Wednesday Hodgepodge

It's time for Wednesday Hodgepodge with Joyce, who blogs at From This Side of The Pond.  Each week she'll pose some questions for us to answer. What a great way to journal life.

1. If your life had a theme song for this past year what would it be? Oh man! I love music so much and think that so many songs can relate to life, but there are two that I just really love right now and they are...Goodness of God by CeCe Winans, and I just heard the song To Know Me by Lauren Daigle and I just love it. But there are so many others. It depends on the phase of my life, or where in my life we are talking about, but overall, these two are ones I really like right now. 

2. Chocolate cake, chocolate milkshake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate truffle, chocolate mousse, chocolate candy bar or a fudgy chocolate brownie...of the chocolate treats listed, which one is your favorite? Wait! I can only choose one? I'll go with chocolate cake. I like the others but really love chocolate cake, especially if it has vanilla buttercream frosting. Which one have you tasted most recently? I actually made chocolate cake last week to bring to work. I share the recipe in this post, but I really need to update it. There's not even a picture. Or maybe you don't like chocolate???

I couldn't find my recipe for chocolate cake, so I'll share these Peanut Butter Snickers Cups, with a healthier twist. Link here. 

3. What has surprised you recently? Well, the fact that we finally pulled the trigger on a vehicle kind of surprises me (see #6 below). Sometimes we tend to overthink and wait for a loonng time to make decisions, sometimes too long. 

It is surprising that we are in the last half of the year.

I will also say I surprised myself last Tuesday when I went to a few car dealerships by myself to get a feel for a few different vehicles and ask some questions on my own. I was more confident than I felt going into it.  

4. September 19th is National Voter Registration Day in the US. Are you registered to vote in whatever state or country you happen to live in right now? Yes, I am a registered voter If not, why not? Not counting a political race, what's something you've had to vote on recently? Hmm....We did (though I'm not in the city limits so didn't get to vote) recently have to vote on the school levy which sadly failed. 

5. Do you like to hike? I LOVE to hike. I'm not always a fan of really hard hikes, but sometimes those offer the best views. Living in the PNW there are always places to hike. For some reason I think of a hike as something that has a good amount of elevation, though it can be anything really. A hike is defined as a long walk, especially in the country or wilderness. If so, when's the last time you went hiking and where'd ya go? Hmmm...I'd say the weekend we went up to Seabrook, Wa. We took the kids on a few small hikes through the woods. As far as a harder hike, probably Last October. When we were on Anderson Island in June, we did some hiking. My hubby has been dealing with plantar fasciitis so we haven't done much of anything that involves long distances.  If you're not a hiker are you a walker? I do also enjoy walking. Is walking (for exercise, etc.) part of your daily/weekly routine? It is. I like taking walks. For several months I was walking everyday on our road, sometimes twice a day, but for whatever reason, the last few weeks, I just haven't felt like it. It's made getting my 10,000 steps in a bit challenging. I think a lot of it is that it's darker in the mornings and gets dark earlier now. 

Last year, my hubby and I hiked a trail not far from home that was really pretty. It was mostly flat with a little elevation gain, but it was a workout. We want to go back. Any hike with water is my favorite. 

Multnomah Falls is a very popular hiking spot in the Columbia River Gorge. It's been a few years since we've hiked to the top. 

In June we took a small trip to Anderson Island, Wa and enjoyed some hikes through the woods and along the beach. 

This old fireplace is leftover from an old homestead. 

While we were on our trip to the NE states, we often stopped off at spots to stretch our legs and we would explore the area, taking some short hikes into the woods. It was definitely worth it. Above photo and next two from that trip.

Beacon Rock is another popular hiking spot. We did this back in June of 2020 before "some people" decided it was dangerous for all of us to be out breathing fresh air! We were actually supposed to hike Mt. St Helens and we had a list of hikes we were going to do before that one to help get us ready, but that hike was canceled. 

The hike to the top is partly a series of switchbacks set into the mountains side. I've seen people do it but didn't think I'd like it because I don't like heights, but I actually did pretty good. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. The grandkids are with us for the next 4 days. They came yesterday morning and will leave Saturday night. I know we'll have lots of fun, but nights can be rough. Neither are amazing sleepers...Indy is 5 and he will sleep but he's a restless sleeper and at about 2:00, came into our room and slept in our bed...I might have bruises on my back from him kicking me...haha..JK. Pepper woke up several times and I finally came out into the living room and sat on recliner and then laid her on one of our couches and slept on the other one. Hopefully tonight is better. Often times, the first night is through roughest. 

We also did " a thing" last Sunday. We bought our first brand new car. We've been married 31 years and have never had a new car. We've always just bought used cars, that were in great condition, and we drive them til they die. Earlier this year we gave our 2002 Suzuki XL7 to a friend who was in need. It almost had 300,000 miles on it, but has been our favorite vehicle. It needed some work and we didn't want to put the money into it. He needed a car and we said if he wanted to fix it, we'd just give him the car. It's still running! Our other car is a 2005 Ford Focus and it has almost 200,000 miles. We bought them both used. The focus is still running, but we had to put more money into it this year and my hubby can't drive his work car on weekends so we really only had one car between us. We have been "shopping around" for months. We finally settled on a Subaru Forester Touring. My hubby did a great job getting us to a price we could do (because we are very much about a budget, and honestly we haven't had car payments in probably almost 10 years). We are super happy with it. I love it, but have a lot of "learning" to do when it comes to what things mean and what it's capable of. 

I will say, when the guy was telling us everything it can do, I looked at him and said "are we humans that stupid that we need all these reminders and alerts"? However, with so much to distract us, I guess maybe some things are necessary, though I think a lot of that can be distracting as well. 

That's the most exciting news I have. Not much else is going on and I'm so beyond tired from not sleeping good last night. 

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin