Farewell March and Hello Monday

Good Monday morning friends. Joining  Holly and Sarah on this last day of March, for their weekend recap blog hop. 

We had a nice weekend with sunny skies and pleasant temps. You know I always need to report the weather before diving in to any other topics. 

Friday kicked off with a trip to the donut shop. Until recently this particular donut baker operated out of a food truck, but they were so popular they opened an actual store. We hadn't been since they set up shop so Daughter1 and all her little chicks, plus the hubs and I gave it a try Friday morning. 

Their donuts are ginormous and so good. They're also known for their soft pretzels, but we didn't try those on Friday. 

We made a stop at a little shop I like that sells miscellaneous goodies like Adirondack chairs, lake signs, candles, soaps, etc. but didn't buy anything. Then it was off to a nearby park to burn some energy. The kids, not us. I can't afford to burn any energy these days. I need every drop. 

A pretty place to swing and play. 

The calendar is getting ready to turn so after lunch I started right in on baking the Southern Living cake of the month for March.  Hubs and daughter1 had to run out to the potential new house to meet a painter for an estimate which means there are no photos of the cake baking process. Making a three layer cake with homemade lemon curd, three little people underfoot,  and a meringue icing requires every ounce of concentration I can muster. 

The March cake is a lemon meringue cake which we declared a winner. The cake itself is delicious and filled with a homemade lemon curd, then topped with a meringue icing. In true to me fashion, I didn't realize I needed three 8-inch round pans (I only had two) so I went ahead and used my three 9-inch pans. It turned out fine, but next time I'll make more meringue so I end up with better height. Pretty and tasty nonetheless. 

It took me the rest of the afternoon to clean the kitchen. Hi hubs! He's not a fan of my kitchen messes, but does love the finished product. 

The cake baking episode wore me out so we opted to go to a local Mexican place for dinner. No more cooking. Plus it was Friday and I try not to cook dinner on Friday nights. My son-in-law had a late surgery so he settled for the to-go box we brought home. 

Saturday I drove an hour and a half to have lunch with a friend. She's in Georgia and I'm in SC so we met in the middle, in the town of Gainesville (GA). Neither of us were too familiar with the town so I read some reviews online and reserved a table at a restaurant called The Stag. The food was good and the restaurant was quiet which made it easy to talk. They also had appropriate decor-

I arrived back at the lake late afternoon and started packing for our Sunday morning road trip. Hubs grilled steaks for dinner and I made baked potatoes and salad and then we all had cake, much to the grands delight. The adults had sampled it the night before, but this was their first taste and they gave it two thumbs up. 

Sunday morning hubs and I loaded both cars for our trek to Daughter2's house in Tennessee. Eons ago we told her we'd stay with her littles while she and her hubs have a vacay so yes, we are leaving three grands and their parents in our house while we go to our other daughter's house to watch her two. 

Hubs and I agree we should be the ones going on vacation. 

They'll be home on Friday, but hubs has an event to attend starting very early Saturday morning and the parents won't be home until late Friday, thus the need for two cars. 

We're supposed to finally have some rain at home this week and for that we're grateful.  We are very very near the fires burning in SC and rain is most definitely needed. Authorities have arrested four teenagers for starting the fires which have burned more than 12,000 acres of beautiful forest, threatened homes and businesses, and forced people to evacuate to stay safe. The firefighters have done an amazing job and were not helped by the fact that there are still so many dead trees on the ground, remnants of Helene which the surrounding area is still recovering from. 

Finally, if you didn't see my Saturday post...I've signed up to participate in the April A-Z blog challenge this year. Bloggers post every day but Sunday in the month of April, using the alphabet as their guide. You can read more about the challenge in my Saturday post (The ABC's of April). The challenge starts tomorrow with the letter A so stay tuned. 

Happy Monday everyone!  

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 596

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog, then hop back here on Wednesday (April 2) to add your link to the party. See you there! 

1. No foolin'! April is here. What's one fun thing on your April calendar? 

2. It's often said, 'A fool and his money are soon parted'...what's the last thing you wasted money on? 

3.  April 2nd is National DIY day. Are you a do-it yourself kind of person or maybe you're married to one? If so, what's the last thing you DIY-ed. If you're not a DIY-er what's the most recent job you had to hire someone to complete? 

4. Do you eat lamb? If so do you have a favorite dish that calls for lamb? 

5. Do you fit a stereotype in some way? Explain. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

The ABC's Of April

ABC...easy as 1-2-3...

Good morning Readers. I've decided (pretty much last minute) to jump in to the April A-Z blog Challenge this year. If you're relatively new here you should know that last minute is how I almost always jump in to this particular challenge so not to worry. I know there are bloggers participating who have a month's worth of posts written and scheduled, but that's not me. I'm a bit of an overthinker and blogging under pressure forces me to 'just do it'. 

