Exceedingly Mundane

We had a quiet, uneventful (but sort of busy!) Memorial Day weekend. I spent a lot of it thinking about my Dad, whom I really miss. I went and got him last year and he spent the day with us, and loved the ribs that Tim fixed for him 🙂

Let’s see, Tim got off a bit early Friday afternoon and went to play golf with a buddy from work. He had worked the Sunday night before, so left a little early. I tried to make good use of the time and started doing some cleaning, purging, packing. I got some books together for the library and packed my first box. Tim got back earlier than normal, so I offered to take him out on date night, to his choice. He loves Dickie’s BBQ, even though I do not. I can’t make healthy choices in a place that mostly has meat and carbs. They do have salads, but I have yet to try one, as I never see one on anyone’s plate! I was good though, and only ate half of mine and brought the rest home. He always says the allure of Dickie’s is the free ice cream, and we both had that, so maybe I wasn’t so good after all 😀

Saturday, he had a really early tee time, 6:20 AM, so he was up in the 5 AM hour and out the door. I tried and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. So I got up and went walking, logged 4.45 miles. I did some chores around the house and more cleaning, tossing, purging. I went down and visited with one of our neighbors for a couple of hours. That has been one of the hardest things, telling our wonderful neighbors we are moving and leaving here. We will sorely miss them, I’ve lived next to them for over 20 years and they are not only neighbors, but friends.

Tim brought us home Chick-Fil-A for lunch, then after a bit of a rest, he got busy painting the doors. He had stripped the front and back doors of paint and primer a couple of weeks ago. He went to Home Depot and had intended to order new doors, but ended up just getting new glass inserts. He installed those when he first stripped them. So, now he just put on a fresh coat of paint, and they look really good. Saturday night, we relaxed and watched Thor (recorded from TV on the DVR). I do love me some Marvel movies. We also caught up on Agents of Shield tv shows on Saturday and Monday nights.

Sunday was busy with church (we had a patriotic program by Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, which I really enjoyed). We went to brunch afterwards. Tim got a second breakfast, pancakes and eggs and I opted for lunch. I got the trio, with lemon chicken orzo soup, fruit and a side salad. We stopped by Kroger after that, to pick up all the stuff for me to make the stuff for Memorial Day. Tim went and played golf late on Sunday, but had a good time. He got back a bit before dark, which worked out perfectly. One of our wonderful neighbors had brought us over some crawfish. I wanted to sit out on the deck and eat crawfish one last time, so we did. Good memories 🙂

Monday, we got up early to start food preparations. Tim smoked a couple slabs of ribs, and also grilled hot dogs and corn for me. I made potato salad, crunchy slaw, and baked beans. Suzanne and Elizabeth came over to eat with us and stayed for a while to visit. We started watching XMen:First Class on our blu-ray, but Suzanne left before it was over. Elizabeth stayed and finished it. We were glad to see both of them. We spent time Monday evening catching up on stuff on the DVR. It had gotten really full the last couple of months, so we are slowly whittling our way through shows and movies.

Tuesday means back to the regular routine, except that Tuesday after a holiday always feels like a Monday. I have all of my Monday chores to do, plus watering too. This will be my last summer of hauling hoses and sprinklers around our yard – the new house will have an in-ground irrigation system installed, hooray!

Well, it’s been months and so much has happened, I don’t even know where to start. I should have been blogging through this time, but of course, I did not. I really should have been private blogging, to capture some of my thoughts and private things that have happened, but alas, I didn’t take the time.

