Exceedingly Mundane

My doctor called today with all of my test results. I had thought it would be a few more days, or even next week before I heard back on everything. Thankfully, everything was fine. I was so relieved! 😆 I pick up the phone and say “Hello”, and my doctor immediately says who he is, and says “it’s all good, don’t worry”. Gee, he must know me well or get this a lot! 🙂

For those of you who might be interested (my sisters, maybe Tim), I’ll post my numbers in the extended section. I was very happy with the blood work. I work fairly hard at eating healthy, trying to exercise some, get enough rest, and just generally take care of my overall health. It was one of the main reasons I quit work, and it seems to be paying off so far. My other “stuff” is under control and nothing else has gone wrong. That’s good news 🙂

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Yeah, we woke up to moderately cool air outside. Finally. I know it won’t last and will get hot again, but it’s so nice to feel some cool crisp air for a change. It’s 61º right now and only supposed to get to 71º today. Which is very seasonal for us!

I have all the windows open right now, and it feels so good. I’m thinking it’s still a little early, but since it feels like fall, today might be a good day to go get some pumpkins and mums and seasonal things. 🙂

My sweet baby girl passed away 2 years ago today. That was a horrific day. We got up that morning and she was laying so still on her bed. Tim thought she was still breathing, so we rushed her to the vet, but by the time we got there, she was gone. We took her to Tim’s parents farm and buried her under a grove of pine trees.

I still miss her so.

This picture is typical of my Sally girl. Every afternoon about 4:30 or 4:40, she would go to the back door with her toy, waiting on Tim to come home from work. She was too smart for her own good. 🙂

>Our Entertainment Book finally materialized this evening. Tim is a sucker for buying things from people at work selling stuff for their kids fund raisers, and also if he happens to go to the door and one of our neighborhood kids is selling anything. He paid cash for this book in early August, and we had about given up on ever seeing it. Tim couldn’t seem to remember the kid, or where he lived, or his name, or anything, when he handed him the cash 7 or 8 weeks ago. But, it pays to live in a nice neighborhood, as the boy came back today and rang the doorbell with our coupon book. I was might relieved!

Look what we got from Mark and Amanda! Isn’t it great – a nice new flag to hang out front. We waited until the rains from Rita had passed to put it out, so it wouldn’t get messed up so soon. Doesn’t it look good?!! 😀

This blog should look slightly different to you as of tonight…. hopefully, you’re seeing the new autumn look.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my barn design, and will go back to it sooner or later, but in the mean time, I took that design and played around with it some. I changed the colors around a bit, to be more fall-like. Also, I used a photo I took in the mountains last October. We went to Gatlinburg for my birthday and even though the colors were not at their peak, we still saw some nice fall color and I got some good pictures. I’m hoping that even though the weather doesn’t feel like fall, this new blog design will tide me over until it does feel more like it outside!

Enjoy! 🙂

OK, my calendar says that tomorrow is the beginning of fall. Now, granted, I realize we don’t get a lot of fall here, and certainly not all that early. But — STILL — people, the high today is supposed to be 97º, yes, that’s NINETY SEVEN DEGREES. Geesh, I’d take 88 or 90 in a heartbeat. 75 would be nice, but I know I’m dreaming.

On a related note, we’ve lost most, if not all, of the flowers I planted in the spring. I don’t even feel like getting outside in the heat and the continuing swarms of love bugs, to go dig them up, or water the stragglers that are still hanging on. Same goes for the tree we planted in April. I know the poor thing needs water, but I don’t want to fight the bugs and the heat to water it. Sigh. When is fall REALLY going to get here? 🙂

Saw this posted on another blog, and swiped it to post here. I’m constantly amazed at the English language and how hard it must be for others to learn to speak, read and write it. Goodness knows I have trouble with it myself sometimes, and it’s all I’ve ever known! 🙂 There’s lots of these, but here’s some good examples. 🙂

Read each of these phrases aloud, and then note the spellings:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

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We have them every fall, but I don’t think I ever remember them being this bad! There’s been a lot on the news lately about the love bug “epidemic” as they call it. They keep saying it is NOT because of Hurricane Katrina, which is what we all think. We think the hurricane pushed them further north than normal (which is why we seem to have thousands of them, instead of hundreds). They say this is just an outbreak season. Whatever. I’m so sick of them, and I want them to go away. They are swarming in our back yard. You can’t even step out on the deck without a dozen of them flying onto your skin, clothes or in your hair. They don’t sting, thank goodness, but they are so annoying. I’m ready for them to GO AWAY!

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, or want to see how bad they are, click on the -More- link to see some pictures of them on our deck, and what they did to our cars this past weekend when we went to Hattiesburg.

