Exceedingly Mundane

Last week, Heidi from God’s Grace in Practice, left a comment on my Friday Feast post about a great idea for a question of the day. It’s one that I’ve been meaning to ask myself, and would love to get a lot of answers and feedback on. Thanks so much Heidi! 😀

Heidi wrote:

I have another idea for QOTD if you haven’t done this before. I am interested in what people eat for lunch or if they eat lunch at all. I’m looking for more ideas for lunch menus. We eat a lot of grilled sandwiches or soup for lunch, but that gets boring, and it is hot to eat in the summer:)

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day: What do you usually have for lunch? Do you eat lunch at work, at your desk, eat out, eat at home, eat lunch on the run, or skip lunch altogether? For those of you at home, what do you usually have? Do you plan your lunches, or just try to grab something? Do you eat leftovers from last night’s supper, or do you just slap together a sandwich?

Here’s my really long-winded answer! As for us, we eat lunch at home most days, now that Tim works primarily from home. He goes out to eat with co-workers one or two days a week, and often on the weekend, we’ll grab a sandwich or burger while we are out. That leaves 3-4 days a week where we’re foraging at lunch for something to eat. I try to plan meals during the week that will leave us leftovers for lunch the next day. Leftovers probably comprise about half of our lunches at home. Tim is really good about heating most stuff back up and eating it the next day. Sometimes we don’t have food left, or sometimes it is not something that heats up well, so for those times, we often have sandwiches. I try to keep lunch meat on hand (mostly ham and turkey), and we always have a boatload of chips in our house (Tim is a potato chip fanatic). I often make chicken salad or tuna salad for sandwiches for both of us (and I’ll make egg salad and salmon salad for me, but Tim won’t eat those). I keep Morningstar and Boca products in my freezer for quick lunches. We both really like the Morningstar corn dogs and I like the patties for sandwiches (chicken patties and burgers). I have on my menu soon to do turkey hot dogs with turkey chili for Tim, as he loves that kind of stuff. We also sometimes have wraps or roll-ups, if I have extra tortillas left from a suppertime meal. I try to eat fairly healthy, and often with leftovers or a sandwich, I will try to eat yogurt or fruit instead of chips with my meal. Getting Tim to eat yogurt is not ever going to happen in a million years, and fruit is a close second. He’ll eat some fruit about once every 2-3 months. 🙂

So, how about you? Tell us what you eat for lunch and give us some ideas and suggestions! Bon Appetit 🙂

Since I always get such great answers from everyone when I ask my mundane questions, I wanted to throw out one that I have been wondering about for a while now. What do you clean your floors with? We used to have vinyl flooring in our house, but a couple of years ago, we ripped all of that out and installed ceramic tile ourselves. I blogged about that process, extensively, while it was ongoing. It was a bear, but I do love the end result. I love having ceramic tile floors. Mine are darker than the vinyl was (which was off-white, horrid choice for flooring to me), and so they don’t show dirt as much. Which, in my mind, translates to not having to clean them as often! Of course, that’s just silly. They get as dirty or dirtier than they did before. Since we got Beau last fall, they are definitely a lot dirtier than they were before! 🙂

About 6 months ago, I decided to buy a Swiffer and try out the disposable wet mopping pads. Overall, I like them, and like the ease of using them to mop my floors (we have tile in the bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room and breakfast room). But, there are a few things that do bother me. One, using these disposable pads sure adds a lot of waste to our already overflowing landfills. Two, price of buying the refills. And three, although they are easy to use, I really don’t think they are getting my floors all that clean. Don’t get me wrong, I think they do a decent job, but maybe not quite as clean as I’d like them to be.

