Exceedingly Mundane

I gave Tim a really good list for Christmas this year (well, 2009, still hard to believe it’s 2010), and he did a wonderful job of getting me both things I wanted from my list and surprising me. One of the practical things I asked for was an electric kettle. I have never owned a traditional kettle that you use on the stovetop to boil water. I have always used my microwave to boil water, I don’t know why. But when people are over and it’s cold and everyone wants hot chocolate, it’s hard to boil a lot of water fast for 4 or 5 cups of cocoa.

Enter my new baby! She’s a keeper. She boils water really fast (although she sounds like a freight train after a minute or two), and the water is really hot. Almost too hot. But I can boil enough for a cup of hot cocoa or cider or tea for me, or for a crowd. I know it’s not something I’ll use year round, but it is wonderful to have for the winter. And after all, we’re having a really cold winter around here, so she’s getting a good workout lately. Yep, she’s a keeper 🙂

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″]

Some various, random and assorted items:

You know, they say that men make the best chefs!

I actually like to cook, and I cook the vast majority of our food. Tim is great about helping out if I ask, although I try not to do that too often. He works really hard to provide us a great life and part of my job is to take care of the house and cooking (easy, huh, I know — I’ve got it made!). He does like to grill and he will always fix food for us when I’m sick or not feeling well. He makes a mean breakfast too!

The other day, he told me that he wanted to make some homemade salsa. We have a neighbor who makes some and brings it down for Tim… it is really hot and spicy and I can’t eat it. But Tim loves it! He said he wanted to try to make some, so I got him some fresh tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers and onions at the store over the weekend. He left out the cilantro, as an ode to me who dislikes it intensely! The first batch was really good, we thought. And now, just a couple of days later, he’s made another batch. This time, he’s trying canned tomatoes versus fresh (which we know won’t be as good, but this time of year, a lot cheaper and a lot easier to come by). He’s still tinkering with his spices and proportions, and he hasn’t measured the first thing yet, so a hard and fast recipe is not going to happen. I’m just really enjoying tasting the results and watching him have fun in the kitchen 😀

So, tell me, who does the cooking in your house? Vote or leave me a comment and let me know!

[poll id=”18″]

I go through phases of enjoying cooking, and loving cooking, and then some days, not so much. I love to eat, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t grow up learning how to cook. My mom didn’t teach me much, so I’ve learned slowly, over the years, through trial and error. My mother-in-law has taught me to make many things, including things that my husband likes and grew up with. I’m very blessed to have married a man who is not at all picky (a lot less than me), and who is willing to try most anything. There’s things that Tim does not like to eat and flavors he’s not fond of, but he’s always willing to try something once. That makes my job so much easier, and so much more enjoyable. I like trying new dishes, and I like making his favorites – it’s a win-win thing for me.

My love of cookbooks and recipes goes hand in hand with this whole line of blog-babble! 🙂 I love cookbooks and always have. I would have dozens more, except I ran out of room for them years ago. One day… one day, I’m going to have a lot more room for books and cookbooks! In the mean time, I “collect” recipes via the Internet, cooking blogs, message boards, forums and many, many favorite food and cooking websites. I print them out, I email them to myself, I bookmark them. I don’t have a great system for the ones I want to try. But, through the years, I have worked hard on a system for recipes that I have tried, and that we’ve liked.

Over a decade ago, I started using Mastercook. And when we talked about setting up our family website, the two main things I wanted were a place to share photos and a place to share recipes. The photos have migrated to other areas (mostly, Flickr and my local drive), but the recipes live on. We had an old recipe system on our website that I liked fairly well. Then… the spammers found it. And they started entering recipes that contained links to spam, and nudie pictures and drug sites and everything else unsavory under the sun. Sheesh, people, get a life! Some of us enjoy cooking and recipes, leave our recipe site alone!

So, my darling webmaster/guru husband installed a new, more secure system on our website a couple of months ago. He converted all 350+ recipes into the new system, those entered by myself, family and friends. I had to go into each recipe and edit it, but that is all done, and we’re now enjoying the new system. Our old system didn’t do photos, but the new one does, so I’ve been happily snapping photos of the food I cook, to add to our recipe database! And, having the new system has also spurred me into trying new recipes …. “so I can enter something on the new recipe system!”. Tim gets a kick out of just how much of a geek I can be on any given day!

Here’s a few pictures of the food I’ve been cooking lately:

And you can find our recipe system here. If you get a chance to visit, I hope you like what you see! 🙂

What does this look like to you?

