Exceedingly Mundane

Well, I just wrote a long, boring post about Jolly Ranchers, and went to post it and got an error, and POOF, now my entry is gone. Serves me right, I should save things more often!

OK – Jolly Ranchers are a faint memory from my childhood, that I have recently rediscovered. When I was a kid, I was allowed occasionally (when I got older) to walk by myself one street over to the “Tote-Sum”, which was a local convenience store. I would save my money and then go over and splurge on junk food or something. I don’t remember all that I got, but two small things stick out in my memory banks. I would buy these small, individually wrapped foil footballs, made out of chocolate. They were sort of egg shaped, but they weren’t eggs. When you unwrapped them (and the foil wrapper looked like a football), they had lines in them like the actual laces on a football. Me being me (aka Miss Tightwad), I would bring them home and then ask to use a plastic knife, so I could cut them up and make them smaller. That made the chocolate last longer!

Anyway….

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Test post for Tim and the new improved backup system. How bout them apples? 😀

Oh well, they just broke in on the news and said the shuttle launch for this afternoon has been delayed. They are still having problems with a fuel sensor, which apparently was part of the problem of why they couldn’t go up a couple of months ago. Actually, I’m rather glad, I don’t want them to launch until they have covered every possible angle and know that they have nothing wrong that they can find. Too much can go wrong, too quickly.

And in other news… 😀

Bernie Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Mixed feelings on this one, but I won’t comment on that here.

The highlight of today for me will definitely be watching the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about the space shuttle, including the little mishap they had yesterday with a cover falling off and striking the thermal shield. Oops. They seem determined to launch today though, barring weather problems, and I hope that everything is ready and they are good to go.

I have always been an astronomy and space nut, whether it’s the real thing or sci-fi tv or movies. I spent lots of summer nights growing up, outside in my yard, looking up at the stars and planets. I spent lots of late August nights watching the Perseids (meteor showers) and the same in November to watch the Leonids, wrapped up in a blanket, laying outside on my mom’s full-length patio chair (she called it a chaise lounge!). I grew up wanting to be a pilot, and for a long stretch in there, I decided I might as well fly into space and be an astronaut. 🙂 I was a small child when man first walked on the moon, and while I’d like to say that I remember it and it shaped my life, I honestly don’t remember seeing it! I was only 4 1/2 or 5 at the time, so I’ll use that as my excuse.

I do, however, remember when Challenger blew up.

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I’ve been playing around with iTunes and my iPod a little more this morning. I told myself yesterday that I was going to work on editing and uploading pictures today from our recent vacation. I seem to be procrastinating on that one, a common theme for me! Maybe I’ll work on pictures this afternoon….

Anyway, since I’m procrastinating, I’m playing with iTunes. I got the latest version, 4.9 which supports podcasts. I’ve been surfing around and looking at the podcast offerings on iTunes and I have to say that so far I’ve been pretty unimpressed. Maybe I’m not nerdy enough, maybe I don’t have enough specialized interests that are covered by podcasts, and I know that I don’t have a temperament for listening to people in their garages commenting on nothing. Still, I thought I would find something I would be interested in and could download to listen on my iPod. I guess I”ll keep looking and maybe find something. I am interested in some of the audio books, but gosh, these things are expensive! A lot of them cost as much as buying the book, which I won’t do. That’s why I have a library card and why I use it!

Tim’s free movie ticket he won through Blingo came in this weekend. That makes two free tickets we’ve won to go see a movie at the theatre. Not bad for searching online, something we do all the time anyway.

Shanna pointed out to me this morning that she read in the fine print at Blingo that only the first 10 searches of the day count towards the prizes. And I just went and checked, and she’s absolutely right. That might help explain why both Tim and I won in the mornings! Still, we’ve gotten two free movie tickets for nothing, so I will continue to use them, and encourage all you guys to sign up and try. I have a button on the side of my blog that you can use to register to sign up. It works, we’ve won, we’ve received the prize in a timely manner, and we’ve redeemed the movie tickets at our local theatre, so we know it’s all legit. “On the up and up” as my mom might have said! 🙂

UPDATED: Please disregard this post… I will probably delete it as most of these are not true. Shows what you get when you swipe things from other sites 😳

Here’s some “factoids” I found interesting… found them (and swiped them!) at this blog:

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled “Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden”…and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

In the 1400’s a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb. Hence we have “the rule of thumb.” 🙄

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

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I have gotten things like this before in email, but these, I swiped from Tommy’s blog. Thanks for letting me steal, I mean borrow them! 😀

1. Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of its bottle?

2. Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?

3. Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?