So, I’m looking for suggestions, and I’d also like to know what you use to clean/mop your floors. What products and equipment do you use? Do you do a minimal cleaning regularly and then a more thorough cleaning at later intervals? What products have you tried and not liked, versus what do you like? I’m especially anxious to hear from those of you who do have ceramic tile floors, but any and all flooring options would be great for me to read about. One day soon, we hope to rip up the carpeting in our den and put in laminate, so I’m also curious as to what you use to clean that type of flooring. I guess this can qualify as today’s Question of the Day! Leave me a comment and let me know what you use to clean your flooring 🙂

{{P.S This is a dual-reference blog entry – I’m also using this as my photo for the day over at my Project365 blog. 🙄 }}

Still sticking with the “number of” theme that I’ve been blogging about this week. I think it’s so interesting to read all about how we’re all different on things, yet we are all so similar on other things. Some people might have 1 TV in their home, while others have 7, and it’s so cool to read about how and why everyone has what they have.

Today’s topic is telephones. Like radios and other devices that play music, I think that emerging technologies are changing the way we view and use telephones. I can remember growing up, we had a rotary dial, corded phone in the den. We didn’t have but a couple of phones in the house. Then we moved to touchtone phones, then cordless phones, and now today, the cell phone revolution. I think it’s so cool to look back and remember growing up – the idea of carrying a phone around with me was inconceivable. Now, most of us don’t think of going anywhere without our cell phones. And, many people we know no longer have a “landline” phone in their home. They just use their cell phones.

So, how about you? That’s today’s Question of the Day – how many telephones do you have in your home? Do you still have a traditional “land line”, or do you use a VOIP (voice over IP connection)? Do you have more than one line/number? How many cell phones are in your immediate family? Inquiring minds want to know!

As for me – we have VOIP using our Internet connection. We seriously considered totally dropping the house line and using just our cell phones, but we haven’t gone quite that far yet. We both have cell phones and keep them with us most all of the time, so that wouldn’t be a problem. As far as handsets go. we have a base station with answering machine and 3 expansion handsets scattered across the house. One of them is broken at the moment, and we’re debating whether to replace it. It’s funny because neither Tim nor I really like to talk on the phone. Neither one of us are phone people. We just don’t enjoy talking on the phone. You should see us when the phone rings, we have these battle of wills as to who has to answer it and talk 🙂 Guess who usually wins?! 🙂

In keeping with the “number of” theme that I’m doing this week, today’s topic is radios, or music devices that you have in your home. I know there’s lots of flavors and varieties out there. There’s old-fashioned radios, stereos, music channels on cable and satellite TV’s, iPods and mp3 players, music on computers, etc. I’m actually kind of wondering how many people really have and use radios any more, with all of the other choices out there available to us.

I admit, we don’t have any traditional radios left in our house. We had a clock radio in our bedroom, but we replaced that last fall with the iPod player/clock radio combo that Tim bought me for my birthday. I do still use it to play the radio though. The only other way I play local radio stations is through our surround sound stereo system in the den. Every other way I listen to music is via either my iPod, CD’s or some other electronic means. I listen to CD’s and mp3 music through both my iPod, my iPod clock radio that I just mentioned, my computer, as well as our stereo system. We don’t have any radios in other parts of the house like the kitchen, guest bedrooms or office.

So, how about you? That’s today’s Question of the Day: do you still have traditional radios in your home? Do you listen to music on them? How else do you listen to music – on a portable mp3 player, on a computer, or something else. How many of these devices do you have at home and who uses them? Leave me a comment and let me know!

In keeping with the “numbers” theme I’ve started (first with outside doors, then windows), we’ll continue on today with TV’s. How many TV’s do you have in your home? For how many people? And if you want to get really informational, how many VCR’s and DVD’s do you have to go along with the TV’s?!

My Answer: I admit it, I’m a TV-addict. I have been my entire life. I’ve always loved watching TV. Once the new shows start in the fall, I’ll be glued to the TV most every night, and some nights we’ll have to record a show or two because we’re watching something else at the same time. We have 3 TV’s in our house (for the two of us!). The big plasma in the den, a smaller TV in the master bedroom that is mostly mine, and a small TV in our office (spare bedroom). We have lots of DVD’s and VCR’s to go along with those two. Our entertainment center in the den boasts a DVD recorder/VCR combo, as well as a 5 disc changer. To be fair, we not only play movies on it, but load it up with music CD’s, so it is really a multi-function unit 🙂 I have a VCR and DVD in the bedroom, and the poor lonely TV in the office has nothing to go along with it. Poor baby, just a tiny TV, all alone.

