Hodge Podge Wednesday

I haven't participated in Hodge Podge since September of last year.  I just saw this one and thought it was interesting, so here we are.  If you'd like to join up, visit Joyce a "From This Side of the Pond" and have some fun.

1. Speaking of April 15th...what's the most 'taxing' thing you've done recently?

“taxing”  - according to dictionary.com means: wearingly burdensome:   the day-to-day

If that’s the case then a lot of what I do is “taxing”.   That makes it sound as though it’s not a good thing, but I really don’t mind doing them, like washing dishes 2/3 times a day, sweeping the floor (though since mud season began I don’t bother doing it quite as often… mostly at night before going to bed.  Laundry – not my favorite “taxing” duty, but I like clean clothes, so a necessity.  I think women are bound to those taxing duties in general and men too if they like a clean house.  The time I do these that is the most unpleasant is after work when I’m tired of being indoors and want to get outside into the fresh air.

2. When did you last take a taxi somewhere and where was that somewhere?

I don’t recall ever riding in a taxi.

3. What's something you can do today that you couldn't do a year ago?

I have tried a lot of new things.  It’s not that I couldn’t do them a year ago, but just had never tried them.  We now have heat mats for our greenhouse which permits us to start our seedlings earlier.  This is our second year making maple syrup, which I did inside last year, but did outside on the wood-fired grill this year.  This permitted me to make a lot more syrup than last year.  I am able to have my grandson come overnight now and could not do that a year ago as he was living in MD then.

4. How often is chicken (in some form or fashion) on your menu at home? Which of the following would you most like to see on your table tonight...a chicken salad sandwich, your mom's fried chicken, a Chick-fil-A meal, Cracker Barrel's chicken n' dumplings, a roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings, or 'hold the chicken, I'm a vegetarian'...?

We raise chickens, so chicken is a large part of our diet.  Usually it’s some tough old bird that needs to be cooked in the pressure cooker.  I make chicken pot pie, chicken soup, roast chicken, chicken on greens, chicken salad with “craizins” and walnuts.  You name it, we’ve made it at one time or other.  I like chicken, but sometimes I just get sick of it, so the past couple of months I haven’t made an effort to eat the chicken we still have in the freezer and we’ve had moose, venison, pork, fish, anything but chicken.

5. What was your favorite television program when you were a kid? What characters do you remember the most?

I didn’t have TV when I was a kid, but when we went to visit my Nana in NJ she did and I loved watching the morning cartoons.

6. What was the last piece of 'art' you made?

I do counted cross stitch and completed two large UFO this year.  I do not do this in the summer and it looks like my counted cross stitch days are over for the year.  When spring comes, garden chores become more important than crafting.  In the winter it is dark when I get home so while I’m waiting for dinner to cook we either listen to a preaching tape or watch one of our many OLD video movies and I sew and Mr. D relaxes on the mini couch.  This winter we’ve had company many weeknights so I sew on the couch while Brandon and Grampa play card games (Monopoly or Uno) on the table.  Such is life in our little winter camper house.  It’s cozy, but I’ll be happy to have a larger space.

7. What frustrates you most about the Internet?

What frustrates me most is when it doesn’t work.  I do not have internet at the house, so I usually do this kind of stuff on my lunch break at work.  I do have a laptop that I use when I get to a free WIFI hot spot, but it spends most of its time in the trunk of my car.  It is just frustrating when at work or on the laptop I have something important to do, the screen doesn’t respond.  I really hate it when I’m talking to a customer and trying to take an order and the screen just freezes up and then goes blank…. Humph!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Heather’s birthday dinner and birthday cake.  We had a fun celebration.  Happy Birthday to my little girl.