Exceedingly Mundane

After a really terrific weekend, my Monday is off to a roaring start. Today is the day for my annual checkup, at that lovely doctor’s office all women love to visit. I can’t say that I love to go, in fact, I dread it every year, but I do go to make sure everything is ok. Hopefully, it will all be routine and nothing is wrong. I’ve posted a QOTD in the past about this topic, and surprisingly, quite a few people said they disliked going to the dentist more than the doctor! I can’t seem to think of another QOTD along these same lines, so I’ll just ask a simple one – did you have a good weekend and do you have anything special coming up this week?

We had a really good weekend, Tim and I. We did a lot of fun things together, watched some TV and a movie, got all of my pansies planted, visited a new deli for lunch and a new coffeeshop for a cup of coffee and just generally enjoyed every minute we spent together. I don’t have a lot planned for this week, after today’s trip to the doctor. How about you?

Hope you all have a great day! Mine will be much brighter when I’m all done later today 🙂

My mums, about a week ago, at their peak. They’re a little pitiful today. 🙁 But the trees are starting to change some here, so I’ll have to post a photo of those soon. We don’t get much color here, so I have to mostly look for it in my mums and pansies 🙂

Have a beautiful day!

Well, it turned out to be a busy week for me, with jury duty and other stuff going on. I haven’t had a chance to blog, or to stop by and visit most of my favorite blogs. And it doesn’t look like I will have time today or this weekend, either, as we have a lot planned.

I ended up going 3 days for jury duty. I was never actually selected and impaneled on a jury, and I was very glad. This was apparently criminal week at our local circuit court, and no civil cases were on the docket. There were at least two murder trials going on. One was a man who, with two other men, allegedly robbed, shot and killed an elderly couple, then set fire to their home. The other two men had already pleaded guilty. We actually went through the entire “voir dire” process and heard opening statements on this case. I had to raise my hand when they asked if gruesome or gory photographs or evidence that would be introduced would bother us. Yes, it would. I was not selected for this jury, and I believe they ended up with a plea bargain before the jury actually had to hand down a verdict. The other murder case reached an agreement before we began the voir dire process. It was another murder, a father who shot his wife repeatedly with a bolt-action rifle, in front of their two small children. I’m so glad I didn’t have to be on either jury. It was an interesting process though. I just didn’t really like the hour to hour, day to day nature of not knowing if I’d be serving, was being released, etc. I like to plan my days and my week, and not knowing always throws a little kink in things 🙂

This weekend is going to be busy also. For some reason, I had it in my head until a few days ago that Halloween was on Saturday night, and not Friday night. Duh. So, a week ago, we made plans with Tim’s family for a bunch of them to come up Friday, for us to eat dinner, go to a movie (Fireproof), then they’d all spend the night (well, we’re having to send his parents to a new hotel near our house, since we only have one guest room!) and the guys would work on some stuff around here on Saturday. We have a window that Tim wants to replace, and so he’s been busy with getting together a new window, shims, screws, caulk, and some other stuff, as well as a new blind for that window.

So, anyway, it clicked a few days ago that Halloween is tonight, Friday, and not Saturday. So, we won’t be here to hand out the mound of candy I’ve bought to all of the trick or treaters. I will hate not seeing our neighbor kids dressed up and giving them some candy. But, I guess there’s always next year!

Well, I might be scarce this week, here at my own blog, on Facebook, and coming by to visit other blogs. I have a jury summons this week. I just called the number listed, and I do have to report on Monday, so wish me luck 🙂

What goes up, must come down. And so it goes after a really nice birthday weekend, after Tim got me lots of great stuff, let me pick where to eat out two nights in a row (calories, oh the calories!), and I generally had a lovely time. Alas, it’s back to normal now 🙂

* The weather here is wonderful. Almost fall-like! Upper 40’s or low 50’s at night, and 70’s during the day is wonderful for us. I’ve turned the A/C off and am opening the windows as much as possible. We haven’t turned the heat on yet, and I hope to prolong that as long as possible. Our electric and gas bill might look a smidge better!

* Monday 10/20 marked the two year anniversary of the day we first saw Beau and brought him home to be ours! Poor thing, he had to celebrate by going to the vet for his yearly check-up. Overall, he’s healthy and he’s such a good boy when we go in, they all comment about it. But he has persistent ear infections that we all thought were caused by food allergies. After taking another culture and examining him head to toe, his vet now thinks it could be something else, either a thyroid problem or just a nasty infection we can’t get rid of. So, we’ve got an oral antibiotic to give him for two weeks, and a newly mixed set of ear drops that have to be put in his poor ears for 7 days. I hope that helps. He has seriously had dirty, bothersome ears since the day we adopted him. But overall, I think he’s healthy and happy. I know he’s happy! We talk about it all the time – how much joy he brings to our lives, what a wonderful dog he is, how much he’s learned, and how well he’s adapted to our routines and what we ask of him. Beau no longer gets car sick, hooray! He’s eating 1-3 bowls of dry food a day, although he hasn’t gained any weight (all that running around and exercise with Tim). His favorite thing to do is hunt squirrels and lizards. His second favorite thing to do is to go to the golf course with Tim. He pulls the hand cart that holds Tim’s golf clubs and bag and walks with Tim for 18 holes. Tim says he LOVES it! I want Tim to take him hunting this winter, and I think that will become his new favorite thing 🙂

