Exceedingly Mundane

Some more random questions! I’m slowly trying to work out (in my poor head!) where I’m going to put things in the new house. I’ve lived in my current house 21 years and I can’t seem to figure out where things will go in the new house. So, I have some questions about where YOU put things in your own home!

1) Where do you store onions and potatoes?

2) Do you keep cleaning supplies in each bathroom and the kitchen? Or just have in one space and move around as you clean?

3) Do you keep your jewelry in the bedroom, bathroom or a closet?

4) Do you store spices next to your stove?

Time for another Question of the Day! Do you take your car to the car wash? Do you wash it yourself at home? Does someone else wash it for you? (This sounds like a good job for teens and pre-teens!) Do you pull through an automated place or drive up to one where you get out and wand that sucker yourself? LOL! Or do you never wash your car?! 😀

I admit, we don’t wash our cars very often. One vehicle sits out all the time, so it gets rained on, but it does pick up pollen and stuff. The other stays in a garage and doesn’t get that dirty. Neither Tim nor I really like washing cars. Years ago, when we were first married, we would get out on the driveway, with the hose and some car wash detergent, and wash them ourselves. It’s either age or laziness or something, because these days, we drive them to one of the local drive through places that has the automated machines that wash it for you. It’s more expensive, yes, but it certainly is very convenient! As I said, we don’t wash them a lot, so we don’t spend too much money on this particular endeavor!

Tim worked on our vehicles on Saturday. He changed the oil in both (that saves us a TON of money, him doing it rather than taking it in to a car care place), and he also rotated the tires on both vehicles. Tim grew up working on cars and farm equipment, so he’s incredibly handy in that way. It is a wonderful trait to have in a husband, believe me! 😀 Anyway, we took both of them to a drive-through car wash place ($10 each), and got them both cleaned up. They’re all shiny and clean, and set for a while.

How about you? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Is cereal a staple at your house? It is at ours. We have a whole deep drawer devoted to just cereal and granola bars. I’m not sure why I have so much space devoted to one food category, or why we keep so much cereal. Probably because I’m all about options and having choices. I really could probably use that space more wisely and efficiently for something else 😀

I eat a lot less cereal than I used to. I have made a concerted effort to transition to oatmeal in the last couple of years, to try to keep my cholesterol numbers down. I try to eat oatmeal 6 or sometimes 7 days a week, most of the year. It’s really easy in the winter. July and August are a little harder, although I usually succeed. Most of the time, I “splurge” on Sunday mornings and have a bowl of cereal before early church. It takes less time and gives me enough energy to get through church. I tried skipping breakfast a couple of mornings, and got dizzy one time, getting up and down to sing during church. Now, I make sure to eat something!

Tim is a breakfast kind of guy. But not cereal. He grew up with his mom fixing him a “big breakfast” before he left on the school bus. Tim’s idea of breakfast is biscuits, eggs, bacon or sausage, and grits. Every. Single. Morning. Me, I can’t cook very well when I’m sleepy and I just don’t think it’s that healthy to eat that every day, first thing. So, he’s had to compromise over the years, and eat breakfast for dinner about once every week or so. In the mornings, he’s pretty much stuck with cereal or oatmeal.

I only buy “semi-healthy” cereal. I keep cornflakes, for when we have bananas (or I need them for a coating of some kind). I keep Raisin Bran Crunch for Tim, and two kinds of Cheerios for me (he eats them sometimes too). I also keep granola bars for Tim, he likes to take them to the golf course. 🙂

So, are you a cereal eater? Do you stick to one kind or do you like options or variety? Do you eat the sugary, good kind from childhood (Fruit Loops, Cocoa Pebbles, etc), or have you switched to a semi-healthy kind as an adult? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I appear to be a seasonal eater. These days, if we go out to eat lunch or dinner, I seem to want to go somewhere that serves a nice variety of soup choices 🙂 Especially at lunch, I love places that offer a combo of say, soup and a half a sandwich. I guess because we’ve had quite a bit of cold weather lately, I am drawn to soups, both at home and eating out.

In the summer though, I’ll do a salad and a half a sandwich. I love places like Corner Bakery, Newks, Sweet Peppers, McAlisters, etc — good soup/sandwich/salad places. I love paninis and get those a lot. I rarely order a caesar salad, for whatever reason. I also don’t love places that just have iceberg lettuce for their salads. (Have you noticed a trend, I appear to be quite picky!)

