Homeschooling Journey: Paul Bunyan, Wisconsin, Photosynthesis, and Grant Wood

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn homeschooling6 Comments

Last week was a crazy week! It was our second week back and we were still working out our rhythm and routine. We also added in the subjects we didn’t do the first week back, so we had a very full second week! Music, art, phonics, reading, math, science, social studies… we did it all.

Let’s start with..music and social studies. Wyatt is absolutely loving The Waldock Way’s Traveling the States curriculum. It is by far his favorite subject that we cover. I have to admit, it is pretty neat! I loved geography and history as a kid, and even in college so it makes sense. I was even in school to become a Social Studies teacher when they got rid of that degree and I had to choose sometime else (I picked History – I should have picked Geography) Anyway, back to Wyatt and our school! I have been starting every school session with a folk song or song that pertains to our lessons and this week we listened to the Wisconsin state song as well as songs from Bunyan and Banjoes, and Voices From Across the Lakes. Wyatt loves this – and was super pumped up by the Roll Loggers, Roll song. It also tied in with our Literary Arts for the week. We have been making our way through legends and tall tales, and last week we read about the mighty Paul Bunyan, and Babe, his blue ox. I asked Wyatt who he liked better, Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan, and Wyatt is sticking by Johnny Appleseed.

Wisconsin facts we learned: toilet paper was invented there, which for some reason was hilarious to Wyatt, and that the first ice cream sundae was made there as well. Those were Wyatt’s two favorite takeaways. My favorite Wisconsin fact though is that Laura Ingalls was born there.

Science this entire year is all about plants, and we started at the beginning, with photosynthesis and how we get oxygen from trees. It’s still such a perfect design, that we need to live hand in hand with trees, as they use our carbon dioxide and we need their oxygen. We also had a very simple observation experiment to complete. We took two freshly cut leaves (I used my pothos) and put them in two jars of water. One was to be put in the sun, and the other in a closet. After an hour we needed to see the difference, were there any bubbles, etc.

Art this week was about Grant Wood, probably best known for his painting American Gothic. We read a few different books about Wood, looked at pictures of his work, and then we were supposed to make a sculpture over the weekend – but it didn’t happen. Note to self: Do not save work for the weekend, at least until the weather changes. Wyatt loved Wood’s sculpture work which were made out of just anything he found. I loved his portraits best, especially the portrait of his mother holding her snake plant, called Woman with Plants.

“Woman & Plant”, 1929 oil painting by Grant Wood, approx. 24″ high, collection of The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 4×5 transparency, Fuji Quattro scan. Painting is behind glass. Note: face and eyes painted “soft”, not out of focus.

The sculpture is named “Lillies of the Alley”, and I found this photo online at Antiques and the Arts, photo credit to Stephen Gassman.

What We Used: (contains Amazon Affiliate links)

Living Sunlight // B is for Badger // American Gothic // Grant Wood: The Artist in the Hayloft // Paul Bunyan

Bunyan and Banjoes // Disney American Legends

I am sure a lot of these resources can be found either available online for free or at the library.

We also use curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful, The Waldock Way, and Blossom and Root.

I am hoping to get my blogging situation with timing of posts, replies to comments, and visiting you all and commenting under control this week!

My Sunday – Monday Post!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized31 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer
Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

We have been back to school two weeks and are slowly finding our routine. We have been starting each day of school with music and it just wakes our brains up and puts us in good moods. Overall, the week itself was weird but it had lots of good moments too. Yesterday we went to Hawkfest which our metropark system puts on every year and we got to see so many different raptors up close. This little screech owl is named Sparkle! She is so cute!!

Read Last Week:

I finished up This Poison Heart and started The Agathas. I really enjoyed This Poison Heart, and so far I am liking The Agathas as well!

Reading Next:

If I finish up The Agathas this week, then I plan to start a NetGalley read about ghosts – ’tis the season and all.

And Wyatt and I are still reading The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp.

Posted Last Week:

New Additions and a Road Trip

Book Review: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

Spooky Cinema Season: The Addams Family

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

Listening and Watching:

I was out in the evening a few nights last week, and so was Billy (we were weirdly social) so we really didn’t watch much. A Murdoch here and there, and then we watched The Addams Family together as well.

