The Hodgepodge and A Bunch of Rocks

Participating in my mom's hodgepodge this week. You can head to her blog to join in the fun- it's not too late! 

If you're looking for my A-Z post, it is in the final question :) 

1. Find a penny. Look at the date and tell us something about your life or what you were doing that year? 

Well that was trickier than I thought. I rarely pay for anything in cash so I rarely have change in my wallet. But after digging around in my purse for a few minutes I remembered, hubby keeps a jar of coins on his desk. So! I found a penny and it was from 2001. In 2001 I was 10 turning 11 that September. I would have been finishing 5th grade and starting middle school in the fall. I believe this was during my basketball playing days. And we spent a lot of time on our boat that summer out on the river. 

2. Were you given an allowance as a child? Did you have to earn it in some way? Did you learn to save money when you were a child or is that something you figured out as an adult? 

I do believe we were given an allowance although I can't really remember how much it was or often we earned it. I know we did chores as a way to earn money. Example: pulling weeds for my dad- a penny per weed! Hah! But we also helped with doing the dishes, cleaning our room, dusting, washing baseboards etc. And we have always been taught to save. I feel like as a kid I was more apt to spend money quickly on little things but as I got older I became much more frugal. But my parents always taught us it was important to save your money and think about the future and I am so glad they modeled good money managing for us. 

3. April 23rd is National Take A Chance Day...what's a chance you need or want to take?

Well as I've gotten back into my blog, I have really loved the writing process and I'd like to do it more. So I'm thinking of taking an online creative writing class this summer to see how I like it. 

4. What's some outdated slang you seem to use a little too often? 

I would say all of my slang is outdated.  I don't really know what the "cool kids" say these days which tells me its probably not what I say... Right now I can't even think of slang I use although I know I use it regularly. But alas, this is what happens when you blog after a full workday. Your brain forgets words. I'll have to go scout out other people's answers and see if anything rings a bell. 

5. It's National Poetry month and I always like to make us work our brains a little...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
....you fill in the rest with something original...

Roses are red

Violets are blue

My class just started poetry.

Can't wait to see what they can do!

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I'm going to use this space today for my A-Z Blog Challenge entry, which if you've been following along you know I've been taking you through some of my overseas adventures from my time living there as a teenager. 

R is for Rocks

Picture it. A family of four sitting in their favorite italian restaurant on a Friday evening talking about the upcoming weekend. The kids are teenagers bracing for  a weekend of some forced family fun. 

"So where are we going tomorrow?" daughters ask curiously.

"We're going to checkout Stonehenge" the mom replies. 

"What's that?" they ask in return with puzzled looks on their faces.

"Pretty much a bunch of rocks."  dad chimes in. 

"Wait what? We're driving an hour to go see a bunch of rocks?"

Parents, should you ever want to take your teenagers to see Stonehenge and you hope to keep spirits high...this may not be the way to describe it. However, they weren't wrong. It is a bunch of rocks. We drove about an hour and we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden as we came over a hill, in the distance, in the middle of a field was a bunch of rocks. But giant rocks! Arranged in a peculiar way. With a curious nature of how they got there. We parked and did a audio tour- the one where you hold an audio-set to your ear at different checkpoints to hear some info. There are a lot of different theories about the rocks- some more scientific than others but pretty much everyone is in agreement as to their position being related to the summer solstice and then also perhaps to burial grounds. It was a beautiful setting, the English countryside as the backdrop, with interesting information and we actually ended up thoroughly enjoying ourselves. And even went back with visitors without complaint on future trips. 

But I always love to tell the story of how our parents told us where we were headed because I assure you the looks on our faces were priceless. 

Photo Credit: My mom's scrapbook...remember when people had real photos in actual scrapbooks?