To me, it looks like cough syrup. But, it’s not. It’s what I’ve been putting in my morning coffee for the last few weeks. I have blogged before about my love of flavored coffee creamers in the past, and we’re definitely coming up on my favorite time of year – when Coffeemate brings out their holiday flavors like gingerbread, peppermint, etc. I normally buy other flavors of Coffeemate (as many in the lowfat variety as I can) to use throughout the year. But a few months ago, I tried buying a bottle of flavored syrup at Sam’s Club, and just using fat-free half and half in my coffee. I think the syrup lasts a lot longer and I think it may be a bit cheaper to go this route. Either way, it’s always nice to change things up a bit 😀

This is the cough syrup flavored syrup I’ve been using:

The raspberry tastes good, although I think I like the vanilla and caramel flavored syrups better. I just can’t get past the look of it! It’s a bit disconcerting to put that red syrup in my coffee, it looks just like cough syrup! And, with the red syrup and white half and half, my coffee comes out looking pink! 🙂 Good thing it tastes good….

Have a wonderful day!

It’s such a little thing, but it makes me so very happy! I love, love, love the seasonal drink from the Sierra Mist people, Cranberry Splash. My memory is really bad, but it seems like it normally shows up in stores around Halloween, or at least before Thanksgiving. Yesterday, yesterday, the first day of fall, I found it in my local super Walmart!

Tim was joking, but he said “you should start stocking up now, you love that stuff so much!”. And you know, he’s right. I do!! I remember distinctly going to the grocery a week or two before Christmas last year, to stock up and buy some before it was gone out of the stores, and it was already gone. I need to start stockpiling the stuff NOW! 🙂

Hope you’re having a great day too, and some little insignificant something makes you really happy 😀

I totally and shamelessly stole this from Dawn, when she posted hers here. Thanks Dawn, for letting me hijack your post and steal the idea to use here!

I have several things I’m “into” right now. One of my old faithfuls is Life is Good products. I just ordered some more of their t-shirts, and I would wear nothing but those every day, if I could. They are so soft and so comfortable. I’ve nearly cleaned my closet out of other t-shirts, other than my beloved Life is Good ones. And I have quite the collection now! 😀

Recently, at TJ Maxx, a store I have “turned” Tim onto, he found me these over in the men’s section. Of course, they’re unisex and are for women as much as men 🙂 They’re quite comfy, and my favorite socks at the moment:

So, how about you… do you have a favorite clothing item or product or brand that you are totally loyal too? Let’s limit it to something you’d be wearing right now. I have a sweatshirt that I could do a whole blog post about, but we’ll save that for colder days 😀

I fix breakfast food for supper regularly at our house. Both Tim and I love breakfast food, of all kinds. He grew up having a large, homemade breakfast every morning. His mom got up before they got on the bus and fixed the works for him – homemade biscuits, eggs, bacon or sausage, grits, etc. Tim would *love* to have that every morning, but I’m just not a morning girl. So I asked him years ago if he’d compromise, and have that kind of food once or twice a week, for supper. He did, and we have breakfast food often.

I go through stages on making pancakes and waffles, in addition to the other typical breakfast fare. I’m in a waffle stage right now. However, my waffle maker is going on 14 years old, and I am thinking it might be time for a new one. If you have a waffle iron that you use and like, would you let me know the brand, and how long you’ve had it? I don’t really care if it’s round versus square, a belgian one or not, I just want one that works well, preferably easy to clean, and hopefully can store upright (when you fold it up, it has a base that will allow it to be stored vertically instead of horizontally). Mine is an Oster brand, and I’m not even sure they make them anymore. It works ok, but it is not browning as well as it used to. Plus, the no-stick is long gone. I spray the iron each time with cooking spray before pouring on the batter. Or else, I have a mess on my hands!

Oh, and since I’ve been on a roll lately, let’s do a poll too:

[poll id=”13″]

I have a long standing love affair with Chinese food. I never tried Chinese food until college, but liked it then. I didn’t get to go very often – until I started dating Tim. He goes through phases now, but when we met, he really loved going to eat Chinese. He taught me to eat with chopsticks on about our third or fourth date. To this day, I always eat that kind of food with chopsticks. We always ask in restaurants if they don’t bring them out, and we have a nice set at home that we use.