I admit, when I eat out, I tend to favor “fattening” foods. Especially this time of year, with soups. Something like a broccoli cheese or a loaded or baked potato soup. Or at Newks on Fridays, my favored lobster bisque. Yummy and fattening. At home, I tend to make a little healthier soup, a turkey or bean chili, a Cooking Light recipe for potato soup, etc.

How about you? Which do you prefer – soup, sandwich or salad? Are you a seasonal eater or does the weather not affect what you eat? Do you have a favorite place to eat this kind of food, and a combination that you like? Leave a comment and let me know!

So, today’s Question of the Day is about dreams. Do you remember your dreams? Do you dream a lot?

Me, I think I’m an oddball. I might dream, but I rarely remember them. I actually don’t think I dream much, but I’m sure, scientifically, I probably do. I am getting to an age now where I rarely sleep through the night. With the tinnitus, once I wake up, I have a really hard time getting back to sleep. But, right when I wake up, I never remember anything about a dream. Only once in a blue moon. If I do, I only remember a tiny bit, just a snippet, not a long or drawn out series of events or something. And mine are usually odd. Like a mixture of something from the distant past, mixed with something recent from my life, or a tv show or movie or something I’ve seen. Like they got thrown in a blender and came out, not making any sense! LOL! 🙂

Tim often tells me about his dreams, he remembers quite a lot. His retelling is pretty vivid and usually full of a lot of detail. And my mother-in-law is the same way. She seems to remember them and be able to recount details of what she dreamed, what she said and did, etc.

What about you? Do you dream a lot and do you remember any of them? Are they good, sweet dreams or really weird dreams?

What do you guys do with old Christmas cards? The ones you receive from others, whether they are the photo kind of kids or families, or just plain Christmas card greeting cards. Do you save them? Throw them out? Scrapbook them? Do something else with them?

I have been saving them, but I have a pretty big collection of them. I have several years worth in a couple of photo boxes. I am afraid I’m equally as bad with birthday cards, I tend to save those as well. I chalk it up to two things 1) I’m sentimental and 2) I’m a packrat. I think both stem from the fact that my mom was neither. She threw everything out. And I mean everything. Drawings I made for her as a child. Ornaments I made for her in Sunday School. Birthday and Christmas cards. Everything. She even threw out or gave away some old handmade quilts that were made by her mom and aunt. What I wouldn’t give to have those quilts!

Anyway, I’m trying to decide about tossing Christmas cards from years past, but apparently I’m looking for affirmation or back-up here, LOL! What do you do with your old cards you receive from others?

Thanks, and have a wonderful day!

I don’t know why I’ve always walked by these in the grocery store every year, and never picked any up to try. This year, I rectified that and bought a bag of Cuties Clementines a week or so ago. And… I really like them!

I think it’s a nostalgia thing for me. I am pretty sure that Santa put an orange in my stocking every year, growing up. I remember thinking the oranges were O.K., but I wasn’t fond of the peel and all the seeds. Maybe later, Santa switched to tangerines. And those were better, but these little Clementines are good! They’re small, so a good size for portion control, and easy to get into.

So, how about you… is there a food that is really nostalgic for you this time of year? Something your mom or grandma always made, or put in your stocking, or you always got to have this time of year? Leave me a comment and let me know!

P.S. ALL of my presents are wrapped, I’m dancing a happy jig over here! 🙂

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!

When I first started blogging over 5 years ago, I did a lot of memes. I think most of them have disappeared from the blogosphere. The Monday Menu meme at OrgJunkie’s site is still alive, and very active, from what I can tell. I don’t know if I’ll get back to posting my menus online. It’s enough for me to just try to do them at this point. 😀

Last week, I ran across a revival of a meme that I used to do called the “Monday Morning Meme” over at one of my favorite bloggers site – Write from Karen. Karen posts 4 or 5 questions for bloggers to blog about on Mondays. This week, I’m going to be uber-selective and just pick one.

3. Thunderstorm arrives, power outage! How do you occupy your time?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that I would read. As I have blogged about recently, reading is harder for me than it used to be. I would probably try reading with my iPod on, or maybe working on a scrapbook page. Depending on the weather, I would probably try to sit outside and read a book or magazine. I know one thing for certain – I would call the power company ASAP to find out how long my power is going to be out! This has been such a hot summer that I wouldn’t want to be out long. Another thing I might do is play on my phone. I’ve been playing Words with Friends a lot lately, and having fun with that. I have several other games on my phone that I like to play. The only downside to that – I’d probably run my phone battery down and not be able to plug it back in and charge it back up!

How about you? Play along at your blog or leave me a message and let us know what you do when the power is out!