You can read more about the challenge on the host blog (linked here), but basically it's a month long writing exercise where you blog your way through the alphabet during the month of April. One post a day, every day but Sundays. 

April 1st is the letter A, April 2nd is the letter B, and so on until you reach the letter Z, which should land on April 30th.  

I've done the A-Z many times over the course of it's 15 year history, and I've always had a theme of sorts. A last minute theme to be sure, but a theme nonetheless. Here's the 411 on years past for anyone who might be interested-

2011-one post a day detailing places we've traveled and loved (starting with A My Name Is Anna) 

Also, lest you're confused, my name is not Anna...the jingle just worked with my theme

2012-I managed to make the recap of our nearly three week trip to Shanghai-Taipei-and Hong Kong last longer than the trip itself (starting with No Foolin'-A is For Adventure)

2013-the year I organized a brown bag of random photos using the alphabet as my guide. Really fun, tender, and productive too (starting with  A Is For Assorted Stuff) 

2014-my theme was 'married with children' True story- I knew my daughter's engagement was happening that month and this was my not so sneaky way of dishing out words of wisdom to the soon-to-be marrieds (starting with A Is For All In)

2015-the theme was change and we had plenty of it that year, from a daughter getting married, to hubs retirement, then a move south late summer to build a house (starting with ABC. Easy as 1.2.3)

2016-all about the home build which took fourteen months to make happen, and a full 26 posts to describe the process from start to finish (starting with A Is For Architect) 

2017, 2018-a hiatus from the A-Z 

2019-my theme went hand in hand with my word of the year which was 'delight'. It took me until the middle of May to get to letter Z, but April of 2019 was quite the month for our family, and I gave myself a lot of grace and space to get it done (starting with No Foolin') 

2020-maybe my favorite year of the challenge in spite of this being the year of Covid, or maybe because of it. I sent 26 of my friends/family a letter of the alphabet and asked them to send me a word of their choosing, beginning with that letter. So much fun! (starting with Alphabet Soup) 

2021-Life is grand... posts about grandparenting, grandchildren, and then a few random things I think are pretty grand (starting with A Is For Ain't Life Grand)

2022-this was the last time I participated, and in the words of Maria von Trapp...'these are a few of my favorite things' was my theme (starting with Raindrops On Roses) 

And now it's 2025. Is there anything I haven't talked about? 

I like to say my blog is a little slice of mid-life, but am I still in mid-life?  When does mid-life end and that last third begin? I can do the math, and I'm definitely past the halfway point in terms of candles on the cake, but that's just a number. We all know some young 60-somethings and a few 'old' 40-somethings, don't we? 

What defines mid-life, figuratively speaking?  

Let's take inventory.  

My theme for the 2025 A-Z Blog Challenge...26 Life Lessons Learned.

And we're off...

Springing

Spring has sprung which means it's time to check in on the winter bucket list, and add some new to-do's for spring. Out with the old and all that jazz. 

Let's review. My winter bucket list looked like this-

1. Spend a day crafting each month. Nope. Nada. Zilch. Did not happen. Not enough hours in the day, too much going on, not inspired to pull out my crafting bits and bobs when there are already lots of extra bits and bobs out right now. 

2. Try a new soup recipe. I give myself an A+ on this one because the recipe I tried was so good and definitely a keeper. Everyone, kids and adults alike, loved this Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup-

3. Organize the laundry room cabinets. Didn't even try. There were a lot of things happening here this winter that were not on my list so something had to give. A whole house clean will be happening soon, so this chore can be a part of that.

4. Hike a new to us trail. We didn't hike any new trails, but did revisit one of our favorites that we hadn't been to in a while, and we enjoyed that a lot. 

.5. Read a classic. Done. I read one in January (The Good Earth), one in February (Wuthering Heights) and I'm wrapping up my March classic now (Pride and Prejudice). I've enjoyed these books so much, and am in awe of the language. I plan to read a classic each month this year and so far I'm on track. 

6. Clean out the kitchen drawers. Giving myself a B- on this one. I got to some, but not all of the drawers but since it's a relatively quick chore I'll finish it up in the next couple of weeks. 

7. Celebrate Sugar's first birthday. Of course this happened and we had the best day celebrating our little sweetheart. I wrote a whole post about it here (My Tuesday Version of Hello Monday). And I always write my grands a blog letter on their big day and this is hers-Sugar Sugar

8. Buy something pink. Yes. I bought a pink sweater to wear to Sugar's sweetheart themed party. It was a little on the warm side that day (it was supposed to be cool and cloudy, not warm and sunny), but I wore it anyway because it was on point with the party theme. 

This is the sweater, but this is not Sugar. I don't have a single picture from her birthday where I'm in the sweater, but I promise you I was. All the pics I have with me in them were taken before I changed. Whatever, here is the sweater and this is Little Miss. Pink everything is her favorite so she is a fan of my sweater too. 