It’s funny, because Tim knows how much I love Chinese. We go to restaurants, and we get take-out, and I even do some easy Chinese type dishes at home to satisfy my cravings. Tim always knows that if he asks, I will always accept his offer to go out to eat Chinese. Tim has called on the way home from work before, with my having already started or finished cooking supper and said “Do you want to go eat Chinese tonight?” The answer is always, always – Yes! I have put up supper in tupperware containers for the next night and washed a sink full of dishes from cooking, then gone out to eat Chinese, LOL!

Anyway, like most people, we always have fun opening up our fortune cookies at the end of the meal, to see what we got. We went to a Chinese buffet for lunch a couple of weeks ago, when my dad was here and Tim’s dad was in the hospital. We all opened our fortune cookie before we left, and we were dumbfounded by one of them. We still can’t figure it out. It has to be some kind of misprint. I just don’t get it. Like I told Tim, maybe it means something in Chinese, but it is totally lost in the translation. Then again, it’s probably just a crappy fortune 🙂

See if you can decipher it, and see who lucked out with the bad one!

My Dad’s says – Find release from your cares, have a good time.

Mine says – Fame and fortune are coming your way.

Tim’s says – I spent the time prepare the song, while the song is not being sung.

And for bonus points, vote in the poll!

[poll id=”12″]

When I met Tim, I didn’t drink coffee or tea. When we were dating, I started drinking sweet tea (it has to have sweetener in it, I can’t drink it unsweetened). I learned to drink the occasional hot tea over the years, mostly in the winter to warm up, or if I wanted something for a sore throat. I went about nine long years before I ever ventured into the coffee world. I remember it clearly – we were on vacation in Texas and for some reason, Tim kept badgering me to try coffee. I have learned to drink it over the years – again, like tea, it has to be highly sweetened and it must have a lot of creamer in it. Tim jokingly calls it “hot cocoa” because he said it doesn’t resemble coffee by the time I’m finished with mixing stuff in it. I call it “beige” or “khaki” because it has to look a very light color and not smell much like coffee for me to be able to knock it back 😀 Tim, on the other hand, only drinks it black.

When Tim started working part-time from home, we started making more coffee on a regular basis. When he proceeded to working full-time from home, our coffeemaker went into overdrive. We make, on average, 12 cups a day, 7 days a week, in our trusty little Cuisinart coffee pot. In case you’re math-challenged, that’s 84 cups a week. Needless to say, we go through a lot of coffee! And not just any coffee. Tim is very particular about his beans. He likes them dark and rich, a very good roast. We started out with Community Coffee and he was okay with that for a while. Somewhere along the way, he decided that wasn’t what he wanted, and we progressed to other beans and brands. We settled, surprisingly enough, on a whole bean from Sam’s Club – their Marques de Pavia brand (however you spell it!). We’ve been buying beans there, faithfully, for several years. The main thing I liked about buying our coffee there, was that it was in larger quantities, which we so desperately needed. Not to mention that it was cheaper than other brands. When our Fresh Market opened a year ago, we started buying beans occasionally in there, just to try. So far, Tim has liked all of them (no flavored beans, no decaf beans, please). But, they’re pricey, 9.99 a pound.

Then, around Christmas, I started having trouble finding our whole beans at Sam’s Club. I thought, it’s Christmas, they’ll get them back in soon. We bought beans at other places and “made do.” Then weeks turned into months, and we could never find our favorite beans. We had to even go so far as to start buying Starbucks at Sam’s Club. Much more costly, and honestly, I don’t like their coffee as much. I think the beans themselves smell bitter and too strong and I was not fond of the final product either (although Tim liked it). We were both so tickled to go into our Sam’s this past weekend, and find that they were once again carrying the Marques brand of bean. They had a breakfast blend, a medium blend, a French Roast blend, and Tim’s favorite – the dark roast. I tried to talk him into trying a different one, but he was happy to go back to his old standard. We “only” bought two bags. I’m hoping we didn’t make a mistake and they stop carrying them again, or they run out. We were both so happy to find them again – we’ve both mentioned it several times to each other since shopping there that “oh, I’m so glad to have our coffee back”. 😀 Yes, we’re nerds on a much grander scale than you know!

So, how about you? Are you a coffee drinker? A tea drinker? Both? Neither? Vote in the poll and leave me a comment if you want. I’m sure none of you are as avid about your drinks as we are (don’t get me started on the obscene amount of Coke Zero we purchase, that’s a whole ‘nother post!!!) 😀

Cheers!

[poll id=”10″]

Our website, and therefore my blog, was down during Super Bowl weekend, but I wanted to go back and post a little about it. We had a really good time, as always, and a house full this year. All of Tim’s family and my dad came, which was great. My dad will turn 86 in April, so it’s really good that he’s still able to get out and about, and come visit us a bunch. We also had some friends and extended family here. All in all, I think we had about 20 people or so.