Let’s see, not long after my last post, my dad fell, and Tim and I went after midnight to the assisted living place where he was living, to take him to the hospital. He refused to ride in the ambulance that they wanted to call for him, as was their policy. When we got him into the ER, they had a hard time getting his oxygen level to register. As it turns out, his oxygen was very low and his carbon dioxide very high. We later learned a lot about respiratory failure. Dad was in congestive heart failure and respiratory failure. He was at the hospital a few days, then we moved him (via ambulance, he would have been so upset had he realized it) to a hospice facility near our house. He was only there less than 48 hours. A week after we took him to the hospital, on a Wednesday, I was sitting with him, I had tried to feed him some lunch, and he was having trouble breathing. I told him to just rest, and I sat right at his left arm, and read my Bible and just prayed and prayed. Daddy took his last breath and we’ve missed him ever since. The funeral was that weekend, and we were glad that my nephew David was able to get back from his trip in Southeast Asia (Thailand and other spots) in time for the burial. We then started the work of handling his estate (I had his power of attorney in life and the executor of his will and estate after death), and we cleaned out his apartment at the assisted living place. I still have boxes and bags of stuff piled up in my dining room.

My sister Suzanne then proceeded to have a period of about 6 weeks of turmoil, then an extreme tragedy. Gail, Don, Tim and I flew to South Florida to help her, and then flew back a week later for a funeral. After a few days of staying with her son and his family, she drove here and stayed with Tim and I for 5 weeks. She is now moving back here and is having a lot of issues and complications. We’re just hoping and praying that things get better for her and that she starts feeling better soon.

So, it sounds like 2014 has been a tough year, and so far… it has. However, we do have some really happy news. After living here for 21 years (Tim and I together for a little over 18), we are going to finally move! We just signed a contract to build a new house a little bit north of where we live now, close to the golf course where Tim plays golf most days of the week. We’re really excited about the house! It will be early fall before it’s ready, which seems at times so far away, and then at other times, I realize it will probably go by in the blink of an eye. I’ve already started a tiny bit of purging, cleaning and packing. I packed up some books, donated several bags of books to the local library, and packed up our old music cd’s. There’s so much more to do, but most of it can’t be done until it’s a bit closer to moving time. In the mean time, I’m trying to enjoy this house, and the yard and my flowers and my deck as much as possible. As happy and excited as we are, our word of the day is always “bittersweet”. It’s hard to leave our neighbors and the only house we’ve ever lived in. All of our family has spent so much time here, including my parents who are both now gone. Sad, but happy too, thus, bittersweet.

I’d like to get back to everyday blogging. About food, books I’m reading, tv shows and movies we watch, things like that. That’s why I named my blog “Exceedingly Mundane” all those years ago, because I thrive on the daily mundane stuff. Maybe so much time won’t go by next time, we shall see!

How on earth can it be the end of January already? Wow, the first year of the month has really flown by.

Let’s see… I’ve been sick the last few days. I got a sore throat and it just went downhill from there. I felt like I was gargling glass when I tried to swallow, and then I lost my voice. While Tim thoroughly enjoyed that time, I did not 🙂 I had several days of OTC medicine and lots of hot tea with honey, and now I’m getting better. Good thing too! We’ve had another round of really cold weather. We had a dusting of snow yesterday (and I didn’t take a SINGLE photo, horror!) but it barely covered the deck. I miss Beau when it snows though, that dog was fascinated with snow! It was SO COLD. The highs the last couple of days have been in the 20’s, with the lows at night in the low teens. Yikes, we’re having a cold winter!

I didn’t cook a whole lot over the weekend, since I was sick. We ate out some junk food, and just had easy stuff like cereal and popcorn 🙂 I finally cooked us some decent food this week. I made a chicken noodle soup on Monday, Tuesday I made a panko baked cod, stuffed zucchini and salad. Wednesday was a Tim favorite, eggs, bacon, grits and homemade buttermilk biscuits. Today, I’ve got a tomato basil soup going in the crockpot and if I get industrious enough, I’ll make chicken crescents to go with it and maybe a salad. I’m not planning on date night for tomorrow (since we picked up a lot of food last weekend while I was sick), so I’m hoping to make sloppy joes and roast a head of cauliflower I have languishing in the produce drawer 😀

The Super Bowl is this weekend and I’m not all that excited about it. When our Saints got eliminated from the playoffs, we sort of lost interest in football. It’s harder to get excited since we don’t have parties any more. It’s just so hard for friends and family to come over late on Sundays, with having to drive back home late. It definitely makes it more fun to watch the game, but it is a lot more work, so it’s sort of a toss up on how much I enjoy having a big party versus getting to just watch the game without all the extra work. For the record, I’m rooting for the Broncos. I’ve always liked Peyton Manning (except the year he and the Colts played my Saints, that was a no brainer, but otherwise I root for him) and I’d like to see him win one more before his career is over. Tim and I DESPISE the Seahawks, it’s an NFC thing. Blech.

