Wednesday Hodgepodge

Love me some Hodgepodge! Would you like to play along, too? All you need to do is answer the questions on your own blog and link up. Let's get started!

1.  What does retirement mean to you? You planning for it, not thinking about it, dreading it, looking forward to it? Retirement to me means that Chris no longer has to work for a living and we can kick our feet up and truly enjoy growing older together. We hope to do a lot of traveling when Chris retires in his early 60's, possibly even before. We would love to have some grandbabies that we can spoil rotten. Yes, it's definitely something we're planning for and are looking forward to with great anticipation.

2.   It's International Guitar Month...do you play? Does anyone in your family play? What's a song you, especially, like to hear played on the guitar or a favorite song featuring the guitar?  No, I don't play the guitar, but would love to learn to play the banjo. My brother, Kevin, could play the guitar and, actually, taught himself. I have a couple of nephews that can play, as well. One song I love hearing played on the guitar is "Take It Easy" by the Eagles...a song my brother often played.

3.  What's your comfort food?  Anything CHOCOLATE! Can you say raging hormones?  Brittany gave Chris some of the most delectable chocolate covered strawberries his birthday. They were almost too pretty to eat...

4.  What's one activity or area of your life where you absolutely never procrastinate?  I'd be telling a big ol' fib if I said that I never procrastinate about anything, even just a tad, because I do in one way or another. However, if I have to come up with an answer, I'm going with shaving my legs. That's something I must do every single day. I can't stand prickly legs.  

5.  Who does the grocery shopping in your house? Does your local store bag the groceries for you or is it a do-it-yourself kind of place? Do you like someone packing your groceries?  I do all the grocery shopping. Yes, my grocery store bags the groceries and I do like that, most times. However, I don't like it when the bagger puts only one or two small items in a bag. Just makes for too many bags that I have to carry into the house.  

6.  What's the coolest thing you've ever seen in nature?  Well, just yesterday, I observed a large red-tailed hawk land on the limb of one of the trees in our backyard with a squirrel in its mouth. The circle of life. However, the coolest thing I've probably ever seen in nature was huge sea turtles in Hawaii...and I got to swim with them. Left me breathless! Magnificent, gentle giants.

7.  Share a favorite quote about home.  "Where we love is home...home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."~Oliver Wendell Holmes 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.  Brittany had a very scary day at work on Monday. She was working with a group of five boys. At one point, things took a turn as they often do, and the 17 year old boy started verbally abusing her and threatening her with bodily harm, calling her every foul name in the book and demanding that an 8 year old boy in the group pick her up and hold her down, which he made an attempt to do. She called me after it happened and said she had never been so scared in all her life. There were no male staff members anywhere around, either. The issue is that the kids have no consequences for their actions, which isn't Brittany's fault. It's just how things are run there. She has been looking diligently for other opportunities. Please pray she doesn't get hurt or beaten too far down, emotionally, in the process. What's sad is that she really has a heart for helping people.