Tim and I went on Saturday to Sam’s Club and bought food for the party. Note to self – if you take Tim, expect to load up on meat. It was definitely a male-oriented, cholesterol laden, meat festival at our house on Sunday. 😀 We had hamburgers, hot dogs, smoked sausage, 3 flavors of wings (thanks Terry!), a sausage stuffed/bacon wrapped concoction (thanks Mark!) that I dubbed the Bacon-ator. We had Lil’ Smokies, a meat and cheese platter, a vegetable tray, several kinds of dips and chips, Chex Mix, potato salad, fruit, and a double decker cookie cake for dessert. I had three things that I had planned for later in the day (game time or half time), but everyone filled up at lunchtime on the food we had, then nibbled throughout the afternoon and early evening. So, I put those into the freezer and we’ll have to plan another party so we can eat that food up 🙂 As it is, Tim and I have been eating leftovers all week, which has been wonderful. I got out of cooking for many days! Since we purchased everything and Tim did the grilling, I was home free for this year’s party. I think that’s definitely the way to go, at least for me! Isn’t that terrible. You’d think I’d want to cook for 20 or more people, huh?! 😀

I took a few videos of the guys playing Madden 09 on the Wii, but I’m not going to post those. They’re funny though 🙂 Here’s a couple of still photos that I took. We had enough 3-D glasses for everyone, and big kids and little kids alike had a good time playing with them and waiting for the 3D commercial 🙂

Here’s the first round of meat on the grill…. 22 burgers, some of the sausage and hot dogs. Tim filled it up a second time!

Lots of Electronic toys here: Wii playing, iPod Touch, iPhones, Nintendo DS’s…

Having fun with 3D glasses:

I’ve lost count on what consecutive party this is that we’ve had. Tim and I have been married almost 13 years, so I’d say we have had a party at least 10 of those 12 years, and maybe 11 of those. We plan to have one next year. Unless the Saints go to the Super Bowl. If Tim’s beloved Saints ever make it, we have already told everyone we will not be having a party. We’ll lock every door in the house and tell people to go away, so we won’t miss a second of the game! As it is, I don’t get to watch a lot of the pregame or game (I did finally sit down and watch some of the second half this year though, it was a really good game). I didn’t get to see Faith Hill or Jennifer Hudson sing beforehand, and I missed the halftime show, which was fine because I’m not a Springsteen fan. I did watch the 3D commercial though. Gotta have your priorities straight. Anyway, we’re already missing football season around here. Training camp can’t come soon enough!

If you visit here much, you’ve probably read a reference or two to the fact that Tim is working from home full-time. We both love it, especially me! It’s been such a blessing to have him here, and for us to be able to spend so much time together. We converted one of our spare bedrooms years ago into a computer room/scrapbook room. Since we run our own website (Hambones.org), we have several computers back there already. When he started working from home part-time, he worked some in the den and kitchen, but that is hard on your back to sit for long periods of time at a non-computer chair/desk. Then, he moved to the computer room/office and we got me a laptop to use in the den and kitchen (where I spend most of my time anyway!). We have a computer desk and chair, but the chair is probably 11 or 12 years old and not ergonomic in any way.

Tim has been having problems with his upper back and shoulders for nearly two weeks now. Yesterday, he got up and decided to go to the doctor to get it x-rayed and checked out. But, by lunchtime, he talked himself out of going, saying it was starting to feel better. He’s been using a heating pad, and we have been applying those heat patches to his back a couple of times a day. FYI – Tim is not a guy who gets sick or has physical problems. He’s as healthy as an ox. When he gets a headache, he doesn’t even like to take a Tylenol. He prefers to just “tough it out”. 🙂

Anyway, I suggested that maybe it was time to look at getting a) a new computer chair for him to sit in all day and maybe b) a new mattress for our bed. Our mattress is 9 or 10 years old – does anyone know if that’s about the lifespan of a mattress/box springs?

So, last night, we went and got Tim a new chair. He picked it out, and then when we got it home, I was told that I was going to be putting it together!

Tada - instead of Tim "Tool Time", we have Stacy Tool Time...

Concentrating (I normally stick my tongue in the side of my mouth when I concentrate!)

