Wednesday Hodgepodge - 18 May 2016

1. Tell us about a time you found yourself 'in the middle of nowhere'. Was this deliberate?

It was deliberate in that we had to pass through it going from Point A to Point B. We made it to a part of Texas that was absolute Booneyville. There was nothing around except for a stop sign and I almost missed that. I would love to live there. I would love to be out in the middle of nowhere. I grew up in the woods and I just do not like anything at all about living in a city or town. We live in a town of about 10,000 people and it may as well be Houston, as far as I'm concerned.

2. What's something you're 'in the middle of'' today or this week?

I am running out of space on both my computer's hard drive and my external hard drive. I have multiple backups from several different computers on the external hard drive. In some cases, things have been backed up several times, as in I have the same exact picture file 20 times. So, I have been going through culling files trying to regain hard drive space in both places. I am removing multiple files, using a heavy hand on deleting unimportant photographs (as in photos that are blurry or otherwise bad and shouldn't have been saved anyway), and getting rid of files that are no longer necessary (paperwork from old jobs, etc.). I am also changing the way the files are organized on the hard drives. This is taking FOREVER, but hopefully, I will regain usable space and be able to quickly find the files when I need them.

3. At what age do you think 'middle age' begins? What does it mean to be 'middle aged'?

I would think that middle age would be in the 40s or 50s. I guess the only real way to determine the middle is to know where the end it, which none of us do. :) In my family, several people in my upline have died at the age of 76, or in the month of their 76th birthday, which means their middle age was 38, which is still pretty young, in my opinion.

One way that I see middle age is that we are in the middle of our children and our parents. We have folks above us and folks below us. With this perspective in mind, I would be happy to be middle age forever because then we wouldn't lose our parents.

4. Ravioli, stuffed peppers, samosas, deviled eggs, steamed dumplings, pierogis, or a jelly donut...your favorite food (from this list!) with something yummy in the middle. Your favorite not on the list?

In this order: Pierogis, deviled eggs, ravioli, jelly donut, and stuffed peppers. I don't know that I've ever had samosas. My favorite foods not listed are: shrimp and cheesecake!

5. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying ''In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.' Would you agree? Have you found this to be true in your own life? Feel free to elaborate.

I think that I would agree with this statement. I think that opportunity lies in many places and if we find them in the most unlikely places, it would seem that in difficulty would be a good place to look. Sometimes things like major health issues give a person the opportunity to see things from a different perspective, to reassess their priorities, to see where their life needs to go. They can cause us to have to slow down and can lead us to what we are meant to do, but couldn't see before due to all the hustle and bustle of life.

The late, great funny man Robin Williams said this: "You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to", which I think goes along with Einstein's statement quite well.

6. What's a song you remember loving from your middle school years? Do you love it still?

One song that I remember from my middle school years was "Dance, Shout, Shake Your Body Down to the Ground" by Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. It was out the summer that my cousin and I spent some time at Aunt Mae's house in Calhoun Falls, South Carolina (1978).

My cousin and I choreographed a dance to the song and we and another girl (a cousin, too, but I didn't know it at the time) danced for the neighborhood kids. Yes, bashful me danced in front of people, actual, live humans! My cousin could do the Rock better than anybody that I knew and I couldn't do it worth anything. But it was a blast and I can still remember some of our moves. It still makes me smile. :)

Here is the song:


7. May 18th is National Visit Your Relatives Day. Will you celebrate? Which relative would you visit if time, distance, and expense were not considered?

It would take a little more than adjustments of time, distance, and money to see who I would most want to see. I would love to be able to visit with my daddy again.

Of those still on this earth, I would like to be able to visit in person a relative that misunderstood something that was said over the weekend. It would be easier to clear up this misunderstanding in person. None of the parties involved have enough time left on this earth to spend it upset over a misunderstanding.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

I saw this quote earlier today:

This is a problem that I have in huge portions. I have lots of creative ideas, ideas for stories, for paintings, for photographs, etc., but my creativity is stifled by fear of doing it wrong, of people laughing at it, of my efforts and end product not being good enough. I find it nearly impossible to just jump in there and go for it.

What about you? Is there something that you really, really want to do, but fear is keeping you from taking that next step? What is it?

Please answer in the comments or on your own blog. Either way, please leave a link to your blog in the comment section.

Please also check out David's post over at: Random Thoughts and Observations.  Thanks! 

Quotes Source: Saying Images