Wednesday Hodgepodge 30/12/15

Wednesday's Hodgepodge is brought to us courtesy of Joyce at 

 From this side of the pond

Pop over there to see other posts and if you want to join in add the link to your Hodgepodge blog post to the Linky List at the end of Joyce's post and don’t forget to visit at least your neighbours on the list.

Have fun!

1. Share a favourite memory/moment from the week of Christmas.

I think my favourite moment was when we sat down for Christmas dinner.  That’s what we’d all been building up to and to get there with a lovely dinner in front of you and to be able to enjoy it with family was such a good feeling.
2.  If someone wrote a book about your life based on the past year, what genre would it fall under? What would the title be?
It would definitely be called Life after School and I guess it would fall under the genre of facing and overcoming adversity and lifestyle changes.
3. What made you feel patriotic this year?
I’m not sure that I have been feeling particularly patriotic this year.
4. What experience from this past year would you like to do all over again?
My daughter’s wedding.
5. What song lyric sums up or is a reflection of your 2015?
Everything must change

6. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate 2015?  (10=stellar) Why?
A 6, maybe 7.   The first few months were definitely low scorers but the end of the year has been better so I’ve averaged it out.
7. What part of the upcoming year are you most excited about?
My son’s wedding in August.
8. Insert your own random thought here.

It’s amazing how resilient we can be if we try.  Just do it.

A tale of two turkeys

Well Christmas is over and we're all (hopefully) looking forward to the New Year.

We had a lovely Christmas.  This is the first year for a long time that I have actually enjoyed the build up to Christmas.  We spent it fairly quietly at home with MIL and my eldest son and his fiancee on Christmas Day.  My daughter and her wife joined us on Boxing Day and then the following day we visited other family members.

We ate, we drank, we played games, we snoozed - my son had the cheek to take a photo of me, hubby and MIL all asleep on the sofa which he circulated to family members.  This was after he had been asleep for a while and I missed the photo opportunity!

We also attended Mass on Christmas morning.  I'd hoped to come away from that feeling uplifted but the priest obviously didn't get the memo.  Never mind.  

And the turkeys?  You're wondering?

Well the first tale is of a turkey that nearly didn't make it out of the freezer.  My cousin e-mailed me the night before Christmas Eve as her phone line was down.  She wanted to wish me a happy Christmas and check we were all ok.  I was still wrapping presents at the time so didn't get around to answering her until the next morning.  In my reply I happened to mention that my presents were wrapped, shopping was done and the turkey was defrosting nicely.  

I got an unrepeatable message back as her turkey was still in her freezer and she wasn't at home!  Hopefully she managed to contact her hubby and retrieve the situation.  (I nearly didn't e-mail her at the time as we were just getting ready to do some last minute shopping!)

As for the second turkey tale, that relates to our own turkey.  One that I had got up early to stuff and start cooking before we headed off for church.

Hubby has a bad habit of leaving the oven ON when he's finished cooking.  Christmas morning he did a cooked breakfast for us all and he was extra careful to turn everything off when he'd finished, including the oven!  Fortunately I happened to check on the turkey before we went out and noticed.  It had probably only been off for about 15 minutes so not a disaster but if I hadn't noticed until we'd got back from church we would have been having a very late dinner.

But these are the memories we'll add to the stash of others we have, past and present.

I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and best wishes for a happy and peaceful New Year.