I am not doing well on my reading so far this year… I had hoped to be further along this far into January. I sort of struggled through a recent book, one I purchased at a reduced rate on Kindle called “Sherlock Holmes and the Needle’s Eye”. Maybe it was the writing or the subject matter, or maybe I was just not in the mood for that type of book. I moved onto a more enjoyable one after Sherlock, the second Jane Austen Takes the South book by Mary Jane Hathaway. Apparently there are only two of these, but I thoroughly enjoyed both, very very Southern 🙂 I just started Sycamore Row, by John Grisham. My sister Suzanne read it first, and recommended it. I went ahead and splurged and bought it around Black Friday when I found it reduced for Kindle. Now, I see my library has it for free in the Kindle version, oh well. This way, Tim might be able to read it sometime on my iPad. I normally enjoy Grisham so I have high hopes for this one.

Watched Jack Reacher again last night on Amazon Prime streaming. We saw it at the theater and really liked it, so it was good to watch again. I think a lot of our shows will be tapering off soon, with the Olympics starting up soon. We’ll have to see how our TV watching changes, which translates to, will I be able to get Tim to watch Olympics coverage with me! I like it a lot more than he does.

Tim is still enjoying P90X. Me, not so much. We’ve moved into phase 3, and he’s tickled pink. Me, I’d like to chuck the dvd’s and throw a sledgehammer at ole Tony’s face on the TV. Ugh. Tim did it last winter and lost over 30 pounds. Me doing it this winter, I *might* be down 2-3 pounds, but I think that’s from more eating healthy than anything. Obviously, I’m getting out of it exactly what I put into it!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Yes, I’m excited! Can’t wait to hear what Duchess Katherine has, and what they name the baby 🙂 My love of the royal family goes way back. I love British history, the Tudor era being one of my favorites. I’ve always been enamored of the royal family. I got up in the middle of the night to watch Princess Diana marry Prince Charles. I was grateful two years ago to have a DVR to record Katherine marrying Prince William. And now, all day, I’ll be on pins and needles until the announcement comes!

UPATE: And several hours later, they finally announce that … It’s a Boy! Her Royal Highness and baby are doing well, and they’re reporting he’s a big boy – 8 lbs 6 oz 🙂

ANOTHER UPDATE: While Hambones was down, they announced the next day that they had chosen a name for the baby. He’s going to be Prince George (George Alexander Louis, I think). Wonder if I’ll see him be king in my lifetime, not likely 🙂

A busy weekend at Casa Hammons! Going back to last Wednesday…

Wednesday was the day my dad needed to do his pacemaker check. He has had a pacemaker for about 8 years or more, and does a quarterly check where he hooks a machine up to his chest and it transmits info on the pacemaker to his doctor’s office. He never had any problems (that I know of!) when he lived in his house in Hattiesburg. However, he doesn’t have a dedicated phone line in his apartment at the assisted living place here, and so he never could get it to work. He said he tried 3 places, different things, and finally called the doctor and setup an appointment. He called me Wednesday to “inform” me that he would need me to pick him up Thursday afternoon and take him to the heart clinic at 3 PM. They checked him out, and the machine and said nothing was wrong except maybe user error, and to try it again. So, he’s going to try again this week. Fingers crossed that he figures it out… else, I’ll be driving him to the heart doctor every 3 months!

