Wednesday Hodgepodge: Mixing it up

1. What's surprised you most about your life or life in general? 

To go with a cliche, how fast it goes. Also how long some things (material things, friendships, circumstances) last, and not always the ones you'd expect. I made gingerbread this morning from a 1977 magazine recipe, in a plastic mixing bowl Mr. Fixit's mother gave him when he moved out from home. I used vintage measuring spoons of his grandma's, a recent-vintage silicone scraper, and a 25-year-old Pyrex measuring cup; and I baked it in a pan we got free this year with a pair of new cookie sheets.

2.  Sweet potato fries, sweet potato casserole, a baked sweet potato, a bowl of butternut squash soup, a caramel apple or a slice of pumpkin pie...you have to order one thing on this list right now. Which one do you go for?

Any of them except the caramel apple: too sticky.

3. What's a famous book set in your home state? Have you read it? On a scale of 1-5 (5 is fantastic) how many stars does it rate?

How about Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle, I think her only novel set in Ontario? Those who love it would give it multiple stars.

Valancy got her John Foster book--Magic of Wings. "His latest--all about birds," said Miss Clarkson. She had almost decided that she would go home, instead of going to see Dr. Trent. Her courage had failed her. She was afraid of offending Uncle James--afraid of angering her mother--afraid of facing gruff, shaggy-browed old Dr. Trent, who would probably tell her, as he had told Cousin Gladys, that her trouble was entirely imaginary and that she only had it because she liked to have it... Valancy slammed the magazine shut; she opened Magic of Wings. Her eyes fell on the paragraph that changed her life.

"Fear is the original sin," wrote John Foster. "Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something. It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading."

This is the cover of the edition I first read in the 1970's

4. There are 60 days until Christmas...have you started your shopping? How do you stay organized for the holidays?

No, I haven't bought any gifts or other holiday things, except for a nativity silhouette we bought in the summer from Ten Thousand Villages.

5. October 26th is National Tennessee Day. Have you ever lived or spent any time in Tennessee? Is this a state you'd like to visit one day? The top rated tourist attractions in Tennessee are-

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park (Gatlinburg area), Elvis's Graceland (Memphis), Birth of the Music Biz (Memphis and Nashville), Dollywood (Pigeon Forge), Tennessee's Military Heritage (many battlefields), The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's home), The Parthenon (Nashville), Oak Ridge American Museum of Science and Energy, Chattagnooa and the Tennessee Valley Railroad, Downtown Knoxville, Lookout Mountain, The Titanic Museum (Pigeon Forge), The Museum of Appalachia (Clinton), and The Lost Sea Adventure (Sweetwater)

How many on this list have you seen? Which one on the list would you most like to see?

My family stayed at a KOA campground in Tennessee, when I was ten, on our way to Florida. Elvis was still alive and living in his house, and Dollywood didn't exist. That's all I remember!

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

Can I make an unsolicited plug for the digital Simplify Magazine? For any digital magazine (it seems) to last more than a couple of issues is a good sign, and they're already working on the third. It's enjoyably diverse, occasionally even unexpected, and well written.

Linked from The Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond