Sweet friends, welcome to hodgepodge #1! All year I have enjoyed reading Lea’s (from Cici’s Corner) monthly responses to the hodgepodge questions posed by Joyce on her blog. But I wasn’t sure who Joyce was or where she blogged so I could get the questions in order to play along, too. Never occurred to me to just ask Lea!! Ha!! That would have been too easy.
So, today when reading Lea’s post celebrating Joyce’s 400th edition of hodgepodge, I did a little detective work and found Joyce and her blog, From This Side of the Pond. Copied the questions for her 400th – amazing! – edition and here are my answers below.
HodgePodge #1
Although this is Joyce’s 400th edition of the series, it is my first HodgePodge so I am beginning with #1. Seems logical, huh? The questions are in boldface below. And my answers for hodgepodge #1 follow.
- I feel like episode 400 cannot go without comment. That’s a whole lot of Hodgepodging folks. 2000 questions if my math is right. So, what’s something you feel like you do 400 times a week? My answer is similar to Lea’s!! Wash dishes and wipe down the kitchen. Only I use Clorox spray rather than wipes. Or sudsy warm water and a dish cloth. But it seems to me that my hands are always wet and in the kitchen sink, especially from about 4:00-6:00 pm every day.
- Tell us where you were and something about what your life looked like in the year 2000? Whoa, that was another lifetime ago. I hadn’t met my Prince Charming yet, was married but soon to be divorced. My daughters were 16 and 14 years old. We were living in our little house which is about a mile from my current home with PC. In her answers, Joyce mentioned that one of her daughters was in 7th grade at the time, and how difficult that school year was. Amen, sister. Seventh grade was atrocious at our house. When I looked back through the photos on my laptop, this photo taken in the summer of 2000 was one of the earliest I have. Bluebonnets.
- Do you like cinnamon? What’s something you make and enjoy that calls for cinnamon? Of the cinnamon ‘foods’ listed which is your favorite-red hot cinnamon candies, cinnamon toast, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon toast crunch cereal, apple cinnamon oatmeal, churros, an Indian curry? Yes, to all the cinnamony foods!! In fact, I have just added this cinnamon essential oil to my Amazon cart because I came across all kinds of diffuser blends on Pinterest that I want to try. When I scrapbook and Facetime with my sister, Valerie, we always suck on atomic fireballs.Last year, I added baking my grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe as an activity on my winter bucket list. You can find the recipe here. Need to make them again this winter. Funny thing about cinnamon. When I was teensy, I would turn red all around my mouth whenever I had cinnamon. I loved it even then but it didn’t love me!
- Does Christmas 2020 (or Hanukkah) look much like it has in years past, or is this year vastly different for you and your family? How so? How are you feeling about it all? Christmas is going to be a little lonely this year. We have decided not to celebrate with Lauren and her family as it is not recommended because of…guess…guess why it is not recommended. Yeah, that’s right. The virus. It’s just going to be the 2 of us and our kitties, Purrsimmony and Purrsnickitty.Francisco is an anesthesiologist and has worked with a number of Covid patients. The things he has seen in the patients he has cared for have really disturbed him. They have been so very sick. And so, he is not comfortable with us gathering right now. PC and I will have a good day but we will miss the glee and joy that children bring to Christmas.How do I feel about all of this? A little resentful of this virus for stealing away precious time with my family. Have felt that way a lot this year, not just for the holidays. I have lost an entire year with my 93 year-old mom. Time we can’t get back. But someday this too shall pass.
- What’s one thing you need or want to do before this year ends? Figure out what blogging looks like for 2021. I waiver between wanting to become a more serious, regimented blogger with a blogging schedule I keep (if that is even realistic for me with mi vida loca). Or continuing to blog slightly haphazardly. I put together a poll asking readers which of my posts they enjoy most and shared it to a post earlier this week. But let me add here, too. Just in case you didn’t see it.
[yop_poll id=”2″]
- Insert your own random thought here. In my adult life, I have had several unusual Christmases. One all alone. But as sad as that might sound, no one, no virus, no circumstance can take away my sweet memories of brighter times and happier holidays. And nothing can separate me from the love I have for family and friends. Love isn’t just a touch or a taste or a smell…it is an intangible combination of things. My mom and brother and his family are 1000+ miles away, my sister a mere 799 (we measured) but they are just as close to me in my heart as Brennyn in Ft. Worth (500+ miles away), Lauren who is just across the mountain, and PC who is laying beside me. And I have all confidence that we will all be together again. Thanks to the birth and beautiful life of the baby born today. Happy birthday, baby Jesus.