OK, so this morning in church, I noticed yet again that a lot of kids of all ages seem to be bringing their electronic devices into church. Apparently to keep them entertained, from what I can see. Cell phones, which I can *sort of* see, although I think they should be silenced and really shouldn’t be used. But I have also been seeing a lot of Nintendo DS’s and Playstation Portables (PSP’s). I guess the parents think it’s better to keep them quiet and entertained, or something. But, when I was their age, I was supposed to sit there and listen, or at least pretend to listen. Back in the dark ages, I was allowed, at most, to doodle on the program and fill in the letter O’s 😀

So, do you think it’s ok for them to be using all of these devices in church? Or am I just horribly old-fashioned?

Hope everyone is having a blessed day!

I always have such good intentions about blogging. Take this blog post, for instance. I took this picture over a month ago, and stored it away to write a post about:

Now, here it is several weeks later, and I no longer have any of the dish soap or hand soap. I was going to blog about how I had bought my first Mrs. Meyer’s products last fall and winter. I love this pine scent that came out around the holidays. I was going to blab about how my local Target had this one seasonal scent, but I can no longer find these products at my store. And of course, they’re not at Walmart (where I normally shop, I know, I know!). I don’t shop at drugstore type stores (CVS, Walgreens, etc), so I don’t know if they carry them. I was pleasantly surprised to find some unscented Mrs. Meyer’s products at my local Marshalls / TJ Maxx stores. That’s where I got the countertop spray in the middle, which I do still have 🙂

I had the best intentions about doing a nice, little post about cleaning products, and what people use to clean their kitchen with. Are you a germophobe and very concerned about germs, and only use anti-bacterial products? Do you hand wash dishes, and if so, what brand or type of dish soap do you use? Are you adamant about your floors and countertops, and what do you use on them? Are you a sucker for a certain kind of dishwasher product – tabs, gel, powder, etc?

I must admit, I’m brand dependent, but only to the extent of what I can find in bulk at our local Sam’s Club, combined with what I like. I normally use Palmolive anti-bacterial dish soap. It’s an orange colored liquid that I buy in a huge container at Sams, then I fill up a glass olive oil with spout type container at home (did that make ANY sense?!) to use for washing pots and pans in the sink. I use Cascade tabs in my dishwasher. I’ve tried powder, gel and tabs, and I do like the ease and convenience of the tabs. Sam’s sells both Electrosol brand and Cascade brand, but I couldn’t tell a huge difference between them. The Cascade are a bit cheaper, so that’s what we use. I keep hand soap on my sink, but once I had used up all of my Mrs Meyers, I admit I went back to using the Equate brand from Walmart, an antibacterial one. I mop my floors with Armstrong floor cleaner. With a dog that is only allowed on the tile in the kitchen, my floors have to be cleaned pretty often 🙂

So, there, it’s not timely or well-stated, but I wanted to ramble on about cleaning products in the kitchen. I’m always interested in what other people use, and what they like and dislike. It’s usually a good way to find something new to try, that I might like better 🙂 I am a homebody and I work hard to keep our home a happy, healthy, clean, comfortable place. These topics are so mundane to most, but always so intriguing to me!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you use at your house, or if you really could care less about this type of stuff 🙂 Maybe you’re not the only cleaning up the kitchen, or maybe it just doesn’t matter. But if it does, and you’ve found products that you either like or dislike for whatever reason, let me know!

Oh, and have a great day!

It’s a little thing, but I’ve decided to go with more glass and less plastic in my kitchen. For quite a while now, I’ve been thinking about trying to get rid of most of my Rubbermaid / Tupperware / Misc Plastic containers. I have read (or as Tim thinks, bought into the hype) that there’s stuff in the plastic that can leach into your food. Plus, plastic gets stained with tomato products like spaghetti, chili, etc. Now, I like plastic for the no-breakage option, but I’m trying really hard to be careful and not chip or break my glass containers.

I bought a couple of 3 pack Pyrex glass storage containers at Walmart to give them a try. A few days later, Tim and I were at Sam’s, and he found this. He came and got me and said, “Let’s get this for you, I think you’ll love it!”. Such a sweetie 🙂

I told him, I really don’t need that many containers, nor do I have room for them. But, I started going through my cabinets and decided I could purge some other things that I had. I had a set of stainless /coated storage containers, some ramekins, as well as all of my Rubbermaid containers. Once I cleaned all of them out, I had enough room for all of my red Pyrex glass containers.