Posing

So, now Tim has a nice new chair to sit in all day. And at night, he works nights sometimes too, like last night. Poor thing. I’m so proud of him, he works so hard to support us and give us a comfortable, happy life 🙂

P.S. Tim said to add that he “loves a woman who can build a chair!!” 🙄

I can’t seem to think of anything to blog about lately, so that is a sure sign that it’s time for a break. I’ll be back when I can think of anything to blog about!

In the mean time, be nice and talk amongst yourselves! 😀

Nothing too exciting going on around here. Some days I don’t feel like I can come up with a single thing to blog about. Must be because I’ve been doing this about 3 1/2 years now 🙂 And face it, even when I do, it’s terrible boring. Hence, the name “Exceedingly Mundane”. 😀

Anyhoo, here’s what I have today:

1. I’ve been cooking a lot but haven’t made much new lately. What I have tried, we have liked though. A couple of weeks ago, I tried a different recipe for a Crockpot Cherry Cobbler. I made one a while back that used a cake mix for the cobbler portion. I found a recipe on RecipeZaar that used ingredients I had on hand like flour, butter, and sugar, and so I tried that one. This time I used my regular oval crockpot (which heats the entire ceramic crock) as opposed to my West Bend slow cooker (which seems to mostly heat the bottom). This doesn’t make a lot, but it’s a nice little treat for us to have a dessert for two at home. I entered this recipe here, on our website. You can also find it at RecipeZaar.

2. Last night, I made Tim something he’s been asking for. Greens. Ugh. To me, turnip or mustard greens look like stewed grass, but he loves them. He grew up on them and loves the stinky things. A few weeks ago, I asked him what vegetables he liked the most and darn if turnip greens wasn’t the first thing he mentioned. So, I bought a ham steak (well, a center slice, something I find at our Walmart Supercenter which works well for the two of us as opposed to a whole ham), some cabbage, some black-eyed peas and those greens. And no, they weren’t fresh, even though he would have rather had fresh than canned. I decided to look for a recipe for some kind of glaze or sauce for the ham steak, and found one to try on RecipeZaar (I’ve had good luck there lately, as opposed to AllRecipes, can you tell?!). It was good, and I’ll definitely do that again. Nothing fancy, but I love the taste of maple syrup and honey and it was good. The recipe is here on our website, and again you can search and find it easily at RecipeZaar.com.

3. I have tried to be better about blogging about the books I read. When last I posted about books (this post), I was about to start “8 Sandpiper Way” by Debbie Macomber. I read that one and enjoyed it. Nothing spectacular, but I do really like her Cedar Cove series and look forward to each new book. After that, I read a quick cozy mystery with a cooking theme. I’ve read the first in this series and now the second, entitled “Murder on the Menu“. Light and fluffy, right up my alley (my review at GoodReads is hopefully here, not sure if this link works for someone other than me though, LOL!. I’m now reading a new-to-me author, Stephen White, and his book “The Best Revenge“. So far, other than a bit of language, it’s a really good FBI/intrigue type of book. After that, you can check out my sidebar for what’s up next.

4. As a sidenote to #3, if you’re a member of GoodReads and friends with me, I apologize for bombarding you with new and updated books. I had an account at LibraryThing, and what I thought was a lifetime subscription I had gotten last year (it was gifted to me, I didn’t pay for it myself). Come to find out when I logged in Saturday morning, it said my subscription had expired and I could no longer enter new books. Being cheap, I mean frugal, I decided to enter all of our books over at GoodReads and just go from there. It was a tedious process, but I think I’m up to date.

5. At least, I’m up to date until my Amazon order arrives!!! I *heart* Amazon. I ordered several new books yesterday and most of them should be here early next week. I think they are all Christian fiction. One is for a sermon series we’re going to start soon at church and the rest are just light Christian fiction for me. I had saved up MyPoints a while back and cashed them in for a $50 gift certificate to Amazon. It didn’t take me long to spend that! 🙂

6. We’re back to total TV-junkie mode. Most of our new shows have started this week, and we’re watching and/or recording 2-4 shows a night. I won’t go into that long list, but I will say that I was not overly happy with Heroes on Monday night, we liked the new show The Mentalist on Tuesdays, and are looking forward to the new season of Survivor tonight. I’m watching Dancing with the Stars by myself (on a grainy old VCR tape, which makes it even worse. Boy, you can get attached to a DVR with High-Definition TV really fast!) and let me just say one thing – Cloris Leachman needs to go home. What a disastrous, horrific joke. I don’t find her funny or entertaining, just plain scary. I mean, I can’t believe people would vote to keep her on there. She could break a hip and be in the hospital, people. 😀