Thursday was also a fun day, in that Grayson, Ava Clair and Sam came with Gail and met us all for lunch at Newk’s! Elizabeth had gone to Texas the week before and brought Grayson and Ava Clair back with her last weekend. They went to Gail’s for a few days, and then she brought them back on Thursday (plus Sam!), and they got on a plane going home to Texas Thursday night. We were so glad we got to see them. They’ve grown up so much and are so much more mature than in visits past. We had a great time seeing them, we just wished we had been able to spend more time with them 🙂

Friday, my dad was having issues with a prescription, so he wanted me to take him to the doctor’s office to get it fixed. He likes to do things face to face, as opposed to me, who likes to do things over the phone, on the fax, by email, internet, etc. Such polar opposites! So, we went to the doctor, then to Walmart to drop off his new prescription, then over to see Elizabeth and her new house. We visited a while there, then went back and picked up his medicine.

Tim decided not to play golf Friday night, so we had date night! We went to one of our favorites, Krilakis. We splurged and had an appetizer of pita mozz, then each had a gyro. Tim gets his with fries, I get mine with a Greek salad and then we share with each other 🙂 We were so stuffed that we didn’t have baklava for dessert, or go anywhere for sweets afterward. After dinner, we went to Best Buy and Sam’s to price tv’s. I finally gave Tim the go-ahead to get a bigger tv. Our 42″ plasma was fine with me, but he has been wanting a bigger tv for a while now. Our receiver is still being repaired, and we hope it is fixed and sent back soon… definitely need all this stuff in time for football season!

Saturday was golf day for Tim. He played twice, once at 7:30 in the morning and again at 3:30 in the afternoon. I made a big trip to Kroger Saturday morning, and got home around lunch. Not long after, in between his two golf sessions, Tim managed to swing thru Chick-Fil-A and pick us up lunch, which we wolfed down before heading to Sam’s to buy this:

I helped him get it inside, he took the old plasma off the mounting bracket, hung the new Samsung 60″ LED SmartTV one up, and then took off for the golf course 🙂 Leaving me to do the setup on the tv and start to learn how to use it. He still hasn’t gotten all the peripherals hooked up (receiver is in shop, blu-ray not hooked up, dvd burner not hooked up, Apple TV not hooked up, Wii not hooked up), but he will hopefully get to them soon. It’s big and it has a great picture! Saturday night, we watched an old movie I had recorded on the DVR, Mr and Mrs. Smith. Good action one 🙂

Sunday was church (current series: Recreate, our pastor still on sabbatical till mid August) and then brunch at Corner Bakery. I had the trio with soup (asparagus soup, caesar salad and fruit) and Tim had the BBLT (double bacon on a BLT). We went to Lowe’s after that to buy a new weed eater. This seems to be the season of buying! First my stove, then his tv, now the needed weed eater. He was cutting the grass and weed eating a few days ago and said his weed eater was not working right. He’s fixed it before, replacing hoses and different stuff, but it was time for a new one. I think the old one was 8 or more years old, so time for a replacement. He played golf again Sunday afternoon. I made homemade pizza and a new recipe for hot cocoa ice cream for supper:

Sunday night, Gail flew in late from Texas and stayed with us. Luckily, Tim was up since he had to work Sunday night. I tried to stay up, was reading, and got so sleepy, I didn’t make it. Sorry I missed seeing Gail in and seeing her reaction to the new tv 🙂 Monday morning (today), we got up and got dressed and picked up Fred mid morning for two doctor appointment. He went to see his retina doctor in the AM and the pulmonology doctor at 1 PM. We picked up Chick Fil A and ate lunch at his assisted living place after we had finished. He has to go back to the retina doctor in another month, for another shot in his eye. :shiver: I can never watch!

Ok, I think that catches me up. Going to try to catch up on cleaning, laundry and stuff in the next couple of days, and hope I don’t have to take my dad to the doctor again. Four appointments in three days, I’m ready for a break!