As for listening, I started two audiobooks but I am probably going to stop listening to them and instead just read them at some point. I always think because I love podcasts I should be able to listen to audiobooks but they just don’t work for me, which makes me sad.

And that is about it from our corner of the mitten state! How are you all today?

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Hello everyone!! I hope everyone has had a great week! Mine was….eh. It had its ups and downs for sure. But such is life. And thankfully, today is Friday!

Our living gargoyle, or porch guardian as I like to call it. It’s always lurking about but this time was straight up posing for me. I am guessing it is one of the babies all grown up that hatched from the ootheca in the spring/early summer. It is gigantic and slightly intimidating honestly. I am afraid to weed in in it’s territory!

On Wednesday my friends and I got together for a much needed get together in my friend Kelly’s yard. The night was warm but not sweaty hot, and we had some catching up to do. It had been a super long time since we had gotten together. Summer gets busy! I took my normal spot on the couch – I love it because I can slouch and look at the evening sky, the swallows darting, then the bats start sweeping through. No more hummingbirds though, maybe they have started their journey south. The evenings are certainly much cooler, almost cold! I love it but I don’t think hummingbirds much care for it. My friend Kelly just got three more toads that she added to her toadarium (she has five – can you tell why we are friends?) so of course I had to go in and meet them.

I like how this one is giving me Jabba the Hutt vibes.

Then last night my mom, SIL, niece, and my SIL’s mother got together for craft night. It was also a very fun and relaxed time gathered around the table, our projects all jumbled up together. My niece and I were the painters of the group, the rest were knitting or crocheting. I was making little peg dolls, raccoons for Wyatt to go with the book we are reading, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, and also a Little Witch Hazel for Mermaid Girl herself. I had a feeling a little someone might get interested in making them too so I made sure to pack up a few extra. And I am glad that I did, she made a whole little family.

Wyatt and I have a busy day today – yesterday school got derailed due to some sudden issues with a family member but we will schooch everything that we should have done yesterday to today and move art to Saturday. We are learning about Grant Wood and I was all prepared for a farm painting but Wyatt seemed more drawn to Wood’s found sculpture items so I think we will attempt that instead. Fingers crossed!

Spooky Cinema Season: The Addams Family (1991)

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized11 Comments

Oooo spooky…Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are are watching and posting about spooky cinema for the next two months, here and over on our Instagram accounts. We are starting fairly family friendly and working our way up to the scariest!! I love a thriller or chiller!

You can check out Lisa’s post here!

This week our featured film was The Addams Family, circa 1991, that mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky family.

The Addams Family is a mad spooky creation that first formed in the brain of Charles Addams, a cartoonist with a sense of the macabre. His Addams Family cartoons first actually appeared in The New Yorker, if you can believe it, in the 40s and 50s and the characters were later developed into the original tv show. And if we want to play six degrees of Cary Grant (if you have read my summer classic movie posts you will know why) we can get there easily – apparently Hitchcock had Cary Grant namedrop Charles Addams in the classic movie North by Northwest. (If you want to read more about the cultural history of The Addams Family, The Smithsonian has this fantastic article)

When the movie came out in the 1990s, my teenage goth loving self was beyond excited. But of course being all gloomy and clad in black, I could only express that by the smallest of smiles. (Joke) I was very excited and I couldn’t wait to see it and it was everything I wanted in a creepy silly movie! And let’s face it, it is much more silly than it is scary, but that doesn’t diminish the fun of it by a long shot. All the little gags and jokes, and of course Wednesday Addams, who I always wanted to be for Halloween but never did it. The light hearted yet dark banter I think was more designed to make people widen their eyes at the audacity of it all, like a young girl chasing her brother around with a knife or putting him in an electric chair, just so matter of fact and nonchalant, rather than scare. As a teen I ate that movie up.

As an adult, I can see a deeper theme beyond the nonsense. The love of family, loyalty, that stick together through all adversities and do our best attitude. They just go about those things in a much different way. There is no doubt that this creepy family loves each other, very deeply. Morticia is a devoted mother, Gomez a devoted husband. They are generous, fun loving, and stand by each other through thick and thin. Not bad things to be, not at all.

