Smokin' Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What lesson has failure taught you?

To never give up.  

2. What decision are you glad you made?
To move back to the Small Town.

3. I've been a little bit surprised to see fully lit and decorated Christmas trees popping up for the past several weeks in friend's Instagram feeds. So tell the truth-is your tree up and decorated, and if so when did that happen? If not, when will you be decking the halls?
Absolutely not!  I'll wait until after Thanksgiving.  When the boys were playing football, I wouldn't decorate until after football season, which ended after the state championship the first weekend in December.

4. Solitaire-Poker-Rummy-Hearts-Go Fish-Old Maid...which game of cards would you most like to join? 

Go Fish is pretty fun, I have to admit!  A couple of my camping friends have got me playing Rumi-Kub, which really isn't a card game, but it's like Rummy.  

5. This question comes to you courtesy of a Facebook friend, who once upon a time had a blog...When you're feeling stressed do you snack a lot or are you more the 'can't eat' type?
Oh, I snack!

6.  Have you ever reviewed a product or service on line? Was your review favorable or less than favorable? 

I review materials from Teachers Pay Teachers all the time, and it's paid off!  Some of the Speech Pathologists who make their own therapy material and sell it on "TpT" have a give-away every month:  they pick one person who has given good feedback to win something from their "store".  I was given the opportunity to pick an item from one of my favorite sellers a couple of days ago!

7. What was the best conversation you had yesterday? 

Since I'm writing this on Tues. night, the conversation would have been on Monday.  CH & I had a pretty nice conversation with YS.

8.  Insert your own random thought here. 

We had some excitement at school on Tuesday.  Usually, all of the excitement happens when I'm not there, but I was able to get in on it this time!  We had a fire drill, or at least we thought we did.  I didn't realize that the "drill" happened when the principal was at a meeting.  After the drill, we went back inside, but after about 5 minutes, the alarm went off again.  Apparently the indicator was saying there was smoke on the bottom floor.  

The fire dept. is a volunteer dept, so of course there are no firemen hanging around the station, which is at the bottom of the hill from the school.  It took them about 15 minutes to get to school; we were finally able to go back in after about 45 minutes.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We had big plans for the weekend:  we were going to leave to go camping on Friday as soon as CH got off of work.  After I left work, I went to the grocery store to get a few things that we needed.  When I left the store, we were in the middle of a good, soaking rain, and it felt like the temperature had dropped significantly.  I don't mind camping in the rain, but I don't want to have to set up in the rain.  So, after we grabbed a quick dinner, I put on my pjs, bundled up with a blanket, and cuddled on the couch with Pepper.
The weekend wasn't a complete wash-out, though.  We got up Saturday morning and headed out to camp.  We went to a campground that we had visited last year.  There were some people from our camping group and a dutch oven group getting together for the weekend.  Last year, the campground was pretty full.  This year, there were only 3 other campsites being used besides those in our groups.  I guess the nasty weather kept others away.  Saturday was chilly on and off, with the sun coming out every now & then.

Our drive into the campground.

 Laika had a few friends to play with.

 Our campsite

 We had a visitor on Saturday evening.

 The Dutch Ovens were out in full force on Saturday.

 It was cool enough for a fire.

We had an amazing moon.

Sunday morning I walked out to the pier.

 I managed to catch this sunrise. 

I also saw this interesting sign!

Breakfast consisted of our first attempt at camp french toast:

We thought it turned out pretty well!  We also had yogurt and fruit.  This is going into our rotation as a keeper!

On our way out, we stopped by the overlook to see the dam:

 We ended the weekend with our weekly visit to our favorite Mexican restaurant.  YS had to work, but MS & his GF, and YS' GF joined us.  The view from the parking lot:

Not bad, huh?
Hope you had a nice weekend!

Waddling into the Hodgepodge

1. Describe a typical Sunday from your childhood.
Mass, followed by a substantial brunch, with the priest as our guest.  The rest of the day was relaxing, reading the comics, and just being lazy.

2. How comfortable are you with uncertainty? Explain.
Not at all.  I like to know what's coming down the pike!

3. What have you accomplished recently that might be described as crafty, as in 'arts and crafts' crafty?  If crafty doesn't work for you, how about handy? Or both?

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  

4. Have you ever worked in a 'food place'? What did you take away from the experience?
Nope.  Never.  Thank goodness! 

5. Cold turkey, talk turkey, what a turkey...in recent days, which turkey phrase or idiom best applies to you and why? Click on the word turkey if you need to read more about the meaning behind each phrase. 
Talk turkey.  I can't kid around with a straight face...at all!

6. If you could have any one guest join your Thanksgiving dinner table, who would it be?
My paternal grandmother.  I didn't know her (she passed away before I was born), and I'd love to pick her brain!  She must have been a very special lady.

7. What is one thing you must accomplish today? 
I have to start off with a 7:15 a.m. meeting (but I'm not expecting the parent to show up), followed by a day of supervising my intern, then home to fix dinner, followed by community band practice.  I just have to accomplish getting through the day!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.