Exceedingly Mundane

Doesn’t the title of this post sound like a little ole lady? Haha, some days I feel young and some days I feel old. Some days I feel light and happy and some days I feel like stomping my foot.

I digress. Today’s post is about things you have never done, that your family and friends can’t believe. Not things like, I’ve been bungee jumping, have you? Normal every day things. Things that they eat that you won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Movies they love and have seen 25 times, but that you’ve never seen. A TV show that was a hit for years that you never saw a single episode of. The biggest books on the planet, and no, you haven’t read them, thank you very much.

I like to consider myself normal, but when it comes to things like this, I realize just how abnormal I can be. 😀

For example, here’s some of my “I never’s”

1. I’ve never seen a single episode of Law and Order. Chris and Stacy (Vader’s Mom) are both gasping and clutching their chest right about now at the blasphemy of that. I’ve never seen an episode of ER either. Or Grey’s Anatomy. Or even a whole episode of Andy Griffith. Or a million other shows. Which is odd, because I really am a TV junkie about most things.

2. I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books. Or seen one of the movies. I do think that one day, being the bookworm that I am, I will get around to reading them. I plan to avoid the movies until that time that I can read the books. Tim has no desire for either, so this will probably be a solo venture. But Trent, Shanna and Elizabeth are fanatical about the books, so I will probably get to them one day.

3. I don’t eat tomatoes. I eat all tomato products, including ketchup, spaghetti sauce, salsa, marinara and even Campbell’s pureed tomato soup. But put a tomato in my salad or on my burger and I have to take it off. And scrape off any of those nasty little gooey seeds that go everywhere. Yuck.

4. I’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz. If you’ve visited here before, you’ve probably picked up on this little tidbit. I wear it like a Badge of Honor now. I had a very odd childhood and I never watched this movie growing up. I know it’s a classic and all that, but I have no intention of watching it now. Mostly, I just like saying “I’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz and have no plans to”. 😀

So, how about you. Do you have any “I nevers” that you’d like to share. Any that your family or friends think is odd, but that’s something you haven’t done, or haven’t seen, or don’t intend to? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I’m recycling some old questions from the early years of my blog. You know, back when I only had 2 or 3 readers (Hello to my sisters and also Dawn and Deb!).

Today’s Question of the Day is all about music. I’d love it if you’d leave me a comment and answer any or all of these questions:

Have you ever looked up the lyrics to a song online?
Do you download music from online sites? If so, which ones?
Do you have an iPod or other mp3 player that you use? How often do you use it? Do you use it while exercising, commuting, reading, just hanging out, or when?
What was the last music you downloaded?
What was the last song or CD that you listened to?

Lastly, but probably most importantly – recommend some music to me. Please, I need inspiration! That treadmill is getting harder and harder to go anywhere near and I need some new music to walk to 🙂 Lately, I’ve either been listening to some Bon Jovi from the 80’s or the Daughtry album while I walk. I need something new and upbeat. Help!

Have a wonderful day!

I was listening to my iPod a few days ago, and switched over to an album I really love, “Fireflies” by Faith Hill. One of my favorite tracks is the title one, where she sings

“I found mayonnaise bottles and poked holes on top
to capture Tinkerbell
they were just fireflies to the untrained eye
but I could always tell”

And it reminded me of doing this from my childhood. Now, that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to any of you, but for me, remembering anything from my childhood or youth is a huge deal. For some reason, I’ve blocked most of it out. People, places, events, daily things, you name it. But I do remember doing this. Back then, our mayonnaise was in jars, glass jars with metal or plastic lids. I can remember asking for a jar, and washing it out, and then poking holes on top. I can remember doing this sometimes in the summer, going out in the backyard and trying to catch fireflies. I liked the way they lighted up 🙂 I have absolutely no memory of what I did with them, if I tried to keep them in the jar or I let them go. But I do remember doing this some.

These days, I don’t seem to see a lot of fireflies. Maybe it’s where we live. Too much suburbia and too many people for the little fireflies.