There is a new series out now, produced by Tim Burton, which will reach a whole new generation of kids, 80 years later. It appears that the world is still entertained by this madcap spooky family, after all this time, which I think is pretty darn cool.

Next up is Shaun of the Dead. I am super excited about it because I love all those Simon Pegg movies!

Would anyone be interested in playing along with us, if we made this a linky? Let me know! Or if you don’t want to be so formal, just watch and let me know what you think of these movies in the comments every week!

Book Review: Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn book review14 Comments

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher Summary:

Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It’s called The Dellawisp and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors including a girl on the run, a grieving chef whose comfort food does not comfort him, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written.

When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she is thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there. She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. To find their way they have to learn how to trust each other, confront their deepest fears, and let go of what haunts them.

Delightful and atmospheric, Other Birds is filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

My Thoughts:

Sigh. This book was beautifully fantastic. I loved it so much! Just everything about it, every detail, every character, every surprise revealed, was perfect.

Zoey is filled with youthful enthusiasm, dreams, and gumption. She moves into The Dellawisp hoping to learn more about her deceased mother, but is also looking for community, for a sense of belonging, friendship, and she is determined that the residents of The Dellawisp will become that for her. Her character’s life was not all roses all the time, but she is filled with optimism and fun that is hard to deny.

Her neighbors are a quirky lot. There is Charlotte, a bohemian spirit and henna artist, Mac, a James Beard award winning chef who is known for his use of cornmeal, the Lime sisters who maintain separate apartments and don’t interact, and Frasier, the caretaker. They each have their own stories, the stories that have defined them up until now, full of love and love lost, full of shadows with rays of light.

The Dellawisp itself is a magical place. It has been a sheltering comfort for those that live there, hidden behind the main street that smells of sugar, with its special birds that exist only there, in that one place. Until Zoey arrives, and shakes things up in her own sweet way.

I don’t want to delve too much further into this story here, because I don’t want to give anything away. But this book made me smile and and cry and I was under the spell of its beauty the entire time I read it. When it ended, I wanted more and I sincerely hope that Allen visits this world and these characters again in a future book.

Before I wind this up though, lets talk about the food in this book. I love when food and memory and love are intertwined through the pages of a book. I think so many of us have food based memories – I know that I do. I think of my grandmother and my uncle when I make coconut tarts and Empire biscuits; hot cocoa on snowy days, the chicken and stars soup and Vernors that my mom would make me when I was sick – I could seriously go on and on. And in this book food is wound up here and there and everywhere, but most of all with Mac, whom I adored. I was so inspired by this book that I actually spent five hours the other day cooking and baking, standing in the kitchen barefoot and cooking up Carolina Chicken Bog and Plum Berry Cornmeal Cake. And dang, was everything so delicious! We will be eating the chicken bog for days and I have been eating the cornmeal cake for breakfast and it tastes amazing paired with my cup of coffee.

I absolutely adored and loved this book! I actually can’t wait to read it all over again.

New Additions and a Road Trip

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Michigan14 Comments

So a few weeks ago we had to say goodbye to our fluffy family member Marlow, which was very hard. I am not planning on adopting anymore cats as my dad is super allergic and it makes it impossible for him to visit. But Wyatt and I were feeling sad, and circumstances aligned to allow us to purchase new little pictus geckos from Josh’s Frogs in Owosso, MI. My friend had given Wyatt money for his birthday for a new little critter which we hadn’t used yet, and I had a $40.00 credit. So I ordered two little new friends and instead of choosing to have them shipped, I thought it would be fun to take a road trip to pick them up.

We were out the door early Friday morning! We had to be in Owosso by 10:30 to pick up the geckos and my GPS said that the drive would take an hour and half. Kind of far, but not terrible? First though, we were picking my mom up to go with us for the ride – it was so far and I was unfamiliar so I wanted another adult with me since it was just me and Wyatt. Plus, someone needed to hold the geckos on the way home.

I didn’t take into account that the drive would be farther from my mom’s house, as she lives farther south and we were heading north. So, new directions stated the drive would now be two hours. Not great, but doable. I could drive four hours almost round trip. No problemo. So off we went!