The long holiday weekend is history, and it’s back to a normal schedule. Although our holiday wasn’t all that spectacular. In fact, it was very normal and uneventful. We went on Thursday (July 4th) to Tim’s Aunt Becky’s house, as we always do. She is setup great for a big get-together (probably 70 people or more), and we always have a great time. We took my dad and he had fun. He enjoys getting out and seeing people. I tried to get us out in a timely manner, but Tim was visiting with cousins and other family members, so we didn’t leave until after 3. That put us back a little late for him going to the golf course. So, he hit balls behind the fence for a while and we watched tv. He made up for missing playing on Thursday by playing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

He had to work on Friday, but they cut them loose a little early (4 PM, which we found hilarious, since Tim works 7-4 this time of year anyway), so he went to play. I cooked fish and roasted veggies, and we tried to eat healthy. Which was a good plan, since we ate out, and badly, the rest of the weekend. Saturday morning, we ran errands, to Lowes and Academy, then stopped and picked up burgers at Dairy Queen on the way home (Tim’s choice, obviously). He played golf till dark and ate chicken santa fe when he got home (one of my oldest and most favorite recipes to throw together). Sunday, we went to church. Our pastor is on a 6 week sabbatical, but they did start a new series in his absence, Recreate. Yesterday’s sermon was about the Sabbath and keeping it holy, a very good message. We went to brunch at Waffle House (again, Tim’s choice, obviously) and then to look at a few houses close to Tim’s golf course. We couldn’t find any in our price range that we liked. No surprise there. After that, Tim left to play golf at The Refuge and I went to Kroger for groceries. I keep meaning to go over to FreshWay produce or maybe the farmer’s market, but keep just hitting the grocery store instead. I did buy two new things, new to me, a fresh pineapple and an eggplant. I’ve never cut a whole pineapple, I always wimp out and buy one already cut up. And I’ve had eggplant out (parmesan, in Italian restaurants), but never bought one and tried to cook it before. I need to get busy Googling ideas for how to cut and cook the darn thing! 🙂

We’ve been trying to grow tomatoes in the summer for Tim, for about 3 years now (I don’t eat them!) The first year, I think, we put the plant in a planter on the deck, then last year, we plopped it in the corner of the big flower bed in the back yard. I so wish we had room for a nice big veggie garden, but our yard is tiny. We’re thinking about putting in a rectangular bed next year, behind the fence (which is technically not our property). However, we have some tomato plants back there this summer, and they are doing a LOT better than the one we planted inside the yard, in the flower bed. Go figure!

Anyway, I heard on the news that this year is a great year for homegrown tomatoes. I guess because of the mild winter/warm spring or maybe with all the rain we’ve had the last couple of weeks. Either way, that’s definitely been true. Tim’s plants are doing great. One day last week, he had six tomatoes, ready to eat!

He’s been making us some salsa, and he’s been eating a lot of tomato sandwiches. He’s really enjoying his bounty! I’ve been growing herbs, and I’m hoping to blog about them soon, maybe later today 🙂

Hard to believe it’s Friday… another week has flown by. I had to hear on the news that it is indeed Friday the 13th, and the third one we have had this year (apparently a bit rare). There was one in January and another in April. We appear to be clear now for superstitious days through the end of the year! 🙂

In the news… Tom Cruise is divorcing Katie Holmes. Yeah, I’m thinking Scientology and their control of that child might have had a bit to do with it. Presidential politics is on daily – Barak Obama will run against Mitt Romney in November. Steven Tyler and J Lo are leaving Idol.

Local news … our local paper is raising rates and also going to stop allowing “free” access to their website. Boo. Hiss. I guess I’ll follow the local news stations on Twitter and check out their Facebook pages more.

Local weather … we’ve had a nice, cooler, wetter week. It’s rained almost every day. Tim has not played golf at all this week. It’s been nice for me, but sheer torture for him.

Tomorrow is Tim’s brother Mark’s birthday… Happy Birthday Mark! We need to get him on Facebook or Twitter so we can talk to him. 🙂 We need to get Tim’s other brother Terry onto the Internet, email and Facebook. He doesn’t have a computer or email, so he’s REALLY hard to get in touch with, LOL! I think they actually expect us to pick up a real phone and dial them or something, hahaha!

Oh, and a bit of aggravating news for me. The 10 pounds I had lost late last year before my colonoscopy have now all returned. Boo. Bad Stacy. Nothing like eating more carbs, bread, sweets, ice cream, etc to really pack the pounds back on. I need to get back to more veggies and less fattening stuff.