I’ve had them a few weeks now, and I really like them. I can mix up something like chicken salad in one of the containers, then just store it in the fridge. I can scoop up leftovers from supper, then when we want to warm them up for lunch the next day, I don’t have to worry about taking them out of the plastic and putting them on something else to warm up (that’s mostly what I had read about plastic, don’t microwave in it and heat them and the contents up). I can pop them in the freezer, I can put them in the dishwasher and they come out looking brand new. I really like this set from Sam’s Club, because I have some rectangular / oblong ones in addition to different sizes of round ones. Lots of variety and lots of storage sizes. All good things 🙂

So, here’s a quick question – do you do leftovers at your house? Do you store them in plastic or glass? Do you freeze leftovers?

Have a great, happy, joyous day 🙂

I’m just a little goofy, because I got excited when I found out a few days ago that this year, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day are on the same day 😀

If you’ve visited here before, you might remember me blogging about the fact that Tim doesn’t really buy into the “greeting card holidays” as he calls them. Valentines is his biggest pet peeve. And even though I love to get flowers or chocolates or even a card, I really do see his point.

In the beginning, when we were dating and first married, he pushed through his cynicism and did what I wanted – sent me expensive flowers, took me out to nice restaurants, etc for Valentines Day. One year, we waited at a local Italian place (Amerigo) for over two hours then had less than stellar food and service. We had been married a few years and I was starting to see his point, but that ill-fated date night out on Valentines Day sealed it for me. These days, we do little to observe Valentines. Tim is wonderful about getting me flowers or cards or happies any of the other 360+ days out of the year (anniversary and birthday don’t count!), so Valentines really is not a big deal for us. We normally grill out a steak and watch tv, no biggie.

This year though, I saw that the Chinese New Year is on February 14. So, I’m really excited! You see, Chinese food is one of my most favorite things in the whole world. And Tim loves to get take-out more than eat it in restaurants, so it’s a win-win thing for us. I’m hoping we can get some Chinese food this weekend; in fact, I’m already planning for it and looking forward to it 🙂 We do have some steaks in the freezer, so maybe the other night (Saturday), we can grill out a steak and just celebrate both with our favorite foods 😀

BTW, I’m a Dragon and Tim’s a Rooster on the Chinese zodiac… we always have fun reading about those on the paper place-mats at one of the local Chinese places we visit. Have you ever checked to see what you are? You can read about the Chinese New Year here at Wikipedia, or find out your sign here.

Do you have plans for either holiday this weekend?

I was surfing around a day or so ago (or maybe checking Twitter, I honestly can’t remember!), and I saw a link to this article, about washing bagged lettuce.

I normally watch The Today Show, so I didn’t see this segment on The Early Show. But, I must admit, I don’t always rewash those bags of pre-washed lettuce. I might think twice now! I try to buy heads of lettuce, or heads of romaine more precisely, and then wash them myself, run them through the salad spinner, and store in a gallon ziploc bag in my produce drawer. I have been buying some of those big plastic tubs of organic lettuce at either my grocery or at Fresh Market (our favorite spot to stop after church on Sunday and pick up food for lunch). I tend to not wash those either, but just pick out the lettuce and make a salad or whatever.

So, how about you… do you wash those pre-washed bags or tubs of lettuce again? Or do you not buy those and just buy heads of lettuce that you do wash yourself? Vote in the poll and let me know!

[poll id=”19″]

I’ve gotten into a habit of asking a “Question of the Day” here at my blog. How I got into the habit of doing it, I will never know. But I really enjoy hearing what other people think about things, big or small, or what items you use in your daily life or how you feel about certain products, or current events or lots of other things. 🙂 I think it’s a great way to learn about my blog friends, share a little something about myself, as well as see how many things we share in common vs things we are different about. That’s one thing I’ve definitely learned as I’ve aged – we all have a lot more in common than we think, and we all have differences. God made us unique, in big ways and small, and I like exploring that.

So, in keeping with the title of my blog, today’s Question of the Day is just about as mundane as you can get 😀 What kind of toothpaste do you use? I have always really liked it that when Tim and I got married, we never had issues with the toothpaste. The toilet seat going up and down, yes, that’s a big one in our house, but the toothpaste has never been an issue. We both use Crest and tend to like the same type flavors and textures. We’ve transitioned to gel over the last few years, but both grew up with plain old paste. We’re both kind of funny about the toothpaste tube. Tim is just as likely as his OCD-wife to squeeze from the middle, but then be diligent about squeezing it up and keeping it near the top. 🙂

OK, so how about you? Do you use one kind in your house and everyone is happy, or do you buy multiple brands, multiple flavors, multiple kinds? Have you ever changed because someone else was using a different kind and it was just easier to switch? Do you even care?! LOL! Leave me a comment and let me know!