A Fresh Cup of Coffee

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

A Cheesy Wednesday Hodgepodge

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. What do birthdays look like in your house? How are they celebrated? Any special traditions? What about birthdays growing up?

For the most part, birthdays are pretty low-key, celebrated with a few gifts or a special outing, and with a dinner chosen by the birthday person. It kind of depends on how many of us are together with the birthday person. When the kids were younger, I made the dinner that they requested for their birthday, but for my birthday we went out to a restaurant, and I got to choose. When I was growing up, I seldom had birthday parties, because my birthday is right after Christmas, but there were always presents, and my mom did the birthday dinner thing too.

For the Share Our Lives link-up in May, we shared about how our families celebrate birthdays, so went into a bit more detail at Making Birthdays Special, but I cannot believe I forgot to mention one of our family's most special birthday traditions! It started way back when my husband and I were first married, I think, maybe even earlier, but really took off after we moved away from the rest of the family. We weren't together with my family for birthdays, so we would phone the birthday person and crowd around the phone and sing "Happy Birthday" together, but make it as ugly and ridiculous-sounding as we could manage. Goofy voices, weird timing, extra sound effects, questionable 'harmonies', and more. The goal was to make it more hilariously horrendous every time. This has gone on for about thirty years and now that I think about it, I wonder if my granddaughters even know how the song is meant to sound!

2. Someone is sending you a dozen roses . . . what color are you hoping for? Are you someone who gets accused of seeing the world through rose colored glasses? Is your accuser correct? Elaborate.

If I'm getting roses, any color will do! If I have to pick, I think I'd want pink. Or lavender, although I don't see those very often. Although I tend to be an optimist, I don't think I'd be accused of having rose-colored glasses. I'm optimistic but mostly a realist.

3. June 4th is National Cheese Day . . . will you celebrate? What's something (besides a burger) you make in the summer months that calls for cheese?

I love cheese and I'm pretty sure we'll wind up eating something cheesy today. We're heading to a baseball game tonight, and unless something else tempts me more, I'm planning to have pizza. I love simple cheese and crackers or a cheesy charcuterie selection in the summer. And of course, cheeseburgers.

4. 'tis the season . . . any weddings on your June calendar? What's the first word that comes to mind when I say marriage?

No weddings that I'll be attending this June. An online friend is getting married this month, but I won't be able to make it for that wedding. First word that comes to mind . . . besides 'wedding' . . . is commitment. It takes commitment and partnership to keep the love that led to the engagement and wedding going strong so you can celebrate a lot of anniversaries.

5. What are you most looking forward to this June?

Gosh, I don't know. We haven't got any specific plans for the month so I guess just generally looking forward to nice weather and getting out to explore some of the parks and nature areas. Our daughter and her boyfriend are thinking they might come out for a visit sometime this month, so I would definitely be looking forward to that, but there's no date nailed down.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This past weekend, hubby and I took a drive out to Springfield and visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house there, the Westcott House. We really enjoyed the tour and one really nice thing about this Wright house is that we were allowed to take photos INSIDE.

As usual, here's the part where I invite you to check out the current Wednesday Quotes link-up. The theme right now is Telling Our Stories, and you're welcome to share a post with your stories and a quote or two. You can find it here: WQ - The Value of Our Stories

If more photos and fewer words appeals to you, you might be interested in my Everyday Images link-up. I do it every other Thursday, so look for that new link-up tomorrow.

What are you most looking forward to in June? Leave a comment and let me know!

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

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©2006-2025 HS Coffee Break/Just A Second/A Fresh Cup of Coffee. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. This post was written by a human. https://morecoffeebreaks.blogspot.com/

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Monday, June 2, 2025

WOTY and Goals - Spring Summary

Wow. My original plan was that I would do a monthly look-back on how I did with my Word of the Year, and any progress I was making with my "25 in '25" goals. That did not work out for the previous two months, at least not in a blog post. I have been making use of a habit-tracker checklist in the calendar planner I use, and my progress may not be impressive, it is progress nonetheless.

My goals have essentially been to Practice - because that's my WOTY - sensible plans for meals and housekeeping, and consistent personal habits such as eating and sleeping well and getting more exercise. Some weeks I completely forget to check off that habit tracker, but overall I am more consistent with those habits. Generally, what I thought would work for housekeeping was to establish Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to concentrate on getting general tidying and chores and laundry done, with the more time-intensive tasks done on Saturdays. This plan freed up my Monday and Wednesday evenings, since I'm usually out during the evening, and left enough flexibility for me to catch up whenever necessary. For the most part this has worked pretty well, though I still tend to use the "lick and a promise" housework method most of the time! I've been doing weekly meal planning, which is still very flexible, and often subject to last minute changes, but there's a weekly routine that helps me think ahead and be practical.