Are there a lot of fireflies where you live? Did you do this when you were young? Do your kids do this today? If so, what do they use to catch them? I haven’t seen a glass mayonnaise jar in years 🙂

That’s today’s “Question of the Day“. Leave me a comment and let me know! Or, if you never did this and do remember something else like this from your childhood, share those memories with us!

Have a wonderful day 😀

We went to eat at Chili’s over the long holiday weekend. They had a new menu and I was rather dismayed that they took my favorite salad off the menu, but that they also got rid of the lettuce wraps! I really loved getting those there and did often. At least they left the molten lava cakes on the dessert menu! They had the regular chocolate one and then a new white chocolate one. We stuck to the tried and true though!

My all-time favorite thing to get at Chili’s hasn’t been available on their menu in at least five years. For years, I loved getting the tuna sandwich – a grilled fillet of tuna on a whole wheat bun with the best sauce on it. I can’t even remember now what the sauce/aioli/mayo was, but it was delicious. I moaned for years that they took it off the menu 🙁

Don’t cha just hate it when you get used to ordering a favorite dish at a restaurant and then they take it off the menu? Has that happened to you? That’s today’s Question of the Day – leave me a comment and let me know what you miss!

If you’ve visited here before, you’ve probably seen me mention the fact that I don’t really remember anything from my childhood. That gap in my memory stretches right on through most of high school and college. Weird, huh?

I’d like to think, however, that when I was little, I liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I know I like them now. I’ve been on a kick for over a month now, of regularly having PB&J sandwiches for lunch. That’s because I discovered this at our new Fresh Market:

They grind peanuts fresh in the store and it tastes so good! I keep it in the fridge and pull it out regularly, along with blackberry (preferred) or raspberry preserves and make myself a pb&j for lunch.

How about you… is there any food that reminds you of your childhood? I remember loving my grandmother’s chicken and rice (sort of like chicken and dumplings). I’ve tried many times as an adult to recreate it, but I never come close.

Have a great day!

If you were getting a new cell phone, and you had to choose between an iPhone and a Blackberry – which would you choose?! Cast your vote today 🙂

Today’s Question of the Day is all about movies. I’ll take some popcorn with mine, please 🙂

The summer onslaught of big-screen movies is here! Tim and I went to see Ironman a couple of weeks ago and we both really liked it. Then again, we like most of the Marvel comic book movies. The new Indiana Jones movie starts next week, and inquiring minds want to know, do you plan to go see the Indy movie in the theater this summer?

If not, which big-screen movie are you excited about seeing? Or if you don’t go to the theater, what’s a movie you’ve rented lately and really liked, or one you want to rent?

Have a great day!

My sister Gail was cleaning out some stuff at her house recently and ran across two books that had my name on them. I think they were in her girls room, so I probably loaned them to her daughters to read when they were younger. One of them wasn’t as familiar, but when I saw this one, I immediately remembered this book!

I even found a link to it, here at Amazon.com. I would have thought this thing was out of print or unavailable, as it says in the front that it is part of the “Weekly Reader Children’s Book Club.”

Anyway, seeing this book and remembering I liked it is really a feat in and of itself. My memory is atrocious, especially in regards to anything from my childhood, even through high school. I don’t remember people, places, things I did, places I went, etc. So for me to remember this book means something 🙂 I’m going to reread it soon and see if I enjoy as much as a forty-something year old as I did a whatever-year old. The book is dated 1971, but I’m not sure when I read it. I hope it’s good 🙂

How about you – do you have a favorite book from childhood? One you remember reading and loving as a child, or one you read to your own kids? That’s today’s Question of the Day, so leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

Well, I was sorry to see that there was no new Friday Feast today. I probably could have surfed around and found a substitute, or even tried to recycle an old one, but instead, I thought I’d ask a “Question of the Day“. I haven’t done one of these in a while. I actually sort of ran out of interesting ideas. Maybe, since my blog is over 3 years old, I’ll have to go back and recycle some of the more popular ones that I’ve asked before 🙂

In the mean time, here’s one that I’ve been meaning to ask:

Have you ever read the ending of a book before you actually got to the end?

