Nuts About Hodge Podging!

1. April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes. When did you last 'shower' attention on someone or have attention 'showered' on you? Did you love it, or did all that attention makes you squirm?

Christmas is good for showers. In 2012 during the hockey strike, David and I gave my hockey nut brother a large box with 12 individually wrapped gifts in it calling it a “12-Step Program for the Hockey Strike.” It had everything from York Peppermint Patties because to a hockey fan going through withdrawal they look like pucks to a Red Wings bar clock to a Red Wings greatest games DVD set. He loved it and laughed and smiled the whole time he opened it.

Last year, Dave, Laura, Rina and Tori returned the spotlight on me with my “Box Full of Sunshine. Every gift in the box was yellow from a yellow lip balm, to the DePauw t-shirt and mug Tori added to the “Ain't I just a freaking ray of sunshine?” travel mug, all packed with yellow wrapped candies. Did I squirm? I love giving gifts like that on occasion and I’ll probably do it more after feeling how loved and fun it is to receive them.


2. Share a favorite 'spring break' memory. Not talking about just the 'college spring break' thing, but any favorite spring break memory you'd like to share. Keep it family friendly please!

I always loved it when Tori and Rina were little and they spent half their Spring Break with me. Whether I was working outside or at home or if I wasn’t working, I took that time off so we could do some fun things. Once they moved to Indiana and were in high school spring break wasn’t so much aunt-niece time anymore, but now that they’re adults we still get together when they’re up this way. And they still get cooler and cooler as they get older like they always have! (I love them like they’re mine and I’m just as proud!)


3. It's National Pecan Month...are you a fan? If so, what's your favorite dish that calls for pecans?

I am definitely what I eat and I love nuts! ;) My favorite nuts are almonds and PECANS!! I love pecans plain, in salad, as part of caramel corn, cinnamon roasted and I do a cheese ravioli dish with roasted vegetables and either crashed pecans or walnuts that’s to die for!


4. 'Put all your eggs in one basket', 'egg on your face', 'rotten egg', 'walk on eggshells', or 'a good egg'...which egg-spression could most recently be applied to your own life?

I guess I always “walk on eggshells” if David gets upset with something inanimate. She can be snappy when he’s grumbly and he has a loud boomy voice. I try to let him be when he’s upset with something. It’s usually a 5 or 10 minute walk on the eggshells, but for a yapster like me it can be hard to keep quiet that long.


5. In my experience___________________________________.

It’s often better not to tell someone something that starts “In my experience” when your advice is unsolicited.


6. What's a favorite song with the word rain in its title or lyrics?

Kentucky Rain – I often love me some Elvis and that’s one of my favorites…which I need to listen to now.


7. What does the word hope mean to you?

It means doing what you can when you know you can’t do it alone and “knowing” it’s going to work. Walk MS is all about hope.


8. Insert your own random thought here.

Yesterday was not a good baseball day. The Reds and Red Sox had already lost and the Tigers were in Los Angles in a game that started the scoring with an Austin Jackson home run (his first of the year) which I missed watching the end of the Reds losing effort in St. Louis. Then, when the game was on the west coast and I had a morning appointment so, in accordance with Murphy’s strict laws, it went into extra innings! The Tigers lost in the tenth.

Some days it would pay to have a crystal ball and just leave Investigation Discovery on.