The drive through Detroit during rush hour was horrible. I have been out of the work force for long enough that I have forgotten what a nightmare that is. People were flying, darting in and out, there was tons of construction, accidents, traffic jams. And it didn’t stop until we were well clear of the metro area even north of Detroit. I am pretty sure I only relaxed after we were through and past Troy. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding and calmed down enough to realize we were at least now almost halfway there. Then we just kept going and going. We kept joking about how we felt like we were on an adventure, or heading up north for vacation. The city fell away and we were left with beautiful tall trees on either side of the highway. Eventually, my phone directions directed me off the expressway and through what seemed like miles and miles of driving on random roads and back alleys. Then finally we reached Owosso! The directions took us a strange way to our destination, through what seemed like a warehouse area with large trucks, and then boom all of a sudden we were there.

My directions from Josh’s Frogs said to park and find the orange door near the back. I was to go to that door and ring the buzzer and someone would help me. They are not allowing people in the building right now due to COVID so they are only doing curbside pickups, which is fine. I excitedly spotted the orange door and found a parking spot around the corner. My mom was dubious about this situation. She was not keen on me disappearing around the building out of her sight – I guess a mom is always a mom.

I approached the door, wondering if I was supposed to know a secret word or phrase as well. I rang the buzzer and a very pleasant not creepy woman answered. I told her my name and that I was there for a pickup, she shut the door, and a few minutes later emerged with our geckos. I had a little conversation with her for a second, as I needed to find a gas station, said goodbye, and headed back to the car, practically giddy with happiness.

The building they are located in was gorgeous. But I was glad my mom hadn’t noticed what it said.

I am now curious about the history of this building! Why so big? I meant to look it up but haven’t had a chance.

My mom looking positively thrilled with her important job.

We had hoped to stop somewhere, do something or see something, but everyone just wanted to head home. Since we were heading back to my house with the babies, the ride was at least shorter. And this time the directions routed us a much easier way.

By the time we go home, we were all happy to be there. Especially the geckos! Meet Harlow (for Marlow) who I named, and Wyatt’s gecko, Honey Hallelujah. I gave him a bunch of possible H names to avoid naming this poor gecko Toot or something else equally 7 year old boyish. He opted for two of the names. Harlow in the gecko on the log in the last picture, Honey is the one standing up.

They are super itsy bitsy teeny tiny babies!

We are all super happy about our new little friends! They are totally worth the drive, even if it makes us crazy people to drive four hours for geckos. Josh’s Frogs is a very responsible company to get reptiles and amphibians from as well. They focus on captive bred, which keeps the wild animals in the wild where they belong, and they also give money to organizations who are dedicated to preserving the wild areas that are being lost. I would always highly recommend Josh’s Frogs! My first gecko, Harry, is from PetSmart, and nothing against PetSmart but they just aren’t as vigilant about where they get their animals from. My poor Harry has many health issues that stem from poor breeding practices and requires lots of extra care, which I don’t mind doing of course but in another house he may not have survived. (Anyone remember when I took him to the vet in January for surgery?)

Since we visited Owosso so briefly, it keeps coming up in other searches for me. I was looking for a steam train to take Wyatt on next week or so if possible, and wouldn’t you know? There is one in Owosso. However, I am not up to that drive quite yet again. It did however look like a pleasant and cute little town, and I wouldn’t mind visiting again one day.

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized26 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer
Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Last week was pretty much consumed with our first week back to school, which was a very good first week. And when we weren’t working, we were avoiding the outdoors due to the high ragweed pollen count, which we are both allergic to. Today looks to be rainy, which will be better for our allergies but not as good for playing outside. I guess we can’t win them all! However, the rainy day will be nice to get cozy and relax, which all of us need to do.

Read Last Week:

So, My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Hmm. This book was..weird. I did enjoy the friendship and the 80s references though. Full review coming soon. However, I am really enjoying This Poison Heart! I am almost finished and it is delightful!

Reading Next:

I’m apparently stuck in YA land and honestly that is ok. As an Agatha fan myself, I am looking forward to this one.

Reading With Wyatt:

We are starting our new read aloud this week! This is a new to me book too so we will see how it goes!

Posted Last Week:

Homeschool Journey: The First Week Back

Spooky Season Cinema: Clue!