3 This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.
Your Turn
I hope you know that if you are here reading this, or even just looking at the pictures you mean so much to me. Thank you for the time you’ve spent with me today and in the past. Merry Christmas to each of you. Stay well and keep the hope of happier, healthier days in the future tucked in your heart.
Hugs and kisses,
Joanne
I love reading the Hodgepodge questions each week and usually answer just a few in the comments section of Joyce’s blog but she does have such engaging questions!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Maybe we can both participate in Hodgepodge together this year. Question and answer posts are such fun!!
Bojana Krienke
I am sorry to hear that you like so many others are experiencing restrictions around gatherings through the holiday season. We also had to change our plans and were unable to go to my in-laws as planned. My mom and dad are in our “bubble” and were able to spend time with us but event that wasn’t super recommended. It’s a difficult time but as you mentioned we all know it will pass.
I really liked reading about your life for 2000. What a fun little throwback and a glimpse of how far you’ve come and how happy you are in your life.
Take care and I look forward to reading more in 2021, whatever you throw my way.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you so much for stopping by. I am sorry your plans for Christmas were turned upside down. Imagine the grand holidays we will all enjoy next year.
My life in 2000 was sad and 2001 was even sadder, nationally and personally. But by 2003, when I met my Prince C., I was in a better place. I wouldn’t undo any of that but it was a hard, sad time.
Cindy Anderson
A great post! I too love cinnamon! Rolls, toast… my #1 comfort food! Congratulations on your first Hodgepodge!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you! Have you done the hodgepodge posts before? I am hoping to participate all next year. Have enjoyed reading them on other blogs I follow.
Deb
I had never heard of HodgePodge before! What an interesting project.
I remember going to the US in 1998 and being surprised by how many cinnamon flavoured things you have over there, I think cinnamon flavoured tic-tacs were the most unusual thing I saw. I’m not a huge lover of cinnamon, I only use it in cooking as a spice really but I know that cinnamon lattes are becoming popular over here.
Christmas was SO different for us but hopefully we can get back on track for next year and I will definitely be having a family ‘Fakemas’ just as soon as I can!
Em
I keep telling my mom that it will be like Christmas when we can all be together again. What a glorious thing to which we can look forward! Our kiddos were all able to lock down for two weeks so they could come home for Christmas. We’re having a lovely time with them and that will get us through to when we get our jabs. Still SO miss my mom and dad, but am grateful they have stayed safe despite a very close call.
I enjoy all your posts Leslie! Hodgepodge was fun, and like all your other posts, everything you write makes me want to have a conversation about it with you. Cinnamon, clothes, counter cleaning, your family… all the things I’d love to chat about with you.
Happy to enjoy anything you write whenever time allows!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Em, for always warming my heart with your kind comments. So glad your children were able to come home to be with you guys. And there was snow, right? Beautiful snow?
I pray that my mom will still be around when we can finally travel again. I feel like we are on borrowed time. Her apartment complex has moved from Code Red (where they continue to go periodically) down to Code Yellow. The minute they declare the complex to be on Code Green, I will want to dash to Lexington to hold her and hug her.
jodie filogomo
This was so fun to read. 400 times?? I’m thinking that’s picking off the kitty hair on my clothes, LOL!!!
I do love cinnamon, in fact we’ve been adding it to our coffee lately!!!
Sending you lots of love Leslie,
XOOX
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, sweet friend, for the love!! Was so relieved to know Lesley isn’t Covid positive. Took my breath away thinking she might have been.
I have given up on plucking the kitty fur from our clothes. It is a curse that comes with pet ownership. But the love we get in return outweighs the inconvenience of the shedding…most days!!
I like cinnamon in my coffee, too. Had 2 sisters who helped me in the library when they weren’t working as crossing guards and playground monitors. One of them made coffee every morning and added the perfect amount of cinnamon. It was so tasty.