UPDATE: And right after I posted this, it came across the news that our favorite quarterback, Drew Brees, FINALLY signed his contract with the Saints today. Whew. Now we can rest easy and know that he’ll be in camp and heading up our offense this fall. Good thing, since we’ve lost so many players and our coach this year, to the much publicized “BountyGate”. 🙂

Right Now…

I’m reading… “Surrender the Wind” by Rita Gerlach

I’m waiting… on the next Harry Potter to be available for Kindle lending from the library (Half Blood Prince)

I’m watching… looking forward to new episodes of White Collar and Covert Affairs starting tonight! Also still enjoying “The Chew” on during the day, where my soap All My Children used to air 🙂

Wanting to eat… mangos and avocados this summer!

Craving… dark chocolate covered pomegranates

Playing… games on my iPad like Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends, Draw Something, and my new favorite, Hooked on Words. I like the change of Hooked on Words because I just play against myself and my score, not against others (like the other three do).

I’m needing… a haircut, this week, I’m getting a cut and color and I need both!

The weather… is finally getting a bit more bearable. After quite a few days in the triple digits, and no rain since about the 10th of June, we’re getting a break from the heat, and also a chance of showers in the afternoon. We got a brief shower this morning, and it made me all kinds of happy 😀

I’m cooking… right now, making potato salad and cole slow to go with burgers (beef for Tim, chicken for me, and some turkey ones hopefully, have a lot in the freezer that needs to be cooked) tonight for supper.

BONUS: Something new I’ve tried and liked… Silk Fruit and Protein, sort of like a watered down smoothie. I’ve bought a couple of cartons and really enjoyed them (big plus, Tim won’t touch it!), and I need to get another one, and try a new flavor.

Happy Anniversary to my darling husband!

Fifteen years ago today, we got married in a little chapel in the Smoky Mountains. Tim’s parents drove up to be with us, and we took vows to love, honor and cherish each other all the days of our lives. I’ve been so blessed to have Tim every day since, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him, feeling the love he bestows on me every day.

I love you sweetheart, with all my heart. Happy Anniversary Tim!

I normally go grocery shopping today (or the middle of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday). But looking at the thermometer, it’s 29 degrees outside, with a wind chill of 19 degrees. Really too cold for a shivering girl like myself. I really think I’d much rather stay inside, all wrapped up, with some hot raspberry zinger tea, my Kindle or maybe a movie on TV. Doesn’t that sound better that schlepping groceries in below freezing weather?

Thankfully we never lost power over the weekend, nor did we get as much ice as I expected or they predicted (thank goodness!). I took some pictures, but lazy old me hasn’t loaded them yet. Probably not very scenic pictures. Snow photographs a lot prettier than ice!

So, I’ve about talked myself into staying inside today, and will procrastinate on going to the grocery store. Luckily, we went at 11 PM Saturday night (to stock up in case we lost power), so I’m not out of anything. I just hate to go on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, because it seems like everyone and his brother is out buying groceries.

Which leads to today’s Question of the Day: When do you do your grocery shopping?
[poll id=”20″]

I normally do mine during the middle of the week, across the middle of the day, to avoid the crowds and be able to get what I want and get in and out. A lot of times on the weekend or evenings, the shelves are missing something I want or need. I hate that! How about you, when do you grocery shop, why then, and do you even like to go grocery shopping? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

Today’s been a good and bad day.

Good in that we went over to my in-laws to pick up our niece Brittany (17) and nephew Zack (15) to come stay with us for a couple of days.

Bad in that I lost my prescription eyeglasses today. Gone. Lost. And I’m rather lost without them.

Hope everyone has a safe, joyous and blessed Christmas!