How about you? How many TV’s are in your house? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

I posted a “Question of the Day” over the weekend, about how many doors do you have in your house. Heidi, over at God’s Grace in Practice, suggested that I ask the same question about windows. So, we will do that today. Not only that, but that actually got me to thinking. I think I’ll ask a serious of inane questions about numbers this week. How many of this do you have or how many of that. Exciting stuff, huh?!

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – how many windows do you have in your house? No bonus points for piping up and talking about how often you clean these windows. I really hate to clean windows and don’t do it very often. We’re talking years here, people. I really hate to clean windows.

Ok, now for my number, I had to stop and count! We have 11 windows in our house. This does not include the windows in our doors, just sheer windows. We really need to replace some of them and get more energy efficient double paned windows. You can feel the heat coming through them this time of year. Sigh. It’s always something to upgrade or replace when you own a house, isn’t it?! Leave me a comment and let me know how many windows you have in your house. 🙂

Have a great day!

P.S. The photo is of my dog Beau, peering out the kitchen window. There was a lizard out there, and he was watching it intently. He dislikes lizards and chases them constantly.

Today’s Question of the Day is another quick one, and a very mundane one (but hey, they all are!). How many exterior doors do you have on your home? In other words, how many doors can you open and go outside? We only have 3 (we have a small house) – the front door, the garage door and a door to the backyard. How about you, how many exterior doors do you have in your home?

P.S. The photo is not really of doors, but it’s one that I love. I took it last fall in Savannah, and I have always thought it was a great photo. So, any chance to post it again on my blog! To be fair, it does have doors in it! 😀

Have a great day and a great weekend!

Today’s Question of the Day is short and sweet – what kind of beverage do you drink with your evening meal? Water, tea, milk, juice, lemonade, soda, nothing, or something else? And while we’re at it, do you call your evening meal “dinner” or “supper”? Inquiring minds want to know!

OK, my answers. I’m trying to be good and drink water with my evening meal (which we usually call “supper” around here). However, being good doesn’t always work for me. A lot of the time I end up drinking tea. Which is something I’m trying to break myself of for one reason – I’m trying to limit my caffeine intake in the evenings. I think sometimes it affects my sleep, or my ability to fall asleep. I drink a fair amount of caffeine during the day (coffee in the mornings, sometimes Coke Zero or tea at lunch and then mostly tea with supper). I think I fall asleep easier when I don’t drink as much caffeine, especially in the latter parts of the day. However, I really don’t like drinking water with my meals. I really like a little flavor of something 🙂

How about you? What do you drink at meals, and what do you call the nighttime meal in your house? Leave me a comment and let me know. 🙂

See a penny, pick it up; all day long you’ll have good luck.

Have you ever heard of that old saying? I have and I totally pick up money if I spot it on the ground. The other old saying, the one about heads or tails and it being bad luck to pick it up doesn’t work for me. Money is money 🙂 My favorite little saying or story regarding pennies these days is something I got in my email a few years ago. A year or so after my mom had passed away, someone sent me an email forward that had a little poem about guardian angels and how they toss pennies in your path. That story gave me a lot of comfort, and knowing my mom is in heaven watching over me, I always imagine that it is her tossing me the pennies down. I couldn’t find that email, I apparently didn’t save it, but I did a quick Google search and found one very similar to it. I’ll paste it on the extended page.

Oh, and here’s another old saying – “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned”. I can remember my grandmother telling me that one. I think a lot of this “stooping over to pick up money” stems from my parents. See, my mom and dad were children during the Great Depression. They both were raised during extremely hard times, and as a result, they were very thrifty, frugal people. My mom probably even more so than my dad. He’s at least a little free spending now, though not much. My mom was a scrimper and a saver all of her life. I definitely got that from her. Call it cheap if you want, I prefer to think of myself as thrifty. Oh, and my favorite – environmentally friendly (when it comes to recycling and not throwing things out, you know; bad for the environment).

