Exceedingly Mundane

I hope you all had a very good weekend! Thanks for playing Monday Madness, and have a blessed week ahead! Now, for this week’s challenge….

Fill in the blanks…

1. If I could change ONE thing from this past weekend, it would be to not be so sore from all the yardwork!
2. One of my favorite recipes includes cocoa, butter, eggs, sugar, etc. It’s my Fudgy One-Bowl Brownies 🙂
3. If things don’t go as originally planned, I tend to get stressed and upset a little, I like things to be planned and executed.
4. My daily routine is very structured, but mundane.
5. The one television show I will probably miss, since the season is coming to an end, is either 24 or Lost, or maybe Amazing Race or Survivor!
6. I have a calendar hanging/sitting on my wall in the computer room/office.
7. I’m really pretty bad about changing the calendar when the day/month changes.

Tim and I both have a long history of saving our change. When we got married, he brought with him 3 large jars that he had been using to sort and save his change in:

We’ve never filled them up; they hold a LOT of change! Also, Tim is adamant about keeping a bunch of change in each of our cars. He has several stories of having to cash in his change to buy a couple of gallons of gas to get him somewhere, etc.

Me, I have always had a piggy bank and collected change. Growing up, money management was taught to me by my parents from a very young age. I saved my pennies. A penny saved is a penny earned. I took part of my birthday or Christmas money and put into my savings account at the credit union. My grandmother used to keep an old glass jar on the nightstand (by the bed where I slept when we came to visit). When we’d go there, I’d run back there to see if there was any change in the jar (there always was!) for me to have. I’d pour it out on the bed and sit and count it and then get all excited about having money that I hadn’t expected. 🙂

Anyway, Tim and I have been rolling our coins and taking them into the bank since we’ve been married. We don’t have as much change as we used to. We tend to put more on our debit or credit cards than we did when we were first married. We just don’t spend cash as much as we used to, so we don’t have as much spare change as we used to.

I knew we had not cashed in our change in a while, and I’ve been seeing this Coinstar machine at my local Kroger. I tried to talk Tim into letting me take the change up there and getting it cashed in. He wouldn’t hear of it though, once he found out they charged a fee for it. Duh. They have to make money somehow! But, he was right, and instead, we decided to buy a small, cheap coin machine at Walmart to keep and use. We bought this:

It was only 10 bucks at Walmart, and we bought a package of the pre-formed coin rolls, and we were able to sort and wrap our change in no time. We rolled a little over $100 worth one rainy afternoon a couple of weeks ago. I took it to the bank, and updated my spreadsheet. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that we have cashed in a little over $1000 dollars in change in the 10 years that we’ve been married.

So, the moral of the story is – save your change! It really does add up. And if you want to borrow our coin sorter and roll your change, just let us know. We’d be glad to help you out! 🙂

I have enough points accumulated at My Points to get a gift card. I’ve redeemed several in the past, including several for movie rentals and some to Target.

They have a lot of gift card choices to pick from, but I’ve narrowed it down to either a Barnes and Noble $25 gift card or a $25 gift card to Bath and Body Works.

I can’t decide – some days I want books and some days I want more smelly stuff 😀 Tim voted for the books, so right now I’m leaning that way. I’d love to get more feedback, so please lodge your vote below. Help me decide!

FYI: I added some photos to the Hambones photo section (remember, you have to be a registered and approved member to access family pictures). All of my photos from Easter are up now in their own album, as well as some that Shanna had emailed of the kids on Easter (they are in their own album, Grayson and Ava Clair). Such cute pictures! Thanks Shanna! We miss you guys 😥

I also added a few silly, scenic shots to my Flickr album. You can access it from my sidebar (on the right). I use Flickr for pictures of flowers, birds, silly things. Most of the “people pictures” are on Hambones.

Check them out, and enjoy!

Tim and I bought our first climbing rose last year, and planted it on the back fence. He even built a custom trellis that attaches to our fence, to give it more space to grow up and on.

Well, me not having a green thumb, I didn’t know when or how to prune this bush. So, as I do my other spring flowering shrubs, I pruned it in the winter, before it would bloom in the spring. Which was apparently ok, but I pruned it a little much. It is blooming up a storm, and has been for several weeks, but it’s not very big. In fact, it’s about the same size as it was last year when we bought it at Lowe’s. However, it had already bloomed last year, and I didn’t know what the buds and blooms looked like. This year, I’ve really been enjoying watching it bloom, the small roses are so pretty and delicate and yellow!

Next year, I’ll have to be sure to not prune it, and give it a chance to grow up on the fence like we’d like. I just hope that won’t affect its blooming next spring. Apparently, this type of climbing vine only blooms once, for about 4-6 weeks in the spring. It’s so pretty though, these pictures don’t do it justice!

P.S. If you’d like to see the individual photos larger, some of them are on my Flickr album. Just check out the sidebar and click on the Flickr image and then you can scroll through my album (mostly pictures of flowers, birds and squirrels!) and find the larger pictures of my Lady Banks climbing rose. 🙂

I bought a cheap little herb kit in Walmart a couple of weeks ago, and planted the seeds about 10 days ago. I’ve been watering them faithfully every day (just a little, with a mist sprayer so I don’t over soak them and rot them out) and now, they are starting to sprout!

I’m not sure what is what, or how much more they will grow, but just this little bit of germinating is enough to make me happy. 🙂 I don’t have a particularly green thumb and haven’t had much luck with things like this in the past. So, this is good!