4. Why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor when you can’t drink and drive?

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I hate that I don’t have time today to drive up and see Shanna, Grayson and Ava Clair. Shanna called yesterday to say that she had decided, at sort of the last minute, to stay at Gail’s house this week. Trent drove back to Houston after the wedding, as he had to get back to work. I would love to go up and see Shanna and play with the kids, but it’s just about the worst time for me to try to be gone the whole day. I just haven’t gotten enough done for our trip before today, I guess I procrastinate too much, plus there’s always some last minute things I seem to think of to do before we leave.

I wish I had been able to go! I know Shanna and the kids will have fun at Gail’s, and I know how much Don and Gail will enjoy having them at the house all week. I just hate missing out on all the fun! 😀 Have fun, you guys, I wish I was there!

We’re both working on computers today – Tim is working on Hambones, and I’ve been on the laptop, working on movie reviews (4 new ones up in the Reviews section of Hambones) and some memes here on my blog. I’m listening to music on my iPod too! 😀

We still have a lot to get organized before we leave town in a few days. Lots of stuff to get ready and lots of things to remember to pack. Boy, will we be the Geek Squad on wheels or what? The list to take includes:

1. Laptop with various cords, cables and attachments
2. Digital Camera with USB cable for transferring pics
3. Power inverter to use laptop/iPod in car
4. GPS
5. iPod and FM transmitter
6. Misc – handheld electronic game, pedometer, pager, cell phones, etc
7. We considered taking the Vonage VOIP adaptor, but I think we’re going to leave it at home 😀

Yup, it’s official – the GEEKS leave on vacation in 3 days!

Today is the day my mom died, three years ago. I’ve been in a funk for the last couple of weeks – I get this way every year at this time. I have about 4 times of year that are the hardest. Don’t misunderstand – I miss her every day, but around Mother’s Day, the anniversary of her death in late June, her birthday in mid-November, and the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) are always the worst. I think about her every day, and miss her. I miss being able to call her on the phone and ask her something or see how she’s doing. I miss her emailing me. I miss her laughing at Tim and looking at him like the son she never had. I hate that we didn’t get the Hambones website up before she died – she would have loved it. She would love my blog and reading about my day. I emailed her almost every single day the last few years of her life, once I taught her how to use a computer and a mouse! I know she would have loved it.

Tim let me cry this morning and rubbed my head and let me drip salty tears on his shoulder. He’s a good guy, and I’m just really glad that he got to know Dodie and that she got to know him before she died. I know she felt a lot better in the latter years of her life, knowing that I had finally found him and that she didn’t have to worry about me as much any more.

I asked Tim if he would take me out to the cemetery this weekend, and of course he said he would. He’d do anything I asked of him. I want to check on the flowers and make sure they look ok.

I need to call my dad and talk to him, but so far, I’ve been putting that off all morning. I will call him soon and see how he is doing. I’m going to be busy the rest of the day. I planned today like that, have been planning it for a while, to get out of the house, go shopping, keep busy. Not that this day is really all that different from any other, it was hard yesterday and the day before, but I get through it, I just get sad. Ok, I guess I’ll private blog about the rest of this. No sense in being maudlin. 🙂

I’ve been so behind with transferring and uploading pictures, and in this particular case, with blogging too! Not that it’s especially noteworthy, but Tim discovered a turtle in our yard last Thursday morning. He went out, headed to work, and spied him in the yard, by the side of the driveway:

Now, this doesn’t seem particuarly interesting to anyone else, but I’ve lived here twelve years next week and I have never once seen a turtle in our yard. Since we have a fence in the back, I’m assuming he didn’t come from the ditch behind our back fence. He must have come from the lake across the street. I’m not quite sure what he was doing here or how long he stayed. I meant to go back a little while later and check on him, but me being me — I forgot! Here he is up close:

As previously reported here, I won a free movie ticket on Blingo last week. I had expected it to take 4-6 weeks or maybe more before it showed up in my mailbox.

Well, I was wrong! My free movie ticket came today:

I checked out the info listed on the ticket, and all of the theatres in our area accept this movie pass. Tim and I had already made a date to go see Batman Begins this weekend, before we leave on vacation. Guess who will be a cheap date?! ME!

Well, I’ve been signed up for Blingo for a couple of months now and had finally decided that I wasn’t going to win anything. But I just did! I’m so excited! I was hoping for an iPod mini or a year’s worth of movie rentals, but hey, I’m still excited to have won a free movie ticket!

And a closeup 😆

Please go sign up under me if you’re interested, I have a Blingo button on the side of this blog. 😀

Since I seem to be on a flower kick, here’s two photos to show how much our lantana that we planted in the new planter has grown.

When we planted it back in April, it looked like this:

And now, it’s a lot bigger!