The Wednesday Hodgepodge

Book Review: A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons

Watching and Listening:

We finished up Only Murders in the Building, which was fantastic and I wish the seasons were longer! We moved on to some Murdoch, then last night we watched Locke and Key Season 3. I heard this is going to be the last season, which bums me out. Tonight we are planning on watching our next spooky cinema movie, The Addams Family. I have seen it before, but it was ages ago. I am looking forward to it!

As for listening, hmm. This week I couldn’t really settle on any podcasts for some reason. My brother did recommend one though that I think I will start this week, called The Prancing Pony, which is about – you guessed it- the world of Tolkien.

And this short and sweet post is it for today! How are you doing?

Homeschool Journey: The First Week Back

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn homeschooling18 Comments

Well, we made it through our first week back! Wyatt had a fantastic week. We had our moments where we struggled, both of us, but overall this was a great first few days back!

The first day I got up way too early and got started. I tried to make a special back to school breakfast of french toast but, I totally screwed it up somehow. Lol. I wasn’t awake enough maybe? So we had just a breakfast of buttered toast and we were happy because Wyatt and I are superfans of toast, which I know sounds funny. I gave him his little bin of supplies, some that he had chosen and some that were surprises, and he ate breakfast while exploring them.

After breakfast, we got ready and took back to school photos. He opted for his new lizard shirt – and told me that he was looking forward to learning about geckos. I guess I need to get a unit study together!

I can’t get over how much he has grown since even last year. Where did my baby go?

Then we headed in and got straight to work. I had a week that was structured to let us ease back in. We only tackled reading and language arts, social studies, music, and art last week. Next week we will add math and science back in. We need to form our new routine, get used to the new schedule, figure out how to work around therapy, all that good stuff.

And in the middle of our first day, I discovered we had a runaway caterpillar! I was crawling around the office looking for it everywhere! I finally found it on the baseboard behind my desk. (This is a giant swallowtail caterpillar)

When we finished up our work for the first day, we went outside for a much needed break. Wyatt played and played while I sat in my new yard chairs by the zinnias, enjoying the cool of the day and listening to Wyatt playing. It was a tiring but wonderful day.

What We Learned:

Our week was all about Johnny Appleseed, the state of Michigan, and the artist Thomas Cole.

Our Language Arts curriculum is one that I designed so I was excited to try it out! I need to fluff it out more with some projects that correlate with the book, etc but the actual work and how it went made me very happy.

We are learning about the states this year using a program from The Waldock Way, and we had a blast with it last week! I added in some Motown music, of course, and I had found the book Voices Across the Lakes on Amazon for $6, when other copies are selling for $40! It is described as “Beautifully told and illustrated stories about the Great Lakes region. Historical content, written around 10 authentic songs.” It is really cool, and we are probably going to use it with music class for a few more weeks.

I was also really excited to start our art program. I am not using anything formal, but I have a list of artists I want us to learn about this year and I am sort of making it up as we go along. This week we learned about Thomas Cole. I found an awesome picture book called Picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art, which we read together. I also visited the Thomas Cole National Historic Site website and they had some wonderful free downloads available to use. It would be an excellent field trip for anyone living in that area too, with free outdoor explore kits for students to use while visiting. Plus that view from the porch!! We are going to complete our art project later this afternoon as a family, by sketching the view from our porch. Not quite as scenic, not by a long shot, but it will be fun to do.

What We Used:

(contains Amazon Affiliate Links)

S is for Sleeping Bear Dunes // M is for Mitten // Voices Across the Lakes // Picturing America // Seed by Seed

For a look at what we are using for our curriculum this year, check out my post here.

We ended the week with a crazy road trip – but that is a story for another day!

Spooky Season Cinema: Clue

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized7 Comments

September marks the beginning of spooky season, my favorite!! If you read here regularly, you know that Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I have been trading classic movies all summer. Well, we have temporarily changed it up – instead of classic movies, we will be watching movies that are more themed for September and October, and with more of a nostalgic rather than classic feel. We had a great time chatting and making our list – our husbands were even in on it! We are starting out more mild, then working our way up to the creepier, scarier flicks. And for our very first movie, we went with Clue!