Anyway, let’s see, where was I going with this?! Oh, I know 🙂 We are doing our best to get back into our walking routine. We’ve been going 5-6 days a week, in the mornings, for the last week or so. Sometimes I spot some change on the ground and I always, always pick it up. Even if it’s just a penny. I know some people won’t bother to pick up pennies, but me, I’ll pick up any change. I’d much rather find a quarter or a dollar bill, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll pick up a penny too. Heads or tails up, doesn’t matter to me. I had a banner day today – I found 4 pennies on our walk this morning! 🙂

So, how about you? Will you stop in a parking lot or aisle in the grocery store to pick up money you see laying on the ground? Or anywhere else for that matter? Will you pick up anything or just something with more monetary value than a penny? What’s the most money you’ve ever found and picked up?

That’s today’s Question of the Day, mundane though it is! Leave me a comment and let me know.

Click for guardian angel and pennies story… Read the rest of this entry »

Another one of these little quizzes that is right on target for me. We are totally not beach people. Something about fair skin, freckles, burns in 10 minutes, doesn’t like to sweat. Something like that. In fact, in the eleven years we’ve been married, Tim and I have never been to the beach! “Been to the beach” as in a destination choice, vacation spot, some place we intended to go. We’ve stopped as we’re passing by or stuck our feet in the sand or water for 10 seconds, but that’s it. We’re totally and completely “mountain” type of people, so this quiz was spot on for me 🙂

You Should Spend Your Summer in the Mountains

You’re quiet, introspective, and a great thinker. You need a summer vacation that gets you away from the crowds and the heat. So retreat to the mountains, where you can clear your head.

OK, how about a quick “Question of the Day“: Are you more of a beach person or a mountains person? You can just pick one! Leave me a comment and let me know!

If you’ve visited here much, you probably know by now that I love books, I love to read, and I LOVE my library! I ran to the library late Tuesday afternoon, right before they closed early for the July 4th holiday. They had a book I had put on reserve in, and of course, I had to do some browsing. I left with 3 other books and 2 movies. We had a gap in the week with Netflix, so I picked up a couple of free DVD’s to tide us over. And of course, I could have easily left with 8 or 10 books, but I try to limit myself to 3 or 4, something manageable.

I listed the books I got on my sidebar, but I’ll put them here too. I also picked up two DVD’s – “The Departed” for Tim to watch (which he did, and he liked), and “Last Holiday” for me to watch again. I saw that one at the theater and really liked it. Anyway, the books I got are:

1. Fame – by Karen Kingsbury (first in a series of 5 called the Firstborn series)
2. Blue Shoes and Happiness – by Alexander McCall Smith (book 7 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Series; I’m trying to get current with this series and I’m close!)
3. The Tea House on Mulberry Street – by Sharon Owens (new author for me; saw this mentioned on someone’s blog, but I can’t for the life of me remember who!)
4. Mixed Signals – by Liz Curtis Higgs (I recently read Thorn in My Heart by her and really liked her; this is more modern day fiction from her)

OK, time for a Question of the Day: Do you have a library card? Do you use it? How often do you go, or when was the last time you visited your local library? About how many books a year do you get from the library? Does your spouse or kids go, do they have cards? Do your kids do the summer reading program? Or do you just prefer to buy your books and not mess with the library?

Leave me a comment and let me know!

Wow, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s already July! It’s certainly been hot enough here for a while. It has felt like summer here for several months. We grill nearly year round at our house, since our weather is almost always warm, and we don’t have a lot of cold weather in the winter. The summer is traditionally the time that most people grill, and I think the holidays of July 4th and Labor Day are big grilling times.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – do you have a grill? Is it charcoal or gas? Who grills – you, your spouse, or someone else in your household? How often do you grill? Do you plan to grill out for July 4th? If so, what kind of food will you put on the grill? What’s your favorite thing to grill?

Here’s my answers: We have a gas grill and we use it a lot. Tim does all of the grilling at our house. We grill year round, but especially a lot in the fall during football season. We grill most everything from the norm (hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages dogs, chicken, pork chops) to fish, veggies and even some fruit (we’ve tried pineapple). I love doing veggies on the grill, especially asparagus, zucchini and portobella mushrooms. We haven’t tried pizza yet, but maybe one day 🙂

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

Have a great day and a wonderful 4th of July!

