WEDNESDAY Hodgepodge

This might be only the second time ever that I have actually made a Hodgepodge post on Wednesday. I feel all kinds of accomplished today. hahaha (For those interested in playing along go to From This Side of the Pond).

1. How many times in your life have you moved house?
I almost didn't include this one because the answer is so ridiculous. I honestly don't know if I can count that high. Let's see...between my birth and my 4th birthday, I lived in 3 different states and moved at least 7 times (housing to include a large 2-story farmhouse, 2 cabins without running water, and a tee-pee). From 4 to 18, I lived in 5 different homes and attended 12 different schools. In college I lived in the dorms. After college, before I got married I lived in 3 different rentals. Since I've been married, I have packed, moved, and unpacked our belongings 6 times and we are about to go for lucky number 7. Let me tell you, I am a pro at this moving thing!

2. What subject would you study if you had a year to devote to it?
This might sound crazy since I have just completed 12 years of higher education learning, but I actually would love to go back and take more classes. Of course, I would prefer to not have any assignments or major papers to write though. : ) I would actually love to audit some classes in history and government. I would also like to take some sewing classes and figure out what I'm really doing. I think I'm kind of over devoting any more years to studying, but I would love to continue learning just for fun.

3. What in this world breaks your heart?
Actually, there are a lot of things that break my heart in this world. It is not a perfect world as we all know. I think the one thing that hurts my heart this most is the lack of love and compassion we see so often. As my very young niece has said, "She's mean because she doesn't have Jesus in her heart." God and Jesus are LOVE and when we don't make them the focus of our lives, we do not act in the loving and compassionate ways we should. When you boil it down, most of the horrible acts we see everyday are due to a lack of love for our neighbors and that is just sad.

4. What is one item that symbolizes the times in which we live?
My students have to give an introduction speech and find things that they feel represent them. Based on those speeches, I gotta say either cell phones. As so many of them comment, it is a life-line. We use our cell phones as cameras, computers, date books, calculators, etc. It is amazing how much a little device can do now and I am constantly shocked at how so many people cannot seem to function without them. So far, we have purposely not upgraded to smartphones because we are already so distracted in our personal lives that we don't feel we need another one. We'll see how long this lasts. Although, we have been the people that had a 13inch TV (for our only TV) for the last 7 years because "it works so why spend the money to get a new one. Will it really improve our TV watching?" I think we are somewhat odd at times.

5. Share a favorite bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan.
Saw this on a shirt: Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful
And I've always loved the shirt with the gnome that says Say Hello to my Little Friend
Lastly, the one that my dear friend, The Husband, I want to make: eCarnie.com...Because Small Hands Need Love Too

6. How do you like your spaghetti?
I'm not crazy about spaghetti, but when I do eat it, I like it with a good marinara sauce and sausage. I love pasta, but spaghetti is not my favorite.

7. What is your one piece of advice you would give a recent, or soon-to-be graduate?
Don't stress out if you don't find your "perfect" job immediately. It's out there, but it might take some time to get to it. Plus you never know what will happen along the way. It's all in God's plan and although it is scary to be out in the "real world" you are loved and cared for by the Most High.

8. Insert your own random thought here...
I'm starting to think that metropolitan people are kind of whiny. We've been reading reviews on apartments in the Austin area and they are ALL bad. So we thought we'd look at places we'd lived in the past in other cities to get a base idea of the rating scales. Let me say, Canyon apartments are not top-of-the-line apartments, but when we looked, we noticed that even some of the worst in town had higher ratings than any of the places we've looked at in Austin. Then we looked at Fayetteville where we lived and saw the same whiny comments. We actually did live in those apartments and loved it. Therefore, we have concluded that people who live in cities have higher expectations of life. Come live in Goodwell for a while and then talk to me about your silly complaints. hahahaha