* I have a jury summons for next week. 🙁 At least it’s only for a week this time, and not a month like last time when I had a federal summons. So, if I don’t post much next week, you’ll know why…

* Our cable/DVR is through Comcast, and they finally got around to scheduling the On-Demand updates here. They warned us that they would wipe out our DVR and start over. I got up this morning (they were supposed to do it all last night) and nothing has changed. The good news is that they haven’t erased our DVR yet, but we don’t have the new On Demand stuff either. I wish they’d go ahead and do it – setting up all of our shows to record is going to be a pain. I seriously don’t know how we lived without a DVR for so long, we both love that thing to death. Greatest invention in a long time 😀

* I got a new Wii game for my birthday. I wanted to try to get one that I *might* be good at. Every game I get, Tim is wonderful at, right away, and blows me away. I think it’s just a guy thing – guys are just a lot better at video games. So, I asked for (and bought myself!) Dance Dance Revolution 2. I tried it a little and let me tell you – I have got to be the most uncoordinated person on the planet. I don’t know if I’m ever going to figure that game out. Plus, apparently I have zero rhythm. 🙁

Hope you have a great day – thanks for stopping by to visit! 😀

You know…. I’ve been blogging for 3 1/2 years, and I think we’d only updated my blogging software (WordPress) once or twice. Tim decided that while I was taking a break, that would be a good time to update my software. Because, you know, I was only about 15 versions behind! Anyway, I’ve been having fun getting it updated and looking for a new, free theme for my blog. I found a couple, and have loaded one for fall, until I can find something for Christmas.

What do you think of the new look around here?

I don’t have a whole lot to say, as before, but I have been busy on my bloggy break. I’ve been reading, and trying to go through a pile of magazines. I’m trying to work out more and walk on the treadmill more. Not that it’s doing any good. You know, two weeks of walking and not a single pound disappearing from the scales is quite discouraging. But I’ll keep on trying 🙂

I’ll be back soon with a quick book review and a Question of the Day… stay tuned!

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! 😀

Happiness is (at least for today), opening your front door and finding this:

I love a box full of brand new books, just for me!!!

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. 😀

Are you ready for some football? We are!

Our college team plays today on TV and the first New Orleans Saints game is on tomorrow. Big weekend for us! Our fantasy football league is in action as well, so lots of football all around for us.

Have a great weekend!

There are definitely not any vegetarians in our house!

We had our big Labor Day party on Monday, which this year was also a combination “live draft” party for our family fantasy football league, and a Hurricane Gustav hanging out party as well. My dad came up on Sunday and stayed with us, then everyone else came on Monday. We ate a lot of food – ribs, smoked sausage, hot dogs, potato salad, crunchy slaw, chips, spinach and artichoke dip, salmon dip, veggies, cookies and chess squares. We had the live draft, which was a first for us. Then, we all had a good time playing the Wii and hanging out. I think our Wii was on for nearly 11 hours before it was finally cut off 😀

Tuesday I spent cleaning house and today I have to do more of that, plus laundry and a grocery run. It’s still raining here some from the remnants of Hurricane Gustav. We were very very lucky though, the storm went to the south and west of us, so we have only had some wind and rain from it. It’s rained 3 days so far here, and hopefully today will be the last day. We have had no damage though, no trees or even limbs blown down and we didn’t lose power, so that was awesome.

Hope you have a great day!

One of my favorite places to go is food type stores. I love regular grocery stores, gourmet grocery stores, warehouse clubs (because Hello, I am a “gatherer” to the nth degree, so buying food in large quantities makes me unreasonably happy). I love browsing in local kitchen stores (we have two nice ones here, Choppin Block and Everyday Gourmet), chain stores like Williams-Sonoma, etc. You get the picture.

So, it goes without saying that when we go on vacation, and we’re near one of my all-time favorite stores, Harry and David, I always, always, always make Tim stop. It used to be that I’d have him take me to scrapbook stores, but those days are mostly in the past. These days I’m all about food. We stopped at one on our weekend getaway a week ago, and I was actually really good. I could have easily bought a ton more stuff, but I try to keep it reasonable. Their stuff is expensive, but it is so good. I’ve never had anything from Harry and David that I didn’t love.