I’ve blogged here before, in various and sundry ways, about how I “collect” or “hoard” various household items. I blogged here recently about toilet paper and how I buy the really large packs at our warehouse club (Sam’s Club, no Costco here), because I really don’t want to run out. I see no need to run out of something I use on a daily basis. However, I can run down to Walmart and get toilet paper or paper towels if I need it. Unfortunately, this is not the case with everything that I use on a regular basis.

One thing I am really a packrat about is detergent:

That’s because I can’t just use any detergent in my new hE washer. I need and want to use the specially formatted hE detergent for front-loading washing machine. And get this – my Walmart and Kroger don’t carry the brand I like (in fact, Walmart only carries Tide, and I don’t like Tide detergent, at all). I can only find it at Target, and sometimes they don’t have it on the shelves. So, I tend to buy it when I find it and store it in my cabinet over the washing machine. I start to break out in hives and develop strange ticks if I am down to one or even two bottles. See, Tim has sensitive skin, and I’ve been using this All brand detergent, the Free and Clear one, for years. If I switch to anything else, his arms will break out into a mass of tiny red bumps. It’s the weirdest thing. He can tell if I use something else. So, I use the All Free and Clear – when I can find it. It’s hard to find here in the hE, and my big, huge, never-ending fear is that All is going to stop manufacturing it. They used to make it in a regular bottle, but now they only make it in their Small and Mighty bottle. I don’t know what I will do if they stop making it in the hE formula altogether. I can barely find it here, as it is. Sigh. So, when I do find it, I buy it. And hoard it.

So, we could go two ways with this, as in a Question of the Day. Your pick. We can ask the Question of the Day: What brand of detergent do you use and buy? Do you keep plenty on hand or do you just buy it as you need it. Or, we can go in a complete different direction and ask this Question of the Day – is there a product or item you really like and use, but you have a really hard time finding it where you live? So, when you do find it, you really stock up and hoard it like crazy?

Leave me a comment and let me know!

I know, I know, that’s a picture of a dog bone over there. But I already had that one and couldn’t find a cute picture of a human bone. I found some icky ones, but nothing cute, LOL!

Today’s “Question of the Day” is short and sweet – have you ever broken a bone?

My answer: I have never broken a bone, thankfully. I hope it stays that way. I am not really an adventurous sort, but I am klutzy. I have been very lucky to have not broken anything yet. My husband, on the other hand, is really, really lucky that he has never broken a bone. I’ve heard stories all of our married life of his exploits and escapades as a child, preteen, teenager and young man. I’m constantly amazed he never ended up in the hospital with a concussion or broken bone, or worse! It’s a miracle he survived his rough and rowdy upbringing. He grew up riding 4 wheelers and dirt bikes, out in the country, hunting and fishing and doing heaven only knows what else. He’s so lucky never to have broken anything.

So, how about you? Have you ever had a broken bone? If so, what got broken and how did it happen? Leave me a comment here, or if you’ve got a great story to tell, write about it at your own blog (but leave me a comment so I can come over and read it!).

Have a great day! 😀

Today’s Question of the Day is also tied in with my photo for today on my Project365 blog 🙂

The frugal side of me (aka, the cheap side) would prefer if we got out the soap and buckets and washed our vehicles on our driveway. We used to do that, way back when. It was always hot, but fun. Well, it was fun for me, because Tim did most of the work, LOL!!! These days, we seem to fall into the convenience category. When one of our vehicles needs a bath, we drive to the car wash place down the street and sit in the air conditioning while our car goes through the tunnel for a wash. It comes out nice and clean and we don’t even break a sweat. Of course, we pay dearly for it, but hey, Tim thinks it is worth it.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – do you wash your own car? Does your spouse or kids wash the vehicles at your house? Do you run through a car wash at a gas station or local place, or even pay for someone to come out and wash your car at work or wherever?

Here’s my photos, at the car wash 🙂