8 January HodgePodge

It's a wicked cold but sunny Wednesday morning!

I'm participating in the "hodgepodge" questions because I loved questions 2 and 4. 

1. At the end of every year (or at least since the mid-1970's) Lake Superior State University posts a list of words they think should be banished from the Queen's English for misuse, overuse, and/or general uselessness. You can read more about the decision making process here, but this year's list includes-

cringe, game changer, era, dropped, IFKYK (If you know you know), 

sorry not sorry, skibidi, 100%, utilize, and period. 

Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly or even just every now and then? How many did you have to look up? Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word/phrase not on the list you'd like to add? If so do share, then tell us why. 

Era is only a thing because of Taylor, let's face it. Do I use it? When I'm referring to a specific time period of  course! I don't use  "Cringe" a lot because that's so.....millennial era hahah. Game changer...not sure I personally use it but maybe on occasion? I only use dropped when appropriate. IFKYK is sooooo contrived and overused on social media. UGH. sorry not sorry is another thing I don't say but i know SO many who do and they  sound uneducated in my opinion. Skibidi I had to google. Good Lord what does this say about us Americans? yikes. Not something that should be part of the English Language. hahah 100% again I use this but only when in the appropriate manner. I often use the word utilize especially in my writing. The word period?   um.  Wow. Can't think of any words I'd want to add to the list. I rarely think on such things. Who has time?? 

2. Your favorite soup? Do you make this one yourself or is it from a can? 

Canned soups are chock full of sodium so I avoid those unless I'm using one in a recipe like my creamy chicken and bowtie pasta/veggie dish which I add Low Sodium Cream of Chicken soup with herbs to.  I also use cream of tomato when making my homemade 3 bean chili. For soups I slow cook, I definitely make from scratch. Our current fave right now is my Stuffed Pepper Soup which I make with either ground bison (if on sale) or Beyond Meat ground "beef" (plant based). 

3. How do you feel about winter? What's one winter activity you look forward to? 

I live in the Northeast for a reason! I live in eastern NY which is vastly different from where I grew up in central (upstate) New York. We had SNOW and LOTS of it, when I was a child.  I also went to college (undergrad) in Rochester, NY where we got hit with blizzards OFTEN. My senior year had such a horrible early April blizzard that the NYS Thruway was shut down from Utica to Buffalo and my parents couldn't make it to my senior piano recital! I moved to the Capital Region for grad school and love it here.   Here we don't so much snow. People from downstate/NYC consider Albany "upstate" but those of us from western or central NY consider Albany the eastern part and upstate is anything west and north of the Capital Region. So yes I like Winter because I love all 4 seasons and the fact we don't have to really worry about tornadoes or hurricanes or super poisonous snakes and other creatures like in the south. I've learned to embrace Winter in the last few years by going outdoors daily.  Even if it's just for a quick walk around the block. One thing I look forward to every winter is spending a day in the southern Adirondacks by walking a woods trail if the snow isn't more than 8 inches (because I don't own snowshoes) and visit my cousin Kenny and we go out to lunch.  It's something I totally enjoy and look forward to. We usually do this in February during my Winter Break from teaching but now that I'm retired, I plan on going up at the end of this month if the weather stays mild. 

4. The Pantone color of the year for 2025 is mocha mousse. What say you? The website describes it as 'a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nourishes us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort'. Is this a color I might find in your home or wardrobe? Is it one you might add in some big or small way in the year ahead? 

Well my home is usually ahead of the trends sometimes because I've had a mocha color on my family room walls since about 2009ish. It's a tad bit lighter in color than the one in the link above. It was called coffee latte or something like that.  Think of a coffee with a large scoop of cream mixed in. Our floors in the living room, dining room and family room are bamboo or hardwood oak and also a rich dark khaki color. Almost like a medium shade of pine wood. I have some mocha mousse color in various pieces of decor and my piano is a dark brown color. 

You won't find many clothing items in my closet with this color although I do have a beautiful sweater in a deep mocha brown and this year's riding boots are a deep mocha color. I'll probably try to find a pair of spring flats in this mocha mousse color or possibly a spring sweater or shorts. I'll have to check some of the fashion sites I like to shop. 

In a similar, but not really, vein...if I were to offer you a choice right now of either a cup of mocha or a cup of mousse which would you say yes to? 

I'd LOVE a cup of mousse but I'm off all baked goods/decadent desserts until mid-February. If I were to have a mocha drink, it would be heavy on the coffee, light on the chocolate and only with unsweetened almond milk. 

5. Which of the following winter related idioms can best be applied to your life in some way right now? Choose one, then tell us why you chose it.  

snowed under, on thin ice, tip of the iceberg, chill out, break the ice, snowball effect, not a snowball's chance in hell, get cold feet, the cold shoulder 

I would choose "chill out". I'm actually  embracing the Hygge practice this year so this would seem like the appropriate phrase to describe my life right now. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

this fruit cup I put together for breakfast is delicious!

What fun questions!

To participate, head over to Joyce's blog!