Heidy-Ho, Good Hodgepodge

Do you remember Tim-the-Toolman-Taylor's  "Home Improvement" sitcom where his neighbor Wilson always greeted him with, "Heidy-ho, good neighbor!"?  That's what comes to mind when Wednesdays roll around and I want to say hello to my Hodgepodge host, Joyce, and all the "neighbors" in our 'hood.

1. Since these questions are posting on the first day of April it seems only right to ask-when was the last time you did something foolish? If you can't answer that one, try this one-when was the last time someone fooled you?

Yesterday I was foolish to take directions from my "smart" phone to a house I've been to a handful of times before. Why not just rely on my memory or personal sense of direction? Why end up going in a four-mile CIRCLE, not just once but TWICE? The face in my mirror was a fool's face.


 2. What's the last biography or non-fiction book you've read? Was it any good?


Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den, by Janet and Geoff Benge. I read it along with my sixth grader for his school assignment.  It was excellent.  These authors have written a series of missionary biographies, and  our home library has almost all of them (most when homeschooling back in the day).


 3. Garlic-friend or foe? What's your favorite dish made with garlic?

Friend.  I love a dish with bacon,  shrimp, spinach, mushroom, garlic, and gorgonzola cheese served over linguine.

I call my recipe "Don't Invite the Rabbi, Just the Pasta."  


 4. Several Spring flower festivals happen in the US during the month of April. Of those listed, which would you most like to see in person...The Skagit Tulip Festival in Skagit Washington, The Dogwood Arts Festival in Knoxville Tennessee, The North Carolina Azalea Festival in Wilmington North Carolina or the Daffodil Festival Weekend on Nantucket Island, Massachussets?

Oh, the tulip festival, hands down.  I love tulips and I've never been to Washington, so mixing the two (lip) would be a win-win. 

 

 5. How do you choose which blogs to read?  What is something that will make you stop and read every time? Something that makes you say, 'eh, think I'll skip this one and move on to the next'?

 

I choose:

• Humor
• transparency and vulnerability, not simply a recapping of where you went and who you hung out with and what you ate, unless you can make all of those humorous or touching somehow
• good writing  (must have a "voice," must use good grammar, must "hook" me from the get-go)
• uncluttered background, simple font, a photo or two (but not too many selfies)
• content featuring everyday family life, most often written by a Christian woman in midlife or older
• sewing, quilting, and home organization blogs from time to time

I avoid:

• politics, profanity, or subjects I deem petty
• fashion/book/music/movie reviews
• very long posts  
• posts in which sentences start with that trendy lowercase letter style of writing
• chronically serious or poetic posts
• dark, depressing or really deep writers

  
 

6. April is National Mathematics Education Month so tell us, when did you last use math?

Today, twice.  The first time was to teach a preschooler, using skinny dowel rods, how adding one to any number gives you the next number.  She caught on so fast.   The second time was tonight when looking over a problem my sixth grader missed on his math test.  It had to do with calculating cubic liters of water lost, which triggered my bladder, of course.  The ratio of water terms to water I can hold is ....

Never mind. Next question?

7. In honor of the A-Z challenge kicking off on April 1...choose one word beginning with the letter A to describe your yesterday.

Arid!  Alleluia! Amen! Wait, that's three.  But I adore assonance (a lot like alliteration, but sounds like a bad word, huh?), and above all, admire arid air after an acutely Alaskan atmosphere around my abode.

 8. Insert your own random thought here.

I think I was born to teach kids to read. It is absolutely one of the highest highs on earth for me.
The little girl I'm tutoring is four years old, and in just six sessions with me, she  read a seven-word sentence today. I almost cried, I was so happy. And her mother and father heard her, as did her grandmother who was in the room.  There were hugs and laughter and high fives and dancing with joy at their house. Other than leading a soul to Christ, and being a mother, there's nothing than brings deeper pleasure quite like hearing a child read for the very first time.