Hodgepodge ~ September 23, 2026

Good morning and happy Hodgepodge Day!  Thank you Joyce for hosting us each week! 

1. Fall arrives this week in the northern hemisphere. Does it look/feel like fall where you live?What's something you love to do this time of year that makes you feel its officially fall? 

After 7 weeks of record temperatures, cooler weather has finally arrived.  By cooler weather, I mean low 80's this week, but that sounds glorious. 

I would love to go to a football game, whether college or high school.

*If you're answering today from the southern hemisphere feel free to sub spring for the word fall. 

2. What's a small daily task or chore that always seems to fall through the cracks when your schedule gets busy?

If I am super tired at night, I will use eye make up remover and a make up wipe remover instead of my normal nightly routine.  I try to wash my face before I get too tired at night to avoid this.

3. What's something you're falling for lately? 

I am falling for Canada, Alaska, & anywhere in the Pacific Northwest!

Locally, I am falling for taking walks outside.  Let's just hope I don't actually fall as I am prone to do!

4.  Pumpkin is a popular flavor this time of year.  Are you a fan? What's your favorite pumpkin flavored food or beverage?  

I began eating pumpkin flavored things about 6-7 years ago.  My favorite is a pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Here is a new recipe I am going to try:

Ingredients:
1 cup pumpkin purée
2 large eggs
⅓ cup pure maple syrup
¼ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tbsp avocado oil or melted coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract1 
¾ cups oat flour
¼ cup vanilla protein powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
¼ tsp salt
½ cup chocolate chips (plus extra for the top)
Instructions: 
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and line an 8.5 x 4.5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper.
 Whisk wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, maple syrup, yogurt, oil, vanilla) until smooth, then mix in dry ingredients (oat flour, protein powder, baking soda, spice, salt) until just combined.
 Fold in chocolate chips, pour into the pan, top with extra chips, and bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before slicing

5.What's something you wish would never change? Explain. 

Oh my goodness.  I go back to happy times with my family when my daughters were younger.  I also wish I could have frozen time on my recent trip to Canada & Alaska.  

I also wish prices would never go up anymore!

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I am so thankful for where I live, my summer trip, my daughters, my family and friends.  However, life is still comes at me strong with storms.  This was encouraging to me this week to keep working on rebuilding and rebuilding some more.

Skagway ~ September 22, 2026

It's the first day of Fall!!  Perfect timing for a new season and I am embracing change and ready to embrace the cooler temperatures of Alaska.  

 Y'all, I am still working my way through my 2 week vacation :)!  This day was one of our favorites from the Alaskan cruise.  When you wake up to views like this, how can it not be a good day?

Hello Alaska!  We are growing more fond of you with every passing day!

Today's stop was the town of Skagway.

We did some souvenir shopping in each port.

We stopped for lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company.

We then got ready to board our train ride.  This is a popular excursion in Skagway and I recommend it 100%!  The scenery from this train ride is one to be rivaled.

Sharing a few highlights here so I don't share all 100 photos probably taken from this 3 hour train ride! It was such a beautiful day!

We briefly entered Canada on this train ride so you see both flags at the border.

We spent most of our time standing on the platform outside to take pictures & videos.

After the train ride and boarding the ship, we sailed through the inside passage.  My goodness, we took probably another 100 pictures this evening from the ship.  We were walking on the top deck and with every loop, we took more pictures.

We were having a ball.

Then later, Isabella texted to see if we wanted to do something. Brook took this picture of me and texted back, Mom is under a blanket right now :).  It was chilly folks!

A pretty view from our room with flowers that were sent to us from housekeeping.

The views from this day were the most stunning from the cruise. Ending the evening with this view wasn't bad either.

I should wrap up the trip with one more trip post....I think!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Hello Monday ~ September 21, 2026

 Good morning friends!  Life kept me busy the end of last week, so I missed blogging for a few days.  I hope you all had a good weekend!  I am recording today a little recap of last week and the weekend.  

I spend a little time each week with my mom while my dad is teaching a course at the medical school.  I took this picture last week when I was there which sums up my dad so accurately:  his bible and an anatomy book!  The only thing missing from this is a book on travel, which is also a passion of his.  My father has been an anatomy professor for his career and still teaches classes from time to time like he is doing this fall.  