9. Choose Valentine treats for the grands. This one also happened. We were in charge of the grands the weekend of Valentine's Day as my daughter and son-in-law went to an out of town wedding. I bought some fun little things for them to have including magnifying glasses, sunglasses, little boxes of conversation hearts...that sort of thing. 

10. Write a love letter. Hmmm. This was a nice idea but I never sat down and made the time to do it. Love is in the air in the springtime too though, right? I think I'll add this one back in to my spring list. 

11. Stay on track reading the Bible through the year. Check. Hubs and I started the Bible Recap reading program Jan 1st, and so far so good. There have been one or two misses which meant reading double duty a couple of days, but we don't let ourselves miss more than that. We're on track and it's been really good. 

12. Bake the Southern Living cake of the month in Jan-Feb-March. I baked both the January and February cakes and have plans to make the March recipe this weekend-a Lemon Meringue cake. It looks to be a little more involved than the January/February recipes but I'm committed. Plus I have a houseful and somebody's gotta eat what I bake besides me. 

In summary I completed 7.5/12 so just over 60%, which would be a failing grade if this were a test. 

Except it's not, so I'm not mad about it. The first three months of the year have been uncharacteristically busy with many other to-do's that needed doing, and I wanted to roll with it. Here's to spring daydreams, fresh starts, and a brand new list-

Happy Spring! 

Home Sweet Hodgepodge

Hi Peeps! Welcome to this week's edition of The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions, add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go-

1. Spring has officially sprung (in the northern hemisphere anyway)...did she roll in more like a lion or more like a lamb in your neck of the woods? What needs more of your attention in terms of a good spring clean this year-your house or your garden/yard? 

More like a lamb. A lamb who rolled around in the grass and is now completely covered in yellow pollen. Hubs took the blower to the grill deck this morning to get rid of some of the pollen and I snapped this picture just a few hours later...

The struggle is real y'all. 

As far as what needs the most attention I'm going to say the house. Without question. Normally it's just the hubs and I living here, and hubs is neat as a pin so the house is almost always tidy and dusted. We've had our daughter, son-in-law, and their three littles living with us since mid-January so there's more 'stuff' out than there normally would be. We pick up regularly and embrace the chaos. 

Mostly. Sometimes hubs looks around and twitches a little lol. 

2. What's put a spring in your step lately? 

We're very excited for the new home my daughter and her hubs are in the process of purchasing. I'm not saying too much about it now, because nothing in real estate is a done deal until the keys are handed over and of course the money too.  So far the process has been smooth, and everyone is eager to settle in. 

3. When you were a kid, what was the best snack to find in your lunchbox? If you didn't do the lunchbox thing, tell us what was your favorite after school snack. 

We walked home for lunch when I was in elementary school so no lunchboxes during those early years. My mom always had lunch waiting for us though, and I would be most excited to find she'd made egg salad sandwiches which are still one of my favorites. 

I took lunch to school in a brown bag in junior high and sometimes high school, and my favorite treat to find there would be a Drake's Ring Ding. Does anyone remember those? Do they still make them? The cake-cream-icing proportion was exactly right. 

And yes, they do still make them (I had to check). I wonder if they taste the same? 

4. In what area of your life are you planting seeds? 

I think if you're a parent you're always planting seeds, no matter your child's age. Grandparenting is also an opportunity to plant seeds and I hope I'm a good gardener. Kindness, fun, a gentle tone, time to spend, lots of prayer. 

5. Why do you live where you do? Would you consider living somewhere else? Why or why not? 

our lake lot pre-build, 2015

We live here on purpose. Some people end up retiring or living in the place they last worked, but our last work assignment was North Jersey, and we knew we needed to get away from the crazy taxes and the equally crazy winters. 

clearing brambles from the newly purchased lot-2015

moving dirt, October 2015

We chose this lake and this lot specifically, and then retired and built our home here. 

From the earliest days of our marriage we agreed that someday we'd live on a lake. 

dock construction October 2015

dock in place-October, 2015...way before the house was completed 

Hubs grew up on lakes and I'm all about a great view so we were totally simpatico in that department. My daughters both went to uni in the nearby town, which is how we discovered this little bit of paradise. 

home sweet home

It used to be something of a well kept secret, but word's out now so it's busier than when we arrived in 2015. Still beautiful though! 

Would I consider living somewhere else? I guess. I mean never say never. I imagine someday we'll move into something that requires less maintenance, but we'd probably stay nearby. Particularly now that we have a daughter and some of our grandchildren living in our same town. Our other daughter and grands are just a three hour drive from here, so this area makes sense. 

Plus it's beautiful. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

There are four Hodgepodges (counting today) between now and Easter so I think I'll post some throwback pics in my random space every Wednesday between now and then. 