This is not something I have ever done. I always, always flip ahead though and see what page number is the last page. I have this thing about knowing how many pages are in the book, and at any given point, how far I am into a book and how much left I have to go. But, I never read the ending. I don’t like knowing how it will turn out. That sort of makes reading the book totally useless to me!

So, how about you? Have you ever flipped to the end to read how it’s going to turn out?

I’m curious – did you “give up” anything to start, or continue, blogging? As in, time-wise, do you spend time blogging that you would otherwise be using for something else, another hobby, more time with family or friends, or something like that? Anything specific? Me, I gave up scrapbooking when I started blogging. I really miss it sometimes, but I’m realistic – I can’t seem to do both. It’s enough that I read as much as I do and blog, while everything else is going on around here. I know my limitations – if I add scrapbooking back in, then something else will have to give. Either the insane amount of TV/movie watching we do (which would work for me now, I’d gladly give up some to read more, but Tim loves to watch TV and movies and that’s a lot of our “together” time), or the cooking/baking/recipe collecting, or the reading. Or the blogging. Logically, I know I could scale each of them down and add scrapbooking back in, but realistically, I know the way I work and function, and I know I’d have to really cut one back severely, or out altogether, to add something as time-intensive as scrapping back for me.

How about you? Do you feel like you cut back or gave anything up to blog regularly? Is there a hobby you used to enjoy, but you no longer do because you’re spending that time blogging?

I’ve been trying, for a while now, to figure out how to post this question, without either appearing like a weirdo and without making my blogger buddies out there run screaming from the computer because it’s such an odd and long-winded question. I haven’t quite figured out how to do either of those yet, so I guess I’ll just dive right in.

I’m curious about how much “stuff” others have in their kitchen cabinets, drawers and pantry. Do other people have as much cookware, bakeware, prep equipment, gadgets, etc as I do? Tim says most people don’t. This question comes about for two basic reasons – 1) I’m wanting to get more dishes (I’ve almost completely decided on Fiestaware, but waffling on color choices) but also keep the everyday dishes I already have (Mikasa French Countryside). Which means some “stuff” has to go to make room for more dishes and mugs. And 2) I’m trying to declutter and clean different areas of the house, and the kitchen is a hard one for me. I really and truly feel like everything in my kitchen is either needed (something I use on a fairly regular basis while cooking and baking), or else, if it’s something I rarely use, it’s stored there because it is kitchen-related and I have no where else to store it for part of the year. Think seasonal stuff, like a roasting pan for cooking a turkey or ham at the holidays.

I do have a lot of stuff. I like to cook and bake. I’m wondering if other people who cook have as much, or more, or less. For example, I have more than one muffin pan. I have a 12 cup muffin tin, a 6 cup muffin tin and a mini-muffin tin. Tim says I should just have one, but I say, sometimes I make a recipe for 12, sometimes I cut muffins or cornbread in half and just cook 6 in my toaster oven, and sometimes I make mini muffins. Those are just for muffins – if I’m baking a cake, I like to have a choice of a round cake pan, an oblong pan (like a 9×13) or a bundt pan. Which leads to another example – I have more than one 9×13 pan. I have metal, because I like metal for bar cookies, brownies, cakes and things like that. I also have a glass one, because I like to make casseroles and stuff like that in a glass or ceramic one. I have mixing bowls, a Dutch oven, a bigger soup pot, various and sundry casserole dishes (I have about 5 different sizes in the Corningware French White, it matches my everyday white dishes and I like Corningware products). I do bake bread, so I have more than one loaf pan, too. The madness never ends, it just keeps going on and on 🙂

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Well, it’s an “extra” day today. Only happens every four years. You think there’d be some kind of celebration or “National Holiday” or something to commemorate Leap Day, wouldn’t you?! Are you doing anything different or special today?

I mentioned it the other day to Tim, and he said, being the sweet, supportive husband that he is, “you ought to do something special on your blog.” When I asked what, he said to ask a special “Question of the Day“. So, when I asked, here’s what he said!

