Hodgepodging My Way Into Fall...

I decided to join Joyce's Hodgepodge this week... 

1.  What's something you wanted to do this summer that you never got around to actually doing?

We wanted to spend more time at our camp (Maine speak for cabin) on the island. We planned to go twice a month and we made it over twice overall! Boo... I do plan to go over for the day later this week. 
Also we planned to go to the farmer's market weekly and frequent the local farm stands for summer food and only made it a hand full of times! Double Boo!!

2. Share a favorite memory of your own back -to-school days as a child.

We always had to wait until the first day of school to wear any of our new school clothes or use any of our new school supplies so I would "try on" my new outfits almost daily until I had the first week completely planned out. 

3.  What's one chore or daily task you prefer doing 'old-school' ?

Cleaning the kitchen floor... I don't "prefer" doing it this way, in fact I have one of those "shark" steam mops for daily cleaning but a couple times a year I move all the "furniture" into the living room, fill a bucket with nearly boiling soapy water and get down on my hands and knees with a rag to clean it. I have to admit, the steam mop does WAY better then the old sponge mop did but still I love the feeling of getting into every nook and cranny and knowing it is all clean. 

4.  Share something you've learned in life through the 'school of hard knocks'.

Personal financial responsibility. We spent the first 10-12 years with our finances being total "feast or famine" and a cycle of debt that seemed never ending. When we married Paul was just getting out of the Army and planning to go back to school and I was just finishing my third semester of college. We spent the next seven plus years starting our family and finishing our educations. After all those years as "starving students" (in our eyes) we were ready to live "real lives" and between personal debt we got into while in school and debt we got into after getting our "real" lives going we seemed like we were constantly playing catch up. Even though Paul had good jobs it seemed like we rarely had much left after we paid the bills so "extras" always went on credit card which we would pay down when we'd get bonuses or extra cash... This created that "feast or famine" effect. We made a commitment to get out of debt as a family about two years before we actually did the Dave Ramsey thing and had "down sized" everything in that effort, but we didn't make real progress until we took the course and really applied the principals. I have to admit the following few years were pretty painful but by the time we moved back to Maine from Tennessee we were debt free and that enabled us to follow the Lord's prompting to move and has made the following years so less stressful. Now whenever we are in a store and the cashier asks if I want their store credit card I always say "No thank you, I am able to afford to shop because I don't have credit cards!" They sometimes look at me funny but  it's the truth! 

5.  As a child, did you mostly bring or buy your lunch for school? What was your favorite thing to find in your lunchbox?

I mostly had hot lunch at school... My mom worked and had to leave within minutes of the bus picking us up so mornings were hectic so "cold" lunches were rare. Occasionally we'd have a field trip or some reason when I had to bring a lunch, since this was unusual my mother would plan ahead and pick up one of those single serve hostess snack cakes to put in it. I remember a sixth grade band trip when I opened my bag and pulled out one of those three packs of hostess cupcakes... Pure childhood bliss!!

6. Football season is upon us which has me wondering... how big of a sports fan are you (not just football) ? On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being 'I scream at the players through my television screen' and 1 being 'is knitting a sport?' where do you fall in fandom? 

I'd say I am about a 2... When we lived in Tennessee my Stepmother had season tickets to the Titans games and I loved going with her and even learned a lot about the game and even learned a lot about the players... I was really into it, but now we only see one to two Titans games a year I have virtually lost interest. I went to a bunch of high school games when the girlies were in school but other then big events like Super Bowl and Olympics I don't watch any sports these days.

7. Share a favorite quote you think might inspire students of all ages at the start of a new school year. 

I have nothing... I gave Allie tons of advice but no quotes come to mind... Sorry.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I have recently discovered the joy of "pillow covers" for my throw pillows! I have seen them in stores and catalogs for years but never really tried them until this year. I love to switch out my throw pillows seasonally but the three big bins of pillows I have stored always annoyed Paul and he would get frustrated when I would buy more pillows... He made me promise to get rid of some for each new ones I brought home!! Now with pillow covers I have thinned out my collection to two bins... On the pillows I have that are whole pillows that I love and the other bin is smaller but mostly empty with my small but growing pillow cover collection! Paul is happy... I am happy... Yay pillow covers!! 

Thanks for listening,