Springing into the Hodgepodge

Wednesday means it's time for the Hodgepodge with Joyce and friends at From This Side of the Pond.  Head on over, get the questions, and then answer them on your own blog (or in the comments if you don't have a blog).  Then go over to Joyce's to link up!   Here are this week's questions:

1. On this first official day of spring tell us something (besides the weather) you're looking forward to in this season of the year.

I'm looking forward to feeling better.  Healing every day from that crazy fall I took on the ice, but a ways to go yet.  The hot pack, cold compress, and OTC pain meds are still pretty close friends of mine.

2. When it comes to spring cleaning would you rather wash windows or wash baseboards? Clean out closets or clean out the garage? Dust ceiling fans or dust bookcases? Wipe down the patio furniture outside or wipe down the light fixtures inside? Any of these tasks recently completed?

Let's make it simple.
• A toss-up.  I dislike both equally.
• Closets.
• Bookcases.
• Light fixtures.
• No.
(No bending or stretching is going on here right now -- although I did just wipe down the sconces in the bathroom and wash the light globes, so I guess I can't truthfully say I've done none of the above.)
 
3. Your favorite thing to make/eat that calls for cream cheese? Sour cream? Whipped cream?

Cheesecake is probably my favorite food made with cream cheese.  Although -- as a young girl, I remember having potato chip and cream cheese sandwiches at my cousin's house.  Delicious!  Interestingly, my cousin has no memory of these delights.

Sour cream -- hmmm.  Probably, lately, a squash soup that calls for this ingredient.  If you missed it, find the story here: Best Squash Soup.  Photo is from the Cabot cheese site.  Recipe's from there, too.

Whipped cream -- I love real whipped cream!  One of my favorite uses for it is in what our family calls Reese’s Pie -- chocolate and peanut butter to the max.  The photo below, from Taste of Home, shows the vanilla version of this pie -- but chocolate is the way to go!

4. I read here a list of commonly mispronounced words. What is a word that gives you trouble when it comes to pronunciation?

Of that list, I didn't know how acai was pronounced.  As a child, though, I taught myself to read by way of newspaper comic strips and so I read a lot of words wrong.  For example, I thought of the word "bedraggled" as "bed-raggled."  You know, all raggled and rumpled from being in bed.  (I've since learned that at least a couple of my friends read this word the same way.)

5. What's a song you love with the word 'rain' in the title or lyrics?  

The first one that came to mind was "September in the Rain" -- the Chad & Jeremy version from the 1960s.

6.  Insert your own random thought here. 

This does not look like the first day of spring.  As I write this, on Tuesday afternoon, there is still a ton of snow out there.  The temperature is around 40º and the sky is brilliantly blue.   I guess you could say the sky looks like spring, but nothing else does -- and it certainly doesn't feel that way!