Here’s the link to what I bought last year on vacation, and it’s fairly similar. Instead of the grilling sauces this time, I picked up a couple of premade dips – mozzarella dip and spinach/artichoke. Football season is upon us and I was thinking game day food 😀

Here’s what we got this time around:

Yummy, yummy in my tummy. Two bags of Moose Munch, two kinds of salsa (Habanera for Tim and Very Cherry for me), spinach & artichoke dip, mozzarella dip and triple berry blend jam. I was really good, wasn’t I?!

Another weekend out of the way, hard to believe it’s nearly the end of August. We spent the day Saturday at my in-laws, celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday. It has been raining here since then, off and on. It rained almost all day on Sunday, so we spent a lot of time watching TV, playing the Wii and watching movies. We watched Vantage Point, which we saw when it first came out in the theater. Then Tim watched an older movie without me, The Forgotten. All in all a good weekend 🙂

Monday means it’s back to the grind. I do a lot of cleaning on Mondays. Every Monday morning, I do a big cleaning of the kitchen, breakfast room and laundry, commonly known as Beau’s space. He is allowed on the ceramic tile, so needless to say, this area gets pretty dirty. I sweep it every day, sometimes two or three times a day, and I mop with my Swiffer sporadically throughout the week. But on Mondays, everything gets taken out and it gets cleaned top to bottom. If the weather is nice (not freezing cold, not burning hot, and not raining), then Beau is relegated to the deck for the hour or so it takes to clean everything. If its rainy like it is today, he gets shoved out in the laundry room:

He hates being out there. He seems to be a bit claustrophobic at times. He’s always SO happy to come out!

Lots more cleaning on the agenda for today. Tonight, I’m going to make something I haven’t made in a long time. Very little cooking involved, as I’m taking the easy way out. It’s called Tortellini with Portobella mushrooms and I am using a jar of alfredo sauce, so it won’t take more than about 20 minutes. I’ve made a homemade sauce before, using low-fat cream cheese, which is good and probably a ton healthier, but I’m going to take the easy way out tonight. And of course, you know its a pasta dish, which is NOT Tim’s favorite, so I don’t make it often. In fact, we probably haven’t had it in 2 or 3 years, but I’m looking forward to it. It has portobella mushrooms, which I love (Shhh, don’t tell Tim there’s no meat!). The recipe is here.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend and is having a great Monday, getting the new week off to a great start!

My two favorite males in the whole wide world! Oh, and this picture could also be captioned “Beau and his favorite human being, Tim” 😀 You’d never know that that dog was my birthday present almost two years ago. He literally runs by me to get to Tim. He follows Tim everywhere. Me, he barely gives me the time of day!

Fun stuff going on around here the last few days!

We made a big trip to Sam‘s on Friday and came home with a buggy full of good stuff 🙂 We got a case of Coke Zero, cereal, OJ, wings, salsa, chips, pita chips, coffee beans, bread, a new broom for me, socks and a shirt for Tim and household stuff like bathroom cleaner, garbage bags, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. Nothing warms my “gatherer” heart like stocking up on stuff at Sam’s

I “gave up” dinner out on date night (Friday) and opted to pick up Chick-Fil-A on the way home, so we could come watch the remainder of the opening ceremonies. I was able to get Tim to watch some of the opening ceremonies with me, which is a first. I love having the DVR. He’s much more apt to watch parts of things when we can fast forward through the stuff he doesn’t like. Tim has never been very interested in the Olympics. In fact, in the over 12 years that we’ve been married, we have never really watched any. This was our first opening ceremony we watched together. It was really spectacular!

Watching and rooting for Michael Phelps! Woo-hoo, go Michael 😀

Don and Tim played golf on Saturday while Gail and I ran errands and went shopping. Then we all ate dinner at Chili’s and then played the Wii. Lots of fun!

We got Mario Kart for the Wii (finally, thanks Don and Gail!) and are getting Madden 09 this week. I’m having a hard time finding time to do other stuff, like cleaning house, cooking the meals, doing the laundry, or even reading a book, because all I want to do it play on the Wii. Or on Facebook. Having a ball playing on there too.

We are finally getting some much needed rain. It rained some on Sunday afternoon and Sunday night, and when I woke up this morning (Monday), it was raining again. It’s a soft, slow, steady rain and I love it. It’s grey and cloudy and rainy and that’s perfect “stay at home” weather for me. Plus, I don’t have to go out and water my flowers and stuff!

I’m going to try to work on posting some of the recipes and book/movie reviews on my blog in the next week or two. Thanks for piping in on a previous post, as to something you might want to see here. I’m still in a bit of blog drought. Or maybe just a break. More photos of Beau soon, too! 😀

Have a great day, everyone!