Tuesday morning I waited online in a que to to score Harry Styles tickets.

My daughter started her full time job last week so I had a celebratory dinner to celebrate her, Wade's birthday and scoring Harry Styles tickets! I ordered the brisket from a local restaurant bringing Texas brisket to Tennessee. I served it with roasted veggies, roasted potatoes, sourdough and key lime pie for dessert.

Wednesday night, I started our fall bible study with some ladies from my church.  We are studying the book of Habakkuk.  This is all about how do we praise the Lord even when life is hard? What does it mean to trust God when life doesn't go as planned? This is a short book to read to remind us of God's faithfulness in confusing, hard times.

Thursday night I attended a Mahjong night with work.  It is held at a beautiful home in town.  Here are just a few snapshots:

I worked 12 hours this day, so therefore, there was no Friday blog.  I was completely exhausted.  I worked from home Friday and spent the day at home and it was glorious.  I did leave for a bit to join Jenn for dinner then we came back here to watch a movie.

Saturday, I walked outside and then spent the day inside watching some football and doing random things.  I went to Jenn's that evening for about an hour for a short visit with her and friends.  Then I came home to watch the Ole Miss/LSU football game.  It was the biggest rival game of the weekend.  Go Rebels! So glad they won!

Sunday was low key and here we are at another Monday.

Have a great start to your week!

Hodgepodge ~ September 16, 2026

 Happy Hodgepodge Day!  Thank you Joyce for hosting.

1. How do you define beauty? 

Kindness and confidence portray so much beauty in a person.  Beauty on the outside only goes so far.  It is much more about what is on the inside.

2. Have you ever taken a trip by train? If so where did you go and what did you think of the experience? If not do you have any desire to do so? Where would you like to go? (You might find inspiration here-The Best Train Trips in The World)

Well, yes I have, thanks for asking.  My first train experience was from Minneapolis, Minnesota to West Glacier, Montana.  It was 24 hours on the train and so cool to go through North Dakota and see so much of the USA I would have never probably seen otherwise. In 2013, we did a quick trip from Washington DC to Charlotte, NC so the girls could have their first real train ride.

We spent a month living in Brussels, Belgium so we took trains a lot during that time.

We quoted this for years..."de volgende halte is" means "the next stop is" in Dutch.

This was the train we took for a weekend trip from Brussels to Paris.

We took the chunnel train from Brussels to London on Isabella's 13th birthday.

More recently as I shared here, I took Amtrak last month from Vancouver to Seattle.  If you're wondering, the business class ticket was worth the small upgrade price.

I will write about this train ride later, but we took the most amazing train ride excursion in Alaska too.

I have also taken the train a many a times in New York City, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Paris and throughout Belgium.

Thank you for reading my train talk! :)

3. Shell shocked, bombshell, bandshell, shellacking, in a nutshell, walking on eggshells...choose one and tell us why you chose it, or how it relates to your life in some way currently.

I would say in a nutshell, I am feeling content with life now.  I am so thankful for the growth I have experienced through being alone and the transitions that have happened this year.  In a nutshell, I am claiming peace for my life and learning/practicing not giving anyone else power to take that away. It is a good place to be!

4. Tacos, pistachios, oysters, clams, eggs...your favorite food on the list that comes in/with a shell? 

Eggs would be my favorite from this list.  I like pistachios, but I like them unshelled, like my eggs, ha! 

5. Are birthdays a big deal in your house? Is your own birthday a big deal in some way? Elaborate. 

Yes ma'am. I actually just said those words to my daughter two weeks ago.  I mentioned I may be traveling near her birthday but would be back on her actual day.  I told her every birthday is a big deal and to celebrate.  Here is a link to a past post on my kids birthday party themes.  I loved planning their parties!

Here are a few of my birthdays in years past:

This is with friends from church at my 54th party.

With my sister on my 50th

This was 40 something

This would have been 44 when I lived in Colombia.  My sweet Colombian friend wanted to celebrate my birthday with me.  She knew only hello and thank you in English and that was about all I knew in Spanish too at the time, but we sure laughed a lot together.

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

Last week the ladies at my church had our bible study kick off gathering at the rooftop of a local building overlooking the square.  We had appetizers and desserts surrounded by friends and a pretty view!

It felt appropriate to end this post with a picture of a train, ha!

Enjoy your day!