Wednesday Hodgepodge - 19 October 2016

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1. What would you say is your strongest sense?

My vision is not good, so that's not it. Taste is probably normal. I have a high tolerance for pain, so "touch" isn't it.  It would have to be a tie between hearing and smell.  I am extremely sensitive to smells and fragrances often cause me severe headaches and difficulty breathing. They make my lungs burn when I breathe them.  I have trouble hearing on the phone because I can hear the background noises that most people do not pick up on.  Hearing all those noises blurs out what people are saying to me, so I can't hear the actual conversation properly.  It is the same off of the telephone, too. I can hear so many other noises that I often have to ask people to repeat themselves because their voices are wiped out by the background hums.

2. Do you believe in the idea of a 'sixth sense'? Why or why not? 

Yes, I do.  It is the gift of discernment.   I have experienced it many times in my life, most often in the form of dreams, but other ways, too.   I dreamed the genders of all of our babies and those of others, even the pregnancies of other women when they didn't know they were pregnant.   I had a dream one night to get up and check the offender registry.  It was a "Do it NOW!" feeling. I did and found out that one of the guys that had moved in next door was on the offender registry for doing things with a 12 year old girl.   I was given the message about illnesses of various people and was correct. There have been many experiences, too many to list here.   I have learned that if I do not act on them, something bad will happen because I did not listen.   I do my best not to ignore or disregard the messages anymore, no matter how much it may scare me to share the message.  I know it is the Holy Spirit and I need to obey.  People think one is nuts when a conversation starts out, "I had a dream…"

3. When do you most feel like a slave to time? Explain.

Most of the time, I am not a slave to time, but circumstance and normal body needs (sleep, bathroom, meals).  The time that I am most a slave to time is when there are doctor appointments and  other places in the "have to" category.  By nature, I am a night person. I function best staying up all night and sleeping during the day, at most, 6 hours. Any longer than that hurts. But, if there is a 9 o'clock appointment in the City, I have to at least try to sleep at night so I don't fall asleep driving. Those are hard nights and cranky nights because I can't sleep.

4. Have you ever worked in a restaurant? How would you rate the experience? If you could own a restaurant what kind would it be?

No, I have never worked in a restaurant.  However, we had 9 people living in our house at one time for about 10 years.   That isn't exactly like working in a restaurant, but I imagine cooking for them all and cleaning up after meals is coming pretty close!

I have often thought of having a restaurant of some sort, but generally sit down until the feeling passes.  If I were to have one, I think it would be interesting to have a tea room or a pizza parlor or, maybe, an ice cream parlor that also sold other things.

5. Ever traced your family tree? Share something interesting you learned there.

This question made me laugh!  Have I ever!!!  YES!  I have spent the last 37 years researching my family tree and history as well as those of a few other people.  It is my passion, my life's work.

One interesting (to me, anyway) family story that I have is my 3rd Great-grandpa Frith didn't want his daughter Josephine to marry Robert Black.  She was 17 and he was 38 years old in 1869.  I have no clue why Grandpa Frith didn't want them to marry, unless it was the extreme age difference.  Anyway, as I understand it, they got married on a boat in the middle of the lake.  I guess they figured Grandpa Frith's gun couldn't shoot that far!   As I understand it, he ultimately disowned her for this marriage. I have no documentation either way on this.  One thing about researching family history and lore is that questions may get answered, but they lead to about 20 times more questions!

6. What did your childhood bedroom look like?

There are only two that I remember.  One was in the house at 508 Wellington Street, Anderson, South Carolina.  My parents had four children and a two bedroom house.  Of course, they needed one of the bedrooms.   Daddy put a partition wall through the middle of the other bedroom.  The boys had one side and the walls were dark blue.  They had a set a bunkbeds and one chest of drawers.   On our side, to start with, there was a double bed.   Later, we got bunkbeds, too.  We also had a dresser with a mirror and a chest of drawers.  The chest sat at the foot of the beds between the beds and the door.  The dresser sat up against the side of the beds so that I could use it as a ladder to the top bunk.  Our walls were pink.  There was a doorway, but not a door, between our side and the boys' side of the room.  It had wooden floors and was in an old mill house.   It was great!

The next room, which was the last room that I occupied in my parents' home, was not much bigger than a standard walk-in closet.  Again, I shared the room with my sister.  The room was about as long as our bunkbeds, with just a little space left over between the beds and the wall.  The walls were paneled. The dresser was in there, still to the side of the bed, but along the wall rather than right beside the bed.   I was still able to use it to get up to the top bunk because it was only about a foot away from the bed.  There was also a built-in wardrobe with two drawers under it.  The room was at most 8 feet by 7 feet. Very small, but we made do.  This room was in a mobile home.  This mobile home was maybe 10 feet wide by 56 feet long. It was very small, but we lived in the woods and spent most of the time outside anyway.   It got blown away by a tornado, with my daddy still in it, at some point after we moved here to Texas.  Daddy survived that experience, praise the Lord!

7. Anyone who knows me knows I love_______________________?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love genealogy and photography would be close behind it.   I could talk all day long, to the chagrin of many folks, about genealogy and family history research.

Tell your stories, folks, before you are no longer around to tell them.  Get them from your parents and grandparents, too.  Don't leave your children with the same questions that you have had regarding those that have gone on before you.  Don't say, "I'll do that later."   You may not have a "later".  Do it now!  Start with the questions that you would love to ask your forefathers and foremothers.  For ideas on other questions, there are websites all over the place with suggestions about questions for this type of journaling.  However you have to do it, just do it!

Here is just one of many sites with questions to ask your loved ones while you still can: 37 Questions to Ask Your Grandparents (and Parents!)

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

I wish that I had paid more attention to my grandparents' stories when I was a little girl.  Though I saw them often, I wish that I had made more time for them once I became an adult.   Cherish the time you have left with those you love.  You never know when the end will come for either of you and it will be too late.  Whenever anyone passes away, their stories go with them if no one has taken the time to record them in some way, be that on paper or video or audio tape.  It may not seem important now, but believe me, it will be important to someone down the road.

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