I’ve decided that my handwriting has slowly evolved over the years, and now it borders on…. atrocious. Yikes. I used to have really nice handwriting, in school and then college. I remember going to an orientation type day at the small private, Christian college I attended. The professor or office attendant looked at the form I was turning in, and she commented “You didn’t have to type this dear!”. And I was like, it’s not, that’s my handwriting 🙂

But, then I started work, with all men (first in electrical engineering and then in IT) — who do not really write very well or very legibly, as a general group. And I began working almost exclusively on computers. As the days and years rolled by, I used my hand and a pen and paper less and less to write things down. Post-it notes here, scribbles there, thank-you notes at birthdays and Christmas, but that was about it. And now, today, I’ve decided that my handwriting is truly truly bad. I mean, some days, I can barely read it myself!

What brought this on, you ask? (no, I know you didn’t ask that, but thought I’d throw a little lagniappe in). I’ve been watching the new cooking show “Mad Hungry” on Hallmark channel since it premiered last week. I don’t really enjoy Martha Stewart’s show, but I do like her food editor, Lucinda Scala Quinn. I’m really enjoying her new show, and have tried to look up several recipes online to save in my “to-try” file. But — a lot of the recipes are not online yet, as it’s a new show and new website. So, with my handy DVR, I thought to myself, I’ll just write them down!!! And now, I can barely read what I wrote. Hence, the blog post 😀

We’re huge TV junkies. I always have been and Tim has become one (not much choice when you live with me!). Of course, football is on now, and that is our most favorite thing in the whole wide world. 😀 We’ve just finished up with several “summer” shows that we like, including Leverage, White Collar, Covert Affairs, Psych, Royal Pains, etc. I believe most of those will come back in January (when we’ll be missing 24, I imagine).

We have a ton of shows that start back in the fall, that we like to watch. Many nights, our DVR is nearly smoking from the exertion 🙂 There are even a couple of new shows that I would like to check out, but we already have 2 things in that time period, and that’s all the silly DVR can handle. Wouldn’t it be nice to have it record more than two at one time, LOL!

Some of the returning shows that we like and look forward to are:

Survivor
NCIS
NCIS: Los Angeles
The Mentalist
V
Chuck
Fringe
Human Target

Some of the new shows that we are wanting to check out are:

Hawaii 5-0
The Event
Undercovers

I miss watching Dancing with the Stars and Amazing Race, but those never work out for me. I love DWTS and would love to see Kurt Warner this season. But alas, those shows are on Sundays and Mondays, and we have football on those nights. And we have a lot of shows on Tuesdays, when I think the DWTS results are on. Sometimes I might record them and watch later, but it doesn’t happen often. I just keep up with them online and watch some clips.

How about you? Is there a returning or new show that you are looking forward to seeing this fall?

I have a love/hate relationships with magazines. I love to subscribe to them, love to get them in my mailbox, love to flip through them when I first get them. But then…. I don’t read through them completely, and so I end up putting them in a magazine rack in my den. You know, to read more thoroughly later on. First I had one magazine holder, then I had to get a second one. So, you can imagine how many magazines I have sitting around here. Some of them go back two years, gasp! 🙂

I’ve found through the years that as I’ve aged, I’ve changed the kind of magazines I read. I guess we get to be more like our mothers the older we get!

I don’t tend to pay for most of the magazine subscriptions that I have, so I guess that is good. I do pay for one or two, but the majority of them I get through point programs that I do online. I get several from MyCokeRewards (since Tim drinks so much Coke Zero, we have a lot of codes from Coke Zero 2 liter bottles and cases)! I also get one of Tim’s golf magazines through e-rewards.

Here’s some of the ones that I have gotten in the last year, or are currently getting. Several of them are running out and I’m debating about renewing the subscription. I think I’m going to let Taste of Home go, although I do like it, but I’m trying to cook with less processed food products and also low-sodium, and that magazine is not strong in those areas.

Some of the magazines I get are:

Southern Living (Amazon deal)
Everyday Food (points)
Taste of Home (letting expire)
Good Housekeeping (points)
Redbook (points)
Better Homes & Garden (points)
Ladies Home Journal (points)
Everyday with Rachael Ray ($10 sub, but letting expire)

So, how about you… do you read magazines? Do you buy them at the store or subscribe? Do you read them and toss or recycle them quickly, or let them pile up? What’s your favorite magazine? Leave me a comment and let me know!