It's a Doodle Hodgepodge!

So, I was actually prepared today.  I got online early and looked at the Hodgepodge questions so I could mull them over in my mind all day.  I had my "Random Thought" for the end of the hodgepodge already provided to me by last night's events... oh dear - I'll just let you all discover that at the end of this posting... so lets hope that with all of my "prep work" I've actually got concise, interesting answers to this week's Hodgepodge.  Or not.  Whatever - thanks for taking time to visit!  :-)

1.  Chinese New Year will be celebrated on February 10th, and 2013 is the year of the snake. When did you last see a snake?  Are you okay around snakes or do they give you the shivers? 

My kids know that I don't do reptiles.  Or rodents.  Or raptors.  Can I just say any animal whose species or sub-species starts with "r"?  that sounds good to me.  I don't think I really thought of snakes either way until I was babysitting for a kid who had a boa constrictor and thought it would be HILARIOUS to come up behind me while we were watching a movie and put the snake AROUND MY NECK.  

The kid lived to see the next day.  Which, really, he should be very very very thankful for, seeing as how I was climbing the roof in terror and screaming like a banshee. And I never babysat him again.

I think the last snake I saw was in the Boise zoo, which is where I like to see them, if at all, thankyouverymuch.

2. The color red in Chinese culture usually means good luck.  Do you believe in luck? 

Not really - I find when people are saying "Good Luck" they are just passing along the wish that whatever situation goes well and that they wish the best.  Nothing wrong with that!  There are certainly people who may seem "luckier" than others, but I prefer to believe that circumstances alter the cases, and God has a different plan and direction for everyone... who is to say what constitutes as "luck", honestly.

3. Sledding-ice skating-building a snowman...if given a choice, which activity would you choose?  Which of the three have you done most recently?  

I like all three!  The most recent activity I did was sledding, over Christmas.  It took only a couple of turns to realize that, hmmm, my hip isn't quite as healed from my surgery as I would like it to be in order to stand sledding, and so perhaps I really shouldn't be doing this right now.  But it was fun!  

My daughter's birthday was on Dec 29 and the whole family went ice skating.  I sat on the bleachers and held all the coats.  I learned my lesson from sledding!

4.  Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited as saying, "The years teach much which the days never knew."  Where have you seen this quote played out in your own life?  

Oh geez - isn't it just like Joyce to throw in a real thinker of a question in between snowmen and cupcakes?  Ummm - this is definitely worthy of its own blog!  Suffice it to say - as I get older, I realize how very little I knew as a child, as a teenager, in college, and in early motherhood.  I can't wait to see how much I will know 5, 10, 20 years from now.

5. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?  

At our squadron spouse's Christmas party.  Yummy.

6. What's something you can't say no to?  

A call from my husband, a call from my best friend, someone asking for prayer, a chocolate chip cookie, a glass of Chardonnay, a walk on the beach, a hike in the forest, a cup of coffee in the morning with a blueberry and streusel muffin, a massage, a hug.

7.  Are you a doodler?  

Bahahahahaaaaa!!!  Ok, read on to the "Random Thought" for the answer to this one!  hehehe...

8.  Insert your own random thought here.  

DISCLAIMER:  This story is not a typical story from me.  It's a little embarrassing, a lot funny, but it does mention certain parts of the body that some might find, well, embarrassing.  So, if you are easily offended, please stop reading here and have a great week. Here's a fun YouTube video to make you laugh, as a consolation for not having an appropriate, non-embarrassing thought for you this week.   If not, then read along and laugh along with me!

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OK - this is a hilarious story - bear with me as we go through the details so you can get the whole scenario.  And if you don't find it hilarious, rather disturbing, well, I'm sure you're not alone!  What can I say...

So - I'm sure a lot of you are on Pinterest, or at least know what a procrastination tool lovely resource it can be.  We just moved, into a large home, which means we have to find new places for all of our things.  Long story short, we have a large wall on our staircase that you see when you enter the front door, and so it needs pictures or something there.  Lovely Pinterest, I found a cool idea to make my own decorative initial for our last name and to display it on our wall along with other artwork.  This is the original post that I got my idea from.

So, off I went to Hobby Lobby, where I purchased a large cardboard "H" and I brought it home and doodled my design with pencil.  Here is what it looked like before the doodles:

Then, I took my handy dandy glue gun and traced over my doodles, embellishing a bit as I went along.

It was at this point that I stood back, looked at it, and cracked up.

Ladies and gentlemen, without meaning to (I promise!), I had doodled - and traced in hot glue - the shape of a, er, male part.  (I'm NOT going to type what it is called because then I get all kind of crazies looking at my blog)

Do you see it?  (This is kind of a sick and twisted "Where's Waldo" - so to speak)

Suffice it to say, I busted out laughing and couldn't stop for several minutes.  I mean really, what would FREUD say about this???

I went back over it, trying to, er, make it look a little more incongruous... and then simply went on to the next step in my crafting project, which is to take heavy duty aluminum foil, cover the entire thing, and press down along all of the glue lines, so it looks like this:

I stood back and thought "You know, when it's covered up, it doesn't look so much like a you-know-what"  At which I promptly cracked up laughing again.  (My children were quite alarmed by this point, seeing as how I could not tell them exactly what was so funny!)  Perhaps I have found my new calling - vintage looking art with hidden phallic designs... somehow I think I would be widely accepted here in artsy southern California.  Ahem.  

ANYWAY - After pressing along all the creases and such, I took it outside and spray painted it.  Here is what the end result looked like:

I thought it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself, and it didn't cost all that much to make.  My next project is to do a cross... but I'll leave out the, er, inappropriate doodles this time!

Have a good week, friends!