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had a woodpecker or two hanging around our house and bird feeder for the last couple of months. I knew we had a woodpecker, because sometimes I would hear him up on our metal chimney cap, pecking away and sounding like a jackhammer, hitting the metal cap. Then, I started noticing a really large, really odd looking bird on my bird seed feeder. He’s much bigger than the cardinals that get on there (which are bigger than the normal visitors -sparrows, or the chickadees or wrens). This bird has a red head, so I got on the Internet and searched for “red headed woodpecker”. Come to find out, he’s called a “red-bellied” woodpecker. You can read about him here or here.

Or, you can check him out here… after several weeks of trying to get a shot of him from inside the house, I finally got one. It’s hard to get a decent shot on full zoom, from inside, with the screens we have on our windows. Also hard to get a photo of most of these birds, because they see movement inside the house and fly off before I can get my camera and get it set up. My patience was finally rewarded yesterday, and I took this picture of my male, red-bellied woodpecker:

Handsome devil, you think? Not. I think he’s sort of ugly but I’m glad to have finally gotten his picture after so much effort 🙄

OK, I’m itching to change the look of my blog. AGAIN. Happens a lot. But, my knowledge is limited and I can’t change the standard design templates enough to suit me. Sigh. So, I have to just go with the ones that others design. I really like this one though, the colors are clean and fresh and although not overtly spring-y, at least more of what I was looking for than my previous design of my beloved reds and pinks.

Let me know if you like this one, and more importantly, if you see any problems or things that don’t work. I know the “Archived Entry” portion under Comments is not working now, and I’ve been unable to determine why not. But, I’m honestly not that worried about it at the moment. I hope that’s the only thing that is not working 100%. Let me know if you see anything, or just if you like the new look and feel at all.

I’ll try to blog more later today… lots going on yesterday, and I have lots of meaningless pictures to share. Hopefully later today or at least tomorrow, I’ll have them transferred and can get it all posted. In the mean time, have a great day everyone!

Today’s questions were suggested by Christine.

1. How do you decide to read a book by an author you haven’t read before? Usually from a recommendation from a friend or family member. I have been really lucky lately with finding book recommendations at a message board I frequent, as well as several blogs I read. I have found others who read similar books and genres that I do, so I like to look at their reading lists and see what other authors they read. Helps me branch out and find something new.
2. What sort of recommendations count most highly in making that decision? Well, if I’ve heard of the author or read them before, that’s a big plus. Or a personal recommendation (see above!) Otherwise, I tend to look at books in the bookstore or library and read the synopsis on the book jacket, as well as sometimes flip through and see if it looks like a book I might enjoy. It helps that I get about 95% of the books I read from the library, as opposed to buying them in a bookstore. I don’t feel nearly as bad about picking up a book or new author to try, and if I don’t like it, then I just return the book to the library. No harm, no foul, and no money out of my pocket. That helps me branch out and try new authors more often than I would if I was funding it out of my own wallet. 😀

Here’s a freebie for the day – I discovered yesterday a new music site online, one devoted to classical music. The website is www.eclassical.com. At the very bottom, you can scroll down and download a free mp3 – classical of course.

I’ve been collecting some classical music lately to have on my iPod. Sometimes I want to listen to something quiet and soothing in the background, while I read. Sometimes, I have to have it on to drown out the loud TV or other sound distractions that keep me from being able to read (I read best if it’s quiet, but if it’s loud, sometimes having soothing classical music in my ear will help me concentrate). Anyway, Gail and I have been ripping and collecting some classical music. Hence, the discovery of this website.

Check it out, if you’re interested in classical tunes. I love freebies!

– a buffet for your brain

Friday, March 03, 2006
Feast Eighty-Three

Appetizer
How many pillows and blankets do you sleep with? Only one pillow. The covers depend on the time of year. In the winter, a sheet, comforter and quilt. In the summer, just the sheet and comforter.

Soup
What are you currently “addicted” to? WELL. I’m an addict on several levels. Always addicted to chocolate and sweets. Always addicted to TV. Currently addicted to reading, playing Sudoku and blogging.

Salad
If you could make a small change to your current routine or schedule that would make you just a little bit happier, what would it be? Well, for the last several weeks, Tim has been having to put in a lot of code at night. That messes up our sleeping schedule. I will be a bit relieved when that is not going on and we get back to a normal time of going to bed and getting up in the AM. I will also be happy when my ankle heals and I can get back into working out and walking. Ouch. My ankle hurts when I put much weight on it.

Main Course
Which adjective do you find yourself using often? Nothing that I can think of!

Dessert
Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker? NO. And I won’t.

I found this posted on one of my favorite message boards – you can click here and go find out what the number one song in the U.S. was the week you were born. I love little fun stuff like this!

Post yours at your own blog, or a comment here. Mine was “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” by Manfred Mann

Happy Birthday Gail! Hope you have a great day, and a wonderful weekend. You’re in luck this year – your birthday falls on a Friday, so the “birthday rules” apply. If your birthday falls on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, you get to celebrate all weekend long! Hooray 🙂

Have a great day, big sister!

Hello Internet 🙂 Am I the only person in the world with this idiosyncrasy?

I’m vacuuming the carpet, and I see a speck of dirt or something on the floor. I run the vacuum over it, and it won’t come up. I run it over it a couple more times, but the darn thing won’t pick up. So, I bend over and pick it up, then toss it back on the floor and try again. I swear it, I ran the vacuum cleaner over that speck of dirt probably 8 or 9 times before it finally picked up. Then, I stopped and thought – why didn’t I walk to the garbage can and throw it away, after I had gone to the trouble to bend over and pick it up? Is it just me? Has anyone else ever done this? 😳

OK, let’s play “answer some questions”. The last time I posted something like this, I had good feedback, so let’s try again. Post your answers in the form of a comment here, or at your own blog. 🙂

1. What are your favorite pizza toppings? List your favorite 3 (or more).

2. What was the last movie you saw (theater or rented, your choice, or both)?

3. What is your favorite fruit?