I am going to be 100% honest with you all – this is one of my favorite movies of all time and I can recite practically the whole movie. I have loved it since I first watched it at home, on VHS.

If anyone is unfamiliar, this movie is based off the Parker Brothers board game of the same name. All the principal characters are summoned to a party thrown by the mysterious Mr. Body. Who is he? Why is he gathering them all together? They all arrive, some together, most one by one, and are let in by Wadsworth, the butler who is played by Tim Curry. Once everyone has arrived, the “game” begins, and people start dying. But who is the murderer? And why?

I was just introduced to the genre of screwball comedies this summer – or rather, I had watched them before not realizing that is what I was watching. As I sat through Clue this time around, I began to wonder if it is a screwball comedy. My research indicates, that yes, maybe, it is, or definitely contains many characteristics and elements found in a screwball comedy. The fast, witty repartee, the bits of slapstick, social satire, although other elements seem to be missing, mainly the romantic aspect. And this ensemble cast was absolutely brilliant at their portrayal of each of their deeply flawed characters. It is hard to pinpoint the standout performance, when all of them were so quick and funny. I had the feeling that had such a good time making this movie!

One thing I always loved about this movie is the three different possible endings. When it was released into theaters, moviegoers had no idea which ending they were going to end up with, and the film companies released the different versions in different areas even, so if you wanted to see all three you had to do some detective work of your own, although hopefully detective work minus a body count. Luckily, I saw it first on video and all three endings are presented together. I love that I could see them all but it would have been a fun novelty to see it in the original way and know that other people were watching a movie with an entirely different ending.

Although I said that I don’t think there was a standout performance, I guess I do have favorite characters. Wadsworth, of course, because Tim Curry, and Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White. When I was younger I thought she was oh so glamorous and beautiful. And maybe I still think that as an adult too, now that I think about it.

I still love this movie to bits. And I can still quote along with it, although I do so mostly internally so I don’t make other people (Billy) crazy when watching it together.

Next up is The Addams Family, if you feel like watching and posting along. Or just watching along even!

What about you all? Have you seen this? Like it or hate it? Do you have a favorite character?

To read Lisa’s post, check it out here!

The Wednesday Hodgepodge

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn the wednesday hodgepodge21 Comments

The Wednesday Hodgepodge is hosted by Joyce From This Side of the Pond.

Happy Wednesday, Happy Hodgepodge!

1. Tell us a little bit about the best birthday you’ve ever had. 

I am sure I had some fantastic birthdays as a child, thanks mom and dad. But I have two standout birthdays. My 25th birthday was crazy awesome. I was on my honeymoon at Disney World for my 25th, and we spent the day at Epcot, my favorite park, and had dinner at the Rose and Crown Pub. The staff there sang to me and wished me a happy 21st birthday, so now I like to sometimes shave four years off of my age, and call it my Disney age.

The other stand out birthday was in 2017. I won four tickets to the opera, La Boheme, free valet parking, and passes to the VIP Lounge. It was an amazing experience! We took my brother and sister-in-law with us, of course. We went out to eat at the Roma Cafe beforehand, then headed over to the Detroit Opera House. We were shocked when we learned that our tickets were for the best box seat in the house! They even paid homage before the opera began to a woman sitting in the box with us. We felt very fancy. Then the lounge was spectacular as well. Chrissy and I were very underdressed and we literally sat and just soaked in the sights, while sipping our champagne.

2.  In what way(s) have you changed in the last five years? 

The last five years have been all about growth for me! I had a baby seven years ago, and over the years we have reshaped our lives and we love it so much. That is pretty vague I apologize, but we are so much more … just really so much more, honestly.

3. What’s your favorite thing about the street on which you live? 

The neighbors!

4. The Hodgepodge lands on National Beer Day…are you a beer drinker? What’s a recipe you make that lists beer as one of the ingredients? If not beer, how about yeast?

I am not much of a beer drinker. I am not sure I make anything with beer! I do like to make bread though.

5. As I grow older I would like to be a woman (or man, if there are any men in the HP today) who…

…continues to be curious and explores and reads and is surrounded by family.

6. Random thought..

My son and I had a wonderful day back to school yesterday.