Cheers to spring when little girls wore brand new coats that were a smidge too big or maybe just oversized on purpose? (hey, it was the 90's) and also completely precious...

Happy Wednesday and happy spring everyone! 

---

1. Sunshine & Books	2. Memorable Moments and Modest Missives
3. Wednesday Hodgepodge-Spring has Sprung	4. Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa
5. Lisa's Musings	6. Memphis Bridges: Wednesday Hodgepodge
7. Scriptor	8. Life As Kim.
9. TryingtoBloomWhereIamPlanted	10. ellen b. The Happy Wonderer
11. Carla from The River	12. Springing into the Hodgepodge
13. Kym @ A Fresh Cup of Coffee	14. Raindrops & Rainbows
15. Debby@ JustBreathe	16. Myra at Respice Prospice
17. Hodgepodge before I forget	18. Wendy's Waffle
19. Kirstin @ Loving Life Blog	20. Gattina
21. Always A Kansas Girl	22. Your Friend From Florida
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Weekend Chatter

Good Monday morning. I hope you had a nice weekend...here's how ours looked-

 

I spent most of Friday getting food prepped for a Saturday brunch with my sister and niece. I made a sausage and egg casserole and a new recipe that jumped out at me when I was scrolling the endless black hole known as the internet-Orange Cream Cheese Loaf. 

I'd say it's more cake than bread, but it was light, fresh, and tasty. I squeezed the orange for the juice which I think gave it that extra brightness. 

Did I take a picture of the loaf before I cut it?

No I did not. I was pretty slack in general in the photo department this weekend. I mean it was sunny and busy and I had family here and I don't always think about snapping a picture in the middle of living life. 

Also,  I'm gonna go ahead and say here that I'm cooked out right now. We had an easy taco dinner Friday night because one of the grands had T-ball practice and tacos seemed like something we could make and eat beforehand. I also stated for the record on Friday that I would not be cooking dinner on Saturday or Sunday. 

My sister and niece live a little over an hour from me but they hadn't had a chance to see Daughter1 and my son-in-law since they returned from their UK stint. Between the sickness and the travel and everyone's schedules and already full calendars it took a while to get a date on the calendar. 

I invited them for brunch and hubs made his famous hand crafted Bloody Marys and the sun shone and the kids were sweet. Pretty much a perfect afternoon. 

They stayed and visited for a while and we sat outside chatting and soaking up the sun.  After they left we watched basketball (Go VOLS!) and relaxed. There's a Korean restaurant in our tiny town that we hadn't tried yet, and who better to go to a Korean restaurant with than people who know and love the food? 

My middle grandson will tell you mandu is his favorite food and they order their beef bulgogi like the dining pros they are which is super cute. 

Hubs and I try to walk everyday in the neighborhood and I love the flowering trees whispering spring is here. 

Spring finds a way, right? 

Ans of course blooming things mean pollen and it's basically a cloud of yellow everywhere you turn, and we're not even to the worst of it yet. We press on. 

The boys all went to watch the Clemson baseball game on Sunday afternoon and my daughter and I settled in to watch the Ruby Franke story on Hulu (Devil In The Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke). Have you seen this? I never followed her online but millions did.  Several million actually. What a sad, strange story of our times. What a nightmare these children experienced and continue to live with. It's only three episodes so not a huge investment of time.

The guys had great seats for the baseball game and were on TV every other minute which was fun to see. Hubs texted and asked us to try to take a picture and I had to tell him we changed the channel because we were deep into the Ruby saga. 

The boys came in chattering (even the grown up boys) because it was probably the most exciting college baseball game ever with the hometown team pulling off a win at the last minute after being behind most of the game. 

More importantly I kept my promise and didn't cook dinner. Daughter1 threw together some pasta with tomatoes, garlic, basil, and Parmesan cheese and we had a small bowl of that which was just right. 

And that's the weekend in a nutshell. Or fourteen paragraphs. Whatever. It was nice and I hope yours was too! 

Linking today like I do every Monday, with Holly and Sarah for their weekend recap blog hop. Feel free to join the party! 

Hodgepodge Questions-Volume 595

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge. Answer on your own blog then hop back here on Wednesday (of course), March 26th. See you there! 

1. Spring has officially sprung (in the northern hemisphere anyway)...did she roll in more like a lion or more like a lamb in your neck of the woods? What needs more of your attention in terms of a good spring clean this year-your house or your garden/yard? 

2. What's put a spring in your step lately? 

3. When you were a kid, what was the best snack to find in your lunchbox? If you didn't do the lunchbox thing, tell us what was your favorite after school snack. 

4. In what area of your life are you planting seeds ? 

5. Why do you live where you do? Would you consider living somewhere else? Why or why not? 

6. Insert your own random thought here.