Exceedingly Mundane

I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately of all of my flowers outside. They are all blooming so well and look so good. I lament (well, fuss!) to Tim nearly every day that I hate that they are all going to die while we are gone on vacation. Unless it rains every day or two, they won’t make it. Most of them are in pots and in this heat and humidity, they need water every 24-36 hours or they shrivel and start to die. Oh well, they’ve looked good for nearly two months now!

I learned a new trick. I took several pictures and merged them into a little photo collage using one of my photo editing software’s functions. Learn something new every day!

I blogged yesterday about what we planned to do, and for the most part, it was pretty accurate. Well, except for the weathermen, who we all know are never accurate. We didn’t get one drop of rain, nary a sprinkle. Everyone south and east of us did, but we didn’t get a thing from Tropical Storm Arlene. Time to drag back out the hoses and sprinklers and start watering flowers and things! 🙂

Yesterday, as previously reported, Tim went outside to work in the yard, and then came in a bit later to say “I’m going to the parts store, the weedeater isn’t working”. Then a little while later, he says “I don’t think I can fix it, I’m going to go buy a new one, do you want to go with me?”. So, off we go in the truck to Home Depot. After what seemed like a really long time, he finally decided on this one (if the link doesn’t work, it’s a Ryobi string trimmer/brush cutter). Click the -More- link if you want to see a picture of Tim using it later on in the yard! 🙂

After he finished everything outside, he came in and later tried to work on Hambones. He took the main site down for a while, so no one would write anything new to the forums, recipes or reviews systems or their blogs. He got a full backup then started to install his new software on his “development” box. Well, apparently that didn’t work. He emerged a few hours later rubbing his eyes and saying “let’s watch a movie, I’m tired of fiddling with that”. So we watched Oceans Twelve! 🙂

The moral of the story – we got a new weedeater, and Hambones will be down again, more, in the future, as he continues to work on it. Sorry guys!

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I just scanned in the baby photo and announcement from my friend Wendy, of her new baby Nathan. I added them to his photo album here at Hambones. I realized as I was scanning it, that I never did scan Miss Abby’s in, and I feel terrible! Mark and Amanda – please forgive me! I thought I did, but I just poked around my hard drive and couldn’t find the scan for it, so I pulled it back out and scanned it in also. It’s in Ethan and Abby’s album, although I put it on the last page, since it’s the oldest and very first photo we have of Miss Abigail! 🙂

Go check them out, lots of great new pictures of all the wonderful babies and toddlers we have in our extended family.

I had a random thought earlier today that I was going to blog about. Of course, this was 8 or 10 hours ago and I just now remembered it and was near a computer!

OK, random thought / weird question of the day. For the women only (although I believe that’s about 90-95% of my readership!):

I only paint my toenails in the summer, when I wear sandals. I see no need to do it in the winter, so the nails get a “break” for a few months. They seem really clean and white in the winter and for a little while at the beginning of sandal season. Then, after a few times of cleaning and repainting, they start to get really yellow. Is it the kind of nail remover I am using (yes, I’m cheap, I use the walmart Equate brand)? Is it the type of nail polish I’m using (Avon, I love the color Amanda!)? Is it just my really bad nails? Any ideas why they get so yellowish?

I’m working this afternoon on uploading all the great new photos I have from everyone. I have most of them there, and hopefully, all of the problems are fixed for the time being with the photo system we use on Hambones. I still haven’t reloaded some older photos from 2004, but I’ve been transferring new ones all afternoon.

Remember – you have to be a registered member of Hambones to see the photos. 🙂 Sorry, but we like to keep those reserved for those people we know.

Let’s see, here’s what’s new today: We have a new album off the main gallery for Nathan, Tommy and Wendy’s new baby who was born the end of May. We also have two new albums in the Photos 2005 section – one for a recent trip by Mark, Amanda, Ethan and Abby to the zoo (lots of cute pics of the kids and some great shots of some of the animals), and the second album is one for Ava Clair’s first birthday party. I have also loaded some misc new pictures of all the kids in their own albums. Shanna sent me a couple this morning of Ava Clair in the new dress her Dede (Gail) made for her and those are in Gray and Ava Clair’s personal album. Amanda has sent me a ton of great shots lately of Ethan and Abby, including some really good ones of Abby when she turned 3 months. Those are now loaded in their album, Ethan and Abby. Go check them out!

And be sure to let us know if you have any trouble accessing the photos. I’m not sure why we had these problems, and hopefully the webmaster (Tim) has fixed them all. But, we don’t always see the same things here that others see, so be sure and let us know if you have any trouble.

I wish I had one of these right now:

Why do I get chocolate cravings?

Why can’t I eat whatever I want and not gain any weight?

Why do I always get hungry about 3:30 or 4:00 PM?

Why is it always sweets or chocolate I crave?

I know, I’ll be good. I don’t even have ice cream in the house and I won’t go to the trouble of making brownies. I would eat this in a New York second though, if you put the thing anywhere within my grasp though. 😆

Well, I haven’t blogged about what we did yesterday, and now I haven’t blogged about what we did today (Saturday). I’d like to say that I will get on Sunday afternoon and catch up, but I’m not so sure about that. Tim has been working some on Hambones and it may not be available tomorrow. We just got back from CompUSA where we purchased the full version of SUSE 9.3, so he can reload Hambones. So, I don’t know when it’s going to be down, or for how long. Might be a long week! I will have to try to remember everything to blog about later on. 😀

I have decided that I don’t like my 40’s. Granted, I’m just a few months into them, but they are not going to be that great, at least in the weight department. I don’t seem to be able to lose a pound to save my life.

When I was growing up, I was rail thin. I could eat whatever I wanted, in whatever quantity I wanted, whatever time of day, and I would never gain a pound. All through my teens, and through most of my 20’s. The 30’s got a little harder. It wasn’t as easy to lose weight, and it got easier and easier to gain it. Now that I’ve turned the corner on my 40’s, I think it’s going to be a lot harder. I have cut back, cut out soft drinks and sweet tea, cut out most sweets, use reduced fat or low-fat products, and still I’m gaining weight left and right. I don’t think it’s my meds. I get my thyroid checked every year, and it’s supposedly in range. If it’s out of whack, I will gain more weight. But, it’s supposed to be in check. Anyway, I guess it’s just age and metabolism. It sucks. It really does. I want to eat a big bag of M&M’s if I want and not gain an ounce. I want to have a huge piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and not see it on my thighs two days later. HAH. I wish.

So, in our ongoing effort, I thought that getting a better pair of scales to weigh on might help. Ours were the old kind and not very accurate. I knew this because when I went to the doctor, they weighed me a LOT heavier. But, I forged ahead anyway (like the blooming idiot that I am!), and bought us a new set of scales, one that keeps track of our weight, as well as measuring our BMI.

Be Careful What You Wish For.

I got these scales, and I wish I had never brought them home. Not only do they weigh me about 4-5 pounds more than our previous ones (a sudden and immediate blow to my ego), it rated my BMI much higher than I thought it would be. Therefore, it proves that I’m a lot heavier and in worse shape than I should be. Which I had a sneaking suspicion of all along, but now I have proof, glaring back at me every time I go near the darn thing.

It saves my previous weights, and mine are going up, up, up, .5 or 1.0 pounds at a time. Geesh. Can’t we just roll the clock back and let me have my thighs that didn’t touch and flat stomach from my 20’s? Please. Someone invent a magic pill for this, please.

P.S. For all of you wiseguys out there, I know what the real problem is, it’s my portion control and my lack of more exercise. We walk, but we don’t jog, and I stretch but I don’t do aerobic stretching and exercises. I know I should. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I know I should eat less, and leave more on my plate, but I just can’t bring myself to do that either. Please don’t lecture me. Please. And if you do, the mean nasty fat fairy might come visit you.

Well, it took me a few days, but I finally got the few pictures that I took over the weekend loaded into the Photos section on Hambones. I didn’t take a lot, as we have been many times before, and have even been to the D-Day Museum once before. Most of the pictures are of the hotel and our room! First time we had stayed there, and it was really nice, plus I knew from Gail’s comment on my previous blog entry that they had looked into staying there, so I took a bunch of the room (I LOVE having a digital camera!). There’s not a lot of pictures, I guess that’s why I wasn’t in a rush to get them on the website. But they are there now if anyone wants to glance at them! 🙂

Well, it’s official now. We’ll be going to Washington D.C. this summer on our vacation. We booked a hotel room last night, once Tim got approval at work for the days off that he had requested. We’re going to leave 6/29 and come back on 7/5 or 7/6. Right now, we’re going to drive, but I am going to look around and see what kind of flights I can find. I think we’d both rather drive though (although I say that now, we may think differently later on!).

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I think one of the best things about going on a vacation, or even a long weekend like we are doing this Memorial Day weekend, is getting to go shopping and buy some new things! 😀 Nothing like an excuse to buy new clothes!

I headed out to Lakeland Drive this afternoon, and stopped first at LinensNThings to get my new Yankee Candle I’ve been wanting so desperately. I had a coupon, so I splurged and got a Juicy Cherry housewarmer candle for my kitchen. It smells soooo good. I almost got a honeydew melon instead, on Gail’s advice. She bought one earlier and it really does smell good, really fresh and clean. That one may be next! I almost caved and bought another one, they were featuring the Lemon Zest ones on special, and I nearly splurged, but was good. Which was a good thing, because I left and drove to Kohl’s. Where I proceeded to buy a whole lot more than the one or two pairs of shorts I went to buy. 😆

Click the -More- link if you want to see some of the stuff I came home with! 🙂

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Odds and Ends running through my head:

1. We got up and went walking, and then Tim came back and took a nap before going to work! He got called out last night (I will be so glad when he goes off-call on Friday for another two weeks), and had to get up in the wee hours of the morning

2. Guilty indulgence – listening to my MP3 of “Since U Been Gone” over and over 😀

3. Guilty indulgence #2 – I want to go eat either a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich or a No Pudge Chocolate Swirl cone. But I’m trying to be good and not eat either one

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A day late… but still going to do it! 😀

The following all begin with ‘In your lifetime, have you….’

1. …ridden on a rollercoaster? Unfortunately, yes. Not willingly.
2. …performed (in any area of the arts) onstage? Nope
3. …planted a garden? Flowers, not a vegetable garden
4. …ever had to reformat your hard drive due to a virus/spyware? Nope
5. …written a book? A poem? A song? Nope
6. …sang karaoke? Not in front of anyone. I did lots of singing into an air microphone as a pre-teen though 😀
7. …been interviewed by a local tv station/newspaper? We were interviewed by the Hattiesburg American after Tim’s graduation, and had a one-line quote put on the front page the next day. We have that framed, in the study! 🙂
8. …witnessed a tornado/earthquake/hurricane first-hand? No, thank goodness
9. …participated in a photo scavenger hunt? No, have done other scavenger hunts, but never one with just photos
10. …traveled to another country? Not yet, but I will. It’s my lifelong dream to go to England, Scotland and Wales. France too, but not before the others.

Shanna sent out a few pictures earlier today of their new deck that Trent is building them. Grayson is sitting on the deck, eating a popsicle. The quintessential summer thing to me, to sit outside and eat snow cones, popsicles, ice cream bars, or anything cold on a hot summer day. He reminds me so much of Trent when he was younger, and I need to go dig out some pictures from then and scan them. In the mean time, I pulled this picture of my refrigerator – it has hung there for over 12 years now. We were all a lot younger then! 🙂 (The picture itself is probably 18-20 years old, but it’s been on my refrigerator so long, the edges are all curled up!)

P.S. The pictures from Shanna are on Hambones now, in the Photo Gallery. The ones of Grayson on the new deck are under Misc / Trent and Shanna’s House. There is also one of Ava Clair, and it’s in their album “Grayson and Ava Clair”, towards the bottom of the first page of the photo gallery. Enjoy!

I’m constantly amazed by what I see when I stand on the inside of my house, looking out one of the various windows to the outside world.

First, it was a snake slithering up my front walk, to perch on my front doorstep and sun itself (a couple of years ago, thank goodness, haven’t seen one do that since). Then it was all sorts of cats, once we lost my beloved Sally girl. Then, when I remembered to fill my bird feeders with birdseed, it became rather enjoyable to watch birds coming and going.

We progressed to the squirrel, the one who loves to come scampering along my deck rail, and perch himself under the bird feeder to eat any leftovers or whatever else he can find. Normally, I don’t like squirrels – they’re like big rats with furry tails. But this one was sorta cute, and he’s very regular. He comes every day or two.

Then, last week it turned ugly.

There were these rats. One of which I know is now dead because I can see part of his dead body under the edge of the deck.

Yesterday and today, it’s a slimy, ugly gecko that has decided to take up residence in my kitchen window sill. I was standing at my kitchen sink yesterday at lunch, washing dishes, admiring the flowers in my window planter, when I saw something move.

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