Wednesday Hodgepodge - 6 January 2016

1. Are you ready for new? Is 2016 likely to be very different than 2015? Do you want it to be?

Ready or not, it is here. I will have my 51st birthday this year, so only 49 years to get to 100. Funsies! Haha. I would love for 2016 to be different in some ways than 2015, but it looks already like it is going to be much the same. Another day, another penny, another gray hair.


2. January 6th is National Technology Day. Currently, what is your single biggest struggle or frustration when it comes to technology?

I can't figure out the Android phone! I had trouble with my iPhone at first, learning curve and all that, but this Android phone is way too confusing and nowhere near as user-friendly as the iPhone. Where is a Marine when you need him?


3. It's that time again...time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words (or phrases) they'd like to see banished (for over-use, mis-use, and general uselessness) in 2016. You can read more about the decision making process here, but this year's top vote getters are-

So (at the start of every single sentence), conversation (as in hotly debated topics where we're invited to 'join the conversation'), problematic, stakeholder, price point, secret sauce, break the Internet, walk it back, presser, manspreading (common in larger cities where some men take up the entire bus or train seat by sitting wide), vape, giving me life (refers to anything that may excite a person or make them laugh), and physicality

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add?

"I know, right?" If you're agreeing with something that I said, what is the point of asking me if I agree with it? Of course, I'm not going to think that I am wrong, and obviously you don't either if you're agreeing with me. I can't help but laugh every time I hear someone use this phrase.

Baby mama and baby daddy and old lady…The first two of these phrases are just ridiculous and a sign of how immoral our society has gotten. The last one is just plain rude and disrespectful to the woman that a man supposedly loves.


4. Share one of your current health related goals.

I would like to get back to a dairy-free, sugar-free, Coca-Cola-free lifestyle. It was so much easier to let go of these things the summer that I almost died. I lost 20 pounds that summer. I took the bad habits back on after my surgery and hospital stay (2010) after the hospital tried to starve me to death (just gave me salt water disguised as soup!). I haven't been able to let go of them since. I know that I would be healthier overall. I will have to keep trying.


5. Let's talk fifty shades of gray. As in the color. Gray is currently a popular color in home decor, paint, wardrobes, hair, wedding party attire, and more. Are you a fan? Do you have the color in some variation in your home or wardrobe? Gray hair, the old gray mare, gray matter, gray area...which gray idiom can you most relate to right now?

I have gray hair and have gotten much more since our youngest son joined the US Marine Corps. It is unreal. I guess since I've had babies, that would make it the Old Gray Mare. One of the color pairings that I liked when I was in my 20s was pink and gray. I am not opposed to gray now, either.


6. Certain foods are considered 'lucky' if eaten on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. Cooked greens to bring economic fortune, black-eyed peas or lentils also symbolize money, pork which symbolizes progress, fish for good luck, and if you're in Spain 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight. Did you eat any lucky foods on the first day of the year? Is that a tradition in your home? Of the foods listed, which most appeals to you?

In our household, the traditional New Year's Day meal is ham, black-eyed peas, and collard greens. I like the grapes idea and first heard of it from a customer the other day.


7. What's the single biggest time waster in your life and what, if anything, will you do about it this year?

Honestly, the job I have at the moment is a big waste of my time. No improvements are being made there at the business or in my pocketbook and there are much better uses of my time, like genealogy! I know that I sound ungrateful to have this job. Really, I am not. It got us over a little hump, and for that I am thankful, but it will never get us over the big one that we have and it is wrecking my blood pressure.


8. Insert your own random thought here.

Although I love the cooler weather that we have been having, I look forward to the spring wildflowers. After all of the rain that we've had this past fall, we should have a bumper crop of them!

And on the topic of trust today....

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared, but only men of character are trusted. - Zig Ziglar

Quote source: Trust Quotes and Sayings