During May, the weeknight meal plans and housekeeping have been difficult to keep consistent, largely because my daily commute has been longer and more frustrating than usual. For most of the month, there was major construction on the main highway causing bottlenecks and delays on the drive home, meaning I get home later and feeling more tired and frazzled, and wishing I could just eat a bowl of cereal and take a long nap! With warmer weather, I think grilling more often on weeknights will help relieve that pressure a bit, and I also hope that means going for walks on weeknights too. I don't know how long the roadwork will be an issue, but it could be months.

Here's a brief recap of the month, along with some photos. I don't bother mentioning the weekdays unless something unusual happened, since work is a lot of same thing every day, rinse and repeat.

Saturday, May 3 - I got my hair cut in the morning, and this time hubby went along so we could both visit with my hairdresser since she used to work at the greenhouse where hubby works. In the evening we met Harrison and family for dinner at a new restaurant location's soft opening. We tried all the things - so good!

Sunday, May 4 - quick lunch after church, then met the kids at Franklin Park Conservatory becuase first Sundays of the month are free for Franklin county residents.

Monday, May 5 - We had our year-end dinner and celebration for chorus. I was so surprised when I received the Bass Pinnacle award!

Saturday, May 10 - We did the Mother's Day outing on Saturday, and went to Charleston Falls Preserve followed by dinner at Harrison's in Tipp City for dinner. Not Harrison, my son, but a restaurant named Harrison's.

Sunday, May 11 - Happy Mother's Day! Yes, I called my mom, and the Maryland kids called me.

Tuesday, May 13 - First appointment with my new dentist and I was very impressed. Got me in quickly, fixed up my broken tooth and made appointments for a cleaning and to finally get my implant finished.

Saturday, May 17 - We went with groups from church to distribute bags in the local communities for a grocery drive to benefit the food bank. According to my step counter, I walked more than five miles delivering those bags!

Sunday, May 18 - After church and lunch, hubby and I went for a walk at Taylor Farm Park.

Friday, May 23 - I managed to leave work early so I could get ready for our weekend trip to Maryland. We left shortly after hubby got home, and had an uneventful drive, arriving at the 'homestead' a bit after midnight.

Saturday, May 24 - I went out to brunch with my friends. We went strawberry picking with the family, then stopped at our daughter's work to visit. While there, I had Kennady restring my dulcimer. Spent the rest of the day just hanging out with the family and playing some games.

Sunday, May 25 - We were up early since we had to get the entire worship team practice in before the Sunday School hour. It was so great to play with Kennady's worship team again! We got takeout for lunch all together, then napped and relaxed for awhile. Landon and Meaghan had plans with her sister so we spent the evening with Spencer, Kennady and Dan going for a walk and then getting ice cream.

We send Dan a lot of "Ohio sunset" photos, so this
photo taken in Westminster, MD got titled as
"Victory Vape sunset" - the ice cream place is in
the same strip mall. And the carpet rolling man is
a Westminster icon. LOL

Monday, May 26 - We got mostly ready to leave, then went with Spencer to meet Kennady and Dan for breakfast. It was a great surprise when Dan's parents joined us and nice to catch up with them. Back to the homestead to finish packing. Made one more stop at greenhouse to see one of hubby's former co-worker, then drove home.

Tuesday, May 27 - Back to work and glad it's a short week!

Friday, May 30 - Went to a grad party in the evening and had a very nice time.

Saturday, May 31 - In the afternoon, we went to Springfield to see the Westcott House (a Frank Lloyd Wright house) and then had a delicious dinner at a Greek restaurant.

I'm setting a goal for myself that when I get around to the June WOTY/Goals follow-up post, I'll have put my "25 in '25" list into some kind of shareable format so I can share progress on that.

*********************

Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions;

I will put them into practice with all my heart.

~Psalm 119:34~

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My Word of the Year for 2025 is Practice. Put the things I've learned and that I know into practice. Practice doing what I know I should do and want to do. Practice how I want to perform. Practice―and get better at―the things that are important to me. Make a practice of healthy and beneficial habits and routines. In 2024, my WOTY was Rhythm, and one way I tried to establish a rhythm was by keeping a very brief daily diary, to watch for daily and weekly patterns to develop and to be intentional about keeping the good ones going. In 2025, I'll continue keeping the daily diary, but with a focus on how well I'm meeting my goals in the disciplines I'm practicing. See my WOTY post for 2025 for how I chose this word: Word of the Year 2025 - Practice.

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Sunday, June 1, 2025

Scripture and a Snapshot - Boldness

"Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

~Acts 4:29-31~

🔥🔥🔥🔥

May we pray for the boldness to be obedient through the power of the Holy Spirit, who was given to believers on Pentecost.

Thank you for joining Scripture & A Snapshot. Leave a link to your own post sharing a Scripture and a Snapshot. Take time to visit some of the other links and bless each other with comments.

I also link up at the Sweet Tea & Friends Monthly Link-up Party hosted by Grace-Filled Moments

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