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We went to Bop’s Frozen Custard for the first time, this past weekend. Yesterday, I realized I had not blogged about it, so I went to search (using Blingo!) for a website on Bops, and that was when I won the iTunes gift certificates. I was so excited, that I didn’t ever come back and blog about Bops. Oops! 😕

There’s a Bops on County Line road, near our mall, and although we’ve passed by it for years, we had never stopped. Wendy had told me once that they like to go to Bops when they come to town, so I mentioned it to Tim when we were over that way on Saturday (buying his new DVD recorder at Best Buy). Tim is really good about “splurges” and making a rather ordinary day something special by doing something fun or unique or just different. So, we went and checked it out! 😀 You can click here to read about their custard or click here to see their menu.

It was good, and I imagine we’ll go again. It was pricey, but then again, so are any of the places here like that. I still love our new Cold Stone Creamery that opened up near our house, but this was good too, and I hope we can patronize both! I had the “best seller”, which was the Snappy Turtle sundae – custard, hot fudge sauce, caramel, roasted pecans, topped off with whipped cream and a cherry. Tim had the special of the month, which was a Birthday Cake “concrete” – which is their custard (ice cream) mixed in with a topping. The thing did taste exactly like eating a big piece of birthday cake. It was good. I bet all of their combinations are good, so hopefully I can talk Tim into going over and trying out more of them. 🙂

Guess what, we won again at Blingo! I was using Tim’s id to search (for something I was about to blog about!), since when Tim wins, I win. He set up his Blingo id on a referral link I sent him, so when he wins, I win too.

Anyway, it gave me the choice of winning another movie ticket, or an iTunes gift certificate. I think Tim wanted the movie tickets, but I talked him out of it, since there’s really not a lot of movies out right now at the theatre that I want to see. iTunes on the other hand, I can find lots of music to download at iTunes! Yippeeee!!

So, once again, if you haven’t already, use the link I have on my sidebar here on my blog, and sign up under me. Blingo uses the same search engine as Google, and you actually do win. We’ve won 3 times now, so we can vouch for them!

Well, for those of you who know Tim, know that once he sets his mind to something, that’s it. Period. End of story. 😆

Less than 2 hours after we left, we now have a new toy:

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I uploaded a few more pictures from after the Hurricane. These are ones I took on the way to my in-laws house in Smith County. They live in a rural area and there were tons of trees down everywhere.

Here’s a picture of the barn near their house, the same picture that I use for the top of my blog – so look at the top to compare, it doesn’t quite look the same! In fact, you can hardly see the barn now for the tree that split and fell in front of it:

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Please don’t read the blog entry below (“Our Beloved New Orleans”) and think for a second that I don’t think all the time about the human factor. I do. I see all the images on tv and read all the stories in our paper about the people that have lost everything. About the people who are suffering and have lost their life due to this storm. About the people who have lost their homes and their businesses and their families and their livelihoods, and people who may not ever be able to recapture what they had before this thing hit. But it’s not something I’m ready to blog about in detail, so I decided to reminisce about the city we go to so often. Not that I have, or ever could, forget about all of the people, and the pets, that have been affected by this terrible natural disaster. Some things are harder to blog about than others.

I think I’m still in a state of some kind of post-traumatic shock. So many of the places we know and love are just simply not there any more. So many places we have visited on the coast, like Jefferson Davis’ home of Beauvoir. Like Marine Life with all the dolphins and sea lions and birds and animals. But, most of all – the pictures of New Orleans are just overwhelming.

The images of a place we have been to so many times. We’ve been to New Orleans many more times than any other place. I’d guess that in the 10 years Tim and I have been together, we’ve been at least 10 or 12 times to New Orleans. For games. For weekend getaways. For a concert. For more games. To do the touristy thing. Twice to visit the D-Day Museum (which we both love). So many times, so many places. And now what we see on TV doesn’t even look like the same place.

Images of the only other place that I have ever lived, except for the place I call home now, where I was born and raised. I have lived here, in Jackson and Madison, for my entire life – except for the one year I lived in New Orleans. What has happened to all of my friends who moved down and bought homes on the North Shore when our company transferred so many of us there? What of the places in Metairie where I worked, and ate out, and shopped at, and hung out with my newfound friends? What of the streets where we went to the parades during Mardi Gras? What of our company’s main headquarters downtown on Poydras? What do these places look like today?

Images of the Superdome. A building we have been in too many times to count. Home to Tim’s beloved New Orleans Saints. I heard today on the news that they will probably tear it down and start over. And what of the Hyatt next door where we have stayed many times – we’d go down for a game and spend the night next door so we could just walk over before the game. And the other places we have stayed, and so many places we have visited and walked through in the French Quarter. What do these places look like today and what has happened to them?

So many memories.

I’ve pulled a few pictures out (from my digital camera, I have many many more from trips in years past from my film camera, but I would have to scan them in), and included them. We have so many places we love to go and visit. I just wonder what condition they are in currently and what is to happen to them.

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