If you could do anything or go anywhere you wanted today, where would it be? Here’s the stipulations – money is no object, but time is. You only have 24 hours to accomplish this. You can leave the house at 12:01 AM but you have to be back by midnight. You can go anywhere you want, with anyone you want. But here’s the catch – you have to be willing to do this every four years on Leap Day. You have to go to the same place, do the same things, with the same people. Where would you go or what would you do and who with?

Leave me a comment and let us know… after all, this was Tim’s “Question of the Day”!!!

Have a great Leap Day 😀

sometimes, you don’t!

I’ve been trying to get on the treadmill every day. We’ve had it a week and a half and I’ve only skipped 1 or 2 days so far. So far this week, I’ve done 3.5 miles (Monday) and 4.0 miles (Tuesday). Let me tell you, it’s kicking my behind. And, to make matters worse, I got on the scale this morning, expecting to have lost weight. Boy, was I disappointed!

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. While on the treadmill, I’ve been watching a bunch of cooking shows that I have saved on our DVR. I watched a baking show yesterday and they made several kinds of cookies and bar cookies. Most of the recipes had nuts and that made me think – does everyone like nuts? I know a lot of kids these days have allergies to certain kinds of nuts. How about you – do you like nuts in your cookies? If you’re going to bake chocolate chip cookies, do you add pecans or walnuts, or do you not want a nut to spoil your cookie? I don’t mind, but I don’t always add them. I think Tim prefers his chocolate chips cookies and other baked stuff to be plain, but he will gladly eat them either way 🙂

That’s today’s “Question of the Day” – nuts in your cookies and baked goods, or not? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Are you old enough to remember this old nursery rhyme? I think I remember my grandmother telling it to me…

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?

So, I thought I’d steal that nursery rhyme for the title, as my sister Gail does at her blog, More Than a Song. We’ve been having tons of blackbirds here lately (a lot more than 24, more like 124 at a time!) I must admit – I love birds. I have several birds feeders and a suet feeder and I love to watch the birds in my backyard. We have a lot of cardinals, wrens, mockingbirds, sparrows, finches, chickadees, woodpeckers and other backyard birds. I saw a robin on the way to church last Sunday, but I haven’t seen any in my yard yet. Hopefully, soon! Lately, we’ve had tons of blackbirds. One day a week or so ago, I was inside the house, with the TV on, and I could hear them outside. I got my camera and got a couple of photos as some of them were moving over. It’s funny how they move in such a swarm:

Believe me, the photos don’t do them justice! They were everywhere. I think they are my least favorite bird.

So, how about a Question of the Day: Do you have a bird feeder in your yard? Do you enjoy feeding the birds and watching them? And, are you nerdy like me and like to take photos of birds?! 🙂

Have a great day!

Do you have a food processor? If so, what kind and how often do you use it? I have an older one that my mom gave me years and years ago. It’s an Oster (Sunbeam) brand, and it has a small food processor cup with just one blade, and then a blender attachment. I like it because it gives me both, but I’ve often wanted more functionality out of it. It doesn’t have a tube for adding things, nor does it have any blades but the one simple cutting blade. It’s also really small, probably either a 3 cup or 5 cup capacity. I really like it, it’s worked well over the years, but sometimes I get the urge for a new one 😀

I’ve batted around for years, the whole dilemma of finding room in my overflowing kitchen cabinets to upgrade and get a larger and nicer food processor. I’ve gone back and forth on the whole Kitchenaid vs Cuisinart thing. I watch so many cooking shows, and I see them both used, often and fairly equally. {Oh, and since we’ve gotten our DVR, I record and watch a ton more cooking shows. Heavens to Betsy!} 😀

I can’t decide. My main concern is cleaning out enough cabinet space to store the thing! I still haven’t spent any of my Blingo winnings, so I have money for a new appliance. I just can’t decide what to get!

Let me know if you have one, how big it is, what brand, how often you use it, what you use it for, and so on and so forth! Inquiring minds want to know 🙂

Have a great day!