 

3. What's a phrase or cliche you use pretty often and find to be true?

 "God isn't surprised" or "God is in control". Both sound like trite Sunday School answers, but both are completely true, and having those statements of fact as a foundation is so helpful when dealing with things that hit me out of nowhere, and when my circumstances or the news of the day seems utterly chaotic and hopeless. 

4. When it comes to grocery shopping what is your most dreaded chore - menu planning, the actual shopping and paying, or the unloading/putting away? How often do you shop? Do you use any of the pick-up and/or delivery services?

 The menu planning is the hardest part for me. A few months ago I started using Plan To Eat, which has streamlined that with some tools to make it a bit easier. I generally shop about once a week, but will make quick stops for just a few things in between. I have never tried a pick-up or delivery service for groceries. Not even during covid. 

5. Something you need or want to do before July comes to a close?

 

I have a writing project that I wanted to have finished, but got sidetracked when I started working, so that is a priority, and I plan to work on it tonight. I also have a couple of book reviews that I need to finish up soon. And I'm sure there are plenty of jobs around the house I need to do.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We're trying to get out to our local parks to walk more often. I took this photo at Rocky Fork Metro Park, and I was surprised how pretty even a section of powerline could be in the sunset.

 

What's up in your world this week? Leave a comment and let me know!

I'm sharing in this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

And this post is linked at What's Up Wednesday for July, with Sheaffer & Shay.

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