Joanne Tracey
Love your hodge podge. I had to really think back to the year 2000. We were all working on projects to reprogram computers because the world was going to stop if we didn’t. We were looking forward to the Sydney Olympics (spoiler alert – an amazing time to live in the city) and our daughter was 2. Christmas has been a good one. At first, I was lamenting not being able to see family and then I realised that it’s been a few years since we did spend Christmas with my birth family. The difference, of course, this year was that we couldn’t even if we’d wanted to.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Ha!! That’s right…the world WAS going to stop in 2000. And then it didn’t. And then it did, in 2020!! Glad you had a good Christmas. I was sure I would be down in the dumps with just the two of us in this big old house but it was actually very nice!!
Erin @ Cracker Crumb Life
So teary over your mama. This year has been awful, keeping us from family. I just try to keep moving forward and looking forward. We just have to keep moving. I miss my mom as well. 🙁
We had our own little three person Christmas and we are a family that gathers, for no reason at all usually, all of us, cousins, extended family, everyone. So this was weird but we do what we do to keep everyone safe. My dad dropped by with gifts for Wyatt in a Santa hat, it was cute. They kissed each other through a glass window and my heart broke. But, next year will be better!
This is a cute post, I love it! And in 2000, I got married!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
How precious that you are a family that gathers with extended family members. I never really knew my cousins well at all, or their parents. Never met my grandfathers. It was always just my parents, brother and sister and me. You are very blessed to have been surrounded by all of that wide-reaching love.
Love that your dad and Wyatt kissed through the glass. Heartbreaking but so sweet. My daughters used to hold hands through the chain link fence that separated their day care classes on the daycare playground. LOVE!!
Crazy that you got married in 2000. Congratulations on 20 years!!
Laurie
I loved reading your hodgepodge! What a wonderful concept for a post. I must check it out sometime and write a hodgepodge post.
I understand your ambivalence about your blogging schedule. I ask myself the same questions and waffle back and forth – I want to get more serious about blogging…no I don’t! It’s not a job for me. So I figure I will just do whatever I feel like.
Reading the part about your mom brought tears to my eyes. So true – this year is time we never get back. My father-in-law was very careful about the virus and we didn’t see him from March until the end of August even though he lived only 15 minutes away. On August 30 (his 89th birthday) we were finally going to see him that evening and he passed away very suddenly that morning! You never know what is in store!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Oh, Laurie…how very sad. I am so sorry you were unable to see your father-in-law again before his sudden death. Breaks my heart. Every morning I wake up and very tentatively check my cell phone for messages. My brother lives in Lexington where my mom is, and I am always scared that I will awake to a text with bad news. I pray we get to see and hold and hug my mom at least one more time in person but nothing is ‘given’ in these trying times.
Hope you will continue to blog, to move us to think, and feel, in the coming year. I want my blog to be more somehow. Not more of the same but something more substantial. Just don’t know how to create that yet.
Lovely
I enjoyed reading the questions and your answers! Thanks for sharing!
xoxo
Lovely
http://www.mynameislovely.com
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you for visiting. These hodgepodge posts seem like fun. Come join in!!
Danielle
2000 was ages ago! I was a sophomore worried about Y2K. Sorry you did not get to see your family on Christmas, I know so many people in the same boat. I hope you can see them all soon.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you. Most of all I missed not seeing my granddaughter and daughter in Ft. Worth. My heart hurts because I see them only several times a year.
Dara
This seems like a fun link up to get in on! I’m wondering what to do with my blog posts this coming year too.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Come join me again for 10 on the 10th, maybe Wellness Weekend and Bucket Lists!! Throw in your interviews with the kids, the great posts where you share your photography and travels and your book reviews and voila…there’s your blogging schedule!!
Kirstin
How fun. I might have to join in with this one sometime.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
I am just discovering these hodgepodge posts and they are fun. Hope you will stop by to meet Joyce and join up for the next go round.
Gale
Never have heard of the Hodgepodge post, but I found it quite interesting! I’ll have to check it out.
I love your positive attitude about loved ones always being near, even when it’s not physical nearness.
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Thank you, Gale. I know you have had your share of children being far away. So glad your daughter is closer now.
Laura Bambrick
I’ve never heard of HodgePodge posts before but what a fun read! And the title really does make sense! Back in 2000 I was in high school! Seems so crazy to comprehend! I absolutely love cinnamon in all baked goods too! Yum cinnamon rolls!
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Laura, thank you! I hope I can link up for each of the hodgepodge posts. They are always a lot of fun.